Rebase air units idea

[pirke]

A tip for Firaxis:

I've noticed when I rebase my air ships I keep guessing what the range will be from the new city. It doesn't show the range untill they are actually there. Is it possible that in a new version this will work like a settler unit? If I move the mouse I can see the "range" of the new city where you point the mouse. If air units had the same feature, I could make better choices where to rebase them to.

Just my 2 cents...

 

[Soneji]

You should know roughly yourself how they would do so, and you can't really tell the range from there new base until you stick them there!

Although I do find it very bizzare that fighters and bombers have x amount of range, although you can fly them right across the globe to repopulate your carriers.....

lol

 

[Spiceweasel]

You should know roughly yourself how they would do so, and you can't really tell the range from there new base until you stick them there!

Although I do find it very bizzare that fighters and bombers have x amount of range, although you can fly them right across the globe to repopulate your carriers.....

lol

I'd wager that's just a gameplay convenience. Think about how tedious it would be to have to plot a series of city-hops any time you wanted to rebase a plane.

I tend to get confused when my helicopters move long distances due to railroads.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

What about paratroopers? Do they use highly inferior bi-planes to drop them off? Why is the range so much smaller for paratroopers than for bombers? The size of the plane would be similar. I think you should be able to load paratroopers onto air-transports for much larger range. I like the paratrooper feature, but they're only good if the next city to invade is close enough.

 

[Larklight]

^^ The helecopters are pulled along on string!

That would be useful. And what is really annoying is that the 'rebase' icon looks very much like the 'upgrade to fighter' icon- I accidently upgraded my scout blimp into a unit with less range that cannot see subs!

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Yeah, I did that 3 times in a row once!!! I was like, what the hell happened to my scouts?... oh... lol geez

 

[Welnic]

You should know roughly yourself how they would do so, and you can't really tell the range from there new base until you stick them there!

Although I do find it very bizzare that fighters and bombers have x amount of range, although you can fly them right across the globe to repopulate your carriers.....

lol

They really do have much longer range when you are doing a ferry flight. For one thing the range in the game is out there and back. So if you can fly 8 tiles out and get back you could have flown 16 one way. Military planes to be effective have to carry bombs or other weaponry, if you replace that with fuel then you can fly a lot farther. Military planes from WWII on have always had larger drop tanks just for the purpose of ferrying.

The standard way for small planes such as Cessnas that are made in Kansas to get to Europe is for someone to fly them there. To get to Europe most planes have long enough range to just fly there. To get to more exotic locations ferry tanks are installed which fit in the cockpit and usually at least double the amount of fuel.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Tell me again why exactly a blimp/airship can see subs, but a plane cannot? Something in the gas, perhaps?

At any rate I think this is a good idea, but it might cause slowdowns if implemented improperly.

 

[pirke]

Tell me again why exactly a blimp/airship can see subs, but a plane cannot? Something in the gas, perhaps?

Because the gas giants don't move very fast, they spend hours looking at the ocean beneath and when they do see something that's not supposed to be there, it's a sub of course

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Then why did the U.S. Navy use PBYs and other planes to scout for subs in WWII? Both blimps and planes can locate them.

 

[ezwip]

I feel really weird saying this but Sid should have kept alot of his ideas from Alpha Centauri. It was really good. Planes had a certain amount of spaces they could travel, and if you overextended the attack they wouldn't make it back to base. The nukes would actually destroy the land and reshape it. This version Civilization inparticular borrowed alot of ideas from there, but it looks like he skipped some things not to be too similiar. However, those similiarties if they were in effect would just rock!

 

[pirke]

Talking about nukes: where's the H-bomb? It's effectively a big nuke, but uses a complete different method of generating the energy for the explosion. On top of that, it uses a nuke to get going, like using fire to light a stick of dynamite.

The nukes they used in WWII were very small ones, the things they have these days are much, much more terrifying...

 

[Welnic]

The US had 200 blimps that patrolled the Atlantic coast for submarines in WWII. They never lost ship in a convoy that they were guarding.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-87423966.html

 

[Soneji]

Nice article Welnic

Thanks

 

[Gaius Octavius]

And what does all this have to do with the fact that planes should be able to spot (non-nuclear) subs, too? Good article, though.

 

[Loopy]

You should know roughly yourself how they would do so, and you can't really tell the range from there new base until you stick them there!

I'm confused by this. It's like saying that without the game showing you, you would have no idea what the size of a settler's fat cross would be until you settle it.

While it would be very nice to see the exact range, if it's critical you can just count tiles and figure it out yourself. I think in earlier versions, there were people that made paper cutouts of the fat cross to make things easier.

 

[Larklight]

They really do have much longer range when you are doing a ferry flight. For one thing the range in the game is out there and back. So if you can fly 8 tiles out and get back you could have flown 16 one way. Military planes to be effective have to carry bombs or other weaponry, if you replace that with fuel then you can fly a lot farther. Military planes from WWII on have always had larger drop tanks just for the purpose of ferrying.

Also, a plane doing a mission may have to manoeurve, dodge attacks, release chaff, fly low etc. If it's just rebasing all of these issues can be avoided.