Chassis Reality Check: Foils vs Cruisers

[gwillybj]

http://64.246.32.51/~admin1/forums/s...threadid=43488 In that thread is mentioned the challenge Chironian weather would likely be for the Foil chassis, along with interesting and entertaining supporting data.
Even before reading that, I have been tempted to switch them: Develop the simpler floating hulled boats before the more complex high-speed fan-driven aerofoils.
It seemes easy enough to do: Switch the "foil" and "cruiser" data and references in alpha.txt.
I think the foil images are prettier, too

[MrWhereItsAt]

So you get the Cruisers before the foils? Don't the Cruisers have a higher movement rate - which is why they are supposed to come later? You know, Destroyers before Battleships, as it were?

[gwillybj]

It's all in how you look at it.

Just need to un-think the way it's presented. The Cruiser is a hull floating in the water - a boat, or ship - which was accomplished fairly early in the history of man, whereas the Foil - more properly Aerofoil - is lifted off the surface on a cushion of air, a relatively recent accomplishment - and generally faster than most large ships.

Edit alpha.txt to switch all the attributes of Foils to Cruisers and Cruisers to Foils.
To make the switch, edit six lines:

These two lines under #CHASSIS:
Foil,M1, Skimship,M1, Hoverboat,M1, Coastal,M1, 4, 1, 0, 0, 2, 4, DocFlex, Megafoil,M1, Superfoil,M1,
Cruiser,M1, Destroyer,M1, Cutter,M1, Gunboat,M1, 6, 1, 0, 0, 4, 6, DocInit, Battleship,M1, Monitor,M1,

Transpose the Movement Points, Prerequisite Techs, and Cost Factors:
Foil,M1, Skimship,M1, Aerofoil,M1, Coastal,M1, 6,1,0,0,2,6, DocInit, Megafoil,M1, Superfoil,M1,
Cruiser,M1, Destroyer,M1, Cutter,M1, Gunboat,M1, 4,1,0,0,4,4, DocFlex, Battleship,M1, Monitor,M1,
(You can change all the chassis names in each line except the first one, as I did Aerofoil instead of Hoverboat.)

These four lines under #UNITS:
Transport Foil, Foil, Transport, Scout, 7, 0, 0, DocFlex, -1, 000000000000000000000000
*Sea Formers, Foil, Formers, Scout, 9, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 000000000000000000000000
Isle of the Deep, Foil, Psi, Psi, 7, 8, 4, CentMed, -1, 000000000000000000000000
Unity Foil, Foil, Transport, Scout, 7, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 100000000000000000000000

Replace Foil with Cruiser in each line:
Transport, Cruiser, Transport, Scout, 7, 0, 0, DocFlex, -1, 000000000000000000000000
*Sea Formers, Cruiser, Formers, Scout, 9, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 000000000000000000000000
Isle of the Deep, Cruiser, APsi, DPsi, 7, 8, 4, CentMed, -1, 000000000000000000000000
Unity Cutter, Cruiser, Transport, Scout, 7, 0, 0, Disable, -1, 100000000000000000000000
(In this section you can change the unit names, hence my Unity Cutter in place of Unity Foil.)

I use a mixture of the two chassis: Cruisers as unarmored civilian units (depicting exploration, general-purpose transport, etc.) and Foils as armored military units (depicting military transport, Coast Guard, etc.). This is why I did not switch the carrying capacity - the Cruiser, as I use it, is much larger than the Foil. I should follow through by moving the more military names to the Foil line, and renaming them in the Cruiser line.

Note: If you don't like the Sea Former on the Cruiser chassis, put it back on the Foil and cut its movement by making it a Slow unit: Change the first digit of the flag sequence from zero to one: 100000000000000000000000. This still allows two Special Abilities, as you might want Super Fungicidal Sea Formers. It will be one step slower than a normal Foil and one step faster than a standard Cruiser, but that's really no big deal.
Edit: It occurred to me that this delays Sea Formers quite a bit. This is not necessarily bad, because one of the techs thus required is Industrial Automation. This makes some sense since it takes some heavy machinery to do the things Sea Formers do.