When Sirtech coded the originally created the game, they also coded air strikes... but they never appeared ingame. I've changed a few lines to activate them, to see what this stuff does.
There's quite a few ways to get the game to crash with this, and a lot inconviences, but the elephant in the room is the air raid itself. It is rather underwhelming - and as one cannot evade the thing, perhaps that's for the best.
I don't plan to add this to the game, so this is more of a 'look what I found'-post. In case anyone ever wonders why Sirtech did not activate this.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
Air Raids were activated in DoM and JA2'005 and worked without problems as far as I know. (and the source of both mods is available though 1.13 code is very different thing from vanilla)
The most interesting part is possible game balancing.
Some thoughts:
For example, if player is not controlling air space in current sector, enemy can use radio operator to call air strike that will arrive in 10-15 turns, so player will have to kill all enemies in sector in that time or hide in some building or retreat.
Air raids should be probably disabled in cities to avoid massive damage to buildings and neutral/quest civilians.
Messages:2433
Registered:October 2005 Location: Australia
I found the air raids pretty damn awesome in DOM, and were somewhat survivable or could be evaded to some extent by seeking cover in realtime mode, sweaty palms time, for sure! However, even seeking cover didn't guarantee your survival when taking a direct hit. D.O.M also could be less forgiving, with it's optional resuscitation of mercs after death, which does affect game balance.
That little presentation isn't bad but I guess players would be furious once their whole team gets killed by such air strike. Because of that I can understand why Sirtech didn't activate it. It could quickly ruin the fun.
I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any shrapnel or rubble flying around which would need to be and that would make air strikes even more deadly.
If there weren't crashes or other problems I would say to activate it with some options just like tanks and enemy helicopters so players can deactivate it or customize the progress after which air strikes can happen. Those players that want some challenge could use the feature together with iron man and see how far they make it. ;-)
I see basically two ways in which this could be used ingame.
As you said, as essentially a radio operator skill with a bigger timer.
In a similar way to enemy helis, meaning the ASD has to buy a jet, fuel it, fly it around the map, air defenses would have a (very drastically cut) chance to shoot it down, downed pilots etc. etc.. On the up side, the AI would be able to put more pressure on the player by bombing his cities (that's what the queen would do).
Not sure what DOM did, but I found quite a few issues with the code, especially in realtime. A very big issue (which, frankly, also limits a few other possible features) is that we don't really have a way of forcing the player to enter tactical in a sector short of adding troops there. Unless we resort to nasty things. This basically makes the 2nd (my preferred) approach infeasible.
Currently, the attack consists of a mix of MK2/RDX explosions, which have few frags. Of course, making the attack deadlier is simple. As for evasion - only thing coming to my mind would be to fire signal shells, like for artillery, which would be a bit... odd.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
Messages:2433
Registered:October 2005 Location: Australia
D.O.M had four variations if I remember correctly, standard ordnance, napalm, mustard gas and heavy machine gun fire in strafing patterns. You had an initial realtime warning with your mercs speaking and the approaching aircraft heard getting closer, so it was usually a rush to get your mercs to some sort of shelter or to spread out! Then there was usually a couple of timed turns between each attack. Used to be very intense early on in games when you're struggling to make a foothold in any of the towns, but became less of an issue when uber armour was available.
Messages:3
Registered:February 2016 Location: Budapest
Hi guys! im the new bear around, though i have been following 1.13 development for quiet a while now. Im really impressed by you guys putting all the effort to make this brilliant game into an everlasting masterpiece. I was browsing through the pit, when i saw this topic about airraids... i think thats a good idea to put it into the game (possibly as a selectable option), cause 1., in the intro movie we can see the Arulcan Airforce in action, 2., new challenge, 3., its more realistic that way in my opinion
Here's an idea on how to minimize work to implement this feature:
1. Clone the 'Helicopter Class' from ASD.
2. Change the map icon of the silhouetted helicopter to an appropriate plane image.
3. Use CVB's plane .sti (the second one looks boss, Skyhawks suck) as the in-game tile for the 'cloned' helicopter type.
4. Add in appropriate XML entries for it and set a price for it like the helicopter.
5. Instead of 'dropping' 6 elites, it 'drops' a bomb on a sector with mercs or militia. A dialog box appears detailing how many militia were killed, or mercs injured. No forced tactical required.
6. Modify the speed of the 'Plane Class' to be twice as fast as the ASD helicopter. (or more, depending on this next feature)
(Extra) Have the plane called in by an enemy with a radio-set while in combat with >10 enemies and not jammed and not in player controlled airspace. A plane will be dispatched from Meduna airfield toward ongoing combat. Modify the plane speed so that the plane arrives in [5 minutes/20 turns] or [XML defined turns/XML defined time]. Once there, if tactical is loaded for that sector, drop [XML defined] number of mortar strikes around a randomly selected friendly troop. The plane then turns tail and heads back to the airfield.
This feature should be a fair amount of work, but perhaps doable. No need to mess with SirTech's disabled code such as what DOM did; just clone what you've done already with the ASD helis and bam.
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