Air buff?

Give repair pads a 4X Build power buff so it is like a plane is sitting on its own caretaker.

Also late game, palens aren't able to deal with the critical damage they should be able to, the power creeps mobile aa has is too much. 5-6 crashers that destroy 3-4 ravens before they can bomb and retreat.

Then comes the chainsaw and screamer which shut down all life for the air fac, no other fac is this badly eliminated from the game by a single unit or 2... Air should at least get some late-game units like krow or cyclops or Griz....

Deleted my first post since I thought you were talking about both GS and Airplane.

But here is my response:

On getting shut down:

Getting shutdown due to air means that the AA on the enemy side has increased to such a point that planes can no longer fly through without being shot down.

This seems to be the case with Chainsaw and Artemis, which easily blasts most planes out of the sky.

However: Once AA has progressed to that point, there are generally 2 options - Their army is weaker due to them spending more on AA, or if not, then you are seriously losing.
In the second scenario, consider resigning. In the first, your options are to either strike their army with a ground force due to being weakened, or hit them with a special weapon.
Once the enemy force has been engaged, they will suffer from attrition, and this is likely to be their mobile AA as well, which means your aircraft should be able to Thunderbird/Wyvern the remainder of their army to death. Same thing with Static AA: Go for the Static AA if your army is weaker first, as it allows air support, then do the same thing as previous: Thunderbird/Wyvern the remainders to death.

Another option is to make decoy AA such as Swifts, flying them over AA whilst in boost means they will waste the AA's shots, and allow your actual strike planes to come in and deal damage. This is particularly effective against mobile AA since they have reloads and cannot deal with being baited easily. If the army has so much AA this does not work, then go for the ground assault as shown in previous paragraph.

Finally, you can simply THROW MORE PLANES AT THE ENEMY
The most brutish of options, you go for their army with strike planes (preferably Wyvern) and proceed to bomb them without caring about your losses. Or their AA. Just make sure you turn the tide since planes shotdown using this method WILL be easy to reclaim by your opponent.


Essentially, you must find a way to allow your high burst damage to get to valuable targets without being shutdown. These 3 options are simple ways to do so. But if your air is strong enough, once AA cover goes down, your opponent's army should be absolutely savaged by your airstrikes, which allows you to forgo an army that is capable of going toe to toe with your opponent. All three options still work even in lategame, you just need more units to do so. If you fac switched since you hold an economic advantage, this should be relatively easy to accomplish

Opinion

Planes, I think, should be easy to shutdown in the form of AA. This is because they have extremely high amounts of burst power that can easily turn battles in your favor. If planes were made stronger so that it takes more AA to take them down, then planes will have an easier time savaging armies on the ground, and means that the third option, yeet more planes at them, will be more viable, which I think is unhealthy for an RTS game, since it makes the player with an economic advantage even stronger if he fac switches to air, which might just make him unbeatable due to air's extremely fast reaction time.

Here's another thing to consider: If the planes survive and kill a target, they have managed to cost your opponent metal without costing you any metal. This means that planes gain an exponential effect, as each time the planes succeed, the weaker your opponent gets whilst you remain the same strength. This will lead to lopsided battles where the planes win simply by being strong enough to attrit your opponents down while not being whittled down themselves, as they cannot be traded against once they are at strength.

I got to admit, I would hate playing 1v1s against air where I have to spam 100% AA against the planes player to do any battle with the enemy. Using my slow ground troops in a large ball so the fast planes don't just roflstomp separate groups with superior speed and firepower, giving up all the territory that the AA is currently not in. Sounds like hell.

I played a game where one faction was centered around air units, having endgame viable (rather than situational) units. That faction was the uncontested number one faction in the entire game, to the point where RvR (random vs random) team games would often be decided in the loading screen when one team got said faction and the other one didn't.

ZK maps are way larger, so in the worst case scenario significant air buffs may render other facs pointless as map size grows.

quote: I will concede the point that this is in ideal conditions, but considering how rarely Thunderbird strikes fail, due to them being able to have a wide AoE and able to move in response to manuvering target

I conclude that you've never used a tbird before. Unlike krows they cannot be maneuvered once they start bombing. They're stuck in a straight line and if it ain't the right straight line then too bad. They're a serious pain to use because of that.

quote: I conclude that you've never used a tbird before. Unlike krows they cannot be maneuvered once they start bombing. They're stuck in a straight line and if it ain't the right straight line then too bad. They're a serious pain to use because of that.

Incorrect. If you use the manual fire, or override the attack order with a move order after the bombing run has begun, the Thunderbird is entirely capable of turning while firing.

(Also, even if you had been correct, your belittle-ing attitude was unwarranted.)

Air is weak for newer and inexperienced players to use.

Air is NOT weak for guys that know what they are doing.

That's because the air fac is tricky and situational to use. Consider what you are getting: a bunch of relatively tough units that move very fast and can deliver immense burst damage while being immune to most weaponry. An air player is the backbone of the team. He can deliver enough damage to tip an offensive his team's way, and can deliver pin point strikes to rear targets like singu where no other unit can. An air player is also the last line of defence for her team. She is the one that has to deal with that shieldball or mass of tanks NOW or her team loses. Air is perfectly suited for that. BUT IT IS NOT AN EASY ROLE.

Secondly, to address Artemis and Chainsaw: my reaction is, so what? An air player has an entire team to support them, and if nobody can figure out Silo kills those two dead, then they deserve to lose.

Air is never going to cut it against mature porc.

Forget it, almost no single units can make a difference. I've been in games under severe Bertha and Tremor fire, and my porc keeps on trucking. To expect Likho to come in and clean it up is laughable. What you need is a combined arms assault with emp, swarms of raiders, tanks, and probably silo too.

If air was buffed to the point where it could zip through Artemis without a worry, the next thing that happens is that games turn into airspam with clouds of swifts being the chief units on the battlefield.

Air IS balanced, but air is also HARD.

At the very least, please nerf the faradays capability to hit the air, which is completely unrealistic. Also, buff the hp of air units in general.