OK, this is driving me crazy

I'm trying to add regular critters to a custom group, then add captives from that custom group to a map.

I want even the critters I stole from standard groups to appear under the custom group's name when they're captives (the group name gives context to the situation, and it should be the same context for standard vs. custom critters in my custom group).

But the MA won't seem to let me do this. When I edit the mission, the regular critters just don't appear in the list of available critters in my custom group.

I swear I saw a tip someone mentioned on how to do this, maybe even within the last two days, but now of course I can't find it.

Anyone have a pointer?

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And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

To get this working, I have my custom ones in one group and then pull those in along with regular critters into a new group.

But when I made a custom group, put regulars in it, then create characters into it, it wipes my regulars out.

I think with either approach, if you edit and creatures it will wipe the group again, but that could just be faulty memory on my part.

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This seems to be a limitation of MA.

The standard critters you included in a custom group will spawn in the mission or in the mobs surrounding a boss when you name that custom group. But when you specify an ally, captive or boss it seems to include only the custom critters in the group. The MA seems to insist that custom allies, captives and bosses be truly custom.

I have bugged this, as I want the group name to be custom but to use standard critters for bosses, much the way you do.

If there is a workaround, I'd sure like to know it!

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I think Corsaire may have misunderstood what I meant here. I'll give a concrete example.

Let's say I'm creating a faction of witches, called "The Fearsome Coven". I re-use some of the witches from the Cabal faction along with some custom critters with appropriately witchy powers. I create the Fearsome Coven successfully, and when I create a mission where they are adversaries, everything works as expected.

Then I create a mission where you have to rescue some members of the Fearsome Coven from their arch enemies, the All Righteous Crusade. But I can't add the Cabal witches as captives and still have them be labeled "The Fearsome Coven" - they don't appear under that faction, so you have to add them manually from the Cabal faction, and they end up being labeled "Cabal" in the mission.

I think this is just a bug. Sigh.

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And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

Sorry, I did misunderstand, I fixated on the not showing up part.

I found a work around, but it requires hand editing the file and the captive condition will fail if you reopen it in the editor.

Setup the captive as one of your customs in that group.
Save the arc.
Edit the mission file.
Look for the detail for that captive; change the "EntityType Custom" to "Entity Type Standard",
then scroll down to the CustomVillainGroup area look under ExistingVillains, count down to find the index for the Cabal character you want for your captive.
Change the CustomCritterIdx in the rescue detail to be that number.
e.g.<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Detail
{
Name "Lady Witch"
DetailType Rescue
EntityGroup Goodies
EntityType Standard
EnemyGroupType Standard
Quantity 1
CustomCritterIdx 1
}

EndMission


CustomVillainGroup
{
ReferenceName Goodies
CustomCrittedIdx 1, 2
ExistingVillains
{
LevelIdx 9
CostumeIdx Croatoa_Cabal_Lieutenant_01
Name Cabal_Cabal_Thunder_Mavan
}


}


CustomCritter
{
ReferenceFile WITCHERMAN.CRITTER
Name WitcherMan
VillainGroup "Bad Witchers"

</pre><hr />

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KeepDistance,

Any luck with the solution above?

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