I may be wrong, but I perceive a small problem with the AA tanks/bots in that they have no use beyond AA deterrence. AA planes still retain use as scouts, but more often than not my AA land units just end up being meat shields once all the air gets shot down. So what if AA rocket units could fire at boats, but not other ground units? Perhaps as a tradeoff for their role, normal T1 ground bots/tanks had reduced damage or range against naval units? I don't know if it'd even be relevant, tbh, but the thought came to mind.
So, Arbitrary rules to enforce specific unit interactions? I thought TA, SupCom and Pa were supposed to get away from that kind of 'StarCraftian' type stuff? Mike
Well right now they are only interacting with Aircraft, so... whiles it's not arbitrary exactly, it still seems like they are there only to counter a specific threat. TA let AA units shoot ground, I think PA units should too once it doesn't break the game(like tanks vs air). And I don't mean just because TA did it. The ability to improvise is a nice thing to have in strategy games when things don't play out as you expect. You could logic that Missiles have the potential for longer ranges than most cannons. By giving AA units the ability to shoot at ground units, with a range a under mobile artillery but a little greater than that of an Ant, but with much lower damage. They would, almost happenstancly, be more effective vs naval units than tanks when range is a factor. While artillery being the optimal answer when your own air and naval aren't available.
AA units were actually really good at killing ships in TA. They were also half-decent at killing land units en masse, but they could be easily outranged or outdamaged. And they had no arbitrary limits on what they could shoot. A little lore wise: AA rockets are generally fragmentation or incindiary, while naval weapons are generally high-explosive armor-penetrating weapons. The former is capable of penetrating unarmored aluminum hull, and that's about it. The latter is capable of piercing 5 inches of steel composite.
How about we wait until it's worth building mobile AA at all before deciding whether or not they should be able to fight ships? Correction: AA units were good at killing boats in TA. Everything that could claim to be a ship one-shotted ground-based AA from beyond its range. They were, however, fantastically good ground combatants, to the point of obsoleting the medium tank.
