Bombers – Single Round Attack

[Contango]

Oh, I’m not talking about the offensive AA vs defensive AA, I'm talking about offensive AA vs regular combat.

Right now I have bombers set up to roll as offensive AA and eligible to hit all units. (like you suggested) This is successful in making them only fire for one round, but also makes the bomber attack pre-emptive. The result is that if the bomber makes a successful hit, that casualty is eliminated before the normal combat round takes place and never gets a chance to roll in retaliation.

My goal is to have it be more like a bombardment roll where the defenders that are killed still have a chance to retaliate.

I suppose I could try setting all units to be AA fire so that they all have the same priority, but this would ruin the functionality of normal AA gun fire, which I do want to be pre-emptive.

[beelee]

@Contango you could make a feature request to add isAir units to canBombard.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/category/42/feature-requests-ideas

Maybe it'd be relatively easy todo. Idk if so it might get done sooner than later

[ff03k64]

@beelee said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango you could make a feature request to add isAir units to canBombard.

What currently happens if you give an isAir unit canBombard?

[beelee]

@ff03k64

[Contango]

@beelee said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango you could make a feature request to add isAir units to canBombard.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/category/42/feature-requests-ideas

Maybe it'd be relatively easy todo. Idk if so it might get done sooner than later

Bombarding would be perfect if it could work, but a few questions that stem from that, even if air units could bombard:

1. Would the bomber be able to bombard from withing the territory the battle is happening, or would it need to be adjacent?
2. Would there need to be a sea zone adjacent to the battle for bombarding to work?
3. Would there need to be a unit being offloaded for the bombarding to work?

So I’m thinking it might be more complicated than just allowing isAir units to canBombard.

Another avenue I’m thinking now: Is it possible for a unit bonus to last a set number of rounds? I’m wondering if the Bomber could have a regular attack value of zero, but a single round bonus. I haven’t come across anything that seems to do that yet, have you?

[beelee]

@Contango yea Good points. Figured it wouldn't be that easy Idk about single round. So no, I haven't.

[Hepps]

@Contango

Another avenue I’m thinking now: Is it possible for a unit bonus to last a set number of rounds? I’m wondering if the Bomber could have a regular attack value of zero, but a single round bonus. I haven’t come across anything that seems to do that yet, have you?

You could make your bomber carry a suicide unit that auto repopulates at the end of every turn or start of the following turn for all surviving bombers.

[Contango]

@Hepps said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango

Another avenue I’m thinking now: Is it possible for a unit bonus to last a set number of rounds? I’m wondering if the Bomber could have a regular attack value of zero, but a single round bonus. I haven’t come across anything that seems to do that yet, have you?

You could make your bomber carry a suicide unit that auto repopulates at the end of every turn or start of the following turn for all surviving bombers.

Thanks, @Hepps, I gave this a try and I still end up with casualties from the suicide unit not being able to return fire, even if I have the below global property set:

<property name="Suicide and Munition Casualties Restricted" value="false" editable="false">
  <boolean/>
</property>

I also tried with value=”true” and it doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Have you seen this successfully implemented where the casualties are able to fire back? If not then I think I’m in the same state as making the bomber use offensive AA, but in more steps.

[Hepps]

@Contango The property might be affected by what ruleset property you have set.

[ff03k64]

@Contango what is your actual code for this unit?

[Contango]

@Hepps said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango The property might be affected by what ruleset property you have set.

So far I’ve tried:

• WW2v2
• WW2V3
• WW2V3 Tech Model
• None of the above

All seem to result in the suicide casualties not firing back.

I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about but this is the first I’ve come across the ruleset properties, so can’t say that I’m familiar. Are there others besides these?

[Contango]

@ff03k64 said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango what is your actual code for this unit?

Right now I have separated as the bomber and a suicide unit called bomber_payload:

<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="bomber" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
  <option name="movement" value="6"/>
  <option name="isAir" value="true"/>
  <option name="attack" value="0"/>
  <option name="defense" value="0"/>
  <option name="isStrategicBomber" value="true"/>
  <option name="isAirTransport" value="true"/>
  <option name="transportCapacity" value="2"/>
  <option name="bombingMaxDieSides" value="6"/>
  <option name="bombingBonus" value="2"/>
  <option name="airAttack" value="1"/>
</attachment>
<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="bomber_payload" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
  <option name="movement" value="0"/>
  <option name="transportCost" value="2"/>
  <option name="attack" value="4"/>
  <option name="defense" value="0"/>
  <option name="isAirTransportable" value="true"/>
  <option name="isSuicide" value="true"/>
</attachment>

[Hepps]

@Contango I was wrong. Suicide units will always kill casualties without allowing return fire. I was thinking of bombard.

