Structures in my map produce Campaign units :( how to revert to melee? (dependencies)

[Rivante]

Hello, I'm relatively new to SC2 mapmaking and I've learned a lot about triggers, but am a bit green when it comes to the data manager/actors/dependencies.

When I first created my map, I selected "melee," which gave me all the standard melee units/structures/abilities, etc.

I wanted to script in Terran/Zerg drop-pods and use some of the pre-built units such as the Super Warp Gate found in the campaign missions - rather than re-inventing the wheel by hand-coding them myself. When I copy/pasted the individual units/structures/abilities from the original campaign missions I found them, they showed up broken in my custom map. So, I added all the standard dependencies where these could be found (Campaign, Campaign Story), which seemed to do the trick, allowing me to use these resources. I'm sure if I was more savvy with actors and such I could have fixed this manually, but adding dependencies seemed to be the only method which would work for me. The editor even mentions to me when I copy/paste things from other maps that these things will be broken until I fix them -- but it doesn't detail "what" is broken, or how to fix it... so I've been left only with dependencies as my savior.

However, as a result, all my units and structures seem to be irrevocably Campaign-hijacked. (ie. Stargates can produce Scouts, Nexus has no Energy, Starports can produce Wraiths, Stimpacks are broken since they're required to have Campaign Research) I cannot remove the dependencies, since they are inextricably attached due to my use of the bits and pieces I brought them in for - the drop pods and Super Warp Gates. I'm not sure if "re-ordering" the dependencies within the dependencies list does anything... it seems to re-calculate things when I do it, but if its result is anything which bears relevance to this topic, I can't tell. I have been hesitant to ruin my triggers and delete the structures to simply try this, so I thought I'd ask some more competant editor-folk:

1) Should I have not used dependencies at all for this, and left everything melee-only, making all new stuff contained within my own file by copying and pasting things, and then tweaking/editing the results to make them work again? (This is so I'll know best-practices going forward.)
2) Will killing all instances of resources used from the added dependencies, and then deleting those dependencies from my map via the data manager, revert my structures to standard multiplayer? Or, is my map botched and in need of a complete do-over from the ground up?

Thanks in advance for any assistance/explanation with these topics. I'd be happy to provide any more specific information if required.
-Rivante

 

[Dave312]

Hi and welcome to The Helper!

Getting your dependencies right to begin with (before you start making your map) is rather crucial. In general, if your making a Melee map, you should be using the Melee Dependencies (Liberty (Mod) and Liberty Multi (Mod)). If your making a custom game, then you are better off using the Campaign Dependencies. I would always refrain from using both sets of dependencies as they contain conflicting data and can make your life a nightmare. On a side note, the Liberty Multi (Mod) dependency contains all the balancing changes that blizzard make to their multi player game. If you don't want your map to have these changes as well, do not have this dependency in your map.

For your case though, I would definitely try to stick with either using the Melee Dependencies or the Campaign Dependencies (not both). It's is hard for me to say which one you should go with without knowing exactly what you want to make in your map, but I personally always use the Campaign Dependencies. In which case, you should add the Campaign Dependencies and remove the Melee Dependencies. It may screw a few things up for you, but if your map is in the early stages, then it would be well worth the effort in the long term. If you wish to keep the Melee stuff though, removing the campaign dependencies should revert everything back the Melee versions.

I hope that was of some help. If you need further clarification, feel free to ask.

 

[Rivante]

Thanks for the reply Dave!

For my map, my vision is to make it a hybrid melee multiplayer / tug of war mod. I want the game to basically be the melee game, but with some scripted events and flair. I will probably edit some of my own units in addition for custom purposes, but I still plan on using things like zerg drop pods which are found in the campaign dependencies.

So, given this is my goal, I think I should remove all my drop pod and super warp gate stuff, delete my campaign dependencies, and see if I can get it all to revert to melee once again, and THEN - try to manually reprogram those items from scratch within my own map. I can get a lot done via copy-paste, but there's a lot of actor stuff that seems to break when I do it.

Thanks for the advice!
-Rivante

 

[Kyuft]

I'm probably stupid for doing this, but when I make a custom map, I use all 4 of the dependencies without any problem. However, I am only in the early stages of my maps so I don't know what it might do in the end.

-Kyuft:shades:

 

[Rivante]

I'm probably stupid for doing this, but when I make a custom map, I use all 4 of the dependencies without any problem. However, I am only in the early stages of my maps so I don't know what it might do in the end.

