T3 Air

[Szakalot]

If stacking ASFs is a big issue why not add small splash to ASF weapons across the board? This way a small task force of planes could do a lot of damage to a horde of ASFs from the opponent, and force splitting of that horde. I imagine it would also result in a huge change to ASF micro, so I'm not sure how enthusiastic the community will be to adapt such a change : P

[RoLa]

If i understand right, we want generally less ASF, it shouldnt be to bad to loose an airfight. There should be more small airfights not less big ones. The airdominance time slots should be not too long and not to short. How to do that? reduce the production cost of t3 air and increase the maintainance cost drastically! The normal eco of a setons backplayer(upgraded t3 mexes without paragon) should perhaps support 40-50 t3 air units.

- Let Hangars consume a lot of mass and energy to refuel and repair.
- let planes consume a bit of energy
- adjust veterancy make veteran t3 powerful
- Add very little splash damage
- increase speed of all fighters
- reduce fuel and force planes without fuel to land
- reduce power of AA air exps

With theese suggestions building up t3 air should be easier, but stacking just in homebase should be bad. You can counter air threads fast, because you can build an asf force up fast. You can build up a t3 bombers thread fast but you if you dont want your eco to stall you need to something with them.

[IceDreamer]

Pip, what impact are the frontloaded ASFs having on this issue, if any?

[FunkOff]

Adding shields with fuel is a no go....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.

My idea was to make air staging and carriers useful. Adding some minor shields some fix ASF spam, no.

To fix that you're going to have to do something else, such as making ASF perform poorly against some other air unit.

[pip]

Pip, what impact are the frontloaded ASFs having on this issue, if any?

Frontloaded ASF won't solve ASF spam at all, but make it worse because it will be even more important to have more than your opponent, and it increases the need to micro ASF, increasing the issue that one player with 100 ASF can keep 75 or more of them with good micro against another with 100 ASF who will lose all. It will be more like the winner (best or luckiest microer) will keep 90 ASF. It's maybe a good idea to reduce lag, but it's not good for gameplay, ask the pro air players like Blackheart who tested your mod already.

As for small AOE to ASF (like 0.5), I thought about this too, it may be a good idea to precisely force players to spread their ASF to avoid stacked damages, and thus make the gameplay less a win all or lose all kind of fight. It will also ensure lot of casualties on both sides, thuis reducing the number of ASF massively.

However, I foresee very problematic side effects with Aircraft carriers that will get minced when they have planes docked / nearby, and with UEF rovers : colateral damages will be a much bigger problem than now. It will test this extensively before even thinking to put this into the test mod.

[Master_Vallex]

3 quick ideas thrown in, you pic them up:
- asf shields connected to fuel could be stacked => make it personal shield without power cost
- make asf have a delay for starting, so if they nap on ground being stacked the enemie can sneak-kill a bunch
- make asf waste fuel when grounded too => pointless to keep them at base

[Exotic_Retard]

if ASF micro being too useful/good is an issue, its very easy to make it harder to do - just increase the turn angle on the turret - this means that you need to me more behind your enemy in order to get 'free' damage on them, so its harder to micro well change it to +- 90, so you have to be really behind them, and try it, micro should be much less relevant in fights.

also increasing the difference between their turn speed (during fights) and max speed (going in a straight line) will make it easier to retreat from a fight
as it puts more distance between the 2 hordes, this should help prevent stacking

also, i believe that the problem with asf isn't just the stacking, its that you cant do much about it;
stacking also happens in navy, but that's not a problem as you can kill it with air (especially cybran ) or artillery or something, while it actually stacks quite well as you get the reclaim after a won fight, while the air player might not
for this reason i think that making them weaker to AA will help as well

(i know some people say that AA is already great, but static t2 flak needs a buff anyway, and i personally haven't noticed it denting asf too often)
(all this is in my article but just bringing it up anyway)

[laPPen]

I still believe the problem is that there is nothing but asf that can defend well enough against strats and air exp. That is the reason why loosing air superiority is so critical. You need heavy aa every where on the field before u can even think about attacking. If there was a way to reduce the effort to get secure again it would make ppl panic less about loosing the air. That would lead to less hording asf and stop them avoid the airfight. Just think about how many sams you need to make sure that your nukedef is safe. You need them far forward in all directions in order to kill strats before they drop their bomb. You would propably need about 30+ sams spaced out around whatever you want to defend against 10 incomming strats. Or 20 asf to defend. Now do the math. And all those sams would still just defend one spot on the map.

[Zock]

Yes i agree. Even though its imo not the only problem, it is maybe the one with the biggest impact.

But it is hard to solve this without making air in general, and strats/t4 bomber in specific useless. It is either extremly hard, or maybe impossible to find a sweet spot between counterable strats with AA, and still allowing com/other snipes as strategy. So other solutions might be needed.

Atm i'm waiting to get some more information about the overkill mod, and see if it can be a possible solution, while focusing more of the other changes. Keep the input going though, even when we're not responding to everything, all your posts will be considered. (as long as they are well thought out at least this also means there is no need to repeat things, or argue with each other about it, but so far everything is going quite well <3)

[Niernen]

If the problem is that ASF are the only effective counters to T3/T4 air threats, and SAMs are static and expensive, what effect would a mobile SAM launcher have?

This would allow another counter to bombers/gunships/ASFs that isn't stuck within a base.

Since this might imbalance land forces, what about giving SAM's a much longer range?