New Unit: War Balloon October 22, 2004

[Vuldacon]

This is a New Balloon I created for Sword_Of_Geddon who wanted a more traditionally shaped Hot Air Balloon. It serves as an Early and enduring air or land transport with or without Attack and Air Bombard. *Great way to place and retrieve Land Mines too ...not to mention giving a quick lift to a Great Leader or workers, etc...
Included:
*Read Me
*Civ Specific units_32.pcx
*Large.pcx
*Small.pcx
*Animations: Default, Run, Death, Bomb and Attack
*Sounds: Run, Death, Bomb and Attack (Run flc and sound used for Fidget)
*Some information about "THE HISTORY OF HOT AIR BALLOONING"...to help with your Civilopedia entry.
*.ini files for use as a Land or Air unit.

I have enjoyed pesoloco's "Balloon" unit and I used parts from his balloon when creating the War Balloon: slightly altered Basket, Run Flames and adjusted aspects of the explosion concerning the Death. I created an all New Balloon Design, Added frames to be able to see the Balloon fall to the ground and an Attack flc and Air Bombard flc were added. I designed the Actual Balloon and changed the Death sound and created the others.

The Air Bombard and the Attack use small "cannon ball" type bombs and obviously the War Balloon pilots have a catapult or spring type mechanism to launch them for the Attack This basic multicolored Balloon was mainly created to offer a more traditionally shaped Hot Air Balloon to be used as an early air transport and air bombard unit with attack ability...but as a Land or Air Unit, use as you like.

All War Balloon Files have been combined with a few minor updated files. It can be set as a Land or Air Unit.

You can get the complete Unit Zip File Here

 

[zulu9812]

that attack's really good

 

[Vuldacon]

Here is a .bmp of the civilopedia picture...the Center Horizontal Blue area is the Civ Specific Colored area and is shaded.

 

[El Justo]

cool colors!

 

[Vuldacon]

Just a brief note to let you know that the Attack and Air Bombard are very accurate and naturally all looks even better in game. I tried to keep the bombs small so they would go better with the size of the basket and nature of the Balloon that is transporting them....light weight bombs you know

here is the War Balloon as Japanese ...to better show where the Civ Specific colors are. The other colors will remain, only the center horizontal area is Civ Specific.

Fun to fly over the Enemy and watch the Battles going on with other Civs too.

 

[spincrus]

I LOVE IT! Wow very good idea.

 

[Aluminium]

Good work! We need more ballons and air ships.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Thankyou so much for doing this Vulda finally, I can have a nice Airship Line in my Mods now

It will look something like this:

Hot Air Balloon.....Zepplin.....Apache Helicopter.....Orca Helicopter

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I made this suggestion a looong time ago with Wyrmshadow's zeppelin units... but if you want an Air unit with an Attack that doesn't show the balloon racing over a city or unit at insane speeds, make the largest possible size FLC file you can and have the balloon going in the opposite direction as the direction its facing...

That way, it will appear in game to be drifting slowly over the target.

 

[Manny Kant]

"It is balloon!" -- F-Troop (1960's American TV show). This is an answer to many prayers. It allows for an early aerial recon unit, and I can't wait to try it with some combat abilities. Just great.

 

[Vuldacon]

Thank you all for the Kind comments, much appreciated.

Dom Pedro II, Good Idea, have you tried this "technique" or seen it work well? By Largest Flc file, I assume you mean the number of frames? Seems as though it would require some time and experimenting.

here is a small ScreenShot to see how it looks in the Game. In this shot, it is a Japanese War Balloon.

 

[aaglo]

This is funny and cute

 

[Fixer07]

This one I will use. I like the coloring and shading.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Wow. Really good job!

 

[Vuldacon]

After experimenting, with the "Reversed flc Technique" suggested by Dom Pedro II, I can say that it is NOT possible to accomplish that way for several reasons. For one thing, an Air unit is close to the top of the flc frames and does not allow moving the unit north to compensate for the southern speed of an Air Bombard but due to the manner in which the game handles Air Bombards, it does not work regardless.
...Here is How you do it: Simply Change the Speed of the .ini and adjust the Air Bombard flc by adding additional blank frames. Then adjust the sound for the Air Bombard by adding some additional soft sound to correct the timing...done.

This is Game Tested as a Land and as an Air Unit...works very well and Floats rather than Screaming across the enemy and land. This speed change in the .ini ONLY affects the Run and Air Bombard so anyone wanting to slow a unit can use this technique. Here I used 150 Normal and 150 Fast speed in the .ini (usually it is 225 and 225).
This Zip is to be added to the War Balloon original Download and includes:
adjusted Read Me (please make note that the normal speed is 225 Normal and 225 fast. The read me states it as being 250 for both and it is wrong unless as a Land unit. Normal is Land=250, Air=225).
FloatingWarBalloonBomb.flc
FloatingWarBalloonBomb.wav
Both the Land and the Air .ini files that have been adjusted for this Floating affect.
Personally, after using the normal speed, it took a while to adjust to the slower speed but it does look much more realistic and all works very well in Game. Give it a try, you will probably like it better too.
Enjoy This Has been added to the Complete Unit Zip File on the First Post.
Get the Zip Here: size 74.7 kb

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Vuldacon: I'm glad to see you worked that one out. Now it'll definitely be worth my while to use!

 

[Vuldacon]

Dom Pedro II, Yes, it does look and work more like a Balloon during the Run and the Air Bombard...thanks for bringing that to my attention. You can adjust Wyrmshadow's zeppelin units or others the same way. But you will have to also adjust the Air Bombard flc and Air Bombard sound used for them...if they have them. All other flcs and sounds will be ok.

I am curious how many players will use this unit as an Air Unit that leaves the city. I like that it can Attack and Air Bombard from the ocean to land, not to mention Transport, pick up and Air Drop units. IF set as a land unit, it seems odd to have a Balloon capture a city but some may prefer that over the Vulnerability factor during the AI's turn. I hope Firaxis changes the NO Defense for air units that leave the city when it is the AI's turn. Considering all factors, IMO, setting it with attack and air bombard as an invisible Air Unit that leaves the city and moves 6 squares has the most use and Fun. Great for scouting and transporting settlers and workers as well as capturing and transporting enemy workers.

 

[Ozymandias]

A wonderful and colorful addition to our industrial age forces!

-Oz

 

[tjedge1]

Nice unit, much better thant he other air balloon that was floating around these forums.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

You mean Pesdesco's? That unit was ok, but Vuldacon and I thought it was time for a change. It is still possible to use both, perhaps the old one could be used as a first-generation Renaiisse era Hot-Air-Balloon, which upgrades to the War Balloon later.

Thats the approache I took with Dom Pedro II's and Kinboat's excellilent Anubis Knights, Kinboat's upgrades to Dom Pedro's later.