Im thinking of making a Sidescrolling Shooter Map, the kind where you see a plane at the bottom of the screen, and you move it around, shooting at enemy aircraft, and dodging bullets. Any ideas how I could make this work? I gotta keep the plane moving at a constant rate, and can't allow it to go backwards. Im stuck

Shouldn't this be in UMS assistance section?

No, because I need an IDEA of how to set this up. I don't know how this system would be done. (Something to do with an ob?)

Your asking for help, which would be assistance, so yes, this probably belongs in the assistance forum.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 15 2008, 2:29 am by Lord Malvanis.

It really isn't your place to decide. I would also say it goes in Theory.

I wouldn't keep the ship moving, but the background (like slowly moving buildings sliding across screen). That's how actual ones do it.

I did something like this for helicopter, except I couldn't move backwards. You can do this with a grid system of X/Y. I'm going to use something like this where you move back and forth but this time with Space Invaders where you shoot upwards. Basically you can use a game controller type. + <- Up down left right along with mobile grid.

I had a system of repeating backgrounds where a wraith forever moved down... It had a few problems like moving a unit makes it stop walking.

It was going to be a map, but I never finished it... You just get to watch a wraith move over randomized background.

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Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 16 2008, 4:22 am by FaRTy1billion.

I'd recommend using the Stargate for control, because it has three hotkeys that work well for this: A (Arbiter) to move left, S (Scout) to move right, and C (Carrier) to fire. I once made a map that used a similar control system, but never published it because it failed because I didn't know about hyper triggers when I made it. I wonder if I still have it, I might hyper the trigs and publish it. [/tangent]

Anyway, here's what I'd recommend: Set the Arbiter's cost to 4 minerals, the Scout's cost to 5 minerals, and the Carrier's cost to 6 minerals, and give the player 6 minerals at the start. (Then, if the player has exactly 2 mins, that means they pressed A, If they have exactly 1 min, that means they pressed S, and if they have 0 mins, they pressed C.) If the player presses either A or C, use a mobile grid to move them left or right as appropriate. (Make the location three times as wide as the player's unit and exactly as long as the player, and use copies of the player's unit for the grid.) If he presses C, center a location that is as wide as the player's unit and somewhat longer than his unit on the player, and create a Scourge. Constantly order all Scourge to move upwards. (Use a bunch of locations.)

Then do FaRTy's thingy for the background.

The player should control an SCV under a wraith that is constantly ordered to move in [Insert direction here] (But moved back to the SCV) to create a moving effect, but keeping it moving along with the SCV.

To really do justice to this sort of game, assuming you want nonstandard unit control, you shouldn't use a stargate system, because not being able to hold down the control buttons the way you would in a "real" game of this type gets annoying fast (maps of this type have been made in the past with unit-building systems and other, even more awkward controls, and none of them were smooth enough to be successful). Selection detection with deselection upon detection is the only control system I have tested that allows you to hold down a key; the main downsides (other than the obvious compatibility issues) are that you have to keep the control units near the main one, because vision centering is a side effect.

You can use mineral loss detection to speed up the detection tho, can't you?

Doesn't matter; you'll still have to spam the control keys instead of being able to hold them down. It's the smoothness of being able to hold down the keys that distinguishes all (or at least, the vast, massively overwhelming majority) commercial top-down spaceshooters from Starcraft top-down spaceshooters. Some commercial spaceshooters might require you to spam the fire key, but having to spam movement keys instead of being able to hold them down is basically unheard of.

Not to mention, if you're using numbers, the controls are semi-configurable; a player could choose between using (say) 1 and 3 for left and right, and 2 for fire, for one-handed play, or 1 and 3 for L-R and 8 for fire for 2-handed play (we'll leave aside possibilities offered by the numberpad because I, and doubtless many others, don't have one, and from people who do, I've heard conflicting reports about whether or not you could use it to activate hotkeys).

Why not use EUD's to detect screen detection? Then center it back etc. For shooting, you can just have a stargate, and you can use the c or what ever button to press to fire.

One keypress will move it in a small increment, two keypresses within a certain window will make it slowly move continuously over until another movement keypress is detected (or it hits the edge of the screen). Fixed.

Good idea FaRTy, but that might be somewhat confusing to noobs.

You could do a similar thing that might be less confusing, though... (I'm using the Stargate as the control system for this example.)
Press A (Arbiter hotkey) to start moving left.
Press S (Scout hotkey) to start moving right.
Press C (Carrier hotkey) to stop moving.
Press O (Corsair hotkey) to fire.

Check out this map that I made with o)KABOOM(o for a OHMMC hosted by clan (U).
o)KABOOM(o was known to make great control/dropship systems.
I made the grid system.

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Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 22 2008, 3:19 am by Echo.