Stargates and aircraft.

Like I said...

Yes, the game maps are bigger than before. That means Comm hunting tools need to change. It's not a big deal, I've already posted a few options a while back. Comm-to-comm pings, energy based limitations, or even using superweapons to shake an entire world. Oh, and have another one for free- solar flares. You can ALWAYS make another tool that can find Commanders. That is not a problem.

The important thing is finding out what separates Comm hunting from the typical sniping of strategic assets. Cat&mouse gives more time and opportunity for regular battle. Considering what sort of scale this game wants for battles, that's not really a bad thing.

Uh. What? Stealth was broken by typical vision. EVERYTHING in the game has vision, thus EVERYTHING can break stealth. Likewise with cloak, although it depended on reverse vision to break.

Because of range limitations, aircraft or satellites would not be able to break a TA Commander's cloak(a bombardment would help). But ground units can, and they can do it quite easily. More importantly, it means the best way to find and kill a Commander is to play the game with lots of robots. It almost sounds like the kind of game the kickstarter was talking about, maybe?

I agree. Stealth for the comm needs to be added -

Actually, I take that back. After this patch, we might not need it. Its really hard to find a comm nowadays as it is.

I'm a fan of only allowing ground units. This limitation prevents the gate from being an unstoppable beachhead. My current strategy is to build a good mix of land units (bots/vehicles, AA and ground fire) and send hundred or so through along with a couple fabbers. The fabbers quickly build up some stationary defense and then build air factories. Once those are up, I throw on fighters on infinite build with a patrol around the gate.

Sure, it's more complicated than simply sending some fighters through, but in my opinion it adds some tactical planning to building a beachhead on another world.

Someone want to explain to me why hit and run, aka sniping, is a bad thing?
If you get down to it, I can snipe with nukes, bots, tanks, and even water units. It is your fault for not being ready for what ever tactic I might use to win.

Interplanetary is now T1 tech and can be done in 5 min or so into the game and Uber is trying to redirect game play away from the super weapons. Is air really a super weapon?




For now lets set aside balance and just look at the role. Balance will come later with a full unit roster.

Should we broaden the role of air units to an interplanetary scale in the same way that it has for ground units?

Yes I do think air through a gate could be a really good thing. if you don't want to get sniped just have t2 flak. flak can stop any air raid (as I found out last game). Being able to send air though a gate would make less stalemates because you could establish a beachhead from bombers and let your main ground force through. no I do not think t2 bombers should go though a gate (they are too wide right ). I think everything but t2 bombers should go though the gate.

The player on the planet can just have a ton of t2 bombers patrolling the planet which should stop any gate from being built so we would still need the air-orbital fighters as brianpurkiss said.

Except T2 bombers targeting the flak.

honestly that does not work. you can send like 30 t2 bombers at around 10 flak and all the t2 bombers will be completely wiped out. With maybe 3 of the flak gone. (they cant get close enough to drop bombs if flak is in groups.)
Yes, I have tried it
but I also said in my post that t2 bombers will not go though the gate.

Hmm.... clearly I was comparing 1 to 1.


I hate the idea of flak. Do way too much damage too frequently.

I think wideness of the model is a rather arbitrary reason.

Yes it is kinda annoying but it does stop any sniping with t2 bombers if you build it. As far as a single bomber vs a single flak idk for sure because I have not tested it but I think the flak would win.

back to the topic at hand I think as long as t2 bombers don't go though the gate it would be a major help in cracking planets. (because t2 bombers are too wide for the gate right )

It stops T2 bombers. Build a dense network. There are no bombers.

In reality, flak is really REALLY bad anti-air. It can't fire over the horizon whereas a missile can engage the target, it can't fire high enough to hit a bomber.



I don't mind AOE air defense, it is definitely needed. But now we're in the same situation with air defense and air craft that we were in with land defense and armies

There's something wrong with your developer when flak weapons are 10 times stronger than everything else in the game. Who keeps assigning these numbers? Cut him off.

Like seriously, just fire that guy. What he's doing is so unbelievably bad that it's not even worth considering a valid test.

