Air Defense Heavy

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    • Air Defense Heavy

      Heavies are powerful. They have great range and great capabilities, along with equivalent costs and high build requirements. However, they have another common attribute: they are all utterly destitute of AA capability. In real life, there exist air defense planes built on “heavy” type airframes. Therefore, I submit to the consideration of the forum strategists an air defense heavy similar to the American YAL-1. It would be best at taking down missiles, then fighters, then helicopters, perhaps 4-2-1 or similar with a range of 50 or so. I stress that this is not definitively intended to make it to the game, I am simply asking for your thoughts and comments regarding the idea. What do you think about feasibility, affect on the meta, utility, balancing, and the other aspects and affects of adding such an aircraft?

    • An Air-Sam is maybe a BIT too OP, even with my fantasies of ridiculous wunderwaffen i like to joke about :D

      *Never forget the day i rickrolled the Devs by claiming that Awacs launching Ballistic missiles were actually a thing and went to the prototype*
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.

    • Air branch is op esspecially strike fighters. We don't need more air units but instead very mobile ground anti air like NG. Unit that can travel by planes from day 1. Not strong, weak and cheap quickly to be build and to move/relocate.
      Why?
      Because right now as I said air game play is op, esspecially strike fighters. There is almost no way to defend against player who spam strikes+some asf. Yes we have mobile anti air unit that is slow and can't even scratch planes if not in big numbers. Who would do that.

      And every player who use strikes will just change target and obliterate next city.
      Ground players don't have a chance.

      Sams are slower to spam in big number and are slow. Yet again your enemy can change target and bomb another city.

      Main problem is strikes are omnipotent. They can do everything. Esspecially damage to the buildings is problematic for first 7-8 days. It should be reduced to 0.5 because you can damage very badly any city in 2-3 runs.

      That been said, quick, cheap, weak, mobile unit with posibility to travel by transport plane and can be quickly deployed on different front is very much needed.
      My proposal is stinger type, infantry unit.

    • Anti-Air units work perfectly against airunits
      strikefighters are probably the most fragile of airunits (fixed wing in general tho) because pretty much everything with ranged anti air capabilites is able to target them

      especially early on AA is fairly cheap if needed:
      - Asf need only 30 minutes to be researched and FH1+AI to build, tho they're a more active counter to SF
      - mobile anti-air needs 30 minutes to research and require AB1+RI to build (tho it really is meant to be used against helis)
      - even frigs work as early AA

      - sams are pretty much your ultimate counter to fixed wing units:
      - 100 range --> enables to protect units in a bigger radius, also makes it more likely SF will take an offensive tick due to their low speed
      - good damage --> they easily outtrade strikefighters (especially eastern sams with their damage bonus)
      - extremly mobile --> airlift at T2, airassault at lvl 5 (they can shoot during disembarkemnt from airassault, making them even stronger
      - "short" production time (like 1h longer than MAA, but still fairly quick to produce)


      Imo there are only 2 "overpowered" air units
      - helisstacks with elitehelis when mixed properly (the dmg mitigation is actually insane)
      - awacs


      sure; the lack of transport capabilites early on is a bit annoying; but then again, most units dont gain airlift until at least T2
      and tbh: early on you usually dont have that big of a territory that airlift would be required


      Sf only appear to be OP because no one ever really builds anti air/asf and if they do they usually dont upgrade them :D
      I am The Baseline for opinions

    • Teburu wrote:

      Anti-Air units work perfectly against airunits
      strikefighters are probably the most fragile of airunits (fixed wing in general tho) because pretty much everything with ranged anti air capabilites is able to target them

      especially early on AA is fairly cheap if needed:
      - Asf need only 30 minutes to be researched and FH1+AI to build, tho they're a more active counter to SF
      - mobile anti-air needs 30 minutes to research and require AB1+RI to build (tho it really is meant to be used against helis)
      - even frigs work as early AA

      - sams are pretty much your ultimate counter to fixed wing units:
      - 100 range --> enables to protect units in a bigger radius, also makes it more likely SF will take an offensive tick due to their low speed
      - good damage --> they easily outtrade strikefighters (especially eastern sams with their damage bonus)
      - extremly mobile --> airlift at T2, airassault at lvl 5 (they can shoot during disembarkemnt from airassault, making them even stronger
      - "short" production time (like 1h longer than MAA, but still fairly quick to produce)


      Imo there are only 2 "overpowered" air units
      - helisstacks with elitehelis when mixed properly (the dmg mitigation is actually insane)
      - awacs


      sure; the lack of transport capabilites early on is a bit annoying; but then again, most units dont gain airlift until at least T2
      and tbh: early on you usually dont have that big of a territory that airlift would be required


      Sf only appear to be OP because no one ever really builds anti air/asf and if they do they usually dont upgrade them :D
      Indeed; I always build early ASF before I have the big production facilities for the higher build requirements necessary for strikes and I’ve never had problems with other people doing strikes early game. I’m even getting ready to fight a guy with five strike squadrons - on day 3 - and I’m not even concerned. Why? I have two ASF squadrons up and another’s coming out soon. If you build solid AA/ASF, no worries with strikes. Even if you build your own strikes in enough numbers they won’t be much trouble. That’s the real problem: a lack of anti air capability. Land armies wouldn’t do very well against multiple strike squadrons without substantial anti air.

    • - helisstacks with elitehelis when mixed properly (the dmg mitigation is actually insane)

      As you can expect reasonably from a group that is designed to have more than 100 hp but to not lose ANY unit until the whole group reaches ~5 HP :D
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.

