Confused about gunships....

I am really confused by gunships, they seem to be mostly impossible to use as anything other than a onetime “surprise move” and only if there no opposing air or mobile ground AA, or screamer, or too many chainsaws, or too many accurate non AA units or… well…you get the idea

So I want to ask, fist of all, what are gunships SUPPOSED to be used for?
Clearly not AA since vamps are so much better that they can take on 2x more AA gunships for cost and win… without taking any damage, with just some simple timing micro,

And probably not Ground support since bombers are better for cost at taking out just about anything from raider packs (i-ve seen brawlers taken down by ground raiders) to shiledballs ( felon and outlaw…need I say more) to assaults and striders

They might make decent sea units if it were not for the fact that most sea units are either submerged or can straight smash them to bits with minimal effort…

Eco and infrastructure expansion is not really viable since they share the planes exceptionally weak and vulnerable constructor.

The “best” gunships seem to be the transports, from mass outlaw drops to surgical zeus insertions and from kidnapping a striders to dropping them on the enemy and 90% of the time support fom other labs is needed to do this.

To me it seems the most potential for gunships lies in support roles.

Here are a few examples of what I mean:
Constructor: still expensive but with buildpower comparable to a ground builder the twist being that it can only build while landed (and immobile) but it is particularly tough (for a builder) while in this mode, allowing for rapid deployment and relocation of repair zones.

AA gunship: emp damage against air, with the ability to hit a vamp at least once before it can turn in a fight (or some kind of disruptor that slows them and lowers altitude by the same %)

Raider gunship: would likely benefit from a higher alpha gun so it can do damage and run before opposing riots (like vamps) can catch it, something like the reaper or ravager plasma gun would be interesting on an airborne unit (with adjusted damage values of course)

Brawler: Cloak while landed (mostly so vamps and AA does not shoot at it while landed but also for added strategic value) and a bit of regen (also while landed) [Brawler would also likely benefit a lot from a more accurate weapon like laser or gauss]

BlackDawn: like brawler, but with rockets that can sink and strike at submerged units

Blastwing: either balanced to compete with the puppy in terms of usefulness, or completely redesingned as a one-time “ultimatum”-type shot (obviously not as strong but using the same scaling mechanic)

Krow: not so great as a direct combat unit but what if instead of having guns it could teleport units to it while moving?, or be able to transport buildings? Or be the biggest mobile AA (the mythical AA strider), or what if it could simply build and reclaim, lots of potential here

Now, before you get all heated up let me say that, yes, these are probably not the best ideas possible, but I think it is important that the gunship lab be discussed or it will never lose the “gunshit” stigma

I agree. Gunships really seems to be useless in normal game. Ground units can hit them, air pwn them. The only thing that can they do is surprise attack, transport or some late-game KROW.

I have also found that brawlers, and to some extent blackdawn, work very well with shieldballs to give them the long-range skirmisher DPS they lack. You don't necessarily want to charge your shieldball into everything you meet.

It helps alot that if set to no-strafe and covered by Aspis shields, brawlers are practically invulnerable to AA fire. Rapiers under aspises are also death to fighters (and vamps making long-range swipes deal basically nothing to shields), not to mention that felon is flex-AA and also death to fighters.

Blackdawns will need to be microed to prevent pwning the shieldball from friendly fire but the aspis shields give it a safe place to retreat to even in a region with heavy AA, and its alpha strike power will severly blunt any attempt to push the shieldball back.

It's a wonder I didn't see this more often when I still played regularly. I often ended high-metal games with something like this. Shields -> Gunships is also a natural transition in a 1v1.

In smaller games Klon would make his blackdawns pay 4x-5x each. Thing is, gunships aren't just flying missile dispenser, the costlier ones are also bloody flying tanks that are nigh unkillable with proper micro.

Only thing that shuts them down completely is the planes, because planes do everything gunships do better and without risking return fire from non-aa units.

Neonstorm time:

Remove the gunship lab. Divvy the gunships among the land/sea unit labs. Modify or add new gunships as needed. Boom.

LV gets the Valkyrie (may need speed nerfs). Jumpbots get the Vindicator (Sumo, Firewalker and Archangels have great synergy with vindicators). Make sure the Blastwing can kill Glaives and give it to the Spiders - they need something to take down swarms of raiders where Fleas are too weak and Venoms are too slow. Amphibs get the Banshee so they can actually defend their territory a little. Strider Hub gets the Krow because duh. And so on.

Suddenly, everybody needs AA. It's not "oh crap, he built planes, everybody invest in AA" it's "oh crap, he built *a lab*, everybody invest in AA".

Gunships probably need a little work, but they're not terrible...

The problem is just the matchup vs Planes, but spamming pure Rapier can actually work. You still need land AA to stop bombers, but a Rapier ball is still one of the scariest things in FFA because you have to remember that his planes cannot hit ground, so he cannot invest an equal amount in planes as you do in rapiers. Brawler is also my go-to unit to beat detriments unless he has a huge fighter fleet. Anyone who loses a brawler to raiders is not micro'ing it properly.

The only other problem is that the Brawler and Blackdawn are a little too close in role.

I know the outranging micro is theoretically possible but is it actually ever done?

A dedicated AA gunships, or changing some of the gunships to defend themselves a little better vs fighters (brawler only needs burnblow and slightly faster projectiles, puppy blastwings would work vs fighters, etc) might be worth considering.

what shipyard gets ? crane?

what asbout reef building drones what we can send to attack or guard or somethink on limited range of reef

Sorry, I got carried away when Killer was dumb enough to give me an audience.

Before rapier jumped onto the balance rollercoaster, I ran the numbers and found out that rapier, BD, brawler, vindicator and banshee all had almost the same DPS/Cost. That's kinda dull. And the blastwing is the biggest newbtrap in the game.

Offtopic
If you really want to derail this thread with useless banter at least have the decency to put a bit of effort into it or at the very least a lolcat, I was under the impression that this game has trolls of a higher quality that the rest of the tubes, #include{disimpressed .meh }

Back ontopic:
It seems it is agreed then that gunsips are not viable by themselves (unless against nub, but nubs loose to Athena) on any map and are at best an accessory to other labs, is this the design goal regarding them? Because if so any discussion regarding gunship lab viability as pointless as discussing the viability of the strider hub as a normal starting lab.

On another note i was thinking of a new builder for gunships (or air) how about reducing altitude drastically and registering it as a ground unit so while it remains the fastest all terrain builder it can still help out on the frontline after chainsaws and screamers are up, and with reasonable buildpower it would allow a gunship (or air) player to either support himself with ground defences or efficiently reclaim and/or grid