How do I prevent infantry from hitting aircraft?

[CrazyG]

Three main ways

1. Make all units sea units. Make infantry isSub=true

2. Use targeted, AA style attacks for an infantry's normal attack (their normal attack would be 0). Its a really complicated overhaul, but you can control what units target what other units with incredible detail

3. Make aircraft infastructure. This doesn't work very well because aircraft that get caught by themselves instantly die, attacking or defending.

[RogerCooper]

@CrazyG Method 2 seems to be the way to go, as I only want 1 round of combat.

I would like to see this handled by a cannotHit unit property, rather than with a crazy workaround.

[Cernel]

@CrazyG said in How do I prevent infantry from hitting aircraft?:

3. Make aircraft infastructure. This doesn't work very well because aircraft that get caught by themselves instantly die, attacking or defending.

I think this should be fixed. Flying infrastructures should be captured in defence, but not in attack (the battle should just end with them hovering the territory).

[CrazyG]

@Cernel
It would need to be a separate property. Age of Tribes using flying infrastructure to let your opponents "capture" nuclear explosions"

I really wish we just had some sort of "non-targetable" property, where a unit that has true cannot be chosen a casualty, unless its the only possible casualty.

[RogerCooper]

I have another solution. As in Axis & Allies: D-Day, planes don't directly support attacks, I can just use a negative, enemy support modifier to suppress the enemy defense, and a negative, friendly support modifier to discourage friendly units from joining in.

[Hepps]

@RogerCooper That sounds like it would end up making a much worse version of the current DD/Sub mechanics. All you would have to do is use 1 plane in every combat situation and then it would neutralize all infantry.

Unless I am misunderstanding what it is you are proposing.

[redrum]

So a "cannotHit" property wouldn't really add anything to the engine as it would just be another way in the XML to define AA attacks. There really isn't any difference between an infantry having an AA attack against all units except air and having an infantry use a "cannotHit" property. Not really sure I understand why AA style attacks is complex?

[RogerCooper]

@Hepps In the D-day game, combat is limited to 1 round, limiting how much damage the planes can do. So in this case, support modifiers would work.

A cannotHit property would be more flexible, as it would not be limited to the AA phase of combat. I could think of a number of situations where such a property would be useful. Infantry without proper AT weapons might be unable to hit tanks. Aircraft would be unable to hit guerillas when attacking.

You could also have a hitFirst property, allowing some types of attacks to hit the more expensive units first, for example fighters targeting aircraft carriers or tanks.

[Hepps]

@RogerCooper Sorry didn't know it was a 1 rnd combat game. My apologies for interjecting without the knowledge to do so intelligently.

[redrum]

@RogerCooper I guess I'm still struggling to see how a cannotHit property would be better/different than using targeted attacks. For the 3 scenarios you mentioned so far (inf not hitting air, inf not hitting tanks, air not hitting guerillas), those seem to fit reasonably well into targeted attacks.

[Cernel]

Moved to Mapmaking, as, while there is a map reference, I think this is more of a general matter, that may apply to various maps.