Artifacts with Monster Override

[A-Red]

Hey all. I'm sort of an old-school mapmaker, and I've never quite gotten the hang of all this new stuff with artifacts and inventories, so I'm currently having a bit of trouble with an arti I'm trying to implement.

Basically, it's a little orb that a dwarf hero can pick up to turn himself into a strider--in theory, it replaces him with a nearly identical monster that has a greater movement speed and a new object tag with a higher resistance to projectile damage.

I've created the projectile and artifact tags, and created the monster tag to swap in. In the arti tag, I set the monster restriction to the dwarf hero, checked the "Overrides Owner Monster" box, and set the monster override to the augmented dwarf hero. Problem is, the dwarf hero still can't pick up the artifact. I can't see anything else I'm supposed to do--any ideas?

[Pyro]

Is it the same "dwarf hero" monster that is trying to pick up the orb? Is the dwarf hero holding another artifact already?

Just to clarify in case you did otherwise... Monster Restriction Tag should point to the monster tag that can pick up the artifact. Monster Override Tag should point to the monster tag that the original unit will become (swap to). Make sure both monsters use the same collection tag. Did you use Fear for this (instead of Oak)?

[A-Red]

Yes to all. Monster restriction is the regular dwarf hero, monster override is the modified dwarf hero. This is the only artifact at play for that particular unit, and I used Fear. The unmodified dwarf hero should be able to pick up the arti, but can't.

I just realized something else, which is that I specified a set of bonus modifiers in the arti tag rather than putting them in an object tag attached to the new monster. Perhaps they are conflicting? I'll try that as a fix. (Edit: Nope. All bonus effects set back to 1.000, new object tag implemented. No change.)

Is there anything else I should have checked in the arti tag? Only Restricted Monster Overrides, Restricted by Monster Collection? Is there anything I need to do in either of the monster tags to make them accommodate this artifact?

[Pyro]

That just doesn't add up. Maybe the projectile is detonating or promoting to a different projectile that looks like the original. If you are unable to figure it out, zip it up and send it my way.

By the way, the monster tag you wish to swap to will not use the damage modifiers from its object tag. It will use the artifact's modifiers. So whatever you gave the modified dwarf hero's object tag should be used on the artifact instead.

Check that projectile out, something is off that you aren't noticing. Does the projectile's collection even have a selection box wide enough to click on it? For all you know it is too tiny and you are not clicking on it.

[Omicron]

Take a look at The 9 v The Fallen Lords by Souly. He has a dwarf in it which switches between most of the major dwarf types.

[Graydon]

Something might just be corrupted somehow. Have you tried making a fresh arti yet?

I'd also try setting the arti to a different monster restriction and seeing what happens; try modding the regular dwarf?

[A-Red]

So remember how I said I'm really bad at these sorts of tag issues? Apparently I'd just forgotten to link the proj and arti both ways. The artifact pointed to the projectile, but not vice versa. So it's fixed now, right?

No, that would be way too easy. Now it's crashing the map. Since the projectile with no arti attached to it (due to my mistake) was loading up just fine, I assume that the problem is in the arti tag.

The error message is: Error: File system Open in Myth2Code\definitions.c, line #471: couldn't read header for projectile definition ' '.

But the arti is pointing to a valid projectile, and it's the correct projectile for the arti. It shouldn't be looking for that blank header at all, it should be looking for "sto2". I tried redoing the arti from scratch yet again, with no luck.

(the proj tag hasn't been overwritten either. It can't have been anyway--it's the last proj I made)

[Omicron]

Sounds very similar to a problem I had recently. Here.

Basically there was some field that was incorrectly defined. You have to check EVERY field. Like for me, it was the override attack sequences in the artifact. I had just created it and it was set to some funky thing that didn't exist. So I had to set them to "no sequence".

[A-Red]

That was exactly it. Thanks!

[Omicron]

Hey Pyro, look at me! I am actually helping instead of being helped!

This is like having my first Myth mapmaking birthday.