Land Transport Improvements

Hepps

@Cernel Not exactly sure what redrum can do to the functionality of land transports with the stipulations you are giving him.

Cernel

@Hepps Not much of a clue either. Mostly suggesting the land transport gameplay remaining something easy to play with (you pick 2 armours and 2 infantries and move them where you want; if you picked more infantries, the remaining ones are not moved, if they can't get there alone, nothing else needed, as it works now). Mainly worried it might become something like the current air transport, which is clearly much more clumsy / slower to play with. Also suggesting the ability of transporting multiple units one after the other being kept, even tho I've no current plans to use it myself (but there is at least 1 map that uses it, for trains, as I said).

Hepps

@Cernel You seem to have a real issue with a simple 2 step process. The Air transport system actually works far better (IMHO) than any other transporting in the game. I personally don't find it "unfriendly" at all, and truth be told, much prefer it to the way sea transports currently work since you frequently have to do the loading and unloading separately for each transport anyways when you have multiples in a SZ since the engine does a piss poor job of validating where the units have been placed in the first place. It actually takes just as long as having a simple validation process would.

Personally I think giving land transports more flexibility/versatility in terms of capacity would totally supersede the functional efficiency if it was a difference of 2 clicks. Especially when you consider the effort it takes to move (building on the example you used) a train back and fourth... back and fourth... back and fourth.

What would be nice to retain would be the land transports ability to pick up and unload multiple times within the same turn.

Lastly, I think it is silly to restrict the potential of an improved system on account of a single map that could only be considered a "finished" product if we were being generous to the EXTREME.

Cernel

In particular, I would encourage mapmakers making advanced maps to use the ability of land transporting multiple units sequentially, especially for trains. It makes a lot of sense that if you have a train, or something, you are able to choose if to make a single full max movement transporting a single unit or using less of your movement to transport a unit, while retaining the remaining one to move more units or reposition yourself. A reason why I don't like "naval" trains Civil War style is that you can transport only a number of units and move only till the destination, no matter how long the actual distance to cover (of course, fuel costs can give you a bonus for covering a shorter distance than your max). I would suggest land transport for trains, instead of that, just because it makes sense that if I have a train that can move 6 and transported a land unit for 3, then it should still move of additional 3, and maybe transporting a second land unit.

Related matters, for the same reasons, are that I surely also suggest to

Keep the current ability of moving further alone after having transported the unit where you wanted.
Keep the current ability to pick up the unit on the move (you don't have to start in the same territory of the unit you are transporting but, for example, if you have a movement 3 land transport, you can move of 1 into a territory and transport an infantry of 2 from that territory; this is not possible with air transports, but should remain possible with land ones).

Generally speaking, I suggest none of the current features being dropped in favour of new ones, though I've no clue how much that is feasible.

Cernel

@redrum After further consideration (also thinking about the differences with air transports), I suggest to integrate the full list of current possibilities this way:

Change (I believe it is not that clear, as it is):
"isLandTransport" can transport multiple units in the same turn (only limited by the amount of movement it has)

to:

"isLandTransport" can still move on, and even transport additional units, after having already transported others, to destination, in the same turn (only limited by the amount of movement it has)

and add:

"isLandTransport" can transport units starting from a territory it moved into, in the same turn (not only from the one it started from)

For example, in a map in which I have land transports that move 3 and can transport some movement 1 units, the AI should see that I can bring stuff also from a nearby territory, not only what is in the starting territory of the land transport. No clue if this would be too much on the AI, but I think it is a good and realistic behaviour regardless AI support.

Cernel

@Hepps I personally find a bit annoying managing like bombers transporting infantry in WWIIv3, but it is survivable (and anyways that map is almost never played with tech, comprising me (BW v3 with tech would be a bigger current item, for sure)). I'm mostly just saying I like better the current land transport system, where you just pick what you want to move, and the engine validates it or not, based if you are trying to move enough transports for the transported at the same time, than, say, a system in which you would have to click on the "armour" unit and then select how many "armour" units are going to transport how many "infantry" units, then move them. But don't see it as unacceptable, in case, and I guess that more functionalities vs easier gameplay can be seen as a trade-off; would be nice not to make the system more complex to manage on the users from what it is, but I agree it is not a must.
I'm actually more on keeping all that it is currently possible, in term of what you can do (I think it is really cool to have freedom to move before and after transporting, and transporting multiple in sequence), and I'm not really that strong as I may have appeared on how stuff gets played out, eventually.

redrum

@Frostion Cernel is correct that "isInfantry" is only used for land transports and "artillerySupportable" is used to pair with "artillery".

