@slicknixon said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
@exselsior said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
It follows that it reduces the usefulness of things like bombers because bombers have to be escorted by asf, and those asf have to travel further and longer than the defending asf do, meaning fuel favors the defenders when talking about late game t3 air interactions.
I agree with your reasoning here, and I appreciate you engaging with the details. I'd counter that fuel favoring the defenders is an interesting dynamic! On top of all the elements you've mentioned, it adds an offensive component to map control for the air game (via refueling stations) to match the defensive component of terrestrial AA.
Well I want to be clear on what I mean with it supporting defenders more. At t1/t2 where it currently stands it overly benefits attacking (kinda...) because often times you don't inty screen t1 bombers or transports and enemy defending inties run out out of fuel entirely too quickly. If fuel was taken away I wonder if high level play would start to screen bombers and transports more than what they currently do because there's less of a penalty to doing so. Which again, adds to the complexity of the air play. This is more of a 1v1/2v2 thing though, but it still has implications in larger team games.
At T3 that changes a bit, mostly because ASF are both far faster and have way more fuel than inties, and screening is not only common but required unless you've already won air.
It only benefits defense in the sense that now there's a limited time that the attackers can maintain their air screen to an extent, and if too many asf need to refuel they can't really attack.
Puts a pointless time limit on it. Literally nothing else. Just a dumb time limit
As it's somewhat the pillar for the rest of your argument--why is a time limit dumb? The game is full of decisions with time domain elements.
Time and timing attacks is incredibly important, strongly agree there. I'll be slightly annoying and answer your question with a question: which is more engaging and fun air play - having to manage fuel and randomly having to hold back air due to fuel constraints or having an intense back and forth where the timing plays that come up are waiting for one person to misplay and then capitalize on that, the whole time you're trying to force a misplay while making sure you're not having a misplay yourself while managing asf and torps/bombers/gunships at the same time? It gets even more interesting when the navy players are trying to get their opp to misplay and position something in a way that the air player can snipe with torps.
Being either air or navy in that situation is quite literally peak FAF for me, and is why I play a lot of Setons.
Furthermore, I picked navy intentionally for another reason - both attackers and defenders will run out of fuel at similar rates, defenders don't really have a fuel advantage in this case if the naval fight isn't close to a shore. Meaning fuel is just annoying and doesn't really do anything, other than both players have to periodically refuel some asf and hope they don't miss click and cancel the air staging order on low fuel asf.