Life and Death mod

[neblime]

Hi, we have an idea for a life and death mod invovlving an Undead faction and a light faction using druirds and sun etc...
We're all new to glest so we're not very familiar with the xml...
we basically need any coding help we can get.

the first thing i need help with, does anyone know how you can make a unit deal splash damage to surrounding units when it dies?

[Zoythrus]

the first thing i need help with, does anyone know how you can make a unit deal splash damage to surrounding units when it dies?

unless it's a suicide attack...no.

hey, Wciow is making an undead mod, talk to him about it, he might let you use it!

[John.d.h]

To expand on what Zoythrus said, a kamikaze-style suicide attack should be possible by giving the unit a powerful splash attack with <damage-all value="true"/>, and a range short enough that the unit will hit itself with the splash.  However, making a unit that automatically explodes upon death is currently not possible.

[neblime]

Ok, is there a way to make them explode when they attack with low health? I assume i can just make a kamikaze attack a separate order if i need to use it manually instead of on death, but can i make this only usable when they are on low health?

[John.d.h]

Ok, is there a way to make them explode when they attack with low health? I assume i can just make a kamikaze attack a separate order if i need to use it manually instead of on death, but can i make this only usable when they are on low health?

You can make it a separate attack, but there's not currently a way to make it only available at low health.  If you want it badly enough, you can always file a feature request.

[neblime]

Ok, heres another crazy concept:  is it possible to have a unit with a projectile attack, when it attacks it's projectile transforms into a unit when it hits?
(the idea behind this is a catapult that launches "live" skeletons at it's enemies, these skeletons would be substantially weakened from normal skeleton warriors, and maybe lose health slowly.)

[sand_drew]

For those who aren't aware (I.e Most of you) Neblime is one of the new semester's Multimedia class, from our school.

And so far, their mod shows much more promise then ours ever did.

[neblime]

thanks winter, although that probably isn't saying much, our mod looks crap still

[getsugatenshou]

thanks winter, although that probably isn't saying much, our mod looks crap still

HEY! neblime we still got until the end of term we can polish it in the amount of time we have i mean you got the zombie noises down, i'm still nervous about toms progress

[sand_drew]

Darcy, don't lie.

It at least shows potential, and while you may have less models than us, the ones you do have are far higher quality.

[John.d.h]

Ok, heres another crazy concept:  is it possible to have a unit with a projectile attack, when it attacks it's projectile transforms into a unit when it hits?

No, sorry.  By the way, which engine are you developing for?  GAE, Megaglest, or generic?

[-Archmage-]

Ok, heres another crazy concept:  is it possible to have a unit with a projectile attack, when it attacks it's projectile transforms into a unit when it hits?
(the idea behind this is a catapult that launches "live" skeletons at it's enemies, these skeletons would be substantially weakened from normal skeleton warriors, and maybe lose health slowly.)

No...
But I think animated particle splashes have been discussed. PM Softcoder and talk with him about it.

You could do degenerative health with a negative regeneration stat.

The most you could realistically hope for is a particle splash with an animation of a skeleton coming out of the ground attacking, and then falling into pieces. But you could have no real unit come from the attack...and you'd need to have a feature implemented into (most likely)MegaGlest allowing you to have that animation.

[neblime]

Ok, heres another crazy concept:  is it possible to have a unit with a projectile attack, when it attacks it's projectile transforms into a unit when it hits?

No, sorry.  By the way, which engine are you developing for?  GAE, Megaglest, or generic?

Megaglest, we are using generic atm but by the time we are finished we will have installed megaglest.  Why does it matter?

[Zoythrus]

Ok, heres another crazy concept:  is it possible to have a unit with a projectile attack, when it attacks it's projectile transforms into a unit when it hits?

No, sorry.  By the way, which engine are you developing for?  GAE, Megaglest, or generic?

Megaglest, we are using generic atm but by the time we are finished we will have installed megaglest.  Why does it matter?

i'd say to go with GAE, it has more features that you can use. when i mean more, i mean alot more than MG. there might not be much of a multiplayer aspect, but it will be here soon.
GO GAE!

[John.d.h]

Adding in all the GAE features would take more time, though, and GAE supports just about everything MG does, so even though I personally favor GAE, I think that going with MG will be a safer bet for you.  If you wanted to go back and add in the extras, then you could do that afterward.  I seem to remember Bruce having trouble compiling the latest GAE for Mac, though.

[neblime]

Another question... With sounds i know you add a list and it chooses randomly whenever it has to play a sound from that list... Can you do that with models? to add individuality and different weapons etc... can we have multiple models for each unit.

[John.d.h]

Another question... With sounds i know you add a list and it chooses randomly whenever it has to play a sound from that list... Can you do that with models? to add individuality and different weapons etc... can we have multiple models for each unit.

We may see something like that eventually, but not yet.  Making "playlists" for multiple animations should be coming in GAE 0.4, but I don't think that's quite what you're asking.

[neblime]

ok ok, another CRAZY idea... would it be possible to have a unit slowly lose health unless it is within a radius of another unit? (the idea behind this is that the zombies have to stay near the necromancer or else they slowly rot away)

[Psychedelic_hands]

Hey man.
This sounds cool, can you post some pics or something?

ok ok, another CRAZY idea... would it be possible to have a unit slowly lose health unless it is within a radius of another unit? (the idea behind this is that the zombies have to stay near the necromancer or else they slowly rot away)

Yeah, that's only possible in GAE with the pet system. So, I think you should go with that.

[Omega]

ok ok, another CRAZY idea... would it be possible to have a unit slowly lose health unless it is within a radius of another unit? (the idea behind this is that the zombies have to stay near the necromancer or else they slowly rot away)

Physch is correct. Let me explain in more detail:

First of all, the unit must be a pet. There *was* an undead tag in development for emanations and effects, but it was lost when Daniel died. Anyway, the zombie (or any unit, really) needs to have negative HP regeneration. This way it will normally lose health when outside of the range of the master (in this case, the necromancer). Now the master has to have an emanation that only affects pets (there's a tag for that, please see the wiki documentation for a full list of tags. In this case, you want the pet only one). This effect boosts its regen so that it is a positive effect instead of negative (or zero, if wished).

For example: zombie has -15 hp regen. If it gets out of the necromancer's range, it will lose 15 hp a second. Now the necromancer has a pet only emanation that gives a static boost of 17 to hp regen. Now the zombie, provided that it is under this emanation (the range and duration of the emanation can be set. For this, you'd want probably a 1 second duration and a moderate radius, probably about , will have a regen of +2. If they leave that radius (the distance they can go from the necromancer) they will have a -15 regen and lose hp rapidly.


Relatedly, do you realize this concept is taken LITERALLY word-for-word from the Four path Magitech (a flagship GAE mod that should be revived soon, once the AI can use subfactions)?