Naval units/cannons

[Darth_Sidion]

I realised of late just how valuable the Airship can be on the battlefield, but I notice a critical flaw about her. The Airship is a 'ship' of war, yet is limited to only being capable of attacking land-based units. I tend to build 4-8 of them during any given match between me and the CPU, but I'd really love to have that naval warfare feeling. Only the Ornithopter can engage other aerial units, and that thing is fragile as an egg!

After seeing the newest Three Musketeers film, it got me thinking about the humble lil Airships in Glest. I'm wondering simply, if small cannons could be added to its' sides so that if I'm Tech vs Tech, the Airships go into combat (along with the Ornithopters), while my land units duke it out on their own accord.

Seperately, I notice maps with water (not a whole lot of it, but it's still there) so it brings the question of naval ships (sea based) being incorporated into Glest. I haven't the slightest clue if that's do-able, and as I'm no modeler I can't do it myself. I'll be honest, I loathe army warfare and prefer that of the naval kind, but this game so far hasn't any 'naval' units, closest thing being the Airship.

Going briefly back to cannons, is it possible at the least to have a mod that includes cannons? I mean the ones used on the sailing ships (17th-18th century), forts, castles, etc. The catapults are okay, but they're far too frail and cumbersome.

[Omega]

GAE supports water units I believe.

With the UNATF faction's destroyer being a strong example of that.

Concerning air ships attacking other air units, it's mostly a balance issue. The airship is brutally strong, so limiting the fields it can attack help balance it with its nemesis, Magic. Magic's dragon is capable of attacking other air units. Air to air attack isn't that necessary, though, as air units aren't meant to make up a large portion of your army, being expensive juggernauts, and ranged land units are capable of attacking aerial units.

[Darth_Sidion]

I'm impressed at her detail, does indeed look like a Destroyer (albeit a small one) but that's Glest for ya. I'm a bit nervous of touching GAE, see my reply on the other thread for details.

[Darth_Sidion]

Unfortunately I seem unable to even download your mod, I keep getting linked to Gamefront and everytime the site opens, it crashes. Anywhere else I can get the UNATF mod?

[Omega]

Unfortunately I seem unable to even download your mod, I keep getting linked to Gamefront and everytime the site opens, it crashes. Anywhere else I can get the UNATF mod?

Crashes? Dunno about that, but that link has died (that's Gamefront for you). For now, there's the 7zip package that I would recommend (I'm never releasing another mod in an installer, again). I'll try and get that historical version uploaded elsewhere, eventually.

[Manric]

I have been playing about with your original idea of using Tech's airships as naval units. In Megaglest this is not formally possible, but I imagined that a near enough simulation could be played with very little work. So this is what I did:
Created a simple map specifying a surface height of 3. This gives a map covered by a shallow walkable layer of water. Using the rising tool I made some islands, placed faction sites on them and added resources. Voila, map ready in three minutes.
Next, a few changes in the Tech faction (my Megapack_custom copy, obviously): The airship is defined as “land” instead of “air”. This causes the cute brutes to skim over the water surface leaving a satisfactory trail of ripples.
In tech.xml the initial warrior units are deleted. In the worker, the “build barracks” command is disabled. This does away with all unwanted land warriors.
And that is about all. Naval battles can now be fought (well, not exactly naval, but they look like them).
At least this is what I expected, and the thing was good enough with the faction under human control. But the cpu Tech was a failure: the AI got thoroughly confused. First it built technodromes, but no technicians, so no aerodromes could be built. So I gave them some technicians as initial units, but the AI used them to produce catapults—-still no aerodromes. I gave them an aerodrome, but then it refused to produce airships. Just ornithopters, heaps of them.
So at the end the only way to get some battles was to give the Tech faction a good bunch of airships as initial units. This was satisfactory, but only to some extent, because lost units were never replaced.
This experience was started just for fun, but free of charge I learned that when you try to modify a faction techtree you get unexpected results.

[Darth_Sidion]

I have been playing about with your original idea of using Tech's airships as naval units. In Megaglest this is not formally possible, but I imagined that a near enough simulation could be played with very little work. So this is what I did:
Created a simple map specifying a surface height of 3. This gives a map covered by a shallow walkable layer of water. Using the rising tool I made some islands, placed faction sites on them and added resources. Voila, map ready in three minutes.
Next, a few changes in the Tech faction (my Megapack_custom copy, obviously): The airship is defined as “land” instead of “air”. This causes the cute brutes to skim over the water surface leaving a satisfactory trail of ripples.
In tech.xml the initial warrior units are deleted. In the worker, the “build barracks” command is disabled. This does away with all unwanted land warriors.
And that is about all. Naval battles can now be fought (well, not exactly naval, but they look like them).
At least this is what I expected, and the thing was good enough with the faction under human control. But the cpu Tech was a failure: the AI got thoroughly confused. First it built technodromes, but no technicians, so no aerodromes could be built. So I gave them some technicians as initial units, but the AI used them to produce catapults—-still no aerodromes. I gave them an aerodrome, but then it refused to produce airships. Just ornithopters, heaps of them.
So at the end the only way to get some battles was to give the Tech faction a good bunch of airships as initial units. This was satisfactory, but only to some extent, because lost units were never replaced.
This experience was started just for fun, but free of charge I learned that when you try to modify a faction techtree you get unexpected results.

I'm honored you took my idea and did some playing around with it, it's nice to know the idea is plausible atleast. However, not to correct your methods, I was really thinking of Airships being 'ships in the skies'. http://www.storyboards.nl/artistgal%5Ccon-threemusk/resize_Cardinals_Airship_Side_01_07.jpg
http://steampunkchronicle.com/Portals/4/SPCArticles/2011/Emilie%20Bush/000p10zz.jpgThis is from 2011s The Three Musketeers, their Airships were simply the old Man O War in the skies, appearantly this is considered under the Steampunk Genre. The Airship unit in Glest is big, i'm thinking that a size change would be needed, such as doubling its length and width, remove the air to ground cannon mounted beneath the ship, the pilot/cockpit, and take the Defense Tower ability and fuse it with the Airship. Basically, the Airship fires arrows at enemy units, like a mobile Defense Tower. Is this possible?

I don't see a way to add cannons to the sides in all reality, so closest thing is to use arrow firepower. The Ornithopter should then be changed from an Air-Air/Air-Land Unit to an Air-Land Unit. Adding to this, Airships are programmed to attack only other Airships and Dragons.

Summary:
1. a) Airships are to be doubled in their length and width.
b) Cockpit & pilot removed.
c) Ventral (underside) cannon removed.
d) Defense Tower ability given to Airship, yet programmed to targer only other Airships and Dragons.

2. Ornithopters are no longer able to attack other aerial units, only land Units/Structures.

3. Assuming the size changes of the new Custom Airship inhibits the usage and/or overall function of the Aerodrome, exclude rule a) of number 1.

[Manric]

d) Defense Tower ability given to Airship, yet programmed to targer only other Airships and Dragons.

I do not think that your idea of ships shooting sideways would be possible. Not being a great expert on the game inner engine I cannot say for certain, but if you look at all mobile units, they invariably turn towards the enemy before starting to attack. Only fixed defences can shoot in all directions. Well, you suggest giving a mobile unit the capability of a fixed defence. But, as far as I know, this capability does not exist, the difference being only that the fixed has not been given the “move” skill. So, once you create a unit with this “move” capacity it has to act as such, it cannot be both mobile and fixed at the same time. 

[Coldfusionstorm]

Give the attacking animation a sideways model and the move skill a straigh model