In the discussions lately about viable openings, the constant has remained that air is very strong, and that other openings need to be able to deal with it. Consider - the bomber is faster than all ground units, a better scout than all ground units, and is generally considered the most effective early raider. The damage dealt by raiding from bombers is superior in every way to raiding by ground in speed and effectiveness. Similarly, the fighter far outclasses all other sources of AA (due to flak not being useful against t2 bombers). Their mobility and high damage pushes them ahead of other units. (T2 bombers actually compare pretty well against the crazy strong Shellers right now!) Instead of trying to buff everything else, why don't we consider weakening air some? I think its speed and not having to worry about terrain would make weaker air still worth building anyway. I'd suggest a speed decrease on t1 bombers, and perhaps all air units.
Well, we could do that. But the problem is that by lowering the speed you take away what air is all about. Each unit type excels at at least one thing. Air: Speed/ damage Vehicle: Damage Bot: Cheap Naval: Range/ damage. But limited by water Orbital: Orbital layer By taking away air's speed you take away what is special about it. You should instead consider taking away some of the damage.
That's like saying that Tanks excel at being "fancy". It's not a role, nor purpose. Excelling at being cheap doesn't actually mean anything. You might as well say that Orbital Units excel at being in orbit... ... ...
Air could use a mild speed decrease. I mean, -10 from their stats. they are at 60 or something, while bots are 16-20. For that matter, bots could be factory first viable, while vehicle and air factories cost more and drain more eco so they require eco structures. That would also act as a balance lever at least early game.
The way that it currently works now, bot appear to have been designed for high mobility strategies- the dox was apparently was designed as a raider, but it doesn't do that job very well. The thing that often seems to set bots apart from vehicles is mobility, and honestly, it's hard to get better mobility than current air.
Except for in the very early game, the problems inherent with air in this genre seem to have been solved. Primarily by getting rid of the advanced fighter, but lots of other little tweaks have helped, and now it's possible to defend yourself against air with a bit of foresight at any stage of the game. So I would be very wary of doing anything to weaken air, as it might make it completely useless once the unit count starts climbing.
Well if anything, air's mobility should be both a strength and it's weakness. Staying put for air should be almost impossible, and should be punished severely.
I believe this has been handled pretty well in the current PTE build. Commander now has a anti-air missile he can fire (He will shred the early bomber snipes by himself no problem). And the Missile Turret had a HUGE buff. Triple turn rate, increased rate of fire, increased damage, shoots further, double the health, and costs less. Air isn't an OP opener any more. read more here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pte-stream-69170-main.62037/
It is odd how AA goes from utterly useless to super strong. Why up ALL the stats instead of a just the few that are needed? A large enough air force should be able to take out the AA turrets, but an AA turret should be able to take out a few bombers at range. To bad they didn't just increase it's firing distance first, then if needed the turn rate or rate of fire, but so many variable changes makes "balancing" hard in my opinion as you will overshoot one way or the other.
T2 air should be missiles not flack cannons, flack cannons make more sense as a T1 unit because it's a lower tech weapon better suited for taking out swarms of cheap units at short range. As for T2 anti-air. I think the range should be equal to T2 bombers, not less. T2 bombers should be able to break any ground based air defense, but only if it's a suicide attack. They should last just long enough to launch their missiles.
