forum.freeciv.org

Posted: **Sun Feb 16, 2014 7:42 pm**

I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier! Before WWI and till WWII Zeppelins played a major role in human air transportation. They even were used to bomb London! (though not very effectively) Would be nice to have them before airplanes to transport a unit, to explore or even -like previously mentioned- bomb targets.

Posted: **Sat Jul 02, 2016 2:59 pm**

seems cool

Posted: **Mon Jul 04, 2016 9:54 am**

Yes, Zeppelins are actually quite useful. They make for cheap non-combat patrolling in real life. They may be slow compared to other aerial platforms, but they have the advantage that they float, which means greatly extended deployments and reduced fuel costs(game-wise, this would likely mean no fuel restriction but low movement). The reason they're not used much is simply because of their terrible reputation after the Hindenburg disaster. It's too bad no one's drawn one for us yet, as far as units go, it's probably one of the easiest we don't have anywhere.

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:11 am**

One of the first thing I wanted to add to Freeciv after playing game or two. My suggestions:
1. Cheap, early accessible air units. May be upgrade from Baloons. The Baloons might have 3/4 chance of random movement when not on Sentry or in city, no defence and dying if stuck over the sea. Zeppellins may also be affected by wind for getting +1mp or -1mp randomly. Don't know can it be realized with existing movement mechanics.
2. Can transport any land unit, even heavy.
3. Probably non-military. Or with very low attack.
4. Main disadvantages - relatively slow (like 2mp) and extremely brittle (like 1def/1hp). Implementing brittleness requires a way for land units to attack them. Can declare them "Both" type unit, like Helicopters, or give some bombardment mechanics to most units to shoot insccessible enemies.
5. Additionally, requires mast to operate - crashes if unloaded outside of city or base (but when doing so over land and intentionally, the transported unit survives). So desanting artillery on another continent inlands is possible but dangerous, expensive and one-way.
6. As a mad idea, defensive aerostats! Block Bombers and prevent attack of Fighters on more expensive targets. May imbalance the game against aviation though.
Added:
7. Maybe deprecated by Helicopters. Of course (considering civ2civ3) Helicopters have disadvantages as shortened range and limited weight, but in real life they effectively pushed dirigibles out of use for obvious advantages. It's like Transport deprecates Trireme while it can't enter rivers - for gameplay, it makes powerful advances less overpowered.

And thanks to our Transnistrian friends, such a unit is found included in po-russki ruleset (topic)

! Here is its units.ruleset listing with some my (;; ...) comments and picture:

Code: Select all

[unit_dirijabl]
name          = _("Дирижабль");;dirigible
class         = "Helicopter"
tech_req      = "Theory of Gravity";; /* Maybe not so early, Baloon should be then,
                                                     ;; and it would come with "Flight" - just look at the tech's standard icon!  */
obsolete_by   = "Helicopter"
graphic       = "dirijabl"
graphic_alt   = "-"
sound_move    = "m_dirijabl"
sound_move_alt = "m_generic"
sound_fight   = "f_howitzer"
sound_fight_alt = "f_generic"
build_cost    = 100		; цена ;; price, I would like it costed 60 as Fighter or even less
pop_cost      = 0
attack        = 6 ;; yes, IRL it had attack, see first post
defense       = 3 ;; too much IMHO
hitpoints     = 20 ;; also... but you haven't seen other units in this RUleset!
firepower     = 2
move_rate     = 8		; шаги ;;steps
vision_radius_sq = 8
transport_cap = 4 ;; I think 1 is enough
fuel          = 0
uk_happy      = 1
uk_shield     = 0
uk_food       = 0
uk_gold       = 0
cargo         = "Land" ; может перевозить грузы ;; may carry load. /* In civ2civ3 should be "Land", "Small Land", "Big Land", "Merchant"
                                                                            ;; but with some tweaks to avoid loading all unit types out of a base
flags         = "FieldUnit", "Helicopter", "BadCityDefender" ;; in civ2civ3, if we give it attack, also should be "Bombarder"
roles         = ""
helptext      = _("\
Дирижабль переносит грузы (до 4 единиц) в любых условиях и на любые расстояния.\
");;Dirigible carries loads (up to 4 items) at any conditions on any distance.

: dirijabl.png (2.36 KiB) Viewed 18031 times

no copyright info found but probably (c) Anatoly Bessarab, 2015

Posted: **Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:09 pm**

I think they should be relatively easy to kill and should not carry land units--unless I'm mistaken, such a thing never occurred in real life.

Posted: **Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:11 pm**

Yeah, a mass-deployment of units via Zeppelin is unknown to me but since regular passenger transport existed in the 1920-30ies its not that unrealistic. In any case they should at least be able to transport leightweight units like diplomats, spies and explorers.
Also, if we were to introduce transport helicopters they woudnt have much more transport capacity either if you take only one into account. Question is, if you have only one single Zeppelin/chopter or various like a proper chopter squadron wich is realistic for chopters but less for Zeppelins...

The grafics look more like a blimp rather than a zeppelin but I dont want to complain if I dont have a better alternative besides this Zeppelin picture I coloured and pixeled...

More of my pathetic attempts of creating units out of recycled parts are here

:

http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.ph ... 0&start=10

Posted: **Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:08 am**

Maybe we might have separate classes for Zeppellins (predecessor to Bombers and Helicopters, heavy and expensive) and Blimps (just better Balloons, predecessor to AWACS).

Posted: **Mon Dec 11, 2017 1:06 pm**

I already asked for grafics for a reconnaissance balloon here: http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/User:JTN/ ... aringhouse

Posted: **Tue Dec 19, 2017 1:16 am**

XYZ wrote:Before WWI and till WWII Zeppelins played a major role in human air transportation.

Let's say 20 years, that's about 20 turns for the purposes of Freeciv, and IMHO, sadly, it's not good enough. But a balloon not only for variant2 could be nice.

Posted: **Tue Dec 19, 2017 8:42 am**

dunnoob wrote:
XYZ wrote:Before WWI and till WWII Zeppelins played a major role in human air transportation.
Let's say 20 years, that's about 20 turns for the purposes of Freeciv, and IMHO, sadly, it's not good enough. But a balloon not only for variant2 could be nice.

Turns can be tuned to many per year now. 240 turns would definitely be worth it. (Not completely sure if that's 2.6 or 3.0, but they can) And they would be a significant improvement for any WWI or WWII scenarios. Really, the late modern eras just lack so much detail it's painful because most WWI tech was obsolete by the time WWII came around, and that trend continued onwards.

Ignatus wrote:Maybe we might have separate classes for Zeppellins (predecessor to Bombers and Helicopters, heavy and expensive) and Blimps (just better Balloons, predecessor to AWACS).

Note that blimps are not 'just better balloons'. They must be steerable and to fly under their own power, and as such are airships/dirigibles, just like the rigid-hulled zeppelins.

forum.freeciv.org

Zeppelins

Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins

Re: Zeppelins