    • sf op seriously? like early sfs ur taking about are just trash 4 damage? 2 asfs can same damage while being pretty much invincible.

      The best units in the game surely include the asf not the sf
      asf pretty much kill every thing after they unlock missiles except sams of course.

      lvl 1 aa ( which is not for sf at all) give more damage to sf than vice versa!
      sf is only good at high tiers getting good damage but they are really vulnerable like u can't go to sea afraid of frigates can't attack random stack afraid of sams and can't fly out of ur region afraid of asfs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      the sf air attack sucks asfs will give u like 5 times more damage and choppers usually are in highly mixed stack so not really of much help but not bad.

    • abdul_the_brave wrote:

      sf op seriously? like early sfs ur taking about are just trash 4 damage? 2 asfs can same damage while being pretty much invincible.

      The best units in the game surely include the asf not the sf
      asf pretty much kill every thing after they unlock missiles except sams of course.

      lvl 1 aa ( which is not for sf at all) give more damage to sf than vice versa!
      sf is only good at high tiers getting good damage but they are really vulnerable like u can't go to sea afraid of frigates can't attack random stack afraid of sams and can't fly out of ur region afraid of asfs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      the sf air attack sucks asfs will give u like 5 times more damage and choppers usually are in highly mixed stack so not really of much help but not bad.
      key difference is:
      - asf deal next to no dmg vs armor
      - max dmg output of them vs ground units is 8/6
      - their dmg doesnt scale with lvls, but only with each Tier they gain
      I am The Baseline for opinions

    • When i think i advocated for a pop-in to appear when using T1 asf to attack ground.

      "ASF deal VERY low damages to ground units, and if they have anti-air you are mincemeat. Are you positively sure you want to do that ?" :D
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.

    • yes but they can carry missiles. Having such air defense is more than enough. I used to use them but its kinds boring using them i missile and air defense and air attack and some times in scouting .
      I don't say they will attack ground units I mean early its not a huge difference at lvl 1 which he argued about. They lose 50% of the their attack to be capable of attacking other air units.
      Also after the elite heli they became more of a must than just too good.

    • I was talking about ground vs air players, not air vs air. Ofc you can defend with asf.
      Sam is good anti air but there is higher requirement.
      Basicly in day 7 air player can have stack of 5 strikes and probably 2 asf. While ground player can have max 3 sam and 1 starting asf. That's if he is dedicated to producing sam's but who would do that?
      Even if he create second asf he will loose because air player will probably lvl up at least strikes.
      He can't defend more than 2 cities effectively because air player can afford to attack directly where one sam is located at least once. Than to go back home to heal. Ground player can't heal quickly enough every unit because of traveling time and that he need to abandon city that he protect.
      Also I don't talk about late games but about beginnings. In late games there are a lot of varieties, different coalitions and production is higher.
      In early games for air player it's not a problem if enemy defend 1 or 2 cities, he will quickly go for other cities and its the end for dedicated ground player.
      All that assuming ground player is defensive. If he is offensive, his cities back home are ruins in 2-3 hours.

      I am sometimes dedicated air player that's why I say this.

      Btw asf is not meant to attack ground units and will do it poorly.

    • Zemunelo wrote:

      I was talking about ground vs air players, not air vs air. Ofc you can defend with asf.
      Sam is good anti air but there is higher requirement.
      Basicly in day 7 air player can have stack of 5 strikes and probably 2 asf. While ground player can have max 3 sam and 1 starting asf. That's if he is dedicated to producing sam's but who would do that?
      Even if he create second asf he will loose because air player will probably lvl up at least strikes.
      He can't defend more than 2 cities effectively because air player can afford to attack directly where one sam is located at least once. Than to go back home to heal. Ground player can't heal quickly enough every unit because of traveling time and that he need to abandon city that he protect.
      Also I don't talk about late games but about beginnings. In late games there are a lot of varieties, different coalitions and production is higher.
      In early games for air player it's not a problem if enemy defend 1 or 2 cities, he will quickly go for other cities and its the end for dedicated ground player.
      All that assuming ground player is defensive. If he is offensive, his cities back home are ruins in 2-3 hours.

      I am sometimes dedicated air player that's why I say this.

      Btw asf is not meant to attack ground units and will do it poorly.
      seems to me that at this point you’re just trying to create an scenario that entirely the point you’re so desperately trying to make
      I am The Baseline for opinions

    • Teburu wrote:

      Stratieon wrote:

      I submit to the consideration of the forum strategists an air defense heavy similar to the American YAL-1
      :D

      Stratieon wrote:

      It would be best at taking down missiles, then fighters, then helicopters, perhaps 4-2-1 or similar with a range of 50 or so
      so basically a flying SAM?
      Heavies are just big targets ... only good for bombing frontline. The sell tag of penetrate and bomb deep into enemy territory is a lie. Thats why bombers are not really used in Real life any more. SAM technology and advanced Fighters make them obsolete and their role can be accomplished via muti purpose aircraft like F-35's or drones or missiles.

      granted just skimmed this stuff ; but saw someone wanting anti SAM or AA well i guess higher levels could have "countermeasures" that limited AA damage but still their low HP value still getting splashdown. And any Bomber coming my way is getting taken out by my planes.

      To me Heavies (all of them biggest waste of resources in game. Maybe Navy patrol worth on defense but so single purpose.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp