Air usually plays a support role in the game:
- Assassinate key targets (esp. with strat bomber)
- Harass vulnerable targets (mexes, engineers)
- Stop land attacks with inadequate AA
- Provide intel
- Air superiority
significant ground-based AA.
But navy seems to have problems vs air:
- Ships are more expensive, so there are fewer, more valuable targets
- Cruisers (besides Aeon) are multi-talent units, and expensive for just AA
- Cruisers cost 12.5 times the mass of mobile flak and 5 times the cost of static flak,
and have no splash damage (except Seraphim). (How many T2 gunships does it
take to beat two cruisers? *Far* less than needed vs 25 mobile flak!) - Cruisers are more than double the cost of equivalent T3 static AA
- Cruisers have much less HP than destroyers to emphasise that they are special purpose units;
this hurts them vs air (in some cases, one shot strat bomber targets)
relatively weak targets for strategic and torpedo bombers. Land armies don't
seem to have the same problem in that a relatively small fraction of the cost
can be spent on AA to achieve enough protection that engagement with similar
tech level and cost air units is not cost effective.
So, I would suggest:
- Give all cruisers splash damage, via primary or secondary weapons
- Increase HP in line with destroyers (approx double)
- Remove cybran cruiser's deck gun (replace with flak cannon?). Reason being,
it should not be able to equal a destroyer, which it almost would with an HP boost. - Do frigates & the Aeon T1 AA boat also need better AA?
- Keep torp bombers as-is; they would still be dangerous vs ships, but often as suicide attacks
I realise that this would decrease the importance of air-superiority on maps like Setons,
but it certainly wouldn't eliminate the need for air: torp-bombing ships would remain a
viable option to soften an enemy fleet during a naval engagement, and of course there's
still mex harassment, land drops, intel, nukes, etc.
On a side note, navy is mass-heavy. T3 air is energy-intensive, but lower tier air is not so much.
Making air generally very energy-intensive (2-4 times E cost in many cases) would make it harder
for non-air players to switch to air production, making air a more specialised role. But this would
have many balance implications for air vs land, so is a bit beyond scope here.
Side notes:
- Why is T2 mobile flak approx 1/3 cost of static flak, for the same capabilities?
(Yes, mobile version has 1000 HP vs approx 2500 for static; that's not important enough
for the cost difference.) - Why does Aeon static flak have half damage output of all others?
