Ranged Bombard Rework Project

Thunderbrd

C2C War Dog
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There are two major flaws with the current version of Ranged Bombard (otherwise known as DCMBombard) that I'm seeking to address here and in the process of evaluating the coding there's more I'd like to adjust that I figured I'd bring forward to the forum before committing to.

The problems as identified so far:
1) The damage that is dealt by ranged bombard attacks is purely derivative from the unit's ability to inflict collateral damage and basically a successful bombard is just a one shot collateral attack without actually entering battle to achieve it.

The problem is that we have a number of units that we've setup to ranged bombard that don't even deal any collateral! So our own intentions for having units that can ranged bombard that don't also do collateral damage when they attack are being entirely thwarted by the methods this system utilizes.

One example: the Frigate cannot deal collateral but has the ranged bombard ability but unfortunately does nothing when it takes such an action because it doesn't have any collateral.

Proposed Solution: New tags to define what Collateral tags had previously defined for these units. This will mean we start by cloning over collateral applications to the new tags but we'll have to go much deeper and actually develop it out on meaningful progression scales and include units that should be able to Ranged Bombard but cannot cause Collateral into the picture. This will be the lion's share of the grunt work on the project. Perhaps someone would like to embrace this end of the project?


2) Ranged Bombard never hits the lead defender in the stack. This really mutes its benefit since it won't help you to make that first 'best defender' any easier to overcome - EVER. If there's only one defender, ranged bombard is completely useless. For Size Matters, the option exacerbates the problem significantly since the most powerful largest most merged unit generally escapes any worry from this form of attack while it yet should be the most targeted.

Proposed Solution: An entirely new function handles Ranged Bombardment and while very similar to the processing of Collateral damage, it does not skip the lead defender but rather targets that unit FIRST.

Now... those are issues that others have pointed out as being problematic (and I completely agree.)

But there's also a few more things I ran across while evaluating the code:
1) I did not know this because I always use the Ranged Bombard mission only when I've already bombarded the city defenses down as far as I can with the normal City Bombard mission but apparently if you Ranged Bombard when there is still some Bombardable City Defenses in place then you have a chance of either striking the city OR a unit (I'm not sure they got that working quite like their notes indicated they'd wanted to - it's possible that it will ONLY hit the city defenses until that's reduced as far as possible.)

This is kinda an issue for me because the calculations between the normal City Bombard action and the results you get through this mission are entirely different and I don't think it's terribly cool to the player to be so potentially confusing to have both missions available while one does only the first part and the other does something akin to the first part while mostly being for the second part (targeting the units on the plot.) It also invites a lot of disharmony between the normal City Bombard action and the Ranged Bombard action and I'd much rather separate them completely.

Proposed Solution: Completely disable the ability for Ranged Bombard to act in any way like a City Bombard intended to tear down the defenses.


2) For those moments when a Ranged Bombard IS hitting units rather than the city defenses and there ARE city defenses still able to be further bombarded, units in the city are oddly MORE vulnerable to Ranged Bombard rather than more protected from it. I find this counter-intuitive and counter-productive to game play.

Proposed Solution: Take the % of Total City Defense vs Current City Defense (considering all damage the city has currently taken) and apply it as a modifier to...


3) The city's defense against bombard never plays a roll in this kind of defense at all - only against the kind of City Bombard that tears down the city defenses. It should apply here as well.

Proposed Solution:(continuing from above)Take the % of Total City Defense vs Current City Defense (considering all damage the city has currently taken) and apply it as a modifier to the maximum normal city bombard defense and use that final value as an expansion of the amount of potential to miss any unit targeted by this attack.

I believe I would like to continue to utilize Collateral Defense units have as a damage resistance factor against Ranged Bombard.


4) The information display on units lacks an explanation of the rating of damage, maximum targets, and damage limit and this currently stems from those values being derived from the collateral ability of the unit (which to me can have entirely different justifications.)

Proposed Solution: Self explanatory - add more description to the unit hovers.


5) Range, Accuracy, Damage, Damage Limit, and Maximum Targets are currently undevelopable from promos and unitcombats (except for those things which currently work to develop collateral since that's how many of these values are derived.)

Proposed Solution: Make it possible for promos and unitcombats to manipulate these values - this can mean a whole new world of development for Siege and Air unit (since Air units use this mission too) promotion lines. They need some more to work with I think.


