Iron Wars development thread (download not available)

[Ardis]

Okay, so that idea sounds like a dud, too. On the bright side, the addons problem is now being consistent, I've got one building that properly disconnects and reconnects to the main building and can even swap between the two buildings that use it while the other four buildings stay active when the main building detaches which I don't want. This idea is starting to sound like it won't work, but I would have to redo the entire tech-tree if I want to use a different approach.

EDIT: Apparently the problem I'm having is that only the last addon that was attached to a building is deactivated when the building is destroyed while the other buildings are active.

[Ardis]

I've run across a small problem and want to know if it would be something that would bother people playing the mod when I release it or possibly a way to fix it.

The problem I'm having right now is that the tech tree for one of the factions has a few different unit producing structures and some of them were converted from structures that previously served as research hubs (Machine Shop, Engineering Bay) and I found that these buildings won't use rally points for some reason, I've given them a rally point button in Firegraft, but when I set a rally point and start building, the units don't move to the rally point.

Also, is there any hard-coding behind morphing buildings like the spire-greater spire and the hatchery-lair-hive that I should know of?

[bajadulce]

check this thread out:
Rally Point troubles

As I mentioned in that thread, there doesn't seem to be a way to add "new" exe edits like this rally point one to .exe's that have been compiled without these added entries.  At least I couldn't figure out how to do such by just altering archived files alone.  Maybe DofA or somebody else might have an answer for this.  And if they do, please report.

Rebuilding a graft from scratch doesn't sound like much fun, but if you do use this 1.16.1 linked in that thread, adding new exe edits at a future time will be easy.  My own mod, PEAI,  needs to be regrafted to take advantage of a new exe edit that was discovered.  It too was transferred from a 1.15 Firegraft that was missing these extra 50 blank entries.

[Hercanic]

About multiple add-ons, yes, the older add-ons become permanently owned when another add-on is made. I would wager it has to do with how the main structure communicates with its add-on. Its unit stucture can only store one add-on ID, so when it lifts-off or dies it can only send the neutrality order to that one add-on. A plugin could possibly be made to look for permanent, unattached add-ons and forcibly set them as neutral.

Oh, a weird quirk about add-on placement: If an add-on is built on top of another building and is canceled or destroyed, it creates a literal hole in the main building's collision dimensions. You can actually build other structures that are small enough in that hole.

[Ardis]

That would probably work if I knew how to make plug-ins in the first place. Problem with doing plug-ins is that, from what I've been told, it requires programming knowledge which I have none at all. I might have to simplify the tech tree a bit for this. Which would be a big problem for me because part of the resource system I was planning to set up might require a custom plug-in to get it working.

Another thing I noticed is if you build the addon entirely overlapping the building, you can build multiple copies of that addon which would have sucked if I didn't catch it because you would have been able to stack defensive arrays on the building to no end.

[bajadulce]

ahhh yes the HOLES!  Those "holes" that remain after an add-on is destroyed have caused me quite some grief.  The solutions seems to require altering one of the placement box dimensions to a value lower than 32.   This applies to buildings that "spawn" atop buildings as well such as the starting worker exe edit (if one is made to be a buildings).  In my particular case, an extremely large building in which players selected a race prior to accessing the unit below was tearing a hole so big that it covered the entire CC.  A barracks could be placed in this hole!  

Users also reported holes with other add-ons as well.  These holes were a tad larger than  the holes experienced in STF (oil rig can be placed in a hole). 

Again, the solution was to reduce one of the placement box dimensions to less than 32.   (31 for height worked out for my particular case)

[poiuy_qwert]

This is a welll known and well used technique in UMS maps. Any building that is removed makes the terrain under it buildable even if there are other buildings there, at least until starcraft updates its data. I cant remember exactly when it updates that data but its something like when any unit/building is created or removed.

[bajadulce]

Well the good news is that modding can correct this issue with a small .dat adjustment, whereas mappers are forever stuck with this glitch (or benefit depending on how you view this bug) as every single building in Starcaft appears to use 32 pixels minimum for selection boxes by default.  This includes things even as small as the data disk!

There's some other issues involved when altering your dimensions for placement boxes, but nothing that a little iscript and/or fancy .grp tricks can't fake.

I'm just glad this bug has been squished and we can chalk up another win for modding.

[Ardis]

I don't think the holes would be a problem for me because I don't plan to have any addons overlapping the main building.

Since I don't know anything about making plugins for SC, I won't be able to consider them as an option. Right now my other solutions on the addons staying active after the main building goes away are:

-Going back to the SC one-addon-per-building and not worrying about this problem anymore.

