RTS Maker Help

Contents

Overview

File Menu

• New - Clear the current project and start a new project this will open the new project dialog
• Open - Close the current project and load an existing project
• Save - Save the current project
• Save As - Save the current project under a different name
• Make Exe - Create an executable from the current project
• Test - Play the current project
• Exit - Terminate the application

New Project Settings

Texture Menu

• Select - Turns off tile placement and instead will select other objects that have been placed onto the map
• Water - place the water tile (height + 0)
• Grass - place the grass tile (height + 1)
• Dirt - place the dirt tile (height + 2)
• Load - loads a previously created tileset
• Create - creates a new tileset

Creating a Tileset

Brush

• Small - use the smallest brush size (32x32)
• Medium - the size of 3 small tiles (96x96)
• Large - the size of 5 small tiles (160x160)
• No Details - do not use tiles with artifacts
• Use Details - randomly use some tiles with artifacts
• All Details - only use tiles with artifacts

Height Menu

Resource Menu

• Start - Sets the starting resources for each type and player
• Delete - Deletes the selected resource from the map
• Settings - Sets the available resources ammount for the previously resource you placed or the currently selected resource
• Goals - Sets level objectives for each player and AI
• New - Creates a new resource
• Manage - Allows you to delete resources
• Below this is a list of available resources you can place. Selecting one of these will place that resource.

Player Menu

Starting Resources

The Buttons
• Enable All - This will set all player resource values to 0 or greater.
• Disable All - Will set all player resources to values less than 0.
• Toggle Item - Will enable or disable a resource, or change the resource type
• Clear All - Will set all resource starting values to 0.
• Make Same - Will set all players (1-8) to the same as player 1.
• Help - Brings you here.
• Cancel - Close the dialog without saving the changes.
• OK - Close the dialog and save the changes.

Buildings Menu

• New - Creates a new building
• Delete - Deletes the selected building from the map
• Settings - edits the building data for the previously placed or selected building
• Manage - permits deleting unit types
• Below this is a list of available buildings you can place. Selecting one of these will place that building.

Units Menu

• New - Creates a new Unit
• Delete - Deletes the selected Unit from the map
• Settings - edits the unit data for the previously placed or selected unit
• Manage - Permits deleting Units
• Below this is a list of available units you can place. Selecting one of these will place that unit.

Help Menu

• Contents - This displays the list of help topics
• Tips - This will focus the help based upon the last menu selection you have performed.
• About - This just tells you that Norm the waffle wrote this.

Toolbar Shortcuts

• New - closes the current project and starts a new one. This will also open the New Project dialog for you to set the map size.
• Open - closes the current project and opens an existing one.
• Save - saves the current project
• Delete - delete the select object (resource,building,unit) from the map
• Settings - modify the default settings for the selected object (resource,building,unit)
• Select - this enables you to select an existing map object (resource,building,unit)
• Water - will place a water texture on the map
• Grass - will place a grass tile on the map
• Dirt - will place a dirt tile on the map
• Small - sets the tile size to small (32x32)
• Medium - sets the tile size to medium (96x96)
• Large - sets the tile size to large (160x160)
• None - Do not use map decorations
• Some - Use some map decorations
• ALL - Use only decorated tiles for mapping
• Help - Will provide a help tip based on previous menu use.

Unit Creation

• Summary Information:
• The name field is simply any text you desire. This will be displayed in the menu under the Resource, Building, or Unit as applicable.
• Type can be set to any desired number. A use for this could be 0 for peasants, 1 for armored units, 2 for air units and so on. This setting is only used during unit upgrades. If an upgrade only applies to a specific type of unit, that is when this setting has value.
• Upgrades to: Clicking this button will browse the list of available units. When this unit upgrades, it will be deleted and replaced by the unit listed. Only the first 10 letters of the Name will be displayed here.
• Requirements:
• Tech Level required. Use 0 if always available.
• Building required. Clicking this button will browse buildings to specify which Building must alread exist, which will build this unit.
• Display Panel indicates which panel on the HUD to display the unit. Use the Priority setting to sort the unit display. Lower priorities will be displayed to the left of others. In general, you may want a different panel for each building that may create the specified unit.
• Upgrade Settings:
• Tech Level. When this unit gets built, the entire Technolgy Level will upgrade to this level. Usefull if this is not an actual unit, but only a technology upgrade.
• Check Box to Upgrade All Units. Check this if all units should upgrade to next level as part of this technology upgrade.
• Type1 upgrade all units only of this type. Usefull if just upgrading all buildings, but not active units.
• Type2 upgrade all weapons of this type. Usefull if just upgrading units that use only this type of weapon.

