Air: Combined Arms

Alright, so I hesitate to create yet another thread but the topic my idea got stranded in initially is more focused on a specific air problem. Basically, I had the idea that air units should require spotting from other sources to operate:

Details are tricky (specifically, how do you figure out sensible spotting behavior so that smaller fights don't become about the air unit spotting micro), but I really like the concept and I think tackling the problem of air forces being able to do Everything is the way to go towards stabilizing and improving the feel of air units.

I'm not sure I like the idea of my air fighters being thoroughly useless without ground-based guidance - it's essential for good aerial combat to be able to shift your fighters away from your base to take out those bombers before they get anywhere near close enough to wipe out your leading 'spotter' units...

Having a mechanic that renders them useless except when guided by something else would basically encourage most people to build AA tanks/bots instead as they'd be far more useful.

That said though, maybe needing to call in air strikes from a ground based unit would be handy, but let fighters have the opposite role - allow them to spot aircraft as well as shooting at them, so that your AA land-based defences have a better chance of reacting before the inevitable zerg-rush appears...

One of the big ideas I had was that fighters could be spotted for by radar -- so if you see bombers incoming then your radar stations can be directed to help the fighters fight. Or perhaps a spotter satellite that gives you the ability to arbitrarily spot targets in an area independent of your land forces for some other tradeoff.

That's why you give air benefits that land doesn't have; mobility and flexibility. Make land units with gunship support equal or beat just land units, and because gunships are more mobile than those land units they trade off fragility (easily wiped out by AA/destroy spotter units so they can't target ground) for superior combat engagement ability and application to raiding.

That sounds a bit better - neutering fighters completely is daft, but having a radar sweep (or satellite - we know we're having satellites brought into the game anyway!) aiding your aircraft (and if we're going macro, maybe we could turn over fighter control to the satellites when certain conditions are met) would be excellent.

Agreed. This makes sense. I just don't want to end up with an army of useless aircraft because there's no little bot wombling around the battlefield pointing its little laser pen at stuff to be blown up!

Okay now seriously, what's causing the lack of replies? No interest? I keep critting people with walls of text? I'm missing an obvious discussion like this somewhere else? This is a rehash of an idea someone else posted and no one's told me?

I can understand (if be frustrated) with negative feedback on an idea because it tells me something. But no feedback leaves me thinking it was pointless to try in the first place =/

I haven't responded so far because I pretty much agree and this looks like a good starting point for an uber discussion on air units. Just nothing much to add, really.

Would be helpful to hear that then, no replies doesn't communicate "you have a good idea here" well =p

You made a new thread for a discussion that was already happening. All the replies are in the other threads.

Yes, air units shouldn't work as a core army but rather as a support function. There are roles that demand high speed, obstacle avoidance, and anything that flies fits the bill perfectly. More explicit examples and discussion is elsewhere.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you are essentially proposing a separation of vision between air and ground. Fighters seeing air units but not ground units, for example. It's an interesting and novel idea. Some air units might be able to attack ground, but be unable to get vision of their targets on their own.

If most air units only have air vision, it becomes useful for ground units to spot for them. Decoupling air to ground attacks from their own vision also opens up a few design avenues, such as having long range air to ground missiles, carpet bombers, and other powerful air to ground weaponry that isn't as flexible or convenient as ground weapons due to their vision restrictions. Using a ground spotter to get vision lets you bring these high-power air weapons to bear effectively, where you might otherwise be dropping blind with your carpet bombers.

Certain kinds of air units, especially scouts, would obviously need ground vision in order to do their jobs. Low-flying craft, or those equipped with specialized sensors, for example. This raises the problematic possibility of just using some of these planes in conjunction with a large air wing to effectively escape the vision limitations of the other planes, and may defeat the entire system.

There are a variety of possible implementations. Common air units might be able to see structures and perhaps large units. Scout planes might be limited or designed in a certain way to make them difficult to use as a primary vision source as a part of the same air wing as combat planes. I think it would also mesh well with having airbases issuing orders to planes. A ground unit acquiring vision would allow an airbase in range to issue an attack order to one of its birds automatically.

It's an interesting idea, but it would require a wholesale redesign of the air system, paying special attention to the planes that do provide ground vision (if any). The consequences of having air units only get air vision would be widespread. It involves UI challenges of how to represent partial vision, and gameplay difficulties of working with aircraft that might not be able to attack ground targets on their own.

