Air defence towers.

I think the role of flak should change, It should be more like a long range artillery of the sky. Blobs of aircraft would get their health and numbers dwindled over time when within flak range and visible on radar. Rather than the insta death at the gates that they are now.

This would also distinguish the t1 AA from the t2 AA. t1 would remain useful for taking down individuals that make it within range especially because their health would be reduced once they arrive.

I would back this as long as the damage was low. Would establish air ownership even without superiority so one could start to get a foothold in air, and would discourage flagrant bomber presence over enemy airspace instead of hit and run bombings.

The damage would have to be really low though. Especially if one could put it at edges of defences, which is the reason also the range can't be "extreme" but it would be nice to be far-ish. Missile turrets could still be the way to go to deflect in-and-out attacks and migitate damage before the bombers actually get a kill on their target, since flak's low damage wouldn't be able to prevent the damage from happening once the bombers go in for an attack.

I dunno. If there is such a role, it should be switched.

Flak should be the close range and guided missiles should be the long range. Makes more sense from the capabilities of the two types of projectiles.

There's also the possibility of adding a third air defense tower. A long range sam missile site. Homing missiles that have a slow rate of fire and a real long range. That particular tower has been suggested quite a few times and I like the idea of it.

Having three towers adds more diversity, and in this case, I think in a good way.

Yup, it's been part of my AA-Trinity for quite some time! xD

Mike

Doesn't that sound suspiciously like the Catapult?

It'd essentially be a Catapult after all, except it would shoot air units rather than ground units.

Only in that it shoots missiles?

The Capatult's negative image stems more from balance rather than mechanics.

Mike

i like the idea of long/medium ranged rapid fire flak (quad("vierling")) cannons which have low dmg but high rate of fire. (the current ingame model is a quad gun i noticed) (i used the 4th dimension mod on supcom:fa with their really fast firing Air Cleaner UEF Flak cannons, fun were had !)

i saw a vid last night, flaks are insta gib to most aircraft which come into range ... thats hilarious beta overpowerment


imo, both turrets need their pro´s and con´s...

I would say, let's see how formations works for bombers. If they spread a bit, the flak shouldn't be able shot them down in bulk.

Which also means that bombers will not overlap their damage like now, but instead spread it on a wider area. In fact here I would like to see a different mechanic between T1 and T2 air units, 'cos right now they just do the same thing.

If T2 air towers get made weaker so should T2 bombers.

hopefully they both meet some arbitrary balance. T2 air being op and t2 anti air being an op hard counter is really no healthy situation either.

Your telling me.

I like the idea of a SAM/Flak/AA trinity

SAM for really long range, Flak for short range, t1 air the in between alternative.

When I mean long range, I mean LONG. Not, oh, its 10 more than a t1 air tower!

It needs to be significant.

Really significant. The T2 AA needs to have the same effectiveness overall and the same price.

I had a thread that suggested the catapult become an anti-air weapon, because it's properties are very much like those of a SAM launcher, except it's being used as artillery. You wouldn't have to outright replace the catapult, you could also just make an anti-air variant of it.

Thread: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/catapult-repurposing.54938/

well the sam could approach the artillery variant for anti air. While being as expensive as a pelter. That way, every sam could have been a pelter instead. Then regular as can be com blueprint, and t2 can belong to the adv fabber.

as a reminder of my stance on this game, in minecraft they released with bare minimum items. They didn't get very user friendly or well thought items till player mods and later patches. This game might not have it in release, but I feel it a welcome idea as game addition.

So I could shot down fighters directly into the enemy base? Fancy!

But wouldn't it be a bit OP?

is gil-e and pelters?

Perhaps. Dunno why the idea of a SAM unit that can shot down Aircraft like the Artillery does for ground units doesn't reassure me. Just a feeling.

I still think we should try it

In Zerohour (and mods) we used a lot of AA with ranges that matched artillery units. It worked fine there.

Are we still walking about ways to kill air? Not ways to mitigate their advantages and exploit their weaknesses?