AA vs Sam Site

[ShadowAssassin]

I have the geneal feeliing that AA guns are way superior than Sam sites. You can verify this by sending, for instance, a flock of Yaks over an AA gun, and over a Sam site, and compare.

So I did the math to verify :

Nike (Sam site)
ReloadDelay: 15
Damage: 50
Versus:
Light: 90
So DPS vs aircraft = 50*(25/15)*90% = 75
(25 = ticks/sec)

ZSU-23: (AA gun)
Burst: 2
BurstDelay: 5
Damage: 12
Light: 75
DPS = 2 * 12*(25/5)*75% = 90

Pricewise, AA = 800$ and Sam = 750$.
AA are therefore (slightly) more cost effective : (90/800) / (75/750) = 112,5% (12,5% more effective).
Acutally, it's more, because all AA shots will touch, whereas Sam sites are not so effective (some missiles might fail / targeting a low health aircraft takes an entire missile / ... )

Then, comparing range is the real point here :
SAM : Range: 7c512 (although RangeLimit: 9c0)
AA : Range: 10c0

There are a lot of situations where Sam sites will be unable to target aircraft, due to low range. On the other hand, once aircraft enter into the AA gun range, there is little chance of escape, due to the important range and reaction time.

What should be done about Sam sites (or AA guns) ?

[Fortnight]

I'm sure it's intentional that AA Gun is better than SAM Site. The difference is so large that nobody would simply overlook it, where Allies are better in anti-air the Soviet is better in something else. Making both factions equally strong in all areas removes the point of having different factions, then both might as well have the exact same buildings. For example, Allies may cover a huge section of the sky with just one AA Gun but the Soviet in turn cover a huge section of the ground with just one Tesla Coil. But the motivation for the AA/SAM power difference is probably more complicated than that.

[ShadowAssassin]

I understand that factions should not be exactly the same and I agree with that.

However, I find that AA guns are atrociously stronger than Sam sites.

In most of the games I've played or watched, a group a Yaks flying over a previously unseen AA gun will lose at least 4 or 5 Yaks, which is a considerable loss. While for instance, a Tesla coil won't kill 4 or 5 Tanks before you can react, to cite your example.

Basically, I'm trying to say that AA guns are way too effective, and very frustrating when you unexpectedly encounter them.

[klaas]

In most of the games I've played or watched, a group a Yaks flying over a previously unseen AA gun will lose at least 4 or 5 Yaks, which is a considerable loss. While for instance, a Tesla coil won't kill 4 or 5 Tanks before you can react, to cite your example.

Basically, I'm trying to say that AA guns are way too effective, and very frustrating when you unexpectedly encounter them.

I think the reason why AA is so strong, is it can retarget almost instantaniously, and the damage is instantanious as well. This effectively means you can place it somewhere, and annihilate a flock of yaks or hinds without any being able to get away.

Maybe it would be good to introduce some kind of target delay. For instance by decreasing its turn-rate, or making the projectile speed slower, or some delay as soon as it switches to a new target.

[ShadowAssassin]

Why not.

And what do you think about the range ? I think the fact that AA gun covers a large area gives them more time to deal damage, therefore dealing more damage overall.

I really think the 10c0 range is huge.

[MustaphaTR]

I think AA Guns are fine. Soviets have Flaks too. Allies has no mobile AA unit except Rocket Soldiers, which soviets also do. So it is normal that they have better stationary AA Defences.

[Fortnight]

I think AA Guns are fine. Soviets have Flaks too. Allies has no mobile AA unit except Rocket Soldiers, which soviets also do. So it is normal that they have better stationary AA Defences.

Good point. Destroyer ships on Allies are mobile anti-air but they won't be feasible on most maps.

[af]

I think the problem is not the strength of the AA gun, but rather that the SAM is so weak that it's usually not worth building. You're better off leaving a flak truck or two in your base (which also gives you a bit of extra defense against a Tanya/paratroop drop)

[ShadowAssassin]

Destroyers are good on naval maps.

But even on land maps, longbows are a powerful mobile AA unit (even though late-game, but still ...), often locking air dominance more effectively than flak trucks.

And flak trucks are quite fragile, and can be easily destroyed by aircraft, or any other unit.

I don't think this is an argument for making AA guns much more powerful than SAM sites ... or as af says making SAM sites kinda worthless.

[Norman_]

aa gun is op - its ridiculous, one of many ra balance issues

[AoAGeneral1]

IMO the AA gun is way to strong.

Currently the AA gun fires in bursts of 2. Which means its doing about 9 damage a shot since its 75 vs light targets. On the file it reads as 12 as its base damage.

