Zero's art

[Zerovirus]

Some of them could do with out the "steel" part, like Cybercore, but then some couldn't. Like Steel Slasher; Slasher just sounds too generic.

So I have an idea for a unit; the Steel Lightcloaker. It basically can be made (with rightclick) to look like any Steelhive unit, regardless of levels, to the opponent. A "fake" unit. I could think of many things to do with it... Make a fake assault head on while strong Lv3s sneak through fog of war to assassinate enemy leader... Evacuate leader while making a decoy at the original base to waste opponent time... Scare opponent by making army seem bigger than actually is...

Would this work in WML? And if it would, do you guys think it's a balanced idea? I mean, it would add a lot of variety to the Steelhive faction...

[melinath]

Changing the appearance definitely works. Changing the attacks and such works, too, but would be majorly unbalanced, unless the unit can only mimic units of the same level and lower.

I think... you could actually make it so that it looks exactly like the unit but the attacks fizzle when there's actually a combat situation. Yes. This is definitely possible. Want me to code it? Please? Would be fun.

[Zerovirus]

Thank god you offered, I have no idea how to do the most basic WML.

Don't make the attacks change, but make it look like they did on the right sidebar with all the stats.

Basically, the enemy attacks fake unit, the Lightshifter uses a weak crappy Light Ray (3-2) move, the opponent goes "OMG I got tricked" and I lol as I carry out my plan of ultimate victory.

[melinath]

To do this, I would need .pngs and stats for all the units - or at least for a couple units, so I can test. I mean, I could also just randomly pick stats, but that would kind of be pointless. Do you have .cfg files and such for them?

[Zerovirus]

Erm...

I told you I wasn't good in this techincal stuff. I have a bunch of PNGs without shadows (MS Paint ) But I'm sure the PNGs will work without the shadows, cuz they're not actually central to game play, right? (Please tell me I'm right.)

As for Cfgs, I have no idea what those are. Can you explain?

I have most of the units basic stats dredged out, but of course I have to actually get them ingame so I can test them out... And that's where WML and your assistance comes in.

[melinath]

If you post the stats or PM them to me, I'll whip up cfg files for them. (That's what the game uses to make the units.) For testing purposes, I'll make an era that just uses default plus these. Any preference for a name?

What do you mean, without shadows? The unit tree you just posted has shadows...

EDIT:: Oh, and default graphics for the shapeshifter unit would be useful, too...

[Zerovirus]

EDIT: Sorry didn't see your edit. I haven't chosen which one to use but for placeholder use the one on the left.

Lightshifter:


Name? Steelhive.

Well it's shadows, but I thought it had to be transparent to work in the game and I don't have a program to do that. Unless the game does it for you? That would help a lot.

Stats: (REALLY WIP- I haven't tested at all obviously.)

They have no traits (hive organization duh) and are obviously 1 gendered. (Male? Neutral? Idk)

Steel Slasher:
Lv1 Neutral
Cost: 14
HP: 25
XP: 35
Attacks:
Slash (3,5)
Upgrades to Steel Bladewhirler or Steel Vector

Steel Bladewhirler:
Lv2 Chaotic
Cost: 33 (But shouldn't be able to buy, after all they're supposed to be rare mutants)
HP: 35 (Not much improvement)
XP: 80 (AMLA)
Attacks:
Bladewhirl (3,8, Swarm, Berserker) (I'm not sure if number of attacks or damage of attacks come first in gameplay. For sake of my own convenience let's say second number in the stats is attack amount.)
Max Level

Steel Vector:
Lv2 Neutral
Cost: 31
HP: 45
XP: 75
Attacks:
Vectorblade (7,5)
Upgrades to Steel Vorpal

Steel Vorpal:
Lv3 Neutral
Cost: 55
HP: 65
XP: 125 (AMLA)
Attacks:
Vorpalblade (8, 7)
Max Level

Steel Oculus:
Lv1 Neutral
Cost: 16
HP: 25
XP: 35
Attacks:
Spin (5, 2) (Slashing damage)
Jolt (1, 9) (Ranged electrical attack, not magical)
Upgrades to Steel Sparkgazer

Steel Sparkgazer:
Lv2 Neutral
Cost: 39
HP: 40
XP: 80
Attacks:
Chargespin (5, 4) (Slashing Damage)
Sparkgaze (3, 6) (Ranged, elec)
Upgrades to Steel Boltstriker

Steel Boltstriker:
Lv3 Neutral
Cost: 69
HP: 60
XP: 135 (AMLA)
Attacks:
Raze Whirl (6, 5) (Slashing Damage)
Boltstrike (3, 11) (Ranged, elec)
Max Level

These are probably realllly unbalanced but I suppose that can be edited in the long run. Thanks again.

