Zephyr (AA Ship) is trash, completely useless

Sorry to use such colourful words but its true.

Had 8-10 Zepyr in a half-circle formation shooting Likho that bombed a target in the middle of that circle - Likho got away with over 80% hp. Even against Pickets it would probably be dead after this, but Zephyr just hit fuckall absolutely nothing.
Same with Swifts.
Maybe against GS they have some limited use but damn. Thats ridiculous.
No doubts about it, Angler and Flail are about 100x better than this crap.

Ships vs Hover often means a lot of kiting the enemy for Ships, same to a lesser degree vs Amphibs.
So building short-ranged stationary AA is really out of the question.
Only option to reliably kill Air as a Ships player is terraforming and doing Artemis then. Is that a good thing? I don't think so.

I suggest overhauling Zephyr and giving it same Flak as Ettin (Tankfactory AA). Or adding some missile to it or whatever.

Want replay?
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/702567
9:25 - 2 Zepyhr, 8 Raven - all Ravens survive.
10:40 - same again, this time one of the Zepyhr got bombed, one Raven died - positive trade for air.
12:45 - Cousin Razor failing just as bad against Ravens, 3 Razor vs 12 Raven - 1 Raven dead.
13:45 - 4 Razor + 2 Zephyr vs 13 Raven, 2 Razor & 3 Raven dead, positive trade for team Lazor for once.
21:30 - 2 Zephyr vs 2 Likho + about 15 Swift, 2 Swift dead, 920 hp dmg to Likhos and ships worth 2k dead.

Blablabla, more timestamps, more dead ships and Zephyrs, more Likhos and Ravens that barely got their paint scratched...
Funny thing is that Raptors were almost as useless, with their slowmode against fleeing Likhos.

28:30 - 9 Zephyr & 3 Raptor vs 22 Swift - 2 Raptor killed by Swifts, no Swifts died in this encounter. Absurd.
29:11 - Same again, 1 Raptor and 2 Swift died. Even trade despite flying straight into AA with same value as Air.
31:00 - 7 Zephyr vs 1 Likho - Likho 70% hp.
33:45 - 6 Zephyr vs 1 Likho - Likho 94% hp. Yes, all of them were shooting it. Worthless crap.
34:45 - 6 Zepyr finally managed to kill a Likho! A proud moment in Zephyr history that shall forever be celebrated!
He flew straight into them and turned at less than 300 distance away from them. When u can't hit the broad side of a barn, sometimes the barn needs to come to you! Second Likho 93%.

So yeah, useless. Please fix this fake AA, its too expensive for a decoy unit.
Until then I'll make Hover fac or Artemis for AA.

haven't seen the game, but was it due to radar wobble?

Agree. Protecting envoys from air is big anxiety with only zeph to help. But you know, the riot shit is great flex AA vs ravens

Zephyr has amazing DPS for mobile AA I think. It does a little better than 1 razor, and has a mobile radar. It takes about 3 zephyrs on an open ocean to ruin a Krow's chance to do anything, which is amazing for cost. But it does suck against bombers, like a razor. People complain about how gremlin is weak AA for similar reasons, it's a DPS AA instead of a burst AA. Burst tracking AA missiles are miles better against bombers, because their DPS is more irrelevant. An offending plane will take a full [COOLDOWN] seconds of DPS once the missile fires, and if it's retreating it will take the full [COOLDOWN] of DPS as well if the missile fires just before leaving range, where DPS AA deals a varied amount of damage more proportional to the time spent in range, as well as loosing out on missed shots. Zephyr can miss less if the radar is changed to be perfect location like owl, and combos even better with envoy then.

Factories can run into problems when their AA is just weaker against the air they face. DPS baised AA is just going to be weak against bombers, that's gremlin, vandal, ettin and zephyr. Against bombers, it's best to facswitch or build chainsaws, or the AA gets bombed and all the bombers repair.

Maybe give it instant hit laser like Toad/Gremlin then?

Bring the HLT back to the warlord too!