• Import - This will add all units,resources or buildings from an extrernal file. These will be added to the existing items for the current map.
• Export - This will export all unit information to a file. This is the file you would select from the "New" project dialog.
• Help - Brings you here
• Cancel - Closes the dialog. The close button at the top does the same.
• Save - Saves the unit settings internally to the map.

Image Tab

• View Section:
• Small - Clicking this button will display the unit the normal size used in the game.
• Large - Clicking this will display the unit image at maximum size. Although this is larger than in the game, it is useful for seeing extra detail.
• Tiles - This will show tile information for buildings. This is disabled for units. This is important for special buildings such as docks that need water and grass or dirt tiles. This button is used to show tile requirements for contruction of a building. While in "Tiles" mode, clicking on the image will toggle the tile requirements through grass,dirt,water.
• Load - This loads an image file.
• Edit - Image files are stored in an internal format. To edit an image, the image must be first saved to a file. After that, an image editor is selected to edit the image. The default editor is MSPaint.
• Player Color:
  These permit the use of a single image to represent many different players. This works by having a special color, in the image, that gets replaced by a different color, depending on player number.
• Clicking the first box pops up a color selector. Use this to select the original color that you wish to replace.
• Clicking the next button "Off" will cause it to toggle through 1 to 8 and then back to "Off". The image will replace your selected color with the default color for the selected player.
• Test Off - will force the previous button to the "Off" position and show the image using original colors.
• The last box on the right is for the image transparent color. Clicking this box will pop up a color selector. The color you select will be the transparent color.
• The building size is a measurement of the size of your building as measured in tiles. Each tile is 32x32, and to support 4 units per tile, each tile gets subsized to 16x16. So the smallest building should be 1x1. The first box is width, the next is height. Click the "Default" button to automatically measure the image and determine the height and width based on pixcel counts.
• Build Stage and Damage Stage:
• Build State applies only to buildings. By selecting one of the build or damage states, the main image will switch to that image. If no image is available, the main image will not change. By loading an image, and maybe editing it, you can create custom images for each state of your unit.
• Be sure and rotate the image as well. This will not actually rotate the image. This will enable you to load custom images for each rotation point of the unit. Each state can have many view angles.
• Animation only applies to the completed state of buildings and units. Usefull for smokestacks and such. You specify the image for each frame and the time, in milisecs, between frames. This can also be used for walk animations.

Cost Tab

• Clicking on a resource button will call up the resource browser. From there you can select the required resource.
• The level requirement is copied over from the summary display and cannot be edited here.
• Build Time is how long it takes to construct the unit once all other requirements are met.
• Maintenance Time is how long a unit must be idle during maintenance. For example, a tank may need to be refueled from time to time. So it must go to a location with ready fuel and then idle there to be refueled.
• Provides type is for buildings that use one type of resource[wood] and convert into another type[electricity]. The ammount is the ammount of the new resource created from the old resource. Another example would be converting Uranium ore into low grade Uranium for nuclear power. And having another that converts low grade Uranium in High Grade Plutonium for bombs.

Sound Tab

• Selected - "Your orders captain?"
• Attacked - "We are under attack!"
• Command - "By your command."
• Captured - "I surrender."
• Destroyed - "Oh! the horror."
• No Supplies - "I can't fight without ammunition!"
• Operational - "Ready to go!"
• Full - "Locked and loaded! Lets go!"
• Attacking - "Get some of this!!"

