THEM thar flags are driving me NUTS!

[Hygro]

Ok, so first off: with still allowing helicopters to transport foot units, is there a way to tweak them or carriers in the editor to board carriers?

I'm guessing no, but it;s worth asking.

Ok, here's what I'm trying to do:

Dissallow stealth fighters, bombers, and stealth bombers on carriers, while allowing fighters, jet fighters, helicopters, and infantry to board.

Allow cruise missiles to board and launch of nuclear subs, aegis cruisers, and normal subs.

Tactical missiles ONLY allowed on nuclear subs.

Allow helicopters to be able to transoprt cruise missiles and foot units (this one is a low priority).


Using tactical missile, foot unit, amphibius, and other flags on the various units, I have not been able to achieve my results. Many times it seemed to be backwards of what I wanted.

I'm totally lost.

My if all this is too far fetched, my main priorities are these:

Aegis cruisers can hold and launch cruise missiles, but not tactical nukes, which can still be launched from a nuclear sub.

 

[Shabbaman]

Hygro, go to the C&C forum with this. There are the people who know (although it is reported that they lurk here occasionally)

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by Hygro
Ok, so first off: with still allowing helicopters to transport foot units, is there a way to tweak them or carriers in the editor to board carriers?

I believe that the answer is no - I tried it once but couldn;t figure out how to do it, and I haven't seen other mods which have accomplished it.

Allow cruise missiles to board and launch of nuclear subs, aegis cruisers, and normal subs.

Tactical missiles ONLY allowed on nuclear subs.

This is definitely doable -- I've made and played mods where Aegis can carry a cruise missle (but no other units), a nuclear sub could carry 4 missles, either tactical nukes or cruise missles (but no other units) and a regular sub could carry 4 foot units (but not missles). It's just a matter of getting the "load," "unload," "carry foot units only," "carry missles only," "foot unit," and "missle unit" flags all working the right way.

A word of warning, even by playing with the AI strategies flags, I haven't seen anyone show that the AI is using the changes effectively -- i.e., if playing SP, you will have an additional huge advantage over the AI since it will not load CMs onto its naval units.

Shabbaman is correct -- go to the C&C forum and you should not only get detailed directions, but also may be able to download mods with the changes already made (so you can see the finished product before tweaking yourself). If that doesn;t work, post here again or PM me and I'll send an old mod to you (from vanilla civ 3 a long time ago, but I assume it would still work).

 

[Illustrious]

To reinforce what the others have said:

(1) helos can not be transported on a carrier. Any unit that has the ability to transport something is itself unable to be transported. This is not moddable.

(2) to get Aegis to carry CMs, and nuke subs to carry tactical nukes and cruises, you mod the flags as follows:

CM =aircraft, =tactical missile
TN =tactical misssile

Aegis =transports only aircraft, =transports only tactical missiles

Nuke Sub =transports only tactical missiles.

(3) to disallow an aircraft type from carrier landing, you flag it as follows:

=transports only foot units, =transports aircraft only

(4) to allow helos to carry Cruise and foot units but nothing else - not possible.

All of the above is tried, tested and true.

 

[warpstorm]

Actually, Catt, I've had the AI use Aegis loaded CMs on me. The trick is you need to give it the missle transport strategy.

 

[sabo]

Thanks Illustrious, I've been wondering about this too. I've been able to get the Nuke subs to transport CM's but I couldn't figure out how to get the Aegis cruisers to do it. Transport only aircraft huh? Pretty smart, thanks!

 

[warpstorm]

In my mod, I made cruise missiles foot units and tactical missiles. I then allowed Aegis to carry only TMs and Foot Units.

 

[Illustrious]

Originally posted by sabo10
Thanks Illustrious, I've been wondering about this too. I've been able to get the Nuke subs to transport CM's but I couldn't figure out how to get the Aegis cruisers to do it. Transport only aircraft huh? Pretty smart, thanks!

Actually, what I gave wasn't the only answer. You could alternatively do:

CM =foot unit, =tactical missile

Aegis =transports only foot units, transports only tactical missiles.

The logic is that you give the Aegis the ability only to carry something that has a unique combination of two flags, and make cruise missile have those two flags. It works because the "transports..." flags combine using AND logic, so the Aegis can't carry anything that's only got one of the flags.

Whether you use aircraft or foot unit (or even I suppose at a pinch wheeled unit) depends on what basic behaviour you want the cruise missile to have. If you use foot unit, it behaves as in vanilla Civ3 - moves around on land only. If you use aircraft, it can skim over the surface of the sea as well (which in some ways I regard as a bit more realistic).

Whichever you use, just make sure it's got the "load" and "bombard" abilities checked.

 

[Hygro]

ok thank you very much.

When it came to the aircraft carrier, I had checked carriers air/foot units, but then my marines couldn't board, my bombers couldn't board, and my fighters (which were checked as foot unit/air) could not either.

I'm not sure how to word this next question, but here goes:

If something is checked to carry multiple things, (like tactical and foot units), what can board them? Tacticals, foot units, and hybrids? or just hybrids?

Then, if one carrying flag is checked, can only a unit of the designated type board, or can any unit with that flag, along with any others (tactical, foot, air, etc.--the hybrids) board too?


