I've been playing around with the air factory lately, and the issue i'm finding with the Raptor is that it's absolutely awful at air superiority. The main cause of this seems to be because of it's relatively short range and low damage rapid fire lasers, when engaging a slow target like a gunship it doesn't do boom-and-zoom gun runs, rather it slows right down and practically hugs the target at stall speed plinking away at it, this makes it vulnerable to just about anything that can fire at air, like gunships. It's rather frustrating to see an anti-structure gunship regularly splash air superiority fighters with an unguided missile barrage. In my opinion the Raptor would be much more reasonable if it was armed with a guided missile weapon, about equivalent to the Chainsaw in range. And making the Raptor's default behavior being to stay fast and high, avoiding close range combat.
+10 / -0
|
I think it's simply not meant to be the supreme air unit. Instead there exists a rather complex counterplay between different air units. Against gunships you'll often be better off building Swifts or even Raven and Licho. The Hawk is optimally used against fast and fragile units. It might not be able to chase them down, but if it intercepts them, its lasers are guaranteed to hit and kill instantly. Its prey thus mostly consists of bombers, Swifts and Locusts. Having a supreme fighter unit would otherwise make air vs air engagements rather boring.
+1 / -0
|
The real point is that Swift is just better in most cases.
+2 / -0
|
Swift is definitely better with d-boost micro and abuse of the AA missile. I genuinely don't know when I would build them. If I'm trying to defend something light and fast that flies I think I'd make Pickets or land fac aa.
+0 / -0
|
In small quantities, Swift can outmaneuver them, but in big quantities there's nothing quite as good as the Hawk. I especially like them in FFA when it comes to shooting down enemy scouts before they can scout you.
+1 / -0
|
early game, one to finish off stuff while your swifts reload/zoom by the harpies mid game against swifts late game wall of aa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interceptor_aircrafthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_superiority_fighter
+0 / -0
|
The Raptor has almost twice the hitpoints of the Swift. It's meant to brawl with other air units like gunships and survive over enemy AA. It slowing down actually allows it to spend more time following and tracking the target. Swifts dissolve when facing a Rapier/Trident ball, or to late game AA like Chainsaws. It is a little bit weak when you consider the other strengths of the swift, the boost makes it great for scouting, escaping, or quickly responding to enemy bombers or penetrating raider groups. I tend to rely on swifts and if I really need air control, build ground AA rather than Raptors. Though sometimes, when it's hard to get a strong enough concentration of static AA to respond to a constantly moving Rapier/Trident or Nimbus ball, Raptors are an option. It could be stronger, but I wouldn't want it to be the final word in anti-air.
+0 / -0
|
This is from a player that doesn't play much air, so take it with a pinch of salt: Raptor has never really impressed me. The Swift's multirole ability allows an air player to finish off raiders that slip through to rear areas and units that are escaping that are just about dead. Even as an air-to-air unit, it's a bit ho-hum. Good luck in engaging Nimbus with Raptor for example. I can't count the times my Nimbus have turned ambitious Raptors into coleslaw with their superior range and hp. When you add the Swift's afterburner function that allow it to scout unmolested, there's few scenarios that Raptor is worth bulding in. Maybe Raptor needs a conditional buff, such as a limited amount of effective long-range AA missiles that it can use before it needs to return to base to restock. It could cost an extra 50 more metal to compensate. Or else give it a shield so that it can engage gunships without being blasted from the sky. Or, maybe a limited stealth mode to protect it from long range AA fire. It's underwhelming imho, as it is.
+0 / -0
|
It could be changed, but I'd hate it to lose its rapid fire in favor of an alpha. Maybe it should get a slow sidearm or just have its hp and DPS further buffed, but it should remain slow and with no alpha.
+0 / -0
|
Hawks could stand to be able fo fight Nimbus efficiently.
+2 / -0
|
Make it shoot with heavy lasers burst and fly by as well? Or give it D-Gun which makes it invisible for ~4 seconds also allowing to shoot like Phantom. Or name it "Air inferiority trap". Choose your pick :)
+2 / -0
|
quote:
Hawks could stand to be able fo fight Nimbus efficiently. |
Hawk is a food for LLT, Defender, DDM and pretty much every ground unit so no, thx... I've seen a pack of hawks die to bunch of glaives... :D
+1 / -0
|
A few days ago I'd say that whenever I see Air Superiority fighter and play Gunships I wouldn't even bother building my own AA. Hawks had a tendency to just die by themselves to my porc, land units and even gunships. It was always funny to rip apart engaging Hawks with a few Nimbusses or kill them by focusing fire from a bunch of Locusts or just let them die to Krow lazors.   B522011 2 on Adansonia v4.1 though showed me that they are a bit less benign than I used to think. Still calling them air superiority fighters is slander.
+2 / -0
|
I agree that the air superiority fighter has a confused design (it is bad at its job). It is bad at existing near ground-based AA and can be shot down by brawlers and blackdawns. I think giving it strong out of combat regen would be a good start; that would make it better at existing near frontlines where AA can take potshots and make attrition from hit and run swifts less effective.
+5 / -0
|
The air "inferiority" fighter would have been a little more effective, too, if it could fire backwards. The moment it overshoots the enemy (does that often with gunships), it's a sitting duck until it manages to circle back.
+0 / -0
|
Giving it (toggleable) Radar Stealth is a good idea to base the fighter around. Swifts can avoid AA temporarily, but any long-range chainsaws practically deny them an area for anything other than a single shot with their AA missile. Radar Stealth is actually an excellent idea.
+1 / -0
|
they're often used with patrolling owl, which provide radar jammer. me and others had suggested for raptor - remove the slowdown behavior when chasing and firing - fly higher - deal bursty damage (400 dmg burst with 4s cooldown instead of constant 100 dps) that could be compensated by small nerfs in range and/or movement speed
+6 / -0
|
bump, Raptor still feels awful. Good suggestion to experiment with: quote:
me and others had suggested for raptor
- remove the slowdown behavior when chasing and firing
- fly higher
- deal bursty damage (400 dmg burst with 4s cooldown instead of constant 100 dps)
that could be compensated by small nerfs in range and/or movement speed
|
My spinoff on Raptor changes to experiment with: - make it self-radar jam OR increase hp OR give hp regen - add 5-10 slow dmg dps to its' beams (change them to purple-ish color) - fly a bit higher - to compensate the slow dmg, make them fly even slower I also dug out "flare" mechanics in spring's engine documentation - supposedly shooting fake units that mislead incoming homing missile strikes. It could be tested as an alternative to the first point. These changes are aimed at Raptor being great at protecting its air domain by being actually scary.
+2 / -0
|
|
|
My main gripe with the Raptor is that its so slow I might as well use ground based AA, which is many times more cost effective by design.
+1 / -0
|
