Aircraft carriers changes.

[Ze_PilOt]

my suggestion: Is one i already made in the "buff aircraft carriers" thread in december and it goes like this:
lets give those aircraft carriers a role that fits into their faction, give each faction the carrier they need.

Aeon and Sera need a good option to produce air in late game without hitting the unit limit too fast. they do not need a carrier as anti air ship they have hover flaks and shields,
air is not a big issue for their navy forces.

cybrans need a decent aa option on water for lategame. the cybran cruisers really suck in terms of their aa performance and there are no shields or flaks for them to help out on this
point. Cybran do not need a floating airfactory in order to not hit the unit limit to early - they have hives for that.

my suggestion is to buff aeon/sera carriers buildpower + 25% and nerf their aa capacity about the same amount.
Buff the cybran carriers aa for 50% and nerf their buildpower in equal scale as trade off.
(numbers are negotiable)

in my opinion those changes would be good for faction diversity + they would help their factions on points where they perform really bad compared to the other factions. and last but not least the changes would help to give carriers a clear role in the game. Whenever i build a carrier at the moment they perform ok in both thier roles (aa / factory) but they dont do either job really good. im always insecure how i shall use them in game (propably they do a bit better in airproduction than in terms of anti air atm)

As i will be away for a month now i would like to name ICKEN to manage this suggestion in my place when the polls start and if there is any more babysitting needed for this suggestion. He understood the purpose of this idea really well so he can make things clear if there are any more questions about it.

[ColonelSheppard]

I dunno much about the aircraft carries but i agree that they might be still slightly unusable so i hope you will find a good possibility to keep balance between the factions with this change.
Waiting fot more informations

[Stratocaster]

I really like carrier balance with the last patch. I used to build them before that, mainly as air facs, but the AA buff made it worth building more than a few. They don't quite replace cruisers and they don't replace air facs, since they can't make t3 bombers or transports. Sera carrier is my fav and it would only be kind of OP if my PC didn't experience a bug where Sera T2 FBs don't drop on first pass more than half the time in real games.

I will say I'm not impressed with Cybran Carrier AA. It isn't all that accurate at max range. Seems to aim too high at gunships that are at max range. With how big ships are, it's hard to fit them any closer on certain maps. I witnessed the Cybran Carrier AA issue in a game where I won naval and sent my battleships forward, and they were struggling to kill gunships that were killing my battleships. I confirmed it in a replay. The Sera carrier, with a similar style weapon, has accuracy that I expect from such a type of weapon. See attached replay too see how questionable their accuracy is.

From the summary, it sounds like a personal preference thing, but I do see room for improvement in carriers. You just gotta pin point what you wanna change in more detail.

[Wakke]

I think carriers should be effective not by their combat abilities, but by their airstaging capabilities. For that to happen airstaging needs to become more essential. And that's no easy task...

[eXivo]

I think carriers should be effective not by their combat abilities, but by their airstaging capabilities. For that to happen airstaging needs to become more essential. And that's no easy task...

cybran already have air staging with the cruiser

also, no one really uses engie stations outside of thermo and phantom (they could use a buff imao)

[Zock]

I like this change.

What about the atlantis?

[Stratocaster]

T3 Carrier Stats - http://www.faforever.com/faf/unitsDB/un ... 01,UAS0303
3600-4400 mass (T4 12k)
20-25k HP (T4 40k)
180 build power (T4 240)
Sera 480, Aeon 600, Cyb 640, UEF 320 total AA dps with 100 range (Cybran/Sera AA guns have limited rotation, and usually only 1/2 fire at once)
Radar 200 (T4 250)
Sonar 40 (T4 252)
85 vision (T4 100 vision AND 100 water vision for seeing HARMS and stealth subs)

Lets just ignore energy build costs for now and compare to T3 carriers:

T3 Air Factory - 60 build power 2750 mass 21k hp
T1 eng - 5 build power. 120 build power = 24 T1 eng = 1248 mass
SAM = 333 dps (60 range), 800 mass, 10.5k hp
T2 radar = 200 rad, 180m, -250 drain
Air staging = 175m

Putting all the components together, it would cost around 5k mass for everything individually, but as it can't build while on the move and the AA has longer range and more DPS, and no radar e drain, you have to give a little consideration. The Sera cruiser has a cruise missile launcher to diversify it. UEF T4 is certainly diversified. Aeon Carrier can make restorers as an offensive option, vs the Sera and Cyb making FB, and has AA that tracks to diversify. Right now, all Cybran has to diversify is a weak TMD and low cost, but if the Cybran Carrier got its AA accuracy improved, its AA might make it more diversified from the others. Wouldn't mind if the TMD was made stronger either.

Basically, they look balanced to me. It's just Cybran's AA that bugs me. Don't need to add bigger differences that people will bring up later and ask, why? Like why doesn't Sera have T3 sonar? Why doesn't Sera have Ghetto Gunships? Why doesn't Sera have a T3 Gunship? Why does Cybran (and UEF) Air factories have slower engineer roll-off? Why do Aeon cruisers seem weaksauce compared to the other? Anyways, consider all this when you offer more exact details on changes.

[CocoaMoko]

I've been happy with the carrier changes as well.

The only real problem with them is their pathfinding, which may be beyond the scope of this conversation aha. They're just so huge and take a long time to wiggle their way out from the factories, especially heavily assisted ones.

As was mentioned by Zock. Atlantis could use more love as well. Not so much in the roles that the other carriers serve (AA and aircraft production), but just in that it's a weak T4 unit all around. Since UEF can spam drones (which serve multiple purposes) to help air spam, it's role becomes less important as an air factory, but it doesn't fill it's other roles (anti-ship) well with it's weak volley of torps. But I suppose that's another topic.

[Stratocaster]

I've been happy with the carrier changes as well.

The only real problem with them is their pathfinding, which may be beyond the scope of this conversation aha. They're just so huge and take a long time to wiggle their way out from the factories, especially heavily assisted ones.

As was mentioned by Zock. Atlantis could use more love as well. Not so much in the roles that the other carriers serve (AA and aircraft production), but just in that it's a weak T4 unit all around. Since UEF can spam drones (which serve multiple purposes) to help air spam, it's role becomes less important as an air factory, but it doesn't fill it's other roles (anti-ship) well with it's weak volley of torps. But I suppose that's another topic.

Yea, that's my biggest gripe with t3 naval. They're so huge and clunky. Gotta have standing power, cause they suck at moving around. That's one reason I tried to suggest the engineer no collision tweak (which got shot down, due to some huge engy redesign work elsewhere), so you can build atlantis easier and get big ships out of small harbors easier.

You should make the Atlantis more. Seriously, if you got the mass, you can easily win naval with a number of them. Their biggest threat, the sera T3 sub hunters, have the same build time. So even if they have the mass, they really can't spam 'em that fast, and they have lower HP by far, so you can send your torp bombers or whatever). The atlantis seems to be balanced with its relatively slow speed; 2.5 is the lowest speed of any naval (non-amphib) unit, I think, and I don't know what has a worse turn rate.

[brn4meplz]

If any considerations are made regarding carriers the Atlantis definitely needs looking at. The last change way upped the dps of T3 carriers and the Atlantis got shafted. At 12k mass I would expect it to excell or at least match the surface carriers in every role. The Atlantis now is also only marginally better then a T3 carrier in terms of build power. Where as before it was nearly 100 build rate better.

I definitely think carriers need more naval presence in general. I don't think build rate is the right approach though.

As for the Cybran carrier. A simple muzzle velocity increase would probably go a long way.