[SUPPORT] Advanced Turn Based Tile Toolkit

[Monokkel]

@Locoweed

Hello again.

I am having problems with dead units being referenced by the AI. The unit dies and is removed from map, but when the next Round starts the AI puts the Selected Icon (see photo) on where the unit died, and even moves it (the Selected Icon) around on the map until it gets to where it would attack, then the game freezes there. I think it usually starts happening when I get up to around 12 units in the game.

I see you delay actually removing a dead unit from game to let effects happen and stuff, but for some reason it is never actually be really deleted before the next round.

EDIT: I have narrowed it down to a second Ability I added. It does fine unless I kill the Unit with that ability, then the dead unit is still referenced by AI. At least I know where the issue is, so hopefully I can figure out what is going awry.

EDIT 2: Okay, found the issue. I was using your BP_Ability_Attack as my base to add a new attack ability. There is a problem in Execute Ability in that blueprint where if you have Use Unit Attributes unchecked, and change the value of the local variable Damage, the code is using 2 different Damage values because the code was written to get one of the Damage variables directly from the Owning Unit as shown in picture. So I removed getting Damage from owning unit and replaced with Get Damage and everything is golden.

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Thanks, Loco

Hey, glad you figured it out. Issues like this are generally caused by the animation and gameplay code getting different input. I recommend checking out my tutorial on the Action System where I explain how this works if you have not done so already.

@crossmr

After messing around with that laser ability, I wanted to make sure. The laser ability was a bit complicated because the actual damage and the display of that damage were intertwined in an unusual way. It seems the death animation was triggered by health bar being depleted, and not a health check (this should be changed in my opinion) so even though I had hooked up the damage, the character was still dying because of the visual representation.

As I explained to Locoweed above, these sorts of issues are avoided by making sure the gameplay code and action system get the same input. The action system is the most unorthodox part of the toolkit, but it has a number of benefits. Decoupling gameplay code from what is animated means that you can simulate several different actions over a single tick and then send a queue of actions to be animated sequentially. This way you do not need to add lots of delays, callback events etc. to handle the flow of the game. With the action system you can run all your gameplay code immediately without waiting and can have the action system take care of handling animating in sequence.

Though it is a bit of a learning curve at first I have found this to be much easier to work with than the alternative. It has the added benefit of keeping a clean distinction between server-side and client-side operation, and eliminates perceived animation lag in multiplayer games by having an animation system that receives action commands from the server, but that animate on each client independently. Check out my video on the action system for a more in-depth explanation.

@crossmr

I wanted some clarification on how the cover system operates. I knew the cover system was included in the grid manager, but I wasn’t sure if that visual representation of the shield was a necessary thing to make sure a unit was in cover or not. Luckily I’ve based all the shooting abilities that I’ve made so far off laser, so I’m okay there for using cover. I’ll have to look at sprint and see what I can take from there to make a new move ability and enable cover. I want my units to have access to cover, but I don’t want them to be able to sprint. My maps won’t be that large, so sprinting probably won’t really be required. That’s still in the testing phase, so I need to move all that cover interaction over to the regular move, or make a copy of sprint that only allows the base move and not the extra move.

Making a copy of the sprint ability and removing the code that adds the extra sprint range is what I would recommend.

@crossmr

1. also I seem to be getting some odd path issues around certain tiles. Any idea what I should check for that? As far as I can tell they’re all lined up and there are no increased cost tiles placed

Hmm, that is odd. Unsure what could be causing this issue. How is your grid manager set up? Have you enabled multi-level grids or TraceForWalls? Are you able to give me the repro steps for this issue?

@crossmr

2. is there a way to refresh or update the grid at runtime? I’m having a scenario where doors may be closed. Characters can run up to them, activate a custom ability to open the door, and carry on through. The problem is when the door is changed/removed the grid doesn’t update and doesn’t connect the tiles on either side. This doorway is normally passable with the door starting open.

What tiles can be moved between is defined in the GridEdges TMap in BP_GridManager. Each tile is represented by a key in the TMap and its connected tiles as a nested map of tile indexes and costs. In the case of opening/closing a door I would recommend using the AddEdgeBothWays function in BP_GridManager with the grid indexes of the tiles on either side of the door as input. When closing the door you would rather use RemoveEdgeBothWays. Note that if pathfinding has been calculated before opening the door, the pathfinding will not update automatically when you alter the grid, so you will need to run it again if you want it to take the changes into account.

@crossmr

3. Can I calculate AP usage on a per tile basis? I tried setting my unit to have 6 ap and costing 1 ap per tile, which seemed fine on the first move (he could move 6 tiles) but after moving once, he was then allowed to move 4, and 2 and then 1 tile before finally his turn ended (this is after including the code above to deduct AP points)

The move and sprint abilities should have a public variable for this called MoveCostType which you can set to FromPathfindingCost.