-Find a way to make it not disable addons at all and let them keep running after the main building is gone (since the buildings can't move to begin with, I don't see this as being too much of a problem)

-Merge some of the addon functions (upgrades, unit production and research) with the main building and make the building upgradable and have the defensive structure as an addon. (Kind of favoring this one)

[Ardis]

Okay, so I want to start working on the building art, but I need to know what to do about the addons so I know how I should design buildings that use them. And it looks like I will have to redo the tech tree a bit to deal with other problems that have to do with hard-coding.

Also, I have a few more questions to ask. I wanted to see if you guys knew the answers for any of these before I spend days trying to work with it only to find out something that someone else already tried that and could have answered.


Can you attach addons to any buildings or are the buildings that support addons (Command Center, Factory, Starport, Science Facility) hard-coded?

Are the buildings that can morph hard-coded or can I make (for example) a Command Center morph into one of the unused buildings (Starbase, Repair Bay, etc.) or buildings I don't have a use for in the mod at the moment? Or will I have to borrow the Zerg buildings that can morph to do that?

If you make a morphing building that uses an addon and you build the addon while the building is in form one and you upgrade it to form two and both buildings support that addon, will the addon stay connected to that building during and at the end of the morph sequence? Will it go inactive if the host building is destroyed after the morph as well?

-----

Also, I'll have screenshots of two of the new units, one of the buildings and two of the resource nodes soon, just need to adjust the lighting and re-render them again since some of them came out too bright or too dark or have other problems.

[IskatuMesk]

You should be able to get a building to morph. I don't see why not. I haven't tried it, but I have made the AI accidentally able to morph hives into spore colonies with a requirements goof-up.

As for add-ons, no idea. I avoided using addons and generally turned addons into regular buildings as well, simply because the AI always made a big mess of their base with it, and Ai was foremost in my thoughts when designing mods.

[Ardis]

Point taken. I guess I forgot to take into account potential AI problems. I was planning on having an AI... Maybe even campaigns.

What I had in mind was the primary base structure for one of the factions would upgrade like the hatchery did, but also give it an addon that defends the main structure and surrounding base structures. I was going to merge the functions of the addons (unit production and research/upgrades) into the main building through sub-menus and make upgrading it unlock the better stuff.

[IskatuMesk]

It might work, but addons, like a lot of things in SC, are jerry-rigged and may not work the way you are hoping. In particular I am unsure what will happen if you morph a building with an addon on it.

[bajadulce]

Addons adjacent to buildings aren't a very pretty picture.  Take away the buildings ability to "fly" and now you have serious issues as I quickly discovered when building an AI for Ash's Open Rebellion.  If you recall OR buildings don't fly.  If you screw up and don't leave enough room for the add-on when playing that mod, you're screwed.  The AI especially.

But add-ons are too fun to leave out of a mod.  That is why Planar Erratus employs add-ons that sit either ontop or make up a new graphic of the building.  Such as turning a globe a different color etc. 

Here is a picture describing what I am talking about:
[imgwh 612x245]http://www.broodwarai.com/PEAI/pages/im ... addons.png[/imgwh]

Add-on 1:  is either a Machine shop, Nuke Silo, or Shield Battery placed atop a CC depending on what path the player chooses at start of game.

Add-on 2: is an observatory placed atop an academy

Add-on 3: is a hydralisk den placed atop an armory.

And yes the AI builds every one of these without a glitch.  The Machine shop is actually an attacking add-on.  The shield battery the ai uses to replenish shields, and the nuke silo for nuking.  The ai doesn't do anything with the observatory or the hydra den .. Scanning is left to its "raxes" which are actually comsat stations. 
Edit: Actually the hydra den is a powerful weapon that the AI does use.  The observatory the Ai builds just to spoof the player into thinking it's playing by the rules... which of course it isn't

* Also, be sure to modify the placement dimensions (Staredit tab of units.dat) to have one be less than 32 pixels as mentioned in a prior post.  If you don't do this, you'll have "holes" should one be destroyed.

So yeah.. anything is possible with add-ons and hf!.  And they don't even require any fancy plugin or exe edit.

[IskatuMesk]

If you choose to follow Baja's route of having the addons inside the building, it's easy to model the addons and main building to look the part. When rendering the addons, leave the main building model there but completely black. Then they should fit perfectly so long as alignment ingame is good.

Though morphs that change the graphics complicate that considerably.