Air collisions

HUEG DEEPS flak gunnery kills all aircraft.

Ironic bombing kills bombers.

If the game needs a tweak that only kills bombers, friendly fire(or return fire) is a good place to go.

This isn't necessarily true. If the bombers are spreading out, it could very well be a choice to wipe out every single AA gun first. Since bombers tend to deal big front loaded damage, the numbers are in their favor.

And then you lose horribly, because the 2/3 of things in your army without "AA" in their name can't shoot up. :?

I think you are missing my point. The situations when bombers would actually hit each other means that you are simply doing something wrong.
If you spread out your bombers then they wont hit eachother and will take less damage from inaccurate AA or splash AA.
If there are no AA it doesn't matter if you blob up your bombers or not because there isn't the same time pressure to deal damage as fast and upfront as you can.

Air collision should be a purely aesthetic question, it should have no bearing on how you play the game.

If air collisions should appeal to my taste they should crash and burn when they collide. How do you accomplish that without affecting the gameplay?

You'd have to make air units very smart as to not collide, my point is we should not sacrifice gameplay for minimal aesthetic.

Air collision is something that makes me dislike air battles. I like the flocking algorithm Twan de Graaf posted, it looks really neat! In combat, something like this can work as well.

Also, @mike, I just noticed your reply to me. Reread everything. You are saying air collision is a compromise. The problem IS air collision! You can't use the problem itself to compromise it. For example:
A dog takes a dump on your doorstep.
You tell the owner to make sure the dog doesn't dump his load on your doorstep.
The owner tells you that's a hard thing to do, and says: "Let's make a deal: My dog will continue to lay down his poo on your doorstep and you won't complain. Deal?" That's ridiculous.
And that's what you are saying.

Anyways, I think Uber can use the flocking algorithm or some other method that can at least help eleviate the amount of air collision. Supcom had ridiculous amounts of that. Air battles were like flying glowing metal pizzas.

Air units in SupCom collided with each other?

I'd thought by now I've explained myself enough times to have my position be understood, apparently not.

Mike

Yeah air units collided in supcom.

What? When? How?

At this point its not your fault anymore. You explained it as well as its possible and I'd argue that its refusal from their side to even want to understand what you're saying. :|

I think they will improve movement and pathfinding further then current state. (less air collisions)

What air collisions?
When did airplanes in SupCom ever collide with eachother?
What is supposed to have happened when they collided in SupCom? Instant death???

they mean that their models clip

when air units clip into each other apparently it's a huge deal

nobody means actual planes colliding and kamikazing other units, i don't think (although that would be neat)

That's what I mean when I say collision. Not that the models clip through eachother. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision

If you dont have any collision_detection the units don't collide. They just pass through each other.

Now lets all agree to separate those terms.
Collision is when 2 airplanes hitvolumes touch eachother and they bounce, slide or crash because of that.
Clipping is when the models of the 2 airplanes intersect without bouncing, taking damage or sliding.

The OP was talking about clipping, hence the consistently used misnomer.

Now I'm not sure how Mike and bmb has used the term "collision" since both supremevoid and moranic were actually talking about clipping.

Who says there needs to be both high and low tech fighters?

x)

having interceptors and fighters is more interesting, no? interceptors being fast and direct fire while fighters are slower and more agile and possibly splash.

Cut this out. The idea that agility will work on anything more than 2 fighters is a failed premise from the get go.