Stats Tab

• Armor - This is the overal strength of a units armor. This armor gets divided up into 6 catagories based on priority. Armor has front,left,right,rear,top and bottom. With priority set to the front, and armor set to 100, the real armor would be
  Front - 100
  Left,Right,75
  Rear,Bottom - 50
  Setting Priority to Top would settup armor as
  Top - 100
  Left,Right,Rear - 75
  Bottom - 50
  Setting Priority to Same would set all sides to 100 When an object takes damage, damage occurs first to the armor on the side taking the damage.
• Health - This is the overal health of a unit. This health gets divided up based on internal priority. So, with health set to 100 and priority set to movement
  Movement - 50, Weapons - 25, Cargo - 25
  With Priority set to Weapons
  Movement - 20, Weapons - 75, Cargo - 5
  With Priority set to Cargo
  Movement - 25, Weapons - 25, Cargo - 50
  When an object takes damage that has penatrated the armor, damage gets randomly distributed to the internal systems. Naturally, you should adjust the armor and health priorities based on the intended use and cost of the object your creating. A truck without weapons should have priority set to cargo or to movement if its a recon unit. If Movement Health drops to 0, the unit can't move. If Weapon Health drops to 0, the unit can't fire weapons. If Cargo Health drops to 0, the cargo becomes worthless. Actually, Cargo is a special case. As cargo becomes damaged, the inventory gets eliminated and cannot be repaired. It can only be replaced by new cargo. This is important when transporting ammunitions to other units. An ammo truck full of ammunition that is damaged, may still be operational, but without any cargo (ammunition) to deliver.
• Speed is how fast a unit can travel. Set the Water,Air, Land1 or Land2 to identify the types of terraign the unit can travel. Land1 is for units that can handle rough areas. Land2 is for vehicles that belong on or near roads.
• Ammo capacity for each of the three possible weapons. For damage considerations, this is treated as specialized cargo. It receaves extra protection as per weapons settings, but as damaged, the ammunitions remaining will be reduced as well as capacity. The capacity can be repaired, but the ammunitions will need to be resupplied.
• Save provides an optional desired for conserving ammunition. This value indicates at what odds to begin firing. 0 will fire whenever within range, while a value of 50 will begin firing when the odds of a hit reach 50%. Sometimes this setting will be ignored, such as when a unit is already under fire.
• Cargo is the total cargo capacity of the unit. More information on cargo is in the Cargo Tab.
• Fuel is the total fuel capacity of the unit. This measured in turns at maximum speed. This can be used as a guide for how long a unit can travel before refueling. Fuel is considered another special case of cargo. It works like ammunition above, but armored as per movement settings.
• See Far is how far a unit can see under normal conditions. This range can be modified based on height and other factors. Before another unit can be detected, it must be within this range.
• Wep1,2,3 - Clicking this button will call up the weapon browser. Use this to select a weapon for the unit to use. Wep1 is the primary weapon, but each unit will select the best weapon based on the odds of a hit and the range and target. A unit can fire all three weapons simutaneously. Some weapons can affect line of site such as smoke or flares. To create a new weapon, click this button and then click New in the browser dialog.
• Range, Accuracy, Rate are modifiers to the basic weapon stats. This enables a weapon to fire at a longer range, greater accuracy and with greater speed than the original weapon design. Usefull for designing elite units.
• Brave - this adjust the probability of a unit retreating under fire. The more brave (100) and a unit will never retreat. 0 and a unit will consider retreating if it feels threatened. This setting may be ignored under certain conditions; such as no place to retreat to, or opposing units seem to be retreating already.
• Scary - This is the ability of a unit to invoke fear in others. A heavy tank can be very scary to a transport truck. This is compared to the Brave settings and overal heath of nearby units to determine which units may retreat.
• Quiet - This is a stealth setting. The visibility of a unit depends on the type of unit, its movement class and the total ammount of armor. If the normal range at which a unit is detectable was 200, and quiet is set to 100, the unit could be detected at 100. Setting this to 200 would make the unit invisible until almost toutching it. Once a unit begins using any weapon, this setting is ignored. As a unit takes damage, this value will be reduced until the unit is repaired. This simulated a heavily damaged unit being harder to hide than a new unit.

Cargo Tab

• Capacity - This is the total cargo capacity of the unit. This is read-only and you change this under the Stats tab.
• Each unit can manage up to 6 types of resources. Each resource requires its own special cargo area. Under the capacity, you can specify the size of each resource cargo area.
• On the right is a list of buttons. Clicking one of these will call up the resource browser permitting you to select the type of resource that can be loaded into the cargo area.
• Below this is EMPTY. This is the ammount of unused area. Sometimes, you may want a unit to be able to transport other units. To do this, you need to have spare cargo area. As you assign cargo capacity to other uses, this value gets reduced. This is because you cannot transport units in a fuel tank. To transport units, you need to have a spare cargo area.
• Below this is a size estimate of the unit. This estimate is based on armor value, health, weapons and cargo capicity. But is only an estimate. You can specify any value you desire. This value is the number of available cargo space the unit requires for transportation within another unit. Clicking the Default button will reset the size to the extimated value. The exact equation is:
  Size=((Armor+Health+Fuel+Ammo)/100)+(Weapons-1)+(2*Cargo)
  So a tank with 1000 armor,health,fuel and 3000 Ammo with 3 weapons and 10 cargo (1 for extra fuel, 3 for extra ammo) would require 82 cargo spaces for transport.
  A unit with 25 armor,health,ammo and 1 weapon would need only 1 cargo space for transport. So, the tank with 6 spaces available could transport 6 of these units.

