The problem with fighter planes

Hmm.

I personally want to see the "air units as power projection from a static base" model be tried out first, but setting that aside for the moment as it's a different paradigm to consider, and may well serve fine simply as a control scheme independent of a design structure:

I would like to work from basic principles and figure out what air units should be like. It's great to consider these other implementations and all, but honestly I'm not seeing a single one (aside from the above one I set aside) that's not got some flaws or is already overdone in some way. In any case, it's a lot easier to think about and discuss this once we're all on the same paper insofar as what we think air should be doing in the first place.

To that end, what requirements and niche does air need to fulfill? Hell, it might be a good idea to hash that out for each unit layer in general (Air/Land/Orbital/Underwater) but that's another thread that anyone is free to start (I will if there's any interest).

I would say that the core reasons to use air should be mobile support. This has 2 aspects; the "logistics" support of mobile flying engineers/scouting/land (and some sea?) unit transport, and offensive support of precise strikes on infrastructure via bomber raiding and fire support with gunships.

Note that the key word there is "support". Air alone should have a difficult time acting like a land army, because if it did then why pick a land army when you can build an air one and get around faster?

Now, with this definition of air in hand and a rough idea of the effect air should have in the rest of the game, we can answer the questions of, what (if any) options should we have for air-to-air combat? IMO it should be an extension of support; fighters should offer a way to thin enemy air forces/shut down unescorted logistics support craft, but only in conjunction with land units and without taking over and becoming a swiss army knife for air problems.

As for an anti-fighter-fighter, that seems dumb. It poses some of the same issues that experimentals do (other unit obsolesence/uselessness dichotomy), and offers little in return (I honestly can't think of a feasible way to justify an ASF that can't dunk slower, more fragile support units if it can kill off interceptors)

Now, as for the support aspect which I identified as key: I'm really interested in the concept of requiring land units to designate/"spot" targets for air units. For instance, you need artillery, a destroyable package dropped from a scout, or radar to lock onto a target (whichever makes more sense) for bombers to bomb it, you need tanks or kbots to spot for gunships, and you would need antiair on the ground to designate targets for fighters to shoot. This really ties together the two layers in an interesting way IMO, and keeps air from dominating by virtue of sheer mobility.

Did my wall of text crit everyone into speechlessness or something? :O

Forward facing machine guns that requires the fighter to align with its' target makes head to head directions be more like a chicken race, head to side directions gives the attacker less time to fire before the target sweeps out of its target envelope while head to tail maximize the time the target remains in the targeting envelope.
Physics on missiles can very well have big implications that makes getting on the tail much more effective than from the side.
A seeking missile:
If the missile doesn't have that much faster turn rate or are can't pull many more gees(g-force) than the airplane, the airplane can dodge the missile much better from the front or the side than from the tail.
If missiles have a lock-on time before they can be fired it is also most effective to be on the tail as that gives most time to lock on to the target for the attacker.
A seeking and leading missile:
A missile that leads its' target and aims where the target aircraft will be on impact is a lot harder to dodge even from the side.
However by trying to outrun it or jinxing, if the missile have limited fuel, you can you can force the missile to use up its' fuel, lose speed and therefore maneuverability and be able to dodge it easier then.
The exhaust of fighter yet is typically the largest signature for a heat seeking missiles to rely on. If a missile is approaching from any other direction than from behind the exhaust heat is obscured and the missile can be spoofed easier by flares.

Just implement real physics here. It works well on the Spring engine.

The faster the plane goes the faster the theoretical turn rate is. However there is a limit to how much G-force the plane can withstand. Typically in real life the pilot is the limit. However on an unmanned plane I'd imagine that the structure integrity is the limit.

Anyway, turning causes drag and drag causes the plane to reduce speed. As the planes lose speed, they lose maneuverability which makes them turn slower. A dogfight between 2 equally matched planes spiraling downwards towards the ground might take a while,
and this leaves them basically sitting ducks against other planes able to swoop down and get on their tail easily.

Clouds interfering with missile lock sounds interesting when you have some fighters based mostly on direct fire weapons like machine guns and other fighters based mostly on missiles.
The angle of the sun sounds hard to utilize.
Wind and weather sounds abstract. I have seen ideas of thunderstorms and blizzards but I dunno if they are good.

Yeah, physics all the way.

Energy management on planes sounds like it is hard to do right. Offcourse if your planes is flying low because they have been dogfighting or doing strafing runs against ground targets they should offcourse be slowed down when they try gain back their height making them easier targets for other aircraft.

This is basically implemented in the game NOTA on the Spring engine. On most air units you can choose if they fly low or high. Only a few inaccurate AA types can reach high altitude. Usually you want most of your planes on high altitude to avoid AA but sometimes you want to lure down the enemy fighters into your ground AA by flying on low altitude.

It pretty much works like this in NOTA except the clouds and the wind.

I don't know what to say.
I don't know how potent air units will be in PA.
I kinda proposed a RPS with my Interceptor, Fighter and Long Range Fighter.
Feel free to discuss it.

