[RA] Rename and alter the 'Hind' to 'Cobra'

[SoScared]

following #12197 (comment)

As for the hind.shp:

• Cut off the Hind's "wings", turned dual chainguns into single chaingun (added turret).
• Grey-scaled and slightly merged the blue tinted bubble canopies.

Also altered the chaingun min. range from 0c768 to 1c768 due to a new weapons offset. Balance and performance wise I don't see any potential hazard. As far as I'm concerned the Hind name in the .shp and .yaml ought to just stay given the original unit being the foundation for the Cobra.

video footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9uSI2N6ZSs

[Micr0Bit]

tested and works , this will do the job good enough

[AoAGeneral]

Is it correct that this unit now has a 12 ammo pool instead of 24 and a single firing mechanic? O.o does this mean it does less damage and has to reload more often then originally?

[pchote]

It's gone from 2 guns (12 ammo each) doing 30 damage per hit down to 1 gun (12 ammo total) doing 60 damage per hit.

[SoScared]

Does this affect the reload time on the Helipad?

edit: Yup, cut in half.

[SoScared]

Doubled Ammopool ReloadDelay to compensate.

[SoScared]

@AoAGeneral: addressing the performance discussion on #IRC, would be nice with some playtesting mass cobras vs mass infantry close quarters.

[AoAGeneral]

I would be willing to have a look at that. Unfortunately im more of the dumb rock and don't know how to test forked code. :/

[Smittytron]

👎 for appeasement.

[ScottNZ]

I think this should be implemented as a new unit, in case there is a RA mission which relies on the Soviets actually having hinds. It would be just as silly as it is now to see the Soviet AI flying Cobras around.

[atlimit8]

Multiplayer balance causes a lot of discourse. The Hind is Russian and the Cobra is American. Adding the Cobra to fix the Allies having the Hind works. Making the Russians use the Cobra in missions does not. It would be nice to get all of the missions from the original. Not that they have to be exact.

By the way, the Cobra is from the 60s and the Hind from the 70s. However, Einstein invented time travel and the Allies won the space race with their satellites.

Adding PR: Changes requested since a few of us agree that HIND should not be Cobra.

[MustaphaTR]

About hind itself. I think we should use it to replace Soviet Chinooks for missions that they had one.

[SoScared]

Makes sense avoiding RA missions playing with Cobras. Should be a relatively easy fix.

[SoScared]

@Smittytron: 👎 for appeasement.

Elaborate please.

[Smittytron]

Elaborate please.

Appeasement is making a change to keep people happy without any other motivations. Funny thing is, the guy who started this kerfuffle saw this pr and still isn’t satisfied: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=82&t=19980

When I said history buffs/military junkies are still going to complain, I said it because I am one. I know how these people think. (The Mig from the origional videos was clearly a Mig-29 but the in game it only has one tail-fin! Gaaaaaaah fix it!!)

The ticket and thread went up Monday, the thread was downvoted to oblivion by Tuesday and a pr pops up Wednesday.

The first development goal on the GitHub OpenRA wiki is this:

1. Recreating the original 2D Command & Conquer games with enhancements inspired by more modern RTS games. OpenRA should retain the feel and nostalgia of the older games, but remove the frustrating and dated elements.

The way I see it, making a visual change here violates the above goal because such a change brings OpenRA further away from the source without enhancing gameplay in any way.

[SoScared]

@Smittytron: I appreciate your concern but it's misplaced. Its true that the discussion beforehand triggered me to write this PR but the idea of renaming Hind to an Allied Heli is an old idea consistently brought up by new players as far as I can personally remember - which is what, 6 years now?

Make no mistake I don't start PR's to appease noone and I never have. This PR is what I want. I don't value polls, I definitely don't value adversarial opinion spamming (as done with the linked discussion thread) and I don't often value majority opinions unless its from a group of people I respect and feel confident in that they know what they're doing.

