I will try to give the solution to that problem... And being short... The problem is layering... I know, i know... Isn't easy, it is complex, lot of efforth, but will be definitive and will improve many aspects of this and maybe the other versions of the game if you adapt this suggestion to those.
But first, I must explain more about that "layer" meaning to everyone else... I know such things had been discused b4 (myself already attempted something, but nothing was satisfactory...) So i would ask to you all to forget any prior concept of "layer" or "floor" here so you don't get confused, because this will be very complex by itself.
So i noticed that all AOS versions got some flaws and conflicts in logic due addition of newer content, ~new content is added, but base logic almost don't~, a perfect example of this is the mines being able to hit planes...
Now we will enter the complex part... The logic map does affect only "horizontal gameplay"... As i noticed, each tile is separated in 4 parts, it start with background tile (landscape, that is grass, sand, snow...), adds-on tile objects ("add furniture on tiles" as plants, cliff borders or some objects as tents or watchtowers), then goes to gameplay objects (units and structures), then above all, the highlights (effects as explosions, shoots), they have other names but for general understanding of you all, each tile is filled with these 4 subjects. (I think Daniel could make a post to complement with the correct terms and more details about "How a tile is formed" someday...)
So, you can only have one of each of those per tile, that means that all and every unit, works on the same floor, and only one unit can ocuppy a single tile... Now you know the basic of how is the layering of one tile inside the map!
My suggestion is simple, that is to add a second category to the tile layering for units, more preciselly, to be exclusive to aircrafts, staying bellow "highlight" layer and above the primary "gameplay object" layer.
So each tile would be: Landscape > Landscape objs > Primary gameplay objs (ground) > Secondary gameplay objs (air) > highlights (effects).
By adding this, moving all airplanes to this "metaphorical" secondary layer, and adding new "layer related" parameters to statsheet, things like mines will stop to hit planes since now, 2 units will be able to stay on the same tile, without overlap each other, but one WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TARGET EACH OTHER, unless we create these new parameters as "Layer of effect" to them, otherwise ground and air units will not be able to interact with each other... (Another detail of after adding this "layer of effect" parameter on attack, is that units theorically could target objects in lower layers as the forest trees or houses and remove them from the way, but lets stay with only gameplay layers for now)
Another comment i would like to add is that, why i said that "this layer is metaphorical"?
Because the player can't see it, but game logic can! It will separate ground from air, but user will not see any diference in his perspective. But the logic will be able to separate them and work without suffer any conflict at this point...
With that settled, time for AA buff!
The ideal way to represent an airplane being shoved by clouds of flak would be it being on the move, and currently, with the new effect of mines, that made me think... "if we surround the AA with mines and make a plane go over it?", so i checked and will look like what it should be from the very beggining. But the problem is that, we can't do that since everything works on the same floor, so if we add the hability to AA make this currently, it would hit other ground units and here enters this new layer. So by making AA target this new layer it would be able to deploy this "active" defense against air without affect ground units.
Here is the example,
User will see this.
- 2019-02-26-16-01-51.png (159.86 KiB) Viewed 2917 times
- 2019-02-26-16-01-16.png (157.65 KiB) Viewed 2917 times
- But what about planes? They can't hit ground anymore?
Yes for most of cases, they will be able to target only other air units, but since we would be able to add a new parameters to units and spells as (layer of effect), dive bombers could target the primary and secondary layers and normal planes could still use spell bombs targeting primary layer to hit ground units, but i think if Daniel make "range 0" hit the units on the oposite layer, in this case, primary, all it would require is to the air unit be on the same tile than the target.
- If i have two units in same tile, how do i know which is which?
As the air layer is above in the tile priority, the selection should focus on the plane, but i think Daniel can add a button on HUD/GUI to highlight the unit from lower layer so you can swap over the units..
- So how this "air mines" will work?
All AA units will receive a spell/hability to deploy "flak clouds" that is a field of "mines" around itself for aircraft that will affect only that air layer and vanish in 1 turn with a small or no cooldown. This will drastically increase AA effectiveness without any extra changes.
Summary of advantages:
-Improved game logic and mechanics.
-Permanently fix of bug of ground/naval mines hitting aircrafts.
-Permanent fix the bug of "aircraft can't cross walls.
-2 units can now share the same tile.
-Air can keep same stats and still will be less op, meaning that they can be cheaper.
-AA will be much more effective.
-Ground units can be ranged without affect aircrafts.
-Specific Units that can remove background objects can be added to game.
-And much more!
Sumary of disavantages:
-Lot to work.
-Like, a really lot of work...
Summary of To-do's.
This part is up to Daniel, since he is the only one able to create such thing here...
-Create new layer inside the tiles for units with priority above the current one.
-Move all airplanes to this new layer.
-Create new parameters stats related to layers to enable interaction between units of different layers.
-Create a new button for GUI to enable highlight of units of lower layers. So user can swap over the units on the same tile.
-Check if airplanes target focus is applyed only on new layer.
-Check if bombs do hit the new layer. If they do, change them to work on the primary layer (ground).
-Change target focus of all AA's from primary layer to this new layer.
-Check if all features are working normally after changes.
-Relax.
---> This is the part that probably head designers and other ppl can do while Daniel relax.
- Create the new hability and add it on all AA's.
- Check for bugs.
- Adjust and Balance stuff to newer mechanics.
- Adjust campaigns to new changes.
- Enjoy new mechanics.
Done. Did everyone understand this?
