mobile flak.... we need it!!!

Mobile flak is necessary. There is nothing more irritating than sending in a ground attack for it to be shredded by 3 hornets- while your stingers flail aimlessly around trying to hit the enemy, only to be shredded themselves. What if I don't want to build t2 air in order to attack someone? In these days, t2 air is a requirement. If you don't have it and the others do, you will lose. No question about it. That is limiting a strategy, and it is dumb.

I see what you're saying, I just support it in a form that's much more nerfed than what you're looking for. As I said, my preference is that while the idea in itself be implemented, it'd be so bad as to basically only be effective if a plane is barely moving or circling slowly like a construction aircraft. This would require some sort of dedicated anti-air defense from any remotely dangerous plane to be put in, like mobile flak against more vicious T2 air.

And I see your point with missiles, but even TA split that up by having the cheaper, unguided-slow-dumb rocket kbot and the guided-and-deadly-fast anti-air kbot. That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. But again, I think we just have a difference of opinion on how strongly implemented as a base game mechanic this should be, which is fine.

there is a patch comming that might nerf some airunits ... so patience first

Indeed, if Gunships keep their position while firing, they're basically still targets. Just a bit higher than what normally a tank would shoot at.

So I don't see why tanks couldn't shoot at Gunships.

Against Bombers, I'm not saying that we couldn't benefit from few more units. But the best defense will always be Fighters.

Indeed, the best way to stop a bomber from doing damage is to kill it before it has the chance to drop. Only a proactive unit like the fighter can do that. Defensive AA has to get a bit more creative, because after a bomber gets in range the drop is going to happen. The bomber wouldn't be a bomber otherwise.

One can directly exchange blows with the bomber, which is the best hope a standard AA can have. It is also the shittiest option of the lot. Bombers have every advantage in this department because their inherent design is to kill first and ask questions later.

One can stay out of the bomber's attack zone, which is only possible by being in the air(airborne defense of some kind) or in space(raining AA from above). Currently only fighters have this ability. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have something else (and if you say scouts imma slap ya).

The best option for ground units is to deal with the attack first, and then go for the backstab. The defender could armor up and take drastically reduced damage on the first strike, such as making a pop up version of AA. The defender could destroy the bombs using some kind of TMD. The defender could reflect the bombs back to the bombers, which is like TMD but better. The defender could neutralize the bomber by shutting down its ability to regenerate ammo (or directly removing ammo). The defender could avoid the bomber by staying hidden for the first strike. Bombers can't kill what they can't target.

Those are just the easy answers. There are HARD answers too, difficult to implement because they are much more far reaching in scope and only hinder bombers as a side effect. So seriously. Take your pick. There's a LOT of ways to take care of bombers. Only a fool tries to brute force it with flak.

oh look new build let me give it a go and see where air stands now.....

You send your land army at my land army, before we meet I send a single gunship over your army. Your entire army turns its turrets to track this gunship and when we engage you're facing the wrong way. I get the first shots in, I win.

Ground being able to target air is ripe for abuse.

Or, I send you my land army, and you send my your land army. But first you send in one unique gunship. Since my tanks can't target it, before our armies clash, your gunship already managed to destroy 20 of my tanks.

Is it that any better? *

Anyway, what you said would require quite a timely micro. Unlikely you're gonna make it so neat when big numbers of units start to be in play.

But, even if it could be easy to achieve, tanks turn their turrets slowly, for a reason. In fact, you do not need to use a gunship. You could use a bot, and it would be pretty much the same. Tanks are designed to be stronger than bots, but bots should be able to flank them thanks to their higher maneuverability.

* Actually, tanks should have an AA coverage while in open ground. So there is little hope to send in one unique gunship, if there is AA or fighters around.

Well, ignoring the number you pulled from your ***, yes it is. Your entire army pointing its turrets the wrong way when entering a tank battle is far more devastating than the damage a single gunship could do by itself. Plus the gunship(s) sticking around to fire on me provides more time to counter vs. a flyover.

Ok, gentleman. Let's say you're right. And move on.

