Advanced air units

Yeah, the main problem I have with the SupCom fuel was that there was never much of a penalty to actually running out.

SupCom added fuel, but didn't really do anything with the mechanic. It wasn't integral to how the air units worked, the penalty to running out wasn't significant, and the fuel mechanic didn't change how the air units were used in any way.

Actually strict fuel limitations would be one approach. But a high degree of abstraction for aircraft operations would be necessary. Forcing players to micro planes to avoid running out of fuel would be very bad. Players should order their aircraft to do certain tasks, rather than control the move and attack primitives. A player should order an air strike on a target unit or location, and have a plane execute that order and return to base without manual control.

Still, ammo alone could act as a sufficient leash for planes. No risk of planes running out of fuel, and they should still be close to resupply to make them more effective. Different planes can also have different resupply times, as an additional design characteristic. A strategic bomber with a long downtime can reach farther more efficiently, whereas an interceptor with a quick downtime is effective at close quarters air defense.

In any case, planes require more needs; more strategic considerations in their use. They are fast, they ignore terrain, they can stack on a single target area much more quickly and more efficiently than any other unit. They need high costs and support considerations.

What if aircraft had an ammo system, a dozen bombs for bombers and a half dozen missiles for fighters (or whatever made the game balanced, etc. etc.), then bombers could be used to attack target areas and would resupply when ammo was empty, fighters could support them and would return to base with them. Also, fighters set to patrol would resupply automatically then return to patrol.

This could limit the amount of micro necessary. Also would make it so hit and run tactics are still viable, but not continuously sustainable by aircraft alone, for either attacker or defender. The defender would also have the advantage as resupply of aircraft would take place much sooner than the attacker.

Come to think of it, don't bombers already kind of work on this system to prevent them from bombing multiple targets in a string with micro? I noticed the white bar underneath the T1 and T2 bombers yesterday. Looks like a start of this system may already be in place and it currently has a regeneration factor in it. Just something I noticed.

Yes, that's why we're mostly talking about ammo systems. It's already implemented.

I modded C&C Generals for several years and loved how the air system worked. They were a powerful and essential part of both attack and defense, but offered very little capability for taking and holding ground unless you supported them with ground units. The return to base mechanic added several new angles for balancing air units. It also helped make a real distinction between planes and helicopters that was more meaningful than just movement speed.

The reload mechanic had balancing implications well beyond simply forcing hit and run techniques.

For example, air superiority fighter with a large payload of slow firing, medium damage AA missiles. It could kill several other fighters (especially T1 fighters) before returning to reload, but was no where near as effective at destroying the high health bombers. At the same tech level I had an interceptor with a small payload of long range, fast fire, high damage missiles. It excelled at destroying 1 target very quickly, but had to reload immediately. It was great for taking out bombers, or rushing the 1st wave of defenders, but had no staying power and could do very little against multiple targets.

Countermeasures gave a fighter a 75% change to evade a single missile (max, 4 per rearm/reload). This gave the Air superiority fighter a strong edge vs the interceptor even 1v1. The interceptor fired 2 "insta-kill" missiles, but was not very likely to hit. The Air superiority fighter would need 2-3 hits to kill the interceptor, but he carries 20+ missiles and can keep attacking until he gets through.

In the same style, ground attack came in flavors too. Aurora's and other fast "hit and run" fighter/bombers were fantastic for breaking a fortified position and destroying enemy AA, but they had long reload times and couldn't sustain an attack. For my mod I added A-10s. They were slow, had huge ammo reserves and would make several passes over the target area seeking out as many targets as possible before returning to the airfield. They were amazing at base defense and breaking up columns of enemy units, but the fact they hung around the target zone made them extremely vulnerable to AA fire and worthless vs enemy base defenses.




ZeroHour used dedicated airfields with 4 strips and was dedicated to a 4 plane limit. I don't think that would work as well for PA, but a similar system could definitely be implemented that would still allow huge unit numbers while requiring some logistics planning.

If Air factories were capable of rearming and repairing aircraft then jets could return to the nearest available factory when they need ammo. If all factories are busy (building, or serving a different jet) the jet will just land (or circling in the air) within *X* radius of the nearest factory to wait for it's turn. You could still move the aircraft, but it would travel at reduced speed, can't attack, and would insist on lurking next to the nearest factory until it has been serviced. Aircraft carriers, airfields, orbital platforms, etc could be added later and would behave as alternate rearm facilities, maybe with limited aircraft construction options.

