Worms made to attack Infantry?

[firefly101]

Hello,

I was wondering if there was a way to make Worms swallow Infantry they way they do Vehicles. There must be a hex number or something that allows this?

 

thanks

[lovalmidas]

In TibEd, this is encoded in the flag "MoveInfantryZone" for each unit, which on a hex editor represents byte (0x100 * n + 0x11 in Templates.bin file, where n is the Unit ID).

My experiments seem to tell me that setting determines if the unit is an Infantry or a Vehicle:

• MoveInfantryZone (in TibEd; this looks more like "IsInfantry". Values: 00 , 01)
                      * If not an infantry:
                          (1) The unit occupies a full square and not a sub-square.
                          (2) The unit no longer moves into infantry-only zones.
                          (3) The unit loses its firing and death animations (and perhaps the death voice too?)
                          (4) The unit emits smoke at half-health
                          (5) The unit is no longer eligible to be ejected from a sold building. In this case the next available infantry, e.g. the Trooper is used instead
                          (6) The unit is eligible for worm attack

The last point is the item you are looking for. Unfortunately, this control comes as a single switch that controls several things at once. It is not yet certain if finer controls exist for each individual items. If not, you might need some heavier editing (either through other files, e.g. hide the smoke by figuring out invisible smoke, or editing the game executable itself which is not trivial) if you need just the worm attack.

 

 

Edited August 1, 2020 by lovalmidas

[firefly101]

Thank you for the reply, i was afraid of that. I suspected something similar, but I thought it didn't hurt to ask if there was some way. The game was made a long time ago and one can see the difference in the engine from Dune2000 to Emperor, at least on ease of editing.

Well I small work around was to allow the worm to Crush Infantry, I watched a worm chance a unit and crush them, which is not bad, but the swallowing would have been nice!

[Fey]

Just now, firefly101 said:

Well I small work around was to allow the worm to Crush Infantry, I watched a worm chance a unit and crush them, which is not bad, but the swallowing would have been nice!

lmao. That's an interesting workaround. I like the idea. Hey, if your mod is going to involve mostly infantry, you can change the sprites for the infantry crush deaths. Make them get sucked into the ground. Even if a Harvester crushes one, the infantry will still appear to be pulled under the vehicle, so that could work. What do you think?

[Amander]

All you can do is provide enough radius to damage units near targets.

[Fey]

That's another good idea, one I had as well, but we'd need the worm's sprites to be increased in size to really sell that mechanic. I'd love to make the worm attack a 3x3 sort of attack, but I haven't had any luck scaling up the worm's sprites in any remotely decent way.

[Klofkac]

On 8/1/2020 at 9:48 AM, lovalmidas said:

MoveInfantryZone (in TibEd; this looks more like "IsInfantry". Values: 00 , 01)
                    * If not an infantry:
                        (1) The unit occupies a full square and not a sub-square.
                        (2) The unit no longer moves into infantry-only zones.
                        (3) The unit loses its firing and death animations (and perhaps the death voice too?)
                        (4) The unit emits smoke at half-health
                        (5) The unit is no longer eligible to be ejected from a sold building. In this case the next available infantry, e.g. the Trooper is used instead
                        (6) The unit is eligible for worm attack

Just to supplement, this property drives one more thing (7): The announcement that is said when you start building that unit. If MoveInfantryZone is 0, then anouncer says "Building", if 1, then it says "Training". I was looking for a property which drives the announcer, ending up finding MoveInfantryZone is actually a Vehicle/Infantry switch.

[firefly101]

I wanted to ask a question about Squish infantry. Is the setting based on the 32pixel per square or is the number some other calculation?

What I am asking is the current setting is 9 should I change it to 32 to destroy every unit in the square so all 5 infantry are killed instantly?

[Fey]

2 hours ago, firefly101 said:

Squish

When a vehicle heavy enough to crush them moves across a sub-tile, enemy infantry there are instakilled.

The worm attack warhead radius is for when the attack occurs against a vehicle. No need to boost that for 'crushing' infantry!

[firefly101]

No I was asking about the Squish Range in the map editor. Its set for 9 but I wonder what setting to more would do, if that number is based on 32 per square or something else. The AI manual doesn't say.

[Fey]

1 minute ago, firefly101 said:

Squish Range in the map editor

OH, THAT. I think that's 'from how many tiles away should I prioritize crushing infantry over shooting at them. Doesn't affect Harvesters, but it should affect Combat Tanks.

[firefly101]

I see a useless setting for anything but vehicles. oh well.

Maybe later someone will crack the code on some of this stuff.

[firefly101]

I wonder is there a unique death animation for squished infantry or is it used for other deaths as well? Reason I ask is if its unique to squishing infantry then I could possibly replace animation with the worm eating them on death?

[Fey]

55 minutes ago, firefly101 said:

I wonder is there a unique death animation for squished infantry

To my knowledge, the death animation for squished infantry is unique to squishing infantry. No weapon should use that sort of death animation. Each death animation should be eight frames total, so I imagine squishing them is eight frames too. There might be one animation that's twelve frames, IIRC, but I don't remember which one that is. I just know it ain't for squished infantry.

I wouldn't recommend making the animation be that the worm eats the infantry though! The worm can "crush" multiple infantry at once, so I would recommend, simply, an animation of them being quickly pulled into the ground.

I would also love to have a look at this sort of behavior for the worm in my own mod, so having an animation like that which wouldn't look wrong under vehicles OR when a worm passes beneath the infantry would be a fantastic and very welcome addition.

[firefly101]

Neat Idea, kinda like tremors movie. I wish I knew which  one was the animation it would have saved time checking, but I like the idea of pulling down, maybe a black spot like a hole also. Thanks I was hoping it was unique, I know it wont be certain ones as they have weapons flying around and stuff. So I will get to work on something, and may make 2 types one with worm eating and one pulled under.

[Fey]

Considering your work on the Troopers, I imagine whatever you come up with will look great. Many less frames to work on, too, but just gotta do it for more infantry.

I checked the animations for... I think it was the Sardaukar or Saboteur at one point. Here were my notes on them:
Death 1 (shocked / knocked)
1106
1113
1120
1127
1134
1141
1148
1155
1162
1163
1164
1165

Death 2 (bullets)
1107
1114
1121
1128
1135
1142
1149
1156

Death 3 (missiles)
1108
1115
1122
1129
1136
1143
1150
1157

Death 4 (explosive)
1109
1116
1123
1130
1137
1144
1151
1158

Death 5 (Sab kaboom, prob crush too)
1110
1117
1124
1131
1138
1145
1152
1159

I think those frame numbers are for the Sardaukar. Perhaps the setup for other infantry is consistent with this style, where the next frame in a death animation is down eight. and they mostly have a total of eight frames. The death animations tend to be a bit over the top, so maybe as the infantry are pulled down, some blood spurts up? A black hole would look kind of strange appearing for only eight frames; the infantry being pulled into the ground can be made apparent without such a thing appearing, I'm certain.

Anyway, hope that helps.

[firefly101]

Thank you, I have no idea exactly what will be done until I work on them and see what it looks like. I figure to take one unit and do a test, like you said a black hole may not look right etc. what I want to do is make it look like they were pulled under. Now I just need to see what works in game. Hands in the air being pulled down would look nice. lol