A suggestion to change the perergrine from a air superiority fighter into a missile bus, let me explain: Normal: http://www.nanodesu.info/pa-db/61250/unit/fighter_adv.html Suggested: HP: 100 Build cost: 250 metal Physics: Max speed: 70 Acceleration: 150 Braking rate: 110 Turn rate: 110 Recon: Vision radius: 150 Weapon 1: Range: 100 Damage: 75.0 DPS: 150 damage every 2.00 seconds (1.0 shots per second) Muzzle velocity: 150.0 Weapon 2: Range: 100 Damage: 75.0 DPS: 150 damage every 2.00 seconds (1.0 shots per second) Muzzle velocity: 150.0 However both of these weapons can only fire from either a left facing or right facing target, preventing them from hitting the same target. Edit: changed the dps, I feel it might be bad for the weapons to have aoe, so assume it has none.
My thoughts for Basic fighters and advanced fighters was along the lines of Basic fighter = high damage, single target, low fire rate. Advanced fighter = medium damage, multiple targets, high fire rate. To me that gives them both very different roles without there being a direct upgrade.
Ya might wanna check those DPS values. They're higher than the health of most things in the game. I'll still give credit for not using an anti air weapon that rivals the payload of a heavy bomber.
Hold on, step back a minute. What are the Pereguine's stats again? Code: * HP: 350 * Build cost: 270 metal * Max speed: 90 * Range: 120 * Damage: 1500 DPS: 300 damage every 0.20 seconds (5 shots per second) * Splash: 150 damage, radius 10 * Muzzle velocity: 150.0 Bahahahahaha! I had this whole first grade lecture lined up about the differences between "heavy" and "light" units, but this is just too much. Super cheap, super fast, a weapon that clears out entire skylines, and a fire rate that's faster than ping? ZERO out of ******* 10. Stop the press, I think we have a winner.
I think the current way of balancing, i.e. doubling/halving values and then looking where that takes us approaches its limit of usefulness. I feel that a whole lot of units should get their roles defined, written out and communicated first and fitted out with according values later.
What happens if we take your idea and reverse it? Your plan makes basic fighters good at advanced bombers, but advanced fighters are good at killing basic fighters. If you flip those roles, basic fighters start to work really well for general air superiority but you need peregrines to take down the t2 bombers. I think that would make it a lot easier to get up an air force and defend yourself if the other player wins the t2 air race and tries to periodically do a peregrine sweep to deny you air.
Alternatively you can re-role the Peregrine to a kamikazi fighter. Give it like 40 HP so that Hummingbirds kill it in 1 shot. Send it in against swarms of enemy planes. It kills like 4-7 enemy planes while you only lose 1 Peregrine. No further stats need to change.* *slightly sarcastic reply
Peregrine could become a fighter/bomber, stay with me here.. missiles with good range that can hit ground and air allowing the plane to yaw away ahead of ground-aa to set up another run - it would fire high damage, low rof, and low/no area affect missiles. Presuming that bombers continue to be (hopefully, and really need to be) refined so their damage is destributed more into the area affect reducing their snip-i-ness, the peregrin could fill that role and stand in for fighters (primary air-superiority in this scenario) in a pinch but are unlikely to survive their weight in t1 fighters. The trend in balance threads calling for aircraft not to be primary counter for aircraft is frankly ludicrous IMO, not saying ground-aa and static-aa shouldn't be effective but seriously...thats like saying tanks shouldn't kill tanks.
looking at the peregrine stats... I have a feeling @scathis put the values at "max" ball park range of balance. I remember reading somewhere that he overextends a unit's abilities to know when they are too good and then eases them drops them back down to where they feel comfortable with the rest of the units. I wonder what he will do to make it not an upgrade to the T1 fighter, but maybe a supplement.
Seems we are in for whole lot of balance passes then... I got the feeling there are methods out there that might outclass trial-and-error when it comes to unit balance.
the peregrine could end up anything. lower its speed and rate, increase its range. Air gil-e lower its range really short, only average health, and make its damage and rate high. Air inferno. make its health real high but its weapons worse so it kills a hummingbird in same time they kill it, but then it heavily occupies enemy time to combat. Air vanguard. really, it was given a bad name due to unbalance. Don't damn it without a chance. Wait till its role is issued unto it.
If fighters can only shoot at different things based on what direction they are facing, then we run into a micro war like we had in SupCom. Whoever gets their fighters facing the right direction wins the engagement.
