Insectoid AA guns IMPLEMENTED

[kingofgalaxies]

The insectoid AA guns are way stronger than the other races' ones. Is there any distinct reason for this? I feel like this is just unbalanced, so they could deserve a bit of a haircut.

[Midonik]

What do you mean stronger than other races? You can't just say that, numbers please.

[kingofgalaxies]

Fair enough

[kingofgalaxies]

Current state :

Insectoids:
-AA gun: cost 3,
dmg 8, bonus +24 air/+6 flying, attacks 1,
range 5, sight 5, speed 1,
miss rate 5%

-laser spitter: cost 3,
dmg 3, bonus +9 air/+2 flying, attacks 3,
range 4, sight 4, speed 3,
miss rate 7%

Humans:
-laser AA gun: cost 3
dmg 4, bonus +12 air/+2 flying, attacks 2,
range 4, sight 4, speed 1,
miss rate 5%

-SAM launcher: cost 4
dmg 4, bonus +6 air/+0 flying, attacks 2,
range 6, sight 6, speed 4,
miss rate 10%

Reptiloids AA are even weaker than humans', no need to detail here. They get boosted by the damage tech which then makes them good enough.

[kingofgalaxies]

Insectoid AA gun vs. Human AA laser gun :
Ins AA gun deals the same dmg to air units as both the 2 attacks added of the human one. But 1 big attack instead of 2 small ones means it onehits many 5 turn planes, which is a bigger advantage than having the option of attacking 2 planes in 1 turn (is rare to happen anyway).
Ins AA gun outranges human one by 1 tile (without the tech) and sees further. This is a huge advantage for slow moving artilleries.
Ins gun deals way more dmg to flying than human one. Being able to cause problems to hovering vehicles too is a great add-on human gun simply doesn't have.
Those are three aspects in which the insectoid unit supercedes the human equivalent. A bit to one-sided imo.

Insectoid laser spitter vs human SAM launcher:
Obviously, SAM launcher costs one more turn, so it should be better.
Laser spitter deals 12 dmg/attack vs air units , while SAM launcher deals 10/attack. AND the spitter has one more action! This leads to 36 vs 20 total dmg.
Vs flying units laser spitter also deals more dmg and also hits them better due to lower miss rate.
Compensating factor for the SAM launcher is just a bit more hp and the large range+sight. However it is more expensive but doesn't seem to justify the additional 1 turn. A unit that sees much but doesn't kill anything is questionable value.

Altogether, the need of a nerf is more obvious with the slow moving insectoid AA gun, but the spitter could deserve a small haircut as well.
Nerfing AA units would in general encourage strategic use of aircraft in this game, which have too little use cases anyway.

[kingofgalaxies]

To clarify, I'm not saying the stats should balance out perfectly between insectoids and humans. But the dominance of the insectoid AA gun is just too heavy.

[Midonik]

Perhaps railgun aa one shooting the multirole plane is kinda much. I think some kind of a decrease in damage for it would be good. I think I made those stats with the idea that human laser AA costs 2 which is not actually the case, idk, it was around midnight.

For the laser spitter × sam launcher comparison, I think the range is a huge advantage for an AA gun (allows to catch planes easier). Also the Sam launcher benefits from both human engine techs and human projectiles and artillery trackers techs, so it scales super well, surpassing the laser spitter in damage too, while for the laser spitter you'd need to steal either rep energy techs (admittedly, that would be a huge increase) or human engine techs (I don't think the speed is that strong). Sam launcher may be the strongest aa gun in the long run imo.

[kingofgalaxies]

Thanks for your opinion.
So, can we agree on nerfing the dmg of insectoid AA railgun and leaving everything else as is? Also, maybe give human gun some more bonus to hovercraft?

[Midonik]

I mean, it has 50% bonus to flying units in general. Railgun has less towards flying infantries, and more to other fliers. You can definitely use the human laser gun as anti hover weapon.

[kingofgalaxies]

Yes, but flying infantry is so insignificant! Hovering vehicles, on the other hand, are very popular due to their practicality. So this doesn't rly balance out imo.