how to get LI to fire like light infantry

**hitokiri2486** · October 31, 2009, 05:10 PM

So there are a couple of "crackling fire" mods out there, but none of them are for vanilla.

I've taken a look at them in PFM and I'm a little mystified as to how they get the crackling effect to work--that is, how they get LI and militia to fire like light infantry.

It seems that one of the things these mods do is to replace rank_fire in the unit_abilities section for each LI and militia entry with fire_volley, but this doesn't have the effect I'm looking for.

Is there something else I'm missing here?

**JaM** · November 02, 2009, 01:10 AM

give them "can skirmish" ability

**Johan217** · November 02, 2009, 01:55 AM

Does anybody know why Eastern units like Ottoman infantry do get the actual ability to skirmish, while European Line doesn't? With all things equal in the units, unit_stats and the abilities tables, something appears to be telling the game to make Eastern units behave differently.

I would like to implement this "crackling fire" mode for Ottoman units, but without letting them actually skirmish.

**JaM** · November 02, 2009, 05:01 AM

how differently?

**Johan217** · November 02, 2009, 02:20 PM

When you give European Line the "skirmish" ability, they cannot actually skirmish (there is no UI button). But when you do this for Ottoman infantry, like the Janissaries who are also classified by the game as "Line Infantry", the skirmish button becomes active. Even if it doesn't make a difference for the AI, I would rather not enable it for Ottoman units, to avoid imbalances in MP.

**JaM** · November 02, 2009, 02:27 PM

oh, i see, i thing it is because of other UI button is available for European Line, therefore skirmish button is not there... - for example in ER we dont have square formation, therefore we have skirmish button even for EU line infantry (but again, it does nothing...)

**Johan217** · November 04, 2009, 09:51 AM

Aha... so if I give e.g. Square Formation to those units, the skirmish button would be hidden? I'll probably just stick to having the Skirmish button then. Thanks!

Yet this shows a flaw in the UI design...

**JaM** · November 04, 2009, 09:54 AM

yup something like that - depends on abilities they have - UI only allows few, so any additional will be not shown - and "can skirmish" button has low priority obviously