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Question on creating a new ability

Mystic Angel

Join Date 03/2006

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Question on creating a new ability

I've beeing pouring through all of the files in my SoaSE directory and through the modifier sticky at the top of this forum, but I'm at a bit of a loss. Here's what I'm trying to do:

The ideas is basically to create an ability that separates a capital ship into separate parts that then function as a squadron of less powerful frigates or cruisers. Obviously the model itself can't be broken into different pieces, but I have a few thoughts on how to accomplish a similar effect.

1) Give Capital Ship A an ability that is similar to the "Deploy Starbase" ability. Basically, a new group of ships is spawned and Capital Ship A disappears. The squadron of new ships has a similar ability that respawns Capital Ship A and causes the squadron to disappear. In theory, the problem I see here is that the capital ship that is respawned from the squadron won't have the experience and levels of the original.

2) Similarly, create an ability that replaces the original ship mesh with a group of new meshes. Could this work similarly to how starbases add new meshes as upgrades are purchased?

3) My last thought is related to the actually fighter/bomber squadron mechanic. Deploy a squadron, while at the same time the holding capital ship disappears (or goes invisible and disabled). Once the squadron redocks, the capital ship reappears.

Any help would be really appreciated!

modding

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The effect won't apply, but that's just the beginning, really.

I'm assuming that it needs to start out as some kind of passive ability. Then I'm assuming that I just create a buff with a trigger of OnOwnerDeath. From that point on I don't know what I'm doing wrong. There's no explosion at all. Heck, I've even spawn a a totally different cruiser after the destruction of the first one, but there's no explosion for that one either! I'm testing out a few more things, then I might post the files.

Edit: I'm at least able to have the spawned ship explode now, not that helps. The timing of its arrival and subsequent explosion don't sit well with me. What I really need to happen is for for an explosion to happen when this thing has 100% of it's hull points taken out, as the OnOwnerDeath is adding an explosion in after the separation ability kicks in.

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Hmmm.....

no ideas for now.

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There's an aiUseTime and aiUseTargetConditions for OnlyWhenTakingDamage and HullDamageExceedsAmount, respectively. I haven't run across them on any other abilities or buffs that I've seen so far. Might they be usable?

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They might be useable,

though, at this point in time, I'm thinking that no matter what you do, you are going to run into the same problem you did with OnOwnerDeath.

Unless.....you use a NOT gate!

Essentully, do the original simple idea of applying an explosion on owner Death, just THEN add a "RemoveBuffOfType" line to your Seperation buff, that REMOVES your explosion buff

See what I am saying?

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Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'll have to play around with it, but I won't be able to test anything until I can actually get the explosion buff working. Here is what I'm working with now, but I'm not sure if it's using the right command lines or not.

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So what does it do and not do?

to me, the buff looks fine, but the ability has issues.

first, it's AlwaysPreform, not PreformAlway's

My spelling may be off. In any case, in such issues, COPY/PASTE IS YOUR FRIEND!!

Also, AIUseTime is for AutoCast of active abilities. it has absoultly no effect on passive abilities.

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It doesn't explode, and it has something to do with the "OnOwnerDeath" line. I tried using "OnTakingDamage" instead and get an explosion every time the ship is hit. My guess is that I need to use something other than ApplyBuffToSelf, but I'm not sure what. Maybe ApplyBuffToTargetsInRadius with a radius of 0?

I suppose there is something else I could try, but it's a long shot and is a totally different approach. I'll look into both tomorrow and see what I can come up.

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Try making the changes, and see if those help.

Also, do you Use Sins Developer?

YOu should. It will help alot, there is a function that allows you to view the buffs on any given entity. This will allow you to determine whether the buff is being applied or not.

My guess is that it is in your "AlwaysPreform" line.

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Yeah, I've been using the Developer exe. I'm sure there are a few more useful tools on it that I haven't discovered yet, but it's been a great asset so far.

Okay, so here's the what's happened:

1) Somehow the explosion bit worked itself out...don't ask me how because I'm not sure. Could have been the "PeformAlways" that I changed (which must have come about in a haze of frustrated dilerium). Anyway, I played around with the explosion effects but was disappointed to find out that they all seemed to be cut off after a certain amount of time. I couldn't find a way to extend the effects, either in the buff file itself or in the particle files, so I went back to my spawning idea. Basically, I have the buff creating a few of the "short" explosions that I couldn't fix in order to cover up the second it takes the spawned ship to arrive, which promptly explodes in a ball of satisfying flames, shockwaves, and debris.

2) Now my problem is finding a way to remove that particular buff when the Separation Ability comes into play. I'm currently using the "RemoveBuffOfType", which I copied from one of the SpeedBoost buffs I believe. I can think of two options. (a) I'm missing an important line that's keeping the action from taking effects, or ( the action isn't taking effect in time or isn't able to override the explosion buff.

