[Suggestion] Land/Underwater craft attribute

[Finnik]

But your solution with altitude has nothing common to what we suggested here, and it alone would not solve our problem, because those 2 mechanics are not connected. As we can place submarine carrier craft on true land and if limit it to only your "negative" altitude, it would be unable to move anywhere!

[vadracas]

If it was possible to merge those two ideas though...

What if mission sites had an altitude assigned to them, also. That would allow for much more complex mechanics of which craft can go where without more complexity on the modding side.

What I mean is if a craft has a max altitude of 80,000 feet and a min altitude of 0, then it can intercept most UFO's and do ground/aerial(If it's implemented this would be possible) missions while a craft with max altitude 1000 feet and min altitude -800 feet or something would be able to do underwater missions and land missions but nothing in the air. Even better, it would also simplify things like space missions or moon missions where craft that can go to them simply need to have a high enough or low enough max/min altitude to get there.


P.S. I think this is a more effective all-round solution, but would probably be more difficult to implement.

[wcho035]

Let Meridian decide on this, I am just pointing out using some of what the ruleset already have to make the feature possible.

 

As we can place submarine carrier craft on true land and if limit it to only your "negative" altitude, it would be unable to move anywhere!

I am not 100% in understanding of your sentence here, like as a submarine carrier is an aircraft carrying a submarine or a landcraft carrying a submarine. I mention an extra flag is possibly needed to check if the craft is on a land or sea texture while using the negative altitude value.

[Finnik]

If it was possible to merge those two ideas though...

What if mission sites had an altitude assigned to them, also. That would allow for much more complex mechanics of which craft can go where without more complexity on the modding side.

What I mean is if a craft has a max altitude of 80,000 feet and a min altitude of 0, then it can intercept most UFO's and do ground/aerial(If it's implemented this would be possible) missions while a craft with max altitude 1000 feet and min altitude -800 feet or something would be able to do underwater missions and land missions but nothing in the air. Even better, it would also simplify things like space missions or moon missions where craft that can go to them simply needs to have a high enough or low enough max/min altitude to get there.


P.S. I think this is a more effective all-round solution, but would probably be more difficult to implement.

To me, it looks like this is a very different story for implementation in code. I mean, what you want with interception is an INTERCEPTION. When you choose to land on a site, it's not a UFO anymore, its a deployment. It has no altitude as a class property, it has depth instead. We already have it and we don't need anything more. What altitude of mission site? Alien base? Why do we need artificially make it if we already have all we need? I really can't understand this.

To me, this altitude think is a very different case in realisation (as I can imagine it) and can be handled separately. I can't see also how that can really change the situation with space missions. We have both space and moon missions, and they are handled ok (well, it could be done better, but only if we would have not only one globe at a time )

UPD:

... Even better, it would also simplify things like space missions or moon missions where craft that can go to them simply needs to have a high enough or low enough max/min altitude to get there.

How it could ever help? I mean, we already have maxAltitude. What exactly would be easier? Making mission sites that are floating too high? Cant startingConditions help?

[vadracas]

To me, it looks like this is a very different story for implementation in code. I mean, what you want with interception is an INTERCEPTION. When you choose to land on a site, it's not a UFO anymore, its a deployment. It has no altitude as a class property, it has depth instead. We already have it and we don't need anything more. What altitude of mission site? Alien base? Why do we need artificially make it if we already have all we need? I really can't understand this.

To me, this altitude think is a very different case in realisation (as I can imagine it) and can be handled separately. I can't see also how that can really change the situation with space missions. We have both space and moon missions, and they are handled ok (well, it could be done better, but only if we would have not only one globe at a time )

UPD:
How it could ever help? I mean, we already have maxAltitude. What exactly would be easier? Making mission sites that are floating too high? Cant startingConditions help?

I apologize. My thought was, as stated here:

P.S. I think this is a more effective all-round solution, but would probably be more difficult to implement.

If code was majorly reworked, where every deployment was given a set of properties similar to a UFO's, then things like aerial boardings, space missions, and underwater missions would be made much simpler in my opinion. My intent was to provide another option, as this discussion has gone on for a while without any decision being made.

