Do we need T2 anti air vehicles/bots and what should we do with the T1 ones?

So here's are a couple of questions:
Do we need T2 anti air vehicles/bots?
What should we do with the T1 ones?

We know balance isn't done yet and this is why I'm bringing this up. I agree that the main anti-air duty should be left to fighters, but we can't disregard T1 anti-air. Currently the are worthless and I'd like to see them used more. I think that they should be given the ability to fire both at air and at ground, but should be balanced so that they excel at none, but they should be cheaper than fighters and a bit more fragile so they can't just outright replace the doxes . This would give you the reason to mix these in with your ground armies. as for their strength I feel that they are strong enough as it is but just underutilized because they add nothing to ground combat and people just use air cover to take over air.

As for T2 anti-air (and these should be dedicated anti-air only otherwise the would be op) the main reason I believe we need these is because you can't bring fighters when you invade the enemy planets and it way too easy to lock them down with aircraft. But the problem here is we risk having the air game become too easily countered by ground.

And what are your thoughts?

To be honest, I don't really think so.
Have you actually used T1 ground anti air? It's not that useless if you have a factory or two designated to making it.

I ussually set my bot factory to infinite build to do:

5 bots
1 anti-air

or

5 bots
1 combat fabber

I hate losing my blob of bots to some T1 bombers and anti-air in the blob can deal with that. Before I call my fighters to support the bots, they would be gone, so that is why I use anti-air.

Also at the very start of the game, 2-3 anti-air supporting your mex-expanding fabbers can save you against bomber snipes and are more efficient than building a turret nearby, which is only stationary.

It only has 20 dps. You could get a t1 fighter which has 80dps and is super mobile and fast. Why would you choose a ground AA???

Absolutely! T2 is where specializations shine!

Allow them to shoot ground! A basic missile unit with ability to shoot at both ground and air adds utility while not being overly awesome at either. Staple early and late game unit if you ask me!

It doesn't fall from the sky if it has an engine failure.

But of course, you made a valid point. Next game I'll try to use Fighters instead of Missile Turrets altogether.

It indeed needs a slight buff.
On the other hand, the ground AA in the middle of your deathblob can save you some embarassment from a single T1 bomber. And if you have multiple raiding blobs, which you mostly do, having just two or three ground AA in the blob can save your life.

Someone in a different thread suggested making the T1 AA vehicle a mobile SAM site with good range and damage with a low fire rate, while changing the T1 AA bot to firing short range low damage swarm missiles that can target air or ground. Sounds like a fairly interesting idea. Personally, I think that if T1 ground based mobile AA was made useful, we wouldn't need anything at T2.

Careful, or we'll get into the whole AA turret argument again

I'm not saying it's more useful, I'm just saying it's not useless.

It's like the sucom2 AA, you need to have it on a 1 to 1 ratio to be effective.

Which really isn't how counters should work.

I think AA ground can be made more useful by giving you more reasons to build them.

The teleporter/invasion mechanic we face now already gives you one such reason; air-patrolled planets are a target rich environment, and you almost HAVE to shove hordes of T1 AA through first to have any chance of your units surviving more than a moment.

Shooting down auto-patrol scouts is also valuable; the same goes for gunships, which can be far more dangerous than "embarassing" T1 bombers. And being able to catch transports unawares will prove very useful in the near future.

AA is good to pepper into your army. Anyone who thinks otherwise is cruisin' for a bruisin' from air units.

"We're pretty sure" Scathis likes things that way...

Nukes are a different mechanic, and aren't treated like units (Something I disagree with).

So I don't feel like you can compare them.

Right... just like the leveller.

Do you really want this to be a game of hard counters and Rock Scissors Paper?

More like a game of hard counters Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock.

And really, every RTS can be boiled down to this formula of counters.

Don't poison this conversation with your FACTS and obvious contradictions!

Simple.

Do we need t1 AA units? Yes.

FOLLOW UP QUESTION: Do they need buffed? YES.

Do we need t2 AA units? No. That would be just an upgrade.

I think @Slamz said it best that the T1 Anti Air is useful for destroying enemy fighters while your fighters take out the bombers and the rest of the fighters. It's role supplementing not role elimination.

If we make mobile anti air so strong that air raids can't even get close. Then whats the point of building the T1 anti air unit at all.

Mered4 suggests a better solution of maybe increasing the DPS of T1 mobile anti air.