[Hepps]

@Contango Take a look at this thread... this might just solve all your problems...

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1579/add-ability-for-suicide-units-to-provide-support/53

If you made your "payload" unit support the bomber +1 att... and the bomber still started with a 0 att. Then you should be able to achieve what you want.

[Contango]

@Hepps said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango Take a look at this thread... this might just solve all your problems...

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1579/add-ability-for-suicide-units-to-provide-support/53

If you made your "payload" unit support the bomber +1 att... and the bomber still started with a 0 att. Then you should be able to achieve what you want.

Excellent, with the suicide unit giving a bonus to the bomber, and the suicide unit having isSuicideOnAttack, that works to make the defenders able to return fire.

One issue I’m now noticing is that when I try to use the bomber for strategic bombing, I now throw the below error because the Bomber has zero attack value:

The error is inconsequential and the bombing run still functions properly, it’s just annoying and misleading. Any suggestions on overriding that?

My next hurdle is finding a way to auto-spawn the bomber_payload unit. Preferably this would happen at the beginning of a nation’s turn and then they would auto-disappear at the end of the nation’s turn if they were unused.

I haven’t researched it yet, but if anyone has an example of something similar to share that would be helpful.

[Hepps]

@Contango Not an error... the game is simply telling you the bomber has no attack value and will die in combat as it cannot win the battle. Game should still function as intended. No way to remove the warning that I am aware of.

[Hepps]

@Contango said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Hepps said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango Take a look at this thread... this might just solve all your problems...

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1579/add-ability-for-suicide-units-to-provide-support/53

If you made your "payload" unit support the bomber +1 att... and the bomber still started with a 0 att. Then you should be able to achieve what you want.

Excellent, with the suicide unit giving a bonus to the bomber, and the suicide unit having isSuicideOnAttack, that works to make the defenders able to return fire.

One issue I’m now noticing is that when I try to use the bomber for strategic bombing, I now throw the below error because the Bomber has zero attack value:

The error is inconsequential and the bombing run still functions properly, it’s just annoying and misleading. Any suggestions on overriding that?

What you could do to eliminate the warning is to give all bombers an attack of 1... then add a terrain modifier to all territories and sea zones giving all bombers a -1 on attack. Then the engine would never know the units are powerless on attack and should not throw the warning message. A lot of work for something people will otherwise learn to ignore.

Also if you do this the game will then show that bombers have an attack value of 1 in the tool tips... which is probably more misleading than having the warning during Strat Bombing.

[Contango]

@Hepps

Thanks for the suggestion. Although I think I've found a simpler way to override the warning message...

I gave the bomber an OffesiveAttackAA value and set targetsAA to a non-existent unit. Thus the engine thinks it can attack and doesn't throw the warning.

[Hepps]

@Contango Always a work around if you just think outside the box.

[Contango]

@Hepps said in Bombers – Single Round Attack:

@Contango

Another avenue I’m thinking now: Is it possible for a unit bonus to last a set number of rounds? I’m wondering if the Bomber could have a regular attack value of zero, but a single round bonus. I haven’t come across anything that seems to do that yet, have you?

You could make your bomber carry a suicide unit that auto repopulates at the end of every turn or start of the following turn for all surviving bombers.

I’ve worked out a trigger to remove all unused bomber_payload units after the combat move phase is over.

My ideal now would be to have them spawn for the active nation at the start of their turn. So far the best thing I’ve come up with is putting the below in the bomber's unit attachment:

<option name="createsUnitsList" value="1:bomber_payload"/>

The problem is that this executes at the end of the nation’s turn rather than the beginning, and I’d prefer to not have the payload units hanging around during other nation’s turns if possible.

Any suggestions on how to get this to fire at the beginning of the turn instead? Or some other alternative?