IRL, hulls are still prefered over foils because they're more resistant to foul weather.And maybe this is the reason they made it slower in the game. Overall, hull based ships can travel almost all the time, while foils much more often need to wait to travel further.
Once waves become to high, foils need to stay in port.
I remember an early screenshot showing foils on land, which also makes sense (though possibly not over rocky ground?). I think if the game was to be significantly redesigned foils and cruisers should be differentiated better, but not necessarily swapped.I wonder, if they also, in regard to foul weather, planned to limit foil chassis tile access. They might move on shelf water tiles only, where one could assume less large waves. On land, maybe they planned only on flat tiles? And so, foils were kinda galleys or triremes in SMAC, but finally they resigned from allowing them to move over land.
I have them swapped in my alphax.txt, just as Mart described. It just feels right to me :dunno:
#CHASSISWe can still change some of chassis parameters to mod our way of cruiser/foil
...
Foil: Moves 7 instead of 4. Note, appears later than Cruiser.
Cruiser: Moves 5 instead of 6. Cost reduced to factor 4 instead of 6.
...
; Names..., Speed, Triad, Range, Cargo, Cost, Preq, ...Large names
...
; Speed = # of moves
; Triad = Movement (0=Land 1=Sea 2=Air)
; Range = Range in turns from base (air units only)
; Missile = Chassis is a "missile" (destroyed after attacking)
; Cargo = # units transported (multiply by reactor rating)
; Cost = Cost factor of chassis type (normally equal to speed)
...
#CHASSIS
...
Foil,M1, Skimship,M1, Hoverboat,M1, Coastal,M1, 7, 1, 0, 0, 2, 4, AdapDoc, Megafoil,M1, Superfoil,M1,
Cruiser,M1, Destroyer,M1, Cutter,M1, Gunboat,M1, 5, 1, 0, 0, 4, 4, Industs, Battleship,M1, Monitor,M1,
...
Foil,M1, Skimship,M1, Hoverboat,M1, Coastal,M1, 4, 1, 0, 0, 2, 4, DocFlex, Megafoil,M1, Superfoil,M1,
Cruiser,M1, Destroyer,M1, Cutter,M1, Gunboat,M1, 6, 1, 0, 0, 4, 6, DocInit, Battleship,M1, Monitor,M1,
| foil | speed | cargo | cost | |
| original | 4 | 2 | 4 | |
| Aldebaran | 7 | 2 | 4 |
| cruiser | speed | cargo | cost | |
| original | 6 | 4 | 6 | |
| Aldebaran | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| hull type | speed | cargo | cost | tech tree | |
| cruiser | 5 | 4 | 4 | early | |
| hoovercraft | 8 | 1 | 8 | later |
To me, the SMAC(X) foil graphic looks more to a hovercraft then a (hydro)foil. What with the bottom 'skirt' the design shows.Yes, I wonder why they named it foil? Maybe some people call hovercrafts foils?
Yes, I wonder why they named it foil? Maybe some people call hovercrafts foils?
So you would keep air domain for such hoovercraft? It would have movement on land and sea in that case. But what with the game applying air benefits/penalties for it?
So you would keep air domain for such hoovercraft? It would have movement on land and sea in that case. But what with the game applying air benefits/penalties for it?
There's always the option of adding something to units.pcx - provided turning and updating don't matter...
Assuming a bit of .exe modding - you'd be able to do several appearance upgrades...
I was talking about a static unit figure like the native life - no workshop or components, just enabling upgrades using the multiple slots a row...
They're refered to by the numbers 0 to 9 at some position in the #UNITS section of alpha(x).txt.
-1 on that position means the game will use .cvr parts.
Numbers 0-8 refer to icons in units.pcx file. Sealurk is 4, battle ogres are 6, etc.
The last one is a missile with "xx" on a side, which I also used some years ago. Darsnan was using it for a pre-designed nerve-gas missile.
Below that missile icons are mindworm flags, and maybe these coordinates are hardcoded?
Not necessarily a maximum. If you take a look into the units.pcx file, you will see, that number of icon can be a multiplier for getting pixels of a given area to crop from. With x coordinate being dependent on morale in some cases - sealurk or fungal tower, or just few units, like there are only three battle ogres. It looks like heavy hardcoding. And y coordinate is multiplied by icon number.
Pcx files have some unused graphics on ocasion, and I'm not sure, if these mindworm shields are used, but then, there would be needed hardcoding of their position, unless, they refer to position counting from bottom of the image (universal solution). If so, you could extend pcx in y direction with icons 9, 10,11, ...