[BTS] Air Forces Module

[bmarnz]

known issue : pink square instead of small promotion icons. I'll take this as a BtS bug, the icons appears correctly on Warlords version .

Nice work. I put this in my mod. I got the small promo icons to work by putting the dds files outside of the modules folder. Sadly, modules aren't completely plug & play.

 

[Gedemon]

Suggestion!
To make aircraft have a bigger role in ground control, I think you should add three new missions.
One: Guard. Guard a unit by clicking on the unit you want to guard, must be within range. It works like this. When a unit being guarded by a aircraft is attacked the aircraft will(right before the attack) air strike the attacking unit unless stopped by AA. Only one aircraft will attack at a time, and only once. However you can have more then one aircraft guard the same unit, so that if it gets attacked more then once it will still have air support. Guarding a unit also works agaisnt air strikes at the guarded unit. Can only guard one unit at a time.

Two: Ground Control. Ground Control is just like intercept but agasint ground and sea units

Three: Air to Air. Air to Air is just like Air Strike but towards Air units. You can Air to Air anywhere within range. Air to Air is likely to hit or fight with any enemy aircraft within range. The closer you to where the enemy air craft is the more likely you are to strike. I.e; Air to Air-ing enemy city that has three enemy aircraft in it. 100% chance of going into combat. But won't touch ground units or city def.

Also rebase should have a range of +3? of normal range. And should be able to be stopped by AA.
Also getting intercepted should only have a 50% chance of stopping the aircraft from hitting its target, just with 50% less damage.

1/ interesting, but out of my abilities with SDK, and maybe too complexe ingame.

2/ I'm not sure this is needed. I mean for planes that goes in and out in the same turn, interception is needed, but for ground/sea units ?

3/ That's a good point, I'll try to add it, but maybe this way : bombing mission should do (collateral) damage to grounded plane (ie : that are not on intercepting mission). IRL you can't force your opponent to take off and face destruction in air combat with his Zero against your F-15, but if he don't, you can do damage to him on the ground...

rebase will have 2x air range, that's something I wanted to add since warlords.

I don't know if I can add interception to rebase mission, but I will do it for recon mission. Maybe with a +50% escape prob.

about your last point, I think I'll keep it simple (as it is). I don't want air bombing to became overpowered, it was too easy in warlord : the time you start to mass-produce fighter-bomber-tank you can then blitz any civ in a few turn

Hey Gedemon !
EDIT: If you need help with french translation, let tell me !
H.

Please, fell free to do it, I'll be happy include it !

That something I hadn't enough time to do

Nice work. I put this in my mod. I got the small promo icons to work by putting the dds files outside of the modules folder. Sadly, modules aren't completely plug & play.

Thanx, I'll try it this way then. Anyway Air Forces won't stay modular if I add sdk modifications...


last thing I'll include is PeteT code for sinking ships from here. The terrain defensive bonus is also something I like

 

[Gedemon]

updated to v0.3

see first post

Spoiler SDK Modifications & configuration :

The AirForces_GlobalDefines.xml file in "..\Assets\Modules\Air Forces\XML" is used to define some of the SDK change.

MAX_INTERCEPTION_PROBABILITY : from vanilla BTS, was 100. At 200 fighter can use promotion to gain more than 100% interception probability. That means a fighter can still intercept incoming aircraft, even if it is badly damaged. So before adding interception promotion to a plane, you'll better add it some strenght.

MAX_EVASION_PROBABILITY : from vanilla BTS. Was used to cap promotion, now is also used to reduce total evasion probability if superior to the value here to insure a minimal chance of interception (5% is mod default). ie : stealth fighter has 50% chance of evasion, on recon it gain 50% more, total is 100%, making it totally un-interceptable. With MAX_EVASION_PROBABILITY = 95, the total evasion chance is reduced to 95%. Cruise missile are also affected by this value.

