Loopbackattack, 3 years later... fixed?

[Caydr]

Loopbackattack. My nemesis. There is no indication in the changelog or forum search that this has been fixed, if it has, my apologies.

First for some history. Loopbackattack is a tag that was added to Spring a long time ago. It is an altogether awesome tag, which causes the fighter aircraft which has it to fire a couple times, then circle back and make another pass, repeat. As in, it doesn't fly OVER the target, it just repeatedly makes runs at it.

It sounds cool, and it is, but it is absolutely and completely (and balancedly?) useless in its current state.

In most situations, the ability to do a loop back attack massively increases a fighter's effectiveness when attacking ground targets. And what's cool is that it's toggleable. The problem is, for a modder, a toggle which has a major impact on a unit's usefulness is a nightmare. No modder in their right mind would use it IMO. Some people won't realize it's there, others won't realize what it does, etc.

It needs to be changed to function like so:
Loopbackattack=0; --- Function not available
Loopbackattack=1; --- Function enabled, cannot be disabled, no UI option
Loopbackattack=2; --- Toggle... just in case someone, somewhere has a use for it

For backward compatibility it should really be a little different, but this will mirror the way the HT tag works and help set a precedent.

Previously I've been shot down because the developers were afraid someone might be using it, and making a change would bork things up. But again, I can tell you: nobody can or will use it in its current state. The code is just sitting there being useless right now.

Old thread on this topic: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... backattack

[Argh]

You can remove the the button with Lua nowadays, but basically the behavior is unchanged. If you want a change, make a feature request, and good luck- after multiple people have stared at the air MoveTypes over the years, very little has been done.