Re: Just say no to bungee paratroopers.

[Hans Ronne <hronne@comhem.se>]

>> > The fix is to count the transport's movement
>> against the passengers as well.

>If this was introduced as a true/false table, it
>should work fine.  This way it could be turned on in
>cases where it made sense and left alone in games
>where it doesn't.  Right?

I think any change to the basic action/move code would have to be
implemented as a GDL option, in order not to break existing games.

Regarding this particular idea, there are some problems due to how the
kernel works. The kernel doesn't count "time" or movement points. Instead,
it counts action points (acps). if you want to limit the ability of an
occupant to move because its transport already moved, you would have to
bleed off its acps. Now, that would work fine in games where units have
many acps and use one per move. However, a more common situation is that
the unit only has one or two acps, and is able to move several cells using
one acp (how far is determined by the GDL variable speed). In that case,
the unit might not be able to move at all if you take away an acp.

Another problem is that operting ranges are important, both in the task
execution code and in the AI code. And some of the derived variables are
precomputed to save time. I think that with the proposed hack we would see
many more messages of the type "Your fighter has run out of fuel and
crashed."

Then there is the point I already alluded to, and that is that being able
to do rapid forward deployments makes most games more interesting. There is
nothing more boring than a stalemate "West Front" trench war situation.

I am not saying that a transport hack is impossible, but it would take a
lot of work to get it right. I think that in the case of the galaxy2 game,
the basic problem is that planets are to esy to capture, regardless of how
you go about it. For the bungee paratroopers that this thread started with,
the obvious fix would seem to be to require that they leave the bomber
before being able to attack. This is, after all, how real paratroopers work
(jump first, then shoot). And there is already a GDL variable,
occupant-combat, which can be used to limit the ability of occupants to
fight. Setting it to 0 instead of the default 100 for (infantry bomber)
should do the trick.

Hans