unit special ability redundancy

[miltonic]

Ok, when designing battleships I see that there is a special Ability for SAM, where unit gets 2x damage to Air. There is also a special ability called Air Superiority, where units have the ability to attack Air units.

Why would a ship have the option to have both? Air superiority seems wasted if you also have SAM.

[Blake]

One of the abilities doubles defense against air, and shows like this 8-<4>-6
The other ability (air superiority) allows the unit to attack air, and shows like this <8>-4-6

[Qwerty88]

Air Superiority and SAM are the same thing, one is just the long name and the other is the short name, every ability hase a long name, which is in the ability list, and the other is in the units power tag (attack,defence,speed,special abilities). The air defence doubler is AAA tracking.

[Commy]

Air superiority also gives a -50% penalty to units that have it when they attack or are attacked by units other that air units. So basically, SAM units are worthless for any other combat besides air combat.

AAA tracking is good to put on defensive units out in the field that are prone to be attacked and picked off by air units, but don't actually have to attack air units themselves.

[Googlie]

The 50% SAM ground-attack penalty only applies to aircraft (needlejets and choppers). Naval or ground units that are SAM equipped incur no penalty when attacking other naval or ground units

Extracted from alpha.txt
50, ; Combat penalty % -> Air superiority unit vs. ground unit

[SynthetGod8]

Yes, but on air units, it's called Air Superiority and on ground units it's called SAM (surface to air missles). If, in fact, Miltonic is seeing both Air Sup. and SAM for a cruiser chassis, he might be able to prototype a ship with both, but if he checks the build screen, where he picks which item to build next, the description of the ship will mostly likely have SAM showing, with no Air Sup. I'll check that out and post it later.

However, Militonic's description of the ability does sound like AAA, and not Air Sup.

As I said, it's unlikely that you could see Air Sup. on a non-air unit, which I'm sure you know.

[miltonic]

Ok, I found out what was happening the hard way. I built a number of Rovers and infantry with the Special ability of AAA Tracking, thinking it would do 2X damage to air units. Well I was wrong..very wrong. Not only did it NOT do 2X damge, it did NO damage whatsoever, as the game kindly told me "unit lacks ability to attack Air targets". So.....AAA tracking alone does not allow ground units to attack air, even though I had the ability to prototype a ground unit with AAA tracking.

Morale of story: AAA tracking doesn't do jack for ground units without Air Superiority as well. I sacrificed myself so that you could learn from my mistake, saint that I am

[Last Conformist]

AAA tracking still helps when you're attacked by air. Great for defenders and warships.

[Chaos Theory]

AAA is a strictly defensive ability. It gives units +100% against air units.

SAM is a primarily offensive ability. It allows a unit to attack air, and gives it +100% against most air units. The exception is when one SAM aircraft attacks another, in which case SAM is a defensive ability for the defender - both fight with their weapon values, and neither gets +100%. Furthermore, aircraft with SAM will move up to two tiles (scramble) to defend units attacked in the field by air (often causing the infamous interceptor crash). Both aircraft fight with their weapon values, and neither get +100% from SAM.

[Livid_Imp]

Quickie OT post:

Last Conformist

Love the name and the sig. Reminds me of this store we have here in the US called "Hot Topic". There is one in nearly every mall and this is where kids go to buy their non-conformist gear I can't believe that they never see the irony in that.

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