Well these are the classical situations where experience is the key. But I don't think that any skilled modder is going to help us (maybe they are not even considering this thread atm). I'll wait for further details.

1.31:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?txvjj5tbjhy

I'm starting working on unit priorities as machater mentioned before.

I've been messing around target priorities and I got a terrible doubt about their function.

Every unit has labels to identify them among all other units. For example nuclear defense\strike silo has 'SILO' as label.

My idea was: we can edit target priorities labels to tell the AI what to attack first, as machater suggested in this post:

So I took a loyalist and added the 'MASSEXTRACTION' to them, to see if they're going to attack Mexes first.

If you order area attack (red circle), they will follow the usual orders, ignoring the new Priority Label. AI loyalists are following common orders, without giving priority to mexes; passive units or units with movement command won't attack mexes first. They follow a line from the closest to the most distant, as usual.
I tried with removing 'ALLUNITS' and 'MOBILE LAND' labels, changed labels position, but no result at all.

I can't understand why it is not working properly.

If we'll find a solution, well, this will remove tons of micro since you can area click and units will know what target is the most important and they can choose what can be ignored. It is crucial when enemy AI has big bases with turrets hard to select in the skirmish.

I've just tried to unzip the latest file (v1.31), and get CRC errors on 2 files. I've tried downloading twice...does this zip have problems by any chance?

I suppose that the "Area attack" is really something like..."units go there and kill everything that's in your path"..atleast it's a logical course of action to target everything you come across and try to deal as much damage as possible.

Think of following scenario. If a gigantic base has 2 factories at 2 distant ends and units would go after priority targets althou you ordered an area attack, then they could easily be destroyed without having done any damage, making the area attack a bit useless.

Either you target something on purpose or you just want to destroy as much as possible. That's also my guess why the area attack doesn't follow any priorized order.

Why the AI ignores those i can't tell...strange

why unzip it? just put the .scd in the gamedata folder

or are you trying to modify it?

You have just to put ESCHmod_1.3.scd in you \gamedata folder. I did not see any CRC error in the file.

@EAGLEPRYDE: Yes, I agree with your pov. But still I want to optimize the game targeting system 'cause it can really help.

I've actually been combining mods (this one and the experimental tower defense). I still have the CRC error on this version, but I just replaced those 2 .dds files with the ones from the 1.30 version. Maybe somthing unique to 7-zip?

What are those files?

When my summer break starts(may 11th) I will have a bunch of time and I can dive into the whole priority issue.

The paint attack just selects whichever units the red circle touches first and attacks in that order. The priority list is going to be for auto attacking, but there are several things that will affect it.

If you have a fatboy moving from point A to point B and two units come into range at the EXACT same moment, the fatboys guns should prioritize targets and go for the higher one. If however the fatboy comes into range of 1 unit 0.5 seconds before the 2nd unit, he won't switch targets even if the other one is a higher priority. This is somewhat simplified.

I guess for now my best advice is to just ignore the whole threat crap, focus on the balancing work you are doing.

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I am close to releasing the next version of my AI mod, and when its done I will make a "special" version that works better with your mod.

Good to know ^^
All right then, I have not found anything to mod right now. I seriously need to play at least a MATCH after this hard job!

if you have no more modding to do, you can go back and "fix" your mod so it isnt such a massive download.

Rather than copy/pasting the entire unit blueprint(.bp) files and then just changing a couple values, plus having ALL the files that the unit needs in the mod, you can just merge your changes.

I did two units for you so you can see how it will work.
Cybran fighter/bomber and fatboy.
Cybran F/B (uca0103)


FatBoy(uux0101)


The only real hard part might be the weapons. For example, if you wanted to change the small guns to 30 damage, but leave the main gun at original value, you still need the brackets.
It would look like this




Doing it this way you won't need to include any files other than those you modify. No .dds, no .scm.

The total mod download size would be like 200kb or something tiny. Plus then other people can mod the other values, see exactly what you changed very quickly, and when GPG releases patches with balance changes, you don't have to worry about anything.

Only a question: will it be compatible with other mods (like yours) by doing so?
Also, what file am I going to edit?

That's easy...because of the "merge" command you overwrite the old values with the new ones.

In this case you don't need the big vanilla files and only put values in a tiny file that should overwrite the old ones.

welcome to lua *haha*..scm are only the big "zip" files where countless .bp are put together...lua.scm and bp.scm are 2 such files. inside them you can find things like the skirmish ai...had a look at them yesterday.

Althou i haven't done much in this direction it's easy to read...oh well...programming is always the same in some way

Regarding units you'd have to know how many weapons a unit has and what weapon comes first, second, third...

If you add more damage lines than what the unit has...oh well..can't be good.

But it's really easy made and will save a lot space in the mod because you use really only those things you really need.

and just as little side note...today we'll have our little game. And a friend of me who also played with me online to test your mod is coming too This will be some major testing ^^

Great! That's good to know!

P.S.: Although I understood what you said, I don't know exactly what I'm going to edit, and we'll speak about it asap via steam.

the same file you edited to make your original changes. the uca0103_unit.bp. etc.

Basically you are just deleting everything you don't change from the file and adding merge = true and referencing the original blueprint with BlueprintId = .

It actually doesn't matter all that much which file your changes are in, as long as it is a .bp file in an appropriate directory it will get loaded. You could put all your unit changes in the same file and it would work. Having separate files just helps keep things clean and organized

----------------------------------------------

Doing this will increase compatibility with other mods.

Just deleted everything except unit.bp...you'll get roughly a 226kb .scd file what's great for size.

It's up to if you want to keep the whole unit.bp or cut it in lines.

Theres a great guide on all this stuff.
While not all of the information pertains to SC2, the vast majority of it does.

viewtopic.php?t=34567

Just wanted to play with my friend and now i keep getting desync's at game start. Could it be that gpg changed something in the vanilla unit.bp or related that collides with your modded version?

I have an idea.maybe the merge idea from machater would make it work because it overwrites just values no matter how much gpg would add to the vanilla files.that's my guess on the matter.easiest would be to test it with only 1 unit bevor changing everything.

Are you positive you both are running 100% exact same stuff? Even the smallest difference in what you have and what your friend has will cause a desync. If you have been editing files, it could be something as simple as the last modified date on yours doesn't match his and that is breaking something.

Desynch is not depending from gpg. Desynch applies when both files are not equal. If you have accidentally edited a file and then you have removed the changes and saved it, it is a different file so you have to delete it in order to be perfectly compatible.

Guys, I think that the merge command should be enough, anyway it will require a bit of time, but I will need someone that is going to test it for possible errors and opens and check every modified .bp file. I will start working asap at this conversion project.

My bad..seems that was a bit tired and overlooked one of the most important parts. The timestamp of the files haven't been the same because i renamed it to zip to look for some things and then changed it back to scd. And for synchronization you normally take the timestamp. Shame on me *lol*..i can screw up sometimes too.

I could help you testing anytime Esch1lus.

@ Machater..thx for the guide..it's really enlightening in some points.

Miniaturization completed. I will send you a beta copy. Let me know if there are typos or syntax errors.

Please check all those units, especially experimentals, and adjust nuke silos for all 3 factions. I don't know how to semplify their .bp file.

Ok so 1.5 is ready to go.

Why 1.5? Because it required a huge work of polishing and balancing again.

What's new?
- Mobile Shields are finally corrected (some missing changes);
- Tons of typos and misc errors finally fixed;
- Bots AA damage now perfectly balanced;
- Structure Experimental Life real x4; Experimentals in the exception (apart from transports) are now 4x\2x like the others.