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OpenTS Manual

Crater

Leaves a crater where the animation plays, or makes the smudge one of the craters that can be left.

Animation crater

Specification — Animation crater
Applies to
AnimType
File
art.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
boolean
When omitted
no

The animation leaves a crater where it plays. The crater appears on the frame with the largest artwork, and only while the animation is less than 30 leptons above the ground. An animation whose largest frame is its first leaves its crater once, when it starts. Otherwise a looping animation repeats the attempt each time it reaches that frame, and a repeat on a cell that already holds a crater leaves no second one.

The crater is a random smudge type that declares itself a crater and fits the location. A crater fits only where its first cell, the upper-left one, lies inside the playfield and none of the following is true of any cell it would cover:

  • the ground is a ramp
  • the cell already has a smudge of any kind
  • the cell holds an overlay
  • a building stands on the cell
  • the theater’s tile does not allow marks on it

Craters that cover more than one cell are candidates only when the largest frame is more than 48 pixels wide and 40 pixels tall, or when no single-cell crater fits the location.

Each time the animation reaches that frame, it also removes Tiberium from the cell, as Damage explains, whether or not a crater fits.

An animation that also sets Scorch=yes leaves a scorch mark half the time and a crater the other half, never both. Tiberium is removed only on the crater half.

Crater smudge

Specification — Crater smudge
Applies to
SmudgeType
File
rules.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
boolean
When omitted
no

Crater=yes makes the smudge type a candidate whenever the ground is cratered. No other setting adds a type to the crater pool. Listing it in Craters has no effect.

Each crater is picked at random from the Crater=yes types that fit the spot. Height describes the fit test and which sizes each kind of request prefers.

rules.ini
[MYCRATER]     ; example two-by-two crater
Crater=yes
Width=2
Height=2

Two things crater the ground:

  • An animation with Crater=yes. If it also sets Scorch=yes, each occurrence leaves a scorch or a crater with even odds.
  • A destroyed structure. Each mark it lays is a scorch or a crater with even odds. A structure describes when the marks are laid.

Crater and Burn are independent. A type with both can be picked as a crater or as a scorch. A type with neither is never picked for either, but a map can still place it through its [Smudge] section.

See also — Scorch, Flamer, Craters, CraterLevel, Burn, Width, Height