Help on Special Effects - Flame Strike

[SlayMaximus]

I'm working on a TD in which I want to toss Napalm balls from a catapult. The projectile speed is slower to give the effect of flaming balls being flung about. When they hit the ground (target), I want to create a flame strike effect, either by triggering an actual flame strike ability to create a persistent damage effect or simply creating the special effect at the right location and using the attack parameters for damage.

I though this would be routine and had seen other TDs (like Wintermaul) do something similar. But, it seems that they trigger the special effect when a unit is attacked using a trigger event. Using this model, I developed the following:

Napalm
Events
Unit - A unit owned by Player 12 (Brown) Is attacked
Conditions
(Unit-type of (Attacking unit)) Equal to Napalm Catapult (Fire)
Actions
Special Effect - Create a special effect at (Position of (Attacked unit)) using Abilities\Spells\Human\FlameStrike\FlameStrike1.mdl

Unfortunately, this causes the effect to occur immediately upon the initialization of the attack (i.e. when the napalm is launched) and not when it actually impacts the target. In Wintermaul, for example, this problem is avoided by using a very fast projectile speed (10000) so the delay in imperceptible. I also cannot find an event for when a unit takes damage from (instead is attacked by) a specific unit.

Any ideas how to implement this?

 

[IceDevil9]

I think the only thing you could do is what Wintermaul did, to increase the projectile speed so its undetectable.

And takes damage from is almost the same as is attacked by.

-Frank

 

[Darimus]

You could use Unit - Specific Unit: Unit Takes Damage.

This isn't a feasable option however, until the patch comes out which features the Event Response - Damage Source.

An option that can be working for now, is to make a Wait, which is as long as the cooldown. (So if you made the cooldown 2 seconds for example, do Wait 2.00)

 

[SlayMaximus]

Thanks for the comments. The best I could come up with, which is pretty close, is to create the trigger as below. It is similar to what you are suggesting Darimus, i think. It delays a period of time based on the distance the projectile travels to the target and can be tweaked so that the effect matches the projectile impact. Using the distance makes it more exact than a simple fixed delay. I tried (briefly) downloading the beta patch from Westfall and also modifying the storm bolt abilty to try and create the desired effect, but neither was as sucessful as below.

Napalm
Events
Unit - A unit owned by Player 12 (Brown) Is attacked
Conditions
(Unit-type of (Attacking unit)) Equal to Napalm Catapult (Fire)
Actions
Set Distance = (Distance between (Position of (Attacked unit)) and (Position of (Attacking unit)))
Set Flame_Delay = (Distance / 1000.00)
Game - Display to (All players) the text: (Waiting: + (String(Flame_Delay)))
Wait Flame_Delay seconds
Special Effect - Create a special effect at (Position of (Attacked unit)) using Abilities\Spells\Human\FlameStrike\FlameStrike1.mdl