6) When Ranged Bombarding from a city to strike at approaching units, the accuracy odds are greatly diminished. This again seems terribly counter-intuitive and irrational but was apparently done for gamebalance in light of an overly powerful automatic bombard reaction on another option. THAT option has been rebalanced so as to be much less powerful so I believe we can now dispense with this illogical odds hit when bombarding at units from the comfort of a city. (If anything it should be easier to hit approaching attackers as you would have your terrain very well mapped out.)

Proposed Solution: Simply disable the penalty here. I could see Tower buildings actually generating a local Accuracy (and maybe range?) bonus for local Ranged Bombarding units. I wasn't planning on inserting this capability right away but I'll see what y'all say on that.




So I'm looking to solve all of the above issues. And I have the majority of the coding to do so complete already and pending re-adjustment based on feedback or commit based on agreed upon acceptance.

The only problem would be that it would make all ranged bombard units ineffective until their Damage, Damage Limit, and Max # of Target Units tags were defined - which again would be at first just cloned over from unit bombard tags as they currently stand to get us caught up to where we are now before doing a complete re-evaluation of Ranged Bombard Capable units.


Opinions, suggestions, offers of aid?
 
Most excellent. Especially the point 2 needs fixing badly with or without Size matters.

To 6 : Maybe you could give towers some basic accuracy values and a possibility to improve them with mapping drill controller buildings/etc.

And finish+polish this project before releasing it ok ? :)
 
I was under the impression that collateral was only used for the equivalent of ranged bombardment.

The explanation of what ranged bombardment is defined as on the battle field explains why the first and last units are always missed. Your are coming down from above therefore you aim for the main body of troops because you get better results since if you miss one unit in the middle you will hit another whereas if you aim at the front unit and miss then you are likely to miss everything and do no damage. The rear units are out of range.

Some special types of artillery/ammunition are designed to cut down the lead troops and continue on through the rest eg chain shot but they aren't really ranged bombardment more opportunity fire.

All of this means that perhaps when doing ranged bombardment the units that defend should be not be the strongest but based on speed instead. The target is not the fastest or the slowest but the ones in the middle.

And finish+polish this project before releasing it ok ? :)

In which case it will not have chance to be tested properly by others. It needs to be released into the SVN for proper integration testing.;)
 
If there's any basic XML coding involved I'd be happy to help. My main concern is that this 'complete solution' will take one or more years or get shelved due to other quicker and easier priorities. I hope it's not my impatience for a solution here talking, but if there is a quick and dirtyeasy way to get ranged bombard "sort of" working to be going on with, may I humbly recommend that course of action in the short term (and testing is imo completely optional, as something is axiomatically better than nothing:lol:).
 
I suggest adding a range value to help deal with tech differences. For example: Catapults vs. Riflemen. The cats have range bombard, and the riflemen don't. However, the riflemen's range is greater and prevents the cats from using range bombardment forcing the cats to make a normal attack.

I also suggest counter battery promo (or change to it if it exists) so that it reduces the effect of range bombard attacks and possible inflicts some return damage (though would need a restriction of one use per turn per level of promo).
 
I was under the impression that collateral was only used for the equivalent of ranged bombardment.

The explanation of what ranged bombardment is defined as on the battle field explains why the first and last units are always missed. Your are coming down from above therefore you aim for the main body of troops because you get better results since if you miss one unit in the middle you will hit another whereas if you aim at the front unit and miss then you are likely to miss everything and do no damage. The rear units are out of range.

Some special types of artillery/ammunition are designed to cut down the lead troops and continue on through the rest eg chain shot but they aren't really ranged bombardment more opportunity fire.

All of this means that perhaps when doing ranged bombardment the units that defend should be not be the strongest but based on speed instead. The target is not the fastest or the slowest but the ones in the middle.



In which case it will not have chance to be tested properly by others. It needs to be released into the SVN for proper integration testing.;)
I MAY be able to figure out how to alter the FIRST unit it goes after but I don't want to make any unit in the targeted stack immune as it currently does - this is the whole problem. Don't mind that it STARTS after the first - only that it will NEVER hit the first (and the last CAN be hit according to the current coding I believe.)

In general though from what I can see the process just follows a regular looping process going through the stack so it may well be somewhat random which units are considered 'first'. The old method isolates the strongest defender and makes sure it's immune to the effect - this does not benefit gameplay despite it's intention.

