3 complaints

[Mig1]

Please forgive

C:\>RANT/ON

Ok, gripe #1: Bombers can't kill ships? What kind of crap is this? Are they trying to tell me that Midway, Lette, Coral Sea, Pearl Harbor, etc... etc... etc.. never could have happened? Is there a way to change this with the editor?

Gripe #2: maybe the computer has just been rolling bad dice for me or something, but basically 1/2 the time my fighters are able to intecepts enemy bombers THEY are the ones that get shot down. What kind of poppy-cock is this? Just bad luck? Which values are used to determine this results, is it fighter attack vs bomber defend? Or defend vs. defend? I know I can tweek this with CivEdit.

Gripe #3: No offensive counter-air ops. How can I do a fighter sweep ahead of a bombing raid? So basically no way to escort bombers either.

C:\>RANT/OFF

Thanks for listening. I will get back to losing my war now

 

[mfauzi]

Well, no offence, but I think complains go in another forum, not the creation forum. Maybe you can go to the general forum to post this.

For #1: I agree too, it would be better if planes can sink ships, but maybe a low chance, though not impossible.

#2: I assumed you got the patch, so I guess you've seen it work. As for me, I still haven't and I'm still stuck with fighters not able to intercept bombers.

#3: Yeah.. maybe should come up with something like a fighter escort or a squadron (equivalent to a flying army)

 

[Mig1]

Yeah. A flying army. That would be cool. Maybe give it the stats of the fighter and bomber, have it cost as many shields as the bomber+fighter. Call it an "Air Force".

I guess I put this in the editing forum looking to see if the game could be modified. Maybe there is a bit some place that can be flipped from a zero to a one to allow bombardment to kill ships.

 

[Dark Sheer]

The part on a fighter cannot sink a ship is a lost cause as this is hardcoded in the game. So unless Firaxis comes up with a patch for that there is nothing we can do

As to fighter escort & air superiority (as in fighter against fighter, not Firaxis' idea of shooting down bomber as they come ) I have a way to work around this. This is what you do :

1) Set the operational range of the planes to be short, say 2
2) Let the plane have mobility (that means uncheck immobile)
3) Let the planes have movement points, and I mean lots of points (say 8 for fighters/bombers and 12 for jet fighters)

Now, with the above setting, if a bomber want to bomb a city, it needs to leave the base and flies towards to city and come within the range of 2 before it can bombard it. As a fighter is defined as Air Defense, it should escort the bomber to its destination. So, if you want to take out that bomber by attacking it, your fighter will engage the enemy fighter first (as in a stack, you fight the defense unit first).

I have this setting for my own mod but I have yet to test it out as my last war ended in 800AD and now its 1500AD and still no war whatsoever (eventhough every Civ has jet fighters and bombers by now)

 

[SpaceWeasel]

Cruise missiles behave exactly like planes should, in that they usually just do damage but several can destroy one unit, or one can destroy a weakened unit. In fact, cruise missiles actually work just like you are suggesting fighters and bombers should. The only problem is that they are destroyed during combat. However, the effect is not necessarily "hardcoded" - if Civ3 is like most modern games, every game variable even down to the most minor details is contained either in the *.bic proprietary format or in a very simple, standard DLL somewhere. I am not a programmer, but I know that when I was creating a mod for a popular first-person shooter our programmer was able to place virtually ever single game variable in a plain text file, giving me Civ2-style control over the operations of this complex, fast-paced 3D, multiplayer environment. I am sure that every variable of import is stored SOMEWHERE in the *.bic file or something else external to the game code. It's just whether or not the game designers choose to allow us to tinker with values in the editor that decides if we can or can't do something.

Personally, I think they should take the lead of 3D shooters with huge mod communities and release an SDK that explains all of the inner workings of the *.bic format (and anything else important, like which of the many graphics files it actually USES). This way third party programmers could design an editor that does everything the mod community wants and can quickly respond to any new demands without them having to take time off their busy schedule to tinker around in VB. The programming community is out there: many third-party editors were created for Quake and derivates, which requires a great deal of complicated math and display technology to edit and compile maps. Most of the things Civ3 mod designers want to edit are simple numerical values buried somewhere in the *.bic file, and anyone with some basic programming experience and a description of the bic file format could easily write an editor to do everything the mod community wants and probably more. Anyway, enough ranting from me (for now) =)

 

[Mig1]

Interesting solution. The only problem I see is that your aircraft would have to end their turn outside of a city.

Originally posted by Dark Sheer
The part on a fighter cannot sink a ship is a lost cause as this is hardcoded in the game. So unless Firaxis comes up with a patch for that there is nothing we can do

As to fighter escort & air superiority (as in fighter against fighter, not Firaxis' idea of shooting down bomber as they come ) I have a way to work around this. This is what you do :

1) Set the operational range of the planes to be short, say 2
2) Let the plane have mobility (that means uncheck immobile)
3) Let the planes have movement points, and I mean lots of points (say 8 for fighters/bombers and 12 for jet fighters)

Now, with the above setting, if a bomber want to bomb a city, it needs to leave the base and flies towards to city and come within the range of 2 before it can bombard it. As a fighter is defined as Air Defense, it should escort the bomber to its destination. So, if you want to take out that bomber by attacking it, your fighter will engage the enemy fighter first (as in a stack, you fight the defense unit first).

I have this setting for my own mod but I have yet to test it out as my last war ended in 800AD and now its 1500AD and still no war whatsoever (eventhough every Civ has jet fighters and bombers by now)

 

[Dark Sheer]

Aircraft ending turn outside a city should not be a problem unless land units are able to attack them (which like I say I got no chance to test that yet)