Existance of gadget that makes temporary units

[SanadaUjiosan]

Quick question: Is there a gadget out there that will affect how long a unit exists in the game? What I'm wanting is something to make a specific unit (a camera-tower type thing) only last for a specific duration of time (let's say 30 seconds.)

So like a unit would be able to build this camera tower, and the camera tower would sit there, being all camera-y, but when it's 30 seconds was up, it'd detonate and go away.

I'm guessing this is an easy thing to pull off, but I'm wondering if anyone's written a gadget for it.

And no, I am not going to do it. I'm not a programmer. It is either going to have to already exist, or a non-existent nice person write it for me.

[MidKnight]

What if I make it really easy for you?

UnitCreated()
Tells you when a unit is built. gives you:
"unitID, unitDefID, teamID, builderID"

Spring.GetGameFrame()
Will get you the number of sim frames since game start.

GameFrame()
Is called every time there is a new frame. Spring has a fixed rate of 30 sim frames per second (IIRC), so 30 seconds would be 900 frames.

Spring.DestroyUnit(UnitID, selfd, reclaimed)
Destroys the unit with the given UnitID.
selfd can be set to true or false. true makes it explode.
reclaimed can be set to true or false. true makes it just disappear off the face of the map.

I'd write the script for you, but it's 2 AM right now and everything's swirly. Sorry.

[SanadaUjiosan]

If you'd like to write it when it's not 2am, it would be greatly appreciated. Maybe this super simple script could help me start to even fathom how gadgets work. I do well with examples. It took me like a month or two of staring at a simple animation script to understand how a weapon fires.

[KDR_11k]

Also in the unit script you can just add sleep 30000; get KILL_UNIT();.

[Google_Frog]

It is a really easy gadget but since you said you do not want to do any programming at all...

Code: Select all

local KILL_OFFSET = 900 -- 30 seconds

local cameraUDID = UnitDefNames["camera"].id
local killTable = {}
local killTableByUnitID = {}

function gadget:UnitCreated(unitID,udid)
    if cameraUDID == udid then
        local f = Spring.GetGameFrame() + KILL_OFFSET
        killTable[f] = killTable[f] or {}
        killTable[f][unitID] = true
        killTableByUnitID[unitID] = f
    end
end

function gadget:GameFrame(f)
    if killTable[f] then
        for unitID,_ in pairs(killTable[f]) do
            if Spring.IsValidUnit(unitID) then
                Spring.DestroyUnit(unitID, false, false)
            end
            killTableByUnitID[unitID] = nil
        end
        killTable[f] = nil
    end
end

function gadget:UnitDestroyed(unitID)
    if killTableByUnitID[unitID] then
        killTable[killTableByUnitID[unitID]][unitID] = nil
        killTableByUnitID[unitID] = nil
    end
end

This is just typed from scratch in the last 5 minutes. As such I some arguments might be the wrong way around etc... Also there is a use of pairs that could be removed but it should be pretty inconsequential at the frequency and size of table it is used for.

So it depends on how much of a non-programmer you are. Can you slap a gadget:info on top and debug the occasional syntax error?

I like KDR_11K's idea too, it is worth looking into.

[SanadaUjiosan]

I like KDR's idea too, it seems simple and easy.

Could someone give me an example of what that little bit would look like in the script? I don't know what "get KILL_UNIT()" should look like.

This is what I tried:

Code: Select all

	function script.Create()
		Sleep(300)
		get KILL_UNIT()
	end

Very dumb, but it's all I could think of at the moment. (the sleep is low for testing reasons)

[FLOZi]

You are mixing COB and LUS.

Code: Select all

Spring.UnitScript.GetUnitValue(COB.KILL_UNIT)

But if you are using LUS you should just use the standard API anyway:

Code: Select all

Spring.DestroyUnit(unitID, selfD, reclaimed)

As explained by MidKnight.

[CarRepairer]

I like KDR's idea too, it seems simple and easy.

Could someone give me an example of what that little bit would look like in the script? I don't know what "get KILL_UNIT()" should look like.

This is what I tried:

Code: Select all

	function script.Create()
		Sleep(300)
		get KILL_UNIT()
	end

Very dumb, but it's all I could think of at the moment. (the sleep is low for testing reasons)

KDR is an old dinosaur who uses extinct languages like BOS/COB.

Code: Select all

function script.Create()
  Sleep(30000)
  Spring.DestroyUnit(unitID)
end

[FLOZi]

Why the change in Sleep? Both bos/cob and lus use milliseconds.

[SanadaUjiosan]

Success!

I happily thank you guys. Lines in the credits.txt to CT for everyone!