New units: F14 and F/A18

[BeBro]

Download here: http://www.civ3.gamigo.de/bebromods/fighters_v1.zip

(download size is ca. 550kb)

Anims for the F14 Tomcat Interceptor:

F14TomcatDefault.flc, F14TomcatAttackA.flc, F14TomcatRun.flc, F14TomcatDeath.flc

Civilopedia pictures:

F14Tomcatlarge.pcx, F14Tomcatsmall.pcx

Anims for the F/A18 Hornet Multi Role Fighter:

F18HornetDefault.flc, F18HornetAttackA.flc, F18HornetRun.flc, F18HornetDeath.flc

Civilopedia pictures:

F18Hornetlarge.pcx, F18Hornetsmall.pcx

You will notice that there are no bomb anims included. The reason is simple - the bomb anim of the standard Civ3 Jetfighter unit displays only the falling bombs, not the plane itself. Therefore, you can simply use this animation (JetFighterBomb.flc in Civ3/Art/units/Jet Fighter) for other planes too - copy it into the folders of your new F14 or F18.
The same goes for the sounds: please use the soundfiles of the Jetfighter from Civ3/Art/units/Jet Fighter.

I have included config files (.ini) for both planes, which refer to the sounds and the bomb anim of the standard Civ3 Jetfighter unit. If you plan to use other sounds, or another bomb anim, do not forget to edit those config files accordingly.

Also, I have included little icons of the planes, which you can paste in the units_32.pcx located in Civ3/Art/units). These icons will appear then in the build lists of your cities.

I hope you like the units. I do not give a complete description of their installation here, if you do not know how to create new units, please read the first post in this thread:

http://www.eqforge.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22289

There is also a little readme file (which contains mainly the same as above ).

Since this is the first time I release unit anims for civ3, some feedback would be nice. I hope I made no mistake with the files, if there are any problems, please post here, then I´ll fix them asap.

Edit: some preview pics are here: http://www.eqforge.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31842&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=1

 

[Kingpin]

Is it possible to post previews of the units?

 

[BeBro]

Well, I edited the link to the preview thread in the post above, however, there are only pics, no anims. I´ll do a little gif anim and post it here...

 

[BeBro]

 

[Kingpin]

Ooooo!

That's Verra nica! On a side note, I assume you've added these to your own game. How do you make them different from the F-15 for Americans? How have you set them up?

 

[BeBro]

(run anim)

 

[BeBro]

That's Verra nica! On a side note, I assume you've added these to your own game. How do you make them different from the F-15 for Americans? How have you set them up?

Currently I replaced only the standard jetfighter with the new animations to see how they work. But on the second page of the preview thread there are some suggestions regarding the different unit stat...

 

[Kingpin]

Thanks BeBro. I'm pretty sure I'm going to use the F/A-18 in my Canadian Civ. We use CF-18's as our multi-role fighter. I will check out the preview thread right away.

Very nice work. I will definitely keep an eye out for future units from you. By the way, do you have plans for future units?

 

[BeBro]

I already work on a F16 Falcon, which is nearly finished too

Then I will create a XCOM mod with lots of scifie stuff - units, city styles ect, but this needs a lot of work (only some first unit anims are done so far, but nothing is for release now, I´ll wait for PTW).

I plan to create other units from time to time (maybe other jets too), but beside the projects above, nothing is promised yet...

 

[dannyevilcat]

Originally posted by Kingpin
Thanks BeBro. I'm pretty sure I'm going to use the F/A-18 in my Canadian Civ.

That's exactly what I wanted it for, too. Even though they're American made, and they have more of them than us, and ours aren't as advanced as theirs... but they're just so cool.

BeBro, you are a giant among men... (am I laying it on a little thick? ) I love these units. Why, I haven't been so eager to get my hands on a unit since Balou's modern infantry.

 

[Kingpin]

Here's a suggestion on how to set these up. Let's see if I've got this strait from the ideas in the pre-view thread:

F-14 Make this carrier based. Lethal Sea Bombardment.
F-15 Make this land based. Air superiority only. Maybe beef up it's attack strength
F-16 Make this land based. Lethal bombardment. Beef up it's bombardment strength.
F-18 Make this carrer based. Multi-role. Or give it to the Canadians as all-purpose.

Anyone else have ideas. I'm still not totally sold on these...

 

[kenshi]

I'd propose the F-14 to be the air to air superioirty fighter with lethal sea bombardment.

