Planes taking damage lose fuel

[Wakke]

I was thinking, what if planes that receive damage also lose a fixed portion of fuel? Haven't thought about actual numbers, but maybe when on 1 hp, 50% of the fuel is lost due to damage (numbers differ with hp/fuel ratio of planes). It might increase the appeal of airstaging in a gentle way.

On a related note, I'd like stun on airplanes to be reworked to:
- When stunned, planes do not come to an immediate halt like they do now (it looks silly, imo)
- instead they lose a certain amount of fuel

Discuss!

[EnderC]

Planes taking a fuel hit when stunned sounds like a step in the right direction, but stuns are supposed to be temporary.

What if, when stunned, planes were tested as if they were out of fuel? Then at the end of the stun they regain full manoeuvrability.

[Wakke]

What if, when stunned, planes were tested as if they were out of fuel? Then at the end of the stun they regain full manoeuvrability.

I like it, makes sense.

[Hawkei]

I like the idea of stun giving the temporary loss in manouverability. This is a good idea.

As for loosing fuel when taking damage. An even better (and more realistic) solution would be to drain the fuel at an increased burn rate when damaged below 20%. Which would be better than a one off drop in fuel reserve. The fuel bar would need to show flashing yellow to show that it was draining faster. Which then changes to the usual flashing red when out of fuel.

This would mean that the fuel penalty would be greater if the plane has to travel further to refuel. It would reward players with forward air staging capabilities. The longer the aircraft stays in the area of attack, the greater is the danger that it will run dry, so it would need to go home straight away.

[errorblankfield]

If fuel is drained only once you reach the >20% mark, isn't the plane most likely dead already.

Perhaps only when we are dealing with swarms -which is most of the time in an air game- but you don't see a bunch of units living with low hp. During an air clash, there are so many units around that low hp is pretty much GG for the unit. Only when you win the marco fight can you expect to see a few airplanes with >50% hp.

So I'd go for a tweak on your idea. When damaged, airplanes start dripping additional fuel. This continues until the weapons have stopped firing and the plane hasn't been shot for X seconds. (The pilot has to stabilized the easily disrupted fuel lines manually apparently.)

The affect this would have on a game would mostly be that you can't just build a critical mass of units and float that the whole game without thought. Hypothetically, if you win an air fight, you'd be at a fuel disadvantage for the next one. Sure, you'll likely have more units but let's say after two big fights, all your guys are out of fuel. You either have to build a forward land base (eco/territory requirement) or trek it back to base and fuel up (time).

And now you actually have a chance after winning the first fight to build up some units.

Just a thought. Likely rough cause I'm really tired and free balling off another idea.
I'd like to see air overhauled to make it a bit more varied and forgiving. Spamming one units ASAP for an easy air dominance is both boring and hard to pull out of if you lose one battle.

[Hawkei]

If fuel is drained only once you reach the >20% mark, isn't the plane most likely dead already.

Perhaps only when we are dealing with swarms -which is most of the time in an air game- but you don't see a bunch of units living with low hp. During an air clash, there are so many units around that low hp is pretty much GG for the unit. Only when you win the marco fight can you expect to see a few airplanes with >50% hp.

You'd be suprised. With meta-game air micro, players use move commands and overide the units targeting dynamics. This means that instead of picking and tracking targets, they will simply fire at anything which happens to be in their firing arc. Which means that even the victor will have a lot of damaged aircraft in their swarm. Because instead of incuring losses, their planes have suffered indiscriminate damage.

20% health is about the point where a plane will disengage from its patrol (or attack move) and seek out a refueling pad. The proposed mechanic would force the issue. Because planes so damaged will be bleeding fuel. The would soon become ineffective if not repaired.

Another ability I'd like some planes to have is "afterburner" capability. Where aircraft could get increased speed or manouverability, for fuel sacrifice. It would be a temporary performance boost, which sacrifices flight time.

[RoLa]

Another ability I'd like some planes to have is "afterburner" capability. Where aircraft could get increased speed or manouverability, for fuel sacrifice. It would be a temporary performance boost, which sacrifices flight time.

