Mod questions

[Aezeal]

I've got a few questions

Is there a way to make sure a creature
- WIll NOT DIE the first turn after it's summoned in combat
- Do creatures with a HUGE AOE ranged attack with a very short range (say 1) fire if they do not have a target withing range (range 1) but DO have targets within the AOE if they shoot just next to themselves?
- Make it die after making one attack
- is there a limit to the AOE you can give an attack?

Just making a creature that has 1 HP and then fires a huge AOE ranged attack that will nearly always hit himself was my first idea and would do well enough but if he's killed before he can attack it would be kinda silly.

(The use is: I want to create an orbital strike spell but since we lack the graphs for that I wanted to summon the "Orbital beam" creature with a sprite of about 6000x6000 transparent with a beam about 4000 pixels from the right border. THat way if a mage summons it on an average battle field it will be summoned next to the mage but I guess the actually beam will show somewhere between the enemy or about in the middle if it's a larger battle field.)
Then I make an attack sprite which is the explosion sprite that hits on where the beam "landed".
That way the mage cast a spell, the beam hits the battlefield and when the beam attacks there is an explosion. Of course the beam should DIE then or it will be very awkward.
The attack would then deal huge damage all over the battle field. It would of course be a high level combat spell in line with the battle winning spells that the vanilla game has.

any ideas on how to do this most effectively

Of course if you summon the beam next to the mage usually somewhere on back of the battlefield you USUALLY wouldn't lose the beam before it could attack but if it happens (fliers dom 3 K has a lot of these, and dom 3 K has lots of powerfull ranged attack) it would be silly.

edit:

PS I thought about giving it flying so most damage wouldn't be on your part of the battle field but a jumping orbital beam would be silly too.