The one pet peeve I have always had: T3 air

[OmegaMan]

Why not add a function to upgrade t1 intys into a short range defensive mobile air unit? Add to air staging facilities a build button which upgrades resting T1 interceptors with a short duration speed and firepower boost via rocket boosters. When upgraded and on pad that is not set to hold fire (default to not) These upgraded interceptors will launch themselves rocketing up [~~~~ with cool smoke trails like the ones on Cybran t2 MML WHOOOSHHH ~~~~~~~=> (see note*) ] to defend against enemy air raids over friendly territory but the speed and firepower boost has a short range and duration, maybe 150% of T3 sam site range, then they revert to just regular shitty interceptors. These air defense sites could be countered by baited out them out a u-turning and doing so would actually be fun and risky gameplay. Likely It would need to be a very energy intensive upgrade to prevent it from being overpowered early in T1, T2 gameplay.

*note: { smoke trail and interceptor is for illustration purposes only and not indicative of actual game play. }

One other option I thought of to have alternate counters to Air Sup spam:::
--Add a button to change modes on MML to fire different rockets, shooting an even longer range AIR ONLY missiles with a much slower fire rate. This could allow a besieging land force to whittle down patrolling defending air units slowly. Its over time ground to air DPS would have be set pretty low but be front loaded so a salvo of 10 might get 3 kills on average.

The Loyalists gained a similar 'charge' button so it's technically feasible.

[biass]

It wouldn't xD I told everyone the only viable solution above. Not my fault it'll never happen.

You just nerf it into the ground and don't make an attempt to address any stated issue, how is this viable exactly?

It would have been a lot more interesting if there for example was a conceptual AA gunship (not the current restorer) that was superior in AA to ASF's, but slower. It would present an actual choice between mobillity and firepower.

Only in theory. In reality however one plane will be better than the other in a straight up fight, and once that opinion leaks out they'll be spammed as meta until the next balance patch.

Here are some ideas for you to consider:

There is no faction matchup considerations when you use ASF (Besides stealth?) and they all play the same. It would be nice if for example, some planes turned faster but other ASF went faster in a straight line. You would be adding depth to the game as it already exists in land and sea play, introduce realism-esque "boom and zoom" tactics that would increase the skill ceiling, and add more of that "faction diversity" that we all love so much.

You would want to tune the weapons on the planes to balance that out because right now they're all hyper velocity doom guns. One would wonder why the UEF didnt just chuck that 400dps plasma cannon system onto a tank and sweep aside everything in their way.

A better version of the above would be what vongrats eluded to earlier, an Attacker plane. They already "kind of" exist in the game as fighter bombers but they would in theory be a fighter plane that can also turn its weapons on ground target in a pinch. It would be a solid intermediary in a game-state where air is too close to warrant building bombers but you still need to deal damage to land or etc.

It's trivial to make land units fire at planes depending on if they have a weapon that makes sense to do that, like a mongoose or a MML. You can also increase the muzzle velocity of flak a little to catch ASF too if you wanted.

Rushing T3 air is a no-brainer on a sheltered air position.

Yeah.

[Brutus5000]

The problem with T3 air is that if you rush it and no one else is concerned with it, you auto win through strat abuse killing every t2 mex on the map or a gunship snipe on anyone doing some sort of rambo push. I don't really get how an "escort unit" is going to change anything about this?

Isn't this due to Interceptors being not good enough to hunt a T3 bomber (which is fine, as it's T1 vs T3), but there is no all-faction T2 response to kill a T3 bomber (maybe cruisers, but that is massively restricted by terrain)? So you just rush the bomber with no escort.

So basically you need T3 technology (static, ground or air) to beat a T3 bomber. Why? T3 ground or navy can be countered with mass t1 or t2 as their movement is restricted to the terrain. But this doesn't apply to T3 air. What about something like a a T2 anti-air mercy? It gets scrubbed by inties and asfs, but it's good enough to kill a strat bomber.

[Farmsletje]

What i like to point out is that in 1v1 t3 air is in a well balanced position right now. t3 land rush is more commonly seen. The biggest reason for this is because medium sized inti groups, if microed correctly, can easily kill a rushed strat plus asf escort making it take a lot of investment and time to make t3 air worth it.

even in teamgames id say that a bit of no brain inti spam can counter a stratrush. Its just that nobody is smart enough to do so

[CPTANT]

What i like to point out is that in 1v1 t3 air is in a well balanced position right now. t3 land rush is more commonly seen. The biggest reason for this is because medium sized inti groups, if microed correctly, can easily kill a rushed strat plus asf escort making it take a lot of investment and time to make t3 air worth it.

even in teamgames id say that a bit of no brain inti spam can counter a stratrush. Its just that nobody is smart enough to do so

But inties literally can't even catch a strat bomber. Yes if they blindly turn into the cloud of trailing inties they can take a shot, but properly micro'd strats outrun them.

[FtXCommando]

Isn't this due to Interceptors being not good enough to hunt a T3 bomber (which is fine, as it's T1 vs T3), but there is no all-faction T2 response to kill a T3 bomber (maybe cruisers, but that is massively restricted by terrain)? So you just rush the bomber with no escort.

So basically you need T3 technology (static, ground or air) to beat a T3 bomber. Why? T3 ground or navy can be countered with mass t1 or t2 as their movement is restricted to the terrain. But this doesn't apply to T3 air. What about something like a a T2 anti-air mercy? It gets scrubbed by inties and asfs, but it's good enough to kill a strat bomber.

You “can” stop strats with ints depending on map layout. Oftentimes mexes are too concentrated so an int swarm can intercept a strat while it’s on the path of destruction. There’s a lot of variables to it though, and the problem is that you can very quickly lose all your ints if they focus on a strat and then 4-5 asf cone behind to kill 12 of them in 3 seconds.

You absolutely do need to rush an escort, strats aren’t exactly massively tanky and if it gets misplaced just once it can take massive damage. A few ASF after after a strat rush makes everything much less risky.

I don’t really see the point in making new units to address t3 air. You can always nerf the t3 units so that you increase the relevancy period for ints. You halve the hp of asf (as an example) and now you have ints/swift winds that are relevant for much longer.

[Farmsletje]

But inties literally can't even catch a strat bomber. Yes if they blindly turn into the cloud of trailing inties they can take a shot, but properly micro'd strats outrun them.

It doesn't necessarily matter whether they catch it or not. They are able to decrease the effectiveness of the strat by a huge amount if it and the escorting asf can't engage the inties.

[ConditionZero]

My biggest issue with the way air is now, is how irrelevant the T1 and T2 AA are against T3 bombers. Even T1 and T2 Point Defense remain relevant. And so do lower tech land units against T3 land units. But this isn't the case with static and mobile AA.

A possible solution is to keep all options viable.

[CPTANT]

My biggest issue with the way air is now, is how irrelevant the T1 and T2 AA are against T3 bombers. Even T1 and T2 Point Defense remain relevant. And so do lower tech land units against T3 land units. But this isn't the case with static and mobile AA.

A possible solution is to keep all options viable.

Either a T3 air speed nerf or an AA projectile speed buff would really help.

There seems to be this fundamental idea that T1 and T2 anti air shouldn't be able to hit T3 air, and I think that idea is seriously flawed.


I also think T1 and T2 air remaining relevant for a longer time would be very beneficial to the game.

[harzer99]

t2 stationary AA is not that bad against strats if I remember correctly. of course you need a couple of them to kill a strat but it does kill. Also people often seem to forgent that a strat need to kill a decent amount of t2 mexes for it to be worth the investment if the strat wreck lands on the enemy side of the map.