[v150] Helicopter Gunship and Water

[Sanguinus]

Hey,

I'm not sure if this is a real bug or just a "feature" of the game core, but it seems not to be possible to hover over water (lake or coast) with your helicopter gunship units.
It embarks (transport ships from nowhere?), which is very silly if you only want to guard a coastal line or hover over lakes.

 

[rfxmills]

I think it's a vanilla bug/"feature".

 

[Seek]

Yeah, Thal tried about a year ago but couldn't make it happen.

 

[Thalassicus]

It's possible to let helicopters travel over coastal tiles, but the hard part is letting them do that and embark them across oceans. It's sort of an all or nothing thing... at least with our current modding tools.

 

[Sanguinus]

Then why not quit the embark thing for this flying unit?

 

[PR0927]

It's possible to let helicopters travel over coastal tiles, but the hard part is letting them do that and embark them across oceans. It's sort of an all or nothing thing... at least with our current modding tools.

IMO, they should be able to hover over all water. I don't think they should "embark" ever, since they can, y'know, fly, haha.

 

[rfxmills]

Could you give them the ability to hover over water (they die if finishing over water) and also give them a rebase action to be taken to a far away cities (ie ones on the other side of an ocean)?

 

[Sanguinus]

@rfxmills
As far as I know, the rebase radius depends on the movement points of the unit. So if flying over water would be possible, you could easily fly to another city.

"die if finishing over water" doesn't make any sense when you want to attack a naval unit and therefore finish your movement over water (by winning combat) and I think it couldn't be implemented anyway because it would be a totaly new feature even vanilla has not.
(There is no fuel or ammo counter).

 

[rfxmills]

@rfxmills
As far as I know, the rebase radius depends on the movement points of the unit. So if flying over water would be possible, you could easily fly to another city.

"die if finishing over water" doesn't make any sense when you want to attack a naval unit and therefore finish your movement over water (by winning combat) and I think it couldn't be implemented anyway because it would be a totaly new feature even vanilla has not.
(There is no fuel or ammo counter).

You're probably right that it's based on movement points, but I'm pretty sure that rebase range is larger than operational range for planes.

If helicopters only used 1 to attack, they could attack and get back to land. Do helicopters really attack ships far out to sea?

 

[Seek]

Looking at the screenshots of the airships in g&k's Smoky Skies scenario, it appears this this might be fixable after release.

 

[rfxmills]

Have you got a link please? I haven't seen anything about the scenarios, they should better than the current ones

 

[Seek]

Sorry, I'm afk right now - check the G&K forum, one or two of the new articles gave shots of the scenario.

 

[rfxmills]

No worries, I ventured onto the G&K forum for the first time in ages and found a lot of new content has come out. Steampunk scenario looks great! Watching the IGN video now.

 

[Thalassicus]

Then why not quit the embark thing for this flying unit?

I don't think they should "embark" ever, since they can, y'know, fly, haha.

Helicopters do embark on ships and transport across oceans.

The problem is ocean-impassable helicopters would become useless once we need to take wars to another continent. It wouldn't be a problem if Airports existed in Civ 5 to transport units between cities. I really don't know why they removed airports.

 

[PR0927]

Helicopters do embark on ships and transport across oceans.

The problem is ocean-impassable helicopters would become useless once we need to take wars to another continent. It wouldn't be a problem if Airports existed in Civ 5 to transport units between cities. I really don't know why they removed airports.

What if you just limited helicopter movement over oceans? Give them normal tile range movement over land, but really limit their tile range when over oceans/seas?

 

[Zaldron]

IMO, they should be able to hover over all water. I don't think they should "embark" ever, since they can, y'know, fly, haha.

But even though they fly, helicopters can't fly across oceans - that's just unrealistic.

 

[PR0927]

But even though they fly, helicopters can't fly across oceans - that's just unrealistic.

Yeah, good point. I guess I was overestimating their capabilities. Turns out the AH-64 has an operating range of only 295 miles. Which would not allow you to cross much.

 

[Sanguinus]

Helicopters do embark on ships and transport across oceans.

The problem is ocean-impassable helicopters would become useless once we need to take wars to another continent. It wouldn't be a problem if Airports existed in Civ 5 to transport units between cities. I really don't know why they removed airports.

So it is not possible to fly across ocean tiles?

 

[Dunkah]

If the Helicopter starts out on a ship yes it certainly could fly over the ocean and even attack another ship in the middle of the ocean... however that is traditionally not their role.

The pic Thal had up was of the russian version of a Sea Knight type helicptoer used for search and rescue and or tranport of passengers or supplies from ship to shore or ship to ship.

Cobra type attack Helicopters generally fly over on a large transport plane then are deployed to a forward operating base.

Conclusion attack helicopters should not be able to fly over water because that is not thier mission. If they could be allowed to fly over lakes without embarking I would say that would be the best idea but if it's all or nothing I would choose embarking as that is closer to RL than not.

 

[sir_kris]

Why not simply re-implement the "fuel" component that we saw in previous Civ versions? I.e. if a helicopter goes x number of turns without ending its turn in a friendly city (to refuel), it crashes. Frankly, I would do that for land as well. Right now, we have helicopters just perpetually hovering over land tiles without ever having to land. Maybe they're solar-powered?....

Oh and yes, +1 for allowing helicopters to fly over water AND embark (player can be given one of two options when entering a water tile from land). Another +1 for bringing back airports so we can airlift units.