T3 Air

[pip]

I'm just going to stick to my guns and keep recommending a roll-off time for Air Factories as part of any solution to 'Fix' air. Nobody has even bothered testing this yet (To my knowledge), and by my reckoning it would kill a bunch of birds with one stone.

It was tested a long time ago, by DeadMG if I remember well, and it didn't work well enough (otherwise, it would have been in the community balance patch and now in FAF). It would also favor cybran with hives instantly switching to another air factory while other faction engies would wait till the roll off time is over.

But above all, it would maybe reduce the number of asf, but not improve t3 air gameplay, which is the bigger goal beyond solving ASF spam issue.

[Gerfand]

Leaving ASF, going to T-3 gunships(UEF/Cybran):
- Reduce it build time, is the same of a Strat(8400->6000 for example).
- Make it more fast(8->10).
- Reduce it cost, they are designated to kill Land units, but w/ this cost is preferred to use Restorers(1680->1420 for example )

[laPPen]

I totally agree with sc account. Asf are not the problem they got nerfed enough already. The problem is you have nothing else that can counter bombers/t4 air well enough.

[pip]

Leaving ASF, going to T-3 gunships(UEF/Cybran):
- Reduce it build time, is the same of a Strat(8400->6000 for example).
- Make it more fast(8->10).
- Reduce it cost, they are designated to kill Land units, but w/ this cost is preferred to use Restorers(1680->1420 for example )

My take on t3 gunships is very close: 7200 builtime, 1480 mass, and 10 speed.
I think 6000 buildtime is a good value for Restorers (from 4800).

[RoLa]

Just increase the importance of hangars:
increase ASF speed at low fuel a little bit but reduce fuel drasically so you can escort bombers to any point of a big map but you wont make all the way back. bombers should be able to reach any point of any map without refuel.

and what about hangar upgrades which give stealth ability and more health
hangar -> hanger bunker -> fortified hanger bunker

so you can hide / protect / refuel your planes there

[RoundTabler]

The ability to protect your asfs from the other guys air would result in more stacking. Although it might help with the all or nothing airfights.

[Wakke]

An alternative approach:

+ give planes (not necessarily limited to ASF's) performance in correlation to the amount of fuel left: the more fuel left, the better they perform. Performance could either drop gradually, in a linear- or faster-than-linear trend, or it could have discrete levels (eg fuel >= 95%: performance = X, else performance Z).
An example can be: when fuel is higher than 95% you have the current fire rate. After that, it's only 80%.

The advantage of this approach over simply limiting fuel supply:
+ The closer your airstaging is to the front, the better. Hence increasing the importance of ground/sea-map control to support air.

Not sure how it would play out in the asf hoarding aspect, or in general, for that matter; it would have to be experienced in game...

[FunkOff]

I don't think it would be terribly difficult to make fuel levels do more things. Examples:
-Aircraft could consider fuel as "energy" and drain it not just when flying, but when shooting too
-In this way, aircraft would have to have air staging nearby (but I'd recommend raiding the "no fuel" speed somewhat)
-It would also be easy to make aircraft simply crash when out of fuel.
-Aircraft could be given less fuel and/or not recharge simply by landing.
-Aircraft could lose some fuel when they take damage. Combined with crashing upon no fuel, this could make sending low-fuel planes out for missions very dangerous... losing fuel would cause a crash before losing all HP.
-Shields could be given to higher tech planes when they are above a certain fuel threshold, such as 90%. This would further signify that fuel is "energy".

Hmm. I kind of like the last idea the best. This would make it somewhat more difficult to camp somebody with ASFs... their own planes, being near air staging, could have a considerable combat advantage due to nearby air staging. This would also solve the problem of giving air staging and carriers a relevant purpose. It would make sense to hold planes inside a carrier as long as possible and only launch them when near the enemy base to make full use of that 90%+ shield.

[Wakke]

-Shields could be given to higher tech planes when they are above a certain fuel threshold, such as 90%. This would further signify that fuel is "energy".

Hmm. I kind of like the last idea the best. This would make it somewhat more difficult to camp somebody with ASFs... their own planes, being near air staging, could have a considerable combat advantage due to nearby air staging. This would also solve the problem of giving air staging and carriers a relevant purpose. It would make sense to hold planes inside a carrier as long as possible and only launch them when near the enemy base to make full use of that 90%+ shield.

From my post above and yours, I think that is the best idea as well.

[pip]

Adding shields with fuel is a no go : it was already a big balance issue for Continentals which had very big energy consumption added to them to prevent stacking shields. If planes got shields, since they can overlap, shields would stack together, it would increase the ASF micro need to pack your planes in a certain way, to leave no chance whatsoever to your opponent, and you would be stupid to move far away from your base with planes = promotion of defensive and static gameplay.

As for making fuel more meaningful and planes without fuel crash, it could be a way to reduce ASF numbers over time if people are not careful. It already is the case for Mercies. It would also indeed make airstaging and aircraft carriers more meaningful.
However, as was said before, it would not solve the issue that players will keep stacking ASF all game long in their base where they don't consume fuel, and then a big air fight will still decide who got air superiority, with lag, etc. The issue that t3 air is 90% stacking ASF would not be adressed, and maybe worsened :people would be more scared to fly their planes far from their base, air gameplay may thus become even more static.