Plug in limited fuel system with the air units I proposed with Interceptors having short strike range and Long Range Fighter having long strike range.

Line of Sight usually have this effect. Without reliable intel you might not want to expose your expensive air units to destroy a few ground units.
Limiting air units capability of providing LoS could be a way.
Laser designating targets with ground units could be another way.

I actually really like the way air was used in Command & Conquer Generals. Basically, you can't spam aircrafts - you need an airstrip which can support x number of aircraft. If you wanted a bigger airforce, you need more airstrips. Thing is, your opponent could cripple your airforce, by attacking your airstrips. Also, air units have a very limited number of ammunition, which meant that they would have to be very specific in what they wanted to target, and then return to resupply.

I realize that this model can't be used in PA, i just wanted to point out a very good implementation of airforce in a strategy game.

Oh, it most certainly can be used to some extent. Ammo alone forces aircraft to retreat and line up for their air support pads. Fewer pads mean longer lines, which directly hurts your air power.

IMO, F-Zero had the coolest way to repair things fast. It used a repair strip that you simply ride over. Each vehicle gets a few seconds of repair and rearming. If there's too much damage, it has to fly in for another pass. No landing necessary.

In fact, the naval yard in the backer's lounge could pass for such a facility. Hmm...

I like the way discussion has gone so far. Remember that both ASFs counter ASFs as well as ground-based defenses (SAM, Flak).

As for repair, because PA is using what is essentially the nanolathe, why not have a gigantic pool filled with nanites and just have units land in it. Aircraft lands in pool of nanites, nanites surround and repair it, hydraulics launch the aircraft a few feet in the air, and the aircraft does a vertical take off. Aircraft now has full ammo, full health, and a shiny new paintjob. Or better yet, just have a structure that does area repair for all units; aircraft lands in the structure's area-of-effect, gets a dose of nanolathe, and takes off again good as new.

What is wrong with the way they are in FA? They rule the sky with no competition as they should until they get over a base where flak can shoot the crap out of them. Perfect no?

Doesn't sound very perfect to me.

ASFs are the biggest problem left in FAForever. Here's a good place to start if you want to know what's wrong with them.

To sum it up, once ASF are in the sky, it is spam-fest. If you aren't spamming ASF, you just lost Air Superiority. SAMs are the only ground-based AA capable of scratching ASF (and bear in mind, that's all they do; scratch them), while Flak and T1 AA are left entirely useless.

The idea behind this 'Unit X kills Unit Y but is killed by Unit Z' is that it's never a spam-fest; it's countering and prediction, which is always more interesting than spam and microing economy.

For example, Player A builds 10 ASF, and 2 Bombers.
Player B builds 10 Interceptors and 2 Bombers. Assume both players have equivalent economy and skills.

Player B's Inteceptors kill Player A's 2 bombers, and then are killed by Player A's ASF. However, the ASF's weapons aren't powerful enough to pierce Player B's Bomber's thick armor, and the bombers are able to inflict damage before they are destroyed. Player A is left with 10 ASF.

Player B builds ground-based AA to counter Player A's air superiority, and fighter-bombers. Player A switches to Interceptor production for fear of another bombing run, with ASF to protect them.

Player B attacks with ground-based AA, and kills Player A's ASFs. Player B's fighter-bombers then sweep in and, with combined fire from ground-based AA, catches Player A's inteceptors and ASFs off guard and kills them. Player B is left with ground-based AA and slightly less fighter-bombers than he started off with. Player B's fighter bombers attack now-vulnerable key strategic points, specifically, energy generators.

Player A is now vulnerable to attack from the air, ground and sea. He has lost air superiority and economy, not because he didn't spam enough units, but because he didn't build the right units. If he had scouted and built ground-based AA, or Point Defenses to defend against ground based AA, he would have successfully defended and been able to retaliate.

It just adds a lot of variety. In FAF, it's pretty much "Oh ****, that dude has bombers! QUICKLY BUILD ASF LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW!1!!1one"

While RPS is one way to have definite game balance, it is extremely damaging to a game's depth. Many ideas to RPS the air game aren't effective because they're incomplete solutions to fundamental problems. Fast units are great, and flying units are great, and cheap units are great, and strong units are great. The problem is that all four attributes were given to the ASF. It just. Doesn't. Work. The high speed, high endurance, and low cost of the ASF gives it no real weaknesses to worry about.

PA emphasizes strict damage values, and a central money resource, which severely limits how a unit can be balanced against other threats. Good solutions involve effective tradeoffs between various unit attributes, abusing the limits of the physics engine, and limiting roles where air units reign supreme. If a player can buy a unit, he will almost always resort to buying the fastest, most mobile and efficient version of that unit.

I think the most obvious solution is to simply give ground AA a decent amount of splash damage. It prevents massing of air, but allows for surgical strikes and large forces to still be effective.

The idea is that there should be diminishing returns on buying more and more and more of something. AOE is a great way to create diminishing returns. Another idea is to have air units not allow themselves to stack, creating a somewhat realistic system where airspace is actually a thing and not just a term.

