Year 3: Game update: Towers: Ent protector (Shield tower)

Ent protector (Shield tower)

Research:

The main Interspersion for this tower came straight from the game supreme commander. Thou the idea of a unit that protects other unit with a shield has mainly be featured in many RTS (Real time strategy) games. The unit from this game is where i got the main idea for this tower

Blueprint:

Blueprint on shield tower:

First off on the shield tower we build a Box collider on the mean model for the tower this will detect all the towers around the in vicinity and give them a shield.  This is crucial in the inner workings of how the shield whole function.

when a component overlaps this box collider adventurers and events on the shield tower which are shown below.  First off we add the other actor to an array on the shield tower called " tower is protected by shield"  we then test this actor with a  actor has tag node  if true it then passes through a branch we then send a event to the overlapped after sending a variable of self to that tower. we next used for each loop breaking down the variable tower protect my shield  element within this array is then sent an event called give shield tower which sends the variables from this tower such as shield health, shield recharge rate and shield recharge wait time as well as a self reference. 

Blueprint on Other towers:
For all the other towers they have to be fitted with the blueprint lines in order for them to work. once the event is sent to the Tower this first checked off with a branch which checks to see if the tower already has a shield with a variable "tower has a shield" if the branch proceeds is false with handsets the shield wall to own hidden within set the variable task shield is true and proceeds to change the variables in order to give tower shield.we next change all the three variables on the tower with a received variables from the events these are shield health, shield recharge rate, shield recharge wait time as well as set shield health template. we then use the self reference from this event to set a variable called Tower give Shields this is so that the the tower that gives the shield can be referred to later in scripts easily. the final node is we then set the tower shield bar widgets visibility to visible so I can be seen by the player  to show easily the amount of shield the tower has.

another part blueprints we had to change was the health taken away section of the blueprints when the tower is under attack. We first added a branch which checks to see this shield health is equal to 0 and  if this is not true we then proceed to take away health from the shield until is depleted then taken away from the Tower health.

we also had to add a recharge time to the tower so that I shield could recharge itself over time

we also had to add an event when shield towers is destroyed to take the shield away from this tower the way this works is that upon the shield tower die in event a sense to all towers affected by the shield. It also goes with a self reference which is used to verify overlapping shield towers. We first go for a branch of checks to see if the towers shield if true with then check the variable that comes through on this event with the  variable tower give shield if they are true it then proceeds through the branch and proceeds to set all the shield information to 0 as well as turn off shield and remove any UI presence of the shield

Variable balancing:

The main variable that had to be for this tower was the main shield the variables because this is the first run through an iteration of the shields our it may take some time to balance these variables to make this tower cost the fact of the player to use. 

start off with the shield health send this to 150 though further playtest will be needed in order to get the right balance for this variable.

the shield recharge rate can  we changed bought is a variable that most likely won't need much changing as it is set to 15 points per second minute the shield will recharge 15 points every seconds when it is free from attack. Though a further playtest in this number may have to be tweaked in order to balance this tower.

This variable is most likely not going to change an away time of 10 seconds for the Shields recharge time this is in order to have a suitable amount of time from when the tower is a task to one could start recharging again as though not to make the shield overpowered and into the recharging damage wanted and lost thus making or balanced.