If there all your rearm/repair facilities have been destroyed the aircraft could just return to the last known location of one and land/circle until you build another. This would discourage the planes from lingering in the enemy base just because your base back home got nuked.

Thats a great idea and it could totaly work for pa seriously i was thinking too about C&C Zero Hour i love that level were you get an aircraft carrier and destroyers in campaing

My favorite part was just how customizable the behavior was. Suddenly jets could be balanced in ways beyond simple speed, damage, and health with more depth than just DPS per target type. A jet could have a devastating attack (the aurora) but a long reload time means he's sitting on the ground more than he's in the air. It's a unit only suitable for micromanaged attacks. If you let an aurora patrol an area it's a very expensive way to kill 1 bot per minute.

Other jets, like the Air Superiority fighter I described in my other post had tiny reload times. They're almost always in the air, and wonderfully suited to large patrol orders. Another interesting result, is a very short reload time means your jet gets much better DPS close to home.

A larger Clip size means jets can stay and fight longer, and this can be great, like with the A-10 from above, but it's yet another great way to adjust the attack/defend role of a jet. It may sound counter intuitive, but a small clip size on a jet can be a huge bonus, especially for an offensive unit. Jets that reload more often will leave the combat zone sooner, take less AA damage, and repair more frequently. Most of the time a jet with a small clip but fast reload is better than a jet with twice the ammo but twice the reload time.


"Big clip, slow fire, short reload" will give you a jet with consistent (easy to balance) DPS that is reliably in the air nearly the whole time. These are great for defense and poor on attack because it can keep on defending without interruption.

"Small clip, fast fire, long reload" will give you a jet with good burst damage, but still a consistent DPS because the bursts are spaced evenly by the long reload times. These favor a micromanaged attack and tend to be very wasteful on patrol orders.

"Small clip, fast fire, fast reload" will give you a jet who's damage is scaled by distance. The longer the range, the less damage it does. I didn't use any in ZeroHour because airfields couldn't move, but in PA they could be very interesting if launched from a carrier.

There's also lots of room for mediums making well rounded multi-role fighters.



Point defenses and evasion chances are another feature that I think PA's aircraft could benefit from. If planes have low health and die easily to AA they need defenses other than speed and health. If a fighter uses stealth or countermeasures there should be a % chance that enemy fire will simply miss. It makes small skirmishes of aircraft less predictable (and perhaps more interesting than simple rocket tag) while having an easy to manage system for balancing larger battles.

One element of this that I'm not sure whether it's better or worse, is that ZeroHour style air combat had a rather boolean nature when attacking the enemy. You couldn't wage a meaningful attrition war with aircraft because sufficient enemy AA would obliterate your jets and let you inflict very little real damage. If you used the right balance of micro and combined arms you could break enemy air defenses and suddenly your planes could rock the battlefield.

Personally, I liked this. It meant that I couldn't just line up a few factories with a rally point behind the enemy base. If I wanted an air war I'd have to know when to throw or pull my punches. An ill timed strike or a sloppy guard order could wipe out my whole air force. In PA today I can simply build a row of T1 and T2 air factories, give them all an "attack area" command for the whole planet. Now que a million alternating bombers and fighters. Even if the enemy invests 100% into AA the slow and steady damage from repeated bomber runs will wear down an enemy position no matter how sloppy the attack. It just becomes a battle of economies. Can I spam bombers faster than he can repair? If I own the moon I very well may be able.

*I am not endorsing the blind attack as a good one... I'm just pointing out that one bomber still does damage to a heavily entrenched position. I'm not sure that's a good thing. I think we need defenses that can completely prevent the damage in the first place... long range AA and point defenses. I've also heard compelling arguments to the opposite, that no defensive position should ever be able to repel damage entirely. I suspect it's a matter of taste.

Not entirely true. CONSIDERING ADDING AN ADVANCED AIR TURRET. Is more accurate. It isn't considered to be missile based, more like Flak AOE, and isn't considered to be T2, just advanced, lower DPS more AOE so it kills unfathomable blobs better than 1 missile 1 target and encourages enemies to "use limits" when just sending in "the whole enchilada".

That violates the WYSIWYG design principle stated by the devs.

Also, that kind of effect is no different from an armor system, which, while previous games in the 'series' have had something like it for AA weapons, is generally not in line with how the game works.

