Why is Aeon the best air?

[errorblankfield]

I don't know about you guys, but I've always see air players play Aeon as of late. As I migrated to what you'd call an air player, I started with the normal Aeon. Realized I love Cybran a lot more in this slot and said screw you Aeon.

The reason I love Cybran a lot more is summed up in one word: stealth. Cybran ASF's have personal stealth so obviously radar is nigh useless against them which matters a lot. For that first air fight (and perhaps the only one that will ever matter), you control how many ASFs are radar visable to your foe, while you can (hopefully) see all of theirs. You can easily only cloak half of them, bait an attack and then crush them with numbers. An obvious mistake in hindsight, but once you get air, you won basically.

That's assuming a little luck of course and equal numbers (cause you have AA at your base and are fighting near your production).

Now let's say you do lose air as Cryban, stealth significantly negates the instant lose. The key point being you can ship ASFs in some corner and the other guy has to was APM to find them or lose air.
Depending on the enemy, once you win air, you tend to start switching up to air-to-ground -be it strats or gunships. Both of which are mass ineffective if you just spam more ASFs.
The only counter to Cybran cloaked units is lots of scouting -be it actual spy planes or waving your ASFs around searching for packs of Cybran. If you have some SAMs, this becomes expensive for the enemy to continue, enough to wrestle back air. If they decide just not to scout you, they won't even know you have a full fleet until it's too let.

Obviously they failed if it comes to that, but it's really easy to forget the Cybran fleet has some cloaked ASFs. And if you do remember, it's impossible to keep track of how many are lingering about without the cost ineffective scouting mentioned earlier.

So that covers cloaking.

Next to have tracking on the main projectile which really helps. Air fights are all about micro and with Cybran, all you have to really worry about is keeping your wing moving erratically (and behind theirs). If you do this, your DPS stays the same while theirs goes down. Which means if you have 1:1 air, free tracking means you win with mirco. (Personal note, unless the other guy is really good at mirco, I tend to win 1:1.5 when out ASFed with my sub-par mircoing).

Also, spy planes are cloaked, making them better against SAMs. And strats are cloaked making them unpredictable and loads of fun.

So what does Aeon even have at this point? Swifts are great, but it's unless it's a tiny map, T3 is going to happen and then swifts are dead.
Restorers are also a great unit, but they are *suppose* to be mass ineffective for AA (compared to ASFs). While they are questionably stronger then they should be, if your opponent amasses enough restorers your air wing can't kill them, it's gg anyway. Even restorer is 3 ASFs you have over your opponent.
Oh and did I mention cloaking? Which means you can't go mass restorers because you won't know how many ASFs your about to face and they aren't fast enough to counter an air wing that can potentially be anywhere you don't have omni. They only way to be sure it's safe to switch to them is if you spend more mass on continual scouting. (Or we are past the point where the Cybran even has a chance.) Making for an even bigger difference in mass between the two airs.

I don't know. I've just played a few games where I was Cybran (vs Aeon) where I eco'ed like crazy and brought my continual spam up. Lost air at first. The other guy most of the time switches up to shockers w/asfs or all restorers or otherwise stops 100% ASF spam. I just watch them build up their force (radar) while I out produce them ASF-wise -since I can devote 100% to my spam. Wait for them to try and attack, overwhelm them with ASFs they didn't think I had -GG. Yes they should have scouted. However, still that would have forced them to make ASFs constantly until they could afford to cap all my air factories with ASFs, which nearly impossible if we are anywhere near close on eco.
Any reprieve is an opportunity for my Cybran fleet to do something sneaky or build up assuming I'm keeping up on the factory side.

So my question is, what is the advantage in being Aeon? All things equal, I don't see how they win over Cybran unless they out eco them of course, but only sera can claim to have an advantage in that.

Theorycraft away!

^_^

[NodCommander]

As a newbie I can only assume things, but going from YouTube cast's and replays, I still would say it comes down to Restorers. Not because they are OP, but more because they are a very versatile unit. They do quite decent air to ground damage, and their AA is a massive bonus. You dont get them for their AA alone, but their AA is what makes them worth it so to speak.
At my level of play (I play Cybran too by the way), I would assume stealth is much more potent because low level players do not have the same map awareness of a pro. On a pro-level you see them actively scouting the map and analyzing their enemies, which makes ASFs and strategic bombers much harder to hide. In this case it would seem that a special unit such as the Restorer is more 'worth your time.'

P.S Is it just me that thinks the Restorer is an odd Aeon unit? Its very versatile, while all Aeon doctorine is high specialization and being unable to do anything else.

