Will there be some more actor-spawning traits?
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 1:56 pm
I have read the OpenRA modding manual and has done some testing on what it can achieve , and i found it very interesting, offering limitless potential. And I'm now seriously preparing to move onto the OpenRA platform and create mods. In spite of this, some modding techniques existing in ARES and Hares are seemingly no longer supported in OpenRA (like anim spawning invisible infantries to do magic for you). For example, if I wish to create a lightning storm superweapon, I'll go for this route:
1.SpawnActorPower creating an invisible actor
2.the actor self-destructs via KillSelf trait, giving out debris weapons at random direction with controllable debris number and radius via ThrowsShrapnel
3.the shrapnel weapon each create an invisible actor on impact
4.the second invisible actor KillSelf after set duration, with cloud anim as death animations, and SpawnActorOnDeath creating yet another invisible actor
5.the third invisible actor KillSelf after set duration to sync with the cloud anim, Explodes, and delivers the true lightning bolt anim and the lightning strike damage
The only problem is that there is no way for a weapon to create actors, unlike in ARES where weapons using their anims, could be used to create suiciding infantry attached with suicide-anim-attached AttachEffect.
Maybe feature like spawning a conscript when the cannonball lands the ground is ridiculous and useless to you, but to us experienced modders they can be definitely put to good use. To put it frankly, we need such bridging traits to connect actors, superweapons, weapons and such. In this way lots of intricate designs could be achieved without having to modify the OpenRA itself (like a hardcoded lightning storm Power), saving time for both you developers and us modders.
For example, original YR, Ares, or Chinese modified HAres has bridging tags enabling modders to: generate a superweapon strike by playing an anim; generate a unit by playing an anim; AttachEffect attaching a unit onto another unit, sharing the mother unit's location, possibly sharing its attacking targets, facing, and experience, but independent otherwise; completely converting a unit into another unit when deploying; converting a unit into another unit when said unit is killed by a weapon, etc. Such features enable experienced YR modders like Kenosis to do many seemingly impossible stuff with the game, and we are planning to do much more on OpenRA platform.
So we are sincerely hoping some developers will help us fulfill our wishes, or tell us how to do, because we don't know programming whatsoever and are unable to develop those features ourselves.(we are willing to try though, as long as someone told us how to do this)
1.SpawnActorPower creating an invisible actor
2.the actor self-destructs via KillSelf trait, giving out debris weapons at random direction with controllable debris number and radius via ThrowsShrapnel
3.the shrapnel weapon each create an invisible actor on impact
4.the second invisible actor KillSelf after set duration, with cloud anim as death animations, and SpawnActorOnDeath creating yet another invisible actor
5.the third invisible actor KillSelf after set duration to sync with the cloud anim, Explodes, and delivers the true lightning bolt anim and the lightning strike damage
The only problem is that there is no way for a weapon to create actors, unlike in ARES where weapons using their anims, could be used to create suiciding infantry attached with suicide-anim-attached AttachEffect.
Maybe feature like spawning a conscript when the cannonball lands the ground is ridiculous and useless to you, but to us experienced modders they can be definitely put to good use. To put it frankly, we need such bridging traits to connect actors, superweapons, weapons and such. In this way lots of intricate designs could be achieved without having to modify the OpenRA itself (like a hardcoded lightning storm Power), saving time for both you developers and us modders.
For example, original YR, Ares, or Chinese modified HAres has bridging tags enabling modders to: generate a superweapon strike by playing an anim; generate a unit by playing an anim; AttachEffect attaching a unit onto another unit, sharing the mother unit's location, possibly sharing its attacking targets, facing, and experience, but independent otherwise; completely converting a unit into another unit when deploying; converting a unit into another unit when said unit is killed by a weapon, etc. Such features enable experienced YR modders like Kenosis to do many seemingly impossible stuff with the game, and we are planning to do much more on OpenRA platform.
So we are sincerely hoping some developers will help us fulfill our wishes, or tell us how to do, because we don't know programming whatsoever and are unable to develop those features ourselves.(we are willing to try though, as long as someone told us how to do this)