isSuicideOnHit - Resolved -

[Mahks]

ohhhhhhh, you mean inflicts a hit! makes sense now

[redrum]

@mahks Correct. If the unit inflicts/gets a hit during battle on another unit then it is destroyed. Most common case is using it for "mines" which if they hit a unit then they also die.

[Cernel]

@redrum While we are at hand, and I know I can know it easily enough by testing, can you tell me if that means hitting something or just hitting the dice?
For example, 1 infantry (1 hitpoint) attacks and 6 mines defend; 3 mines roll a hit, but only 1 is needed to kill the infantry. How many mines are lost? 1 or 3?

[redrum]

@cernel Hitting the dice. So however many "isSuicideOnHit" units that roll a hit will die even if only 1 enemy unit. In your case 3 mines will die.

[Cernel]

@redrum Ok. I guess it works this way to keep it simpler, also code wise, correct? Because, behaviourally, I'm thinking losing only the mine that actually hits something would be more logical (otherwise, I can use 1 infantry to trigger a great number of mines into wasting themselves, that it is what this option aimed at avoiding, with respect to the available suicide always, in the first place).
So, am I right in my guess it works this way to keep it easy, or because it is actually the preferred behaviour (losing all 3 mines instead of only the one killing the infantry)?

[redrum]

@cernel Honestly hadn't thought about that scenario much and no map actually uses the property yet. It is simpler from a code perspective to remove all that rolled a hit vs actually hitting an enemy unit. You could probably argue gameplay/realism either way. Really depends what 'rolling a hit' even means

[Cernel]

@redrum Ah ok.
I guess the matter is if I have 100 mines in a territory, with the normal suicide I can send 1 infantry to have them all blow up (and this is because the normal suicide was devised for being used mainly in attack (kamikaze fighters)).
But with this option, for example, if the mines hit at 3, then I can still send the infantry to blow up half of them.
I definitely believe the better behaviour would be to lose only the mines that actually determine casualties, but my opinion.

[Mahks]

A way to implement that in the engine without editing all the units vs hits checking would be to create a loop that calculates one isSuicideOnHit unit at a time and exits on zero remaining units. (existing code remains the same, just a loop introduced)

[General_Zod]

@redrum

On related note, something should really be done about the isSuicide unit flaw that @cernel described above.

This sounds like a bug actually. If I have 1000 kamikaze in Tokyo, one enemy unit, whatever it is can wipe them all out, if they are defending.

[redrum]

@cernel I pretty open to either way and probably whatever map implements it first can test it out and decide which functionality is better. I can see your point though.

@Mahks Having lots of separate rolls could become poor form a gameplay perspective as if I have 20 isSuicideOnHit units with lots of enemies then I don't want to sit around and roll 1 die at a time.

@General_Zod If you have a save game with a good example then I'd recommend opening a bug report or feature request

[Cernel]

@general_zod I didn't say it was a flaw. That is just how the regular suicide works (for example, you have a bunch of kamikaze, and they all do their stuff if attacked, not matter what). Also, there is a property that allows suicide units to be suicide in attack only (for example, used by Domination NML to avoid the scenario you describe, for "gas"); not sure if it applies to the new suicide too?

[Cernel]

@redrum said in isSuicideOnHit:

@Mahks Having lots of separate rolls could become poor form a gameplay perspective as if I have 20 isSuicideOnHit units with lots of enemies then I don't want to sit around and roll 1 die at a time.

No clue if feasible, but just roll them all and take the N best results, ignore the rest, where N is the number of possible targets.

[General_Zod]

@cernel

Right you didn't say flaw, I characterize it as a flaw though. It's lousy behavior for defending isSuicide units.

I will test out the property you mention. Not sure what exact behavior it gives. Just no engage when defending, at all sounds like.

[Cernel]

@general_zod When defending is non-suicide. So, no: it defends. In the case of Domination NML, it does nothing, on defence, because it is an infrastructure with no defence power, if I recall correctly.

[Cernel]

@general_zod I agree it would be good if you would be prompted to select the number of units you want to suicide, defensively, for something like kamikaze. Anyways, this is a feature request.

[Cernel]

@mahks said in isSuicideOnHit:

ohhhhhhh, you mean inflicts a hit! makes sense now

Anyways, I didn't necessarily mean that, and, as @redrum clarified, that is not how it works. The unit sacrifices itself upon hitting, no matter if the hit is actually "inflicted" on anything. Just saying that, for how it works now, I would not say "inflicts a hit", but just "hits", as I said.

