It's... not that good at it? Bombers are expensive and you need either a lot or a lot of bombing runs to take out a mex. Maybe like 10% HP buff to mexs to stop bombers being so good at killing them... but I don't think it's a big issue.
I initially didn't understand the whole stinger argument because there are spinners already available and having two t1 AA units sounds redundant. After reading some of the discussions, removing the dox AA and adding the stinger may actually be interesting if the price is right. I also like the speed issue brought up too. To help distinguish between the stinger and spinner, what if the stinger were like a boom bot for AA? It could appear like popcorn launching themselves up into the air and taking out the units. This way the spinner would be have a greater longevity and stay true to the vehicle mentality of durability while the stinger could be a short lived solution to air runs. Bots will benefit because it will allow their armies to survive an air assault for a while. I could imagine seeing a player chasing down an air force with these silly pop bots. Just a thought.
Odd....in 1v1's when someone goes air I ALWAYS have won, if you counter it properly you can make air near useless, really just spamming the t1 AA towers and kiting an airforce towards can wipe out nearly any size air for such a small metal cost. HOWEVER: Air currently holds the status of OP due to the fact that most Titans Cant target them, all TITANS need some sort of flak weapons on them to counter air.
idk about you guys, but if I'm going for Titans, I usually forego a large ground force in favor of air power. 6-7 air facs on pure fighters while I build the Titans in my base tends to keep the air off of them As BCustard also mentioned, air is only good once you've invested quite a chunk of metal into it. By the time you've got the mex-sniping squadron up, I'll have spent half those resources building at least one AA turret in all my expansions and (probably) around your base. Good luck getting bombers through at anything close to equal metal cost. It's really easy to hunt enemy air fabbers, even when they have a dominant air presence. It's also really easy to micro fighters around your armies to protect them. \_['.' ]_/ People who go heavy air on most ranked maps (meso and ?Amplus? excluded) is a futile prospect against their counters. You just can't take territory as efficiently - tanks or bots+fighters are cheaper and sturdier.
You had no AA near your commander like 15 minutes in! ^^ Also in that game, I somehow managed to pull your commander towards my base with Dox, was funny.
I think some PTE's with different nerfs to air would be a great way to check what could work and what would not work. I favor the decrease in speed. Though I also think fighters are still a bit too tanky. The speed decrease would also mean that bombers get shot down by dox even more easier (which I don't like). Only one way to find out I guess
I want to keep the speed of air units. But please increase the power for land aa unit to the fighters.
How about: Only fireflies have vision. The rest of air has radar coverage. AA gets a range increase T1 bombers go back to a single bomb. This prevents the stupidly overpowered carpet bombing with 10+ bombers.
This is the **** I'm talking about. Does NOONE besides me spam aa turrets in their base and expansions from the start?
This is not a bad idea at all haha EDIT: What if we added 10 or so speed to the fighters and scouts, then dropped the speed and turning radius of bombers?
The problem with air isn't air ITSELF but the counters for air, currently the AA towers and Spinner HAS way too little range to properly attack air before 1000 bombers are already on top of them, in other words, give AA a range boost.
Certainly do need to bunch up the T1 AA to shoot down those tanky fighter craft. Never seen the problem with bombers personally.
I don't agree with the idea for the AA turret and the spinner to get a range buff. They seem to have a good range for taking units out. I like the idea that air can be anywhere that their isnt air defenses. The ability for the AA turret and the spinner to take out units is the issue. To understand better we should observe the values that the t1 air units have and compare them to the damage they can produce T1 AA turret: 75 DPS (3 shots/sec) Spinner: 50 DPS ( 2 shots/sec) Hummingbird: 150 HP Bumblebee: 100 HP For the Galata turret, the ratio for the amount of shots to take out a hummingbird is 6:1. Likewise, the ratio for the bumblebee is 4:1. Ignoring travel time of projectile, The Galata turret can take out a hummingbird in 2 sec and a bumblebee in 1 For the spinner, the ratio for the amount of shots to take out a hummingbird is 6:1. For the bumblebee, the ratio is 4:1. The spinner can take out a hummingbird and bumblebee in 3 and 2 sec Now one should note that theses ratios are not efficient with regards to maximizing the amount of damage over a group of units. I claim that this ratio is insignificant because the units in PA target the closest unit possible. As a result, we should take these ratios and examine what should be done to them. If one were to expand the range of the AA units, one would essentially provide a damage buff because the amount of damage over an interval of time that the unit is in range is increased. However, this change would also limit the ability for air units to move freely which is their benefit. If the air units would be slower, this would also increase the amount of time the unit is within range thus producing more shots. This is equivalent to increasing the range of AA except limiting the ability of air to travel to multiple areas very quickly. (This idea is also interesting because it could also add protection to ones unit because the air units could not deal damage fast enough. I do think air should be able to deal damage though) Of course this examination is under ideal conditions but they should still be taken seriously in order to make proper changes. In order for air to still have its ability to be everywhere effectively, thus fulfilling its role as a strategic unit used for taking out specific structures, the air units should either get reduced HP or the AA units receive a damage buff. I propose the latter because turning air into paper could limit its ability to get repaired or prolong air battles (which are fun). My suggestion would be to increase each shot by 15 making it 40. This way, the ratios would be 4:1 and 3:1 giving the AA turret a better advantage because its stationary and shoots faster. Air could still travel freely, but it can't just tank shots like it could previously. Side Note: this same argument could also help the Icarus last longer if AA turrets were given damage buff. Hummingbirds could no longer sweep through an area if they were actually destroyed. TL;DR. Increases damage of the t1 AA turret and the spinner. Each shot should do 40 damage rather than 25.
Altering the speed of air units could have an impact. Some thing like a 10% speed reduction may very well make air feel more balanced. IMO though, changing the speed by 10% will not have a large enough impact to really change things when AA units are trying to nullify an aggressor. I like the quickness of air currently and any larger reduction relative to 10% may take away that element. Seriously, who uses the wyrm? Someone could possibly calculate out the change in speed and determine how many shots could then be delivered, thus changing the ratio. I may do this later actually to see if it could be a reasonable alternative.
I have a philosophical question today. How will you capture any metal extractors when the enemy has air superiority? Just think about that for a minute.
