Rebalancing air, logically.

[GallantDragon]

Maybe because claiming that you are the only person who can run FA in his head came across as arrogant?

You know, he kinda has a point. Not that I'm attacking your analysis, it looks pretty solid from what I can see. I really can't contribute anything constructive, though. Still not experienced enough.

[uberge3k]

Maybe because claiming that you are the only person who can run FA in his head came across as arrogant?

Learn the nuances of the English language, beginning with "reading the entire sentence instead of incorrectly interpreting one-third of it".

In case anyone is having trouble:

Kindly refrain from making inferences based on said data without backing it up with replays yourself, as no, you can't run FA in your head like I can, and even I need replays to ensure that it's not just crazy talk.

Part 1: A friendly warning to follow the basic scientific protocol of using hard facts as evidence, instead of hallucinations.
Part 2: A general statement of my probable superiority in mentally simulating FA. This is difficult to specifically test for, so we can simply save time and evaluate the empirical facts: no one else in this thread ever reached #1 in ranked. No one else in this thread is a game developer as their day job either. Arrogance is the overestimation of one's ability, which clearly cannot be the case here.
Part 3, which happens to be the most important, and which everyone likes to ignore: even with my ability, I must back up everything that I say with empirical evidence. This is something that everyone who wishes to participate in the balance process must adhere to if progress is to be made.

Now, if anyone is interested in contributing something useful:

- Test aspects of air combat and post the results.
- Or shut up.

If you'd rather attempt to be clever, don't bother wasting your time - it takes no more than three seconds to click "delete post".

[CrazedChariot]

Well I have reached number 1 in ranked, so i will post a thought without a replay (mainly because I can't really show what I want to say)

Some very interesting findings Uber. Thanks for taking the time to do all of that. I will try to test the new carrier change later today.

Now, on to the thought that I have trouble showing in a replay.

One thing to take into account is how fast air is. You are almost never defending against air with equal mass (or even 65-75% as in Uber's tests), as the air can quickly be combined to attack one location. On team games this is even more drastic, where 2-3 players can quickly combine their air forces to assault navy or a heavily defended base.

Since air usually dictates where it will fight / attack, it will almost always have a large mass advantage vs ground anti air units. Even if it is forced into a fight, to protect against advancing navy for isntance, It will usually be fighting a mix of cruisers and other ships. Additionally created air will get to the battle much faster, and once the naval aa units are taken out, the rest of the navy quickly follows.

I'm not smart enough to come up with the exact figures on how everything should be balanced, but I do think ground & naval aa needs to beat air with vastly less mass invested.

[uberge3k]

Crazed gets a cookie for thinking in the right direction. This is one of the main issues that I've been working to address.

[pip]

IMO, the one thing that is currently lacking to slightly enhance ground and naval air-counters is a small AOE to SAMs and Cruisers / carriers. And by small AOE, I mean, 1 or 1.5, no more. It would ensure that overlapping units don't protect each other, and force the smart player to not pack up its air force.

For instance, Restorers, and even t2 gunships are shred to pieces if they are packed together and fly over flaks, but it's actually better to pack them when facing any other kind of AA unit that has not AOE at all, because the whole flying units will protect each other and increase the survivability (?) of the whole pack.

A small AOE would be meaningless if the player is smart enough to spread his bombers and gunships just a little, but a good tool to deal with swarms, among which the biggest annoyance is the ASF swarm.

[Plasma_Wolf]

You'd also be unable to hide a CZAR in another CZAR then. I don't think the AoE should be larger than one though.

[FunkOff]

Well I have reached number 1 in ranked, so i will post a thought without a replay (mainly because I can't really show what I want to say)

Some very interesting findings Uber. Thanks for taking the time to do all of that. I will try to test the new carrier change later today.

Now, on to the thought that I have trouble showing in a replay.

One thing to take into account is how fast air is. You are almost never defending against air with equal mass (or even 65-75% as in Uber's tests), as the air can quickly be combined to attack one location. On team games this is even more drastic, where 2-3 players can quickly combine their air forces to assault navy or a heavily defended base.

Since air usually dictates where it will fight / attack, it will almost always have a large mass advantage vs ground anti air units. Even if it is forced into a fight, to protect against advancing navy for isntance, It will usually be fighting a mix of cruisers and other ships. Additionally created air will get to the battle much faster, and once the naval aa units are taken out, the rest of the navy quickly follows..

The military terms that govern the concepts your describe are "Concentration of force" and "strategic maneuver". In essence, the speed of air forces makes them stronger than their match in slower, surface-based weapons.

[FunkOff]

but it's actually better to pack them when facing any other kind of AA unit that has not AOE at all, because the whole flying units will protect each other and increase the survivability (?) of the whole pack.

I disagree with this statement and would like you to prove it.

[Sunny]

Well, when so highly ranked players and LUA simulators ultimately came to a simple idea that hard counter that cannot move should be much more effective economically than some air almost teleporting mapcontrolling blob, mb you'll find interesting idea that air is not going to target AAs themselves too.
So their immence HP is no more, than decoration while they cannot kill air faster than air killz antinuke, comm, nuke, omni (under shields).

With best hopes, sincerelly (almost) yours.

[rootbeer23]

... hard counter that cannot move should be much more effective economically than some air almost teleporting mapcontrolling blob

mobility is only one side of the story. the other is that a weapon with a big range can be effective without moving.
the other other side is that bombers move way too much for their own good and in most cases you cannot avoid flying into the zone of influence of the SAM defences. Even if they cover only a section of the map, each section is part of multiple possible courses that bombers which attack the surrounding areas take.

, mb you'll find interesting idea that air is not going to target AAs themselves too.
So their immence HP is no more, than decoration while they cannot kill air faster than air killz antinuke, comm, nuke, omni (under shields).
uWith best hopes, sincerelly (almost) yours.

cruisers are a better target for strategic or torpedo bombers, because bombers have a chance of killing them efficiently and because when bombers can reduce their numbers, they have a better chance to attack a second time.
so if you bomb the cruiser first, you could end up destroying a cruiser and a destroyer. if you target the destroyer, you could end up destroying only it.

it is because ground based AA is so effective against strategic bombers that their typical use is to kill targets in a single pass. and they are very good at it, because they are fast. strategic bombers should be designed so that they are most effective in targeting base infrastructure or (non-acu) land units, i.e. they should have a gradual impact on the battlefield like t3 tanks or artillery, not a potential to overwhelm like a GC on your doorstep. that could be accomplished by reducing their dps (making them bad at sniping ACUs). compensate by giving them more health.

i also find it odd, that shields are left out of this discussion. land and naval AA units can use shields, bombers cannot.
there is no need to make SAMs strong enough to destroy bombers before they reach their target when you can make it mandatory for bombers to stay alive for a while to be effective.