I was playing a gloriously large game the other day and found myself stymied by AI. Every time I went out on assault 100s of low tech bombers would destroy my units. Even amassing 100s of my low tech anti-air bots and vehicles along my anti-ground groups couldn't get my assault through to base. If patrol mechanics worked properly with air units its possible a group of fighters could have solved my problem, but it seems a little unbalanced if the only way to overcome large air forces is to amass a similar sized air force. This is not true of bot/vehicle/naval unit class units. Anyways, I request advanced anti-air buildings and/or advanced anti-air bot/vehicle/sea units. Also, chat does not work in game. Thats probably a known issue.
All you really need to kill 100 bombers is one fighter more than enemy has. Ground based AA isnt really meant to provide you with an impenetrabe AA and air supperiority. Its there to ward off air skirmishes. If you want to win an air battle you need fighters. Ground based AA is only there as a support. Remember, battle for Britain wasn't won with Britsh setting up 10000 aa turrets. Turrets were there, yes, but fighters carried the bulk of fighting.
Ground aa works effectively enough against t1 bombers. T2 ones need either fighters or possibly a healthy navy. Naval is balanced, and it beats all other units fairly sternly, losing only to structures which air would beat. T2 bombers have too much health, but beside that, there is more to the game than just nuke or just air or just any single unit. There is also an important strategy in using t1 early or how early to get t2.
T1 AA is fine. Built in groups of 4 it shreds single bombers to pieces. You basically need 4 AA to every bomber though, spaced out; and forget about T2 bombers. But bear in mind that T1 AA is best used to give your fabbers breathing room to get some air factories on the go. Fighters are the best AA. And then ground AA gives your fighters their own little patch of land to rest and recover
Ye cuz 4 aa per bomber is really balanced. If it was balanced then 1 aa should shred a single t1 bomber not 4. The argument that you need fighters to beat air is ridiculous. You are pretty much saying you need air to beat air so why even bother making other units then?
Because fighters and levelers cream am enemy with fighters and bombers. Also orbital and nuke with fighters cream an enemy building bombers. Also, i didn't say it was balanced. I said it wasn't overly overpowered. It isn't the win button that wins no matter what. Also, t1 is fine. They will beat the rate of fire of bombers, so 5 with a bit of space will take down like 5. And 10 with some tank friends as bullet sponges will tear down t1 air. Its t2 air that can swim and bathe in steady focused aa fire from 6 turrets or units. The point is, it's well known balance that nuke and antinuke, t2 bombers, orbital, and even artillery (really radar) are needing balance. The devs will work on it but it's pointless if they are adding new units as those need to come before balance, and it is a matter of putting in requests right now and those being worked in near the end. It is beta and beta games aren't srs business, the work being done will make suggestions become reality and good times later down the line.
1v1 may be your idea of balance but not necessarily the developers. I kind of like it as is. You build fighters and a ground army then garnish with a few grnd aa to help support your air support.
I still think that we need a t2 Flak cannon or point defense or something, something that functions differently than the SAM tower, but is more effective against T2 when used correctly. Just putting it up shouldnt guarantee victory; itll need a strategic placement or something. maybe a longer range than sight range, or something.
Because 1v1 balance means that one 1 AA kills one bomber, and 1 bomber kills 1 AA Which is what happens. But in reality, you don't want your AA to be killed by the bomber Because your opponent can deploy another bomber more quickly than you can deploy another AA. Because your AA is probably in a blob of units, so if you lose your AA, you lose multiple units it is "protecting" as well. So you want your AA to be able to destroy the bomber before it drops its bombs. The reason why you want fighters is because you can get fighters to the combat zone more quickly than you get AA, and bombers can outrun AA. If your enemy is harassing you with bombers, fighters are the way to go to chase them off. You use land AA to stop the bleeding in a localised area.
Making any ground aa is a total waste of resources atm. They are: A: Slower than fighters B: Do less damage than fighters C: Get killed by bombers D: Dont make cost. Nothing would change if ground aa where to be removed since they are utterly useless.
yeah thats all well and goo Thats all well and good if you have perfect management skills and intel. ie were looking in the right place at the right time and could see bombers coming 100% of the time. for the rest of us, i think we'll build both. just so bombers dont pummel you for free waiting for the flyboys to show up. Timur the Lame summed it up pretty well with (also, slower than fighter is a totally irrelevant point. you only use them for defending troops from attack. i can see yours being a good argument were they slower than the majority of the mobile ground troops. but whatya know, they arent. so they can perform their support role to the best of their ability.)
The problem is, "build one more than your opponent." If PA is simply, "build one more than your opponent" then PA has failed. It's not a strategy game, it's an economy game. There must be variety and effective counters other than "build one more than your opponent." With the current state, there is not an acceptable counter to air – because "build more fighters than your opponent" is not an acceptable counter.
Land AA can't be killed by fighters. Fighters can be decimated by land AA. 10,000 absentees or 10 present? No because then the balance is too much in favour of AA vehicles. As it is, 1 bomber can reliably kill 1 AA vehicle. (well as it was, before the last patch) The problem is that fighters kill fighters in 1 shot, missiles appear to automatically home in on a new target and missiles always hit their intended target. So a huge blob of fighters can't overkill a target by focus firing. 5 doxes generally win against 4 doxes. Unless the 5 doxes miss a few shots, which frequently does happen. Whereas fighters are perfectly accurate all of the time.
Fighters decimated by land AA? No! And that's one of the big problems. A Hummingbird has 50 HP wile a Spinner only has 20 DPS, which means a spinner can only destroy Hummingbirds once every two and a half seconds. While at the same time, one Hornet can destroy at least 10 spinners with one bomb, and since a Hornet has 400 HP, that's 8 seconds for a Spinner to shoot down a Hornet. AA vehicles are way under powered – particularly when Hornet are on the field. And then if you send a swarm of fighters in to absorb the AA, any ground AA is completely worthless. As for the Missile Defense Tower, that does 40 DPS. So that's one and a half seconds to destroy a single Hummingbird. Right now, Hummingbirds are the only good way to destroy Hummingbirds. Peregrines are a thing, but Hornets are just way better, so building Peregrines (most of the time) isn't a good decision. Ground AA needs a boost. Or Bombers need a nerf. Or there needs to be flack artillery. Or something. Edit: Personally I'd prefer it if Missile Defense Towers got a boost to 50 damage per shot, 1 shot per second and could only shoot at air units. Edit 2: Forgot to mention that Hummingbirds cost less metal than ground AA, making them all the more effective and making ground AA all the more obsolete.
Ground AA does count, but not really. It is way under powered and pretty much pointless. Air units are much faster than ground AA, making them more more versatile. Also, ground AA's DPS is incredibly slow. So you're better off building a higher DPS fighter for less metal that is faster, than building a ground AA. And the biggest problem really is mobility. If you're being bombed on one side of your base, that side will be destroyed before your ground AA can get over there. With fighters, they'll be over there in seconds. What's more, bombers can destroy ground AA. Bombers can't destroy fighters. So often the ground AA will die to the bomber it destroys, leaving all the other bombers able to destroy anything they want. So in short. Ground AA is there – but way under powered for many reasons.