So I think initially I'm going to do the following as these are pretty easy changes that have no impact to existing maps but add some flexibility and clarity:

Add new parameter "isLandTransportable" that functions the same as "isInfantry" which will be considered deprecated (some time in the future it will be removed all together as it is a very confusing property with a bad history)
Have units with "isLandTransport" utilize the "transportCapacity" property to determine how many units they can transport and if not set then default to "1" (keeps current functionality unchanged). This at least gives the flexibility to have land transports each move more than 1 unit (though all land units will still just count as "1" cost for land transporting)

Eventual things I'd like to do but require significant effort:

Have "isLandTransportable" units utilize "transportCost" so they then function like air transports. This would require a UI change to be able to select which units to then transport along with figuring out how to make it backwards compatible for existing maps.
Remove "MechanizedInfantry" tech requirement which would require updating existing maps that don't just give it to everyone to properly define the tech to set "isLandTransport" and "isLandTransportable" on the appropriate units

Hepps

@redrum That is a good intermediate step.

CrazyG

@redrum
One really nice about the current land transport is the ease of use

So maybe we could leave the current way as is, and treat it as the basic transport system

Then get a new one going with more capacity, which would be more complex, like the current air transport system

Cernel

@redrum So, will all the current functionalities of land transports be kept whatever the new system? In particular I'm referring to:

The ability to pick up a (not yet moved) unit on the move, not only from the starting territory.
The ability to keep moving on and even transporting more after having already transported some.

I'm a bit worried by the "so they then function like air transports" thing.

Losing the simplicity of the current system would be a drawback, but I'm mainly concerned if this matter is going to keep all that it is currently possible? If not, I guess I would second on keeping the current land transport system too, tho I'm not a fan of the idea itself. Personally, I'm not really bothered much by the current limits, and for me it could stay as it is (of course, all good if all is purely additive, like these short term planned changes).

So, basically, what I'm asking, is the intention, whatever the changes may be, of nothing being lost of the possibilities currently already available (that you have already listed at the first post)?

Hepps

@redrum So if you are working on this... while also trying to keep the same functionality....

Are you at the same time trying to find a way to create a method of specifying which units can transport which units?

IE. Let's say you have a train (don't know why I might choose that as an example) and the train is capable of transporting; tanks, Infantry, trucks, artillery, .... But you also have a truck which can potentially only transport Infantry and artillery.

Will there be a way to specify which type of transport can carry which type of unit?

I am thinking something like this...

I'm not great at what makes for good coding.... I am just going off of some of the stuff that is already in current XML's.

redrum

@hepps Initial improvements: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/2673

Changes

Add new parameter "isLandTransportable" that functions the same as "isInfantry" which will be considered deprecated (some time in the future it will be removed all together as it is a very confusing property with a bad history).
Fix bug that didn't allow air transports and land transports to be moved in the same move.
Have units with "isLandTransport" utilize the "transportCapacity" property to determine how many units they can transport and if not set then default to being able to transport 1 unit (keeps current functionality unchanged).
Have "isLandTransportable" units utilize "transportCost" so they then function similar to sea transports. The goal then is to have the engine make a best effort to load all selected land transports and transportable units but if it selects them incorrectly then the player may need to move 1 land transport at a time.

Example
<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="LargeTruck" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
<option name="movement" value="2"/>
<option name="attack" value="0"/>
<option name="defense" value="0"/>
<option name="canBeDamaged" value="true"/>
<option name="maxDamage" value="1"/>
<option name="canDieFromReachingMaxDamage" value="true"/>
<option name="isLandTransport" value="true"/>
<option name="transportCost" value="2"/>
<option name="transportCapacity" value="5"/>
<option name="canBeGivenByTerritoryTo" value="Germany:Britain:Japan"/>
<option name="isInfrastructure" value="true"/>
<option name="isAAmovement" value="true"/>
</attachment>

Hepps

@redrum Well done! Can't wait to try this little beauty out... Trains just got that much more valuable! This is going to get fun!

beelee

Rock n Roll Overdrive ! Nice : )

redrum

The PR has been merged so feel free to try it out: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases/tag/1.9.0.0.7792

Hepps

@redrum Looking at this now. Wondering... do I have to go back and change all units that are defined as "isInfantry" immediately for thiese changes?

redrum

@hepps No, isInfantry will still work for now but sometime in the future support for it will be removed and all maps updated to use isLandTransportable instead.

Hepps

@redrum Follow up question....

Let's just say you have 2 types of land transport. One being a truck and one being a train....

Lets say we leave the truck as it was originally designed... by not defining the transport capacity for the unit it should only be capable of transporting a single unit.

Now, if I add Tanks, Hvy Tanks, Mobile Art., Hvy. Art. Mech Inf. all to being land transportable for the train.... does this not mean that the truck will be capable of transporting all of these units? Seems to me it will.

redrum

@hepps That's correct. Any unit with no transport capacity defined is able to transport any "1" unit that has isLandTransportable or isInfantry. The potential solution there is to change trucks to have say transportCapacity="2" so they can only transport units with lower transportCost.

My general recommendation is to move all land transport units to have a set transportCapacity if any of them need that functionality so its easier to balance and more clear the functionality as it will then work the same as sea transports.

Hepps

@redrum Yup. Was just clarifying.... since now attributing the trucks with a capacity will change some of their functionality. Need to re-think some of it and plan out the changes.

Also need to examine how this will alter the Mech. Inf.