-Kyuft:shades:

Yes, it'll depend on what you're doing, but I'll bet you'll run into some troubles.
It seems when my campaign dependencies were added they forcibly overwrote any units/structures/abilities etc. which they duplicated. Looking at the source of my entries for units and structures, they no longer say LibertyMulti.mod, but Campaign bla bla bla. Everything looks and feels fine until you play and you realize you can't chronoboost anything, can't stim, and for some reason can train campaign units! The problem is the dependencies make contradictions and overwrite each others' stuff, and there's maybe no way to control what gets kept and what gets overwritten...

Ideally I'd like to make it so that only the "unique" campaign stuff gets in, with the melee stuff left untouched, so I can utilize campaign resources without worrying about all the little things

-Rivante

 

[Kyuft]

I've forgotten something...
Welcome to TH!

-Kyuft:shades:

 

[Rivante]

Thanks Kyuft! Looks like a nice forum community :-D So far I have been savagely underwhelmed with the amount of useful information I've been able to get about the SC2 Galaxy Editor online, so I hope this forum will work out!!
-Rivante

 

[Kyuft]

This forum is GREAT! I had problems similar to yours, and I found this. I joined in January as you can see, and I know a LOT more about data, some cool texture tricks, and a good amount of triggers! Siretu and Dave312 will always be here to help when I can't!

-Kyuft:shades:

 

[Dave312]

Yes, it'll depend on what you're doing, but I'll bet you'll run into some troubles.
It seems when my campaign dependencies were added they forcibly overwrote any units/structures/abilities etc. which they duplicated. Looking at the source of my entries for units and structures, they no longer say LibertyMulti.mod, but Campaign bla bla bla. Everything looks and feels fine until you play and you realize you can't chronoboost anything, can't stim, and for some reason can train campaign units! The problem is the dependencies make contradictions and overwrite each others' stuff, and there's maybe no way to control what gets kept and what gets overwritten...

Ideally I'd like to make it so that only the "unique" campaign stuff gets in, with the melee stuff left untouched, so I can utilize campaign resources without worrying about all the little things

-Rivante

How it actually works is rather complicated. Things aren't so much overwritten as they are replaced. If you have both the Melee and Campaign Dependencies in your map, you can open up the Data Editor and go View > Display All Object Sources (Ctrl+Shift+W) to display everything for every dependency. In this case, you should notice that you will a 2 copies of most units, 1 with the source being the Melee Dependency and 1 with the source being from the Campaign Dependency. However when placing units, they always seem to be from the campaign dependency.

 

[Rivante]

In my case, I couldn't see most of those, as it looks like it was replacing most things.. for example, the Ability Stargate Train was replaced with the Campaign version (no other multiplayer version of this existed to be used.

To update - I removed all my Campaign dependencies last night, and that seems to have done the trick - my Nexus can now Chronoboost, and my Stargate can no longer produce Scouts - so everything seems back to normal.
-except for the fact that I'll have to create my own local versions of the Super Warp Gate and drop pods... but that's something I'm working on. I found the Super Warp gate Unit/Actor/Model/Ability and was able to make units in the game - a lot of the units seem broken-ish when I put them in (Gateway units operate normally, requiring placement on a power grid, and doing the warp-in animation) But units that do not do those things normally do not. For instance, Colossi and Carriers can be warped-in, but they do not have the power-grid placement requirement, and do no animation, they just pop into place. If possible, I'd like to make it so that all units make the warp-in animation, but none require placement on the power grid, so I'll have to do some browsing tonight in the editor to find all those bits and bobs.

FYI- in my map I want to use the super warp gate as a mechanism for the map to warp in units wherever I please - much in the same way it warps in Stalkers for you at various points in the Zeratul 1 Mission. I could accomplish this with the Invisible Pylon, but I have never gotten those to work in my level either. Not sure if that'd be easier to get working, or if it'd be easier to hack the Super Warp Gate to make it not need a power field to warp in its Gateway units.

 

[Dave312]

The power grid placement requirement is on the ability Warpable (Ability: Power User Behaviour property). Set that property to (None) to remove the power requirement.

The colossus doesn't have it's own warp in model so you will have to just use the generic one and modify the scale to suit. The Carrier has a build (warp in) model so I'm not quite sure why that isn't working.

 

[Rivante]

Dave, thanks for answering I was able to locate the Warpable Ability and edit it, but now I have some other issues. However, I won't ask them here, because for the scope of this thread, I think the dependencies issue is solved - and the answer was:
"Campaign and Melee dependencies conflict with one another, so don't add all of them to your map just to get easier access to data objects" :-D

I'll spend an hour trying to figure out the issues on my own, using my own noodle ;-) but if I get stuck I'll post a new topic.

