A Way For Upgrades

NimoStar · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:01 am Post subject: A Way For Upgrades

I have figured out how to make upgrades for units, and I mean like, fully working ones, very similar to Generals upgrades and such.
They can be Speed, Armor, Damage, Invisibility, Healing, etc. for different units and classes, as for example enchancing the damage of machinegun units, the speed of harvesters, etc. and work in full auto once researched.

Although technically my idea is more like Star Trek Armada and Armada II style (I am sure most of you never played those games #Tongue

) because the upgrades are linked to a destroyable structure that can lose them and therefore the units too,
it can also easily be made that this is not the case.

In my case for RA3 mod this is not so useful (although to an extent it can replace the "pay points for function" ingame, as there is no possible "kill for spendable points" mechanism...), but for others wanting to have mechanics like those in Generals or Starcraft(s) this can be very good.

Does anyone want a full tutorial or a (relatively) small description of how to do it?

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carnage_xploade · Disk Thrower **Joined**: 04 Jul 2009 **Location**: Romania

yeah i really like a tutorial. (not the short one) because im new to codding

NimoStar · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:48 pm Post subject:

Well, rifght now I am kind of overloaded with work, but when I implement it in my mod it will be easir to show just copy and pasting code with a little explanation...
Eventually, the detailed tutorial will be done and published.

But for short, this is it, for experienced users:

*This requires Ares with AttachEffect*

- Create a new custom armor with 0% verses (Call it "notarget" for here)

- Create a dummy building, invisible, and that doesn't require space
[-IF- you wish to do it RA3 bonus style, make it an Upgrade for the Construction Yard instead (so if your conyard unpacks or dies, you lose it) - but this is not the method followed here]
- Give it the "notarget" armor
- Make it so it doesnt count for victory condition (as it will never die)
- Give it a placeanywhere and a 1x1 or 0x0 base (if that is possible)
- This building must be buildable, have a sidebar icon of the upgrade you want it to represent, and have a BuildLimit=1

- Give it a superweapon, for example, rifleupgrade
- Make it a GenericWarhead superweapon
- Make it so the AI always auto-fires it, also for human players
- Configure that it doesn't require power
- Make it no sidebar icon ("invisible")
- Give it something of a one-minute recharge, the time matters only because it is the period to apply again and therefore to newly-created units of the upgraded types.
- Make it so it deals only 1 damage
- Use a custom warhead
EDIT- THE SUPERWEAPON SHOULD HAVE A BIG EFFECT RANGE SO IT COVERS THE WHOLE MAP NO MATTER WHERE IT HITS

Now, on the warhead:
- Use a large spread if you want to be sure, but if so 0.1 is probably wise since I don't know how warhead spread interacts with superweapon effect area
- Give it verses for the units you want to affect (this will be detailed later on), 100% is ideal so you are sure, and 0% for all others
- Set AffectsEnemies=no, and AffectsAllies=yes, because you don't want to benefit your opponents, only yourself and yours
- Use AttachEffects for the things you want it to do, for example increase firepower (see AttachEffects documentation)
- Give it a duration equal or greater than the superweapon recharge time.
- Make it non-cumulative

How to make it specific:
-You can give the warhead 0% on all default armors, and specify:
versus.xxx=100%
- xxx would be the special armor types you created for the upgradable units.
For example, on the armor sections:
rifleinfantry=none
So, the armor would behave like "none" infantry armor for all warheads, except the upgrade one. So it would have the attack bonus, and no other units would be affected.

I think that covers the basics, tell me what you think.

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Mig Eater · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 2:12 pm Post subject:

A normal weapon with Range=999 would work better then a superweapon.

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Graion Dilach · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:41 pm Post subject:

This won't work.

As far as I know DistributedFire can't be used to constantly switch allied targets.

So the building will gonna attack only one target, not covering the entire map, use either an SW either a weapon.

Thank you for the effort. Armada 1 was cooler than 2 IMO.

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"If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
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Lin Kuei Ominae · Seth **Joined**: 16 Aug 2006 **Location**: Germany

Armada 1 had better story/campaign missions, nice gameplay (more shipwrecks and sudden/random deaths than in armada 2)
Armada 2 had better modding capabilites, ingame interface, station and ship control (especially the 3rd dimension was cool)

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Graion Dilach · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:24 pm Post subject:

I hated 3rd dimension control, Armada1 had such too, and that one was easier to handle IMO.

Also Armada2 voices were lame after 1.

_________________
"If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more...

NimoStar · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:03 pm Post subject:

There is an Armada 2 mod that is practically Armada 3, it's rather balanced since it's done for multiplayer online and changes all gameplay and graphics,
it's called "Fleet Operations" if you want to look it up.

* * *

I never said "distributedfire"...

I obviously had to make explicit the superweapon affect area is so big it should cover the entire map?
It doesn't have to attack "one by one"...

Now edited.

Easy.

Either that or a more complex way:
A spawning weapons that spawns dummy suicide buildings all over the map (many versions), they auto-target anything self-destruct with an area effect warhead that uses the attacheffect.

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