Browser Dialog

• The left display shows the default icon for the selected item.
• The center is a list of available items. Clicking on one of these will change the icon on the left to the current item.
• OK will exit the dialog and assign the current selection to the desired field.
• Cancel will exit the dialog without making a selection.
• Help will bring you here.
• None will assign "None" to the current assignment. This is important for when you wish to have a weapon,unit or cargo space to become unassigned. This is the only way to do that.
• Clicking the ">>" or "<<" button will expand the window to display management options.
• New - Applies only to weapons. This will permit you to design a new custom weapon system.
• Del - This will delete the selected item and any items that reference this item. If the selected item is a resource (food) any building or unit that consumes this resource (food) will also be deleted. If the selected item is a unit (warrior training school) any unit that references that school (warrior) is also deleted.
• Scan - This scans all items in use by the game and eliminates all duplicates. Any items that refer to a duplicate will have the reference changed to the first occurance with the same name.
• Point - This deletes all duplicates of the same name as the currently selected item and changes all references to the duplicate to refer to only the selected item.
• D All - This deletes all items currently in use by the game. Everything!! Resources, buildings, units and weapons.

Weapon Creation

Weapon Animation

• The image at the left shows the weapon. Clicking the directional arrows will change the view to show other directions. Usefull if the weapon is a tank turret or missile launcher. The center button will reset to the center or neutral position.
• Start - View the launch animation. If there is a firing animation, such as a smoke blast from a cannon, this will view that animation.
• Attack - View projectile. Usefull if projectile is a spear or other missile projectile. Click this to ensure the correct projectile is used for each direction. If the projectile is a missile, you can view the smoke trail animation.
• Finish - View impact animation. Usefull for viewing the final explosion animation.
• To Play Animations:
• Step - Will single step each frame
• Next to this is the display of the current frame number
• Play - will play the entire animation sequence
• Time - This sets the time between frames. Adjust this to have the animation play at its best.
• Load - Will load an image and use that for the current frame.
• Edit - Will save the current image to a file, and then launch MSPaint to edit the image. This image will need to be manually re-loaded via clicking Load to replace the current frame image.
• Drawing A Line:
• Check the Draw Line checkbox if you want to draw a line as part of the attack animation. Usefull for laser shots, gun shots and so on. Next to this is a small box, click this to select a color to use for your line.
• Check the Transparent checkbox and click the small box next to it to select a transparent color. This color will not be rendered during the game.
• Below this you can play or load sound effects to be used for the selected animation.
• Help will bring you to here.

Weapon Summary

• Name of the weapon
• Ammunition the weapon uses. Click this button to call up the resource browser.
• Range - minimum and maximum effective range of weapon. Minimum indicates the closest at which the weapon can be fired. Maximum indicates the farthest at which the weapon can be fired. Basic accuracy at min/max is 10%. This gets scaled out based on the scale 1 to 10; where 1 is minimum, and 10 is maximum. Accuracy raises to 90% from 3 until 7. If minimum range is set to 0, the probability starts at 100% and drops to 90% at 3 until 7, before biginning to drop off to 10% at 10.
• Area - indicates the area affected in the attack. Damage will be at 100% in the center and drop to 50% at this range before falling off to 10% at twice this value. Use 0 for bullets and arrows, and use 20 for small grenades.
• Hits - Ammount of damage the weapon does.
• Armor - Check this if weapon is designed for armored units. Armored units will take double damage while non armored, or lightly armored units will take half damage. This shows the effectiveness of depleted uranium rounds agains armor, and how ineffective they can be against sandbag targets.
• Accuracy - Modification to base accuracy chart listed above.
• Speed - Rate of travel for projectile. Set to 0 for instant weapons such as cannons, bullets, lasers or mele weapons such as swords.
• Homing - Check this if weapon homes in on the target.
• Time - Time between reloading for the next attack.
• File Management Options:
• Prev - shifts to the previous weapon in the list
• Next - shifts to the next weapon in the list
• Create - Creates a blank weapon at the end of the list and shifts the focus to the new weapon
• Del - Deletes the current weapon, but may not remove all references to this weapon. You should be sure there are no units or building that use this weapon before deleting.
• Import - imports weapon data from a file. All data in the file will be added to existing weapon data.
• Export - exports weapon data to a file. All weapons will be saved to an external file. Weapons, Units (including buildings) and Resources can be imported/exported as seperate files. Actually, whenever you export data, all resource and unit data is also exported. The only real difference between a Unit,Resource,Weapon file is the file extension ; *.rtu,*.rtr,*.rtw. The *.rtm extension is special; it is used for a complete map with included unit data.
• Cancel - Close dialog without making any changes to weapons data.
• OK - Save all weapons data to internal map format and close the weapons dialog.