Furthermore, the rational was invented to justify the simplistic method of utilizing the Collateral code which had already been designed by Firaxis to not inflict collateral on the unit that had been actually attacked and would be damaged as determined in regular battle by the attacking unit. Based on the quality of the coding I'm seeing here, I have a feeling it was not intentional to disallow Ranged Bombardment to damage the strongest unit in the stack so much as what was easiest to implement.

If there's any basic XML coding involved I'd be happy to help. My main concern is that this 'complete solution' will take one or more years or get shelved due to other quicker and easier priorities. I hope it's not my impatience for a solution here talking, but if there is a quick and dirtyeasy way to get ranged bombard "sort of" working to be going on with, may I humbly recommend that course of action in the short term (and testing is imo completely optional, as something is axiomatically better than nothing:lol:).
The good news is the coding is pretty much all complete in the dll (just not put in place on the SVN) - it's only the XML that will need a lot of work from here. I have a little more research to do to make sure but I THINK we can easily identify those units that are supposed to have Ranged Bombardment ability in the first place by their usage of the DCMBombard tags. (Those tags will retain their use here btw.) From there we can rather easily chart out those units and what their current Collateral settings are (that are currently in use supporting the unit's ranged bombard ability) and then be more firmly deterministic about what the NEW ranged bombard tags should be filled with.

In the meantime, until Ranged Bombard has been reworked in the XML and thus again 'works', perhaps it should be turned off on the SVN version... they have a very odd way of defining it's being off an on btw - just a boolean in their global defines file apparently.

But there's a few more things to consider before we really go to look to implement it in full in the XML...

I suggest adding a range value to help deal with tech differences. For example: Catapults vs. Riflemen. The cats have range bombard, and the riflemen don't. However, the riflemen's range is greater and prevents the cats from using range bombardment forcing the cats to make a normal attack.

I also suggest counter battery promo (or change to it if it exists) so that it reduces the effect of range bombard attacks and possible inflicts some return damage (though would need a restriction of one use per turn per level of promo).
Interesting suggestions. The unit or stack attacked with ranged bombard cannot really be evaluated for any consideration of the Ranged Bombarding unit's range. This would be next to impossible without terribly complex and processing heavy code that would really confuse players when they went to use the mission - aka: "Why can't I target that stack with my ranged bombard" would be a common question.

However, you make a good point that I've been considering here - maybe more units than what we've defined so far should be capable of Ranged Bombard...

It would be entirely possible to make Ranged Bombard simply a Ranged Attack feature the way this is shaping up. A Ranged Attack like this would basically be a one shot strike at who knows what unit on a given tile. The other form of Ranged Attack that we have works more like a Sniper and you can actually target a particular unit on the tile you strike.

We could and probably should actually entirely replace Archer Bombard with this new form of Ranged Bombard. No reason why we shouldn't really. It would help us to keep a more consistent ruleset between one form of Ranged Attack to another to have them all operate off the same basic 'rules'.

Now... if Archers can have enough range to reach out with an attack one tile out, then what should Rifles be capable of? I'm thinking at least matching Archers in a one tile range would be reasonable here and possibly even a two tile range. Why not? One single round's worth of attack represent a fairly weak and non-committed go of injuring the enemy while a full-on assault with closing range would be that committed fight to the death. You COULD stand back and take potshots at the enemy and sometimes that's exactly what you do if you don't think your odds are all that great at a full assault, but you'll be unlikely to ever complete the battle that way.

Keep in mind the new tags allow us to determine how many units the attack can strike, base damage, range, accuracy and so forth so we can still give siege weapons a strong dominance in this field.


I forgot to consider and mention that another item on my todo list can be addressed now at this point too... giving this action some XP award! If we're going to enable most distance wielding units (beyond the range of a thrown weapon anyhow) to utilize Ranged Bombard (which I support but we'll see what others have to say about the idea) then giving an XP for making the attack seems important to accomplish (and easily done.)


Counterbombardment... to me it seems like this would just be accomplished by choosing to bombard back after you've been Range Bombarded. However, the structure of the proposed system does give an ability to develop resistance to ranged damage from this source.
 
Counterbombardment... to me it seems like this would just be accomplished by choosing to bombard back after you've been Range Bombarded. However, the structure of the proposed system does give an ability to develop resistance to ranged damage from this source.

