Neutrino has made a recent comment about how fighters should be the preferred type of anti-air. I think he is right, but the design of fighters and anti-air in general warrants further explanation. Fighters are the best anti-air, but not because they are the strongest anti-air. This is because fighters are highly mobile while land anti-air is a deterrent over a limited area. Fighters can get you air superiority, which lets your offensive aircraft (which may actually include your fighters) actually do serious damage. Fighters However fighters are not the most efficient because they are the cheapest, or because they are the highest source of anti-air damage. In fact, ground anti-air should be strictly superior to fighters in most respects. From the cheapest tin can interceptor to the most sophisticated air superiority fighter, the same resources would buy far more ground anti-air pound for pound. But fighters are still immensely preferable from a strategic perspective. Fighters are the most efficient because they are mobile. Where ground anti-air only protects a limited area, fighters can engage and destroy enemy air units at tremendous distances, limited primarily by the movement speed of the fighter. Despite the fact that fighters are more expensive, carry smaller payloads, and deal less damage than ground anti-air, the fighter is still preferable because of its speed. The significance of the mobility of aircraft is that they can cover more space. Anti-air turrets or vehicles, even if they are vastly cheaper and more powerful, would have to be placed across a vast area in considerable numbers just in order to match the interception capability of a fighter aircraft. The additional mobility, and resulting interception range, justifies paying a much higher cost for fighters. Because of their mobility fighters are the most efficient anti-air asset, and as a result players should prefer to defend against an air incursion with fighters rather than rely on ground anti-air. Surface to air weapons such as AAA or SAM weaponry is very immobile compared to a fighter. And it has the extremely serious weakness that it can be bombed by the very units it is supposed to engage. Multirole Fighters Of course the key limitation of interceptors is their specialized role of only engaging enemy air units. Cheap interceptors and expensive air superiority fighters differ in quality, but serve similar roles of keeping the skies clear, either defensively or offensively over hostile airspace. However neither directly provides air support options. Ultimately the purpose of air superiority is to use air power to destroy enemy units. Land-based anti-air serves as effective but strategically inflexible alternative to destroy enemy aircraft where air superiority is unavailable. Enter the multirole fighter. Multirole craft are extremely versatile, and can engage a wide variety of targets. The ability to both shoot down enemy aircraft and to provide air support for ground forces lets you destroy enemy land targets and simultaneously protect your own armies from air strikes. However it is very important for multirole fighters to be expensive and inefficient. Otherwise under many circumstances there would be no reason to build anything else, especially as maps get larger. Land-Based Anti-Air Even though fighters are obviously preferable from a strategic standpoint, it is still vital to have land-based anti-air. Fighters will not be on station all the time, and enemy anti-air or fighters may contest air superiority. Land anti-air is a reliable fallback for when the unstable air game in the area is currently not in your favor. The key to effective land anti-air is to have a robust network of several types which mutually protect each other. Because of the mobility of aircraft, anti-air must be spread out over a large area in order to be most effective. The first line of defense is the highly expendable, inexpensive anti-air. These types of anti-air can be brought along with forward groups, placed on scouts, and cheaply spread over a large area such as covering secured territory in Defenders. Specialist and generalist variations can both work. Next is the auxiliary anti-air. These units are useful to bring along with an army because they both protect it from aircraft and provide fire support. Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns that can also attack ground targets, for example. Then comes the most generally effective land anti-air weapon, the dedicated anti-air. These units only attack aircraft, and are extremely effective at eliminating all kinds of flying units. The last line of defense is the high-power SAM. Each structure or vehicle has tremendous range and power, but they are expensive and few in number. They have exceptional range, but a low rate of fire, acting mainly as a deterrent. SAM weapons are high-value targets because of their effectiveness at deterring air activity. Vanilla TA omitted this role, but the Mercury and Screamer were extremely popular third-party units that have endured in almost every mod since their invention. Mobile variants should also be available. Air Deterrence Land anti-air is primarily a deterrent. Provided the enemy exercises sufficient caution with their birds and stays out of dense anti-air coverage, land anti-air is unlikely to destroy a fighter or a bomber. Bombers can fly in, drop their bombs, and leave before being destroyed. Strike craft with missiles can use their missiles' range to stay out of serious anti-air entirely. In tactical terms, you cannot stop a concerted air strike from destroying its intended target. The only absolute defense is to conceal the target's location. However it is possible to make such a concerted strike so difficult that it is no longer worthwhile. The core concept is that sending an aircraft into a large region of airspace that the enemy has serious air superiority over is a suicide run. You will lose your plane, and accomplish nothing. At absolute best, you will take down an enemy interceptor or two. However against land anti-air, a bomber can normally expect to successfully drop its bombs or fire its missiles, but might die in the attempt. Using aircraft in an area that contains land anti-air is a risk, but can be a justified risk. However from the perspective of the player using the land anti-air, it is not practical to carpet the entire map in anti-air under most circumstances. However fighters can fly wherever they are needed, making them highly efficient even if they carry fewer weapons for much higher cost. Conclusion Fighters are the "best" type of anti-air, not because they are the most powerful or the most effective, but because their mobility makes them the most efficient. Fighters can also give you air superiority which then lets you safely use air power offensively, where land-based anti-air merely acts as a deterrent. Land anti-air is a distant second behind fighters, despite its superior power and superior strength for cost.
