Spring RTS Engine

The games tonight (and one of the player's questions) made me wonder to myself what role exactly aircraft are playing in CT currently.

At the Moment:
Aircraft are one of the three "directions" you can pick from the start (the other two being mech and tank), but if you pick air you're almost certainly doomed to lose. The reason is that aircraft (and the cruiser to build aircraft) are just as expensive as the other land units with nowhere near the functionality.

Possible Solutions:
- An immediate solution would be to make aircraft stronger, so that victory could be had if someone picks aircraft from the start. This would however create an enormous amount of balance issues. Anti-air is already difficult to pull off, and making them on par with tanks and mechs would be a nightmare. The balance between tanks and mechs alone is still a issue of constant observation and tweaking, and adding a third part to that equation would be even worse. This solution is more than likely not going to happen.

- Another immediate solution is to make aircraft cheaper, and to relegate them to something of a support class. Basically, the idea would be to make it much easier to be able to build aircraft in addition to mechs or tanks, so that countering other aircraft and cruisers early on would be easy. This is a good idea I think, and will probably be the one I lean towards.

- Another solution would be to take out almost all the aircraft entirely. Aircraft aren't needed in CT, and as oksnoop pointed out while we were discussing this, in the past when we wondered about how important something was, taking it out often times helped us at least figure out its role. Would CT games be as fun without aircraft? Would they be easier or harder to end/win?

- The last solution I can think of would be to entirely rethink the aircraft. I'm not sure entirely what this would entail, but the fact is that right now the aircraft are very cut and dry, and conventional. There's an AA-only fighter, a bomber that is strong against buildings, a rocket-firing plane that is strong against units, a radar plane, and a laser plane strong against cruisers. They're rather boring and straightforward. Maybe something as simple as spicing up the models/how they attack would help (in addition to making them cheaper or stronger)

This of course ties into the other thread http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 19#p474619 where I was talking about cruiser balance late-game. The decisions I make on air will of course affect that.

So, what are some peoples thoughts?

Perhaps use gunships instead?

They tend to be a bit more fun to use as are easier to control and attack with (having VTOL capabilities and all that)

For gunships youve got:
Scouts
Rockets
Machineguns? (brawler esque?)

and you can morph up to tier two for more units including flying fortress esque units. all just an idea really.

Well, it depends what role you want for an air start? To me the biggest advantage for air in most spring games is twofold:

1) You need special weaponry to attack air, so a main groundforce will not be able to engage air units

2) Able to be *anywhere* on the map quickly.

1) is optional, some mods reduce this feature. (2) is not.

Trying to balance air to be as powerful as land for an opener means the two features become exaggerated. A powerful air opener basically means fearsome rushes.

Personally, I think this is a place where mapping can come in. Make sure there are some rockfall sites that are completely inaccessible to land units, or in very remote positions like islands and whatnot. Then a small air force will be mandatory to secure rockfalls that are in remote locations. Then again, you're still limited by the fact that rock harvesters are land units.

I ***wish*** I could have islands maps....


I vote to make them cheap and low hp. Aircraft are fun and add another dimension to the game. I would love to be able to have some rocket planes on reserve when my front line is getting blown up.

Good news everyone! I've decided to create a race of Atomic Supermen!



But seriously, I have decided what I'm going to do. I am going to go with the route of making air less expensive, and more of a secondary/support line of units.

And part of this process will be to make the aircraft cooler. The aircraft of the NKG were all made rather hastily, and for the most part look a lot like existing aircraft. While I do not want to stray too far from a "realistic" design for the planes, I do want them to be more unique than they are. Also, I've decided that the white color scheme for the aircraft is ugly and boring, so I am going to try and spice them up.

The first of my Atomic Supermen will be the Scout Plane, replacing the old, clunky, and stupid looking Radar Plane.



It'll be cheaper, faster, and lighter than the old radar plane.

As for my other ideas (at the moment), they are:

- Remodel T1 fighter (this was one of my very first models and it shows)
- Remodel T1 warplane (it looks too much like an A-10.)
- Remodel and redesign the T1 laser plane. It is simply just not effective now. Some kind of rotating beam weapon is what I'm thinking about trying.
- No real ideas about T2, but I don't think there'll be a T2 radar/scout plane. The bomber will be useful, the warplane will be different, and there'll probably be a T2 laser plane added.

Input?