Why I think T3 air is badly designed

since we are necroing, I would suggest that the reasons asf are ultimate unit for air control (which sounds close to definition of overpowered to me) are few:

• air ignores unit to unit collisions, allowing massive number of units and thus firepower to be packed in tiny areas, allowing asf to deliver ridiculous damage (ex. 200 asf deleting a full hp czar in <1 second) compared to every other layer of combat
• t2 fighter/bombers may as well be renamed to t2 bombers, because fighter part of them is worse than even t1 air, which they lose to mass for mass and have worse (aa) dps and hp per mass as well, so you are forced to rush t3 or lose to enemy doing so because t2 adds nothing to fight air with and t1 dies in 1 shot to asf while also being slower and lower damage/mass and lower weapon range and lower fuel capacity, aka worse in every way except hp/mass
• there are zero experimental units designed specifically for fighting air

1. Not sure we can easily add collisions.
2. T2 fighters bombers are not weak. The notha and corsair will arguable lose mass to mass vs interceptors as they have stronger ground weaponary. However, take the Janus they 2 hit inti's, have good aoe ground and in groups can fight asf. 10 janus can probably wipe 5 asf if micro'd well meaning they are formidable in the correct hands. T2 air can be used with late t3 air as the "bomber" part can wipe your enemy air by destroying pgens, mexes and factories.
3. I mean the czar is pretty damn strong for fighting air. Keep it behind your asf, and micro it back to keep it at the edge of its range and you basically have 4/5 sams firing non-stop into the enemy air.

Never experienced washer bomb into ur asf cloud I see

@lord_asmodeus said in Why I think T3 air is badly designed:

I mean the czar is pretty damn strong for fighting air. Keep it behind your asf, and micro it back to keep it at the edge of its range and you basically have 4/5 sams firing non-stop into the enemy air.

The speed and HP along with the high amount of burst damage that comes from an ASF swarm make it easy to wipe out a CZAR in two passes, and the CZAR's firing range and acceleration isn't great for zoning tbh. The way you win air is because the CZAR is a damage sink for the enemy ASF and then you can sweep in and get free shots with your own. At high unit counts the Sams are useless cuz they have no AOE

Maybe ASF shouldn't cost less mass than t2 land and t2 air units while getting 75% energy cost reduction from adjacency.

@thomashiatt

Obviously ASF are made with a low density construction to allow their high speed, meaning they take less mass. But the precision needed to 3D print their design means it takes a high amount of computing power (energy). Same reason ships cost high mass and lower energy proportionally

People still not taken my first post into consideration yet.

Kill your enemy before t3 air stage.

Problem solved.

Imagine thinking that a strategy is fine if the only way to beat is to go completely all-in.

I was conceptualizing units for a laser weapons oriented faction, and was thinking how I could make their ASFs unique, and one idea I had is an ASF with omni-directional fire (or at least being able to fire from front and back), but ofc with reduced DPS to compensate.

One other method of adding flavour to ASF is to add a bit of diversity to their weapons. I don't think you can make it work by changing their speed or health dramatically, but weapons could work. One example of that is above - omni directional weapons.
For another example, you could give Cybran ASFs double or even triple range, at the cost of DPS - they fire missiles, might as well make them fly a bit further. Aeon could get some AOE. UEF could get flares, so anti-air missiles aren't as effective or something.

I mean you could always play with movement speed, acceleration and maneuverability, but that seems like a lot of 4th digit adjustments for a long period of time - not that the aforementioned weapon changes would be easy, but at least they feel somewhat inspired.

Anyways, these kinds of changes would mean you'd approach different ASF fights differently depending on the faction you are playing, which I'd argue is the core 'problem' the now-presumably-inactive OP actually had - every faction was the same, and there was no dynamics to the air game - just get to T3 asap, and then spam the living hell out of ASFs.

I mean the problem is not only with the ASFs, the only 'outliers' in the whole air lineup is the Mercy, given it's quite unique only to the Aeon - everything else is somewhat present in all/most factions. Which ofc you need so one faction is not inherently stronger, but it kinda feels ASFs are that much more bland. Like the biggest diversity in units characteristics are T1 and T2 bombers, but again they are not viable the moment T3 hits the game (which is usually rushed, so useful for a very short time).

That doesn’t change anything. You still spam ASF and only ASF in late game. It just results in the potential of not risking fights at certain quantities for certain factions or (god willing) one faction being strictly better or worse than others.

All t3 air needs is an aoe gunship that is slow, expensive, and low rate of fire while also having decent range and damage attached to the missile.

I mean, if you allow for T2/T3 mAA to fire when carried by transports...

That isn’t slow nor expensive nor low ROF.