Or there could be a chance that when your unit range bombards, and the enemy has units with the same range, these would get into an actual fight.
 
Or there could be a chance that when your unit range bombards, and the enemy has units with the same range, these would get into an actual fight.

An attack initiation probably wouldn't be very code safe if there were any random determination to it.
 
Ok, a few further developments now:
1) When playing Size Matters, units that would physically take up more space are more likely to be targets.


2) The strongest defender is LESS likely to be a target (by half) but not incapable of becoming one.


3) Each successful ranged bombardment attack will earn a base of 1 XP.

Before committing all these adjustments mentioned above and here I will make sure to get the basic XML work done to get units at least up to the capacity they currently have for Ranged Bombardment... then we can figure out how we really want units to be capable or incapable of ranged bombardment and to what extent.
 
If there's any basic XML coding involved I'd be happy to help. My main concern is that this 'complete solution' will take one or more years or get shelved due to other quicker and easier priorities. I hope it's not my impatience for a solution here talking, but if there is a quick and dirtyeasy way to get ranged bombard "sort of" working to be going on with, may I humbly recommend that course of action in the short term (and testing is imo completely optional, as something is axiomatically better than nothing:lol:).

So I just went through and setup all units that already have some DCM bombard ability (according to the DCM bombard tags being set) by transferring their collateral tag settings to the new RBombard tags that replace them for the new ranged bombard function and... WOW!

It is unreal how many units are currently assumed or are supposed to be able to range bombard but have no collateral ability and thus can perform a ranged bombard attack but effectively do NOTHING when they do so!

I'll commit these changes tomorrow after some testing but we're really going to need to go through and pick out all units from the main unit list that should be able to bombard and figure out how to arrange their values!

I suppose the FIRST thing would be to go through COMBAT CLASSES and figure out what combat classes should patently be capable of ranged bombard attack and under what basic progressionary guidelines. One combat class, like Archer, might be able to ranged bombard with some basic guidelines in the way their tags are setup for that much differently than another, like Gun... then again it would probably be more beneficial to look through the WEAPON type combat classes and give THOSE more consideration than other generic categorizations.

If this is losing you here at first I'll take those first steps over the next few days and show you what I mean. Then it'll be a matter of selecting out all the units within those categories, arranging them in progression lines, and chart out how their tags should be assigned. Some values may be as or more applicable to the combat classes themselves... Once we've determined those values from an overview state we can then begin to assign them in the xml.

Then we can take an extra neat step and take a look at some promotions that could be available to different unit types to expand on some skill and ability developments.




Another thing: I believe I may want to include some Precision/Dodge/Armor and Puncture values into the mix of the Ranged Bombardment process but I haven't quite determined how I want to go about that yet so FOR NOW I'll leave that out... but not forever. They aren't coming into play much yet so I have some time to further consider.
 
To save time, and unless any jump out at you, I propose you just give ranged bombard to the units that have always supposedly had it. If archers had both (ranged and archer bombard), it sounds cool I guess, but it would require loads of tweaking to ensure one wasn't always better than the other ie. that both were worth having. That's extra work that this project can do without - don't you think?

Why would you go by combat class? You mean sub-combats such as "Wields (Distance Cannonball)" (ie. in the case of the Frigate)? That's fair enough I guess, but I do think just sticking with the units that already 'have' it will do for 'stage one'.
 
To save time, and unless any jump out at you, I propose you just give ranged bombard to the units that have always supposedly had it. If archers had both (ranged and archer bombard), it sounds cool I guess, but it would require loads of tweaking to ensure one wasn't always better than the other ie. that both were worth having. That's extra work that this project can do without - don't you think?

Why would you go by combat class? You mean sub-combats such as "Wields (Distance Cannonball)" (ie. in the case of the Frigate)? That's fair enough I guess, but I do think just sticking with the units that already 'have' it will do for 'stage one'.

1) I was actually thinking this should replace archer bombard so that there is only one generic solution with one clear ruleset rather than 2 things covering the same basic effect.

2) The problem with your proposed stage 1 is that it takes as much thought to figure out what the values of the 60% of units that don't have any current collateral settings SHOULD have. And then its only a patch and if we're looking to streamline efforts, probably not a terribly well thought out one.