I have to disagree. WYSIWYG simply means no hidden values or calculations. If the unit description says it has a 50% evasion rate, then being 100% in line with WYSIWYG means you have a 50% evasion rate, no BS attached and no hidden numbers. A true example of violating WYSIWYG would be "Your AA has an accuracy rating of 450 and my Jet has an dodge of 890, so my % chance to evade is????" F* that...

Armor generally applies to damage reduction and is very different from evasion. A missile doing half damage is not at all the same as a missile hitting half the time. It doesn't just make small air battles less predictable, it's also the difference between 1000 bombers with half health vs 500 bombers at full health. In the previous TA/SC games, and in fact many other RTS games, the idea of AA units being resistant to damage from air units is a good example of an armor system changing your damage inflicted behind the scenes and violating the WYSIWYG principle. But that's also not what I'm suggesting.

If we keep evasion out in the open, and keep it where the player can see it's not a surprise. If the player watches he can see his missiles veer off and hit flares instead of bombers or if the target phizzles and disappears with a stealth device before the missiles hit and they wander off to hit the terrain instead he'll know "They are using an active defence system on those bombers!" and there is nothing against WYSIWYG involved.




I do understand and mostly agree "generally not in line with how the game works", but I'm going to say "generally not in line with how the game works, right now" and point out that among all of the wildly varying opinions on this thread, including some outright hostility, not once has anyone on this thread come out and said, "I think PA has a perfect air combat system, and I hope it never changes!"

Now, don't take that the wrong way... I freek'n LOVE this game. I think it is amazing, and in nearly every regard is one of the very best RTS games I've ever seen. I do feel however, that air combat is one of the areas other franchises have delivered better and I think there should be no shame in looking to them for inspiration. In TA, SC, FA, and PA I have been dissatisfied with air combat because they indistinguishable from ground units. Sure, they ignore terrain, move fast, and can only be hit with certain weapons... but they are no more "air units" than starcraft's "air units". They're a blob of triangles that buzz around overlapping each other until the enemy base is gone. Imagine a bomber that makes it's bombing run... and then flies in little circles until it's ready to bomb you again... It's kind of silly and I think PA can do better. If a new game mechanic would help make this happen then I think we should talk it out.

In general, innate hidden properties are contrary to the principles of transparency and predictability that also lead to not having armor types, and so on.

However I think unit payloads can easily be made clear to players, and unit payloads might include defensive countermeasures as well as bombs or missiles. In addition, inaccuracy is also quite consistent with WYSIWYG, and is actually a quite important design consideration. The projectile is visible, and it damages what it hits, it just doesn't follow a perfect trajectory every time.

Where I think the system Paendalose is discussing makes a misstep is by having a concealed evasion chance associated with the countermeasure, and not associated with the behavior of the weapon itself.

In the system discussed earlier, an attacker will fire a pre-calculated insta-kill missile, which when a countermeasure is used becomes a 25% chance to hit arbitrarily instead of arbitrary certainty. The countermeasure here has a hidden property, and even if it were listed in its profile or a tooltip, it is still effectively a hidden arbitrary value.

Instead, suppose the missile has guidance properties like a certain speed, acceleration, limited turn rate, and so on that will govern whether it hits or misses. The missile is an actual in-game object that is tracking its target. If it can't maneuver hard enough to successfully track its target, it misses (behind, or to the side, or whatever) and won't be able to make a 180 and try again before its time is up.

When the plane launches flares or other countermeasures, it follows predictable rules to determine whether it succeeds or fails. It could be as simple as saying the missile tracks whichever signature is closest, but does not explode if it strikes the flare and again acquires a target in front of it. If the missile fails to hit a target before its timer is up, then it is a miss.

Supcom suffered from Air Superiority Fighter Blob Syndrome because the land based anti-air was completely hopeless against them. All the missiles would "frontload" into the first fighter, wasting most of the damage with overkill.

I think it is important for fighters to be particularly vulnerably to ground based anti-air, such that they can't camp your air pads. It's ok for fighters to be very effective over your home territory, or over neutral/disputed territory. However, they should not last long over entrenched enemy territory.

Therefore I think it is important for ground based anti-air to be *particularly* effective *specifically against fighters*. It need not be extremely good against heavy bombers, gunships, transports, whatever. If your home air-defense can keep the skies free of *enemy fighters* at least you can launch your own to intercept the other threats.

Fuel (or munitions) is either micro-intensive or pointless, unless air units are implemented as subordinate units of airbases/carriers. I don't see that happening in PA.

