Hover Hover Hovercraft!

[MarkSheppard]

Bzzzzzzzrrrrr

Looked in the game manual, and there wasn't anything about them and what effects they have; in fact the Class list still has:

UnitClass 239 MRV Heavy IFV MRV APC Clone

Typo?

Playing around with MOBhack....caused the discovery that Class 239 enables the hover effect.

To test how hovercraft perform, I made a test map with every type of terrain possible, and then bought eleventy billion of them.

Hovercraft cannot enter:
Tree Hexes
Orchard Hexes
Impassable Hexes

They can move on most anything else that is open, with very little chance of bogging/immobilization.

My only nitpick is that while preventing them from moving into wooded hexes makes a lot of sense for large landing craft type hovercraft, such as the LCAC, and the Soviet Giants, because they're so big (47 foot beam on LCAC, 57 foot beam on the Aist); the smaller hovercraft can manuver more easily around obstructions like trees, et al.

I think this can be improved for MBT 4.0 (if you guys do choose to continue development), like so:

Add a "10 Hovercraft" moveclass that has the "no bog" bonus, but has a 50% penalty (or even worse) for moving through woods/orchards; because while they might be great moving fast in a straight line, they get hard to control precisely when moving at slow speeds. This also allows OOB designers more freedom in designing hover-craft based platoons, since you could use existing unitclasses for classification.

Unitclass 239 Hovercraft stays in, with it's "no orchard/woods" flag, to represent ungodly huge landing craft, like the LCAC and Soviet monsters.

Just my .02 cents.

Apologies if you tried the moveclass, and found it broke the game heavily.

[Suhiir]

Probably have to add a separate class for small hovercraft - and there really aren't any used by anyone's military at the moment.

[PlasmaKrab]

I agree with Mark, creating a new movement class would allow more flexibility in what is hovercraft and what isn't. I also agree that this kind of modification has chances of breaking the whole code down...
That would even allow putting hover-units in the same buy list as non-hover ones if needed (I can't figure out where that could be needed except maybe if you want to collapse together hull- and hover-based landing crafts).

[DRG]

Yeah OK . I did forget to added some descriptive text to the GG as to how terrain affects hovercraft. It slipped off the radar so to speak. It wasn't a delibrate oversight.

I REALLY do not get the comment....

"Playing around with MOBhack....caused the discovery that Class 239 enables the hover effect."

Yeah well that's the class that all the hovercraft in the game uses now so it's a safe bet that the class that would "enables the hover effect."...

Please note, NOBODY had an "bright ideas" about how hovercraft should be handled previously to this and they have been in the OOB since Sp2 was released using the "amphibian" classes with all the drawback of associated with that AND if you check out the "Military Hovercrafts " thread I started in the OOB's section you'll see NO feedback whatsoever. So how much REAL interest was there ??? None.

NO there will not be a "10 Hovercraft" moveclass. If that were easily done it would have been done this time and saved us the bother of using an unused class but using the unused class WAS the only real option so what you see is what you get and as as "Suhiir" noted really small hovercrafts are not being used by anyone so there is ZERO point in even considering this. Hovercrafts don't go into treed hexes . Period

Don

[Listy]

DRG said:
Please note, NOBODY had an "bright ideas" about how hovercraft should be handled previously to this and they have been in the OOB since Sp2 was released using the "amphibian" classes with all the drawback of associated with that AND if you check out the "Military Hovercrafts " thread I started in the OOB's section you'll see NO feedback whatsoever. So how much REAL interest was there ??? None.

Don

As per your request, I did ask some friends who might know. unfortunately none had been near a Griffon, so I had no data to add.

[DRG]

Yes, and I do appreciate that you asked around but the end result, even with this inquiry, was no feedback on the questions I asked

Don

[Randy]

The hovercraft in the game are really great. They add an additional dimension to the game. Just a small note on the US Navy LCAC. These large hovercraft are able to carry the current (and I expect the next) AAV. The game currently does not allow for hovercraft to carry any type of amphibians. Prior to the development of the AAAV/EFV, there was a plan to use LCACs to carry amtracs for Over the Horizon assaults (since they have a water speed and range greater than the amtrac).
Thanks

[Suhiir]

I know an LCAC could carry an M60 tank. Since we didn't have the M1 when I was in Norfolk I don't know if they can carry one of those. But that's a matter of mass not size. Unless the new EFV weighs more then an M60 did (witch it doesn't) there would be no problem carrying them. Tho I'm not sure if they could handle more then one due to the size of the well deck.

[Randy]

Shuhiir, you are correct about the capacity of the LCAC. It can carry the M1A1, and the AAV. So it should have no problem carrying the EFV, however only one of them. I think it can also carry four LAVs.