5 Stages of An Ability

In ABC abilities can process through 5 different stages starting with activation and ending with the ability being disabled/destroyed. Settings can change the behaviour of each stage and some stages are optional. These stages are as follows:

• Activation/Triggering

• Preparation

• Initiation

• In Game

• Ability End

Stage 1: Activation / Triggering

Once triggered ABC will start the process of making the ability appear in the game. The ability can be triggered through different events like a key press, through code, icon clicking or activating automatically through the AI system.

Stage 2: Preparation (Optional)

After activation the ability enters preparation stage. This stage is skipped if no preparation time has been defined. At the preparation stage the ability will wait a certain amount of time before moving to the initiation stage.

During preparation the entity activating the ability can perform animation, particles/graphics can be configured to appear and GUI can be setup to show the preparation progress. The preparation stage can be interrupted in certain situations depending on configuration.

Casting a spell or winding up a big attack is a good example of where the preparation stage can be used for your abilities

Stage 3: Initiation

At the initiation stage the ability GameObject is created in game at the configured starting position with particles, colliders, travel components and all the settings/functionality which have been setup for the ability. During initiation the entity activating the ability can perform animations and particles/graphics can be configured to appear.

A delay can also be applied (either a time delay or a wait till the initiation animation is at a certain percentage) as to when the ability object is created once the initiation mode begins. This allows for any animations to play out before the ability appears in game which can aid in timing melee attacks or when a fireball should appear after the entity animates a hand into the right position etc.

Stage 4: In Game

Once initiated (after any initiation delay) the ability will appear in game and will travel in different ways depending on travel type configured. There is also options for the ability to not travel but remain where they spawned.

For melee attacks the ability will travel with the configured object its attached too (i.e the equipped sword) leaving it up to animations to move the ability around.

During this stage the ability will interact with other objects colliding and applying effects.

ABC State Manager and any Collider is required on objects for abilities to interact and apply effects

Stage 5: Ability Impact/End

The final stage of an ability is the object being disabled and the ability being removed from play. The ability will end via different methods like after a set duration or on collision with another object. At this stage graphics/particles can appear simulating that the ability is being disabled i.e an explosion when a fireball hits an object.