I like the idea of the ground AA having a tiiiiny bit more of a punch. I invaded a planet via teleporter drop the other day, the defender had coated the planet in bombers. However, because i used 10 orbital fabbers to build the gate, it was up in seconds, and i was able to send guys through too quickly for the bombers to respond. the first few waves died pretty quick, but by the third wave or so i had a healthy enough ratio of AA mixed in that i was able to deal with the bombers reasonably well. (the t2 ones were still destroying me like crazy though, ground AA just cant cope).

That's not true! The LOS is a fair point, but not the reason:

AA missiles are essentially flak strapped to a rocket. it fires shrapnel just before impact, the only reason the missile hits the plane is because there's nothing else for it to do. The main reason flak cannons aren't used (as I understand it) is that flaks don't have the accuracy and/or the ability to be propelled enough, the technology just isn't there. So basically the two problems are: Energy/Propulsion & Accuracy/Computer power; This is a problem that the robots have seemingly fixed

Flak has a lot of advantages (if it the 2 above problems were solved)

• Stealth: slugs are too fast and too small for radars, you'd be able to hit aircraft without them responding
• Fire rates & ammunition. A cannon can theoretically fire more and hold more then rocket launchers.
• Fire & Forget: Most missile's (that fire beyond visual range) need to be guided be an aircraft or radar, which leaves them open for counter attack.
• Dual Use: Flak cannons pointed at ground units still hurt, whereas traditional AA is useless against soldiers

I do apologize for arguing an irrelevant point, but I just wanted to throw in my 2c.

On Aircraft through the gate: No way. You get a gate and you can pile all your units through it in 1-2 seconds, ground needs to assemble and walk through 3 at a time. Gates are vulnerable because they are the only real option at the moment. Give uber time to bring in some more invasion tools and we can revisit this

I much prefer the need to have locally produced aircraft for both balance and lore reasons.

But i'd love underwater stargates for my subs.

But how do you move aircraft between worlds? Introduce a specialty unit? Space carriers? Use some kind of aircraft railgun?

There's always the option of just making it impossible. It puts a different kind of twist on the fast attack unit. But that carries an implicit demand that the best type of anti air unit CAN NOT be an air unit.

You don't, simply put.

Iirc we got orbital trooptransporters to come what is there to say agianst
Orbital Aircraftcarriers that dont produce airunits, the risks would be almost the same for both to get through the oribital and air layer .... it would also allow play on gasgiants and waterplanets to be a bit more dynamic the latter with airfabbers in play imo. Having something in the lines of the aeon tzar or the uef airfortress from supcom 2 without production and weapons would be one way to go ... i think it would defitively help with invasions for when you are not able to get a beachhead on the enemy planet first ...

That is an option and it could potentially work. Ooh, but it's a shame you can't shut down a planet's bombers by assaulting their energy. You simply have no choice but to face all the bombers directly, or lean on a hilariously overpowered AA to take care of it.

I disagree.

Firstly, flak is not shrapnel. Flak is anti-aircraft artillery. It airbursts to make up for inaccuracy.

There are a lot of economics that go into weapon designs. Military organisations what the most bang for their buck.

A typical missile is designed to explode next to its target, this is true. The reason why is because the explosion turns 200 titanium rods into shrapnel, and these cut through armor.

However, the way it is supposed to work is that the missile flies up the tailpipe of the aircraft and rips it apart from the inside out. The shrapnel is not supposed to hit other aircraft.

The reason why flak isn't used any more is because SAMs are cheap, they are easier to store, they have a greater effectiveness, they can track a target more effectively (fire and forget doesn't mean dumbfire)

A flak artillery shell DOES have tracking ability, they developed that during WW2. A SAM does it better.
A SAM requires less storage space.
With systems like the CRAM, you can now effectively engage aircraft at short range with an autocannon (which is the same range you would be engaging them with flak), at greater projectile speeds and with a reduced storage amount.

Sorry for offtopic reply #NotSorry.

I think no-aircraft through the gate, if groundbased defences are more effective.

During a breaching attack, taking down energy won't matter if you can't make foot hold, and even then deep strikes like that are best left for unit cannons or orbital lasers.