EXTRA_MAX_AIR_DAMAGE_TO_SEA : new value, adding max damage to sea units, unitclass with iAirCombatLimit+EXTRA_MAX_AIR_DAMAGE_TO_SEA>=100 can sink ships. (mod default is 30 allowing light bomber, strike fighter, attack aircraft and stealth fighter to sink ships)

REDUCED_MAX_AIR_DAMAGE_FROM_PLOT : percentage of plot defense value used to cap maximum damage to ground units. example with 50% (mod default) : a ground unit on a clean spot can get a maximum damage of 90% from attack aircraft, but in a city it will get 50% of the city defense value to reduce the max damage. If the city is at 100%, then the attack aicraft can do only 90 - (50/100 *100) = 40% max damage to the ground unit.

RECON_EVASION_PROBABILITY : evasion probability added to planes on recon mission. (mod default = 50)

REBASE_EVASION_PROBABILITY : not used yet

PARADROP_EVASION_PROBABILITY : evasion probability added to paratroops. (mod default = 25)

RESUME_MISSION_ON_KILL : (0 or 1) set to 1 it will allow a plane to continue it's mission after being intercepted if the interceptor has been killed. (mod default = 1)

REBASE_RANGE_MODIFIER : Air units can rebase at AirRange * this value. (mod default = 2)

REBASE_MINIMUM_RANGE : minimum range to rebase mission. mod default is 12, to reflect the fact that cruise missile are transported from a city to another and not using their own range value of 5.

 

[bmarnz]

Nice work. Does your SDK include Solver's unofficial patch?

 

[Gedemon]

Nice work. Does your SDK include Solver's unofficial patch?

Yes, the DLL was made with solver's patch.

 

[strategyonly]

Is there anyway to redo the promotions to make it just work with/on the air forces, it overrides the promotion system completely?

 

[Gedemon]

Is there anyway to redo the promotions to make it just work with/on the air forces, it overrides the promotion system completely?

if you want to use other promotion, you need to merge manually the promotion file of your mod and the one of AF, keeping only one. (there can't be crosslinked reference for promotion tree between files...)

thinking of it, there may be a way to make the promotions for AF completly separate, by making it using none of the vanilla promotion. I'll try that by duplicating some entry for next release.

 

[strategyonly]

does your promotions begin with range1 ?

 

[Gedemon]

does your promotions begin with range1 ?

in the XML ?

yes, but if you remove the other promotions there will be a mess with the promotion tree.

ie : range1 need combat2, and if combat2 is not in the same file, even with modular loading enable the link won't be made in game.

there is another point : air force use new UnitCombatType like UNITCOMBAT_FIGHTER, UNITCOMBAT_JET_FIGHTER, UNITCOMBAT_GROUND_ATTACK and UNITCOMBAT_BOMBER.

these type need to be define in combat1, 2, 3, etc...

 

[strategyonly]

in the XML ?

yes, but if you remove the other promotions there will be a mess with the promotion tree.

ie : range1 need combat2, and if combat2 is not in the same file, even with modular loading enable the link won't be made in game.

there is another point : air force use new UnitCombatType like UNITCOMBAT_FIGHTER, UNITCOMBAT_JET_FIGHTER, UNITCOMBAT_GROUND_ATTACK and UNITCOMBAT_BOMBER.

these type need to be define in combat1, 2, 3, etc...

i was just going to add them to my list of promotions at the bottom of my page???

 

[uat2d]

Guys I have a problem... every time i edit the "Modular XML Loading" stuff and start Civ / Load a Mod, the file becomes again 0, disallowing me to play the mod! (i'm editing the file with the Notepad, although i've already tried with the Wordpad, but the results were no different)

Could you help me? i really want to play this!

 

[Gedemon]

maybe you can try this : edit the ini file, put xml loadind to 1, save, right click on the file, properties, check the read only box and click on OK.

if you want to change your ingame settings, you'll have to unchek the box, make your change ingame, reopen ini file to see if modular is still on 1 then make the file read only again.

that's only a workaround waiting for next BtS patch that will allows modular loading to be specified by the mod ini, not only the game ini.

 

[uat2d]

^

i've completely uninstall the game and did what you said and couldn't play it (the same happens on Regiments and Ethnic Diversity)... it seems like i'll have to wait for the next patch to see if it works on my PC...

