Structures On Water (e.g. Shipyard)?

[Bibber 0]

Is there a way to realize that we can build a building (e.g. Shipyard) on water?

[DetoNato 0]

Maybe BuildPlacementTypeFlag or BuildOnRequiredObjectKindOf could help you. You can find both in the AlienSporePod.xml.

[Bibber 0]

I already tried that. As you can see in the xsd there is no type for building on water.

[Dibelius 0]

I already tried that. As you can see in the xsd there is no type for building on water.

 

And even if you create a new one on your own it is not possible whatever you do.

The problem is the water surface itself. It probably works on normal ground surfaces for sure.

[Mighty BOB! 0]

This is just a random half-arsed newb idea, but, instead of trying to build on the surface of the water, could you just make a really tall model with support columns that extend to the seabed? Of course this presents a problem with varying water depths.

[Dibelius 0]

We thought about all that. The problem with this and similiar ideas is, that you have no control how the player actually places the building. Nothing prevents him from rotating it towards the coast side... the ships would appear on land then :unsure:

 

The same with deployable MCV-like ship yards. You could build them everywhere, no matter on which surface (if this even works on water, dunno)

[DJRowley 0]

Hmm... maybe you could replace the dropship ability with a call in sea-MCV ability. It would have to be targeted on water, and the vehicle which you called in would only have water locomotors- thus, yes it would build on land, but you would never be able to get it on land in the first place.

 

Failing that, make shipyards a tech structure and give engineers the ability to swim...

[Waraddict 0]

If you can build movable units just as you could structures, here's an idea.

 

Make the shipyard a vehicle, with a special locomotor.

 

This locomotor has speed 0, It's BehaviorZ="SURFACE_RELATIVE_HEIGHT" and its PreferredHeight="0", if things go well, it should stay ontop of the water, regardless of the depth and it shouldn't be able to move.

 

but of course, part of this problem is not being able to place on the water in the first place right? in which case, some sort of deployable structure may be the best option, perhaps though, if the structure has no geometry it might work, if it does, you could use a granted upgrade or death timer to replace the building with the right version that has geometry.

 

Another option, would be to use the Scrin Growth Accelerator method. Have preplaced objects on a map where a Shipyard can be placed, all you have to do is set the Shipyard's BuildOnRequiredObjectKindOf to the kindOfs corresponding to that special object. It would work very much like Act Of War: High Treason's method.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2007 by Waraddict

[Dibelius 0]

Another option, would be to use the Scrin Growth Accelerator method. Have preplaced objects on a map where a Shipyard can be placed, all you have to do is set the Shipyard's BuildOnRequiredObjectKindOf to the kindOfs corresponding to that special object. It would work very much like Act Of War: High Treason's method.

already tried it several times.

 

1) Even if those dummys are under/over water, you can't place the shipyard there du to invalid terrain for construction.

2) If you place those dummys on land (at the coast), it works of course (with a dummy geometry of the shipyard at least), but you can't control how the player actually rotates this building while pre-construction. If the doors are rotated towards land, all the units would appear there (or wouldn't be able to move at all after getting spawned, since they use a WATER locomotor).

 

btw: setting really points for water surfaces seems to be impossible either. I made a new one and referred to a ship as a dummy. Look for the other really point buttons how to do it. It's really annoying...

 

Well, if you have no geometry (or a tiny dummy) another problem is, you could build shipyards at the same place multiple times - at least during construction if you have a 2nd build queue and another shipyard ready.

 

 

This shipyard construction is really hard to do. No clue what to do. Atm I also tend to a tech building, placed half on land and with the spawn points towards water. But it's stupid that you are not able to place them freely. So the enemies know where all the shipyards are and that's boring. :(

Edited October 13, 2007 by Dibelius

[Waraddict 0]

already tried it several times.

 

1) Even if those dummys are under/over water, you can't place the shipyard there du to invalid terrain for construction.

2) If you place those dummys on land (at the coast), it works of course (with a dummy geometry of the shipyard at least), but you can't control how the player actually rotates this building while pre-construction. If the doors are rotated towards land, all the units would appear there (or wouldn't be able to move at all after getting spawned, since they use a WATER locomotor).

 

btw: setting really points for water surfaces seems to be impossible either. I made a new one and referred to a ship as a dummy. Look for the other really point buttons how to do it. It's really annoying...

 

Well, if you have no geometry (or a tiny dummy) another problem is, you could build shipyards at the same place multiple times - at least during construction if you have a 2nd build queue and another shipyard ready.

 

 

This shipyard construction is really hard to do. No clue what to do. Atm I also tend to a tech building, placed half on land and with the spawn points towards water. But it's stupid that you are not able to place them freely. So the enemies know where all the shipyards are and that's boring. :(

 

Try a combination of approaches, e.g., the dummy approach and the no geometry approach, if you can get the placed shipyard to replace itself on creation, this approach would fix all the problems with utilising no geometry for the placement object seen as it's forced to be placed only on the dummy.

 

My suspicion though is that you can place a structure anywhere ontop of the dummy, resulting in a shipyard being placed not exactly in the right place, another possibility is that since the structure will have no geometry, the game engine may not identify when you have the placement over the dummy.

 

Like I say though, where there's a will, there's a way