3) The benefit of starting with Combat Class considerations (and yes you mentioned one in the category I was particularly thinking would be good to help be a guide) is three-fold.

First of all some values can be assigned to the Combat Class itself to provide a base for all units in that class. Then we can progress from there evaluating the units that have the class.

Second, it helps us to identify the units that should be able to have the ability. Makes it very easy to filter the unit list document for all units with that combat class. Then each CC gets a progression chart for the applicable tags.

Then each unit can be assigned the 'best of both' on each tag when it has multiple applicable CCs. (This may make it less likely to be able to take advantage of the first benefit but it will at least help the whole progress structure make a lot more sense.)

Third, it allows us to look at each 'weapon' as having it's own manner of performing ranged bombard attacks. We can say one type, like 'fireworks' has low damage, low to medium max damage, high max targets, medium accuracy, etc... to represent a wide effect that isn't terribly devastating. Compared to a more specific target weapon like a Ballista which would have Medium Damage, High Max Damage, Very Low max targets, High Accuracy. This way we can set ourselves up for a design plan quite easily based on the weapon combat class.


I'm also thinking of adding a boolean tag to the mix that states whether the first unit in the stack SHOULD be the most likely first target or least so as to more clearly pinpoint whether the attack is a really lobbing attack into the center of the forces or a more straight direct fire attack at the first forces visible. At the moment I'm using a mechanism in the code to determine all to be more like a lobbed attack but some weapons may be more direct.
 
In my opinion you are emphasizing the wrong aspects. Also, unless I misunderstood your response to my points, please do not have bombardment ranges beyond 1 tile... at least not until modern arty.

I disagree with your assessment about players thinking it is a bug when archers find they can't bombard machine guns or cannons. Not sure why a simple comparison of ranges between bombarded and the defender or average of all defenders can't be done. Simularly with counter barrage. Counter arty and good spotters (fwrd observers, balloons, spotter planes) is the real counter measure not some 'dodge' value.
 
In my opinion you are emphasizing the wrong aspects. Also, unless I misunderstood your response to my points, please do not have bombardment ranges beyond 1 tile... at least not until modern arty.

I disagree with your assessment about players thinking it is a bug when archers find they can't bombard machine guns or cannons. Not sure why a simple comparison of ranges between bombarded and the defender or average of all defenders can't be done. Simularly with counter barrage. Counter arty and good spotters (fwrd observers, balloons, spotter planes) is the real counter measure not some 'dodge' value.

I wasn't really considering having anything capable of hitting farther than one tile out until something much more modern at least.

The reason it would seem to be a bug is because I wouldn't be able to stop the targeting process from simply having you select a valid within range tile. It's the tile that's being targeted at that point, not any particular units ON that tile, and to add complex evaluations of the units on the tile being targeted (you can target a tile without any units on it btw) would greatly slow turn times once I get the AI taught to utilize the mechanism properly. Then once you're targeting a tile and thus the stack ON that tile, getting a message that you can't because the distance bombard abilities of the units on that tile were somehow 'range superior' to yours would be extremely frustrating in play.
 
No more frustrating, to me at least, than watching higher tech-longer range units getting bombarded without repercussion.

Other people's mileage may vary.
 
No more frustrating, to me at least, than watching higher tech-longer range units getting bombarded without repercussion.

Other people's mileage may vary.

Why would there be no repercussion? Why not just strike back the next round?

Believe it or not Arrows actually have an extraordinarily long range if simply lobbed like a siege fire (thus whey they were called 'ARCH ers'.) A cannon's range is not much better and generally fired straight thus requiring a line of sight. Bullets are extremely difficult to use in an 'artillery' role as the slightest variation from one man's gun's elevation and powder pack to the next tends to get the group's weapon fire to land in a wide spray pattern that doesn't well concentrate on the spot you'd like to aim for. Therefore, a one tile range is still fairly appropriate as they really must be able to get a line of sight or idea of a line of sight on their enemy to be effective at extremely long range.

Mind, more advanced rifles CAN get a longer range and perhaps THAT is where a two tile range might start to become more reasonable (assuming we're not playing on less than a Large map at least.)

I mean, the limit of a tile's width as a range increment kinda sucks anyhow so it would have to be at least a little fudge forgiving. Just because you're in range of your enemy's long range counterfire doesn't mean you can't hit them either. If you want to engage in a truly meaningful battle you'd close and attack which can still be seen as all taking place at a distance if both are utilizing distance fire - only at closer and more accurate range.