Weapon Advanced Tab

• Duration - This is how long the effect lasts. If a weapon causes desease, or is intended to temporarily reduce a units performance (stun), this is how long the effect will last. After this time, all effects will cancel and the unit will be restored to previous state.
• Repeat - This is how long before the effect will repeat. If a weapon causes a desease that gets worse over time, loss of health over time, this is how long before the effect repeats. You can combine Duration and Repeat to cause other annoying effects... Set Duration to a short period like 50 and Repeat to a long time, like 1000. And check the Scared checkbox and the Temporary checkbox. This will have the targeted unit become afraid and run away for 50 turns, then return to normal for 950 turns, and then repeat.
• Temporary - This flags the effect as temporary. The effect will last for the Duration time limit, after which the unit will be restored to normal.
• Flag Unit as Neutral - This effectively makes the unit be treated as a friendly unit to all sides. If a unit should target itself, it will basically become an infitration unit. The opposing force will know it is not under command, but will not recognize the unit as hostile either. By having this effect be temporary, the invaiding unit will not attack until the duration time has expired. This can permit deep penitration behind enemy lines.
• Change team and attack - The targetted unit will act as an ally, and will imeadiatly attack other units that were its ally. Generally the targeted unit will be destroyed by other enemy units, unless it is a very strong unit. Very usefull for disrupting a battle line. When used, you should also check the Make Brave checkbox to ensure the unit does not run from its target.
• Change Unit - Check this if unit should polymorph into another unit. If attacking an enemy, changing a unit into a peasant can quickly confuse things. If attacking a freindly unit (Friendly fire checkbox) maybe convert to a tank to quickly make a defending unit. You will also need to browse for the unit to change into.
• Stun - This will immobalize the targeted unit.
• Scare - The targeted unit will become scared and will try and move away from all enemy units.
• Make Brave - Can cancel the Scare effect. This will make the targeted unit attack even if there is no chance of victory.
• Teleport - The target will teleport away from area to a predefined location; Home, prison, or random. Home refferes to the initial build location or rally point. Prison will teleport friendy units to the nearest friendly prison location for the purpose of defending it, enemy units will teleport into the facility and be held prisoner. Random will place the unit at the nearest point which is not observed by enemy units, and is closer to the rally point. If the target is an enemy unit, it will be teleported to the most isolated and remote area currently known.
• Armor,Speed,Health settings - This is in addition to Hits from Summary panel. Against enemy units, this is specialized damage. Against friendly units, this increases those values. The maximum value cannot be raised, unless the temporary flag is set. This can permit a unit to be a healing unit if you use the Friendly Fire option.
• Visible - Check this if you wish to force visibility changes. And then select Yes to force targeted units to be visible. Use this with the Area setting from the Summary panel and the Temporary check box to create a method of remote viewing of invisible units.
• Raise Lower Land - Check this to enable building cliffs. You can raise land up to a height of 9. Using a value of 10 to 19 will lower the height. Checking the Clear checkbox will remove all land settings and set the land tiles to some value depending on height. If the height of the land is the same as nearest water, the tile will change to water. Otherwise, the tile will change to dirt. If any trees or other items or units are near by, they will be destroyed.
• Add Movement - Check this if you wish to enable a unit to travel in ways that are not normal. Such as over water or in the air.
• Del Movement - Check this if you wish to block a unit from moving. This can be used to immobalize a land unit on land or water, and force an air unit to land.
• Friendly Fire - Check this if a weapon can be used on friendly units. This enables healing, levitating, and teleporting friendly units.
• Can Target Self - Check this if a weapon can target the owning unit. Useful if you want a tank unit to be able to teleport itself directly from place to place or to make itself invisible.

Contact Information

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