Tons of Help Required

[Akuma]

Okay, folks. Before I try any of these things and (potentially) screw up my iscript, I'd like some advance info. So, here are all the things I want to do:

Give Mutalisks a build animation that causes them to return to their egg and then become a building morph.

Create buildable Ion Cannons that fire Arclite Shock Cannon bursts at a range far beyond their sight.

Have a weapon with the sprite of a Phase Disruptor that bursts into a Psionic Storm.

Give Lurkers a build animation causing them to burrow, creating the building morph overlay when they're halfway into the ground.

Give the Creep Colony a sweeping Lurker attack that fires through a set rotation.

Permit the Hunter Killer to spawn 2 to an egg but restrict the hydralisk to one.

...that's it. Any thoughts? Can these be done?

[Dezzick]

Maybe not sure, if you want to learn the basics, check out some tutes.
(starcraft.org (http://www.starcraft.org/customs))

[StealthyDeath]

Okay, folks. Before I try any of these things and (potentially) screw up my iscript, I'd like some advance info. So, here are all the things I want to do:

1.Give Mutalisks a build animation that causes them to return to their egg and then become a building morph.

2.Create buildable Ion Cannons that fire Arclite Shock Cannon bursts at a range far beyond their sight.

3.Have a weapon with the sprite of a Phase Disruptor that bursts into a Psionic Storm.

4.Give Lurkers a build animation causing them to burrow, creating the building morph overlay when they're halfway into the ground.

5.Give the Creep Colony a sweeping Lurker attack that fires through a set rotation.

6.Permit the Hunter Killer to spawn 2 to an egg but restrict the hydralisk to one.

...that's it. Any thoughts? Can these be done?

1. I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you be more descriptive?
2. It can be done, but it can only attack things it the player has vision of. They won't be able to attack anything in the Fog of War.
3. It's possible, but it requires some graphic replacement, flingy.dat, and images.dat editing.
4. Can't really understand this one either.
5. Not sure again. I think you want to give the creep colony the lurker attack, but the attack in a certain shape? If that's your idea, you'll need to do some graphics editing so the creep colony has 17 frames. Then use the turncwise or turnccwise to get the effect.
6. I think only the zergling and scourge have the ability to spawn 2. I maybe wrong though.

[BSTRhino]

StealthyDeath pretty much answered everything, I don't understand 1 and 4 either. I'll just add my knowledge to the tree.

3. Have a weapon with the sprite of a Phase Disruptor that bursts into a Psionic Storm.
If you were to do this the easy way, by changing the current phase disruptor into this new special phase disruptor, then probably you might need one change to an entry in images.dat but that'd be it. The rest should be able to be handled with iscript and weapons.dat. I don't think it sounds too difficult in fact, there are probably just two steps:
1. Change the phase disruptor's damage type to psionic storm
2. Use iscript so the psionic storm image is created when the phase disruptor hits its target


5. Give the Creep Colony a sweeping Lurker attack that fires through a set rotation.
Basically what StealthyDeath said was to make the creep colony turn. That's because a lot of the time, StarCraft makes a unit shoot in the direction it is facing, so the theory here is that if you change the direction the unit is facing, you'll change the direction the weapon goes. Two ideas from me here:

1. I don't think you'd need to substitute 17 frames to use the turning commands. You see, StarCraft still considers Dragoons and even Lurkers as units that face a direction, even though their graphics never turn. So, the turning commands will most probably function perfectly with a creep colony. You might not have understood that Akuma, but hopefully one day you will.
2. We are assuming that the lurker attack is launched in the direction the unit is facing. What if that assumption doesn't hold true? I don't think it does to be honest, I remember doing something with the firebat in Terran Doom (which uses a similar weapon to the lurker) and turning didn't seem to make a difference. So in that case it might not possible, and I'm just Fenguining with writing these big long explanations.

6. Permit the Hunter Killer to spawn 2 to an egg but restrict the hydralisk to one.
I remember once making ultralisks spawn double, but perhaps I was Fenguining at the time so it never actually happened and it's not possible. I have been told that the '2 in 1 egg' box doesn't do what it looks like it does, but I haven't tested that for ages now, since now the novelty of modding has worn off and I don't really try to test the limits of Arsenal III like I used to. So you'll have to do the testing for me hehe. *pulls out Fenguin*

I must be drunk or something. For some strange reason I've found a new thing to do: say Fenguin as many times as I possibly can in my posts. It's just such a cuddly word, I can't understand why.

[Akuma]

I'll explain better, then.

