Need Suggestions on Making a Necromancer

[fildred13]

Alright, I'll look into the chimera ability, thanks for the tip.

@Pyro: I agree with you, that would indeed be the best way to handle it, but if I do it that way no thrall appears. I think it has to do with the thrall being summoned on the exact spot where a unit (the creator) is already standing.

[fildred13]

I looked into the teleport and the method worked, but then I opened up my first local folder and thought I would try one thing. Sure enough centered on target and detonates immediatley gave a fully functional General Action. I am using a combination of the two to create some cool effects. Thanks a bunch guys!

[Road]

Not sure if you can use these but feel free too if it works into your project:
http://tain.totalcodex.net/items/show/r ... collection

[fildred13]

I've been looking at every undead I can find, and I did indeed come across those before and think that they are cool. For the single player portion of this plug they would be cool, because it would be the player's prerogative to customize his force to be heavy axe-wielders or tank-ing sword & shielders or bowman.

For the multiplayer portion, I am trying to stick with bungie creations so that people feel at home with every unit except the necromancer.

Actually, this is a good moment to ask this question: right now I am working on converting Creep on the Borderlands and Gyre in the Wabe to include my necromancer, as well as tweaking the unit trade to make the necromancer a more valuable asset on the field. For Creep, the trade is heavily warriors (who can become thrall), medium amount of zerks (who become bonemen), 3-6 heron guard healers (who become myrms), the standard number of creep bowmen (soulless), and a smattering of non-raisable dorfs, ghols, and wights.

Anyone forsee problems? Would perhaps a different raise unit be more appropriate for a given unit? (maybe thrall elite instead of bonemen for zerks?)

I'm plan on releasing the plug today in hopes of getting some play time and good beta testing so I can improve the scripting of the necromancer and balance the trade.

[Road]

Im sure someone else could give allot more (and better) advice on this but Ill throw in something....

Id perhaps go with the closest unit cost, I think archer to soulless is an even trade (both being a 3 point unit) but soulles may have an advantage on some maps with difficult terrain and impassable areas like water (a very big advantage with game types such as capture the ball).

Thrall are slow and weak, a one point unit that may make it almost pointless to even bother summoning...ghasts arnt too bad for their paralyzing ability.

Ghosts are another basic MythII undead unit but may not work for you. Kind of tacky.

Without modifying the units I personally dont think theres going to be that great of a balance.

[fildred13]

I am hoping that, because both sides start with an even trade of units, the balance will be in the fact that everyone starts with the light units, and slowly their armies convert from living to dead. I think big team battles will workout fine because each side only has one necromancer. The necromancer can certainly turn the tide of any skirmish anywhere on the map, but you do have to get the necromancer close enough to the bodies to raise them, which puts him in the path of danger (he is about as "strong" as a warlock, from a defensive standpoint.)

Road, I appreciate your input. Thrall are a tough trade, you're right, but thrall are just so ... Myth. I can't imagine my plug without thrall . You raise a good point though. I've been considering thrall elite and ghasts, but since neither are a common sight on a Myth 2 battlefield, I didn't want to make things too radical to start. (I want to see my plug get played.) I'll do some internal testing with ghasts and thrall elite though and see if they don't overpower the team that gets them.

I can also just beef up the thrall a little if they are too useless. Another option. But again, I don't want this plug to feel too much like a 3rd party plug. I want it to feel like something that could have been a part of myth.

[fildred13]

A problem has arisen that I have spent quite some time working on to no avail.

The "Raise Dead" spell works like a charm -most- of the time. But when I cast it on a large pile of dead bodies (I've never seen it happen on a pile less than 10) the script will cause an endless stream of undead to come from ONE body. The body doesn't disappear after an undead is created, so the script loops, finds the same body, and repeats itself.

This is an example mythlog error:

2011-06-21 10:42:16 ### MA [ctrl] Give Zerk Body: couldn't give object #31261 to monster #84

In other cases, it is Warrior Body, or Bowman body, etcetc.

As I said, the script works fine -usually-. I double checked to make sure the monster i'm giving the body to has the ammunition be01, I checked to make sure that was a zerk body tag, the script for zerks is identical to the script for warriors, bowman, etc, so it doesn't appear to be my map actions that broke it explicitly. Edit: In fact, all corpses have the potential to do endlessly loop; more testing confirmed this. I can't tell what causes it, but whenever i am playing multiplayer WITH other necromancers on the map, then it happens. It never happens in solo with just one necro.


What would cause this?

[Pyro]

Are you sure the bodies are the same that you chose to be an ammo type to the units meant to pick them up? Do these units have an opening for ammo instead of their max set to 0? Maybe your script has a flaw in it that makes it loop without giving it time to grab the body before it starts looking for the next.

[fildred13]

The answer to almost all of your questions is: it works usually. In other words, playing the map ALONE insures this error will NEVER HAPPEN. Same scripts, same tags; but it all works exactly as intended. When both teams are on the map, though, something blows up. To be thorough, though, I've double checked everything.

ammunition tags are all correct.
maximum count is set to 1000
I don't see how time could have anything to do with it. The script won't move on until the body-giving completes. As I mentioned in my last post, the log makes it clear what the problem is: 2011-06-21 10:42:16 ### MA [ctrl] Give Zerk Body: couldn't give object #31261 to monster #84. I wish it gave a reason. To be clear, I'm not shooting down your idea, I'm just trying to reason through why I don't think that is the issue.

It only happens when there is a BIG pile of bodies. What's up with that? There need to be 20 or more bodies inside the circle radius for the "can't give object" error to start popping up. The script works GREAT in singleplayer and whenver there are less than 20 bodies in a given area in multiplayer. Why on earth would the script break only when there are TONS of bodies?