I agree with high-level AA having AoE. I never understood why SAM turrets had no AoE in Supreme Commander.

if they had splash damage all the air forever would have died.

Not always true. One way is to make splash damage not 100%, meaning the main target gets hit for 100%, and splash does maybe 10-15% to an area surrounding. And high level air units should be able to withstand most of the splash AA, it would just be enough to where having 200 air units would mean they would all die about the same time.

My ideal is that if you have ENOUGH ground AA, only surgical strikes would be able to affect you. Air attacks en masse, especially with things like gunships, should NEVER be effective on a turtled base. The only air that should work on a turtle are things like highspeed bombers, and they're likely to die after they get payload off (think aurora bomber from CnC generals). Air should be for harassing undefended areas and undefended units. The high mobility air offers should be offset by being counterable through using AA units and turrets/missiles.

In the event of super rich players, I think AA should beat air armies.

I agree with this. Air has always been a force MULTIPLIER, not a straight-up force. A lot of games forget this, a good example would be C&C3 where you could literally win the game with nothing but air units.

I mean yes, air can be used for snipes, on anything of value, be it mass points, energy generators, or overextending commanders, but we should never have gunships fighting off entire armies (covered by Flak AA), just because the gunships have ASF supporting them. Nor should we ever have a swarm of air units overrunning a heavily defended base, JUST because the base builder couldn't be arsed to spam ASF into oblivion himself.

I would think about a "real life" approach. What makes air forces in real life war situations so important? why do real armies not only rely on aircrafts? You will probably find a lot of ideas through that, of which some might be good and some wont be good for a RTS game.

• high damage output, but looooow dps, meaning, bombers and fighter/bombers need a long recharge time. In real life they come in, drop their load of bombs or shoot their ammo and then they have to retreat. in SupCom it was tried to make that via fuel, which was a pain in the ***, mainly because the refuel station sucked, and because it was hard to oversee. But introducing recharge time for bombers might work, just like for artillery, with quite immense energy drain
• incredibly fast, but incrediblie fragile: Their velocity makes it possible to use air units all over the map within a few seconds, but if there is a little anti air resistance it should be futile. Problem is, if the map is not incredibly huge, it will be quite short time until the whole enemy base is protected by anti air.
• specialised units, but so expensive: stealth, tank hunter, bunker buster, but high cost (e.g. 1 hour of flying Eurofighter: 74000€ = 96000$)
• PA would profit if air units are like in real life: instead of patroling 200 interceptors and 20 ASF, stopping 20 bombers, your 5 ASF will be able to intercept the enemy 5 bombers if detected early. how could that work? A lot of other games managed this by having limited air unit slots. building airfields worked in C&C Generals or Empire Earth for example. And airfields would both work as a repair station and refuel/resupply (if this would make it in the game). Of course an airfield in PA would not support 4 or 5 aircraft but maybe 20, so that you still can have massive air, but the cost would not be neglegtible, as the airfield drains energy just for having the aircraft being active
• despite the fact, that fuel in SupCom was quite a pain for the player, in the end, fuel is the only thing that makes it realistically and effectively possible to balance aircraft. It will mean more "micro" managament. Airfields would be a possible way to refuel, but also you could think about mobile refuel stations, when planes land next to them, they get refueled. Instead of the way planes without fuel worked in supcom (being extremly slow and useless) I imagine planes in PA with no fuel (which would be actually only low fuel) would still be able to fly at maximum speed, but less maneuverable and not able to attack anyhting. This would mean, you can send them to the refuel station and they wont need 1 year to complete this task.

I agree with a lot of what you said.

Personally, I would be fine with an ammo system, similar to Command and Conquer (dating back to the very first one with Orcas). There are quite a few pros to this system:

1. Air units can strike once, maybe twice, per trip. You can't take an airforce and just go to town on entire bases (unless you have a fleet of bombers, which I definitely plan on doing ) If you discover a new enemy force while in flight, you then have to decide, destroy the new target, or continue on to old target? Once you kill one, you'll have to go back and reload (unless you have enough to kill both)
2. It prevents AIRSPAM, as each unit has to rearm their weapons individually at airbases. Obviously this would be automated and probably multiple units at a time, but it would still create downtime to prevent hordes of air from being able to attack frequently. The larger your airforce, the less frequent it should attack (or the more airbases you should have to use). Rearming should be a decent cost in both resources and time (not crazy high though)
3. It would cause air units to be very effective when used. If something has two missiles, you can bet they're going to do good damage. Bunker busters to clear out the pesky big berthas, or a fleet of gunships to deal with those mobile artillery. I imagine planes having specific uses.

**If it's something like a gunship, it could have batteries which last a while, but eventually will need to go home. Obviously there should be bombers which are huge and slow and have hundreds of bombs (or a few really big ones).

So yeah, the "ammo" idea. Definitely changes the way air works as a whole. I like it. You don't have to.

+1 for ammo