Can AI reinfs be skinned?

[PoorOldSpike]

Look, these AI Germans have just been triggered as reinforcements into one of my desert scens on turn 6, and they're all grey.
If they'd begun the game already on the map I could have used the Skin Trigger to give them a Sand skin, but there seems no way to assign skins to units that appear as reinfs later in the game, or am I missing something?

[bru888]

I'm thinking (but certainly not knowing for sure) that some combination of these effects may work if you activate the trigger right after deploying reinforcements:

Screenshot 1.jpg (208.31 KiB) Viewed 1785 times

For example, all units of a certain type currently deployed get this skin. Or, all units of a certain type within a radius of a certain hex gets that skin. Or, all the reinforcements were assigned to an AI team so everybody in that AI team gets the other skin.

You should be able to set it up somehow if the "Set Unit Skin" effect itself is working. Whatever activates the deployment trigger should activate this trigger, or maybe just add the effect to the deployment trigger.

[Erik2]

I believe I have good results assigning a new skin to whole AI teams in my Afrika campaign.
But, as Bru said, there are several ways to skin this cat

[Horst]

I couldn’t get skins immediately applied when spawning units in the same turn. Any Event type doesn’t trigger on unit spawn effects, as it looks like.
The new event type Construct/Purchase/Upgrade that was introduced with Sandstorm was possibly added only for applying skins. Too bad it doesn’t include spawns.
Whatever, applying skins for alive/available/deployed units of nation X should still work one turn later on a simple turn start event. No need to spam it infinitely on Any Event if it doesn’t immediately work anyway.

[GabeKnight]

For example, all units of a certain type currently deployed get this skin. Or, all units of a certain type within a radius of a certain hex gets that skin. Or, all the reinforcements were assigned to an AI team so everybody in that AI team gets the other skin.

You should be able to set it up somehow if the "Set Unit Skin" effect itself is working. Whatever activates the deployment trigger should activate this trigger, or maybe just add the effect to the deployment trigger.

It's working for me like that. A simple test scen to spawn a unit after a VP's been taken and the skin effect applied directly after that. I'm not sure if the order of the triggers makes any difference.

Screenshot 1033.jpg (206.38 KiB) Viewed 1753 times

[PoorOldSpike]

Wow thanx guys, with your help I've just cracked it at the first attempt, you're like gods and I bet there's nothing you don't know, I might even ask you later where babies come from..

Here's how I did it simply by clicking the number sequence to make the reinfs that arrive on turn 6 a nice sandy colour-

[bru888]

Nice. Keep plugging away, Spike. Sometimes when a person asks a question, it's a golden opportunity for me and perhaps others to learn while trying to respond. Unfortunately, at my age, I have forgotten where babies come from. But I'll be sure to lurk when you post that question!

[bru888]

Here's a follow-up question of my own: That checkbox for "Only for units with default skin" - does it work as I believe it's intended? That is, say you have some units already clad in another custom skin and you use a general effect like "all of my units within 99 hexes of this target hex" (basically the entire map); i.e., the way you have it above. Will this then seek out and modify only those units that have not been custom "skinned" already (and which are eligible for skinning, of course)?

[PoorOldSpike]

Here's a follow-up question of my own: That checkbox for "Only for units with default skin" - does it work as I believe it's intended? That is, say you have some units already clad in another custom skin and you use a general effect like "all of my units within 99 hexes of this target hex" (basically the entire map); i.e., the way you have it above. Will this then seek out and modify only those units that have not been custom "skinned" already (and which are eligible for skinning, of course)?

My answer to your question is- "I don't know", as I presume all the other little options and things are for customising and fine-tuning the scenarios which I haven't got round to dabbling with in such fine detail yet..
All I did was to set a "target hex" smack in the middle of the reinf group and give it a 99-hex radius, then selected the Sandstorm skin and BINGO it worked perfectly..
I suppose if I wanted some reinfs to appear with a different skin I could create a new trigger with a new skin and a smaller radius to cover just those specific units.
PS- As a kid I asked my mother where babies come from and she said "You buy them from hospitals for £15 (20 dollars) each", but as I've got older I'm beginning to think that might not be strictly correct.

[PoorOldSpike]

I've been doing a bit more SKIN DABBLING and have found this alternative way of skinning incoming reinfs..
I created a few skin triggers for different colours, then simply named the types of the tanks which I wanted to have those skins.
In this example I selected "Sandstorm" skin and assigned it to the PzIVF2 (circled box at bott right), then when all the German reinfs arrived on turn 6, the three IVF2's on the map had the "Sandstorm" skin.
Note- you don't have to do a separate trigger for every tank, just the one trigger covers all tanks of a certain type whether there are 3 or a hundred.

(For the record I gave the Tiger a 'bronze' skin, and the Marder and Hummel stripey green skins.
I left the 3 x Pz IIIL's as default grey)
PS- But many tanks of other nationalities can't be skinned, for example the Brits, Americans and Russians are mostly always dark green as far as I can tell, so manually test them in the editor first to see if they can be skinned, otherwise you'll be wasting your time creating skinning triggers for units that can't be skinned.