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More Consistant involvement in Ground with Air

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GBrankLoh[KoCN]
9 years ago
Hey guys, been a long time. I was thinking after playing a few games, that Air is still not a viable factory and needs supported from other factories because of it's limited engagement against Ground. I had a single unit I could possibly suggest that could help improve the viability of the Plane Lab.

Air to Ground Unit
With similar laser weaponary as the Swift, but in absence to a A2A missile, it has an A2G missile which mimicks the behaviour of a Rocko's Missile.

Another option is to switch the Swift's Combat Role's secondary weapon to a Rocko Missile with the ability of Morphing. Changing it's combat capability.

Limiting it's Morphing Capability:
Morphing Capability would return the Swift back to a Repair Pad to rearm.

Ideas? Thoughs?
+1 / -0
Skasi
9 years ago
Why not use Shadow instead? Or current Swift? Or tek2gunships?
+1 / -0
FRrankBlackdutchie
9 years ago
Skasi please keep your suggestions serious. Teching to gunships is stupid because ground units can actually hit gunships, so you would be affecting ground units while being affected yourself, instead of the almost-immunity planes have against most ground units. (exceptions notwithstanding. and of course swifts go quite low when strafing, opening themselves up to ground fire, as well as diving ravens. Even so, most gunships fly comparably low all the time.)
+0 / -0

GBrankTheEloIsALie
9 years ago
quote:
because ground units can actually hit gunships, so you would be affecting ground units while being affected yourself, instead of the almost-immunity planes

By the same logic, using any ground factory is stupid...
+0 / -0


EErankAdminAnarchid
9 years ago
And then: Brawler constantly flies higher than Swift.
+0 / -0

AUrankAdminSaktoth
9 years ago
(edited 9 years ago)
Planes are an asymmetrical factory, they interact primarily with AA units and not much else. If due to their design they are not a viable 1v1 start factory, that's not necessarily something that needs fixing with new units. They're designed to support and complement a ground force.

As it happens, they ARE a very viable 1v1 and 2v2 start factory, at least in the current meta, and starting with them is fairly common. In 3v3+ team games they're basically mandatory.
+0 / -0


AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
9 years ago
Planes are supposed to require support from ground units. The plane factory should not be completely viable by itself. It is not just another start factory like bots or veh. Planes are different because they completely ignore terrain and are also very mobile. Different things make ZK interesting and they seem to be working well. Planes are used but not overused. They are working as intended.

Your Rocko fighter suggestion does not really add anything to the plane factory. The unit would just be a bit of a mix between a Raven and a Swift. Swift is already quite good against a small number of raiders or scouts and Ravens can deal with most other mobile targets. A Rocko fighter would have trouble hitting anything so it would mostly be useful against buildings.
+2 / -0
FIrankFFC
9 years ago
Make fighter that shoots 3 rockets like recluse!!!
+0 / -0
CNrankqwerty3w
9 years ago
(edited 9 years ago)
I'd like to see at least another ideal support factory beside planes (perhaps by making gunships fly higher), so we can have more complexity on the first level of teching, not just starting with a land factory then go planes or starting with planes then build a land factory.
+0 / -0

CArankPxtl
9 years ago
CNrankqwerty3w

Cut the cost of the tacnuke facility down to lab-cost and put more support/utility missiles like the Quake in there?
+0 / -0
CNrankqwerty3w
9 years ago
Thinking further it seems any good non-air support factory would make the 2nd standard land fac even more uncommon.

If sweeping changes are still possible in the distant future, I would suggest making air a unit class instead of factories. Imagine if the game has no dedicated air facs, but each fac get one or two air units, you won't have one unit counters a whole factory anymore, the teching aspect of the game gets more interesting, and we still have units that ignore terrains and the most of weapons.
+0 / -0

CArankPxtl
9 years ago
(edited 9 years ago)
CNrankqwerty3w

I've actually been tinkering with a mutator along those lines.

Gunships are a *role*, like riot/raider/skirm/etc. They have the same counter-structure. There are variations within the gunships - BD is high-alpha, Banshee is fast, rapier can shoot air... but still they're used fundamentally similarly and are countered similarly. This is comparable to how we have Pyros and Glaives and Ducks and Scrubbers, which all have common raider-usage and counters, but different detailed mechanics.

So the logical conclusion is to split them into the labs. We don't have a riot lab or a raider lab or a skirmisher lab, why have a gunship lab?

So my approach is that the plane lab becomes the "bomber lab" and all other aircraft units are split into the various land-labs - this includes fighters and the Crane. Bomber lab is non-ploppable. While you could reclaim your land-lab for bombers, you could alternately just build a BD or a Brawler at your land-lab.

Which creates the problem: BD + land-lab eats comms for breakfast. So comms need AA.

Which is my problem - I'm trying to figure out how to bolt AA onto all comms for this mutator.
+0 / -0

USrankRyMarq
9 years ago
For that mutator, you could just accept that BDs are too good in this balance set and nerf them.

I contend they are too good with gunships functioning as they are now, and this would only make the effect more extreme.
+0 / -0


EErankAdminAnarchid
9 years ago
You managed to imagine a "spider gunship", but it's hard to fit AA? 0.0
+1 / -0
GBrankKyubey
9 years ago
:P even i can give comms a dets AA laser XD its really not that hard
+0 / -0