Terrain damage, Helicopters and Airships

whoward69 · Mar 29, 2013

G&K added Airships (aka hovering units) for the Steampunk scenario, but the implementation is half-hearted and the usual "just enough" to get the scenario working.

The "Crosses Mountains" trait was also added for Carthage, with units taking 50 damage if they end their turn on a mountain, but the implementation uses a hard-coded damage value, and also (weirdly) applies it to helicopters.

These have bugged me since G&K was released, so my current mission is to rectify some of the short-comings, hard-codings and bugs (mainly in the path finder code that doesn't really allow for damage from mountains and does weird things with embarked helicopers being able to sail through ice-floes!) and also to add some other features (eg, being able to hover over both coastal and ocean ice)

If you would like to experiment with the short term goals, the attached zip contains a sample "Units - Steampunk Airships" (and also the latest DLL mod needed by it) and a saved game with a couple of Airships and a Sky Fortress already to take on your foes!

EDIT: See post #22 for the latest versions

Note 1: There are some table updates in the Airships mod which are only in there during testing - eventually they will be moved out into their own mod(s)
Note 2: The deep water embarked code is bugged in the code attached to this post. If you try to enable it within the options xml file, the DLL will crash the game eventually! The code in post #22 should work correctly.

Short Term Goals - ALL DONE

Add configurable terrain damage (like feature damage)
Replace fixed 50hp damage from mountains with terrain based damage (treat PLOT_MOUNTAIN as TERRAIN_MOUNTAIN)
Give mountains a configured damage value of 20hp (down from 50hp)
IgnoreTerrainDamage promotion feature
IgnoreFeatureDamage promotion feature
Give ice a configured damage value of 10hp
Give subs the IgnoreTerrainDamage/IgnoreFeatureDamage promotion features
Make Helicopters hover over coast, accept they can never embark so cannot enter deep water
Make hovering units be able to hover over ice (coast or deep water) taking damage
Add Airship as a graphical variant of the helicopter
Add Sky Fortress unit which can hover over any terrain taking no damage

Medium Term Goals - ALL DONE, except the two indicated

Create a CanCrossMountains promotion feature
Create an Alpine Corp promotion (can enter mountains without taking damage) for land units
Create a HalfMoves promotion feature (opposite of double moves)
Add configurable extra terrain and feature damage
ExtraTerrainDamage promotion feature
ExtraFeatureDamage promotion feature
Create a CanCrossOceans promotion feature (ships may enter the ocean without the required tech)
Create an Ocean Explorer promotion (CanCrossOceans plus half moves in oceans plus takes damage from oceans)
Give the Viking Longboat UU the Ocean Explorer promotion (not done)
Create a DeepWaterEmbarkation promotion feature, such that units embark at the coast/ocean boundary
Give hovering units the DeepWaterEmbarkation promotion feature
Option for hovering units to be able to attack coastal ships (not done)

Long Term Goals - Some done, others in the testing/planning stage

Create a CanCrossIce promotion feature (done)
Create an Arctic Corp promotion (can enter ice without taking damage) for land units (done)
Create an Ice-Breaker promotion for naval units (thanks to Nutty for this one) (done)
Create a CanCrossIce trait feature (done, needs testing)
Create a CrossesWithGreatPerson trait feature
Create a trait Arctic Nation (CanCrossIce) (for the Innuit?) (done, needs testing)
Enable ice on land (glaciers and ice-sheets) - may already be possible, I haven't checked

whoward69 · Mar 29, 2013

Ocean Explorer - Free/Gifted Promotion
Units may enter ocean tiles at half rate, but will take damge if ending their turn there

Alpine Corp - Earnable Promotion
Units may cross mountains, and do not take damage if ending their turn there

Arctic Corp - Earnable Promotion
Units may cross ice, and do not take damage if ending their turn there

whoward69 · Mar 30, 2013

Reserved

Hambil · Mar 30, 2013

I love what you've done here, along with similar work you did on ships and forts. I have to ask though, because it's bugged me from day 1, why does a helicopter need to embark at all?

whoward69 · Mar 30, 2013

Hambil said:
why does a helicopter need to embark at all?

