What benefits does inheritance bring to game programming?

Answer 1

It brings the general benefits of inheritance, which is that classes which are alike may share some features which are common for all of them.

example:

You are making a strategy game, and want to make lots of units to command and fight.

Class: Unit

has hitpoints, weapon strength, a name, etc..

Class: AirUnit

has all that Unit has, + a special flag that says that this unit can move trough places on the map with forest or ocean without penalty

Class: AttackHelicopter

has everything from Unit and AirUnit, + a flag that says the unit gets a bonus against enemy tank units, and does not require an airfield to land.

The benefits come from the fact that you can write one piece of code that can handle all types of units.

Your users can have a list of all their units

ArrayList army = new ArrayList();

task forces can be made as lists, build queues for bases can use the same technique, etc..