Rogue Aircraft AA Balancing

With ideas taken from the player community, we've put together a set of rules exploring RA's game play with AA capability with all of RA's air units. On the outset this attempt is as long-shot as can be, however, the potential reward outweigh the odds and if nothing else, tons of fun in the attempt!

Concept

Without question a proper AA dynamic for all aircraft would be a huge step up with the game-play value however historically any discussion regarding this point has been clouded with dismissal. Justifiably so as it likely will throw the game play balancing out the window. But what if? What if we were to stumble upon a rule-set that did work and simply added a new level of game play? Air-to-air battle across 4 different aircraft!

The following rules is the first (and hopefully not last)step towards this attempt.

New Rules

Aircraft now repairs on the Airfield/Helipad

• Helipad repairs 1 Hp per step (Service Depot: 10), interval 10 (Service Depot: 7)
• Airfield repairs 1 Hp per step, interval 12

On paper, aircraft will likely take a lot more damage during games, making the Service Depot air repair time wasting and impractical. The reason for the dramatically drop in repair speed are due to the low HP of aircraft in general. Soviet aircraft are also low HP compared to Allies aircraft and so receive a slightly longer repair speed to compensate.

Weapons and adjustments

Hind ChainGunAA

• Inherits values of ChainGunAG
• Damage: 15 (AG Damage 40)
• Min.Range: 0c0

Longbow HellfireAA

• MinRange: 0c0
• BurstDelays: 8, down from 10
• Missile Speed: 334, down from 416
• Missile RoT: 3, down from 10
• Range Limit: 10c0, up from 7c0
• Damage: 35, down from 40
• Damage Spread: 256, up from 128

Yak ChainGunAA.Yak

• Inherits values of ChainGun.Yak
• Damage: 10 (AG Damage 40)

MiG MaverickAA

• Inherits values of Maverick
• Damage: 30
• ReloadDelay: 104
• Missile Speed: 304

Longbow

• Speed: 164, up from 149
• Turn Speed: 5, up from 4

MiG

• Speed: 235, up from 223

The AA weapons and properties of the Longbow and MiG has been modeled after CG420's AA tweaks on his own balance playtest maps which to his credit show some promise on implementing the feared AA MiGs vs Longbow/Hind/Yak. The MinRange 0c0 for the AA Longbow and Hind allows them to fire upon fast moving Yaks and MiGs crossing paths with Helicopters without looking awkward. Helicopters have a repulsion towards each other by default.

So this is where we start. From the get go it's worth noting the AA capability of the Hind and Yak are relatively weak, deal less damage to moving targets but might be used effectively in uneven numbers. The MiG/Longbow missiles also have to deal more with moving targets which when in retreat seem to have a good chance at evading missile hits. The whole dynamic is vast but if lucky, the setup may take RA's gameplay to a new level.