What happens however is since its a 2 burst its actually doing 18 damage in 2 bursts. Which if it did 100 vs light it would be 24.

It would be worth testing but perhaps it could have a slight inaccuracy doing some AoE damage to its targets rather then full damage with the occasional direct hits doing full damage. This way you can keep the full bat crazy attack rate of the AA gun.

[flamewh33l]

although everything about the AA gun is ludicrous but let's think about what you can do to the Sam Site to improve it:

1. look at it's Armament, the Nike on it's own in quite rubbish anyway, but we know that giving more for less is better, if we see where the missile pod is on the Sam, what you can do is make it so it fires them from left to right (idk the offset between them, but you want to make it like that) and then have the armament like this:

Armament@left:
Weapon: Nike
MuzzleSequence: muzzle
Armament@mid:
Weapon: Nike
MuzzleSequence: muzzle
FireDelay: 5
Armament@right:
Weapon: Nike
MuzzleSequence: muzzle
FireDelay: 10

yes this would make it like three sams in one but it's an idea.

2. you could increase range and maximum range before the missile goes 'poof' so it can attack at the distance the AA gun does but has more give where the rocket can give chase.

some ideas to work with if you choose to take it, i'll of course be testing out that set up of missiles from left to right in an effort to see if that does something

[AoAGeneral1]

@Flamewh33l:

Its a good idea but the problem with multiple missiles is they all land on one target. Which then suffers to an army of aircraft. Where as the AA gun its projectiles are instant and can switch targets extremely fast.

Unless you are talking about a non stop firing missile salvo then could be worth testing.

[zinc]

I have said before that SAM needed to be improved a bit... Wasn't that just done in the latest release?

As for AA, yes it's very good, but yaks are really lethal at base destruction. You can often find an unprotected angle.

I didn't really like when they lowered the armour of the cheaper air units, but it was considered OP. You would get huge flocks of helis. But the armour change made it harder to deal with artillery unless you had your own artillery to target it.

[flamewh33l]

Its a good idea but the problem with multiple missiles is they all land on one target. Which then suffers to an army of aircraft. Where as the AA gun its projectiles are instant and can switch targets extremely fast.

Unless you are talking about a non stop firing missile salvo then could be worth testing.

i've actually tested this idea before, it's not a none stop salvo, but what it's doing is it fires three missiles and i just gave it another two armaments but put firedelay on them to make sure they don't fire instantly, they are the same distance but because of the speed and fire of them they oneshot quite a lot of aircraft now i just one slavo.

this is the code i used to perform such a task:

SAM:
Inherits: ^Defense
Buildable:
Queue: Defense
BuildPaletteOrder: 100
Prerequisites: dome, ~structures.soviet, ~techlevel.medium
Valued:
Cost: 750
Tooltip:
Name: SAM Site
Description: Anti-Air base defense.\nRequires power to operate.\nCan detect cloaked units.\n Strong vs Aircraft\n Weak vs Ground units
Building:
Footprint: xx
Dimensions: 2,1
RequiresPower:
CanPowerDown:
DisabledOverlay:
Health:
HP: 400
Armor:
Type: Heavy
RevealsShroud:
Range: 5c0
Bib:
HasMinibib: Yes
Turreted:
TurnSpeed: 30
InitialFacing: 0
-WithSpriteBody:
WithTurretedSpriteBody:
Armament@0:
Weapon: Nike
MuzzleSequence: muzzle
FireDelay: 10
LocalOffset: 0, 0, -512
Armament@1:
Weapon: Nike
MuzzleSequence: muzzle
FireDelay: 20
LocalOffset: 0, 0, 0
Armament@2:
Weapon: Nike
MuzzleSequence: muzzle
FireDelay: 30
LocalOffset: 0, 0, 512
AttackTurreted:
WithMuzzleOverlay:
RenderRangeCircle:
RangeCircleType: aa
Power:
Amount: -40
DetectCloaked:
Range: 5c0
BodyOrientation:
UseClassicFacingFudge: True

by adding another two Nike on, it's going to have a lot of firepower, and although the thing is slow to attack (i.e: i made it feel like it needs to paint the target first before firing) but this thing now fires relatively like the Juggernaut from Tiberian Sun mod that Marn made, i think if it's range was upgraded as well to allow for the painting to happen that may also help better; as i said, i'm modding a map to see how this goes, and if it will work as intended, which most of this has been, hence why i've been trying to look for candidates to test it out because maybe a lot of my ideas are crazy, but they may seem sound if tested out. it also uses the same armament, so no change to the weapon in form

hope this helps out in any way, shape or form