[melinath]

What do you mean by an electrical attack? That isn't one of the damage types... your choices are: arcane, blade, cold, impact, fire, pierce, and I don't think I can add one (sorry!)

EDIT::
Also, it'd be useful to know what you were thinking for movement and defense and for resistances.

EDIT EDIT::
Also, missing stats for the Amniote, choriote, the leader line, and the shapeshifter.

EDIT EDIT EDIT::
But this is enough to get started. Thanks!

Getting the shadows transparent is easy for me to do. But if you have time and work on the sprites a bit more, could you change the bg color to something like green that isn't in any of the sprites? That would make it easier for me. Also, the shadows should be a slightly different color and pointing northwest.

[Zerovirus]

I was thinking elec-attacks are like a trait, like Swarm and Berserker. Basically the enemy's movement points are halved next turn if he gets hit. Original I know.

Movement... Steel Slasher and all upgrades cannot move across any form of water or swamp except villages or bridges built on them, though they can only move 1 hex at a time (they eat up 6 movepoints, yannow, water + electronics = be careful not to fall into) on those. They move pretty much equally across all terrain save impassable, obviously. 6 hexes each move time. As for defense, 50% defense in forest, 40% defense in hills, 50% defense on grass/flat, 60% defense on cave and desert, 30% defense in villages (OMG how do I open these freaking doors? Humans and elves are so uncivilized. Not even magnetic slider doors that read passcodes, I mean, seriously. ~Hive Queen), and 10% on bridges or villages built in aquatic areas.

Steel Oculus line can move like normal across water since they're flying units. Obviously 50% defense on all terrain.

If I forgot any category of defense or movement remind me.

I don't have the stats for the Amniote line done yet, and the other units I kinda came up with the idea of just today.

Sorry for the laziness of BG color, I was using the standard purewhite of MS Paint... I'll make them green or something tomorrow. After 10 AM. Forum Time.

EDIT:
Resistances... The entire Steelhive faction has a 30% resist against arcane. (means it deals 30% less damage right?) Because they're machines and magic doesn't really make a difference to them and yeah. They are, however, 10% vulnerable to Impact.

[melinath]

If you ever get a chance to do some extra artwork, having attack icons for the slasher and ocular lines would be snazzy, and a portrait for the lightshifter would look great next to the shift selection dialogue.

EDIT:: All righty, everyone. The Steelhive faction is in its infancy, but it's up on the 1.7 add-on server. Have fun being ninjas with the likely terribly unbalanced lightshifters! I'll open a feedback thread in the Factions+Eras forum...

Zerovirus: I haven't added the electricity effect yet. Tomorrow, perhaps. What damage type should the attack be? Fire or arcane seem to be the closest available options.

[thespaceinvader]

Getting the shadows transparent is easy for me to do. But if you have time and work on the sprites a bit more, could you change the bg color to something like green that isn't in any of the sprites? That would make it easier for me. Also, the shadows should be a slightly different color and pointing northwest.

Actually, circular shadows should be directly under the unit, and be flattened vertically as those are (though somethign a little more elliptical would be good) check out the recent flying units (the Drakes that have been committed recently) to see how to work them.

[Zerovirus]

If you ever get a chance to do some extra artwork, having attack icons for the slasher and ocular lines would be snazzy, and a portrait for the lightshifter would look great next to the shift selection dialogue.

Portraits? Attack Icons? I don't even know how to do the second one. Probably no different from a portrait though...

Great. So now I have to learn GIMP too. Oh well. Shouldn't take too long. I was really bad when I started messing with spriting too. Besides, can the Lightshifter's portrait be that hard? It's basically a flying metal egg made out of bricks.

EDIT:: All righty, everyone. The Steelhive faction is in its infancy, but it's up on the 1.7 add-on server. Have fun being ninjas with the likely terribly unbalanced lightshifters! I'll open a feedback thread in the Factions+Eras forum...

It's great (for me) to see that you're actually interested in this project and not one of the guys (like me) who show up, say, "oh that's cool", throw in a few crappy graphics, and leave.

Unbalanced? Definitely.The whole faction too. And the effect isn't complete either, I thinks. More info in feedback thread...

No, the lightshifters are merely (fun) decoys. The ninja I was planning to do with the Drone=>Scout=>Recon line. Basically they can move unseen on all terrain except water-based terrain, but are exposed when an enemy unit moves on a hex adjacent to it. To make up for their invisible skulking, they have horrible move points and a high cost (thinking maybe 18 or 19).

