Artifact Attack Override?

[fildred13]

I've set up a spell caster to have two spells, plus his primary melee attack. The melee attack is no problem, and the first spell is his special ability, set in the monster tag. I gave him an artifact to give him his second spell, selectable by way of the inventory, and all works swimmingly except for two things:

1) The first spell, being his natural special ability, is listed as "none" in the inventory. How do I change that to say the name of the spell? The second spell is no problem of course, I just associated a string list with the artifact, but the first one...I have no clue?

2) The second spell, selected by way of the inventory, works like a charm, EXCEPT the sequence is still the sequence of the FIRST spell. The attack itself is the one I want, but for some reason even though in the artifact attack override I have clearly set the new sequence for this attack, it still uses the OLD special ability sequence? I'm including a picture of my settings below, since that will explain more than I can with words, I think. What am I missing?

[Jon God]

I've set up a spell caster to have two spells, plus his primary melee attack. The melee attack is no problem, and the first spell is his special ability, set in the monster tag. I gave him an artifact to give him his second spell, selectable by way of the inventory, and all works swimmingly except for two things:

1) The first spell, being his natural special ability, is listed as "none" in the inventory. How do I change that to say the name of the spell? The second spell is no problem of course, I just associated a string list with the artifact, but the first one...I have no clue?

2) The second spell, selected by way of the inventory, works like a charm, EXCEPT the sequence is still the sequence of the FIRST spell. The attack itself is the one I want, but for some reason even though in the artifact attack override I have clearly set the new sequence for this attack, it still uses the OLD special ability sequence? I'm including a picture of my settings below, since that will explain more than I can with words, I think. What am I missing?

1. From what I remember this is stored in the monster name string list. I think the 1.7+(?) manual or mapmaking notes explain this. I used it for Deadfall(All the versions newer than the one on the tain)

2. You will need to make the artifact use the same collection as the unit that is meant to pick it up, if you already have that done, I am not sure, you may have found an obscure bug, see if you are not giving him a different artifact or something. (I could have a hazy memory here, and am forgetting something, too.)

[fildred13]

Thanks JG. I'll disassemble deadfall and have a look, thanks.

As for the the override, "greater mummy2" is the collection of the monster, and I've tested to ensure that the evasculate sequence runs when I just set it up as his attack, rather than doing anything with the artifact. And I'm sure he has the artifact, otherwise the spell wouldn't function perfectly - minus the animation, of course. I'll just revert to my last backup and do it again - sometimes you just miss something.

In case that doesn't pan out though - anyone know of a plug/unit that does this? A pure fear attack override using an artifact? If I could poke around with a functional example of this maybe I could find my error.

[Jon God]

Thanks JG. I'll disassemble deadfall and have a look, thanks.

As for the the override, "greater mummy2" is the collection of the monster, and I've tested to ensure that the evasculate sequence runs when I just set it up as his attack, rather than doing anything with the artifact. And I'm sure he has the artifact, otherwise the spell wouldn't function perfectly - minus the animation, of course. I'll just revert to my last backup and do it again - sometimes you just miss something.

In case that doesn't pan out though - anyone know of a plug/unit that does this? A pure fear attack override using an artifact? If I could poke around with a functional example of this maybe I could find my error.

For that second part, I'd assume that myth 2 itself has this. iirc, either arlic's sword or the powerup for the warlock on the levels shiver.

[fildred13]

I checked out the warlock staff and alrics sword and such. They do basically the same thing, but they don't have sequences associated with the override attack, so basically what I'm considering a bug - the monster using the same animation as their normal - is a "feature" to them.

Except, I assume, they WANT the sequences to override IF they are provided?

I'll keep fiddling. Maybe I can figure something out.

[fildred13]

It works perfectly if I use a monster override instead of an attack override, but that seems like I'm cheating, plus I need to maintain two copies of the monster as I balance changes and stuff, which is an unfortunate side effect of the doubling process.

Consider this a tentative bug report? The attack overrides definitely don'e seem to work unless someone knows something I don't.

Related to all this: I thought maybe evasculate, the second spell, could function on double-click like a bowman's knife. As I understand it, you simply DON'T check "primary attack" or "special ability", and it will function on double click. But I tried that and the command seems to be ignored? Are there any other settings? Is it restricted in some way I don't know?
EDIT: Nevermind, apparently double click only works on melee attack projectiles? Simple setting fixed it.

[Pyro]

Myth mapmaking has its oddities to be sure. I don't recall if this is one of those limitations of the settings you are trying to use or if its just the wrong setting somewhere that prevents your desired effect.

When setting the attack sequence of an attack in an artifact tag, remember you need to set the artifact collection to the unit's collection temporarily to be able to pick the sequence you desire. After that and the sequence has the right settings for normal frequency, you can switch the artifact's collection back to whatever collection contains the inventory status bar icon you want to select for it.

As for the double click attack, it is like you noticed not primary and not special. It also has to be the top attack in a monster tag's list. I know this specific case the attack is in the artifact tag, so just make sure the range is the shortest of all its possible attacks. Yes, it only really works for melee type attacks, but could work with long range attacks if the unit didn't have another option for its attacks.

[fildred13]

Thanks Pyro.

I actually moved away from the artifact attack override for now because it is actually more user friendly to use the "emergency spell" of evasculate with a double click, rather than having to change inventory stuff and THEN ctrl click the targetted spell. It didn't fit with how myth should feel, and the double click ended up being much more fluid.

That isn't to say I didn't TRY to get the artifact attack working - I did, and a lot. And I failed. When I have some free time I'll do a test and try to give the necromancer another spell just as an exercise and I'm sure I'll be back here then. Weird thing is, the collection for the artifact WAS the creatures collection, I hadn't even dealt with the inventory collection yet because I hadn't gotten it working yet. I am really not sure what went wrong, but I'll dig into that more when I'm not so buried in loathing working on the maps.

As for the double click - I found it interesting to hear what you said. Interestingly enough my double click attack is NOT the first attack in the list. What's more, the monster has a melee attack but that isn't the double click attack, it is the 4-range evasculate spell, whose PROJECTILE is marked as a melee attack, but it is not his PRIMARY melee attack. Not sure why it works, maybe he'll pick his melee when he is close enough to use it? I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for that, because I've used evasculate in some pretty tight situations and it always seems to go off, so I'm very curious. Either I'm doing something funky, or maybe they fixed some limitations in the double click attacks in one of the patches?

[Pyro]

I could have mixed up and thought about the attack list in general. Kind of like if you have 2 attacks, it will always try the first if the conditions are right. For double click, I suppose this isn't an issue. So you should be fine then.