Missile Unit Oddities

[klesh]

Greetings all.

In a project unrelated to Stalingrad, I have run into a very strange problem indeed. I have taken a missile unit (to be under human control) and given it the sub flag. The flags are set as follows:

001000000001001

This is destroyed after attack, sub adv/disadv, and see 2 spaces.


But for some reason unknown to me, adding the sub flag has had the effect of making the missile unit 1 move! The unit has it's movement set at 8. Also, the unit does not crash after moving one like a missile that has ran out of fuel. It is a domain 1 (air) unit. Is this just an impossible combo only for missile units? I have an air domain plane (again under human controll) that has no trouble using the 'attack only ships' settings. It's movement value is not affected at all. Anyone know whats going on here?


-FMK.

[Xin Yu]

Strange indeed. Are you sure you set move to 8, not range? It sounds like you have a move 1 and range 8 unit.

[klesh]

Yeah I have checked and double checked.

XXXXXXXXXXX, nil, 1, 8.,1, 13a,0d, 2h,4f, 6,0, 0, U3, 001000000001001


Names of the innocent have been removed to protect their identity.

-FMK.

[DarthVeda]

See what happens when you change the offender to type 3.

[Pap1723]

Might be stupid, but there is a period after the 8
don't konw if it makes a difference or what, but it is possible.

Pap

[klesh]

Pap, the period has no effect. It is on all the units.

Darth, making it a domain 3 unit has freed its movement to the proper level. Now, unilike a regular helicopter (because the sub flag is added), it cannot take empty cities. Attacking from over land or sea matters not in this case.

But now, the range of 1 is not used because of the helicopter domain 3 setting. It is now a missile with infinite range. This wont work either. It is very strange that this is some phenomenon with missile units... BTW, this unit is in the default cruise missile slot.


-FMK.

[DarthVeda]

You could try making it slower to compensate for the infinite range.

And the Dot is there because the movement rate is actually a float value (but you can't just set it like 1.25 or 1.33). There's a tip someplace about how you can give a unit a movement of 2 and 2/3, or any other 1/3 equivalent (or whatever your rate is) by setting the movement value ludicrously high (like 172).

[Boco]

Fractional movement

You can get some strange, but predictable, results by using very high movement points. This is due to the way computers do math and how it handles numbers larger than the field was designed to hold. If you set the movement rate of a unit to 171 in the RULES.TXT the result is that the unit has a movement allowance of 1/3 point. Every point of movement you add gives the unit and addition one movement allowance. Therefore, a movement rate of 172 creates a unit that can move 1 1/3.A movement rate of 342 creates a unit that can move 2/3. It follows that a movement rate of 343 creates a unit that can move 1 2/3.These numbers assume that the road movement multiple in the @COSMIC is set to three

William Keenan, Aug 2000

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you might need to compensate for the penalty on the af of units attacking with less than 1mf remaining -- eg triple the af if you give an mf of 171 as in WK's example.

[ravagon]

Missile units are transportable by subs. Maybe civ2 doesn't like the idea of missiles with the sub flag being able to carry missiles able to carry missiles ad infinitum (whether it works in practice or not) and is responding in the only way it knows how?

Have you tried setting the range to 0 (helo) - not an ideal solution I guess but then the range wouldn't be infinite.

[Case]

Originally posted by ravagon
Missile units are transportable by subs. Maybe civ2 doesn't like the idea of missiles with the sub flag being able to carry missiles able to carry missiles ad infinitum (whether it works in practice or not) and is responding in the only way it knows how?

I think that that's the reason. If you give a plane the ability to carry aircraft then it can also only move 1 unit per turn.

I guess after each move the game engine asseses the location of the unit, and discovers that that the square the unit is in has the 'can hold aircraft' flag set to 'on', and so finishes the unit's turn.

[klesh]

Ah hah, yes, I think that explains it. Too bad. would've been cool for an Exocet missile or an Ohka bomb.

-FMK.