research for repair weapon purposes Options

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

I recently realised that my deployed units are still repairable with the modile repair vehicle. So i tried to make all other buildings repairable with this too, but without success. It seems that the UndeploysInto= key makes this possible.

The reason why i want this to be possible is either a unit or building that automatically repairs buildings and keeps the base intact, so you don't have to click every few seconds on a slightly damaged building.

The problem i encountered was, that buildings with UndeploysInto= can't be repaired or sold anymore. The repair/sell cursor just don't work on them.
And [IQ] RepairSell=0 isn't an option too, due to the auto sell.
And if i give a building a repair weapon, it only repairs when forced to fire and they don't stop when the building/unit is repaired.

So has anyone any experience in repair weapons, auto repairing buildings etc?

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 13 2008, 11:05 AM

[The DvD]

Seems to me like you explored all available options already, at least those i can think of. Maybe modding the .exe is the only option.

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

too bad. i don't want to wait for TSHypers patch.
However i found an exception in the deploysinto= behavior. The Conyard can deploy and still be repaired/sold, but it's not repairable with a unit. Is there something special hardcoded to this?
Another problem i encoutered with the conyard is, that if you can build one as a building and cancel the construction while building one, you get an IE.

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 13 2008, 07:00 PM

[The DvD]

I don't think there is anything preventing deployed units ("buildings") from being sold, as long as they have a buildup animation (like the conyard does).

By the way, one problem i'm having with my mod is that the repair pad won't accept aircraft anymore.. perhaps a side effect of sharing the pad along multiple Sides? EDIT: it is.

[Team Black]

Bittah told me an interesting feature of particles, by making their damage negative, it will repair things. This way you can have things repair stuff that they normally don't (mechanics, for example)
I'll let him tell about it more though, as I haven't tested it yet.

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

@The DvD
i have a lot of deployable units with all having a deployanim, but none is sellable or repairable. The conyard on the other hand is the only deployed building that can't be repaired with a unit but with the repairbutton.

@Team Black
that's interesting, but won't they repair enemys too? In addition wouldn't they need force fire to work? I'll have to test this, thanks for the info.

[SeekSomethingNew]

LKO, i know its taking time man, life is getting harder and i have less time to sit down and really put effort into it, i wish i could...

I can look into this if you like, but what is it that makes the unit repair units in the first place? Im really rusty on my TS knowledge and i dont have TS installed at this moment. It could but just a simple fix from UnitType to TechnoType.

Also what is this IE you got?

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

LKO, i know its taking time man, life is getting harder and i have less time to sit down and really put effort into it, i wish i could...

ah don't worry, the same here! And for any solution we can find now, you have less to do.

I can look into this if you like, but what is it that makes the unit repair units in the first place? Im really rusty on my TS knowledge and i dont have TS installed at this moment. It could but just a simple fix from UnitType to TechnoType.

that is the strange thing about heal/repair weapons, since they seem to be inner class bound. Infantry can only heal infantry, units only units and buildings doesn't automatically "repair" at all with repair weapons.

Also what is this IE you got?

i posted this in your problems with TS logics topic at ppm.

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 13 2008, 09:25 PM

[Bittah Commander]

@Team Black
that's interesting, but won't they repair enemys too? In addition wouldn't they need force fire to work? I'll have to test this, thanks for the info.

Actually they'd only repair enemy units automatically and you'd have to fore-fire on your own units in order to repair them. I think the only way a particle system would be useful for repairing units (and buildings as well most likely, although I haven't tested this) is by having them attached to a superweapon or by having them attached to a building (which would then repair units and buildings around it). So far I've really only tested this with the gass clouds, but I'm sure this'll work with any other kind of particle system as well.

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

wait, you were able to make a repairing gascloud? With this method we can create some kind of shield system!
It's just giving the gascloud the image of a shield sphere and make it immobile. Then each unit that wants to, can drive under the shield and be repaired (protected by the shield).
Together with the transparency and animation possibility of the gascloudsystem, we could make a really great looking shield.

Is there any particle system that follows the unit like the emp anim? Then we could even have a mobile shield following the unit on which it was applied.

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 14 2008, 04:54 PM

[Allied General]

main issue is that enemy units could drive into your shield and be repaired and since no passive acquire=no in ts, they will "shield" your enemies ...

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

then it's up to the player to wisely control their units and it would also work the other way round, if the enemy uses shields.

[Allied General]

personally i think its too exploitable and also unsual ingame i.e. why would shield tech heal the enemy?

it works if its scrin maybe, (i.e. gas healing your tiberium units) just logically hard to explain.

too much mircomanagement for my liking.

