Air Craft Fueling

I don't think this is necessary. It should just be that planes ordered to go to the same place will fly in formation and scramble when attacked. When in a hostile situation where they are being attacked and issued a move command, they wouldn't fly in formation but would still try to keep their distance from each other as much as possible.

It would also be really cool if planes couldn't turn on a dime and had a realistic turn radius. Then you'd really have to think about where you ordered them to go and they would be more susceptible to air defenses. They would of course have to have some logic to avoid air defenses while still carrying out their orders.

About air being boring, that's actually a really good point, and is 100% spot-on.

May I suggest a couple of different solutions to that "problem" though. The first one is more realistic and it involves creating different units to mirror the land-based gameplay. For example, there could be really long range fighters which snipe enemy air with long range missiles, maybe even area effect weapons, but are a little bit more expensive, slower and with slower turn rates (something like mobile arty), and then there could be fast-speed, fast-turning "dogfighters" for close range (something like assault bots) and something in the middle like to mirror "tanks"? That would make the gameplay a little bit less "one-dimensional" of spamming fighters and smashing them against the enemy fighters.

As far as a "playing field" goes, I have a couple of ideas which are kind of crazy but here goes: CLOUDS! How about clouds for hiding or obscuring air? Or weather? They can be semi-transparent to not obscure land, or toggle-able. Pretty crazy idea I know, but just wanted to throw it out there. Also, what if there was altitude gameplay? Like, two different toggle-able altitudes (kinda like diving and surfacing subs). There could be advantages and drawbacks to each altitude level, for example higher altitudes have higher speed bonuses and attack ranges, but lower turn rates, whereas lower altitudes have high turn rate with a lower attack range? There hasn't been altitude gameplay with air before and I think it might be interesting.

Sorry but that just sounds like replacing one piece of micro with another.

Refueling is not supposed to make air combat more interesting. It is supposed to make air more interesting strategically because it makes air units depend on more than just the flat, small, featureless flight plane. They have a limited range in which they can do anything at all, determined by the locations of airfields, carriers, etc.

Limiting their ammunition has more impact on their balance than their strategy, as it enables air units to possess extremely high burst damage, and then have greatly reduced capabilities until re-armed. A small squadron of planes can fly in, destroy a building, and then fly home. If we don't limit their ammunition, then every plane has a very lengthy damage duration. This does three things. Firstly, planes get far more effective with more HP, and in fact need to be quite a bit sturdier in order to live long enough to do the same damage they would otherwise do all at once.

Secondly, it encourages stacking huge numbers of planes together so they have huge amounts of constant dps. If all those planes have a few bombs or missiles, and then need to return home, then sending 100 planes in at once is less efficient, unless you want to simultaneously strike 25 different targets. If they do damage constantly, you want every plane to focus down a single target and then move on to the next one as quickly as possible.

Thirdly, needing to resupply munitions makes the effectiveness calculation of planes more complex. Planes have a higher dps the closer their airfield is to the target, as they spend less time flying back and forth. This flight path requirement makes deep striking targets behind significant amounts of anti-air a considerably more difficult proposition, as multiple trips over the anti air will be necessary, making defense in depth anti-air more useful than a simple one-time barrier as the planes fly past.

It makes no sense for planes to be the only units in the game with limited ammunition. It's just a plain bad idea. hurr hurr.

I know you feel that limited range and armament will make planes more interesting strategically but I think it will just turn them into a kinda of artillery. The advantage of planes is that they're fast mobile units that can strike an opponent in numerous locations. They require careful planning and strategy to deal with. If you know your enemy can only strike your forward base then you simply dump all your AA in one spot and laugh at his wasted resources.

The greatness of planes is they allow sneaky attacks anywhere that require vigilance from your opponent to counter.

My own conception of planes is that little weapons like lasers or machine guns will have unlimited ammo. Missiles and bombs will need re-arming, and are the primary weapons on serious aircraft due to their range and firepower. Little drones or interceptors might have unlimited ammunition and lack such weapons., but will have other shortcomings. Air superiority fighters should probably be equipped with a machine gun or two in addition to a healthy stock of guided missiles.

If only the thin line of AA defenses the enemy flies over get to fire at the aircraft for less than a second as they pass by, while the attacking aircraft get to rake back and forth inflicting damage on your inner base until they die, the relative effectiveness (damage over time) dealt by each side is extremely disproportionate.

If you force the aircraft to re-arm, then they get to deal a fixed amount of damage per sortie which scales linearly with the fixed amount of damage the AA get to deal on the way in. This will also allow players to build distributed bases with wide areas of AA coverage so they can more easily hide their valuable units and escape certain death when the time comes.

Won't deny that, but it's the only thing I could think of that would keep air units "fun", and it's definitely better, and requires less micro then refueling (unless you don't mind a plane not having the fuel for an important moment, you had to watch every plane's fuel reserve).

However, I just read another person posting about making more "terrain" in the sky by adding things like clouds and storms and I fully agree. THAT is exactly what we need. Then we can also add the units I suggested in another thread. Ones that create tornadoes. Now that would have an interesting effect on planes

Maybe have solar flairs impact planes too? Just put them in in a way that would be simple to predict, and not just random.

So yeah, I think we should get rid of refueling, ditch my self destroying army idea, and start tossing around suggestions of a more diverse sky :idea:

Or you could try building some form of defence in depth rather than relying on a single line of AA outside your base. Nerfing aircraft in order to make it easier to survive poor strategic decisions strikes me as a bad idea.

I hear this argument a lot: that ammunition/fuel is somehow arbitrary, and that it makes no sense for planes to be the only one with fuel or ammunition. It's a valid concern I think, keeping your gameplay elegant and simply should be one of the prime concerns. On the other hand, this shouldn't go too far and we shouldn't be scared of using more eclectic means to differentiate gameplay between spheres of combat.

Your second argument; that this would make aircraft more like artillery maybe seems
Yes it is the case that planes will have a more "single strike with limited range" feel that is vaguely reminiscent of artillery, but there are some very big differences; so large in fact that I think the whole analogy is misleading.

Artillery shells are not limited to fly over playermade areas*, they don't involve the dynamic of hiding your bomberwings to sneak through defenses, nor
Artillery also doesn't involve support roles like transport planes. Arty has more constant damage output, isn't suspecible to damage attrition (due to AA) and usually can't be moved very far. I could go on, but I think you get the message. With fuel, airplanes would still retain the sneaky and strike fast aspect that defines aerial warfare but a lot of balance pathologies would be avoided.

Concerning your example that you would only have to protect your most forward firebase. Airstrike ranges are quite large so you shouldn't exaggerate your example, but I think that that is generally a positive development: it would make forward bases and territory control more important than is now the case. Obviously you would still be able to deep strikes into enemy territory, but that would either involve special long range bombers or bringing an aircraft carrier/ mobile airpad with you.





*high mountains blocking artillery shells excluded-> I would absolutely support this. But the point remains.