Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 1:46 pm Post subject:
Will there be some more actor-spawning traits?
Subject description: such like warheads that spawn actors, unit deploying to transform into another actor, etc
I have read the OpenRA modding manual and has done some testing on what it can achieve , and i found it very interesting, offering limitless potential. In spite of this, some modding techniques existing in ARES and Hares are seemingly no longer supported in OpenRA (like anim spawning invisible infantries to do magic for you). For example, if I wish to create a lightning storm superweapon, I'll go for this route:
1.SpawnActorPower creating an invisible actor
2.the actor self-destructs via KillSelf trait, giving out debris weapons at random direction with controllable debris number and radius via ThrowsShrapnel
3.the shrapnel weapon each create an invisible actor on impact
4.the second invisible actor KillSelf after set duration, with cloud anim as death animations, and SpawnActorOnDeath creating yet another invisible actor
5.the third invisible actor KillSelf after set duration to sync with the cloud anim, Explodes, and delivers the true lightning bolt anim and the lightning strike damage
The only problem is that there is no way for a weapon to create actors, unlike in ARES where weapons using their anims, could be used to create suiciding infantry attached with suicide-anim-attached AttachEffect.
Maybe feature like spawning a conscript when the cannonball lands the ground is ridiculous and useless to you, but to us experienced modders they can be definitely put to good use. To put it frankly, we need such bridging traits to connect actors, superweapons, weapons and such. In this way lots of intricate designs could be achieved without having to modify the OpenRA itself (like a hardcoded lightning storm Power), saving time for both you developers and us modders.
For example, original YR, Ares, or Chinese modified HAres has bridging tags enabling modders to: generate a superweapon strike by playing an anim; generate a unit by playing an anim; AttachEffect attaching a unit onto another unit, sharing the mother unit's location, possibly sharing its attacking targets, facing, and experience, but independent otherwise; completely converting a unit into another unit when deploying; converting a unit into another unit when said unit is killed by a weapon, etc. Such features enable experienced YR modders like Kenosis to do many seemingly impossible stuff with the game, and we are planning to do much more on OpenRA platform.
So we are sincerely hoping some developers will help us fulfill our wishes, or tell us how to do, because we don't know programming whatsoever and are unable to develop those features ourselves.(we are willing to try though, as long as someone told us how to do this) _________________ Aka DirtyChicken QUICK_EDIT
I'm missing Ares AroundTarget-style split at this point though, asin projectile chain carrying over the original target. It's on my to-do list.
Regarding upstream inclusion - I strongly doubt this would happen.
For one, at this point, upstream has no way to limit a generic warhead to filter out if it explodes in plain air (terraintypes have targettypes, but air is not a terrain).
For two, there never was upstream interest in this logic since the first time I proposed ActorSpawnerWarhead (was within the IRC logs and IRC logs are pw-protected, because OpenRA).
For three, I always was pushed at OpenRA to limit myself to bugfixing/minor features/reviewing with most of my criticism towards modding support falling flat so I also lacked the interest to get them into upstream. And I left OpenRA entirely at this point, so all my future work will be limited to AS/Engine itself anyway.
Upstream could take that codebase anytime - but as you have noticed, they don't feel the need of doing so. I'm still merging upstream stuff into AS/Engine regularly, so the best I can suggest at this point is my own fork.
On the other hand - take note that all warheads, including upstream ones support a Delay tag. For your example, you would be pretty much enough with chaining projectiles alone, there isn't a need for an actor even (shrapnel towards targetposition, fragment to go up the cloud's height, fragment has immediate effectwarhead for cloud and a delayed other fragment for the bolt, done.) _________________ "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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Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
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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... QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:20 am Post subject:
Sure and if anything crops up, I'm still around on AS Discord to help out anyway. _________________ "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... QUICK_EDIT
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Will there be some more actor-spawning traits?