[Yankes]

Understandable, XCF is your mod. However, enabling general hybrid features for modding is for all modders, not just XCF. I am pushing an agenda that is useful for all modders into hybrid modding, not just for XCF alone. I am sure Meridian will want this important feature available in general for all mods instead for some specialize feature for just XCF alone. Beside, I asked for this feature before XCF is transforming into a Hybrid mod.

Also this tread is not a private tread in the XCF section of the forum but a general section.

Lastly, It is the Dev decision from now on how it is done. I have done what I wanted in pointing out the general need out weight specialization for just one mod.

Could you stop using argument "for all modders"?
This is for one who will implement this or accept it to OXCE to decide, not you. Because you only try push your pet feature. And doing this you try add more "credibility" to your claims. If you repeat multiple of time it make worthless and from developer perspective should be ignored.

beside this, I had same idea.

long time ago I think about how to make more generic way to handle both underwater and over water crafts. And one conclusion is add negative altitudes.
In this way we could easy split all crafts into two layers and allow easy transition between them, this will not allow direct import TFTD rules to UFO but after inversion then we could merge them, as side bonus we could expand this logic to allow more realistic underwater crash sites as you can't case submarine but when it crash you can attack but it should land on deeper part than it dive.

This mean we would need define negative altitude to each under water terrain, it would limit max negative altitude of submarine and its crash site (on shore edges you can attack ANY USO, but on depths you can't clear any crash site even if it was UFO).
By default each terrain have altitude of 0 but "water" by default have -1.

Probably hardest question is how handle USO, as game logic is too dumb to handle different terrain types to correctly find path, and it would need always allow them "hover" over terrains, xcom could have "hard" limit but it would cost lot of pain for paler to manually finding paths, and if USO "hover" then you would need normal crafts to shoot it down.

[Finnik]

The most stupid thing in TFTD to me was that if USOs can fly over land, why can't they fly over water? It's faster, nothing limits them to hover as much time the RNG wants, so its also not about resources. The only explanation that the game engine does not allow that, and its sad to hear such an explanation for full price game, that was realized by a big dev studio.

[wcho035]

Could you stop using argument "for all modders"?
This is for one who will implement this or accept it to OXCE to decide, not you. Because you only try push your pet feature. And doing this you try add more "credibility" to your claims. If you repeat multiple of time it make worthless and from developer perspective should be ignored.

I don’t take credibility to any claims or this is my pet features. All I care is UFO to mimic TFTD underwater interception mechanics. Nothing more or less. If there’s another way to do it, so be it. I don’t ask for this only for my mod but for all mods. This distinction need to be made.

[Bobit]

Apollyon not everyone will prefer your solution, don't assume all modders prefer your way, that's just silly. You can say you think your solution is more robust and clean, sure, but everyone agrees? Nah. I do think it's the most ideal solution as you and Yankes say to just have depth be actual negative altitude, but it seems more difficult to implement than a more "hacky" fix where you just fix this one specific problem. I feel I made the same mistake of pushing my pet feature.

[wcho035]

Apollyon not everyone will prefer your solution, don't assume all modders prefer your way, that's just silly. You can say you think your solution is more robust and clean, sure, but everyone agrees? Nah. I do think it's the most ideal solution as you and Yankes say to just have depth be actual negative altitude, but it seems more difficult to implement than a more "hacky" fix where you just fix this one specific problem. I feel I made the same mistake of pushing my pet feature.

Bobit, you need to read what I wrote in the last post carefully, I said best way to mimic TFTD interception mechanics, if there is another way to do it, so be it.

[Meridian]

More features for hybrid mods are coming.
Slowly.

But since all of them came as "I just need this small hack for my hybrid mod to be complete and I won't ever need anything else"... you can imagine how incompatible and non-robust they are.

So prepare for breaking changes.
Lots of breaking changes.
(breaking current hybrid mods, not other mods)

[Solarius Scorch]

I'm sure it will be fine. I have confidence in your judgment.

[wcho035]

Hi Meridian,

Do you have a list of changes in mind? So I can change my current production schedule of what to proceed and what not in my current Hybrid mod production.