[Frostion]

@cernel said in isSuicideOnHit:

@general_zod I agree it would be good if you would be prompted to select the number of units you want to suicide, defensively, for something like kamikaze. Anyways, this is a feature request.

Would it not be better if isSuicide units could have an XML option to always attack and/or defend one at a time, up until the point where the last enemy unit is dead, where then all isSuicides would stop killing themselves in their efforts to kill enemies that are no longer there?

Anyway, that would make much more sense with kamikaze suicide planes, and it would also be very nice for Age of Tribes if the ammo units (mortar shells and rockets) would stop depleting themselves (blowing themselves up) just because a single enemy enters their territory

Maybe something like:

    <property name="Defending Suicide and Munition Units Strike One At A Time" value="true" editable="false">
        <boolean/>
    </property>
    <property name="Attacking Suicide and Munition Units Strike One At A Time" value="true" editable="false">
        <boolean/>
    </property>

[redrum]

@frostion Interesting idea. Though I do wonder if it wouldn't just be better to make that always be the case rather than adding a property. At least on defense. On attack, I don't really think it matters that much since for regular suicide units you should know how many to attack and suicideOnHit units only potentially the final battle round of rolls matter. Given that though might just be better to move towards that behavior across the board if there is a strong consensus.

[General_Zod]

@redrum @Frostion

I don't know if this particular method makes sense from a battle sequence viewpoint. Unless I'm misunderstanding it.

Suicide units usually roll at the top of the order in a battle sequence. If they roll one at a time, the sequence would become lengthy. I don't know if dice/LL will influence the order either.

That being said I think they should not be lemmings on defense either.

---

On a tangent thought. Personally I think suicide units, first strike units, and subs should have an option to use dice in a LL game. This would allow them to maintain their threat level edge as a special unit since their hits are lethal with no return fire (if setup right).

[Cernel]

@redrum I think that if in attack it works that you choose how much you send and they all die, what it would be consistent the most is that in defence you choose how much you use and they all die. The rest should be removed from the battle, and captured if the territory is overtaken (there is the option of setting destroyed upon capture).
So, for the regular suicide, I would rather have an additional property to decide if you can choose how much to suicide or have to use all (default have to use all), when defending.

What @Frostion says would rather fit better as a different unit option.
Personally, a thing that I always considered is "ammunition consumption", rather than the kamikaze case, as being much more important (actually, ammunition consumption, in WW2, was more important a cost than producing the artilleries themselves, and even more so in WW1, that was pretty much mostly about keeping producing artillery shells and sending fodder to die). So for that (as @Frostion is mentioning shells, but we could talk about arrows too) I would actually suggest this behaviour:
The unit sacrifices itself only if it rolls 1 or more dice (no matter at what strength, comprising strength 0) and only if there is something it could hit.
coupled with:
allowing suicide units to receive support (currently cannot).

That way, you could represent ammunition consumption by having "shell" units and "artillery" units, the "shell" having the above behaviour and dice rolls = 0 and the "artillery" giving (via support) 1 bonus roll to 1 "shell" unit.
That way, you could use only the "shell" that get the support (as 0 dice rolls units are never sacrificed) but only until there is something to use them for. Like you would roll for all the "shell" units that can roll, put the dice results randomly in list left to right, but use (and sacrifice) only those up to max possible casualties, ignoring the rolls on the right of the one that killed the last eligible enemy unit.

For example, you have 3 infantry and 10 shells that roll at 3, and have these rolls:
1,5,6,2,3,4,1,1,6,5
in this case, all the 3 infantry are killed, and the last is killed by the unit that rolled the "3"', so 5 shells units are sacrificed (the ones that rolled 1,5,6,2,3), while 5 shells units are considered not having actually fired off.
Practically, this would be the same as progressively rolling all those dice from left to right until all possible targets are taken as casualties, then stop rolling.
On top of the above, you could say that those shells have 0 dice rolls, and artillery gives 1 dice roll to 1 shell, so it would go the same way only as long as you have 10 or more artillery (and actually would need only 5 artillery, for the first 5 shells to fire).
This would be great to represent ammunition consumption (and I guess @Frostion ,would adopt it at least for the mortars of Age of Tribes) and good for kamikaze too.