[Scorch]

But instead of having something like that, a shield or something running around repairing your base/deployed units, wouldn't it be possible to have a secondary weapon attached to some structures that would repair other structures? As you know, only a vehicle can repair a vehicle, (not including the repair dock thing.) and only an infantry unit can heal an infantry. (Forgetting the hospital is there.) So, only a unit of the same type (vehicle or infantry) and heal another unit, so why wouldn't it be possible for a structure to do the same? I know there was a tutorial for the ConYard to have a siren (while it did damage to units, it still alarmed you to approaching enemies.), so why not give the ConYard a secondary weapon (With the siren as the first.) that would repair other structures nearby at the same rate the repair tool does? So while the Medic can automatically find and heal other infantry alone by itself, couldn't the ConYard do the same?

This has got me thinking now. If it works, couldn't a new deployable unit be made (like the Sensor Array) and when deployed, it could automatically start repairing nearby structures?

[The DvD]

LKO just said that buildings cant repair other buildings correctly

BTW, wouldn't putting a negative value in the Damage tag in an animation (art.ini) heal any unit that drives through? I never tested this. BTW Sticky=yes makes the animations stick to units.

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

i once heard that art.ini damage can't be negative, but i have to test this.
I didn't knew the Sticky= key. Thank you very much. I really searched for something like this for a long time. I always wanted to make a napalm bomb that sets the units/buildings on fire and let them burn even when they move. Crazy that i've never tested BURN-S M or L, while these have this key and i certainly would have noticed the difference.

\EDIT
the Sticky key doesn't work. I've tested it as the anim on the [AP] warhead and it didn't followed the unit.
Then i took a look in game.exe where only one sticky key is present, the one for unit behaviour.

\EDIT
negative damage in art.ini doesn't work. (tested)

\EDIT

By the way, one problem i'm having with my mod is that the repair pad won't accept aircraft anymore.. perhaps a side effect of sharing the pad along multiple Sides? EDIT: it is.

sorry i didn't saw this. Do you have more than one entry in your RepairBay= key? If yes, aircraft can't land on them anymore. I had the same problem and found the reason here.

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 15 2008, 12:19 PM

[The DvD]

This may be a stupid question, but when testing, did you enable looping or did you decrease the animation rate?
EDIT: Well i tested some things, Sticky=yes does work, but with limitions i guess. I used it on a unit's firing anim, and it stuck indefinitely. So it seems an animation can only stick to its 'owner'.

[Machine]

interesting. I'm thinking that it may be related to the special tags on every deployable unit (the building version).
Like: TickTank=, Atillary=, IsJuggernaut=, SensorArray=, IsLimpetMine=, ICBMLauncher=. Though I know that they're used for special functions, they might also be used to recognize them as vehicles for the repair weapon.
I also thought that it could be the caused by the tag BaseNormal=, but I highly doubt it since it's used by base defenses and gates too.
I'll have to test this, probably by making a clone of the deployed tick tank, but that doesn't undeploy, and is built directly from the CY. If it's still repairable, I'm going to start removing tags one by one. Testing this when I'm back at home, tonight.

[SeekSomethingNew]

TickTank=, Atillary=, IsJuggernaut=, SensorArray=, IsLimpetMine=, ICBMLauncher= Etc. are facing specific keys.

And i cant see ANY code for Sticky, so...

BaseNormal is only checked for by the adjacency code.

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

EDIT: Well i tested some things, Sticky=yes does work, but with limitions i guess. I used it on a unit's firing anim, and it stuck indefinitely. So it seems an animation can only stick to its 'owner'.

firing anims like muzzle flash are in general sticky to the unit. They are normaly only so fast that it isn't possible to see them following the unit while it moves.

thanks machine. maybe you find a solution, because i wasn't successful. UndeploysInto= has imo too much negative effects for a good use on normal buildings.

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 15 2008, 09:40 PM

[Machine]

@TSHyper:
I know that those tags are used for facings when the unit deploys. But considering that the game was made by a company which didn't plan to make a moddable game (and that their coding style is full of FAIL), I thought that those tags might have other functions . The same applies to BaseNormal=, but that would be weird since repair units do not repair turrets. And BTW it has to be associated to a tag, since repair units do repair custom deployed units. Well I guess it's time to test it .

EDIT:
Bad luck , it is tied to the undeploy tag, and the tags I mentioned won't have any effect on it.

This post has been edited by Machine: May 16 2008, 12:12 AM

[SeekSomethingNew]

Ill give you that, WW did a sh*t job really

But there are a load of logics that they have just "commented out" in way, would be nice to enable them...