Battlezone Forums

How Do I Target "Flying Yellow Laser" Swarm Units in Defense Line Charlie?

Try rocket tanks. They can target aircraft.

Unfortunately Rocket Tanks are unavailable in the mission.

IIRC I took control of my own guntowers a lot in that mission to hit things the AI wouldn't.

Damn it! 4 years late. The Ravens don't even have a rocket tank.

I've made a quick patch that will include the rocket tank in the Raven's arsenal, at least for that mission.

http://www.mediafire.com/?h1r4fjtsalft9ua

Extract into the 'FS2Addon' folder.

bigbadbogie wrote:Damn it! 4 years late. The Ravens don't even have a rocket tank.
I've made a quick patch that will include the rocket tank in the Raven's arsenal, at least for that mission.
http://www.mediafire.com/?h1r4fjtsalft9ua
Extract into the 'FS2Addon' folder.

Thanks for the patch. Now I will not have to bzwinner my way out of this.
Could I also mention that the Yellow Laser Units are too powerful & impact a balanced game play?

Nielk1 wrote:IIRC I took control of my own guntowers a lot in that mission to hit things the AI wouldn't.

This raises a generic Battlezone 2 issue. When the towers can fire at the enemy pilot one he ejects from the vehicle; why can't they target the flying units?
Also Battlezone 2 needs to change the tower's behavior of targeting the ejected pilot even when there are other units to fire at. This makes for a very problematic defense. A quick hack will be to have the towers not attack any pilot when it is in the air or if the code structure requires, not at all.

IIRC what the AI will target is down to what kind of unit it is rather than where it is (the engine works in 2D, not 3D). Anything ground-based (pilot, tank, etc) can be shot at, but aircraft (SAV, bomber, etc) gets ignored. You can make your gun towers target aircraft if you want, but then suddenly bombers become useless.

bornlibra23 wrote: Could I also mention that the Yellow Laser Units are too powerful & impact a balanced game play?

Honestly, I barely even tested them. I was too obsessed with getting FS2 finished to properly test it for balance.

bigbadbogie wrote:Honestly, I barely even tested them. I was too obsessed with getting FS2 finished to properly test it for balance.

Is there some file which I can edit in a text editor to try & lower their damage? Or do I have to use some software?

AHadley wrote:IIRC what the AI will target is down to what kind of unit it is rather than where it is (the engine works in 2D, not 3D). Anything ground-based (pilot, tank, etc) can be shot at, but aircraft (SAV, bomber, etc) gets ignored. You can make your gun towers target aircraft if you want, but then suddenly bombers become useless.

I think if we can have the towers ignore pilots it will be a great help. After destroying a vehicle all my towers try to hit a flying pilot & miss for some time. By then other units blow my towers up. Is there any way I can change this behavior?

Targeting routine = ground based OR ground based & air based.

Since pilots are groundbased you can not get GTs to not target them.
(Well, you can, but then you would have to make them untargetable, effectively making them into some sort of prop .. you'll see this backfire when you leave an unpiloted ship behind.)

I.o.w. deal with it, which could be done by:
Getting better suited defences on the front, or simply more of them.
Destroy attackers at some distance from you defensive line (at 180mtr from the GT's or 30mtr from the GT's already makes a difference). Place a turret, or 2, well in front of your GT's (you'll need to repair them often though).
Dont group GT's too much, they will just end up shooting at the same target, wasting fire by missing or utterly overkilling the target.

The game is about tactics and stategy, not modding everything so it isnt what it is advertised it is ... imo.