[3.0] Aviation ruleset

[soundnfury]

I've started making a ruleset focused on Aviation, with lots of different categories of aircraft and a tech tree that runs from 1900 to (currently) the 1950s. There are very few land and sea unit types, but over 100 distinct air units.

https://github.com/ec429/fc-aviation — see the README for more details of how the Aviation ruleset changes the game.

Version 2.6-0.3 is now installable from my website.
Development has now moved on to freeciv-3.0; get version 3.0-0.6 here.

Anyone want to help me play-test it? The AI gets completely confused...

There's one annoying problem I haven't been able to figure out how to fix: when a Glider carrying (say) Assault Troops is being towed by another aircraft, it can unload its troops without casting off, which allows the player to tow the Glider back to a city and re-use it. This isn't meant to be possible: gliders are supposed to be strictly one-shot. Is there a cunning arrangement of flags (or Lua callbacks) that'll achieve what I want? I've gone through the documentation and don't see a way to do it, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Also, if anyone wants to contribute some art that'd be most welcome — it's not that I can't do the art, but it takes me friggin' ages

[Alien Valkyrie]

There's one annoying problem I haven't been able to figure out how to fix: when a Glider carrying (say) Assault Troops is being towed by another aircraft, it can unload its troops without casting off, which allows the player to tow the Glider back to a city and re-use it. This isn't meant to be possible: gliders are supposed to be strictly one-shot. Is there a cunning arrangement of flags (or Lua callbacks) that'll achieve what I want? I've gone through the documentation and don't see a way to do it, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

In 2.6, I believe you're SOL on that one. In current master (developmental) versions, units leaving a transport ("Transport Alight") and a transport unloading units ("Transport Unload") are controlled by action enablers, so it is possible to say "a unit can only leave a glider when the glider itself is not being transported".

[XYZ]

Also, if anyone wants to contribute some art that'd be most welcome — it's not that I can't do the art, but it takes me friggin' ages

I got some techniques to create units. Gimme a list!

Btw, below are all amplio aerial units you can find from this forum. You can find all the units from the "super png" here: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/download/fil ... &mode=view

[soundnfury]

I got some techniques to create units. Gimme a list!

The current placeholder images are all defined in units-ph.spec, with names corresponding to what I think would be the best real-world aircraft to use as a model (though in many cases it'll probably be necessary to add coloured stripes or something just so that you can tell similar-looking units apart — the colours used by the current placeholders could be a good start for that).
For more notes on each aircraft type (including more real-world examples), see my working notes (I've also uploaded a tech tree map I made with DOT).

Btw, below are all amplio aerial units you can find from this forum. You can find all the units from the "super png" here: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/download/fil ... &mode=view

That certainly looks like a useful start! What license are they under?

[soundnfury]

In current master (developmental) versions, units leaving a transport ("Transport Alight") and a transport unloading units ("Transport Unload") are controlled by action enablers, so it is possible to say "a unit can only leave a glider when the glider itself is not being transported".

That's great news; I shall look forward to porting to 3.x when that gets released.

In the meantime, we'll just have to rely on the honour system

[XYZ]

The current placeholder images are all defined in units-ph.spec, with names corresponding to what I think would be the best real-world aircraft to use as a model (though in many cases it'll probably be necessary to add coloured stripes or something just so that you can tell similar-looking units apart — the colours used by the current placeholders could be a good start for that).
For more notes on each aircraft type (including more real-world examples), see my working notes (I've also uploaded a tech tree map I made with DOT).

I will be honest with you, those are too many for me, however, you can find plenty of graphics here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/c ... eague.428/

For WWII for example Fairline created this huge png: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ ... 77/page-43

I suggest you go through the Forums and pick the ones you need and ask for permission. If you need help with graphics you can still ask me.

Looking forward to see some propaganda pics of your ruleset in action in this forum soon!

[soundnfury]

I will be honest with you, those are too many for me

I think they're too many for any one person to do them all. But a few from here, a few from there... soon it starts to add up

I've already gone through the little set you posted and used 13 of them, so that's an eighth of the way there!

For WWII for example Fairline created this huge png: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ ... 77/page-43

Ooooooh. He's been busy! /me goes to make an account there and ask him — those are great.

[soundnfury]

There's one annoying problem I haven't been able to figure out how to fix: when a Glider carrying (say) Assault Troops is being towed by another aircraft, it can unload its troops without casting off, which allows the player to tow the Glider back to a city and re-use it. This isn't meant to be possible: gliders are supposed to be strictly one-shot. Is there a cunning arrangement of flags (or Lua callbacks) that'll achieve what I want? I've gone through the documentation and don't see a way to do it, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

In 2.6, I believe you're SOL on that one.

Here's a thought... what happens if you Convert a carried unit into a unit that the transport can't carry? If it causes it to disembark, I could make it so that you have to convert a Glider to a Landed Glider before you can disembark its troops.

Alternatively, you build a Glider, load troops into it, then convert it to a Towed Glider, which can be loaded into a tug but can't load troops any more. That would prevent reusing the glider, but it could still drop its various cargoes in multiple tiles. (Though possibly that's fine: assuming a glider unit represents a squadron of gliders, and the bomber unit towing it represents a squadron too, why shouldn't the gliders be able to be split across multiple LZs?) I think this is the answer

Edit: aaaargh apparently Converting a unit with zero move_rate just isn't possible; the game crashes with SIGFPE, because it's trying to scale remaining movement points by

Code: Select all

punit->moves_left = punit->moves_left * unit_move_rate(punit) / old_mr;

and old_mr is 0.

[soundnfury]

Fairline said yes, so I've spent a happy night alpha-channeling images (and kitbashing a few) and now Aviation Ruleset 2.6-0.2 is tagged and bagged, with only 26 placeholder unit images remaining! Install it from http://jttlov.no-ip.org/fc-aviation/aviation.modpack.

Sadly the buildings are still almost all placeholders, but still — look at the tech tree!

[XYZ]

Tech tree looks nice! Looking forward to see some actual game footage!