The Gameplay Cue System is responsible for spawning particle effects into the world, spawning visual effects, & playing sound effects. An ability may need to spawn some particle system or spawn some sort of visual effect at a specific time, this visual effect as well as other code relating to the visual effect can be created & spawned into the world using the Gameplay Cue System.

For example, let’s say you have an ability that needs to spawn rocks that comes out of the ground. This ability could use the Gameplay Cue System to handle spawning & destroying this effect as an actor.

The Advanced Gameplay Cue System is designed to be used with Gameplay Abilities. So the Advanced Gameplay Cue System is built into the abilities system. Any actor that intends to use the Advanced Gameplay Cue System needs its own Advanced Ability System Component, or access to an ability system component. Alternatively the Gameplay Cue actors could be spawned & handled without the component. However, that would be up to the developer to manually handle themselves.

Gameplay Cue Actor and Gameplay Cue Data Asset

There are two types of gameplay cues that you can use depending on what sort of ability you are trying to create. Gameplay Cue actors are for visual effects that need to be spawned through an actor & handled through an actor. There is another type of Gameplay Cue that is a Data Asset, all the spawning of these use the ability system component. Which means you can spawn simple effects like blood or sparks without having to spawn a new gameplay cue actor.

Basic Requirements

The Gameplay Cue Actors can function without an Ability System Component, however you will need to manually handle spawning & destroying these actors. However, the Gameplay Cue data assets require the ability system component in order to spawn their visual effects.