On a side note I was quite dissapointed that amphibious units cannot bombard. (Foot unit/amphibious cruise missiles seemed like a genious plan in theory).

 

[Hygro]

Ok, after some extensive testing I was able to duplicate the ideal results for the subs/aegis cruiser.

I had similiar success with the carrier. Here's what I did: Carrier carries air units only. Stealth fight, bomber and stealth bomber had the added tactical missile flag. Those bombers could rebase to airfields and to cities, but not to carriers. I also tested to make sure they couldn't board subs, aegis etc. due to the tactical flag, and they could not.

I tried the same tactic with the planes only I made them foot units, and it did not work. I'm still bothered there's no way to get helicopters to land on carriers.

When I had attempted to let carriers have air and foot units board, no air, OR foot units could board, even the air/foot unit hybrid, the fighter.

However, I am wondering if I only let carriers board foot units, and not air units, but make planes foot units, could these planes board, along with units like marines? I wouldn't do this because of the AI damage of not knowing how to use carriers (I.E. no longer air transports), but I am curious, especially since my mod I'm making is designed for multiplayer and since the computer will automatically be chieftain (>.<) they won't likely get carriers anyway.

 

[Kinboat]

Someone posted this little chart a bit ago that outlines what flags to give to what units to do all this stuff.

Basicly give the units listed the flags (X) that are to the left... or above them and then the sea transports should be able to carry only those units with an X below.

 

[Hygro]

nice chart.

 

[Bobisback]

Ok, so first off: with still allowing helicopters to transport foot units, is there a way to tweak them or carriers in the editor to board carriers?

Give the helicopter the load flag.


EDIT: I'm wrong sorry. I don't no

 

[Illustrious]

Originally posted by Hygro
Ok, after some extensive testing I was able to duplicate the ideal results for the subs/aegis cruiser.

I had similiar success with the carrier. Here's what I did: Carrier carries air units only. Stealth fight, bomber and stealth bomber had the added tactical missile flag. Those bombers could rebase to airfields and to cities, but not to carriers. I also tested to make sure they couldn't board subs, aegis etc. due to the tactical flag, and they could not.

I tried the same tactic with the planes only I made them foot units, and it did not work. I'm still bothered there's no way to get helicopters to land on carriers.

When I had attempted to let carriers have air and foot units board, no air, OR foot units could board, even the air/foot unit hybrid, the fighter.

However, I am wondering if I only let carriers board foot units, and not air units, but make planes foot units, could these planes board, along with units like marines? I wouldn't do this because of the AI damage of not knowing how to use carriers (I.E. no longer air transports), but I am curious, especially since my mod I'm making is designed for multiplayer and since the computer will automatically be chieftain (>.<) they won't likely get carriers anyway.

You're looking at several problems.

(1) A ship will only accept rebase commands if the only "carrying" flag it has is for aircraft. So, if you try to combine the "carries aircraft" and "carries foot units" flags on a carrier, you lose the ability to land anything on its deck.

(2) Because of the way the "carrying" flags combine (logical AND rather than OR), the only way to get a ship to carry a wider range of units is to give it fewer flags. Adding more flags reduces the number of things it can carry.

(3) Combining (1) and (2) means that the only way to get an aircraft carrier which can also carry marines is to make the marines into aircraft (which means they won't behave properly as marines, so not worth doing) - anything else at all is apparently impossible.

(3) There is one way of getting helos to land on carriers, but you won't like it. They will rebase to carriers if and only if they have a carrying capacity of zero. Fine for attack helos such as the Apache, but useless for marine assault types.

(4) Any solution that involves not flagging aircraft as aircraft is going to give more problems than it can possibly solve. As you noted, it b*ggers up the AI air strategies, and it almost certainly has other downsides.

The main conclusion is that you can mod ordinary warships to do useful things, but carriers are stuck with just being carriers. You can restrict which aircraft can land on them, but you can't broaden the class of things they can carry.

 

[Hygro]

That's the conclusion I came to

However, like I said earlier, I could restrict some planes from boarding thanks to the tactical missile flag.

I guess if I want cool marine assualts by air I'll stick to airfields and so forth.

 

[pap1723]

Would it be possible to have land units on a carrier and have them paradrop to where you want them so it would be like the helo was transporting them there?

Pap

 

[Hygro]

I don't think you could get paratroopers on aircraft carriers... but I have no clue.

 

[WildWeazel]

Originally posted by pap1723
Would it be possible to have land units on a carrier and have them paradrop to where you want them so it would be like the helo was transporting them there?
Pap

Don't take my word on this- it's just a thought, but could you label paratroopers as aircraft and keep the paradrop ability and not make them immobile? This should give them the ability to "land" on carriers, airdrop out of them, and still walk around and attack like normal. The AI would never use them right, but perhaps if you made an amphibious paratrooper and left the original for the AI it wouldn't make much of an impact on gameplay.
Again, I've never tried this, so someone say so if it won't work.

 

[Hygro]

except then ground troops would automatically destroy the paratroopers in a fight and the paratroopers could only destroy air units.

 

[WildWeazel]

Originally posted by Hygro
except then ground troops would automatically destroy the paratroopers in a fight and the paratroopers could only destroy air units.

Oh, yeah I forgot about that! I knew it couldn't be THAT easy!