The F-15 would be the ground attacker instead.

The F-16 would be the ground based all rounder, where as the F-18 would be the same. The F-16 should be cheaper and have the largest operational range though.

The F-18 I reckon would be the carrier version of the F-15. I recall reading something that denoted the F-18 as the first strike fighter.

 

[[c0w]GoesMoo]

As ideas for others to use/adapt, I have decided for my own scenarios:

Dedicated ground attack aircraft:
Il-2 -> A-10 -> F-16 -> F-117

These aircraft have decent defense and are dedicated to strike missions. They cannot perform air superiority missions. They are lethal against land targets only.

Air Superiority aircraft:
Mustang -> Arrow -> F-15 -> F-22

These aircraft have high attack and defense ratings, perform air superiority missions and recon. They have lower bombard capabilities that attack aircraft, but the F-15 and F-22 have PGM strike ability. They are lethal only to sea units.

Naval Aircraft: F-14 for air superiority, F/A-18 for strike missions.

These are for the US only (me =). F/A-18 is lethal to land and sea. The F-14 is lethal to sea, but has a low bomb ability.

For the ROW (rest-of-world):

Ground attack:

Prop-fighter-bomber -> Harrier -> F-117

The Harrier is capable of operating from carriers, and so has "load" ability.

Air Superiority:

Fighter -> CF-100 -> JetFighter -> EF-2000

When the JAS-39 comes out, I may use it as a very cool multi-role carrier aircraft with air superiority and bombing abilities. Think Rafael =)

Now, for the JSF =)

 

[kenshi]

Not a bad idea.

There was a Strike fighter a while back, where someone cut and paste the fighter mode from a Valkyrie (Macross Unit.) It used to be my F-14 but I changed it to the Joint Strike Fighter. (Replaced old F-14 now.)

The F-22 was supposed to be an Air to Air Superiority fighter, as you have there. I had the JSF replacing the F-14 and the F-22 replacing the F-15, oddly enough.

With the new units though, the JSF will replace the F-15, and the F-22 replacing the F-14. The JSF was meant to cover all purposes though, being able to be carrier based or VTOL as well as a strike fighter. The F-16 I will keep in the game, along side the F-18. Unless someone makes a Super Hornet.

The Arrow plane I made as a generic first Jet fighter. The Original Mig-29 became Russias UU.

There is the problem of having too many planes though, which the AI tends to mess up royally well.

 

[Kingpin]

The AI can't handle having more than one unit at a time for the same role. It will always choose one over the other. I wonder how it will handle have four fighters operating simultaneously...

To make my case, I had once set up flamethrowers available at the same time as infantry. The idea was that an occasional flame-thrower would liven things up. To my surprise, the AI made them exclusively. There were stacks of flamethrowers roving around baking my cities.

To make a long story short, I hope the AI will make a few of each type of fighter. I guess we'll see what happens.

 

[kenshi]

The AI will always pick the one with the best Stats. If there is a special trait, such as hidden nationality or something they will do it.

But aside from that, they will always pick the best stats from units with the same Stratagies ticked.

 

[Kal-el]

How do you make the F-14 and F-18 exclusively Carrier based? and prevent the Jet Fighter, F-15, F-16, F-22, etc. unable to land on the carriers yet at the same time being able to rebase?

 

[Kingpin]

If you make the jets you wish to be land based only, you can remove the load ability. You wont be able to load them on a carrier in a city then. You'll still be able to rebase them to a carrier, however.

Some guys check the wheeled ability so they are not able to be carrier based. I'm not sure if that works.

 

[Kal-el]

yeah thats the problem, you can still rebase these units to carriers unless you remove the rebase option, but that seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I have tried everything I can think of, and as long as it has the rebase flagged they can land on the carriers. I really wanted to prevent my bombers from landing on Carriers, but to no avail. I thought maybe somebody had come up with a solution I hadn't thought of. Oh well.

I wonder what the AI would do if you gave them the exact same stats but gave the F-15 lethal land and gave the F-14 lethal sea. Do you think that would promote AI diversity? Its so tricky trying to get the AI to behave intelligently.

 

[Kingpin]

Kal-El,

That's exactly what I'm going to try with these jets. I guess we'll see what happens. It might take several games to find out because it's hard to find an AI carrier and be able to watch what it's using. I've only ever been attacked by F-15s once. And that was land based.