Planes (again)

[Slaor]

Hey, nice forum GSH cheers!

Unsure if work continues on 1.3, a (hopefully minor) request if so.

Planes are fine and largely very functional (not to mention way out in the BZ2 left field) so all good.

One old issue revolves more around how other units respond to them. Some units are simply not AA capable and should not get distracted by planes.

Maulers attacking planes is particularly silly and useless, same goes for many ground units which don't have appropriate weapons to engage aircraft and short of DLL tricks there's no way to arrest this kinda behaviour.

Ideally units need a flag to "ignoreAircraft" or similar. Possibly be even more useful in the gweapon ODF (so rocket tanks don't target planes with comets etc.).

Maybe easy and more logical alternative could be for all units to ignore deployed (->flying) Aircraft by default unless sub-attack task specifically tells them to attack planes? This should be the case anyway, otherwise there seems no real point to that subattack task... currently a major use for planes is spamming ground units so they ignore GTs, seems kinda lame.

[Zax]

Planes have quite a few monumental bugs at the moment, I suggest hanging on to suggestions for a later PB

[Nielk1]

Planes have quite a few monumental bugs at the moment, I suggest hanging on to suggestions for a later PB

This particular request is pretty simple. It likely involves setting the same flag that tell the game that an APC is flying only for an aircraft. Even if it is more involved all it is is a boolean flag attached to a unit and a boolean flag attached to a weapon saying "don't try".

[Zero Angel]

Well, I think a simple solution to that would be to get the engine to treat aircraft class units the same as the bomber. Most ground units would not subattack it unless using certain AI types.

[GSH]

As I mention on the private beta boards, the best way to make the most of my (very limited) time is to provide a savegame with any custom asset(s) needed to repro the bug. If I can repro a problem in under 30 seconds, that makes me far more likely to look into an issue where I have to spend time assembling assets, a savegame, etc and guessing at the problem in the process.

As has been previously noted, planes are second class (or third class or worse) citizens in BZ2. BZ2 is NOT a full-3D game under the hood. Blame the Mechwarrior 2, Interstate '76, BZ1 codebases for that, as they're all fundamentally a ground + elevation game. They're built with the fundamental assumption that all units are near the ground. The pathing code is 2D. All vehicle paths are 2D. Searching for objects is 2D. Not 3D. Same with a bunch of other fundamental systems. The rude hacks to make units not consider air units are merely compounding the mess. Sure, they may be trying to make the best of an already bad situation, but I don't like adding more rude hacks on top of more rude hacks. I'm definitely not willing to do the massive re-engineering to make things 3D under the hood just to satisfy the small numbers of modders who want some pet feature. I try and focus my efforts on things that benefit stock first -- DirectX 9, netcode, etc. Mods may benefit as a side effect of those changes, but I want to improve stock first.

-- GSH

[Slaor]

Don't get me wrong, not expecting the impossible otherwise I'd sooner be asking for HDR with normal maps and SSAO...

TBH it's lookng and playing so well with 1.6 (for my purposes at least) that it's dragged me back to modding the bloody thing yet again lol. Carpet bombers are sweet, other planes play acceptably well in most instances, dedicated AA units are effective, Maulers are a bit too ambitious

[index]

They're built with the fundamental assumption that all units are near the ground. The pathing code is 2D. All vehicle paths are 2D. Searching for objects is 2D. Not 3D.

i fully agree. probably the most obvious problem is that your own units dont jump, even when moving up inclines

[Col Klink]

Rocket Tanks and even Turrets are real effective against Aircraft. The issues with them are pretty minor and most planes can't really do much damage around bases as Gun Turrets can off them pretty quickly. They do make excellent recon units for Commander's to call in other units. I like equipping my aircraft with pop gun mortars once a target is painted the weapon it self is very nice.

[index]

i dont really see an isdf turret shooting an isdf bomber, even if it was a mp game. i could see a guardian shooting an archer/bomber, though

[GSH]

Btw, v1.3.6.1 has some changes that are similar to what was asked for in the first post of this thread. May not be perfect.

-- GSH

[Red Spot]

Rocket Tanks and even Turrets are real effective against Aircraft. The issues with them are pretty minor and most planes can't really do much damage around bases as Gun Turrets can off them pretty quickly. They do make excellent recon units for Commander's to call in other units. I like equipping my aircraft with pop gun mortars once a target is painted the weapon it self is very nice.

i dont really see an isdf turret shooting an isdf bomber, even if it was a mp game. i could see a guardian shooting an archer/bomber, though

I think he means "manually controlled" gun towers. Get in one when you see airplanes coming in and see how much damage you can do to them with the gun tower

[MrTwosheds]

No, up until now, everything shot at Aircraft class , There are no aircraft class stock units, they are all creations of modders. I have not tried mine out with this change yet, so I don't know quite how it has changed. I hope it wont make it too easy for human piloted aircraft to bomb AI bases.

[Col Klink]

i dont really see an isdf turret shooting an isdf bomber, even if it was a mp game. i could see a guardian shooting an archer/bomber, though

A gaurdian is a turret and an enemy is an enemy a turret would take out a bomber if it was an enemy unit. Last I checked more then one player can play the same race against each other. Has this changed in 6.1?

[Ded10c]

I have yet to see a guardian try to shoot down a bomber.

[Zax]

I have yet to see a guardian try to shoot down a bomber.

Me neither, but two guardians usually do the trick.