I don't think it's the first one, as I copied the lines directly into my file, but there could always be something in addition that's necessary to overcome my particular explosion buff. Anyhow, I've added a link to both abilities and both buffs for you to take a look at. Let me know what you think about removing the buff, as well as all of the files in general.

Link

By the way, I don't think I've expressed how grateful I am for your help with this. It would have taken me ages to sort through all of these abilities and buffs on my own (not the mention the recombination sequence that I have yet to take a shot at). So, thanks!

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Just a quick question on the recombination sequence. Is Ship 1 the original cruiser? Does that mean that it would carry both the separation and recombination abilities?

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No, ship one is just one of the spawned ships.

Note that each spawned ship gets a DIFFERNT ability and buff.

In the future, when uploading the abiliites, please put all the ability/buff files into a folder, and ZIP that folder. Then Upload just that folder.

That is so I don't have to download 100 differnt files, I can just download one folder with all the files.

of your destruction Buff, the reason RemoveBuffOfType Doesn't work, is becouse you have the AbilityPromDesturcion set to apply "OnOwnerDeath"

I laughed at how many Various explosions you have worked into DestructionSpawner.

Anyway, so here is the sequence of what I see happening, maby you will see the problem

Ability Seperate is activated

It applies the BuffSeperate

BuffSeperate REMOVES the Destruction Buff (which currently isn't applied)

BuffSeperate THEN destroyes teh Cruiser

ONLY THEN!!! does the Destuction Buff Activate, which is far to late for it to be removed.

Solution is simply, you have so many.....failsafes put into the buff itself, you can safly set the ability to AlwaysPreform So that the Destruction buff is applied BEFORE the Seperate buff is.

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So, is Ship 4 just a fourth spawned ship that's there to illustrate an extension of the sequence or is it the cruiser? I thought the cruiser was spawned with the GrandFinale, which extends out of the Ship 4 sequence of events. (I think.)

Sure thing; I didn't think about uploading a zipped file.

You should see how many particle effects are written into a single explosion in the entity file. Frigates start off around 5 or 6 with capital ships hainge up to 33. I just needed enough to craete a realistic cover for the spawned ship.

I originally had it set to AlwaysPerform and just tried it again. There's no change. I even tried adding an invetween buff that I could cancel out, but there was no effect. This really is turning out to be more trouble than it's worth... I just wish I had a fuller understanding of everything in the coding that I'm not dierctly manipulating, because as it stands I'm only learning about what I'm changing.

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all ships 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all the spawned ships

the cruiser isn't spawned untill the BuffGrandFinale

Interesting about the explosions, I just figured that they were one big particle effect.

here is what I sugest you do, use developer to track the buffs. (I'll find the shortcut keys for "showEntityInternals"

What the buffs on the ship. See what comes first, the destruction buff, or the Buff Seperate.

If the Destruction Buff comes first, than it is a problem with your line "RemoveBuffOfType"

It the Seperate Buff comes first, than you need to make the Destruction Buff come first.

Yea, learning is annoying. lol. Only way to get good at coding is LOTS of practice, and LOTS of attention to detail....doesn't sound like you have much of a problem with detail though. Personaly, I don't think I would have put near that much time into one explosion, lol.

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Ah, I see. So, if I wanted to create a ship that separates into just two pieces, I would only use Ships 1 and 2.

Don't worry about the developer stuff, I've already gotten into that. The Destruction Buff is present from the unit's creation, so it must be something dealing with the removal of that buff.

It isn't that learning is annoying, it's the fact that there are so many little things that all have some kind of effect on what I'm doing, and then there are so many options to pick from. See what I mean? Seriously, the unit entity files and mesh/texture work are SO much easier for beginners to get started with.

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Yes, is you wanted just 2 ships, you would modify the ability to just use ships one and two.

Yes, it deffinitly must be the removal line then. Be sure to double check spelling and entity manifests.

....I'm sure it is differnt for differnt people. Becouse for me, after I learned the basics of modding, I pretty much jumped right into modding abilities.

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I think I'm in need of a fresh pair of eyes. I feel like I keep walking into a brick wall and expecting something different to happen (which is the definition of insanity, is it not?).

As far as I can tell, the original destruction buff is never getting removed. It's present on the ship's construction, then the separation buff kicks in. At that point (and I have no idea what this means), the separation buff moves to the first spot in the list of buffs, but the destruction buff still sticks around.

I've tried every combination of InstantActionTriggers I can think off, so either I'm missing something or I should be looking somewhere else for the solution. I also tried delaying the MakeDead action of the Separation Buff to give it time to cancel out the Destruction Buff (and the opposite), but that didn't change anything except to make the ship float along a few seconds longer before going up in flames. I suppose it's possible that the idea just isn't going to pan out, but I'm not about to give in to that kind of disappointed.

