RE: Naming - I find that once you've got a number memorized to a name it's a pain in the arse to change it. Furthermore, I'm not really seeing anything but an individual opinion (aka no evidence based rationale showing cause to make a change there) which I can't fault you for but also am not compelled by. It would be just as likely to have dislike from anyone for any naming is my point. Since it's been established and been this way for a bit and its not hard to remember the way its setup, why change it?
Noticed now that we have INVISIBLE_NANO as an invisibility type.
So either we don't need the unitcombat SIZE_MICROSCOPIC or we don't need the invisibility type INVISIBLE_NANO. What is your opinion; if we were to keep both then the lowest size wouldn't need to be so drastically different from the rest.
SIZE_MICROSCOPIC and INVISIBLE_NANO would be different things. The invisible nano was envisioned during some of the naval review late game brainstorming where some Troid units (extremely advanced AI) are made up of trillions of nano-cells that can, at their option, decide to scatter their nano-cells out across vast distances to be effectively immaterial and very difficult to deeply injure, then pull themselves back together when they wish to 'manifest'. It's not something that follows the same principles as a simple microscopic group size. However, the sensory tools developed to find and identify the presence of a unit using Nano invisibility would certainly give some similar revealing capacity to detect the presence of Microscopic size units.
Edit: tested negative values for range, seems like it does have a rather awkward effect currently. It makes units invisible if they get too close and visible when they move away, in other words it increases intensity the further away from the unit it goes.
That's strange considering the code currently only interacts with positive values on range. (Or it should... I might be looking at the code after my adjustments last night which should soon be posted to the SVN that should make negative range work the way you suggested.)
Consider making most "invisibility" optional, in that the 'invisible' unit can make themselves 'visible' if they so choose.
And if I may mention again the possibility of promos that can be chosen as "missions" ie. action buttons. So a default-invisible unit can pick up a temporary promo to become visible, for as long as it wishes to be so. And maybe a default-visible unit eg. Marines or Law Enforcement should be able to go invisible for undercover/black ops mode operation. (As an aside, HNs could use the same mechanism to "Declare Nationality" if they so wished).
Afflictions and equipment etc. are going to need these kinds of promos anyway, and they have been done in other mods (eg. Fall From Heaven II), so it might be time..
This is an excellent idea. Thanks Yudishtira! I think you're absolutely right. It's time to develop an optional status set of promos and a mechanism to switch such statuses. It could probably also handle the submerging process if done right. That would play right back into what we were beginning to consider at the end of last cycle as well. I'll work on that soon.
You mostly want your units to be visbible when you defend something.
Maybe it would be easier to add -2 invisibility per turn to the fortification command;
it would make sense anyways that units that build a defensive structure are more visible than others.
I like this idea too but it would be better represented through an alternative fortification buildup set of promos. Sometimes you DO want to fortify and remain as hidden as you can, just in case someone does spot you you'll be as ready to fight them if they attack. Having a second, self-revealing fortification method would be quite alright (although I'll have to give some deep thought on how and when the AI would want to be visible when normally invisible.)
However, what I think I need here for these two suggestions, and some other things coming right up anyhow, is a promotion tag that negates all invisibility of the specified type. Shouldn't be difficult. It's to be one of the effects applied to a local criminal when an investigation is successful against him.
You either want to be invisible or you don't. And it doesn't take one or more turns to say "boo" or wave a big flag...
And most often when you want to defend something (at least where these explorer and strike team units are concerned), you are not fortified.
Right which is why I don't think one or the other is sufficient, both concepts are valid and useful in their own rights.
GREAT suggestions folks!