Tactical Nukes and Cruise Missiles

[Levantine]

I've been trying different combinations of animations and AI strategies and abilities on these two units. They're both very limited in what animations they use, and I have not found a way around the run animations being used as launch animations as well, and this is incredibly annoying. I was trying to add some wheeled missile transports to use as a run animation, but that looks incredibly stupid when the missiles are used for attacks. Has anyone found a way around this? Otherwise I will render both immobile units that can only be airlifted.

As for the AI strategies and abilities, I enabled Tactical Missile ability for the Cruise Missile unit, while only ticking Cruise Missile for the strategy. In game, the unit launches and behaves like a cruise missile as far as can be visually seen. But how does the AI handles this unit? My attempt was so that Subs and Destroyers could transport cruise missiles to be remotely launched from sea.

 

[ZergMazter]

I have messed with these flags extensively. First let me give you:

The good news:

- The AI can transport missiles into vessels the way you want to however it is not with your current selected flags.

The bad news:

-It requires 2 important flags. The 'Tactical Nuke' land strategy for your missiles, and the 'Naval Missile Transport' flag for the vessel which will do the transporting.

This means that the AI will not fire these weapons thinking they will be nuclear even if they are not. They will only fire them after someone has finally used a nuclear warhead due to the nature of the strategy flag.

Also the AI has no clue that it can transport 'tactical nukes' unless you flag that 'naval missile transport' flag. Check the nuclear submarine flags and the normal tactical nuke for reference. Those 2 unit types must have that relationship for the AI to know how to handle it.

One last thing. The 'Tactical Missile' flag is only a category under unit ability. There are 3 categories of units that can be transported: Foot, Air, and Tactical Missiles. These do not tell the AI what to do. I think the AI is hard-coded to load land units into its corresponding, correctly flagged vessel. I think Air units are broken as they rarely load Air units into their corresponding vessel, and the Tactical Nuke strategy is another functional land strategy that will also work if a vessel with the correct flags is available.

To make it short land units might be hard-coded to load, air units are dumb and won't load, and land units with tactical nuke strategies will also load as long as the correctly flagged vessel is present.

Source:

Countless hours testing. Trust me there is no other way around tricking the AI to load a missile unless your 'missile' is actually a 'foot' unit in disguise in which case it will not be launched as intended from its vessel.

I had made some tests with a small test map you can download and see for yourself. In this case my vessel happens to be an air unit I modified with Quintilus editor to behave like a naval transport. Just follow the steps I gave on my lil scenario, or you might have a hard time making it happen.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=558863

 

[Levantine]

Thanks for the response. I've been flagging missile subs with naval missile transport. I gave destroyers the ability to carry tactical missiles, but I will leave that checked only as Naval Power so the AI uses them correctly, and human players who play my scenario can just use it to carry cruise missiles (or nukes, if they can't control themselves).

I now wonder if the AI will be able to use tactical nukes properly, if I make them immobile and can only move through airlift function. I absolutely despise that they share their move animation with their launch animation. It looks terrible in-game when they move around the map. If the AI doesn't know how to handle that, then I'll just have to accept that as the lesser of the two options, for my scenario.

 

[ZergMazter]

For the graphics I'd grab one of those awesome mobile nukes Wyrmshadow and others have made, take their 'move' flc and put it in the tactical nuke's folder renamed as the original file. Of course I would make a new 'Tactical nuke' folder and put it in my mod's folder so that you get to keep the original one.

Recently I added a bomb land unit to my mod. I hated that the attack (which was an explosion) kept repeating over and over until combat ended and one of the 2 units died. What I did was I modified the exploding flc to have as many slides as possible. As a result it looked like a single explosion followed by many empty flics which lasted long enough till combat ended, and looked very authentic. It actually looked like a bomb exploded. The other unit kept looping it's attack animation until combat ended, but I could live with that.

 

[Levantine]

For the graphics I'd grab one of those awesome mobile nukes Wyrmshadow and others have made, take their 'move' flc and put it in the tactical nuke's folder renamed as the original file. Of course I would make a new 'Tactical nuke' folder and put it in my mod's folder so that you get to keep the original one.

I did this previously. The Cruise Missile, Tactical Nuke, and ICBM only have three animations. The Run animation is used to both move the missile and launch the missile (hence, in original game files, when the tactical nuke moves it's just launching across the map). The capture animation is used to collide with the target. Then there's the destruction animation and the nuclear explosion animation. Unfortunately, there's no way that I can find to separate the run animation from being tied to when the missiles launch. It looks really silly and glitchy when a missile carrier runs into the city and then explodes.

Otherwise, Wyrm's epic units would be great for the tactical nuke and cruise missiles.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

The Run animation is used to both move the missile and launch the missile (hence, in original game files, when the tactical nuke moves it's just launching across the map). The capture animation is used to collide with the target.

The .flc listed for the Run animation is used only to show the ascending and descending missile, which also shows if you move it. The .flc listed for the Capture animation will show the actual launch. So you will be able to see a mobile platform launch the missile, which will then blend into the ascending animation.

I suppose you could try using the mobile platform as a land transport for missiles, which you could then re-use the unit by loading another missile into it instead of it just disappearing. You'd also be able to see the run animation of the vehicle. The AI likely wouldn't understand how to use it though.