Matrix Games Forums

The Combat/Movement Penalties/Bonuses seems to be working in the wrong way to the point I would like to call it a bug.

The Defense values work as intended, for example: You set Engineer City Defense to 10, they will get a massive defense bonus when they occupy city resources. All good.

However when you set the Engineers City Attack value to 10, they get a huge attack value when attacking FROM a City.

This makes 0 sense.

Currently you can't make engineers better at assaulting cities specifically, you could only do that by giving it an attack bonus in every other hex that isnt a city, but that would make it stronger against everything, not just cities...

They should instead get a huge attack value when attacking A CITY. From where shouldn't matter...

This setting could then actually be used to make some units better to use for assaulting cities and some worse..
For example engineers could get a bonus and tanks could get a penalty.

The way it currently works makes it impossible to use the setting this way, and it doesn't make sense as when you attack a hex, the geography of that hex matters, not the one you attacked from, atleast that's how it should work...

Before someone says "but if it's changed you wouldn't be able to make a unit stronger when attacking from a city"... I can't think of a single unit where the hex it attacks from should matter (except for supply reason but that is already handled by supply system)... The combat settings should focus on the hex in question (the hex that is actually attacked) rather than the hex from where the attack came...

I really feel like this is a bug and should be changed. Hopefully there is a small chance of this actually being changed as I dont think the default scenarios use these settings anyway(?)...

(just used cities and engineers as example, this is not only related to those)

Same opinion for me, would be better if the progam would take in mind the hex that is attacked, the hex from where the attack starts has no any importance.

With this precision I think it's not a bug, but a voluntary technical way used by Hubert to simplify coding work : to definite bonus/malus, it's probably more easy to take in mind the type of hex where is the unit, in place to take in mind the type of hex that a unit may attack, because the concerned unit is already on the concerned hex : it's more simple to code. If you take in mind the hex that may be attacked by the concerned unit, you x by 6 the possibilities for each hex and each unit (perhaps more complexity in coding work). Hubert is a smart fox


Defense bonus are set by another windows in editor ("edit defense bonus data", the first in the list menu), but this function is not very precise, it works only with great type of units (hard, soft, etc) and not with precise class (infantry, armors, engineers, etc). In addition, this function "defense bonus" does not allow malus attacks < -1 : it's too limited, malus should be -1,-2, -3 etc.

The editor is very powerfull but a few minor things are sometimes annoying for modding work. That's the cruel destiny of modders

I bet with the help of AI any programmer could easily switch the code to work as it should instead. I do understand there is a possibility of it being made like this because it was the easy thing to do or whatever but I don't think it's an impossible task to make it work as it should, especially now with the help of AI.

It would actually add some depth to the game instead of gameplay just being linear weak to strong units. With this setting working correctly we could actually have some real differences between units and where to use them..

Individualization of units is difficult for engineers, but it's possible for some another classes of units, if you accept to sacrify some cathegories (regroupments)

Some example in the tool I builded to help in my modding work (I use it actually for my ASL Tactic Command mod but it may be used for all another kind of mods : it does help usdefully to identify for each unit, what is his vanilla class, his vanilla sound move, his vanilla sound attack, etc)

All modding difficulties come from some precise situation :
1/ Type and sounds of units are at the same time shared and hard coded
2/ Actual position of units is the criterium to definite bonus/malus (the problem you speak about)
3/ Sometimes, parameters function use the precise class of units (infantry, engineers, tanks, etc) but some other times, parameters functions use only imprecise types (soft, hard, etc)