Modder's Q&A thread

[Kletian999]

I was thinking it'd be great to have a resource thread for questions future modders might have that haven't been covered in tutorials yet.

The Feedback attack does damage based on lost HP, but I don't see where in the XML file for attacks that logic exists.  Can you explain that?

[bugfartboy]

If you look in the Atk tag for it, you might notice a selfHealFactor property.  This is the percentage of damage done that gets restored as health. It's limit is your max health, because it doesn't do anything to raise your health cap.

It's worth noting that setting it to a negative number does nothing.

Likewise attacks like Soul Suck use the selfFocusFactor property. Like selfHealFactor it determines the amount of damage or shielding that gets restored as energy.

It's worth noting that you CAN use a negative number with this property to add a variable cost to an attack, such as in Transfer.


If there are any more questions you have, if I can answer them I will. :)

[CraigStern]

This is a good idea for a thread! I'm stickying it. ;)

[Kletian999]

So if I understand, an Attack with the "life drain" property but 0% self heal coefficient becomes an non-healing attack that's damage capped to how much you lost?

[bugfartboy]

What do you mean by "life drain" property?  There is no such thing. A "vampire" attack such as feedback is simply a regular attack that damages health with a selfHealFactor greater than 0.

[CraigStern]

The selfHealFactor of an attack is multiplied by the damage the attack does--whatever the product of the damage and the selfHealFactor is, it's added to the attacker's health (up to the attacker's maximum health). If the attack would do more damage than the attacker has health missing, it does only enough damage to bring the attack to max health.

To give an attack this "life drain" behavior, all you have to do is set selfHealFactor to a number higher than 0.

[Kletian999]

Feedback doesn't heal the user though (or does it and I've been dumb?)

[Thaecrasis]

An enemy used it on me once and got healed from it; so I guess it does heal. I've yet to use it myself though

[bugfartboy]

Feedback does indeed heal it's user based on the damage it deals, which is dependant on how damaged the caster is and what level their Psy Defense is. It's big sister Vengeance is the same way, but it spreads the damage over more spaces (Although it doesn't seem to make an appearance in the main campaign judging from the Attacks.xml file)

[Kletian999]

Haha wow, that makes the attack much more fun to use.  Can't believe I missed that.

[bugfartboy]

I'm having trouble creating a second AI army in a single player campaign.  I've taken a look at several "Vengeance of Emma Strider" battles featuring multiple AI armies, and haven't been able to duplicate it.  Even when I told the map editor to add characters of armies 0, 1, and 2 only 0 and 1 get added to the field come launch time. What am I missing?

[CraigStern]

Read this yet? http://sinisterdesign.net/tutorial-making-a-telepath-tactics-campaign-part-12/ ;)

[bugfartboy]

I had forgotten that the tutorial even existed DX.  Well I've got it now, thanks.

[CraigStern]

No worries. Don't forget, I've posted a Table of Contents for the tutorial series, so you should have a thorough reference available for any of the topics I've covered there. :)

[SollunarEclipse]

Hello All,
I've been trying out the custom single player campaign feature. So far I've been following the tutorial and at Part 5, where it tells you to load your campaign, my intro narration does play out. However, I then get stuck on the loading screen and the battle never actually loads. Anyone know what the problem is?