As discussed elsewhere, PA's air units don't appear to rely on actual lifting wings to stay in the air, and probably have some kind of counter-gravitic device (hence why they can fly on airless moons and the like.) This opens an interesting door. IRL, it takes a lot less power to reach escape velocity on a lower-gravity orbital body. So what if air units were able to S-Move *away* from planets (and later asteroids) with a low enough mass? Obviously if the destination is too heavy the trip will be one-way, and air units starting on a higher-mass world wouldn't have the option to S-Move. The move would also probably be limited to nuke range. I know there's been a lot of talk about how the game can be altered to help break orbital stalemates in ways that don't involve nukes and planet-smashing, and I think this could totally be one of those ways. -using the tier 2 air transport, land units could be dropped onto enemy worlds this way. -no new models/animations/new content necessary, as there would be with a Unit Cannon - but it wouldn't REPLACE the Unit Cannon's possible role. -it's FAR from foolproof as an attack strategy - units sent in such a way would be subject to anti-orbital / anti-air defenses just like anything else - but it would allow weight of numbers to come into play again in the late game. What do we think?
Interesting - like actually making them a Tier 2 Air unit instead of an orbital unit? Or making only Tier 2 able to S-Move?
Got it. ^^ More or less what I was thinking of, though I don't think we'd want to supplant the Avenger's position as an orbital superiority fighter. I think air units in orbit shouldn't be allowed to attack.
Or just to have a new branch of more expensive hybrid air/orbital units. An advanced AA gunship that can travel between planets would be really nice to see for a role like this. Think along the lines of the Anchor. Right now, at least, once someone establishes a foothold on a planet they can build a few dozen bombers/fighters and patrol the moon/planet and make it next to impossible to get units on the ground. The Unit Cannon may fix this issue, but being able to bring in a few interplanetary fighters or AA gunships would give an additional angle of attack.
I'd rather have a new fighter. Not quite as good as the Peregrine and costs a little more, but can switch from orbital layer down to the air layer. This would help for invading planets and protecting teleporters from bombers.
The trick, I guess, would be avoiding making the Avenger and Astraeus obsolete, or just making a worse version of both of those. I think only the Avenger should be an 'orbital fighter' - T2 air units could enter the orbital layer and make S-Moves under the right conditions but couldn't attack until they returned to the air layer. To me, the idea is to make them the preliminary force that you would deploy to clear the area around a landing zone. After that, ground forces mounted on Astraei and T2 air transports would drop in and race to entrench. There are LOTS of counters to this, but I think there should be. Invading a planet should be goddam hard - just not totally un-doable like it is currently. ^^
So you could spam one unit and rule both the air and orbital layer? I'm not so sure that's a good idea. This would also mean that you could command them to enter the orbital layer, fly over some AA, then go back into the atmosphere to avoid the ground AA (or vice-versa to avoid anti-orbital). This is beginning to sound more and more like a bad idea. I think its a cool idea, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds like it would be horribly broken.
Fair point, though I think limiting it to a single type of specialized tier-2 fighter and the tier-2 air transport would help alleviate that - as would only allowing the Avenger, and not the tier-2 aerospace fighter, to attack things in the orbital layer. It's also worth mentioning that for most orbital units there's a very long transition period between the air and orbital layers, for the entirety of which they are vulnerable to anti-air attacks.
Merge peregrines and avengers, then nerf the hell out of them until they are closer to the t1 fighter in performance and you will have a T2 unit that is not OP but has excellent utility, just a thought.
I really want more cross layer units to exist in the game like this one. would really give meaning to advanced structures then to be just upgraded T1 units.
Yes, A new type of attack aircraft that could move to other planets would be really good. Usefull for early assault, and later on a more supporting role when more advanced means of transport arrive. The orbital layer however should remain in the hands of satellites. And stay that way. I have suggested these types of aircraft before. The difference is that these aircraft would skip the orbital layer when moving planets. Combining units like the avenger and t2 fighters also seems like the opposite direction to specialisation. Weather aircraft in PA need an atmosphere or not. They are still modelled with wings. They also behave like planes (bombers mostly) who need their wings to generate lift.
