This doesn't quite work. Your edit to patch_Fighter_find_actual_bombard_defender stops non-lethal cruise missiles from killing 1-HP units by preventing those units from being selected as targets for damage. However that only fully prevents lethal damage when cruise missiles have a rate-of-fire of 1. Otherwise, a unit with 2 or more HP could be selected as a target then killed by multiple hits.

Another issue is that much of the code you've inserted won't run because it's part of the regular bombard logic which is not used for cruise missiles. Cruise missiles have their own mostly separate code path. When Unit::bombard_tile is called for a cruise missile, it calls Unit::begin_bombarding_tile like always, then that method checks whether the unit is a cruise missile and, if so, calls Unit::strike_tile_as_cruise_missile and after returns false so the rest of Unit::bombard_tile is skipped. That means Fighter::do_bombard_tile is never called for cruise missiles. Your original approach of clearing the cruise missile flag in begin_bombarding_tile would have avoided this issue, but I wouldn't have liked that approach either as it would cut out the entire cruise missile logic and have made missiles use the standard bombard logic instead. That's a large unnecessary change in my opinion.

To make cruise missiles respect lethal bombard abilities, this should be all you need:

• Replace the hardcoded true/true for the land_lethal/sea_lethal params passed to find_defender_against_bombardment. That function is called from four places. The two places where the game calls it to get the defender before applying damage are already redirected to patch_Fighter_find_actual_bombard_defender, you've handled those, that's fine. The other two calls are from Unit::ai_eval_bombard_target, which is part of the regular bombard logic and not used for cruise missiles, and from Unit::ai_eval_cruise_missile_target, which is of course the one you want to modify. Modifying that call should work to make the AI aware of this feature instead of your edit to patch_Unit_ai_eval_bombard_target (which won't run anyway because that's only for regular bombardment not cruise missiles). By the way, the way that the params for the lethal flags are hardcoded to true here makes me think it's not a bug that cruise missile strikes are always lethal. That looks like a deliberate choice.

• Modify can_damage_bombarding, although that function already respects the lethal land & sea flags for cruise missiles since I didn't know they were ignored when I wrote it. Still, it should be modified to be consistent with everything else. That ensures that stack bombard and stealth attack bombard work properly.

• Somehow modify the loop that applies damage after a cruise missile strike to stop before the target is killed in case the strike is non-lethal. This is the difficult part. The relevant method here is Fighter::do_cruise_missile_strike. I think the easiest approach would be to modify the call to rand_int that rolls to do damage on each round so that damage never happens when the target has 1 HP remaining and the cruise missile strike is not lethal. You'd have to drag that information in from elsewhere, probably easiest to intercept the earlier call to check_combat_anim_visibility since it's passed the cruise missile unit and the defender as parameters.

Do you have the Ghidra project? I forget who I've sent it to. If not, you won't be able to bring up do_cruise_missile_strike or find that other call to find_defender_against_bombardment. I'll help you out with that if you need it, it wouldn't take much time.

@maxpetul thanks so much for the detailed explanations, Max! Very helpful & you are absolutely correct. Your explanation also helped me realize that this feature might not be used by many people at all. It was needed in my Tides of Crimson mod (in development) to ensure certain one-time use "Items" that were lower-tier were differentiated from higher tier "Items".

Let me give it a good ol' college try again when i get that chance, and see if I can fix this using your guidance.

I don't think i have the Ghidra project, would love a little bit of help if you don't mind. I'm still learning so would love to get more knowledge.

Nothing urgent of course, please take your time. I'm sure this small feature is not really being asked for and is not needed in R28, I initially thought this feature would be more useful than it actually is (assuming I can get it working). =D

Thanks again for all your help!

Sure thing, I'm glad to help. If you want the Ghidra project, PM me on CivFanatics. Ghidra itself is somewhat complicated and takes time to learn to use. It may or may not be worth the trouble for you, it depends on how much you're planning to contribute to C3X in the future. I'll gladly send you the project if you want it, though.

@maxpetul sorry for the delay in response! I've been studying for a certification exam I have to take in about a month!

If it doesn't hurt then yes please send, I'm always willing to learn. C in general is brand new to me. Would love to see what it's all about!

I think I might have found a way to get a non-lethal missile working, without using Ghidra actually, will need to play around a little bit more.
Will try to send something this weekend.

And yes, my goal is to consistently contribute a new feature to C3X every 2-4 weeks or so. I might be out of pocket for a while due to studying for this exam, but once it's over I do want to get back in the horse! I have a Buildings limit feature and an Anti-road spaghetti feature I want to add as well eventually, among others!

I've been working, when I get a chance, on the Tides of crimson mod, and a lot of code is very niche to the mod or just ugly code that I'm embarrassed to send over to you, but some things that might be useful that I can find a way to clean up I'll try to send!

I love C3X and all the great work you guys have done in this so far!!!