 

[phungus420]

Hopefully someone who's around can answer this. How did you fix the promotion availability when intercept goes over 100%? It's driving me insane I can't give my jet fighters Interception to increase likelhood of catching Stealth Bombers. So how did you do this, I'd like to implement that to my game.

 

[bmarnz]

Hopefully someone who's around can answer this. How did you fix the promotion availability when intercept goes over 100%? It's driving me insane I can't give my jet fighters Interception to increase likelhood of catching Stealth Bombers. So how did you do this, I'd like to implement that to my game.

I don't know if this is what you need. There is a Max Interception Probability tag in the GlobalDefines.xml file. Hope this helps.

 

[phungus420]

I don't know if this is what you need. There is a Max Interception Probability tag in the GlobalDefines.xml file. Hope this helps.

Must be in a different file, I can't find that tag in GlobalDefines.xml

 

[bmarnz]

Must be in a different file, I can't find that tag in GlobalDefines.xml

Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml
line 1401
<DefineName>MAX_INTERCEPTION_PROBABILITY</DefineName>

only there in BTS

 

[phungus420]

Well Sir, you are correct, I must have grabbed the Warlords or Default globaldefines last time by mistake. Thanks, it works, I can now promote interception above 100%.

 

[Grishnash]

Hail!

3/ That's a good point, I'll try to add it, but maybe this way : bombing mission should do (collateral) damage to grounded plane (ie : that are not on intercepting mission). IRL you can't force your opponent to take off and face destruction in air combat with his Zero against your F-15, but if he don't, you can do damage to him on the ground...

But if his crafts already in the air on an Intercept mission then you can send an air stirke to take out his aircraft and clear the way for your bombers.

about your last point, I think I'll keep it simple (as it is). I don't want air bombing to became overpowered, it was too easy in warlord : the time you start to mass-produce fighter-bomber-tank you can then blitz any civ in a few turn

Yeah, but air bombing is suppost to be overpowered! When aircraft were invented all combat became much more fast-based war like in worldwar II, blitz was it, france couldn't withstand a blitz attack so they lost! See! Too fast!

Well, anyways, I think units should be able to get promotions that allow them to intercept aircrafts, and their should be, Boarder patrol, like intercept but only reacts within your boaders, to guard your lands and not have your craft killed fighting alongside some tanks in never-never land.

Oh, hey, here are just some more ideas for Air Combat.
Starting with buildings.
1. Anti-Air Gun Improvement. Has a chance to shoot down enemy aircrafts, comes with filght. Can be place along side any improvement.
2. Anti-Air Gun city Improvement. Has a chance to shoot down enemy aircrafts.
3. Helicopters should be able to land on Carriers. Or maybe a SeaKing Helicopter that can land on Carriers and attack like fighters but can't attack land units only sea and have a small range like 1 or 2 or 3, their good at killing battleship.Or they could be just like helicopters but just with a air bomb mission, so they like half air half copter, they weak but have 100%+ to battleships.
4. Precision Bombing, Modern Bombers should have an attack mode of Precision Bombing, allowing them to -when bombing a city- pick what they want to bomb.
City Improvement 25-50% Chance of hitting. Any building in the city, ANY.
Unit Garrison 10-35% Chance of hitting. Any unit in on the city, ANY.
Urban attack 25-50% Chance of hitting. Kills city size -1
5. Precision hit, Fighters should be able to have a mode where -If attacking a stack of units-they can pick which unit they want to hit. -25% normal chance.
6. Precision attacks should also be able to destroy roads and rails.
7. Bio-Attack. Bio attack is like tile bomb but it doesn't destroy anything, what it does is, if hits city, plus 1 . If hits tile, that tile can not be worked on for X turns.

Geez, I can't think of anything more atm, what to do you think of the new ideas? Sorry, I can't help myself! I'm a thinker!
Maybe you can have two modcomps, one with the blitzing air combat and one without!

 

[jade8880]

I have just updated to v3.13. Sadly, the mod does not work any more.
Gedemon, do you have plan to make your mod compatible to v.3.13?