Ekranoplan

AnimalMan · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:07 am Post subject: Ekranoplan

Somewhere in the media hut you’ll find a fantastic aircraft vxl of the Soviet Ekranoplan! Aka The Caspian Sea Monster

Now I’m not trying to locate this voxel but I just did a little research on this beautiful aircraft.

This beast BELIEVE IT OR NOT was designed to destroy Aircraft Carriers let’s look at its features.

On top you can see mounted several large anti aircraft missile systems, these were designed to defend it against potential bombing runs from enemy carriers. The craft could only fly a few meters off the surface of the water and was thus invisible to radar detection which is what made this aircraft such a formidable piece of engineering.
The plane was very fast, and variants of it were used primarily to transport cargo and infantry across the Caspian Sea.

Anyway

How cool is that tho? I mean it’s a Soviet anti aircraft carrier vehicle!!
Totally compliments the dreadnaut. One day I might come back make some graphics and give the Soviet’s a naval airbase just to reimplement this plane!

Imagine he is a hover craft unit ! But technically an aircraft; but he can be targeted by the aircraft carrier, and has just enough missiles to destroy them all on a bombing run! And then a single torpedo like payload to get a hit in before the return to base!

Or

He could potentially be an Anti-Aircraft Aircraft !!! That completely Kills the Aircraft Carriers Hornets! Without damaging the carrier itself! But must return to base to refuel! So its not like soviets have a permanent advantage here very stategic positioning and manual patrol of this aircraft can completely hinder the aircraft carrier, or save the life of a typhoon from an Osprey!

In a way Its the Soviets answer to the Aegis Crusier

Beautiful stuff guys

Beautiful stuff

Think about the tactics here ——

As a sole Anti Aircraft Aircraft launched from a soviet Sea Base !

This unit vs Destroyers and Aircraft Carrier denies 50% of destroyers attack ability, 100% of aircraft carrier. Per unit in the vicinity with ammo.

It is immune to giant squid

Vs Boomber the boomer cannot even launch its missiles. Or they can be intercepted before any real damage can ocurr.

Radar does not show it approaching for interception!!

It cannot be hit by torpedo! But maybe by destroyer Cannon. It can also be hit by hornet bombs but is unlikely they will get close enough before it kills them. Yuri boomer will be forced to use its missiles to attack it as torpedo cannot target! Dolphins are useless against it.

Yuri has no answer. Yuri may be returned his Squid.

Just modify the Naval Yard to contain a 2 docks for the seaplane or add additional building

It cannot target or fly over land

Treated like aircraft it dies without its dock and cannot patrol with waypoint and must be tactically manuevered to provide meaningful combat value

I think it could work very well

Balance achieved.

G-E · Defense Minister **Joined**: 09 Feb 2015

Due to the cell-based pathfinding, any attempt to make this fast on water will still look weird as a naval unit, but as a low hovering unit it could still be hit with torpedo like the hovercraft, so at the least you'd have to tweak your weapons/warheads.

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AnimalMan · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 9:01 am Post subject:

I think it might have issues with moving underneath bridges aswell. But the primary is to have it dock at least. I know it’s possible to have subterranean aircraft as I’ve created them before, they can leave dock they just can’t return to the dock. So they are one way units. If a hover unit can return to the dock; a hover height might be modifiable to entirely fake the aircraft so even when docked it will be hovering slightly above the ground, but it wouldn’t be a massive visual issue it’ll just constantly look ready.

I just think would be really cool to have a unit that cuts down the effective range of an aircraft carrier without having the entire of its range supported by other units. Give if the ekranoplan could fly over beach aswell there is always some means to tackle the aircraft carrier in this way.

Though would be necessary to have it constantly moving, and unable to stop moving to sit idle somewhere. So it’ll have to be a real aircraft at some point. Locomotor can change, but not sure to the extent of issues that would be faced like you say path finding will probably cause instances where it fly over land, and over the top of bridges even if a very low flying height is set. But I don’t know if this kind of behaviour is tied with locomotor or aircraft types themself

NimoStar · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 10:49 pm Post subject:

I would just make ekranoplan a hover (or pseudo-hover, just making the voxel sit over nothing) unit which has a WaterBeach limitation, that way it can go below bridges etc.

However, the problem is that it could "hover" in place, which you don't want.