We absolutely need strong land t2 mobile AA because otherwise it always ends up with fight over air superiority which in my opinion is a bit boring gameplay. Ultimately fighting over air superiority should be a choice. It should be more convinient to use fighters to destroy enemy's air because of its mobility but there should be also an option where you decide to skip fighters and gain advantage at certain point of map through mobile AA and static AA. It should never be strong enough to replace fighters but they should create tactical advantage at one place. So this way air is able to harrass and attack metal extractors all around the map or bases. It's the same concept as mutalisks in ZvT which i believe is one of the most interesting concepts in SC2 where mutas barely can fight vs ground AA but they are mobile and harrassy everywhere. If on the other hand there is too little ground AA mutas can take it down.

Exactly matiz that's what I'm getting at.

I haven't had the time to play the new build against an actual person, but my ai test last night is leaning towards gunships have replaced the hornet and will now be the t2 air rush/ spam of choice as they are quite tank like now, eating damage from aa towers.

That is not an abuse. That is called "being smart". A player dividing his resources on gunships is going to have fewer tanks. If he can't do anything with it, he loses.

There have been many threads similar to this asking for something to happen to a unit(Nerf or make better) and it is always brought up that,

This is not the final balance pass, in the future t2 are could have 1/2 as much health or spinners could do more damage. There are a lot of other fixes that could happen in the process of balancing.

Adding a unit to fix a something that isn't done yet is silly. Just wait for scathis to finish being awesome.

^ do you cup the balls while you do that?

The forum is here for discussion that's what we're doing. You don't want to discuss, don't.

I'd tone it down a bit man, that wasn't called for.

It's not that we don't want to discuss it, what were trying to say is that it's too early yet to make such claims like you did in the OP.

By the way, I find it humorous that you call out on people for "not wanting to discuss it" when the way you presented this thread's topic/OP makes it clear that you think it is the clear and obvious solution and then try to dissuade people who don't agree of even just suggest being more causation in making claims based on an incomplete balance pass.

Now that the new build has dropped which seems to have a much more complete pass on balance we can reevaluate the situation and explore possible options and like Scathis said, we need to be very aware of our premises while doing so.

Mike

It's never too early to discuss game concepts. Their influence endures long after the number police have had their run.

Or, much simpler, Air could be more expensive than now.

In the real World you have much less Air planes than tanks, for a very good reason. There is very little a ground unit can do against one of the new generation of military aircraft. Or even helicopters.

But those flying stuffs cost like crazy.

A M1 Abrams tank cost ~8.6 million USD. It's a bit old, so let's say its successor may cost twice as much, ~17 million USD.

A F-35 will likely cost more than ~170 million USD (up to ~200 million USD for the F-35C).

So, here we are. A fighter with discrete ground capabilities costs no less than 10 times an ultimate tank.

Far to say that's in a video game it is mandatory to reflect what happens in the real World. But it may be useful to keep those numbers in mind when speaking about balancing stuffs.

Air in Planetary Annihilation will likely change before the final build. And for the record I'm also up to asking for a mobile AA unit.

But I also believe that Air should be used as support. The strategy you can employ on the battlefield using Air that way are so much richer. The main issue right now with Air, may just be that's too cheap. Specially the T2 Air stuffs.

Source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

So don't speculate?? Just sit back and let be then take whatever may come ea style??

I haven't shot down anyone who disagrees just stated my opinion on the matter and a little fun of breaking balls. Didn't know everyone was so sensitive excuse me forum police.

Play the new patch before you make demands that air is unstoppable. There is a fine line between making air Useless or useful. Adding more anti air will just make ground blobs unstoppable unless you have your own ground blob to do the same attack.

Gunships are for raiding, and if you don't have any anti air units in your ground swarm, you deserve to be attacked by the weakness you have shown in your army composition.

If you hate being bombed my hornets, then build 1-4 t1 air factories with fighters on repeat to supplement your ground attacks as well as build anti air and you will be fine. Unless you continue to put a square peg into a round hole, the outcome will stay the same.