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What's the advantage of one over the other? What's the significance of putting on armor to air units? Are air transports worth designing? And does anyone really build airbases?
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big_canuk
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Leamington, ON, Canada
Jul 2000
time: 00:13
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quote:
Originally posted by It'sLikeThat on 03-14-2001 01:07 PM
What's the advantage of one over the other?
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Noodles can stay in the air for 1 turn, when out of base, but they only get to attack once. They are better for providing cover for units, and for longer distance attacks against very strong defenders.
Choppers must end their turn in a base on airbase, otherwise they "crash" loosing 30% of their strength (ie, they can crash 3 times and still make it back to base 90% damaged). However they can attack as many times as movement points they have left. They are better for shorter attacks against multiple weak units, and for very long "suicide" missions.
quote:
What's the significance of putting on armor to air units?
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Armour is almost always a waste on air units. It only helps when they are in a base and attacked. Interceptors would only use their armour against non-air attacks. Generally much more efficient to build a separate defender.
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Are air transports worth designing?
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Yes for specialized missions, but drop transports are almost always better except against territory heavily defended by areocomplexes and other air interdiction.
quote:
And does anyone really build airbases?
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Yes, in OCCs to protect your crawlers
Yes, in regular games against humans, if you are infiltrated to hide your forces whereabouts.
Yes, for the specialized case of AA hunting with the drop-trance transport and the former. The transport drops and unloads the former which builds an airbase. The transport then pops the pod, and if an AA, transports it back home from the airbase. <>
Otherwise, no.
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So air units are not good defenders? Is there a reason to create a
<1>-6-10 Needlejet? Should SAM be put on it?
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johndmuller
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Capitol Hill, Colony of DC
Feb 2001
time: 00:13
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When I first started out with regular SMAC and no patches, armor on jets was not as expensive as it became later (I don't know when because I jumped to SMAC v4 next where the armor had become rather expensive). Anyway, while it was cheap, I got in the habit of using armored interceptors (with high weapons ratings too) as guards for my (unarmored) needlejet sorties; I would stack them all together, set the interceptor to be the primarly defender and maybe use its turn to destroy enhancements or go after a really weak unit. This seemed to work pretty well for me against the AI as the intercepter would usually handle at least one AI interceptor attact; I attributed it to the armor as I have never really bothered to analyze the combat stats very closely.
I've read various threads which touch on the matter of Air Armor and Air to Air Combat and have generallly gotten more confused than more enlightened due to posts that at least appear to be contradictory. Perhaps I'm getting it now. If I'm reading this thread right, I was wasting my money on armor, but getting my money's worth on the interceptors' weapons ratings; the key factor is the Air Superiority (or the inappropriately named in this case, SAM) attribute.
So I guess that the rule for Air to Air is:
---Without SAM, a plane defends against other planes with its Armor
---With SAM, a plane defends against other planes with its Weapons;
that would mean that if you wanted to armor anything, it would be the attack planes without SAM rather than the escorts with SAM. What also needs to be mentioned in here is that using SAM incurs a 50% attack penalty against non-air targets which is why you don't just SAM them all.
I gather also from posts, that a plane (with or without SAM?) would also use its Armor if attacked by a land unit while in a base. What about attacks in the open by land (or naval) units with SAM? My experience suggests that the planes are all using their armor ratings for defence as I never seem to have trouble shooting them down and while I've seen high attack planes, Ive never attacked any high armor ones.
Then there are choppers. Do they behave the same regarding attack/defence and SAM/noSAM as needlejets? I think I've also seen references which said that any land (or naval?) unit could attack a chopper if it is stopped in the open - if that is true, would that be the Armor rating too?
[This message has been edited by johndmuller (edited March 19, 2001).]
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Aginor
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Winston-Salem, NC
Dec 2000
time: 05:13
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If you mean making a Probe Needlejet - I did and it didn't work against bases. Should work against another Needlejet, which could come in handy in VERY rare circumstances.
If you mean probing a Needlejet with a grounded Probe Team - that doesn't work. Actually, if I play Zak to hit Doctrine: Air Power fast I'll send a huge horde of needlejets to surround enemy bases I'm fighting or about to capture to interdict against Probe Teams. Works quite well.
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So basically, there's no way to capture a plane in mid-air, which if you think about it, makes sense.
One thing though, when you attack a unit stack with a noodle, notice it doesn't cause any collateral dammge to the rest of the stack. What a precision surgical strike.
edit: plain - plane
[This message has been edited by It'sLikeThat (edited March 21, 2001).]
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NorthSwordsman
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*bump* for reference
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14-03-2001 23:07
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