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AnimalMan · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 11:34 pm Post subject:

Another method how about this one guys

Air strike Super weapon Very Happy

but then it’s going to fly over land on spawn Sad

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Perhaps it’s better off as a campaign unit with spawn location triggers. Or else just settle for simple aircraft on a naval air base. I guess technically the aircraft could fly over land in real life it’s just flying so low due to the method of lift its using; it’s forcing thrust at a downward angle beneath its wing, and using the rebound of this force to provide lift; exactly what a plane does on take off, except he never fully takes off. technically he could fly over land it’s just very dangerous. So a low flying aircraft can still work. I think I should mess around with path finding of aircraft and see if there’s anything at all hidden away that’s suitable.

I just feel that in a situation where like, an island surrounded by water; targeting him to the other side of the island will path find directly over land even if the player is unable to target him to move onto land. I think targeting will work as in prevent the player from doing this, but in the situation above the AI won’t respect and will take the straight line path

If only we could control which unit types path finding it will use and so set it to common water unit restrictions. Aka always navigate around the island.

AnimalMan · Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 12:16 pm Post subject:

[EKRANP]
Dock=NAAIRC,GAAIRC,AMRADR

[NAAIRC]
Helipad=yes
Factory=AircraftType
NumberOfDocks=4
Naval=yes ;GS
WaterBound=yes

I even went over to the AMRADR and i added tags
Naval=yes ;GS
WaterBound=yes
and yeah the game wont recognize the existence of a Dock if that dock is on a water tile. Im check out if its possible to get an airportbound no aircraft to be BuiltAt = NAYARD

otherwise i gotta kill a vehicletype into the aircraft with airportbound no.

using Flying Locomotor

What happens on Flying Locomotor is that it pathfinds across the island and allows the vehicle type to respond to FlightLevel
looks bad tho, Shadow is also raising with the aircraft. Nice tilt angle though Flyign locomotor forces it to land facing specific direction aswell.

MoveToShroud=yes
Locomotor={4A582746-9839-11d1-B709-00A024DDAFD1};{4A582746-9839-11d1-B709-00A024DDAFD1};
MovementZone=Water ; gs AMphibiousDestroyer I can't have a destroyer zone without a weapon!
FlightLevel=100
MovementRestrictedTo=Water ********

It'll forget it can land on water if its glitched to fly over land

Even the beautiful vid with the tilted aircraft before the above if the aircraft is flying over land by tasking it to a body of water where land intercept its path IF it is over the top of land at any point you can magically retarget the unit to anywhere on land, but not water; otherwise anywhere on water but not land.

Mig Eater · Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:19 pm Post subject:

Remove Naval=yes from the airfield & just use WaterBound=yes, it should then work.

I experimented with naval airfields awhile ago, I wanted to add seaplanes that could only be built on the new naval airfield. The issue though was the dock limit was still shared between the two, so if you had a land & naval airfield with 4 pads each. you could queue up 8 of any plane & then it would get stuck on the 5th one because it wouldn't be allowed to build on the other airfield.

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AnimalMan · Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:47 pm Post subject:

i have noticed this issue aswell, there isnt two distinct airfields and the pad capacity is a global integer. Not like the old Heli Pads and Airstrips of RA1. They would be so useful for this since Planes can never land on Pads and Heli never on airstrip. You could only get away with it if sov have the seabase and allied the airbase, and you'll only get away with without seeing the glitch until you capture enemy conyard.

Now Looking at producing from the Yard like a normal Naval Unit, giving it flying locomotor but using Convert.Land= Convert.Water=

the land version has Landable=no but he stil likes to land Very Happy

probably wants balloon hover, but at least it doesnt get stuck I also have no idea why the aircraft has no LOS on water
I guess these tags will be good at making a GigaFortress turn into a flying unit on land without deploying.

Oh you know what though? Convert.Land can be used to create a unit that receives damage over time when on land. And switch between them. I guess after all a seaplane doesn’t need a dock since it can land anywhere on water and takeoff again. Punishment for using it on land is somewhat agreeable and prevent abuse of the unit or excessive nerfing

NimoStar · Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:12 pm Post subject:

I proposed a not really flying Ekranoplane because it doesn't fly very high. As such it could be targeted by ground-only weapons (except torpedoes and such, obviously, but that can be made with custom armor).

Fun fact, I think the Soviet military classed it as a naval vessel. It was administered as a ship.

Also, I wonder if it would not be better to do transatlantic "flights" with Ekranoplanes. I seem to remember they are more fuel efficient than conventional subsonic aircraft (maybe faster too?). They could also be bigger without issues since they don't require a runway (size limiter for planes).

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cxtian39 · Commander **Joined**: 11 Feb 2016

Made one

https://ppmforums.com/topic-47329/yurish-bomber-fighter/

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