The air hussars are way too powerful for their equivalent weapon cost, a group of them act almost like a heavy Gatling vs light metal armour.
Edit: Like a stronger heavy gatling gun vs massive stone walls when you spawn enough of them.
By comparison this also makes the biplane less space efficient for the same task.
Grapeshot cannons always instantly kill all airborne units, may be worth looking into.
Edit: In general when the planes/other units are involved either one of two things always happen: Grapeshot cannons or rifles instantly kill the planes/others and no damage is received, or there's none of those defenses and the vehicle gets shredded like a chainsaw through a toddler's face. There seems to be no middle ground here which I think is an issue.
If nobody except Zarkonnen has any idea what I'm talking about, the new update added biplanes and miniature airships like the ones suggested on the forum.
I have the beta as well and feel that the planes and hussars are balanced relative to each other but not against actual airships. The planes should have an ammo and/or coal counter and has to land to resupply. In its current state, they just keep attacking endlessly even when the carrier is destroyed and have infinite ammo.
I'd just also like to mention that this update was totally worth the wait.
I see the same problems. SPAZ 2 had this exact issue with it's drones as well and managed to fix them by having them reload with your capacitors.
I see a potential issue though, if they take even 1 ammo per a long reload you will run out of large ammo stores very quickly. So carriers would need a large ammo capacity, making them slow and extremely vulnerable. To what extent I'm not sure and it might either be balanced or potentially make carriers far too weak and heavy to be of use.
Another issue may be that they would interfere with normal guns, as they all launch at the same time it makes sense they'd all reload at the same time and cause a commotion. A separate ammo store module just for hussars/planes may be a good idea if this does become a problem, it'd also have the advantage of letting Zarkonnen balance the ammo of these things separately from normal weapons.
I also noticed that the planes and hussars do actually re-dock with their airships to repair, but this is a 1/10 event as usually they are killed before they want to repair, so making the "Repair at HP%" threshold higher would be better.
I agree with Caesar, if killing off the carrier would result in the airborne units running out of fuel or ammo that would be a fair balance. As it stands, it's sometimes hardly possible to fight back against so many incoming planes.
Does anyone think the range at which defenses engage Planes and Hussars is too short? I've seen planes whizzing around an airship, with Flak and Field guns at just slightly lower altitudes refusing to engage because the targets aren't literally right on top of them. It's frustrating because Flak cannons and Deck guns are already incredibly fragile, so the end result is them only fighting back in self defense when it may very well already be too late.
I've noticed the opposite in a few tests. Spawning 50 hussars at once into a giant swarm is still no match for a few flak guns as they always are able to kill them before taking damage.
Try this by spawning a landship with a massive hussar hanger and watch them fight on The Trenches mission.
A fix to the problem with the planes using the ships resources when resupply, maybe they just magically get coal and ammo and don't use the ships stuff. That's why we have supply hatches, right? The planes and hussars are heavy as is, the carriers I've made are vulnerable enough with lighter armor to compensate.
To fix the problem with airship defenses, I'd love to see more weapons specifically for aircraft. Maybe a 40mm Bofers? Or a bigger galting gun
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
v9.2B1
The air hussars are way too powerful for their equivalent weapon cost, a group of them act almost like a heavy Gatling vs light metal armour.
Edit: Like a stronger heavy gatling gun vs massive stone walls when you spawn enough of them.
By comparison this also makes the biplane less space efficient for the same task.
Grapeshot cannons always instantly kill all airborne units, may be worth looking into.
Edit: In general when the planes/other units are involved either one of two things always happen: Grapeshot cannons or rifles instantly kill the planes/others and no damage is received, or there's none of those defenses and the vehicle gets shredded like a chainsaw through a toddler's face. There seems to be no middle ground here which I think is an issue.
If nobody except Zarkonnen has any idea what I'm talking about, the new update added biplanes and miniature airships like the ones suggested on the forum.
Commodore
I have the beta as well and feel that the planes and hussars are balanced relative to each other but not against actual airships. The planes should have an ammo and/or coal counter and has to land to resupply. In its current state, they just keep attacking endlessly even when the carrier is destroyed and have infinite ammo.
I'd just also like to mention that this update was totally worth the wait.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I see the same problems. SPAZ 2 had this exact issue with it's drones as well and managed to fix them by having them reload with your capacitors.
I see a potential issue though, if they take even 1 ammo per a long reload you will run out of large ammo stores very quickly. So carriers would need a large ammo capacity, making them slow and extremely vulnerable. To what extent I'm not sure and it might either be balanced or potentially make carriers far too weak and heavy to be of use.
Another issue may be that they would interfere with normal guns, as they all launch at the same time it makes sense they'd all reload at the same time and cause a commotion. A separate ammo store module just for hussars/planes may be a good idea if this does become a problem, it'd also have the advantage of letting Zarkonnen balance the ammo of these things separately from normal weapons.
I also noticed that the planes and hussars do actually re-dock with their airships to repair, but this is a 1/10 event as usually they are killed before they want to repair, so making the "Repair at HP%" threshold higher would be better.
Midshipman
I agree with Caesar, if killing off the carrier would result in the airborne units running out of fuel or ammo that would be a fair balance. As it stands, it's sometimes hardly possible to fight back against so many incoming planes.
Does anyone think the range at which defenses engage Planes and Hussars is too short? I've seen planes whizzing around an airship, with Flak and Field guns at just slightly lower altitudes refusing to engage because the targets aren't literally right on top of them. It's frustrating because Flak cannons and Deck guns are already incredibly fragile, so the end result is them only fighting back in self defense when it may very well already be too late.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I've noticed the opposite in a few tests. Spawning 50 hussars at once into a giant swarm is still no match for a few flak guns as they always are able to kill them before taking damage.
Try this by spawning a landship with a massive hussar hanger and watch them fight on The Trenches mission.
Commodore
A fix to the problem with the planes using the ships resources when resupply, maybe they just magically get coal and ammo and don't use the ships stuff. That's why we have supply hatches, right? The planes and hussars are heavy as is, the carriers I've made are vulnerable enough with lighter armor to compensate.
To fix the problem with airship defenses, I'd love to see more weapons specifically for aircraft. Maybe a 40mm Bofers? Or a bigger galting gun
Commodore
grapeshots and gatlings are already op anti-aircraft
Commodore
And swarms of hussars usually cancel each other out
Commodore
Also, we should be able to paint the planes.
Commodore
Hmm, how would that work?
Commodore
I mean to change their color in build mode.