Though I'm now noticing I failed to mention - if you do push the ASF into that kind of 'diversity' territory, then you could push for them to be more expensive and not a spam unit, so much so as to allow for other non-t3 units to exist in the air once first ASFs arise.

Also, if you can't imagine it, changes like what I suggested, or other of the 'weapon' type, could push smart micro into the forefront, allowing for players to actually find it more viable to save on mass and energy to build other units (say bombers, but whatever your heart desires). Like the range upgrade for the Cybran could allow for a cybran player to, with enough micro, win with inferior numbers of ASFs. And sure, you'd still have the problem of 'well someone can still spam ASF', yes, but at least you are opening up avenues for different approaches to air superiority game. Like yeah you could spam ASF, or you could micro them and afford yourself more eco or a bomber strike force, or extra ground/navy support with gunships/torps.

Ofc, I'm just thinking out loud here, I'm not a pro player, so maybe my insights aren't deep enough to grasp what kind of situations these kinds of changes could bring.

There are some simple things that could be done to some air units to make early air play more interesting.

1. Increase the speed of T1 Interceptors.

As the name suggests they are an interceptor, that cant catch up or intercept anything past T1 phase, this would make them more effective against the ever so devestating early strat rush. If your air player is behind this means the game is not won or lost or as reliant and one player to be good at one specific thing like rushing t3 air.

2. Increase proficiency of T2 Fighters/Bombers, 10% fighter/90% bomber to be 50%Fighter/50% bomber

T2 Air is used for mainly for one purpose and that is to snipe coms or in full share to snipe mexes/power thats it. If they were better at air it would be a better reason for more players investing in t2 air, and a good defence against again the early strat rush maybe reduce there bomb damage a little also,

the only T2 main anti air, air unit is the swift wind and that cant be produced in high enough quantitys to really be that effective, as by the time you have ten the other team will have T3, with a roll off time of 40s compared to 25s for T1 and T3

I gotta feeling you never actually used janus or notha to contest t3 air if you’re asking to buff their AA. Also buffing int speed to deal with strats now makes drops almost impossible to accomplish.

@FtXCommando forgive my ignorance but wouldnt say 10 janus although i undertsand they are good at air-air fighting for a T2 unit but wouldnt they get asbolutely wrecked by 10 ASF? and the build time is about triple that of an ASF.

If you mean trying to deny a T3 air factory with T2 bombers, i have tried that with limited succes as they are very weak to flak and shields and the HQ health is very high.

Perhaps reducing the health of a T3 air factory would go some way into denying/punishing an early T3 rush?

Although i have had some succes fighting early T3 with a large number of T1 inties but that only takes you so far.

Personaly i think buffing the fighter aspect of T2 air would be the most reasonable change, reducing build time and reducing bomber damage but increasing aa damage and speed or somehting like that.

I may open this subject in the balance column get peaoples thaughts.

You can get 10 janus out when 1st ASF is out. You keep forcing bad engagements and as long as you outnumber ASF 4:1 or so you won't lose air. I've managed to maintain air control for like 35 minutes in game by doing this.

Buff the AA of t2 air and you basically turn them into the new ASFs where it's impossible to counter them with anything that isn't t2 bombers. Frankly it's easier to counter ASF with t2 air than it is to counter t3 land with t2 land.

ASF just cost too little mass and build too quickly, upping both by a about a third would go a long way to making them feel less instantly oppressive against lower tiers but still dominate once you have numbers, a bit more like how swifties work.

Strat could get a nerf to power cost, so you basically need the t3 pgen before you can rush it

@black_wriggler said in Why I think T3 air is badly designed:

ASF just cost too little mass and build too quickly, upping both by a about a third would go a long way to making them feel less instantly oppressive against lower tiers but still dominate once you have numbers, a bit more like how swifties work.

Once you have a T3 air grid up, yes. When the T3 air HQ is first up, no. On the other hand, SAMs are extremely effective at local air control.

Before T3, combating T2 bombers without air can be quite hard. If you have T2 land and pgen + shields already, fine, or if you can directly attack the enemy base, but otherwise... you need about 2 T1 AA turrets per corsair to defend which is 3/4 the mass, assuming they are spread enough not to take splash damage. Vs Janus it's probably worse (unless really spread out). This is too expensive except as a very specific counter around a single base. T2 flak turrets aren't really better in terms of mass, except maybe with larger numbers due to the higher chance of hitting other T2 bombers. T1 MAA is a cheaper counter, but also has very little armour so you need to spread them out and have lots.

Also noticed in testing: a corsair can kill a T1 AA turret in one pass fairly reliably if on a straight approach from far. But the default attack runs are very short with corsair missiles fired just as the unit finishes the turn, and in this case the turret takes only about half the damage.