Helicopters: How do *You* implement them?

[Sarkyn]

Hi,

I've seen some utterly excellent helicopters in the files section. Work that is clearly on a par with, or even better than, the Firaxis models.

Now that I'm implementing them as a sort of "Air Cavalry" for the modern era, I was wonder what settings, A/D/M, flags, etc that you all use for them.

I'm a little confused which direction to go, in relation to a couple of things.

1) Do I make them as powerful as tanks that match their time-line, but more fragile?

2) Do I make them "ignore roads land units" or "Air units not immobile" ?

3) Do I flag them "capture" so the AI uses them, or not, which is more realistic to the unit?

4) Blitz? With only a movement of 2 this isn't overpowered, but with 3 for my end-game choppers, this could get silly...

5) Air missions, yes or no? Bombard seems to result in a bug if land units, and Recon seems to use no movement is land unit...

6) Is there a way over the "can't fly over sea" problem?

7) Carry-Unit-Choopers (the Chinook, etc): How to implement them? As air units with Drop, or as Land Transports...?


I'd love to hear how you longer-term modders have implemented your choppers (I'm trawling through finished mods for data now), and start a discussion on the most "fun" and most "real" ways to implement them...

Cheers!

 

[Sarkyn]

Okay, findings so far:

1) If I do them as Land Units
- they can't fly over water
- they can attack cities
- they can TAKE cities (AI requires "Capture" flag to set AI)
- their movement is right (mov2, all-is-roads = 6 movement)
- blitz works as planned (1x attack/move)
- they defend themselves properly when attacked

2) If I do them as Air Units, not Immobile
- they can fly over water
- they can't attack cities at all
- movement is right
- blitz works
- they are destroyed instantly when attacked by a land unit


Continuing to test....

 

[Mirv Sheelon]

Awaiting your further results interestedly...

 

[Sarkyn]

Further.

1) If I do them as land units
- They fight SAM/Aircraft as if they were land
(so SAM doesn't shoot them down, it dukes it out like tank-v-tank)
(so Aircraft are instantly destroyed if caught on the ground)

2) If I do them as Not-Immobile Air units With Bombing
- When they bomb, they are subject to intercept, like all planes
- Blitz lets them bomb twice
- They still fight as land units vs anything *not* in a city



I'm tempted towards Air now. They become a very flexible unit, if you let them bomb, as each turn you can either bomb a city (or a unit) and risk their anti-air fire, or you can land-attack a unit and risk their normal fire. Sort of reflects the dual-role that helicopters really do play.

In the real world though, they face tanks as tanks (rockets fire horizontally) and infantry as infantry (nose mounted guns).

They don't really do "bombing runs", do they?

 

[Mirv Sheelon]

Technically, probably not. However they do have to make air-ground rocket attacks either with their 2.75in rockets, or air-ground missiles like Hellfire. At these times they would be up to 10km away from the target, allowing possible return fire.

 

[Neomega]

The most unfortunate thing in the civ III editor is the inability to make hovercraft units.

I give them ATAR, ZoC, and radar, and an airdrop of 3 - 6

2) If I do them as Not-Immobile Air units With Bombing
- When they bomb, they are subject to intercept, like all planes
- Blitz lets them bomb twice
- They still fight as land units vs anything *not* in a city

I like this, but the AI won't use them.

 

[Sarkyn]

I think I'm settled on doing this, breaking the air force of the Civ3 world into 4 parts:

1) Attack Choppers
- All Choppers Are Land Units
- with All terrain as roads
- and accept that they can't cross water (even shallow water)
- but make them amphibious, so they can attack "out" of transports (whoops, there goes marines into uselessness).

2) Chopper Unit Carriers
Chopper Unit-Carriers can therefore... move in, pick up, move out. Just as they would in real-life to remove units from tricky situations. This is something they can't do now that has bothered me. If I can drop an infantry unit off with a chopper, why could I not get him back?

3) All normal planes are Air Units, but...

4) Air Units that are not Immobile are.... VTOL's!
- implement harrier/sea harrier units with the above details
- their limitations make more sense when you think of a VTOL aircraft.
- they can move forward, keeping up with the tanks/choppers and then do "bombing missions" from their front position before landing again with the tanks.

5) Air Transports will be implemented to replace the "Air Drop" role of the standard Civ3 Helicopter. Air Transports like the C130 realistically would have slightly more trouble picking up again (have you seen footage of those things rolling a tank out of their bay?)


Makes for an Air-force heavy end-game, I know. But then, so is real combat these days And I ilke air forces and feel they are under-used in Civ3, which often becomes a Modern-Armour-Stack game.

I think there would be room in the end-game for a balance of all of these.

Thoughts? AI predictions?

 

[Neomega]

I forgot to say amphibious also for my helicopter type units.

AI predictions

1) yes
2) no
3) yes
4) no
5) yes

 

[Mirv Sheelon]

Good ideas, all.

I've thought also about using ASW Helicoters from Carriers - able to see invisible, they can recon ahead of the planned movement of the convoy, then attack any Invisible subs they find lurking there...

 

[Steph]

I give them the helicopter type, move on every tile for the same cost, except high mountains that cost a bit more.
For modern ones, I give them two range attacks (missile and gun), missiles have a good attack against tanks, but low against infantry, gun are OK against infantry but not so good against tank.
They have a rather good defense against fire arms, but aren't that good against missile.
And they cannot attack or be attacked in melee.
Also, they are relatively fast.

