Spring RTS Engine

1. Make it possible to tie an "implied" target illuminator to missile guidance so that if the firing unit dies as the missile is launched it loses guidance. Its as simple as verifying the launcher is alive at regular intervals. This would allow for a level 1 heavy SAM that is largely useless when stealth planes hit the scene. Why? Because stealth units should be immune to targeting by missiles that require illuminators!

2. Make bombs follow physics according to wind direction and wind velocity. If the bombs are unguided they should be affected by wind. Bombs should already scatter due to natural tumbling effects, but that is difficult to model.

3. Use elevation effects more with air units. Make planes and missiles that fly high suffer worsening manueverability and as they get damaged they lose altitude. To some extent this happens already but bombers go from flying pretty much 100% to flying into the ground even before they die with nary a blink of an eye. And if a fighter is attacking a unit below it then its velocity should skyrocket past its regular threshold due to picking up momentum in the dive. Right now there is no real reason for an air unit to fly at any specific altitudes.

4. Allow more than one way to drop bombs:

- 4a. Linear free fall bomb runs as done now but with accuracy diminished by wind effects
- 4b. Guided glide-bomb run with an implied target illuminator (as in point #1)
- 4c. Guided glide-bomb run with smart guidance; bomb needs no illuminator
- 4d. Dive-bomb; air unit dives down within close range and drops bomb on target for slightly better accuracy
- 4e. Clustering bomblets; bomb breaks into emg-like fragments shortly after drop to attack area target
- 4f. Napalm; incendiary bomb breaks into timed burn after it hits ground and can do damage to target throughout burn time
-4g. Launch & forget option; launching aircraft (non-illuminator dependent shots of course) are able to avoid some inherent danger of flying over a target by turning home after a successful weapons deployment

5. Allow some air units to detect missile launches that are aimed at them in order to make an evasive turn away from the missile. Would make sense that fighters would try to dodge incoming SAMs.

6. Allow a HARM missile that specifically targets SAM units with illuminators. If a missile locks on a wild weasel type of air unit then it snaps off a counter-battery shot in defense. Coupled to #5 would allow for deeper counter-air defense strategies.

7. Limit air units to fire so many weapons before a reload AND require air repair pads or a base unit (see #8) to reload weapons. The air repair pads are basically good for repairing mortally damaged planes. But since planes pretty well die as soon as they are damaged in Spring its an underutilized unit. Giving them reload duties makes the unit have a bigger role in the game. This rule alone would totally rewrite the way people approach air campaigns.

8. Allow for either VTOL takeoffs from the ground, or horizontal takeoffs from a base unit. I know its been mentioned in the past that Spring originally used a takeoff similar to C&C:Generals. Making the base units have toggles for holding the idle unit and scrambling it for defending against incoming bogies could be exciting, too.

9. Fuel limits before air units have to return to air repair pad or base unit.

7 and 9 are already implemented (and planes don't die after a few shots unless the mod wants it). 1 and 6 can be simulated by using OnlyTargetCategory. 2 would be useless as bombers wouldn't be smart enough to handle that. 4 can be done by using weapons that aren't really bombs. 3 makes no sense IMO (what would it be good for other than complicating matters unnecessarily?) and 8 is MTR.

5 would be an alternative to flares.

I'm not really sure how one would define the evasive manuever, though, since your cob file really doesn't control a units behavior.

KDR_11k-

I've not seen a single case where air units flew back to their air repair pad after shooting missiles or dropping bombs. Nor have I seen any case where an air unit ran out of fuel. Where or how is #7 and #9 implemented?

As for #1, I think you didn't understand what I was saying. Basically the unit that launches the weapon has to survive for the guidance to work. If for any reason the firing unit dies the missile will then lose its ability to manuever towards a moving target. This would make air battles more realistic in some of the mods.

As for #6, just being able to shoot at a specific target isn't the same as self defense. What I'm alluding to is wild weasel missions, taking out enemy radar and SAM sites. Can you define more than one target in this way?

In #3 you're not complicating matters, you're playing king of the hill in the air, which is how air superiority is achieved. If the guy have low tech fighters unable to climb to the higher bombers, then he has to rely on ground defenses to take out bombers. It would be possible so that Flakkers would be less likely to take out high flying units, too, hence the need to move to missile defenses.

What is MTR?

MTR, is monthly topic rotation (IE, a subject that keeps coming up)

On #7 and 9#, teher only implamented in mods which make use of it. SO no, In XTA,AA ect... you won't see it. but in the other realistic warfare mods you will see it.

All units in TA have unlimited ammo, so why not unlimited bombs? and I've never seen a peewee take a break to take on fule...

aGorm

EEs Latest beta makes use of fuel on all aircraft..

Afaik there is no burning "napalm" in Spring yet, I think you want burning oil/napalm like in C&C Generals? That can't be done yet, only trees can burn.

Also, there is no really wind direction in Spring, the turning of the windmills is scripted by the models.

"4. Allow more than one way to drop bombs:"
I think it would be "easier", if you could assign simple AIs or algorythms to weapons, then you could also have missles that fly away in a straigt and only become to home in after some flighttime and other stuff.

Your idea of an inertial flight (like a rocket) that then switches on homing is a good way to cut CPU overhead from guided weapons. They could introduce a variable in weapons along the lines of "GuidanceTurnOnRange". Could be handy for realistic land launched weapons as well as air launched weapons.

knorke wrote:Also, there is no really wind direction in Spring, the turning of the windmills is scripted by the models.

Really? So the projectiles and other particles aren't really affected by wind like they were in OTA?

No, there is a wind direction and strength.

Argh, does wobble effect the current bombs?

If the "bombs" are defined with missile behaviors, yeah. And there are now, due to the new code allowing weapons to be created via script, various ways to have random bombing patterns.

Awww, so now instead of being dropped from under the air unit you can also define a piecename in the script to shoot from with bombs? A little rotating invisible dispenser would surely spread them around a little bit then.

Since bombs are dropped in a line they accellerate with gravity physics. Real bombs have side to side movements due to aerodynamic effects, some of which can turn the bomb into a heavy glider that actually moves away from the target perpindicular to its line of drop. Any way then to get sideways accelleration out of a bomb to mimic aerodynamic glide effects?

Actually if they could get bombs to tumble, with the bomb trying to move slowly in the direction of its nose, this would probably be a better scenario. Only problem being it would make guided weapons look efficient in cpu usage terms.

Is it possible to define "unpowered guided projectiles"? Then we can have guided smart bombs and homing cannon shells. They are not able to turn around like missiles do, but they can fine tune their trajectories to increase accuracy.

The dive-bomb feature would be something that could make bombers more fun to watch. Rather than just watching the big bombers fly straight lines it would be sweet to see smallish fighters swoop down and drop a few bombs and then climb out of their dive. Some of the war sims on Spring could use this.