How to handle Air Superiority

[Sparky]

Air Superiority ruins the game. The first faction to discover it gets a HUGE advantage. Those planes almost always in win combat, can't be shot down without air-to-air (which your opponent doesn't have yet!), let you explore way into enemy territory, let you bomb bases and improvements in the heart of their empire, cut off reinforcements, and more.

Heck, if you're the first to discover Air Superiority, the game might as well be over--just crank out a dozen, invade your nearest neighbor, double the size of your empire, and the compined tech/$$$/population/bases from the invasion is enough to make you planetary hegemon. You'd have to be a fool to lose.

So here's the question: I want to edit SMAC to tone down planes. What should I do?

Idea #1: cut range in half.

[Maniac]

Play SMAniaC.

[Sparky]

I suppose, but I want to deviate as little from SMAC/X as possible. Maybe I should cut range in half, and also double the cost of crawlers and forests.

[Chaunk]

Only build SAM aircraft, and no choppers. Self limiting

[Sparky]

I raised the price of crawlers to 15, the maintenance of tree farms and hybrids to 5 each, made forrests plant in 6 turns instead of 4, and cut planes' radius to 5 from 8.

Are there any flaws in my brilliant plan?

[Kataphraktoi]

you could attach AAA and SAM to earlier techs,instead.like AAA with opti computers and SAM with adaptive doctrine.this would allow anti-air units to hit the field before the planes do

myself,i halve the cost in turns of farm\solar collector,increase the output of those by +1 and remove the -1 food penalty for mines.

[Chaunk]

In that sort of enviroment, the Gaians rule, as does anyone who gets the WP early. Without crawlers (basically, you've restricted them to being occasionally produced by pods), population is king. With 2 nuts from fungal squares, the gaians have easy pop booming, doubly so with the massive overheads of tree farms.

The weather paradigm is also increased in value, as it more or less becomes essential for anyone who wants forests. That in turn, gives early 4nut squares = more pop.

I suspect as a result of those changes morgan will not be a viable faction. Too little pop, and energy all drained away when you need the treefarms to go for GA boom. Possibly likewise with CyCon, although they are a little more flexible I think.

Those are my initial thoughts, although it'd be interesting to see how it playtests.

[Commy]

Perhaps if you somehow made aircraft like naval units...aircraft can only bombard land units, but can fully engage against sea and other land units...

Since that's probably not possible, I would make Doctrine: Airpower require Synthetic Fossil Fuels and Doctrine: Intiative. Then, I would double the cost of all air units. I'd still give needlejets their 8 movement points, but give copters only 4...

Another solution is to make a default unit in the game that is a needlejet with missiles (6-1-8). By allowing aircraft to only have missiles (which somewhat makes kind of sense, though not fully), you would greatly reduce their strength...no more shard copters obliterating everything...

[nhs_boy]

What could be used to balance it out unobtrusively is make all air units automatically get the 'Air Superiority' special ability for all factions: Halved attack vs. ground, no need for whole-game tweaks.

[The_Reckoning]

Haha great idea.

Ideally for me, aircraft would work like normal combat units for the purposes of isolated units and antiair units in bases, but like probe teams versus bases.

That is a menu pops up, and you choose "Precision Strike - Facility Destroyed for 1 turn, high chance of being shot down" or "Bombard Defenses" which makes the city easier to take by lowering everythings health a little. No chance of faluire with no anti-air units, increased chance of faliure for every antiair unit and facility.

It'd be more realistic IMO, as nobody's going to send a regiment of offensive tanks out against an aircraft strike.

[Sperber]

Why should anything be done about it at all?

In SMAC, there are several technological breakthroughs that can completely shift the balance in warfare. Air Superiority just being one of them. At least the planes have a limited range and still need to be built from total scratch. Think of Fusion Reactors which can instantly double the hit points of all your existing units - provided you set bach enough energy reserves for upgrades!

Crawlers, copters, planet bombs, amphibious assault ... to name just a few ... each of these technological cornerstones can completely turn the tables.

And that's what's great about SMAC and really puts it apart from Civilization - where units just get better combat stats with tech progression. It makes them more effective, but it doesn't change the way you're using them or open whole no strategies to you - until you reach modern age.

[Leon Trotsky]

One thing is making more advanced units unique and worthwhile, other is giving a few breakthroughs enough power to make players focus their strategies just to get them. I'm pointing at you, MMI. And, while we are at it, the nefarious IA.
Getting back to the chassis issue; an attack copter costs the same an attack rover, ignores both zones of control and terrain, is immune to probe team actions, and can perform an attack every move. A fission copter can move ten squares, thus being able to carry out two attacks over a unit that is in another continent and five tiles away a turn, and the number rises to four attacks with fusion power. It is capable of that destructive power while clinging to the conservative strategy of returning the copter to base, the range and the damage a one way trip copter (self destructing as a grand finale) can dish out is left as an exercise to the reader.
The extra drones you might get if you are running free market (while at war?) is not much of a restraint.
To put it bluntly, the damned machine is way so overpowered it breaks the game.

[Sikander]

Another useful balancing rule might be to limit self-destruct attacks to missle units only. It would give missle units some reason for being while it would eliminate perhaps the most imbalanced aspect of the combat system.

[Commy]

I thinking giving copters less movement points would solve this problem easily...copters would be great defenders, wiping out all approaching units, but it would be difficult to use them to attack cities...if a copters movement was only 4, that would basically restrict it to the base radius...

[GeoModder]

Indeed. I even prefer to at least switch techs for choppers and needles as well. Simply so that offensive airpower (linked with reduced movement for choppers) comes later.