Zerovirus: I haven't added the electricity effect yet. Tomorrow, perhaps. What damage type should the attack be? Fire or arcane seem to be the closest available options.

No damage type. Just electricity, like swarm or berserker. However, I do want a bit of info in the Manual about electricity, and make it the defense-counterattack for all ranged and magical attacks. If a damage type is necessary, use ranged (is that applicable?).

EDIT:
I made the Steelhive Queen. Even if I don't know how exactly it's going to get included I'm thinking of it as a Lv4 unit that isn't an upgrade from lower level units. Don't know attacks yet. But it will be powerful. You can depend on that one.

[wesfreak]

this idea sound's interesting. i would personally want to see it in era of the future, but if you want it there you'll need to ask the others i guess.

for your "electrical" thing that haves movement speed, why not make it slows?


what if you were to make two units : young hive queen (lvl2), which has only controlled a hive for a small amount of time, and hive queen (lvl 3). the hive queen advances from the young hive queen and they are the leader units of the faction.
This would explain why you can only recruit lvl 1 units : the young hive queen doesn't know how to make them yet.
You can make them powerfull, but not lvl 4 powerfull. it shouldn't be god-like just really strong.

the lvl 2 form is for normall games and the lvl 3 form is for age of heroes style games.

there is one way i know of to create the "fake unit" thing. (to help make it so that the attacks change but don't work) we could give them dummy attacks (attacks that look like they are there but don't do anything). there's something similar to this in a campaign i played (forgot what it's called) but the attacks actually work. also, when you see the unit description, it shows you the dexcription of the unit it's pretending to be.

I also know a bit of coding, and will help out if i can.


a damage type is necessary, and so is a range: you can make it range, defend only, and fire (but people have created new damage types before).

[Zerovirus]

EDIT: Working on Battle animations for the units now. I have the Slasher, Vector, and Vorpal done.

this idea sound's interesting. i would personally want to see it in era of the future, but if you want it there you'll need to ask the others i guess.

for your "electrical" thing that haves movement speed, why not make it slows?

And why don't I just make it electric and slows? Because I didn't want to. Too many addon factions already have slows. And this probably isn't going in Era of the Future if I can help it. The Steelhive is a totally separate project.

what if you were to make two units : young hive queen (lvl2), which has only controlled a hive for a small amount of time, and hive queen (lvl 3). the hive queen advances from the young hive queen and they are the leader units of the faction.
This would explain why you can only recruit lvl 1 units : the young hive queen doesn't know how to make them yet.
You can make them powerfull, but not lvl 4 powerfull. it shouldn't be god-like just really strong.

the lvl 2 form is for normall games and the lvl 3 form is for age of heroes style games.

Already one step ahead of ya man. Steel Larva=>Steel Pupa=>Steel Hivequeen=>Hive Empress. And then I have a campaign idea, though I'm not sure anyone's going to be making it anytime soon. Besides the Hivequeen probably isn't going to appear in the faction as a recruitable unit. At the best it will be a leader-only unit with restrictions on attack. You only get to see true hivequeens and hive empresses in the potential Campaign if we ever get around to one.

there is one way i know of to create the "fake unit" thing. (to help make it so that the attacks change but don't work) we could give them dummy attacks (attacks that look like they are there but don't do anything). there's something similar to this in a campaign i played (forgot what it's called) but the attacks actually work. also, when you see the unit description, it shows you the dexcription of the unit it's pretending to be.

I also know a bit of coding, and will help out if i can.

Cool. Good to see we've got another guy helping out. I've been pushing melinath to fix every tiny annoyance lately, XD.

a damage type is necessary, and so is a range: you can make it range, defend only, and fire (but people have created new damage types before).

Well apparently I haven't played enough to catch the difference between damage type and whatever the other thing was called. :/

[melinath]

there is one way i know of to create the "fake unit" thing. (to help make it so that the attacks change but don't work) we could give them dummy attacks (attacks that look like they are there but don't do anything). there's something similar to this in a campaign i played (forgot what it's called) but the attacks actually work. also, when you see the unit description, it shows you the dexcription of the unit it's pretending to be.

I also know a bit of coding, and will help out if i can.


a damage type is necessary, and so is a range: you can make it range, defend only, and fire (but people have created new damage types before).

The discussion of what kind of damage type etc. units should have got split in two... really, it's mostly in the feedback/balancing thread now. As far as coding... if you beat me to something and it works, yay. The fake unit thing is already coded though (I'm assuming you mean the lightshifter) and works just fine.