New unit avaiable: Gunboat

[Tulius Hostilius]

One of the first threads that I saw here was this one about a Destroyer unit, by xriz: viewtopic.php?f=218&t=40279

Using his idea (and reusing his graphics), I decided to go to another concept that I called “gunboat”. The term gunboat at the time could mean quite different ships (or even boats). And there was also the designation Torpedo Gunboat. Destroyers, corvettes, torpedo boats, mine-layers, avisos, monitors, coastal defence ships, floating batteries and others could also fall here. Anyway the term “gunboat” can be changed if a better ones appears.

Anyway the idea is to have available some small naval units, coastal, that cannot be produced (they are there from the beginning) so the seas will not be filled with tons of units, and that give to some powers and to smaller nations some weak coastal protection. It really bothers me that Portugal doesn’t have a fleet in the game, and although I added a Armoured Cruiser in Lisbon I think that I game terms that could be too much. Same can be applied to some neutral countries (Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, even Denmark to remove the cruiser, or even Greece), and even Germany could have one of this units in the Baltic, the British one in Canada.

I made the upkeep equal to zero, the movement allows two hexes to emulate Coastal ships, they can make some shore bombardments, and even try to attacks submarines. As they cannot be produced there are no upgrades.

I want to thanks to xriz by the graphics.

If someone uses this any feed back would be appreciated.

[Kossatx]

Good idea Tulius Hostilius, I think the moverment limit of 2 hexes is an smart decision

[Robotron]

So basically those are a weaker version of the already quite weak Armoured Cruiser, right? The AI will have these crawling at snail's pace into the ocean where they will be easy prey. To be honest, I find it difficult to see any use for such a unit besides flavor/chrome value.

[Tulius Hostilius]

Good idea Tulius Hostilius, I think the moverment limit of 2 hexes is an smart decision

Thanks Kossatx, I also though so, now, after reading Robtron post about the AI, I am not so sure. He surely has tons of hours of playtesting.

So basically those are a weaker version of the already quite weak Armoured Cruiser, right? The AI will have these crawling at snail's pace into the ocean where they will be easy prey. To be honest, I find it difficult to see any use for such a unit besides flavor/chrome value.

Yes. Much weaker, maybe just slightly better attacking submarines.

And you just awake me for the reality talking about the problems that the AI may find using them. From a human and even historical perspective it would make sense. These ships can patrol, search for submarines and provide some local comfort zone. The idea was a kind of naval “smallgarrison”.

Anyway, most of the new units that I am imagining will add more to flavour than to playability. Even so it would be better that the AI would deal with them in a favourable manner.

Back to the “smallgarrison”, they can only move one hex around cities. How does that work? It is possible to implement a similar thing with naval units around a port? That would avoid to see these naval units crawling in the ocean.

I should have said that this is a kind of a “beta”. As I am still new at the game I am still in the brainstorm phase. Many of my ideas will probably be garbage, but among many maybe a practicable one may appear.

Just for flavour I will give these units to Portugal and to some neutrals until some improvement may (or may not) appear,

EDIT:

In the file the Gunboat movement is 3 hexes and not 2 has stated. My latest option was 2. But I am considering some changes

[Robotron]

Back to the “smallgarrison”, they can only move one hex around cities. How does that work? It is possible to implement a similar thing with naval units around a port? That would avoid to see these naval units crawling in the ocean.

Sorry, I can't answer that for the moment. Obviously the movement of smallgarrisons is not subject to the normal movement rules which include movement points and unit chassis type movement costs on different terrain types.

[Tulius Hostilius]

Sorry, I can't answer that for the moment. Obviously the movement of smallgarrisons is not subject to the normal movement rules which include movement points and unit chassis type movement costs on different terrain types.

Yes, and I still fail to understand it. They are with the Arab small garrison the only that have the command “CanMoveByRail = false”.

I will try some tests with that command, having it and removing it in several units.

[Tulius Hostilius]

I would really need some help on this issue of the garrisons… if there is someone out there…

I made two “clones” of the “smallgarrison” so I could have three types of garrisons in the game since the beginning (the initial “garrisons” were renamed Reserve Infantry).

So these garrisons would only move one hex around the city/fortress, just like a real garrison. The idea is to have a small garrison (almost just nominal to use in places that I want weak, for instance in Belgium ), a normal one (the original small garrison), and a reinforced garrison that could defend constantly the strong places that I want to defend (for instance: Verdun, Gibraltar, Malta…) but without capabilities do move besides one hex or to attack much.

But while testing I noticed that those garrison clones that I created, the weaker and the stronger versions, can go out of the place and the AI just drags them around… damn!!! Besides the British begun to embark them from London and Scapa Flow.

In the file units.lua I cloned them and changed the values of defense, basedefense, and highdefense, which meansthat it must be another file that gives the “smallgarrison” other restrictions.

[Robotron]

LOL, that AI movement behavior was expected.

Anyway, I scanned the scripts for both "smallgarrison" and unit.prototype.name == "smallgarrison" and none of the places where that term was found mentioned anything about special movement behavior.

Also scanning for the unit.prototype.id == 21 and canmovebyrail yielded no results.

If you ask me, just drop the idea. I had those moments dozens of times when something just would not work. Sometimes stuff is hard-coded into the main executable and you can't edit that (maybe with a hex-editor but that's beyond my scope).

[Tulius Hostilius]

LOL, that AI movement behavior was expected.

Anyway, I scanned the scripts for both "smallgarrison" and unit.prototype.name == "smallgarrison" and none of the places where that term was found mentioned anything about special movement behavior.

Also scanning for the unit.prototype.id == 21 and canmovebyrail yielded no results.

If you ask me, just drop the idea. I had those moments dozens of times when something just would not work. Sometimes stuff is hard-coded into the main executable and you can't edit that (maybe with a hex-editor but that's beyond my scope).

Probably you are right again. But I don’t want you to be…

As for rail in the file unit.lua they have the restriction “canMoveByRail = false”, after “noPurchase = true”, but I can’t find the restriction for sea movement.

By the way, how do you made the scans? I feel a newbie with this question.

Probably I will drop the idea… and will move to my next brilliant one…

[Robotron]

I assume canmovebyrail = false also prevents sea movement.

For scanning all scripts at once use the search function of notepad++ and point it to the whole scripts folder. Ignore those results with garbled special letters, those are from old encrypted AI files which are no longer processed by the game.

[Tulius Hostilius]

I assume canmovebyrail = false also prevents sea movement.

Nope. I have the clones in false. Even so it was a surprise to see that British “smallgarrison” with steroids (and with canmovebyrail = false) crossing the English Channel.

For scanning all scripts at once use the search function of notepad++ and point it to the whole scripts folder. Ignore those results with garbled special letters, those are from old encrypted AI files which are no longer processed by the game.

Outstanding! Thanks for the tip and for telling that the old encrypted AI is no longer used.