Question reg. weapon swapping

[Caeltos]

For our lovely modders & coders out there, I have a quick question that I must ask.

Is it possible to equip units with different weapons given their combat status? For an example of this, let's say if you order a unit to engage in melee, they would swap out their weapons for chainsword + bolt pistol.

- Either at the given command, or if in proximity or engaged in melee-combat
- If out of melee-range, they would still utilize their default equipped weapons

[Lulgrim]

I suppose it would be "possible" but we can't tell the unit's status very well straight away. Most likely it would bug like hell, swapping weapons incorrectly and getting stuck with the wrong gear, not to mention looking glitchy with stuff just disappearing and changing.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

can you give different weapons/attacks different priorities? idea being that the shortest range attack has highest priority and longest the lowest. the lack of that created issues in wc3.

edit: nm, don't think this would help

[ChrisNihilus]

Catachan Devil switching to Catachan fangs and/or Devil Claws would be very pleasing.

[Atlas]

Maybe only switching weapons when you switch their combat stance? Toggling between ranged and melee only?

[Black Relic]

Might be possible. If you add the requirement, required_combat which asks for the stance. And when in the melee stance it deletes the ranged weapon ( or bolter as an example) and give the squad the bolt pistols and chainswords. And when you switch back it deletes the bolt pistol and sword and gives them their original weapon back. But idk i haven't tried it.

Although I was thinking about this though a good while back. Since there is combat knifes in the game was going to try to have Tacs/Csm pull out combat knives and stab others (as if they would do anything else lol) when in melee.

[Lulgrim]

I don't think the idea is realistic with the state of the base game that we have. It would bug into eternity, I guarantee it...

[Myrdal]

Disaster looms over this one. Worth a shot though, I'll try and do some labbing today.

[Arbit]

Tying weapon loadout to stance is clever, but it could be fraught with problems. What happens when something melees a squad in ranged stance? You wouldn't want them to keep shooting, so would the game automatically swap stances? Or would you have them use the punching animation they have now? If melee does less damage when in ranged stance (as I presume it would) you've put an annoying micro burden on the player, because now they'd have to be constantly swapping stances for stuff like tacs/TCSM and other quasi-hybrid melee units, for not much better a reason than "it looks cool". Having the game auto-swap stances would work, but what would happen if you try to change stances while the game is busily changing them? And the way stance changing works now isn't exactly smooth - there's frequently a significant delay before the new stance is "loaded".

Of course, Caeltos might have a new unit in mind where it would work more logically, I dunno.

[Myrdal]

Did some minor testing and required_combat as suggested works well when switching from melee to ranged stance. Switching from ranged to melee stance isn't very reliable though, only when using force melee does it work as expected. Will do more testing later.

What happens when something melees a squad in ranged stance? You wouldn't want them to keep shooting, so would the game automatically swap stances?

Unit will be forced in melee stance, yes.

[Dark Riku]

If melee does less damage when in ranged stance (as I presume it would) you've put an annoying micro burden on the player,

It does not. What makes you think it would?

[Arbit]

If melee does less damage when in ranged stance (as I presume it would) you've put an annoying micro burden on the player,

It does not. What makes you think it would?

I was talking about a hypothetical situation where the player has manual control over switching to melee or ranged weapons. I know that's not how the game works now.

[Atlas]

Well I made a lot of assumptions with my idea since I'm no code monkey.

But basically there's this little button on the command card in the bottom right where your units appear that manually toggles the stance of a unit. So for example, putting a SM melee dread into melee stance means it'll only use its flamer. I'll need to lab it but for now I'll say that it won't start punching things that get into melee.

For Tacs and similar squads I'd imagine that the weapon loadout would ONLY look at what stance is selected in the command card, and not whether the unit is in ranged or melee.

So if you put it to melee stance and the Tacs pull out chainswords and such, it works like a melee unit regardless of range.

If they are in ranged stance though and they're forcing melee/attacked in melee, the card would still read "ranged stance" and they would do their punching stuff.

The motive behind such a change is irrelevant, but I guess you could have a small bonus to ranged units with melee stuff and etc etc

Dunno really why though :/

[Forestradio]

Sergeant Tarkus in the Chaos Rising campaign changes from shooting you with a demonic bolter to chopping you with a chainsword if he is the traitor.

Not sure if this helps :/