London to Paris by helicopter, certainly.
Rome to Tunis (via Sardina), probably
New York to London (even via Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, Scotland), probably not

Bobert13 · Mar 30, 2013

Just curious here. Would it be possible to have Helicopters base on Destroyers/Cruisers? You know, like reality... I get that they fly Bell's and such for naval missions, not Apache's; but we don't ship Apache's to Afghanistan in Troop Transports either. :twitch:

It'd be even cooler if it'd be possible to switch Helicopter behavior when based on warships so that they fly sorties like the other aircraft. Maybe limit it to two choppers per Destroyer/Cruiser and maybe have one chopper slot (separate from the plane slots) on Carrier's.

While I'm on the subject (sort of), what about C-130s/Goliaths/Tupelov TU-330s? Air transport of military units (and their equipment) is completely unrepresented in the game as is, and quite frankly it's a huge hole in "modern" military tactics. Shipping an army of Modern Infantry, Rocket Artillery, etc. via the water is just plain daft...

Hambil · Mar 30, 2013

whoward69 said:
London to Paris by helicopter, certainly.
Rome to Tunis (via Sardina), probably
New York to London (even via Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, Scotland), probably not

That would make sense if I couldn't fly endlessly over the entire non-sea map without refueling. If they are going to take dramatic license, as they have with many other things, this seems like a dumb line in the sand is all.

But, glad you are doing what can be done.

whoward69 · Mar 30, 2013

Couldn't agree more. It's just where you draw arbitary lines. Personally I don't like the one for helicopters drawn at the tide line, I'd rather it was at the continental slope.

Ogenvi · Mar 30, 2013

I would like see that helicopters goes on water without embarking, but embarking only in ocean tiles and not in coastal. I tried but if helicopter goes on coastal, on ocean too without embarkation. PD: I think that these should embark on ocean because it's not probably cross a large ocean without refueling

.

whoward69 · Mar 30, 2013

Chilly out here innit!

Now for a serious code review and testing!

whoward69 · Mar 31, 2013

Who ordered extra ice with their "non-branded fizzy drink"?

Nutty · Apr 1, 2013

This is GREAT.

How will embarking be done for land units on ice? The scout is embarked in post #11 but not in #10. I expect that it has something to do with the scout being on an ocean hex in #11. Is it going to be consistent when you're done?

whoward69 · Apr 1, 2013

The embarked state in post #11 is/was a path finding bug :blush:

(hence the sarky comment about extra ice :lol:

)

Units with the "Crosses Ice" promotion will treat ice as land, no matter what it is floating on (coastal/ocean tile). So they will embark from ice into water and disembark from water onto ice

Edit: To give some context to the scale of the "crosses ice" pathfinder complexity, to enable "crosses mountains" and "crosses oceans" took one change each, "crosses ice" has (so far) touched the path finding code at 25 different places!

Ogenvi · Apr 1, 2013

Nutty said:
This is GREAT.

How will embarking be done for land units on ice? The scout is embarked in post #11 but not in #10. I expect that it has something to do with the scout being on an ocean hex in #11. Is it going to be consistent when you're done?

Maybe that's because in the first image scout has entered by normal terrain tile while in the other has entered by sea :S

whoward69 · Apr 1, 2013

Ogenvi said:
Maybe that's because in the first image scout has entered by normal terrain tile while in the other has entered by sea :S

Nope! It's a bug - found and squashed

whoward69 · Apr 1, 2013

Create a DeepWaterEmbarkation promotion feature, such that units embark at the coast/ocean boundary

And if I'd realised just how awful the path finding code is I may not have even started this!

But some progress has been made. Now if I could just get the "Ride of the Valkyries" out of my head!

but the path finder is still miscalculating route lengths

And I've not even checked what happens at ice/water boundaries yet

Nutty · Apr 2, 2013

So can you apply CanCrossIce to a naval unit for an "icebreaker" promotion?

whoward69 · Apr 2, 2013

Nutty said:
So can you apply CanCrossIce to a naval unit for an "icebreaker" promotion?

No, as that would make the ship think ice was land and hence impassable. Just give the ship PROMOTION_CAN_MOVE_IMPASSABLE - that should do it.

KnelRivendare · Apr 2, 2013

whoward69 said:
No, as that would make the ship think ice was land and hence impassable. Just give the ship PROMOTION_CAN_MOVE_IMPASSABLE - that should do it.

with that promotion the ship behaves like a sub and "submerges"" under the ice, thats rather weird

whoward69 · Apr 2, 2013

Oooh ... didn't know that!

Sounds like more code to write then. (This is getting bigger than I was expecting!)

Terrain damage, Helicopters and Airships

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