1: I want the Mutalisk to be able to morph into a building. The animation that I'd like to use is to have the Mutalisk essentially rewind its birth. When it returns inside the egg, that's when I want the building process to start, as though a Drone had just implanted itself.

2: I tried doing this with your Adding an Attack tutorial, StealthyDeath, but the Cannon didn't like firing for some reason.

3: I was hoping to keep the original Phase Disruptor, to tell the truth.

4: I want the Lurker to be able to morph into a building. The animation I'd like to use is to have the Lurker begin to dig its hole as it does while burrowing. As it descends into the hole, at a halfway point, I would like the building overlay to spawn over it and the building process to begin.

5: I'm trying to make it so that the Creep Colony will attack in a circle as long as enemies are nearby, using attkprojangle. As in, no matter where the enemies are coming from, it will always fire in one direction and continue clockwise until all enemy units are dead. And the Creep Colony is stationary. Kind of like the Sunken Colony, but without an aboveground graphic at all.

6: I realize that, but I assumed something in the Iscript would tell the egg to birth two graphics instead of one, which is probably why it doesn't work with any other units. This one, I believe, is impossible. Not the spawn two, but the restriction for hydralisks.

Thanks for the input, though.

[Dezzick]

2 h-ks in one egg? coming right up!!!

[StealthyDeath]

2 h-ks in one egg? coming right up!!!
Do not do that again. If you can't post some helpful then don't post at all.

2: I tried doing this with your Adding an Attack tutorial, StealthyDeath, but the Cannon didn't like firing for some reason.
Under the AI Actions tab, you might have to change it to something similar to the Missile Turret or Cannon since it is a building that is attacking and not a unit.

5: I'm trying to make it so that the Creep Colony will attack in a circle as long as enemies are nearby, using attkprojangle. As in, no matter where the enemies are coming from, it will always fire in one direction and continue clockwise until all enemy units are dead. And the Creep Colony is stationary. Kind of like the Sunken Colony, but without an aboveground graphic at all.

You can probably have an attack animation like this, if you want a clockwise effect.

wait 1
turncwise 2
attack25 1
wait 1
turncwise 2
attack25 1
wait 1
turncwise 2
attack25 1
wait 1
turncwise 2
attack25 2

All you have to do is continue the script until it goes around once. Also the attkprojangle is wrongly named. It doesn't attack from an angle. I think BSTRhino explained it in another thread.

For your number 1 and 4, I'm sure that they are impossible to do.

[Akuma]

Really? Not possible? Oh well.

I think I've tried copying the Missile Turret and etc. in all programs except IceCC for the Ion Cannon and still no luck. I'm sure there's a way, though.

Will that solution require additional frames for the Colony or will it just attack in 18 directions in sequence? I realize that attkprojangle is based off the weapon's emission point.

[BSTRhino]

Er, attkprojangle has actually got absolutely nothing to do with angles. I don't even know if projectiles matter for it either. What it actually does is attack a certain length in front of the direction the unit is facing. So... using attkprojangle, it might well be possible to get the sunken colony to attack in different directions. However, I would expect a single attkprojangle command to only attack one spot, so you'd probably have to have about 6 or 7 of them to attack in a long line going away from the creep colony.

This would be the main part of the iscript that you might like to add frames and sounds to:
GndAttkInit:
nobrkcodestart
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
turncwise 3
__36 launchLinearAttack
nobrkcodeend
goto GndAttkInit

launchLinearAttack:
attkprojangle 32
attkprojangle 48
attkprojangle 64
attkprojangle 80
attkprojangle 96
attkprojangle 112
wait 1
__37

The reason I did it this way was because I think you need to put that code in a nobrkcode block, because otherwise the creep colony will reset its targetting direction.

I think you should try 1 and 4, perhaps it's possible to make those units act like drones. Who knows, you're going to have to research that yourself.

6: The iscript doesn't set flags or values like the DAT files do, so I don't think it could tell StarCraft that two units in one egg are allowed. I'm pretty sure you'd have to look somewhere else for that setting.

For number 2, what do you mean by 'the cannon didn't like firing?' Did it crash, or did it just not shoot anything? Maybe try setting its subunit range to 10 or something.

[Akuma]

2: At variable ranges, it wouldn't fire. Maybe I had its firing range set too high. I'll try the subunit change, though.

6: I assumed that the Zergling images.dat entry's Birth animation would tell it to run the egg-splitting graphics and then place two units. Ah well...nevermind that one then.

Attkprojangle...bizarre sort of command. I used a few on a Battlecruiser's attack and it caused the beams to fire at the specified cooldown rate towards (weapon target + angle value.)