I like your idea of the missile trying to adjust course, but I also have certain reservations about it, and at a certain level I think there are times when a % chance might genuinely be more appropriate. An air defense suite is a lot more than just heat flares. There's electronic jamming, decoys, and low powered lasers to blind the missile and who knows what else future death robots use. At a point I think it may be most accurate to say there is a % chance the missile will go for the decoy and detonate safely against the flare.

In the system you described the missile always goes for the decoy, and always tries to reacquire the target. With a fixed turn rate and acceleration the missile will always hit or always miss when the conditions are the same. Even if the fine line between hit and miss is so fine tuned that the direction of flight changes the hit/miss I'm not sure if it would have the same feeling... Flares are only effective from 120-240 degrees from the nose of the aircraft? Given how the game plays I feel like this would go sour quickly because most air combat happens nose toward the target. Sometimes a randomization is appropriate. It doesn't have to be a % chance randomization... it could be as simple as the direction the flare is launched is random, giving the missile mixed odds of recovering, but without some intelligent direction for the flares it could look bad... why launch the flare our your nose when the missile is behind you??

I understand the concern over a hidden % value check. I'm not blind, but I can't help but see a certain appeal to it. You get the mixed results of a target lock vs ecm/flares without the system overhead. Even if I didn't care about the CPU load of thousands of missiles path finding, as a developer I would still be sorely tempted to use that flat 25% just to reduce the scripting needed to make it work "just right". When tweaking the balance of a defense like flares it is hard enough to keep it hitting at your goal rate. It also means that any adjustment to aircraft or missile speeds will have a huge impact on the effectiveness of flares.

I understand and respect the commitment to a policy of "absolutely no hidden values", but I think that not allowing reasonable exceptions may do more harm than good, especially while there are plenty of ways to visually represent the outcome to the user. I think it's far more important that the user never say "wtf was that??"



All that said, another idea, closer to the heart of "no hidden values", easier to develop, and less CPU intensive is still on the table...

"Active Defenses" (flare/decoy/ecm/point defense/ etc) can be 100% effective until they run out. For example, a bomber could have 5 flares, meaning 5 "get out of jail free" on missiles but no defense from the 6th. This would make a good incentive to mix light AA defenses with your fancy heavy ones. Let the little guys eat flares while you warm up a 1 shot kill. It would also give advanced aircraft a huge advantage over basic fighters without greatly increasing their health or damage.

Missiles are already fully simulated and track their targets. They're just very, very good at it right now. The only difference I suggest is making them fast and with relatively limited turn rate and time to hit their target (which they already have). This makes anti-air missiles somewhat inaccurate some of the time.

While it is true that given the exact same conditions, the same outcome will result, consider how many different possible situations there are. Relative positions of the aircraft and the launcher, the direction and speed of the aircraft, the plane's motion over the time period that the missile is tracking. The existence of other aircraft, and their movement. Flares that the aircraft uses. Flares that other aircraft use.

Even with a missile algorithm as simple as "always track closest target within 30 degrees of forward" or some such, missiles get an organic inaccuracy that depends on conditions. And that is by no means the only possible design for countermeasures, or algorithm for missiles interacting with countermeasures.

I personally don't see a problem with tying air units to air fields/aircraft carriers.

Perhaps I am biased, but I have always hated air in every strategy game--they are just super mobile and allow players to micro to victory. Since they can reach anywhere in no time at all, they make for a more cost effective defense and offense tied into one.

Restrict them to expensive structures/units! There is a lot of potential for cool use of air units here... let's not waste it and do what every other game has done.

@Broadside - it is cool in theory but probably too much 'back to the drawing board' for PA...

woulda been great for carriers in Supcom though

Broadsideet, you should really give Wargame: Airland Battle a try. That game features the best implementation of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft I have ever seen, using Cold War forces. While aircraft do actually have fuel limitations for how long they can continuously remain on station, in practice they will almost always "evac winchester" meaning they have no weapons remaining and leave the map to get more.

The only difference would be that in PA you should build and command the aircraft carrier or air base as well as the troops on the battlefield which need air support.

Aircraft should be true air support for ground forces in a combined-arms context. Aircraft provide flexible fire support that can eliminate key targets, allow ground forces to call for help against enemies that would be difficult for local forces to destroy, or to reach far behind enemy lines. Not a tremendous blob of doom that descends upon an army or base and completely wipes it out like a plague of locusts, and can move on to the next location immediately.

It doesn't matter what changes you make.

At some point, you will reach critical mass, and your aircraft will become a blob of doom.