As for the change with the .shp unit and icon in relation to originality I can be more sympathetic but in this case I consider this matter to be a non-issue. It's a limited alteration to surgically pick off a long-standing mole on the RA mod's back. I don't worry about the "slippery-slope" either - there's no other RA mod related issue that comes anywhere close to the 'rename Hind' issue.

Ego bruising as a result of one rouge person pushing his or her opinions should be left alone to the forums, not pull the direction of a PR. Allowing that would be just as bad as any appeasement.

[Smittytron]

Here's my counter proposal:
Place the following text in the FAQ section under the title, 'The Hind is a Soviet aircraft. Why is it an Allied unit?' ...

'In the OpenRA timeline: As Stalin became more aggressive with his plans for Europe, Soviet aerospace engineer Mikhail Mil became disillusioned with the Communist cause and defected to the Allies with the plans for the Hind attack helicopter.

In order to balance multiplayer the Hind was transferred to the Allies. The Hind has since become a crucial element of the Allied midgame arsenal, providing scouting and crowd-control vs. infantry.

While yes, we are aware that the Hind is a real-life Soviet-era vehicle, and yes, it would be possible to visually remove the Hind and add an Allied helicopter like the AH-1 Cobra, visually changing the unit would take OpenRA further away from the original Red Alert.

As stated in our development goals, OpenRA should retain the feel and nostalgia of the older games. Because a visual change adds nothing to gameplay, and because the Hind is a unit in the original game, we have no plans to remove the Hind from the Allies at this time.'

Simply link the FAQ to anyone that brings up the issue again.
I believe zinc mentioned the possibility of a making mission based around the Allies stealing the plans for the Hind. I don't believe it's necessary but if there's an interested party it could compliment my idea.

[SoScared]

Sounds like a bloated solution. Also equipping ourselves with cheap FAQ links to address every newcomer with a legitimate design question would likely just add fuel to the fire.

Wherever the RA mod has altered the original structure it's easily explained in terms of balance. The Hind suffers uniquely by carrying the name of a Soviet unit.

*Also I understand you want to help but I'd love to see brainstorming new ideas on the forum rather than on an active PR.

[pchote]

I agree strongly with all the points @SoScared mentioned in his last two comments.

[ghost]

Pretty minor issue, but the Cobra does more damage vs Heavy/Concrete targets than the Hind does. (1HP more per shot; 12HP more per full payload)

This is because of the rounding down of fractions: (60dmg - 75% = 15dmg) (30dmg - 75% = 7.5dmg)

Setting the Heavy & Concrete modifier to 24 will keep the damage the same:
(60dmg - 76% = 14.4dmg)

[SoScared]

@FrameLimiter thanks! Adding it for consistency sake.

edit: On the other hand the damage modifier vs heavy/concrete is at such a low rate I think it's better to just keep the code clean.

[SoScared]

Exposed the altered hind/hindicon.shp as cobra/cobraicon.shp in order to retain original assets.

[pchote]

We have conflicting requests here, because I had specifically asked @SoScared to keep this on HIND.

The logic here is that this is repurposing the same unit for a new role (just like the thief/hijacker and SSM launcher/mobile SAM), and making this a separate unit would be inviting a repeat of this godawful episode in 6 months when somebody insists on bringing back HIND as a unit for a new soviet faction.

[atlimit8]

Don;t forget renaming HIND.Husk to COBRA.Husk.

You should probably add this as well then:

HIND:
	Inherits: COBRA

Unless you reverse it:

COBRA:
	Inherits: HIND
	Buildable:
		Description: Helicopter gunship armed\nwith a powerful chaingun.\n  Strong vs Infantry, Light armor.\n  Weak vs Tanks, Aircraft
	Tooltip:
		Name: Cobra
	Armament@PRIMARY:
		LocalOffset: 875,0,-225
	-Armament@SECONDARY:
	AmmoPool:
		Ammo: 12
		ReloadDelay: 16

[atlimit8]

It might be a good idea to keep the HIND rules somewhere for missions to use.

Narrowing object

[atlimit8]

Oops, Narrowing objective.

It might be a good idea to have something like this for missions:

In mods/ra/rules/soviet-hind.yaml:

SOVHIND:
	Inherits: COBRA
	Buildable:
		Description: Helicopter gunship armed\nwith dual chainguns.\n  Strong vs Infantry, Light armor.\n  Weak vs Tanks, Aircraft
	Tooltip:
		Name: Hind
	Armament@PRIMARY:
		Weapon: HindChainGun
		LocalOffset: 85,-213,-85
	Armament@SECONDARY:
		Name: secondary
		Weapon: HindChainGun
		LocalOffset: 85,213,-85
		MuzzleSequence: muzzle
	AmmoPool:
		Ammo: 24
		ReloadDelay: 16

In mods/ra/sequences/aircraft.yaml:

sovhind:
	idle: hind
		Facings: 32
		UseClassicFacingFudge: True
	rotor: lrotorlg
		Length: 4
	slow-rotor: lrotorlg
		Start: 4
		Length: 8
	muzzle: minigun
		Length: 6
		Facings: 8
	icon: hindicon

In mods/ra/weapons/smallcaliber.yaml:

HindChainGun:
	Inherits: ChainGun
	MinRange: 0c768
	Warhead@1Dam: SpreadDamage
		-Damage: 60

[FiveAces]

I prefer this option over the other Cobra that was proposed. It is less intrusive than the other pull request.
One minor thing about the balance though: From what I can gather in your video, it seems like replacing the stub wing chaingun armaments with a nose-mounted chaingun has slightly increased minimum range (I just tested the release Hind in-game and to me it seems like it has increased from .5 cells to an entire cell).
Not a big deal, though. This to me is clearly the better of the two options. +1 from me!

[SoScared]

@FiveAces yeah the +1 Min.Range was done purely to match the altered fire animation to avoid making close kills look awkward. Unlikely to cause trouble IMO but it hasn't really been mapped out, I'd say with focus on air blobs vs mass infantry.

[SoScared]

@pchote @atlimit8 what's the score on the above suggestions?

[pchote]

I still prefer that if (and only if) a mission requires hinds that they can override the HIND definition back to its original state themselves. We don't want missions to use both hinds and cobras, and so shouldn't make it easy for people to do that (making sure that it isn't impossible, which you've now done, is necessary and sufficient).

[pchote]

@SoScared: I believe that @FiveAces may be referring to the maximum range of the weapon (despite what he said), which has been effectively increased by moving the muzzle half a cell closer to the front of the unit. This will indeed affect things, but perhaps not in a meaningful way.

[SoScared]

Looked to me like 5A was talking about the minimum range above. Anyways an increase of max. range would be unacceptable. I'll look into it.

[atlimit8]

I just don't want the rules lost; so, I will settle for this.

[Mortecha]

@FiveAces I disagree with your thoughts on your perceived levels on intrusiveness. There's nothing stopping the re-implementation of Hinds at a later date if they are required. The act of doing so would be a 2 minute job. Also my solution is not a Cobra..

@atlimit8 You seem to misunderstand, there would be no rules lost in either solution, both solutions are purely aesthetic changes with minor rules edits for that purpose. Game balance is not affected either way...

[atlimit8]

@SamKeightley:

1. Any rule change is intrinsically removal of its old form. I was hoping that the mission makers would not need to reconstruct the current form of the rules.
2. They are not purely aesthetic, 2 guns -> 1 front mounted with twice the firepower.

[pchote]

The tone of the discussions around the hind/cobra/huey topic across Github/forums/IRC has been downright disgusting, and at this point it seems clear that merging any of these changes will only continue the toxic drama.

The Allied Hind will have to stay.

[atlimit8]

It is unfortunate that nothing will come of all this work; at least for the time being.

[Mailaender]

It can still be used in custom maps on http://resource.openra.net/ so nothing is wasted.

[atlimit8]

Perhaps custom maps on http://resource.openra.net/ could be used later on for testing 'Hind' replacements after their has been some time to cool down.