Thanks all for the help!
-Rivante

EDIT: To clarify - If I add the campaign dependency temporarily and test my map in-game, everything animates perfectly, so I know I'm doing this semi-correctly. However, in the Editor for some reason the model in the previewer *still* shows up as a sphere, even with the dependency present... But, the instant I remove my campaign dependencies and test my map again, I get a sphere in-game, as well as in the editor.

 

[Rivante]

Ok, I know I said I was done but I have another question which relates to the same topic of dependencies.

Before, I said the only reason I added the Campaign dependencies was because I didn't know how to copy/paste objects from campaign maps and re-create all the object links properly within the editor. Since then, I killed my Super Warp Gate and the drop pods I imported from the campaign dependencies, and removed those dependencies from my map (hooray for clean maps!) I was able to re-create the Super warp gate without issue, and the Drop pods seemed pretty easy too (Just searched all the units/actors/models for all *drop* titled things, and copy/paste them, making sure none of the links get broken, yay!)

However, I've run into a snag... Seems the Super Warp Gate went just fine because that Warp Gate model exists in the normal melee dependencies. So do Terran Drop pods, since Terrans use MULEs and supply depot drops. However, Zerg does not have any melee-based drop pod abilities, and as luck wouldn't have it, the model .m3 file is missing. Specifically, it's looking for "Assets\Effects\Zerg\ZergDropPod\ZergDropPod.m3" - which right now shows up as a sphere when I bring it up in the animation previewer. When I run my map and summon a Zerg Drop pod, it comes, and the units inside get created, but I can't see any of the actual zerg drop pod animations. I get the sphere (representing an unknown model) for the entire duration of the time I'd normally see the drop pod falling, splatting, and decaying, then it disappears. Looking in the .m3 assets, I cannot find that directory, as it doesn't exist within my list. If I add the Campaign Story dependencies, I can see it. --but I don't want to add these dependencies as they tend to screw up other things.

So - is there any way to access these models from the standard 2 Liberty depenedencies, or a way to somehow import them?

PS. Even adding the Campaign Dependencies doesn't seem to work... Funny, I got it working before, and I can find the model, but when I select the Zerg Drop Pod and look at it in the previewer (even in the Campaign Map itself) it still shows up as the sphere. Except when I play the campaign they work, and when I play my mission I get the sphere.

Any help untangling this would be appreciated! I hope there's just something silly I'm missing, but I'm afraid I may have hit one of those "you can't do that" walls.
-Rivante

 

[Dave312]

Like I said at the start, not having the correct dependencies to start with can cause massive headaches.

I never realised that not having the Campaign dependency loaded means you also can't access any of the models (I always use campaign dependencies), but now you mention it, it is really not all that surprising. What you should be able to do is open a map with the Campaign Dependencies loaded (or create one) and open up the Console (Window > Console), and type in Browse to open up theArchive Browser. From here you can export any models, textures or sounds that you may need, and then import those files into your map. Be warned though, these files will take up a fair amount of space in your map. As such, you may be better off actually having the campaign dependency loaded and modifying the units to remove the Campaign stuff (researches ect)

 

[Rivante]

Thanks Dave, and yeah, I didn't know about the concept of missing actual Model assets from the campaigns when their dependencies weren't loaded either. But I also didn't know about the Window>Console export method. I agree, I don't want to do anything to inflate the file size of my map beyond normal proportions... but maybe it won't be so bad for what I'm trying to do with just 1 model.

It seems a bit circumspect to add the dependencies for the sake of that 1 model, then waste the time reverse-correcting every broken unit and ability, both in terms of raw programming time and future Blizzard update compatibility.

Who knows though, maybe the addition of 1 extra model for the Zerg Drop Pod won't super-kill my map's file size. Maybe I'll try running a save-as on my map, add it, and compare the results.

If none of the above works I can go to Plan B perhaps. I really just need a "method of bringing in new units anywhere on the map as reinforcements for all three races" - For Protoss I have power-ignorant Warp-Ins, for Terrans and Zerg I was going to use Drop Pods (since they were already set up and people understand them) - but if I can't go that route with Zerg maybe I'll come up with some kind of funky "instant Nydus Network preloaded with new units" trick. I'm confident that would be wholly do-able in the realm of the editor, at least. I wasn't really married to the Drop Pods, but I figured they'd be the easiest method to bring in scripted units as-needed "elegantly"

I'm curious about that export method though... so I'm going to try that first and see where it gets me. I guess worst case scenario if I can get it working and it inflates my file too much is just "remove it later and find an alternate method."

-Rivante