@slicknixon said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
@ftxcommando
Let me highlight again that I'm only discussing a fuel change with regards to ASF. It doesn't follow that introducing a tempo to ASF--a fundamentally defensive unit, concerned entirely with destroying other air units--would reduce the room for maneuver or impact of said other units (it suggests the opposite, very obviously). Scouts, transports, and ground attack aircraft would retain their usefulness, and would receive an indirect buff as @Exselsior said.
FTX already directly addressed this. It discourages on going fighter screens which is what happens high level air play.
Take any 4v4 20x20 map, in this example our hypothetical map has a strong navy component because that’s my preferred way to illustrate this. You have two relatively even air players, and one makes some torps to help his navy dude. What’s going to happen in high level games is both air players will play highly aggressive with their asf - the dude with the torps positioning his to defend the torps and the other positioning trying to both snipe the enemy torps and not get caught in a bad position. This can potentially go on for a long time and is quite fun, it’s where the true air game takes place not the base sim. It’s also fairly difficult and not something you see done, or at least done well in anything other than high level games. You can replace torps with gunships, strats, and t2 bombers all are related. There’s a lot of micro going on there and doing that well has one of the highest skill caps in the game. 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.
What does fuel do to this interaction which is one of the most complex in the game? Puts a pointless time limit on it. Literally nothing else. Just a dumb time limit and then you have to manage refueling for whatever reason.
My comment about bombers and transports getting an indirect buff is a detraction of fuel not a benefit of it. There shouldn’t be inconsistencies in how units behave vs what they’re supposed to counter. And no, bombers and transports do not need a buff in the slightest.