Here are the files. I've been changing them back and forth so many times over the past 24 hours that they could be all screwed up by this point, but I think I've got them back in the least undesirable form possible. I've zipped them into a .rar file, which I think winzip should be able to handle. I know winrar can handle zip files, at least. Anyway, let me know if you can't get at them, and I'll do something else.

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um.....

well........

to tell you the truth.......

I REALLY don't want to be insulting here..........

But for the TENTH TIME!! it is "AlwaysPreform" it is NOT!!! "PreformAlways"

This is actully mildly entertaining.

And yes, I can handle .rar files just fine.

Here is a tip, one that I run into ALOT!!

(just yesterday I did)

Lets say you have one small problem in your buff, which you find and fix. But in so doing, you accedently cause anouther problem. You test your mod, and it still doesn't work. So you once again open up the buff, and fix a new problem, but you change something else, causing anouther problem.

So, at this point in time, you not become convinced that that problem lies elsewhere, (becouse everytime you change something, the problem presists, when it is really in your head)

Now you have a mental block to fixing it, and any more work becomes pointless.

I do this MULTIPLE times, matter of fact, this just happend to me...yesterday I belive.

and I belive that this is what is happening to you.

Thier are two ways to prevent this.

First, is ALWAYS overlocked by modders. Better the modder you are, more chance of you ignoring this rule. (especialy me) NEVER! bang your head on one problem for more than two or three hours. If nescary, take a long, nice RELAXING break.

Second, ONLY change one factor at a time. Do not change ANYTHING else, even of the smallist consequence. Becouse this means that you can't logicly track down a problem, and becouse you are human, you will inherently look over the little things that you are too pridefull to believe you messed up on.

In short, it's "AlwaysPreform" not "PreformAlways"

also, ALWAYS use copy/paste/. NEVER trust your spelling!!!

Just wait. now I am going to start putting "PreformAlways" into my buffs.....that would be imabarissing.

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Ah, crap! I already caught that one and changed it in my Mod folder without transfering it back to the file I uploaded. It was a holdover from restarting the process with some older files, which still had the PerformAlways. You'll be glad to know I've now changed those originals so I don't have this problem again.

Your advice is good. I've been trying to stick to it since I started work on the unit entity files a while back but do sometimes get into a hurry and change more than one thing. With said, I'm still stuck and am going to put the project on hold for a few days. I've been working in the vanilla Sins developer exe because the Entrenchment version keeps dumping on startup for some reason unrelated to my changes or any other mod. I'd hate to get everything working then port it over to Entrenchment and have another set of unforeseen issues. So once I have the base game issues solved, I'll return to my own abilities and see if I have any new inspiration.

I'll check in by the end of the weekend if I'm still having trouble.

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Alright

note....if this thread is left too long, then it may go down to far on the disussions topic for me to remember to check it. If that happens, just message me.

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So, I was struck by a bolt of inspiration while I was going through the Developer exe folder that I downloaded a while back. It escaped my notice that all of the files were already in text format (I've had everything I needed up until this point), which is a big deal because my conversion program doesn't like the older vanilla Sins files for some reason. So, I hadn't been able to look at and copy stuff directly from the vanilla version that I was working in.

(Now, at this point you may have figured out where I'm going with this. If so, you're either heaving a huge sigh or having a good laugh.)

Naturally, since I didn't have access to the vanilla files in text format, I originally copied files from my Entrenchment folder (which I could convert). Remember, this was back when I first started and didn't realize that so much had changed between the original and expansion. Meanwhile, this irritating error message (cannot convert "PrioritizeNewBuffs" to enum) has popped up every time I open up the developer exe. So what do I do? That's right, I ignore it, knowing full well that's what I had copied into my buff files for the duplication line.

Discovering the converted entity files this morning was kind of like a small treasure trove to me. I spent some time going through the vanilla files, half-heartedly comparing what I saw to what I know I had in my new ability and buff files. The first thing I noticed is that there were no "PrioritizeNewBuffs" lines in the vanilla files. Yeah, I knocked smyself in the head when I realized what my problem was there. Then, Suddenly, I came upon a buff with the instant action, "DoInterruptUltimate". Of course, I had thought about the IsInterruptable line before this, especially after discovering that my destruction buff was not going away after the activation of the separation buff. It was, to be unoriginal, like a bolt of lightning. I studied the execution of the Interrupt action for a bit before copying it into my own buff and changing the destruction buff to be interruptable. Ultimately, this is what turned out to be the key to the whole thing. I opened up the developer exe and everything worked out so smoothly it was unvbelievable!

Of course, my problem the entire time was that I had copied something out of the entrenchment files when I should have copied vanilla files. So, after hours of frustration and headaches, I have learned my lesson. Pay attention to details and copy/paste the correct files.

Now, I can finally begin studying your recombination diagram without this rediculous destruction issue lingering in the back of my mind.

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lol

Attention to detail is key, yes.

That is the biggist piece of advice I can give to new modders, attention to detail.

Very glad you got it figured out.

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