Archers would have less accuracy of course than those units that would have a longer range capability but not longer than a whole extra tile's worth.

Could the option that has your units automatically bombard enemy units when they enter your bombard capable unit's range might be the thing that would make this feel right? That's already in place.
 
Distance Grenade UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_GRENADE iDCMBombRange iDCMBombAccuracy iRBombardDamage iRBombardDamageLimit iRBombardDamageMaxUnits bDirectRBombard May Develop iDCMBombRange Max Additional Accuracy Max Additional Damage Max Additional Limit Max Additional Targets
Distance Light Crossbow UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_LIGHT_CROSSBOW 1 25 25 20 1 Yes No 25 25 50 1
Distance Heavy Crossbow UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_HEAVY_CROSSBOW 1 30 35 30 1 Yes No 25 25 50 1
Distance Repeating Crossbow UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_REPEATING_CROSSBOW 1 20 30 20 2 Yes No 25 25 50 2
Distance Shortbow UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_SHORTBOW 1 20 20 15 2 No No 25 25 50 3
Distance Longbow UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_LONGBOW 1 30 30 25 2 No No 25 25 50 3
Distance Handgun UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_HANDGUN
Distance Rifle UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_RIFLE 1 50 50 40 1 Yes Yes 50 50 50 2
Distance Semi-Automatic UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_SEMI_AUTOMATIC 1 50 60 50 1 Yes Yes 50 50 50 3
Distance Fully-Automatic UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_FULLY_AUTOMATIC 1 60 80 60 1 Yes Yes 50 50 50 4
Distance Laser Beam UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_LASER 1 80 70 50 1 Yes Yes/Yes 100 100 50 6
Distance Ion Beam UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_ION 2 70 100 100 1 Yes Yes/Yes 100 400 100 2
Distance Frost Beam UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_FROST
Distance Electrical Beam UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_ELECTRICAL
Distance Flame Jet UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_FLAME
Distance Heat Beam UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_HEAT
Distance Sonic Beam UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_SONIC
Distance EMP UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_EMP
Distance Ballista UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_BALLISTA 1 40 40 40 1 Yes No 40 60 50 1
Distance Launched Stone UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_LAUNCHED_STONE 1 30 60 30 2 No No 40 40 50 2
Distance Fireworks UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_FIREWORKS 1 35 30 25 4 No No 40 30 50 4
Distance Cannonball UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_CANNONBALL 1 50 70 40 2 Yes No 60 70 50 2
Distance Shellfire UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_SHELLFIRE 1 60 80 80 3 No Yes 80 120 100 3
Distance Short Range Missile UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_SHORT_RANGE_MISSILE
Distance Medium Range Missile UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_MEDIUM_RANGE_MISSILE 2 90 90 90 4 No No 100 300 100 4
Distance Long Range Missile UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_LONG_RANGE_MISSILE 3 100 80 80 3 No Yes/Yes 200 300 100 3
Distance Torpedo UNITCOMBAT_WEAPON_DIST_TORPEDO 1 80 100 100 1 Yes Yes 100 200 100 1
 
The above comprises suggestions regarding base values that units would derive from Combat Classes. Units could individually be able to add to these depending on their upgrade progressions (generally these represent the FIRST unit of its type in most cases.)

To pull this off, since I have units with multiple combat classes, I'll need to either make CCs add in only the best of all CCs for these particular tags OR just use these as bases off which to apply values to units to begin with (which I may well need to do.)

As an alternative, I COULD make each unitcombat have its own ranged Bombard Mission so you would select to range Bombard AS a type you qualify to attack as and modifiers are given to that type. This may be the best way to go - thus if you are attacking only one tile away a Laser might be a better attack choice than a Long Range missile. Yeah, this well could be the way to go and would be quite interesting in-game. From this point I can make these values from CCs only add to the CC type of Ranged Bombard attack and use that as a base.

This, surprisingly, I don't think would take much more programming actually... and I can make a vector select only valid CC types to include in these. Ok, I'm off to think more.
 
I believe the Compound Bow is just a more advanced Longbow and the Bellybow is a crude version of the Heavy Crossbow if I'm not mistaken - isn't that how we set those up?
 
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