C'mon man, did this really take another 1100 word essay to spell out? You only needed 7. Mobility factors into a unit's overall power. This is not news to anyone capable of designing an RTS.
Land AA most defiantly does not have more fire-power then fighters, it even takes 3 shots to shoot down a fighter!
I'm sorry but I agree with this sentiment. The Ledarsi essays are beautiful, well thought out and well structured, but of late they haven't actually been particularly revolutionary.
Air I think what made the swarms of ASF's in Sup Com so Prevalent was the lack of any real Anti air damage. Flak was good for eliminating T1 and T2 aircraft with impunity. The second T3 came out, it was obvious the Air units were strangely more durable then any type of unit, and it didn't quite make sense. Honestly, if a change would be made in Aircraft to be Fragile, Regardless if its basic or advanced, it would dramatically improve any encounters with Aircraft. For Example: T1 Aircraft UEF 295 HP 50dps 50 mass T2 Aircraft aeon 800HP 150 dps 200 mass T3 Aircraft UEF 2500HP 200dps 400 mass Regardless of mass Values, paying a higher price should give different premiums in their design. Being faster and better shouldn't completely void the basic fighters and leave them in the dust. Whats the point in getting a bunch of weak fighters when you finally engage, they melt into nothing causing little to no damage to a more advanced army. I'll agree with the sentiment that Ledarsi is saying with a more useful fighter/bomber unit that advanced brings along so that the Basic fighter gets the job done still even in the later stages of the game. Anti-Air I have played a few games with decent Air craft units and anti air units. There should be really two types and it doesn't have to be driven down to Flak and missile launchers. Instant damage over time attacks as a mobile unit would send a message that air units are in danger for the commander sending the air units. And Dedicated Anti Air missile systems that quench an Air Threat A Gatling gun, or laser archer that does decent damage to the stray aircraft that enters to close the unit would give all the warning and heed any movement for future aircraft in the area. This unit, over time would have its damage ramp up to overkill levels if the aircraft decide to stay in the area. As soon as the aircraft leave, the anti air would "cool down" and aircraft can engage with fresh anti air if need be, but the anti air serves its purpose of preventing aircraft from floating over a base with constant bomber swooping with missiles constant missing. The second level would be the Missile SAM. Instead of the current missile towers that engage with weak short range attacks. A missile SAM should have the strongest attack to bring down an aircraft in seconds, but poor re-fire rate so that it doesn't wipe out entire fleets of aircraft. This would just be used to be the heavy hitters and guarantee a no fly zone for any stray flying aircraft in the area. It can then be said. Why go through all this trouble to eliminate Flak and buff the SAM site? I want to eliminate it because it isn't a fun encounter. I'm saying it is NOT fun in the fact that at the first sign that Flak pops up in a base, it can take out large numbers of aircraft with very little effort on the defending team. In Sup Com for example, T1 Anti air barely dented a decent sized T1 Air force that is raining havoc on a base. T2 Anti air Flak immediately started clearing the Air and eliminated any sort of threat that once existed. The Aircraft Threat was then eliminated at all levels of T1-->T2 since the losses would guarantee defeat if continued unless T3 bombers and aircraft suddenly appeared to make the Flak cannon once again irrelevant. This encounter has then basically transformed all airforce play into, using a few T1 units to begin with, then skip all the way to T3 where it has Useful units. This nullified a lot of units in the overall balance in the game, which shouldn't happen since a lot of time and effort was taken into making those other units. To make the point in a analogy. Imagine if Your T1 and T2 tanks are starting to overrun a base and it looks like damage is being done. Then the enemy Advanced fabber builds a Tesla Tower(for example) that does land splash damage that fires just as fast as a laser and kills multiple units in one hit. Soon your attack is nullified and you have no more units in the base. Then you have to use orbital units to snipe the Tesla Tower because your basic units can't go near it at all. An encounter like that seems a little cheapening to be any real fun for the commander who has built this large supply of army to be useless once the defender gets this "one kill all building" in place. Just my Thoughts on Air.
