Balance: Air: No turning on a dime (NEVERMIND)

Limiting aircraft maneuverability when turning could limit the amount of a benefit someone can get from micro-managing their planes. In Total Annihilation, if you ordered T2 "Hawk" fighters to attack something, they would massively overshoot their target after the first pass and spend a lot of time turning around. But if you ordered them to turn back and forth, they would turn 180 degrees very quickly and rake the target back and forth.

Restricting a plane's turn radius while also making the AI turn as fast as possible within that restriction would eliminate that need to micromanage fighters, and make aircraft more susceptible to a larger area covered by air defense.

I know the game hasn't been made yet, but balance issues with aircraft seemed to have plagued the previous Total Annihilation family of games during the late game. It might be good to make some changes.

EDIT: Nevermind, the planes in Forged Alliance don't turn on a dime, they turn close enough to realistic...

Re: Balance: Air: No turning on a dime

yeah semi realistic flight looks way cooler. Also barrel rolls, these have to happen occasionally.

Re: Balance: Air: Mandatory formations, no turning on a dime

I would like to see groups of aircraft be able to travel in formations at the same speed. Perhaps when grouped together in a formation while moving and changing speeds when engaging the target. Also, for example, if a set of fighters are guarding a bomber, the fighters would actually fly with the bomber and not in a circle well behind the bomber.

I guess variable speeds according to command (edit: and grouped aircraft) would be a good way to summarize this.

Actually nevermind, I just checked and the planes in Forged Alliance don't turn on a dime. They turn close enough to realistic.

but barrel rolls!

Yes, that would certainly be cool.

I was gonna say....... ;p

Mike

Barrel rolls were fun in TA :-D . But yeah, I can't say for TA because I don't remember, but the turning in FA and SC2 can't be sped up, which usually means that air isn't terribly useful over AA until it can "one shot" things with pauses to regen/repair/recharge shields/flares (in sc2).

planes even back in TA flew quite believably, they did NOT turn on a dime. While they CAN turn sharply, they do so by decelerating to basically nothing, turning around, and accelerating again. Take care of your patrol paths with planes, planes that are moving slowly are easy to shoot down.

TA aircraft could turn on the spot, but they'd be stationary for a few seconds while doing so. I think it makes planes look much more agile and futuristic, and lets them be microd more effectively (though you rarely get a chance/have a need to do so except in early dogfights)

HOWEVER this is what lead to "Hawk dancing", which needs an effective counter as it was way too powerful (even against the flak cannons introduced in Core Contingency). Not sure what the best method to nerf this would be (no A to G on fighters, larger radius flak, etc), but I'd like to see that movement style preserved for the aircraft.

It seems that there were two balance problems: the AI couldnt micro as good as a human, given the hawk's capabilities; and, an imbalance of hawks vs air defenses. Having the AI reconfigured to micro as good as a player will fix the problem of hawks vs hawks. For the balance problem of hawks being too powerful, the hawks were too well armored vs missiles and flak was too expensive to build.

With that said, I don't think turning on a dime was really intended. They looked like planes but acted like flying saucers. (The seaplanes in TA could be micro'd to stay submerged and act like superfast subs) So, to me, turning on a dime is really a realism/preference issue...they're all robots so they can stand the Gs.

I prefer airplane-like air units for their aesthetics. And yes to barrel rolls

I think aircraft maneuverability should depend on the aircraft... gunships and so on should be able to turn on a dime, but faster aircraft maybe not.