Heavy AA Discussion - And theory Options

[Darky]

At no point did I say I ever won a game...

Then you aren't exactly the target audience now are you.

[DELETED MEMBER]

I don't even bother with Tier 2 AA (then again, I only play against AIs) because most of them have to be deployed to fire, I just spam cheap stuff and take the losses. Then again, I'm a pretty crappy gamer.

AI isnt exactly the best base to use for balance since it doesnt care about money or loses
through it does love to use helicopters more than aircraft and it makes them look like they can counter everything

[TheSneakyGLA]

You dont see the whole picture because you havent played the game yet.

1st - Heavy AAs were "nerfed" - You may have seen in the 1st stream where I was playing against Knjaz that when his Hind got close enough to my Ural truck, it stopped firing.

There were dead angles coded into every heavy AA.

What that implies is that if you want to defend against air attacks you either need a tier 2 AA network or lesser AA spread around your base.



If you apply this to fighting USA, you have to have atleast 2 heavy AAs and a stealth detector to defend against nighthawks in 1.85.

Raptors obviously arent ground attackers, so I wouldnt use them against AA or anything that can fire back at them anyway.




P.S.: With introduction of Hunter-Killers the USA has an airforce or a form of quick, powerful harrasment from very early game.

This post has been edited by TheSneakyGLA: 8 Apr 2014, 21:30

[Knjaz.]

In addition to what Ulater said. Sry, didn't read the whole thread, just no time for that atm.


In 185 USA, Russia, China got means to combat enemy AA. To the point where you need T2 AA to stay alive.
GLA doesn't need it that much, and ECA has howitzers/claymores to fulfill the airforce role.


As for 1802, China has the best AA suppression capabilities (which were somewhat nerfed, somewhat buffed in 185), followed by USA. Russia has none, but with Frogfoots it'd be too much.

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 9 Apr 2014, 6:15

[Genmotty]

My RTS opinion on this is that;


"Both Airplane units and T2 AA units, on average, have high alpha attack values. This means that, on average, the unit that fires first, beats the other unit.

More specifically, T2 AA units, on average, are cheaper than Airplane units. At least when considering factions individually. This leads to the conclusion that T2 AA units are are more efficient unit to use to deny airspace control to your opponent. Hence when considering base defence, the T2 AA unit, is the most efficient option.

Generically, T2 AA units are cheap enough to spam in the mid-late, and late game. This gives a window of opportunity for airplane units to be effective, typically this can be around 5mins in to 12-15mins in, whenever your opponent is able to start inflicting the aircraft losses that result in them being able to provide 'air lock down' for their base.

Compounding issues tend to be that T2 AA have large zones of threat compared to map size. Note that on larger maps, T2 AA has far less of an effect compared to smaller maps.

Additionally, most form of helicopter can tank T2 AA damage and are not as vulnerable as they should be to T1 AA units, in my opinion, when spammed in helicopter attack groups. This leads to a reliance on using T2 AA units to effectively defend against helicopter units, rather than T1 AA units, and because helicopters tend to have greater utility, leads to more T2 AA units being produced than might be otherwise.


While I would not wish to see a 'hard cap' on the number of T2 AA units that you might be able to deploy, larger maps might be one solution to addressing the effectiveness of 'air lock downs' as might giving T1 AA units a little range boost over helicopters to allow staggering of T1 AA units in echelon.

Either way, 'air lock downs' are currently a valid tactic, and air control appears to be subordinate to a proper air defence. i.e. AA beats Air, like Artillery beats Base Defences, Tanks beat AA units yadda yadda�

[Lobo Solitario]

Original post

I don't agree. Heavy AA serves a dual purpose - it tackles blobs of aircraft, which had no counter before, and stopping jets (especially US ones) from having free reign over pretty much the whole map outside of the enemy base. They don't render aircraft useless, they just make them have to fight for territory like other units. Ideally this second role would be carried out by other aircraft, but this isn't feasible in Sage for a number of reasons.

While it's a nice feeling to be able to dominate the whole map unchallenged with your airforce, and force your enemy to respond to air attacks the moment they leave the safety of their base, it's hardly balanced. The GLA for instance, need to invest many times more time and resources to be able to create a similar situation through the use of tunnel networks and stealthed defences, and can be rolled back by an offensive at any time. No faction should be able to dominate a tactical space practically uncontested.

More specifically, T2 AA units, on average, are cheaper than Airplane units. At least when considering factions individually.

While this holds true for base defence, it's also necessary to take into account mobility and tactical costs when balancing T2 AA and aircraft. Although the T2 AA might be cheaper, if it is destroyed while enforcing a no-fly zone outside of the base, a new one will have to travel to replace it, taking time. During this window of opportunity, enemy aircraft can inflict additional damage on unprotected units which can result in losses much higher than the difference in cost from any aircraft lost taking out the AA. If this is not the case, it's likely that the opponent has invested too much in AA and will therefore be weak to a ground assault.

