Riot plane thought experiment

i am a lover of the airplanes in this game, however i never liked the napalm as the damage-riot option, the plane's bombs always feel like they fall too slow to really catch out a mobile troop, and the weird curved attack pattern is so uncomfortable for me to use, it's got good stats and works when used, especially if you can torch some clustered structures with low AA defense, i just personally don't like the control and feel of the napalm

SO

what i think would be super cool, is an airplane that has an air-to-ground autocannon!
basically just weld a stardust to the bottom of a slightly armored up magpie!

costing somewhere around 270ME (50 more than a stardust)
having 1000-1250HP
moving at 240-250 Elmo/s
and for weapon, the same bullets the stardust and reaver have 45 DMG 48 AOE, maybe make the projectiles go faster cause that's badass
for pattern, fire 20 rounds below in a 500 elmo long straight line, and then turn swerve after it's done firing

your only other options for instant damage airplanes are the swift, magpie, raven, or likho which are all single target or very very tight AOE attacks with the exception of the likho but the likho is not cost efficient to use as a riot unit

this may or may not be obvious but this was inspired by the A-10 warthog, gun first, jet second, as cool as it would be to have missiles on this thing too, i think the AOE autocannon will be enough for it's job, though multi-weapon units are super duper cool, zephyr & toad my beloved


what do you all think about the idea?
would you change any of the stats?
do you think it would be useful? useless?
best as an additional option for the plane factory? or a replacement for a plane like the napalm?
anything else you'd add to it?
tell me all about your thoughts about the hog!

there is a gunship stardust so its almost what you needed =P

SmokeDragon nimbus is crazy slow and doesnt have burst damage, it has sustain damage, as well as vastly less AOE on the bullets these are not the same thing at all

It's an interesting idea, but I have a few big concerns.

Does this plane go to a pad to reload? I think it can't. One bomb per reload is really easy to use. It's not that the plane couldn't technically have some depleting ammo bar, but that the UI complexity would be too much. So this plane would essentially be a ground-attack fighter.

I am not sure we want a ground attack fighter. Such a unit would be terrible at fighting in enemy territory, since it would do damage over time. It would be more vulnerable than a gunship, since it would fly at the target and would have to either fly over it or spend a lot of time turning. And presumably, as a plane, it would be faster than gunships, which would mean it should be worse than them at attacking fortified areas. So the main purpose of a ground attack plane would be to defend your own territory.

Planes already have some ability to defend your own territory. Swift groups are used to pick off raiders, Magpie can do a similar job, while Phoenix can destroy clumps and Thunderbird can disable them. The Swift/Magpie option is fairly reliable, but quite slow, while Phoenix/Thunderbird can be really effective, but require finesse and have counterplay. The area-bombers force units to spread out, which potentially lets ground forces fight them more effectively. There are choices involved in when to fire off the bombing run, and how to respond to it.

A dedicated ground attack plane would not require finesse - you would just want it to shoot at the enemy as soon as it is safe to do so, and keep shooting. Swift and Magpie have other uses, which means at least the attacking force is distracting the units that respond. Also, for the ground attack plane to be any good, it would have to be quite a bit better than Swift or Magpie, since it only has one role. So the addition of such a plane would make it harder to attack enemy territory, which doesn't seem to be a change we'd want to make, as that would make games less dynamic.