Problem with Chaos(Ability)

[Rllulium]

I attempted to to write an equipment system wherein I could have heros equip items that would show up as art attachments on the character. (You know!)
For weapons, I decided to use Chaos to morph the character in order to let all weapons have their own Attack Damage, Range, Speed, Type, Icon etc...
However, this messes with all other equipment abilities as graphics which are attached to the character are removed upon morphing (it probably removes the ability, understandable). The big problem is that attempting to readd the ability to the unit after the transformation has no effect. The unit gets the ability but has no art attachments other than weapons (Weapon graphics are never added or removed, they are inherent abilities of all character incarnations).

Is this a known property of Chaos? Or am I doing something wrong?

Help appreciated,
Thanks in advance

 

[WolfieeifloW]

Just using basic weapons with added properties can do everything except add range, I believe.
Why not just downgrade a little bit, and have melee and ranged (Like 125 and 600)?
That way, you could maybe just make a copy of each hero and have one melee and one ranged?

 

[Rllulium]

It is true that I do not strictly need one unit per weapon type. I just really liked being able to:
- display a new attack type icon/tooltip for each weapon.
- have different base attack speed/damage value for each weapon. Maybe even different melee ranges. (Like having a twohander reach further than a dagger)
- using core WC3 stuff like attack/armor types to add indentities to the weapons. Maybe make the weapons scale with different attributes. (And that without triggers too)

That said, I did use to have only two units (one melee and one ranged). I'd wager that this problem would still be around thou.
The only issue I see with this (otherwise) is that I cannot easily make use of Chaos for anything else.

 

[WolfieeifloW]

Hmm..
Can you not change the attack type of a unit without morphing it?

And I see what you mean about range/attack speed.
Sort of like Diablo II, if that's what you're trying to do?

For the range, I believe there's an ability in the editor somewhere that increase range.
Maybe you should check that out?
Set the base range to 0, and in spellbook put that ability and hide it?

For the attack speed, you might just have to trigger that for every item, and just don't show it in the tooltip.
Ex: For an axe, give it like +1% attack rate; For dagger, +2% or something?


EDIT: Look at 'Night Elf -> Units -> War Club'
It increases attack range, not sure how to set the range though..
There may be other abilities too, although I don't think there is.

Simply removing the "Art - Animation Names" seems to not make him hold a tree, but still get the range buff.
Although, I don't know how you'd make it so that the unit doesn't have to eat a tree to get the buff..
Maybe trigger that too somehow?

 

[Rllulium]

I cannot change attack type without morphing. Maybe there is an upgrade, but upgrades cannot be reversed.
For attack range, same thing. There is an upgrade, but upgrades are not fit for this.
As for anything else; speed, damage etc... that can be fixed in other ways, but once I already have to use chaos for other purposes, I might aswell.

EDIT:
Warclubs changes the units attack index. Afaik that can only be used to enable attacks vs new types of enemies.
Such as allowing melee units to attack Air. I believe I tried once to have it disable an attack index aswell, which didn't work as I wanted it to.

 

[WolfieeifloW]

Read my edit on my last post.
If you can figure out the problems I listed, you can use the spell, then just remove/disable/change it when the hero uses/picks up a different weapon.


EDIT: Not sure what you mean..
But the unit has a normal attack, but when he uses War Club it changes to Siege.

 

[Rllulium]

The problems I have had with this in the past is that melee units that get a ranged attack index enabled doesnt want to understand that they are indeed ranged.
Plus a slew on interface bugs related to removing and adding an attack index.

That said, I will test this to see if I can get something workable from it.
(Although this will only work for the Melee/Ranged solution as units can only have 2 Attack indexes)
Thanks for your advice.

 

[WolfieeifloW]

Hmm..
With War Club, I just tested.
The giant uses his melee attack, then I gave him War Club.
He used his ranged attack (I set the max attacks with the club to 1), the club was lost, then he went back to melee range and attacked again.
When he picks up another tree, he goes back to range, and it worked fine.

Sorry if I'm still misunderstanding you

EDIT: Still don't know how to edit the range it gives, or how to make you not have to target a tree.

EDIT2: Ahh, I see! On the unit itself you can change the range..
Well then, that sorta sucks..
Are you trying to do a Diablo II based range system?

Because there's only I think 3-4 different ranges?
That wouldn't be too-too bad to make 3 different types of units for each hero?
Maybe even just 2 different types:
The first one with melee, range 1, and the second with range 2 and range 3?

 

[Rllulium]

If I still have to use Chaos then I still need to adress the original problem in the OP.
And if I fix that, I can just use my original system.

Also, I don't understand what you mean with "Diablo II based range system".

 

[WolfieeifloW]

What it sounds like you were trying to do is what they did in Diablo II.
Ex: Daggers had a range of '1' (Something like 100 in WC3).
Axes/Swords had like '2' (125, I'd guess in WC3).
And Polearms had '3' (Probably 150 in WC3).

 

[Rllulium]

Alright... in any case, different ranges for different weapons were firstmost a possibility that I came across and not something that I had given much thought to.

Anyway, I tested War Clubs and got these resulsts:
- The units Attack information disappears. (Not desireable)
- It doesnt work if I make a new spell out of War Clubs, it only works with the original (Strange)