Finally tryin' the hard part (yep, need help)

[MrJoeS]

I'm looking to create a special ability the would do damage in a TINY (like a pinpoint) area of effect. This would be for a gunner-like unit, so I'd like to add some sort of gunfire graphic, but that's not at issue yet.

I picked blizzard as my base spell, and used the creep version because mine will only need one level. This is the line I wrote into my abilitydata.slk file.

<----begin---->
Abu1,AHbz,Abu1,Sniper Single Shot,1,1,0,hero,0,1,0,air ground friend enemy self neutral item,0,0,0,0.5,1,10,800,1,15,3.5,0.5,,-,- ,- ,-,-,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,- ,,,-,-,-,-,-,-,-
<----end---->

you can copy an paste it into a preadsheet because it's in Text & Tabs form above. The idea is for the spell to do between 15 and 20 damage, and to be usable very very often. Like easily over and over again, hence the .5 second cooldown.

Well that seemed plenty good. I interpreted that data11 was # of waves and data13 was damage per ice shard. I didn't know what to make of data12 or data14 but I figured I'd address them later. I didn't even bother to start playing with the abilityfunc and abilitystrings files, I just thougth I'd get to them later and leave whatever they affected as the blizzard default for now.

I read in a tutorial that I need to save that abilitydata.slk into a Units folder in my War3 directory. I think the trouble is that I don't know what format to save it as. I'm using MS Works 6.0 on this computer, and I can save files with versions of excel if necessary. I even have excel on anohter computer if I need it.

By toying around a little I got the abilities to show up, but only as "_______ (____)" and things like that. Rather irksome indeed...

What can I do to make this work?

edit: text and tabs got messed by the bulletin board software, switched to text & commas. Because there were commas in the targs cell, I replaced them with spaces. Put back the commas to make it work, I guess.

 

[Darg]

Hmm, I think maybe your slk file is getting corrupted somehow. I think the general consensus in the community was that only excel 2000 or later works properly for editing slks. Not sure if MS Works will work or not.

Did you also create tooltips and icons for your spells? I'm about to explain to the guy in the 'Spell Tooltips' post how to do it, so take a peek in there if you don't know either.

btw, all of the important data fields have comments attached to the cells. If you don't see a comment in the creep spell cells, then it will probably exist in the hero version of that creep spell (if one exists).

 

[MrJoeS]

What format is AbilityData.slk actually in? I know it can be opened in NotePad, though it's not pretty. Is it some kind of text or what? I thought perhaps it was an Excel 2000 file, but in that format it is smaller than its usual size by 200 k.

My problems may all arise from using Works. I'm gonna take a crack at this in Excel, though it's less convenient to use that machine.

 

[Darg]

I have no idea what the slk format actually is, all I know is that you must not change it to any other format. Here's a tip that you may find useful. Don't press the 'save' button in excel/works EVER. When you are done with your changes, press the 'x' button in the top right to shut the program down, and save it then when it prompts you. This is the only sure way I've found to preserve the slk format after making changes to an slk file.

 

[MrJoeS]

[BRITISHACCENT]Brilliant![/BRITISHACCENT]

That's way too simple for me to have thought of it. Thanks Darg.

 

[lich_king6]

Better yet go to www.warcraftworkshop.uk.co and get the spell editor. It writes tooltips and the func.txt automatically. Except there is one problem. Look to the "more problems with tooltips" up there and i say what it is.

 

[lich_king6]

first link didnt work lol. http://www.warcraftworkshop.co.uk

that one should work.

 

[Darg]

I'll have a look at this editor when I have time, and see if it matches up to redscull's editor. I may end up sticking links to both in the FAQ, however.