An Afterburner, that sounds really great! lower the default max speed of t2 and t3 air fighter a little bit and give them the afterburner ability which can be manually turned on and is automatically turned off when an enemy is engaged, attack move or patrol order is given. So the air staging facility gets more useful.

[Mycen]

I think the afterburner idea is not a good one. It would just mean adding tedious micro with no real benefit/drawback, not to mention it would be out of line with how units normally function. (Most units do not have special abilities that require constant management.)

If the afterburner provided a speed boost, that reduces the amount of time that is required for planes to get from their construction point to an engagement and makes planes less vulnerable to ground AA that they fly over en route. It would serve pretty much no other purpose, because it's not like you could use your afterburners to run away from a losing engagement - your opponent has afterburners too!

Reducing the time to engagement rewards players who poorly position their units, whilst punishing players who use feints, diversions, and other good placement tactics. Why is this desirable? Making planes less vulnerable to ground AA during flyovers further reduces the effectiveness of ground AA versus aircraft and rewards players who do not bother to scout the enemy's AA ahead of time or destroy it to make way for a bombing run. Why is this desirable?

If the afterburner provides a maneuverability boost, I am skeptical that it would provide any benefit at all. Your opponent will simply use his afterburners as well during an engagement, so the only likely effect I can think of is that engagements would result in less destroyed planes as each player's aircraft have a harder time hitting and must disengage to refuel sooner. Why is this desirable? It changes the gameplay a bit, sure, but how does it improve it? It would also give a player who is defending an advantage, because they can drop down, refuel, and leap back into the fray, whereas an attacker cannot. Isn't giving the defender an advantage what ground based AA is for?

In either case, it would create a situation within the game where players must be on the lookout for whether or not their opponent is using afterburners so that they too can activate their afterburners to negate the advantage. I believe I already said something about "tedious micro"?



People seem to think that airplane fuel does not play a big enough role in this game, and should be a greater factor, but I disagree. Look at how you run land battles in open spaces - you have your cluster or clusters of units, and they move into engagement range of the enemy units, trying to destroy as many as possible from the edges of their formation before retreating and regrouping, and you use your intel to avoid where their concentration is greatest, attacking the flanks. In 20x20 or smaller maps, you do not see this method of play with air units. Whoever gets the greatest concentration of airplanes controls any part of the map where their opponent does not have lots of AA, because a group of ASFs can, realistically, reach almost any point on a 20x20 from almost any point in under a minute. You cannot outmaneuver an enemy's airforce to any significant degree. So of course most player don't normally see planes needing to refuel, they're either in combat or patrolling over the base.

If you play on an 81x81 (or some 40x40s) you will actually see fuel becoming a significant issue. The fuel time on an ASF is sixteen minutes. When it takes eight to ten minutes for a round trip to and from enemy territory, you are left with little time to loiter and/or fight before you must return to base. This makes staging or carriers essential, because you cannot maintain air control to pave the way for an assault or prevent an enemy breakout with an airforce of 50% hp planes at eight minutes of fuel remaining. If you want to see fuel being important, play on larger maps.

In any case, units is Supcom are supposed to work as advertised. They are not supposed to be tied to other units in order to function. This goes for airplanes too, so while some of these ideas to make fuel a bigger factor are good ones, let's not get carried away. This isn't supposed to work like StarCraft, where a plane is just a weapon deployed out of a staging facility, rather than a unit in its own right.

[RoundTabler]

Good points Mycen.

[Hawkei]

I take your points Mycen,

I have played on 81x81 maps. If you think ASF refueling is difficult, you should try T1 bombers. For a T1 bomber to cross the map on Debris, it will almost be out of fuel by the time it reaches its target (let alone the trip home). Indeed refueling pads are already useful for supporting patroling aircraft.

I imagine the afterburner function would need to have some downsides. Perhaps the speed capability should come with a manouvering disability? Such that planes will want to afterburn to get into the area, but go to normal thrust for turning combat... If anything it makes it easier for ASF to disengage. So planes are not locked into combat. I don't know. Maybe it isn't such a great idea. Only thing to do is make a mod and see how it works.