Navy vs Air

[Cyborg16]

No, cruisers were not trying to kite. That might make some difference. Scaling should favour Seraphim cruisers because of splash, but otherwise I don't think it would be a big deal.

I did some more tests vs other air. Short version: T3 air usually beats cruisers. T2 torp bombers are much more cost effective than gunships. Seraphim cruiser is good vs T2 but bad vs T3 air [not counting T3 gunships].

Methodology: as before. No micro of cruiser or air. Always one cruiser.

Aeon strat bomber vs cruiser: beats all; remaining HP: Aeon: 40, UEF: 1800, Cybran: 1040, Seraphim: 2620.
UEF strat bomber vs cruiser: beats all but Aeon (cruiser wins with 248 HP); remaining HP: UEF: 2000, Cybran: 1930, Seraphim: 2820.

Aeon T3 torp bomber vs cruiser: beats Seraphim with 610 or 3150 HP remaining (2 tries); in all other cases both die.

Four T2 torp bombers (one from each race) vs cruiser: Aeon wins with 416 HP, Seraphim wins with 266 HP, UEF loses with 1 or 3 surviving bombers, Cybran loses with 2 surviving bombers.

[Cyborg16]

Regarding points about supporting cruisers with other units:

I don't see how frigates help improve cost-effectiveness of cruisers if air is microed properly and assuming frigates are less cost effective. Excepting with torp bombers where torpedoes hit other targets by mistake.

Shields obviously help, but aren't always an option. Stealthing cruisers doesn't work well vs air, unless attacker is lazy and doesn't use leading scouts for targetting — which, granted, would give free vet (but HP boost isn't huge).

[PhilipJFry]

interceptors are dirt cheap and torp bombers/gunships have a very hard time surviving them
i suggest you build intites

[Turinturambar]

No, cruisers were not trying to kite. That might make some difference. Scaling should favour Seraphim cruisers because of splash, but otherwise I don't think it would be a big deal.

vs gunshps that should make a very big difference (t2 and t3 gs)
did you try to dodge stratbombs? because it is possible and significantly lowers the Efficiency of stratbombers.
all results without Micro in both cases are essentially useless since the Units will be microed ingame.

I don't see how frigates help improve cost-effectiveness of cruisers if air is microed properly and assuming frigates are less cost effective. Excepting with torp bombers where torpedoes hit other targets by mistake.

you make a Major misassumption there (im only considering 1v1 games for this Point) frigates and (cybran) destroyers are not build to Counter air. they are build to raid/destroy the enemy base/Navy. all aa they have aditional to that is essentially for free (a medium cybran fleet can have the aa of a few cruisers just in frigs and destroyers). in 1v1 battles of only air vs only cruisers do not happen. air only stlyles loose usually vs a "some air"+Navy.

[keyser]

As turim said you don't build frigate and destro to kill air, but they have aa on board and when you get sone high number it kill pretty fast the gunship/torpedo.
Also as said kitting with cruiser is important especially vs gunship (t3 one even more)
Also and the most important building air requires tons of BP to be able to spend as much mass as your opponent is spending into navy (+ you need to build power to be able to spend your mass, so it requires more investment)

Actually i thought at first that this topic would be to complain that you can t really go full t2 air, skip naval and still be able to compete xD

[Lieutenant Lich]

Funny how UEF is the tanky faction but their cruiser has 2nd least HP and as shown by these tests, is very shit vs. gunships and torps. Is that so because UEF have bulwarks?

[Plasma_Wolf]

They have a siege element in them with the TML. Siege units have lower HP values. The Seraphim cruiser is the weakest of all. Thanks to flak it works against gunships.

[Cyborg16]

What about strat bombers vs cruisers? It seems a bit much that some strat bombers can one-hit kill some cruisers, when destroyers take 3 hits. A 20% HP boost to cruisers would be enough to prevent that.

Actually i thought at first that this topic would be to complain that you can t really go full t2 air, skip naval and still be able to compete xD

You pretty-much can in some cases if your opponent has poor air support. Of course it would be a suicide tactic if they have air supremacy. (Yes, I admit, I've only seen this tactic successfully used against me.)

About the "support with inties" tactic, does this work well vs torp bombers? 4 T2 or 1 T3 bomber can one-hit a cruiser and drop bombs before reaching the cruiser. It hardly matters if the torp bombers die after that. More frigates, yeah.

[biass]

Actually i thought at first that this topic would be to complain that you can t really go full t2 air, skip naval and still be able to compete xD

You pretty-much can in some cases if your opponent has poor air support.

i really really doubt that you can go t2 air only on a navy map and win, not only because 80% of boats have aa, but because if an enemy sees what is a free pond win it would be 100% cruisers and maybe air of his own, then your strat filed and he already has the cruisers to shell your base

would like to see replays of this happening to prove ur point tho

[Plasma_Wolf]

What about strat bombers vs cruisers? It seems a bit much that some strat bombers can one-hit kill some cruisers, when destroyers take 3 hits. A 20% HP boost to cruisers would be enough to prevent that.

Strategic bombers are more expensive than cruisers. 2100 mass vs 2000 mass. They also cost way more energy so you need time and resources to build T3 Pgens. You also need to upgrade your air factory to T3, while cruisers are available at T2.

Actually i thought at first that this topic would be to complain that you can t really go full t2 air, skip naval and still be able to compete xD

You pretty-much can in some cases if your opponent has poor air support. Of course it would be a suicide tactic if they have air supremacy. (Yes, I admit, I've only seen this tactic successfully used against me.)

About the "support with inties" tactic, does this work well vs torp bombers? 4 T2 or 1 T3 bomber can one-hit a cruiser and drop bombs before reaching the cruiser. It hardly matters if the torp bombers die after that. More frigates, yeah.

Well, you pay attention to what he does. You see the torpedo bombers coming thanks to the radar range of the cruiser and you attack with your interceptors. Even if you have just as many interceptors as your opponent it's well worth attacking the torpedo bombers. Few people would risk accompanying the torpedo bombers with their interceptors because if it results in an air fight over the opponent's navy, then all interceptors die and the reclaim is for the opponent. So usually T2 torp bombers are sent in alone.

If not, you do just what I described. Attack despite the enemy intie blob and have an air fight above your navy. Because you take down some torpedo bombers with your interceptor, the cruiser lives and wrecks the enemy air force.