[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Ruleset Development Was: Development Strategies

[Tony Stuckey <stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 11:00:51AM -0500, Andrew Sutton wrote:
> On Tuesday 04 December 2001 10:49 am, Ben Webb wrote:
> >     Unit types are capped at a maximum of U_LAST (which is 200 at the
> > moment, IIRC). There's no restriction on changing the number of unit types
> > in the rulesets, however, as long as you don't exceed this maximum (in
> > FreecivAC we support - well, kind of - SMAC-style "compound units" which
> > are generated during the game, so we know this to be possible).
> 
> just curious. what's a compount unit?

        SMAC Unit types have several axes of design.  Chassis (Infantry,
Boat, Helicopter, Vehicle, etc); Armor (several different types with
different defense values); Weapons ; and special options like Colony Pod,
etc.
        Thus you can have Land, Sea or even Air Settlers units, Howitzer
style heavy attack but light armor offensive units, etc.  The first unit
in a type will have a higher than normal build cost, as well.

        Currently, this is not expressible in Freeciv code.

        The CTP issue of having multiple different mutual invisibility
levels (Slavers and several other classes of units can only be seen by each
other, not by normal military units) is also problematic.
-- 
Anthony J. Stuckey                              stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"And they said work hard, and die suddenly, because it's fun."
        -Robyn Hitchcock.