T2 Air Constructive Hate Thread

I'll get to the point:

We should remove T2 air (in its current form) from the game completely.

It is not fun at ALL to play against someone who rushes it. It is incredibly annoying to try and deal with, since it can attack from any side. And, despite the many counters put in place, there is no counter besides more t2 air for yourself. This means that at the 8 minute mark, someone with 3 gunships and 3 fighters can literally kill every one of your expansions unless you too have t2 air.

Reasons why completely revamping t2 Air is necessary:

PROS:
Getting t2 ASAP isn't as important, because the enemies forces have to travel across the map and through your front before getting to your main base. It takes time for the impact to show up on the battlefield. It's not insta-win.

Hummingbirds actually become relevant again. You start spamming those instead of t2 fighters. T1 is relevant again. Ants, too. The only time I build a line of t1 vehicle factories is when I'm on a tiny planet. I don't bother anymore, because t2 air negates t1 vehicles completely.

Adds strategic depth, because you cannot just send t2 air to that guys almost complete nuke that you just scouted to wipe it. You have to eat your mistake.

CONS:
We don't have super fast gameplay for E-Sports. We just have FAST gameplay.
Vehicles become an issue to stop without vehicles in their way. This can be solved in large part by nerfing the sheller and buffing the pelter, as well as removing the Vanguard or replacing it with a t2 Bomb Bot Thing.

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Don't even try to defend this. You know I'm on track because we've all done it at some point or another. It's not fun. It's not strategic. It doesn't make me THINK about what i am doing.

I think its just too rewarding to sit idle in your base and wait/turtle till you got T2. Chances are low you will get crushed and if you have T2 first that is a huge advantage unless the other one is just a tiny bit later.

T2 air units need to become more expensive relative to their T1 counterparts, I agree with that. PTE build is addressing that, maybe not how I would like, but it's at least a theme.
I also think that the flight pattern of many air units (cough cough gunships) are too controlled. Gunships turn on a dime, stop on a dime and accelerate almost instantly. IMO they should accelerate more slowly, but be able to rotate rather quickly (as in change the way they are facing, not the direction they are flying).
Another major problem here is that anti-air turrets have tiny ranges. This means:
air scouts can get full intel without much trouble
air transports can get far into enemy territory
expansion is effectively discouraged by the small effective range of anti air turrets
control over airspace doesn't really happen, it's just who has the most fighters in a given area at one time.

T2 units of any kind don't have much of an excuse to be better then basic units in any area other then their focus.

There is zero reason as to why a carpet bomber should be bigger, have more hp, cost more, fly at a different speed or do more damage then the precision bomber. The carpet bomber takes the precision bombs damage and distributes it over a huge AOE.

That is enough to have both units be viable, different and worth a jump to T2 to obtain a different kind of bomber, not basic and advanced, not T1 T2, just another bomber.


And every T2 unit should follow suit.

Here are a few suggestions:

Mobile Flak on a T2 vehicle would chew them up.
Remove the T1 anti-air vehicle and add it to the T2 roster with a flak cannon.
Leave the stinger and bot roster alone.

The T2 fighter AOE needs to be removed. As of right now 1 T2 fighter is better than 10 T1 fighters.

Allow lasers to target air but at a high miss rate.
This would allow them to thin out gunships but would have little effect on fighters and scouts.

I disagree that T2 air as a whole is even close to as bad as it used to be, T1 ground anti-air can put up a pretty cost-effective defense in the newer patches. Peregrines are really the one holdout that is still pretty broken, their weapons just need a serious de-tuning to make T1 air even worth bothering with once T2 air comes into play.

it is physically impossible to expand at a quick, effective pace and also cover every single inch of your expansions with t1 AA.

Where there are holes, t2 air can instantly exploit them. It's part of what drives people to turtle.

I'm not convinced. Since the latest update T2 air is ok but it's allot weaker. A strong player expanding hard will be so far ahead of a turtler who's rushed T2 air that they won't be able to do enough damage with it to really matter. I agree it's impossible to cover everything with t1 aa- however you don't need to. Just include some good aa in key expansion areas and around your main base and it will buy plenty of time to counter. Yes you'll loose some of your expansion points, but they can be rebuilt.

One thing I always tried to get over to player in TA on-line games was- don't worry too much about loosing stuff, you've got lots of it! Trying to protect all borders from all raids all the time just diverts you're attention off you're opponent. Whilst he's microing a small group of t2 air to kill a few mex (whilst dodging the mobile aa), you can have a land force marching on his base that will ultimately lead to the win.

That's true, but it's pretty rare that most players, even very good ones, build completely invulnerable bases to everything. I certainly agree that there are still some issues with T2 air, don't get me wrong, but I don't think they're quite as extreme as you do. If you're putting a lot of ground based pressure on an opponent, and it has even a few stingers mixed in, they can reasonably effectively take out a good group of planes (I would still like to see some T2 flak units though).

I think the meta will change once people start using teleporters more effectively as well; if you cut the transit time for your vehicles/bots by building a few on the fringes of the enemies base, for only 400 metal you've seriously upgraded your ability to put some close to instant ground-based pressure on them.

why remove all T2 air when the problem is that T1 air doesn't stand a chance vs t2 fighter?

Three Gunships
vs
10 dox and 3-4 stingers.

No contest. Gunships win.

I want you to expand hard and try to stop someone with a sizeable t2 air force at the 8 minute mark from destroying your expansions - without t2 air. It doesn't happen. Alternatively, they could save up for 15 gunships and 5 T2 fighters, then just snipe your comm. Riskier, but much more dangerous.

Because the problem is more than just a fighter war - AA is weak unless spammed, whereas 4-5 gunships can kill any building excepting halleys in seconds. And it takes them seconds to get there from anywhere on the planet.

I'd say that we have enough defense against air at the moment, since by the time your opponent has gunships, you have more than enough stingers to take them out. So i'd just balance air at the moment.

No. You don't.

Have you played someone who rushes T2 air lately?

At 8 minutes, they OWN the entire map that isnt covered by a force of Stingers. Your commander left exposed? He's dead at 12 minutes, which is the average time it takes me to amass 10 gunships and sufficient air cover for a snipe. Those four minutes are a living hell for your enemy, as you dodge around their radar and AA, picking off everything left undefended, and even stuff that is defended. It's a force projection to anywhere on the map, immediately. The only thing that is accessible to the average player at 8 minutes to stop the harass is their own T2 Air factory.

That's it.

Nothing else.

I guess i'm just also taking into account that I usually also have T2 air at about the same rate.

I removed Peregrine AOE.

I vote we give Peregrine's nuclear missiles and see if that makes the game even more epic.

inb4 people complain even more about the nuke spam.

then make anti nukes dirt cheap so the second you lose the air war you have to mass produce missiles to counter missiles xD

Wait, people were doing that?

At various points, I read such complaints. No idea if it's still a problem (perceived or otherwise).