Of the 2 pages of threads that an "air" thread title search uncovered, maybe one old one was an "air in general" thread and there were none covering a concept anything like my OP's.

Not really, that's an interesting option, but separate. The proposal amounts to a high-tech version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser-guided_bomb insofar as that air units would need explicit separated units to perform targeting duties for them. I.E. bombers would need radar/scouts/land units/something to tell them to attack X (with suitably streamlined UI) and they couldn't do much except act as expensive scouts without that. The specific designation options may or may not vary depending on unit type, but the point is that you need to have some sort of explicit external presence (preferably on land or sea) acting to direct the air units to targets so that you can give them more power than you would if they could function independently.

Now that I think about it, giving air units no independent vision or only air-unit vision would solve a lot of problems in a simple way. Hmm.

I understood your original post was to require laser targeting. My reformulation of that idea is essentially that ground units with vision of a target can automagically laser target it. I think special "laser targeter" units is not a good idea- any unit with vision might have this ability, and units with better vision would be naturally better in either case.

As a further development, to merge this idea with another post's, suppose we create a total distinction between air and ground vision. Normal vision is for ground units, and radar is vision for air units. A radar tower essentially gives vision of only air units in a large area, and planes would have radar capability to see air units as well.

However planes' vision and planes' radar are completely distinct. Radar is essentially vision for planes, and planes might have zero vision which applies to ground units. A fighter jet would not necessarily even need ground vision, and certain kinds of ground attack craft might have their ground vision restricted in return for more powerful weaponry.

I do like the concept of separating vision out. Seems like it would neatly achieve the goal of forcing air units to operate with land assistance. Question is does it achieve the goal well enough, I.E. is it okay for one tiny bot to allow mass air force application. In particular, how would it work with any possible counter-intel?

I do think that air units should have adequate vision just like anything else. Being up in the air is a very effective way to see things on the ground. However, that same high altitude poses a weakness against shroud based counter-intel. A combination of thick fog, smoke, and chaff cover will reduce the ability of units to see through LoS, and effectively render air units unable to see their targets.

With a thick fog cover reducing unit vision, the only option is to get closer with lower altitude units like assault bots and gunships. This system worked fairly well in Red Alert to shut down air raids and force combined arms against a base(though it was still glitchy).

Just want to push this back to the top given other active air discussions.

Radar would signal that they are coming a bit before they get to you. it is a warning system just for this

Just had a thought here...

Are we having a shroud/fog-of-war type effect in this game? If so, there's no problem! Aircraft will suffer the same issue as described (ie only being able to attack what can be seen under revealed areas), but won't need a specific unit to tell them what to do.

I can't stress enough just how much it would annoy me (and, I would think, many others too) if my entire air fleet became completely useless due to the loss of one or two units that are completely separate from the main fleet, which would presumably require a whole separate force just to defend them. I don't want to have to wait for x minutes whilst I rebuild another air-spotter and send it out to the opposite side of a battlefield, nor do I want to have to waste x% of my production resources ensuring I've always got a few of them building in the queue (especially if you can queue up a pattern of units to be built).

Leave aircraft able to attack anything they can 'see', whether it be by uncovering a (very limited) area of terrain around them (and the higher their altitude, the less area their sensors can reach to cover) or using the visibility created by scouts on the ground, or low altitude scouting aircraft, or even naval assets (and of course, uber satellites, if we get them), but don't turn them into a secondary ability of another specific unit...

I wasn't specific on whether spotting would be constrained to special units to do so or whether most/any army units could do it -- it's something that would have to be tried.

Would it be beneficial to have planes have a bigger sight radius because they are higher up?

See, I thought that, but then thought the opposite...

At their altitude, they'll have a longer LoS due to no obstacles, however as you drop the altitude they're trying to 'see', the LoS should reduce... In fact if you think about it, it really ought to be a spherical LoS arrangement (as the plane is the centrepoint in the first place, and the further above/below the plane you're looking, the less distance you can travel).

Am I making sense?

Every unit with vision can qualify as a spotter. Some unit types can simply get better position and vision than others. That doesn't always mean air is better for the task.