Don't know if this was already discussed before, but, and if all AA(MDT, Fighters, mobile AA) get a range buff? I mean a big Range Buff
It's been discussed on various sub forums. I'm now setting down my pitchfork on air balance until after tomorrow's patch.
I think it would be a mistake, because bombers are the soft counter to AA, the hard counter to non-AA; fighters are the hard counter to bombers; AA is the hard counter to fighters and the soft counter to bombers. A range buff would make AA a hard counter to all things air. That sounds good in principal. But then air has the potential to become too vulnerable, with bombers especially having the potential to become useless against all things land protected by AA. And that's simply crap.
I think that logic is off. Bombers and anti-air are soft counters to one another? Sounds like mutual assured destruction - something that already annoyed the heck out of me with SupCom's T1 bomber vs. anti-air play. The role of anti-air is to protect ground units against air based threats: A fighter is no threat to ground units so it doesn't have to be countered by anti-air - a bomber on the other hand is, so it does. I can understand your concern of rendering bombers obsolete in an anti-air rich environment - but isn't that the purpose of stocking up on anti-air? In the end that does leave you with weaker defense against land based assaults. To ensure that such an emplacement can still be overwhelmed single target anti-air with long range, high frontloaded damage and long reload would be the natural choice.
I think my logic is sound. There is a triangle in effect, between fighters, anti-surface and AA. The current system exemplifies this triangle. The role of AA units is to restrict the area that air units operate safely in. I.e. to protect your units from the opponents air units. Be that air units or land units of yours that you are protecting, from your opponents fighters. Your opponents fighters will do more damage to your air force than your opponents anti-surface, and preventing the opponents fighters from entering "your territory" means your fighters can operate in safety, so they can protect your land units from your opponents anti-surface units. The role of anti-surface units is to destroy land units. This includes AA. AA is not magically exempted from this just because it is AA, it is in fact a very high target for bombing runs, because it restricts the ability of your friendly air units to move. Namely your fighters. You can't protect your anti-surface from enemy fighters unless you remove the AA first, and if you remove the AA and escort your bombers with fighters, you give your bombers more time to remove the anti-surface turrets so your units can roll into the base unimpeded. I.e. if you want to move your fighters to hunt down the enemy's air force in his or her base, you need to remove AA first. Similarly you need to remove anti-ground turrets for your ground forces to move in. That is the role of the bomber. Bombers have more health than fighters so they can tank more damage from AA units. (t1 fighters kill bombers in 1 hit). In having more health, they have more armor, in having more armor, they have less speed, making them more vulnerable to fighters. If having more health/being slower doesn't benefit them, it's not needed, and speaking from a real world, the mechanics in game are all logically consistent, point of view (i.e. No videogame bullshit just because the game wouldn't work without flawed logic being applied) the health would be reduced/speed increased. If their speed is increased, fighters and AA are less able to deal with them. More of an issue for fighters than AA. Whatever changes that are made, at the end of the day you won't beat the fact that anti-surface is the counter to surface. The swarm of bombers coming after your AA units so that they can destroy all your tanks in relative peace will just get larger. I really think that the bigger issue is the fact that air units can be anywhere on the map very quickly, and never have to return to base to repair and rearm. (Why would you want to take apart a base using land units, when you can just do the same thing using air units) Personally I think that they should have to "rearm" in proximity to a powerplant, with an ammo increase. Although really - air factory cost increase to 12 or 15 wouldn't go amiss. Bot factory cost decrease to 9. Vehicle factory decrease to 12. Costs of everything changed to maintain the same build times.
Infinite regenerating bombs seems problematic to me. The wiping out of bases by bombers should not be as easy to do as it is now. Bombers should have an extreme cost for their extreme mobility. Well. I still seem to be repeating what has already been said over and over.
I see your point but unlike you I don't view surface and air as equal in terms of their mutual damage potential. As you correctly stated air has the double benefit of higher speed and unimpeded movement. It is already superior to surface units in that respect. So to balance that out I propose to give surface units the benefit of higher damage and health - staying power if you will. Since air units can pick their battles at their leisure I don't see no fault in denying them fair engagements against their surface counter units - they can simply outrun or circumvent anti-air tanks. Very much unlike ground units which don't get the luxury of outrunning bombers. Denying them effective protection seems highly unfair to me. But that might as well be a matter of personal preference.
what I mean is: Buff AA Range, then see if Mobile Land AA can kill Bombers before their drop their payload, and kill all your AA units If they are OP, just nerf the range. But, like Brian said, lets see this new Patch
The issue is bombers will always be able to achieve critical mass. It just takes more metal/time to do so. Surface units already have higher damage and health. For the time cost of a Bumblebee, you can build 2 Stingers or 2 Spinners. The equilibrium position is already in favor of AA units. If your surface "counter unit" is killed by a bomber 1:1, you've actually spent less time building AA than your opponent has spent building antiground, so that engagement did actually go in your favor. And that's the point. It doesn't matter how much AA you build. The person who goes air will always attack you with more metal and win. You may as well balance it like it is already so that 1 bomber costs more time/metal than 1 AA, and 1 bomber and 1 AA draw with one another.
I think t1 AA towers need a range boost to bring them in line with the flak cannon's effectiveness. This way teh flak cannon isn't just a straight upgrade. Honestly, its worth trying at the least. If it makes aircraft worthless, I'm fine with that. Air is better for raiding anyway
The problem with balancing it that way is that bombers tend to draw with 1 AA and whatever the AA tries to protect due to area damage. Thus my proposal of shifting the balance clearly in favor of AA - not only in mass efficiency but also in protection effectiveness. But that is a matter of preference, nothing that I could or would try to convince you of if you like aircraft to be a frontline rather than a support class of units. edit: quoting is hard, apparently...
Agreed. But static AA already works in favour of static AA. @vyolin - bombers cost 20 seconds. AA costs 10. You should be going 2 AA to 1 bomber. If AA aren't clustered, that's guaranteed win for AA. I think they can also shoot down bomber before it drops bombs. I.e. if you have gone 1 AA to 1 bomber and drawn, thats actually a win in your favour, because you still have another AA unit. That's cost your opponent 40 seconds worth of production for 20 seconds. Thats a clear win.
If they can - mass for mass - prevent bomb drops consider me golden. Ah, drop that: Even it is economically inefficient I would still be happy as long bomb drops could be prevented. I have a deeply seated trauma caused by Supreme Commander's bombers initiating the drop as soon as coming into AA-range: Causing AA-emplacements to be showered in bombs and wrecks alike. So consider me extremely biased in that whole air-ground dynamics discussion.
