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| Creating Units
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Right, it's time to make your level a bit more interesting. Lets add some units to it.
Select Edit Instant Units from the Main Menu, and the Instant Units window will appear. Instant Units are the units that will appear on the level straight away. This generally means the Virii, and any Darwinians that are going to be wandering around.
Point the crosshair at somewhere on the ground, and select Darwinian from the Instant Unit list. a group of small green squares will appear on the map, along with the Instant Unit Edit window. As you can see, a group of 40 Darwinians has just been placed on the map.
Since all the options in the Instant Unit Edit window are common to all units, I will cover those first, and then each individual unit.
Move
Normally you can move units around when you select them, however, if you find you can't, clicking this button will allow you to move them.
Delete
Deletes the unit. You will have to press this twice to Delete the unit - it changes to !DELETE! the first time you click it.
T0/T1/T2
This is the team that the unit will be on.
T0 is the Darwinian team. You can place some other units on this team, however some won't show up ingame, and others don't have their own AI and won't act if placed on this team.
T1 is the Virii team. The same applies here as team 0, except all enemy units will work on this team. Team 0 and Team 1 will attack each other if they get into range of each other, and T1 will also attack T2.
T2 is the player team. You can manually select and control anything on this team, however, anything that has their own AI will ignore anything you tell them to do (Darwinians and enemy units alike).
Num Ents
The Number of units (entities) in the group you just created. Defaults to 40.
Spread
How far the units will randomly spread out from the unit marker at the start of the level. See the ring around your units? Thats the spread ring. The bigger you make it, the more spread out the units will be at the start. Just make sure it doesn't overlap the water, or they might drown. Defaults to 200.
In Unit
Only two units use this option - Centipede and Squadie - and you should leave it set to 0 for everything else. It simply links all the units in your group into one single unit, however it doesn't work on most things, and will either do nothing, or crash your level.
Heres a breakdown of each individual unit and any special behavior they have:
AI
The AI unit is invisible in the game, and you will only ever need a max of one of these per level. They are used to control the Red Darwinians that you put in your level - it tells them when to move between markers (covered later). If you don't have any Red Darwinians, you don't need one of these, and if you do, you ONLY need 1. Bad things might happen if you have more than 1. You should place these out in the middle of the water - your Darwinians will shoot at them if they are in range, but won't actually be able to damage it.
Works on Teams: 0, 1
Armour
The Armour unit which can be deployed into a Gun Turret, or used as an APC. Putting them on team 0 or 1 will cause them to move around randomly for a little while, then stop. They won't do anything, so there is no point in doing it.
Works on Teams: 2
Army Ant
The Army Ant unit that spawns from an Ant Nest. Placing these units directly will cause them to sit on the ground until directly touched by another unit - its best not to place them in this way. Use an AntNest if you want ants on your level (covered later).
Works on Teams: 0, 1
Centipede
The giant snake creature. The Num Ents option for this unit determines the number of segments the Centipede has. Setting this too large will cause quite a few issues with the Centipede, so don't go nuts. This is one of the only units that uses the In Unit option - it MUST be set to 1 or the level will crash the game.
Works on Teams: 0, 1
Darwinian
The Darwinians! You can place these on any team you like, however, they will act exactly the same on team 2 as team 0. If you place them on team 1, an AI unit and AI Markers (see later) will be needed to make them move around.
Works on Teams: 0, 1, 2
Egg
This is the white Egg thing that Jellyfish and Spiders drop. Virii can put souls into them and cause more Virii to hatch. There is no point putting them on a team that has no Virii.
Works on Teams: 0, 1
Engineer
The Engineer Unit you can create using your gesture. Because this unit is entirely automatic, it will work on any team that you put it on. It will capture buildings for whatever team you put it on, and any Souls that it drops into an Incubator controlled by its team will spawn Darwinians of the same team.
Works on Teams: 0, 1, 2
InvalidType
Does nothing. Don't use it. Ever.
Lander
This unit no longer works in the game. It does nothing.
LaserTroop
Again, this unit does nothing. This one won't even appear in the game. You can see it in action however, if you watch the Darwinia preview movie - the group of Darwinians moving in formation is a LaserTroop.
Officer
The standard Officer unit that a Darwinian is promoted to by using the appropriate gesture. They have no AI, so placing them on any team other than 2 will cause them to stand around doing nothing.
Works on Teams: 2
SoulDestroyer
The giant flying snake monster. You can place this on any team, and it will attack enemy units, however you can't directly control them on team 2.
Works on Teams: 0, 1
SpaceInvader
Putting these straight into your level will crash the game. Don't do it.
Spider
The Virus Spider unit. Works on any team and will attack the enemy, but like the soul destroyers, you can't control them directly by putting them on team 2.
Works on Teams: 0, 1
SporeGenerator
The flying Jellyfish. These guys do nothing but drop spores. They are useless on any team that has no Virii.
Works on Teams: 0, 1
Squadie
The other unit that uses the In Unit option. However many Squadies you create will be merged into a single Squad unit. They have no AI, so the only thing they will do on teams 0 and 1 is stand around and look stupid. Leaving In Unit set to 0 will crash the game. Its also worth noting that you won't be able to change the weapon of any squad you put in the game in this way.
Works on Teams: 2
TriffidEgg
The eggs that Triffids launch. They will sit on the ground until they hatch, and when they do, Virii for whatever team they are on will come out. However, Virii only work properly on Team 1, so Triffid eggs are useless on any other team.
Works on Teams: 1
Tripod
The only unit not in the main game that still works. Tripods are big walkers that will stop and fire lasers at enemy units. They aren't very fast, although they seem to walk all the way across the level to get to enemy units. Use with caution.
Works on Teams: 0, 1
Virii
The bulk of the enemy units. These guys won't work properly on any team but 1 - they will function in the game, but they won't show up, so you won't be able to see them on any team other than team 1.
Works on Teams: 1
Thats it for the games units. You should now be able to set up things to shoot at on your levels!
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