[Deering]

Don't forget Solace's, being able to sink a cruiser in one pass is very useful and they are very good for naval support

Also just note that I have no idea what I'm talking about but as far as I know the gun based planes generally do better with micro'd blobs

[Deafening Milk]

Solaces and Restorers are the main reason, they are very useful, however I also prefer cybran for a different reason, Corsairs, the T2 fighter/bombers (remember I'm a low ranked player atm so I'm playing lower ranked players) I've often found using their hellfire missiles (ground attack) on hoards of enemy troops to be very effective due to aoe and if you get enough you can easily snipe a player like I did yesterday.
The reason I put the reminder I'm a low rank is because lower ranked players often don't expect snipe which is becoming my specialty now lol so they don't have as much flak around whereas most higher rank players will have a substantial air force and also plenty of AA vehicle's and Static flak plus multiple overlapping shields.

[Gerfand]

Advanced RAS.
Restorers.
Swift Wings(T-2 air).
Solances.
Czar.

[ZLO_RD]

Lets see
t1 air is ok and have no weakneses
on t2
air you have swift winds, gunships are not good but ok, mercies are nice on late game against exps, aeon t2 trans pretty much suck
on t3
they have t3 bomber with most damage but least splash, decent ASF (just like sera and uef, cyb seems to be a little weaker)
scouts/bombers/asf do not have stealth and restorers + t3 torp bombers are really good against navy, that is why aeon are in the back on setons games

also do not forget about double RAS, and floating flack, and good buffed t3 engyes (like 40 build power)
also in late game you can make teleport coms and salvation and parafon xD

[Mr-Smith]

well cybran asf have lowest HP and their slow firerate overkills to much.
As much as i would like to use cybran for air i have to choose Aeon just because of the useless cybran asf, the weak cybran strats (cant even kill t2 mexin one pass) and the more than useless t3 gunships of them (to expensive / high buildtime) its way better get multiple SR in that case.

Aeon on the other hand has usefull asf / swiftwinds wich pwn any other t2 air / can even catch early strats. while all other factions hardly can stop a early strat. than the awesoem restos spam wich gives awesoem AA + nice protection agaisnt land. aeon strats are also stronger than cybran. and sure the t3 torpedo bomber can deal significant damage to any navy force.

and well stealth is just half as usefull. mostly on the late t3 air stages when both sieds have 100+ asf up, there will be constant streams from t1 air scauts all over the map. and omnis will be placed somewhere in the mid.
That will take away any advantage stealth has in the air figt.

ps: Aeon air facs have lower roll off times than cybrna and also their t1 bombers are better. if you micro cybran t1 bomber the kinda spread their bombs around without hitting anything while with aeon you can hover over pgens/engis way easier.

+ what ZLO said

[Hawkei]

Aeon is touted as being an air dominance faction. However, this comes primarily from the vulnerability of their ground forces to air attack. Aeon forces therefore tend to be employed in the air role as creatures of habit. Other factions have their own capabilities which they are able to bring to the air dominance role. For instance, the UEF is able to field a more heavily front loaded ASF and the Broadsword gunship, which is a much more capable air to ground option than the Restorer.

Considering Aeon vs Cybran.
- The Aeon ACU has an advanced RAS upgrade. Which makes it easier to transition into the T3 power phase for ASF spam.
- The Swiftwind is a good lead in protection fighter. They are more effective at taking down bombers, gunships and transports. They can chase down a Strat bomber
- The Mercy is a good snipe option.
- The Restorer aids in air dominace while also being used as a ground attack platform.
- The Corona (although it doesn't have stealth) has superior DPS and HP stats to the Cybran ASF.
- The Solace is a much better option for fleet support.
- The Aeon SCU can teleport.
- The Eye of Rianne is a much more convenient option for scouting. It can defeat stealth without you knowing.
Should to air player take up nuclear options. The Eye will allow an Aeon player to locate a vunerable base without drawing attention. The Aeon don't need to use overt scouting methods. The Eye can also locate your ASF marshalling area so the player will know how many planes you have.

[Plasma_Wolf]

The Cybran stealth is a nice thing, but a well placed omni sensor can eliminate that effect. Think of field of Isis (t3 can appear there), an omni sensor in your own base will cover half the map (and you usually have visual on a quarter as well).

On a map like Roanoke, omni covers a large area around your island. At any rate, the Cybran stealth loses it's effect when the air attacks, but it is more useful for defending. If you wanted to do a strat bomber snipe, the omni sensor range is just large enough for the opponent to react.

The aeon air is more effective because of the solace, restorers and the best strat bomber in the game (high damage and low AoE). while it is not as useful on unit blobs, it's ability to more easily kill something in a snipe (you need less to kill it so with an equal number of bombers you can afford to lose one or two).

The best part of the aeon air is probably the t2 fighter. Get some and you can own t1 fighter in with those and your own t1 fighters at first and keep the early t3 fighter at bay.

[-_V_-]

cybran asf are shit compared to aeon asf. Should we go on , really ? If you don't believe, no need for explanation let's test together in a sandbox game.
And the stealth ...