give abilities support of halo or overlay so that the unit benefits from a second halo or overlay when conditions are matched
One of the things that bothers me is the permanent character of the halos of the Mage of Light and other units with the "illuminates" ability, which forces them to program only a permanent illumination applied only to the possessor of the ability.
Adding the halo attribute to ability does not change anything about the behavior of the unit, but can be used in several cases:
1 allowing the use of ""illuminates" whose activity would be variable, in this case encoding the halo in [illuminates] ability and not in the unit_type allows to modulate the appearance of the halo under the same conditions
2. Applying illumination to adjacent units, I know it's pretty cheesy but a set developer might consider it easier if the hlo display follows the same logic.
3 The halo used to illustrate the possession in the unit of a special weapon used as leadership, the halo would be used to raise the possessor of the ability.
for overlay, same logic for illustrate possession of a special weapon used as leadership, or influence on student
with the "halo_image" attribute, it is now possible to give Sun Sylph units an illumination ability with an activity depending on the incarnate sun attack instead of giving the ability and the halo via obect and therefore allowing the player to have access to the description of the ability even when it is inactive.
Refactor special notes for abilities, attack types, movetypes and weapon specials
An easier way of setting special notes in the most common use-cases. Text given
in the following attributes will be collected and added to the special notes
for units and unit types (some of these were added in the previous commit):
* [ability tag name]special_note=
* [language]special_note_damage_type_TYPE=
* [movetype][special_note]note=
* [attack][specials][special tag name]special_note=
It's no longer necessary to put these notes in each unit_type's .cfg file, and
the macros for doing so are now deprecated.
C++ changes
-----
Simplify both unit_type::special_notes and unit::unit_special_notes. Add
utils::stable_unique, similar to std::unique but accepts non-ordered input and
preserves the order in the output.
Remove unit_type::has_special_notes() - callers can instead call
special_notes() and then check if the returned vector is empty, which removes
the need for duplicating code in unit_type.
Trade-off: the new [language]special_note_damage_type_TYPE is likely deprecated in 1.19.
-----
Adding [language]special_note_damage_type_TYPE= uses the same existing design
as [language]type_TYPE=, however both are hacks that don't fit the general
style of WML. It could be better to define a new [damage_type] tag that
supercedes both and also provides a place for specifying the damage icon;
however that won't be done in time for the API freeze for 1.16.
Doing it in the way that this commit does it is a hack, but it's one where
replacing it with the better solution in 1.18 will affect very few UMCs (only
those that define additional damage types). Even in the UMCs that would be
affected, it would likely only be a few changes in a single central file.
Trade-off: NOTE_DEFENSE_CAP is not auto-added
-----
It might be better to auto-add NOTE_DEFENSE_CAP when movetype.cpp detects that
the type has capped values. However as NOTE_SPIRIT already requires
[movetype][special_note], it's simple to use the same mechanism. If we decide
to change it to being auto-added, the current commit greatly reduces the number
of places that would need to change again, as it's now in the [movetype]
instead of the many [unit_type]s using that movetype.
Changelog provided by @ghype below. Additional credits at the end.
=================================================================================================
*Art*
Most of units were reworked - some more some less - but our goal was to make them fit for mainline all together.
If any changes are needed to any unit, then we gladly execute those. There have been months worth of progress
documented in the according art thread for this project.
Base Units: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=49075
Extra Units: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=49625
*Balance*
The main reason why this project started in the first place. Here as well we have all the progress for balancing
Dunefolk documented and all developers and users interested in this project and seemed to agree on the current
state of balance. Thats the reason why we will not enlist all the changes here. If there are any problems with
the balance, then we too are willing to provide alternatives that can be discussed either here or on forum.
Balance Thread: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=49627
*Alignment*
The balance of this faction was based on the newly proposed liminal alignment which works as +0/+0/+25/+0/+0/+25
instead of the old -25/-25/+0/-25/-25/+0
*Weapon Portraits*
As Dunefolk features entirely new units, we found some weapon portraits that fits the attacks of certain units.
The portrait - called „blade-curved“ is a franken but a convincing one. As the current blow pipe for UtbS is a
franken as well, this new weapon portrait should good enough to be mainlined as well. If this request get’s denied,
then we are free to provide alternatives as well. It just fits very well the theme of exotic Naga weapon
craftsmanship without relying on the orcish theme. It used for the following two units:
Lv2 Naga Bladewhirler
Lv3 Naga Dervish
*Descriptions*
New unit concepts require changes and new units require entirely new descriptions. We enlisted all problems and
inconsistencies that resulted with the rework and provided either solutions for them or new descriptions. Yumi
already started doing them but for those who want to see the initial conflicts, here you can find all the problems
displayed:
Unit Descriptions: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=49867#p642698
*Female Dunefolk Names*
With the introduction of female units to this faction, we would require female names as well. Apparently this was
already coded in mainline, but simple not used.
*Future Plans - Animations*
There are some recourses from past works that allow us to - more or less - easily animate most of Dunefolk units.
The animations range from idle to attack-only, while other units will be fully animated. Some of the units that
are harder to animate will first receive single attack/defend frames until animation concepts were agreed upon.
Our goal is to make Dunefolk as alive as possible.
*Future Plans - Theme, Sound FX*
Rather unimportant to most people but I am interested to add some new sound fx that can start with different hit/death
sounds or new weapon sounds for scimitars. Those are just example and I do not know what I will end up with. But I know
that I will compose a Dunefolk Theme at some point. Using your feedback, I am sure I can manage to create something that
fits the faction the best.
*Future Plans - Wyvern Rider*
This is the only unit is the only one that did not get touched or reworked. The wyvern on it self looks amazing an does
not need any rework but the rider does not really fit thematically anymore, not to mention the weapon is too oversized
and not the usual Wesnoth style. But I won’t touch this sprite until it actually will be needed, most likely - IF -
there is ever going to be a mainline Dunefolk campaign.
*Credits*
I don’t know how detailed you need this to be but here all contributors.
ghype, Hejnewar, Krogen, The_Gnat, Lordlewis, EarthCake, Tom_Of_Wesnoth
It is however important to mention that the amount of contributions of each varies a lot in different categories. I will
organise it a bit and you make use of this info how ever you want. The names are in order of the amount of work put in.
Art: ghype, The_Gnat, Lordlewis
Balance: Hejnewar, Krogen, ghype, The_Gnat
Descriptions: Tom_Of_Wesnoth, Hejnewar
Earthcake joined us in the end and helped us finishing this project by cleaning/finishing the codes and doing all the git
stuff together with The_Gnat. Although none of his work can be categorised in one of the three categories, he still deserves
to be credit in one way or another.
Thanks for your time and efforts.
These are only the ones were it's sufficiently unambiguous that the
description is referring to the merfolk race at whole. There are a few
instances I didn't touch were it's possible that the text refers
exclusively to mermen fighters (e.g. "the mermen armies").
See issue #2940.
[ci skip]
(cherry-picked from commit 14ec9954f1)
* Updated unit descriptions for the Orcish Grunt line
* Updated unit descriptions for the Merman Fighter line
* Updated unit descriptions for the Sergeant, Lieutenant and General
* Updated unit description for the Peasant
* Updated unit description for the Royal Warrior
* Updated unit description for Ancient Lich
* Updated unit description for Dwarvish Steelclad
The small_profile key has been used in several cases to approximately preserve the cropping and orientation from the non-transparent portraits. Some of these could be up for review.
* Decreased the XP requirement of the Mage from 60 to 54.
* Decreased the XP requirement of the White Mage from 150 to 136.
* Decreased the XP requirement of the Mermaid Priestess from 150 to 132.
