Raptor

quote: If you're attacked by a Krow and try to defend against it with Hawks and an Artemis, the Hawk "AI" will get them all clumped up on the Krow and then they'll all die to your own Artemis. DeinFreund here

So people don't terribly like Raptor in general, Raptor definitely doesn't live up to the 'awesome' or the 'cool' factor of what an air superiority fighter is. So here's some badass ideas to think about.

Quantum Teleport: Raptor has an emergency teleport to save its life in times of danger. When Raptor's HP drops below 80% HP in combat, it uses a special auto-ability(60sec CD) to 'hop' and shrug off damage(it never dies and it has exactly 80%HP no matter how much damage it took in the last instant) quantum teleporting to another possible quantum state within a 450elmo sphere(in the air) facing a desired target.

Combat Hardening: Not really awesome, but damage resistance when slowed via combat state(fireing weapons).

Eye of a Predator: Total change of a Raptor. in it's normal state it's a slow little man who just kind of flies at the half speed slow state, but when it targets an enemy air unit, it engages it's special camera drone eye on the attack target and gaining immense speed in dogfight mode. Raptor's predator instinct has it tunnel vision on it's target, swapping it's LOS to not be focused on it's self but razor focused on the target with reduced sight DPS Lasers traded for dual AA tracking missiles, which it fires when it swings by for attack, and it has to make large circles at high speeds. the high speeds make it fairly invulnerable to most ground AA or all flex AA.

Tokyo Air Breaks: Have Raptor Tokyo drift in the air around things it attacks instead of that awkward thing that happens when it gets too close and has to turn around.

Range seems like an interesting dimension. I wonder how much it could have.

I took part in the last round of discussion about raptor. I've used it a lot more since and rescind my previous assertion that it's completely bobtech. It's just a little bit UP. I think that's because it has an odd similarity to dagger with the whole critical mass thing.

quote: Honestly, I always felt more health made the most sense for Raptor as its 'thing'. A plane that can dive into enemy AA to finish off bombers and the like or clear the skies for your attack force, for a bit. That said, range does this to an extent as well.

The problem with diving in to finish off bombers is that it's just not fast enough to catch them anyway - the Likho, Pheonix, Owl, and Thunderbird are all faster. The Raven is only very slightly slower for goodness sake. Since when are fighters slower than bombers? Being unable to kill bombers before they unload their bombs is not air superiority. Worse not being able to chase them down (too slow), kill them after a bomb run, and much more than make cost (bomber cost + the damage done bombing) means static defense is better.