Submarines

techumseh · November 25, 2000, 15:41

In FW, the submarine flag does 3 things: it makes the unit invisible to most other units, it allows the unit to carry missile units, and it prevents the unit from attacking units on land. The maximun number of missile units that can be carried is 8, so I don't know what happened to allow yours to carry twenty.

There's no way in FW to have one effect and not the others. In Test of Time there is a separate flag for invisibility. It is possible in FW to make a unit permanently invisible by leaving the graphic blank (no picture) and by manipulating the markers which control the location of the shield. Check out Mike Jesenka's "Sword of Shannara" to see how he did it. Hint: do NOT use the built-in editor to do this, use an external graphics program like Paintshop Pro.

jcarkey · November 25, 2000, 18:22

No, subs can carry 20 air units. What the sub flag does is it sets carries air units to allow only missles. I think that carriers can carry 20 air units. The sub flag also sets it to be invisible to most units and to prevent it from attacking land units. I am sure of the subs can carry 20 missles. I'm not sure if carriers can carry 20 air units. But maybe since I was using MGE that that changes things.

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Alinestra Covelia · November 25, 2000, 20:24

Also when I have a sub in the middle of the ocean and I land Nukes on it, they all land happily, ending their turn.

When I activate the sub, there are 20 units on the square moving with it!

SandMonkey · November 26, 2000, 00:11

carriers can hold 20 units, i had to use them in one game, and i had so many planes that they were landing on the carrier, then when i moved the carrier they were asleep over the ocean.

zyxpsilon · November 26, 2000, 00:58

quote:

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia on 11-25-2000 07:24 PM
Also when I have a sub in the middle of the ocean and I land Nukes on it, they all land happily, ending their turn.

When I activate the sub, there are 20 units on the square moving with it!

Here's a "tricky" way

...
Change the ICON of, say, Battleship to a Submarine.
What do you get? Something to think about, wouldn't you agree?
Meaning, the unit's ability is NOT modified but what the player actually sees IS a sub. Kind'a weird, too!
But, it solves the dilemna of carrying missiles instead of planes or ground units.

Enjoy!

Alinestra Covelia · November 26, 2000, 01:51

Is there any way to prevent a sub from carrying missiles? I'm making a modern day scenario and I'd like to have a sleek small ship-hunting sub and a nuclear missile platform.

Also, how many nukes can a sub carry? I had a city full of about 20 nukes and a sub, and when the sub left port, all 20 nukes went with it!

techumseh · November 26, 2000, 02:43

Well, I'll be damned! You think you know something. For all these years, I just assumed that subs and carriers had the same capacity limits as transports.

Alinestra Covelia · November 26, 2000, 05:13

Looks like that's what I'm going to have to do. And also perhaps give the submarine a high movement rate so that when it gets found by air units, etc, it stands a chance of getting away safely...

A far from perfect solution, but much better than having a player load 20 nukes on to a Hunter Destroyer sub.

Gothmog · November 26, 2000, 10:03

Removing the invisible flag is probably the best solution here considering that your subs aren't invisible to the AI anyway.

jcarkey · November 26, 2000, 22:10

techumseh, I thought it was 8 until I played one game where I had 8+ units on my carrier. I think that the manual and/or poster says that subs and carriers can hold 8 units.

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Alinestra Covelia · November 27, 2000, 19:06

I was planning on making this scenario multiplayer, and then taking my brother on at it. So invisibility would be nice.

jcarkey · November 27, 2000, 20:47

Well, then I think you'll have to suffer and have it as a house rule not to put missles on subs. I'm assuming you can trust your brother.

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What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what its all about?

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Alinestra Covelia · November 28, 2000, 14:33

No, I can't trust my brother. He was the one who got into a big fight with me and then seized my pillow and farted on it to spite me.

Imagine his dismay, then, when I pulled *my* pillow out from under the bed. Imagine the expression as he looked down at *his* tainted pillow!

Ah, me. Nothing like sixteen years of juvenile humor to keep a brother and sister together...

Returning to the point, I have taken a suggestion made by a friend via email, and you might find this useful:

The Submarine automatically carries missiles, cannot attack onto land or air, and cannot be seen by many ships.

If you put the "transport" flag on it as well as calling it a submarine, then it switches from carrying missiles to carrying land units instead. If you then switch the hold to be 1, it can only carry 1 land unit. This doesn't solve the problem entirely, but it does go a pretty decent way to stop missile sneaking!

Many thanks to my friend for pointing this out - if he then provides me with his pseudonym, I will give him more anonymously precise credit!

jcarkey · November 28, 2000, 18:12

Why don't you just make the hold to zero?

This is a mean trick. You should be sure that during the game you are the host so you can pick first. Pick any country. Have an event that gives you a nuke every turn after 1700 AD. That would make up for all of the pranks.

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What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what its all about?

Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

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Kull · November 29, 2000, 02:20

My compliments to your friend, Alinestra. That sounds like a very elegant solution. A few things to consider, though:

1) Modern nuclear hunter-killer subs all carry cruise missiles. Only the relatively primitive diesel boats operated by second tier countries still rely purely on torpedos.

2) If you give a transport-flagged sub to your AI civs, I'm not sure they'll use it properly. You'll need to pay close attention to that during playtesting.

Miner · November 29, 2000, 16:19

quote:

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia on 11-28-2000 01:33 PM
...If you put the "transport" flag on it as well as calling it a submarine, then it switches from carrying missiles to carrying land units instead...

What is the transport flag??? There is no flag which indicates if a sea unit carries land units, you simply set holds > 0. Do you mean the Sea Transport role??? (number 4, I think)

jcarkey · November 29, 2000, 18:02

Kull, I was thinking about your suggestions. For number 1 you are right. Most subs have a few cruise missles. Not that many though, around 4. And for number 2 don't forget that this is for MP, not the AI. Anyways, the AI doesn't know how to carry units effectively.

Has anyone thought of making a short 3 or 4 range ASW ASROC anti sub nuclear missle?

Panda · November 30, 2000, 14:30

Clarification: setting the number of holds to 1 will disable the carry missiles feature of subs and override the carry air units of carriers. The role remains unaffected.

A negative number of holds simply has no effect.

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Case · December 6, 2000, 01:31

I know this isn't exactly what you're after Alinestra, but its close.
By taking the "destroyed after attacking" flag off the nuclear missile (they get destroyed in the explosion anyway) only units that have the "can carry air units" flag will be able to carry the nukes. Give this flag to your missile sub only and problem solved

(though now your sub can carry bombers which isn't exacly realistic)
Hope that helps

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jcarkey · December 7, 2000, 18:23

All you have to do is have nukes on "Destroyed after attacking" turned off. Then nukes can't go on subs. But, cruise missles can; which is realistic. You could toggle that for cruise missles but then it would be very bad.

------------------
What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what its all about?

Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle