BalloonHover
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| Flag: | BalloonHover |
| File(s): | rules(md).ini |
| Values: | Boolean values: yes or no, true or false, 1 or 0 |
| Default: | no |
| Applicable to: | InfantryTypes, VehicleTypes, AircraftTypes |
Is used on units with Locomotor=Jumpjet set and specifies that they will never land by default.
Notes
Such units will always attempt to move directly above their target when attacking, even though their weapon's Range is already sufficient to engage the enemy. This behavior was implemented for the Kirov Airship in Red Alert 2.
- In Red Alert 2, as long as BalloonHover=true, the above behavior will occur.
- In YR, must BalloonHover=true and the Projectile of the Weapon being used must have Vertical=true.
In theory, mis-casing JumpJetAccel can be used as a 'fix' for the problem with BallonHover-ers always willing to occupy the same cell as the target.
In Yuri's Revenge, a new hover mode was introduced to achieve an effect similar to BalloonHover=yes, see #See Also.
A useful piece of knowledge is: Air units that fly in from outside the map (including aircraft using Locomotor={B7B49766-E576-11d3-9BD9-00104B972FE8} (Rocket)) are usually not actively attacked by other units, but adding BalloonHover=yes to them can fix this bug.
Another useful piece of knowledge is: the feature of attempting to move directly above the target can prevent vehicles with DeployToFire=yes from stopping immediately and performing the deploy behavior upon reaching a distance to the target that is only the weapon's Range= set value. This is a significant improvement for MCVs that want to use weapons to set a deploy position after moving; otherwise, they would actually start deploying before reaching the target cell even if the Range is small enough.
When applied to aircraft, this prevents them from rotating beyond 90 degrees in the vertical plane during a crash; that is, the vertical component of the aircraft's own upward vector remains positive, meaning the top of the aircraft never faces downward.
Bugs/Side-Effects/Unexpected Limitations
This will interrupt the effect of CloakStop.
This will prohibit units from performing the Enter action on buildings with flags such as DockUnload=yes, UnitRepair=yes, Helipad=yes, etc.
- When applied to AircraftTypes that must dock at a helipad due to AirportBound=yes, it will cause them to crash immediately after completing or abandoning other tasks – just as if all helipads they could return to had been destroyed.
- For InfantryTypes, this will also prevent them from entering transport units and cause the cursor to display in the NoEnter style.
Units with Locomotor=Jumpjet and BalloonHover=yes must be produced from a Factory with an ExitCoord lower than its JumpjetHeight, otherwise they will get stuck at the factory entrance.
This will also affect the pathfinding after group-selecting units and issuing a Move command. Specifically, this will cause them all to move to the same type of land. For example, clicking on an elevated bridge over water will cause them all to set their target to the bridge. This is also manifested when clicking on cells next to cliffs and buildings.
MYTH
In some old materials, there is the following saying:
This also has the additional effect of using the Balloon Hover Alternate Characteristics on the unit.
However, the flags under the mentioned section do not exist in gamemd.exe. They are likely remnants from Westwood's development phase of Red Alert 2, where they planned to add a Wobble effect identical to Locomotor={4A582742-9839-11d1-B709-00A024DDAFD1} (Hover) for units using BalloonHover=yes. But in the end, they actually used JumpjetWobbles and JumpjetDeviation, which correspond to WobblesPerSecond and WobbleDeviation introduced in Tiberian Sun for units with Locomotor={92612C46-F71F-11d1-AC9F-006008055BB5} (Jumpjet).