This post has been edited by Lobo Solitario: 9 Apr 2014, 12:48

[Serialkillerwhal...]

You counter blobs of jets by using an artillery strike, a-10 strike or whatever else you happen to have, on the airfields, each one has 4 jets in it so destroying one airfield costs alot to replace, in comparison.

Heavy AA as It is now, allows anyone to set up a Heavy AA and boom, they're completely safe and it costs far too much to break the AA cover, especially with mutliple heavy AA.

Given the ammount of space, time, and resources needed to truely focus on air power instead of the 2 or 3 war factories needed to mass tanks, I'd say it's far inferior.

[Darky]

You counter blobs of jets by using an artillery strike, a-10 strike or whatever else you happen to have, on the airfields, each one has 4 jets in it so destroying one airfield costs alot to replace, in comparison.

Heavy AA as It is now, allows anyone to set up a Heavy AA and boom, they're completely safe and it costs far too much to break the AA cover, especially with mutliple heavy AA.

Given the ammount of space, time, and resources needed to truely focus on air power instead of the 2 or 3 war factories needed to mass tanks, I'd say it's far inferior.

Mostly agreed, but to be the devil's advocate, you don't have to put all four aircraft in the same airfield. Personally I never have more than two aircraft on the same airfield unless the map is too small to have a second airfield. That, combined with efficient management of your aircraft and making them stay grounded only when they are reloading means your enemy doesn't have all that great of a chance of destroying your aircraft along with your airfield. If by some luck they do, they still used a valuable GP to kill 2 aircraft and the 1000 airfield, so it's not that big of a loss.

That said, if that happens midgame, then it is probably going to cost you the game.

[Genmotty]

While this holds true for base defence, it's also necessary to take into account mobility and tactical costs when balancing T2 AA and aircraft...

Which I did ;

More specifically, T2 AA units, on average, are cheaper than Airplane units. At least when considering factions individually. This leads to the conclusion that T2 AA units are are more efficient unit to use to deny airspace control to your opponent. Hence when considering base defence, the T2 AA unit, is the most efficient option.


Generically, T2 AA units are cheap enough to spam in the mid-late, and late game. This gives a window of opportunity for airplane units to be effective, typically this can be around 5mins in to 12-15mins in, whenever your opponent is able to start inflicting the aircraft losses that result in them being able to provide 'air lock down' for their base.

Compounding issues tend to be that T2 AA have large zones of threat compared to map size. Note that on larger maps, T2 AA has far less of an effect compared to smaller maps.

Note that I was discussing a different conclusion with regards to cost/benefit analysis.

[Nemanja]

I think that Lobo summed it up perfectly well.It was annoying back then when I was playing ZH and my friend would spam
choppers and causing me nightmares,adding heavy AA causes players to think twice where are they sending their aircraft,
and I am perfectly fine with that.

[Knossos]

I don't care much about this T2 AA-Fixed wing plane drama, but here's my stand.

There's the OPness factor in the current game since the game isn't friggin' balanced yet. Calm yo t*ts and wait for 2.0, then we'll see about this problem again.

Aside from that, if somebody's getting butthurt over t2 AA, you're not using arty properly. Unless you're USA, whose arty sucks balls against almost every kind of AA in the game.

[Knjaz.]

You counter blobs of jets by using an artillery strike, a-10 strike or whatever else you happen to have, on the airfields, each one has 4 jets in it so destroying one airfield costs alot to replace, in comparison.

Heavy AA as It is now, allows anyone to set up a Heavy AA and boom, they're completely safe and it costs far too much to break the AA cover, especially with mutliple heavy AA.

Given the ammount of space, time, and resources needed to truely focus on air power instead of the 2 or 3 war factories needed to mass tanks, I'd say it's far inferior.

The only faction in game that will be supposed/allowed to win battles by air-superiority only is USA AF Gen. And that's 2.0

Also, the difference between various T2 AA units is huge. Like, really.


The main role of airforce, as it is right now, is to strike vital enemy units (or unit formations, for AoE bombers like Hellfires and Frogfoots), to provide an advantage to your own ground force, or backdoor strike, or something else. In lategame, with T2AA spam, few suicidal Hellfires that killed several Grads, and prevented them from pwning your ground force, done their job well.

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 11 Apr 2014, 11:21

[teslashark]

Quoting Eoin Colfer (because you deserve it): And another thing...
Heavy AAs reduce the need to build dogfighter planes by 50%.

[Overlord_Cane]

Raptors obviously arent ground attackers, so I wouldnt use them against AA or anything that can fire back at them anyway.

I disagree. They make very quick work of enemy armour.