 

[Sarkyn]

I give them the helicopter type, move on every tile for the same cost, except high mountains that cost a bit more.
For modern ones, I give them two range attacks (missile and gun), missiles have a good attack against tanks, but low against infantry, gun are OK against infantry but not so good against tank.
They have a rather good defense against fire arms, but aren't that good against missile.
And they cannot attack or be attacked in melee.
Also, they are relatively fast.

Righto, so that translates to

Attack Chopper
Air Unit
Not Immobile
No Bombing?
Recon/Re-base
Attack high (mine is set to about 75% of a tank attack at each tech)
Defense mediocre (mine is set to 25% of a tank defence)
I've given them move 2 + blitz + all terrain is roads, that means they can move 6 squares or attack twice.

How do you arrange the "cannot be attacked in melee" ? What flag combination is that?

 

[Sarkyn]

I forgot to say amphibious also for my helicopter type units.

AI predictions

1) yes
2) no
3) yes
4) no
5) yes

Thought.

If I do helicopter transports as Air units with no air missions, they will be able to cross water (good), will be destroyed if attacked while landed (accurate), and will still be able to do "airdrop" missions, though I will have to watch their range.

While the AI might not use them to "pick up" units, it will still probably use them like standard Civ3 helicopters that way...

Better?

 

[Neomega]

You give the AI too much credit. It can only do any air missions properly if it is flagged as immobile, and as an air unit.


...edit: perhaps, allthough I strongly doubt it.

If it is not flagged as immobile, it might still do air drops..... (and that is a big might), but I guarantee you will not see it anywhere but in the city it was built, as it need to use the "air transport" AI flag, which assumes the unit is immobile.

 

[Sarkyn]

Further testing of the "Combo Units".

If a Unit if Flagged as Air, but not Immobile.

Each "Air Mission" costs 1 movement point.

So if you want it to have a decent movement rate, you have to give it All-Terrain-As-Roads, and less movement points. Or you end up in the situation where your choppers can re-base 4 times. Or can airdrop 4 loads of their capacity EVERY turn.

The air-missions are basically designed for Immobile 1 movement point units, and so combining is going to be tricky.

Will see if I can find a balance....

 

[Sarkyn]

Further:

Recon uses all remaining movement points
Bombing can't be done twice (unless you turn on Blitz for the plane/heli)
Re-base uses only 1 movement point, and can be repeated
Airdrop uses only 1 movement point, and can be repeated

Solution(s):

1) Don't give heli-carriers Airdrop. The player will have to manually move the helicopter to the destination, unload, and move it back. This has the downside of making the unit useless to the AI. Without the Airdrop flag, the AI won't build this unit at all.

or

2) Give heli's shorter range by reducing Movement points to 2 (reflects 6 real movement points) and expect them to abuse the airdrop by being able to do it twice and twice only. The AI will still use Airdrop this way (though I am unable to see whether it will use it twice).

or

3) Flag Heli-Carriers immobile and lose the "pickup" ability and movement finesse gained.

 

[Steph]

Righto, so that translates to

Attack Chopper
Air Unit
Not Immobile
No Bombing?
Recon/Re-base
Attack high (mine is set to about 75% of a tank attack at each tech)
Defense mediocre (mine is set to 25% of a tank defence)
I've given them move 2 + blitz + all terrain is roads, that means they can move 6 squares or attack twice.

How do you arrange the "cannot be attacked in melee" ? What flag combination is that?

I may be cheating a bit

 

[Neomega]

Look at Steph go!

Nice Civ IIesque icons.

laser, plasma!

 

[danirus]

Whats that editor Steph?
For Civ3?
New features?
???

 

[Steph]

See the link "Unit editor" in my link?

 

[Sarkyn]

Yes, indeed you are cheating.

I've finalised my helicopters, I am playing a few test games now to see if I can find any quirks that arise from this implementation.

Attack Helicopters (2)
- Land Units
- All Terrain As Roads, Move 2 (gives them 6 squares normally)
- Offence 70% of tank
- Blitz
- AI flag, offense
- flaws: can't cross water

Support Helicopters (2)
- Air Units
- All Terrain As Roads, Move 2
- Load/Unload
- 1 of them transports 1 of anything "Heavy Lifter"
- the other transports 3 foot only "Support Helicopter"
- Airdrop, Operational Range 2
- AI Flag, air transport
- flaws: yes, they can airdrop twice if they do nothing else

VTOL Jet (1)
- Air Unit
- All Terrain As Roads, Move 3
- Bombing, Recon, Re-base, Intercept
- Operational Range 4
- flaws: is destroyed if attacked while landed
- compromise: had to find an ADM value that wouldn't make it useless in land attacks, but wouldn't make it better than Jet Fighters in Intercept. Wasn't really happy with this compromise, but a change would have meant rewiring the entire Anti-Air and Interceptor attack values in the game.

Air Transport (1)
- Air Unit
- Immobile, 1 movement point
- Re-base, Airdrop
- Can carry take 1 of anything
- Range 12
- flaws: none! This now takes the place the helicopter of the old game took, but the improved range and reduced payload make me use it in a subtly different way.



Graphics I used:
Heavy Lifter - a Chinook
Support Heli - a Choktaw (Korean War era)
Air Cavalry - AH6 Little Bird heli (great stuff!)
Gunship - Longbow Apache
VTOL - Sea Harrier
Air Transport - a C130 Hercules




Play testing the additions now....