Possible solution for mass bomber sniping (not shields)

I was thinking of a method for defending your commander or other targets against mass bomber snipes, and I think I thought of a solution:

An omni-directional energy weapon, that destroys all air units in an area in an instant burst,

This weapon would require a large amount of power in storage, and would power down for a time until it can be fired again. This weapon would be completely cost-inefficient unless you used it against a lot of air units. I drew a diagram for people who can't picture it.

Sick paint skills: http://i.imgur.com/F7jN2VN.jpg

Or have 3 or more air factories que up HBs or peregrines and set the factory on patrol around your base.

Didn't TA solve this problem with flack cannons?

Yeah there are still a lot of more mundane options that have yet to be explored, aside from T2 Fighters there aren't any other T2 AA options at all yet.

Mike

You can just have 50+ T1 AA fighters flying above your Com. Not only will they shoot down a lot of the enemy bombers. It's also very hard for the enemy to target your commander through the flying swarm.

YOU CAN PATROL IN THIS GAME!?! HOW!?!

With the patrol command found in the controls on the right side of your screen

Just remember, you have to always set up at least two patrol points, a single one won't work on itself (it will be intepreted as a move command).


I hope that will get changed, but in the interim you need to click twice.

And then many lolz were had.

ops original idea sounds like an air burst nuke

T2 SAM launchers and air fighters patrolling around the whole base. Having good intel should also help prevent bombers kill the commander on time.

T2 land and air defense should be very strong and very expensive. Also dragons, I want to see mech dragons.

I still dont understand why you guys are saying the TA way will make it so this game will have no air problems. The biggest difference in games from this era compared to games of that era is the pathfinding. Its the BIGGEST game changer.

We wont know until beta comes rolling, but that flak had better be perfect at hitting any speed aircraft, and have a huge *** splash.

In the current build, slow-moving bombers get absolutely DESTROYED by Ants (T1 assault tanks). I guess this is because the angle the guns can point up was doubled in the last couple builds. Any aircraft that slows down around a group of Ants is mince meat.

TA flak had a reasonable splash, but wasn't good at hitting fast-flying units, thus making it perfect for hitting bombers, without making other forms of AA pointless.

Sounds like you mean a EMP generator. I think EMPs are a good idea but this would lead to players under developing their air defences. That would then encourage their enemies to build aircraft, but as soon as the enemy attacks a legitimate weakness they loses all of the investment they've made in their aircraft. This is not good balance as it encourages weaker playing styles (not that I'm saying EMPs shouldn't exist, they should just be counter balanced in gaming terms).

You could equally just request a missile/radar jammer (also known as Electronic Countermeasures) which for a limited time could stop bombers from accurately dropping their payloads. That way so long as you haven't under developed your air defences to much you could still defend your base successfully before it gets destroyed.

Flak does not stop the first hit. It only creates a DPS race between each side. Front loaded units win because they will always get their damage in.

It's important to have more AA overall, so that bombers don't hard counter half the stuff on the map. However, anti bomber tools will not work unless they address its front loaded power.

Nukes would make great anti air superweapons. Energy draining EMPs are also simple+effective. Defenses that intercept bombs or "return to sender" would also punish units that rely on huge hits. Anything that blinds air vs. ground or snares air units would absolutely cripple bombers.

Fighter patrols around your base seem to cut this stuff out entirely, also if the other player can bust out 60+ bombers while keeping you at bay then you should be losing imo.

Bombers sniper are really easy to defend against atm.

Counter to alpha-based units is... more alpha.

An anti-bomber turret is a popup-arty resistant battery that pops out of the ground, fires a salvo of missiles at a bomber and goes back underground for its long reload (say 15s?). A standard flak cannon's DPS/cost is packed into the massive alpha strike and the 2-3 missiles it shoots ought to cleanly one shot a bomber.

This turret is basically only for anti-bomber work. It's single target and costs slightly less than a bomber. It's too expensive and massively overkills fighters (inefficient at maintaining air superiority), it doesn't have AoE and the sustained DPS to kill gunships. It is essentially only for killing high alpha units.