Right. I'm new to modding, but I get the gist of it. And to start off (aside from a few minor mods I did, unreleased) I'm going to try (vainly perhaps) to change the state of Air Balence.

Here are my suggestions, please comment and add your own.
I need help on factions specifics as I am only really familiar with UEF, and Cybran to an extent. Break down any and all problems with my ideas, and feel free to add your own and post any suggestions you have. I want this to be a mod I try and make for you guys, the people who need it most, not myself!

Mod Status: See below for current changlog.
UEF: Initial Air Complete. Structures WIP.
Aeon: WIP
Cybran: WIP
Seraphim: WIP

Current Work: UEF Initial Changes.

Ideas for changes. see bottom of post for changelog
Generic Changes:
Fuel capabilitys reduced significantly, preventing aircraft swarms over enemy territory. Likely a reduction of 15 - 40% depending on tier and aircraft function. Transports will likely not suffer from this.

Included Mods:
With his permission I will include (slightly modified stats for balence) Kirvesnaama's T3 Mobile AA mod.

Naval Air Staging:
Overall improvement to repair and refuel rate.

Air staging upgrades
(no new models, unless someone fancies making them for me xD).
Current Teir 2 Air Staging moved to Teir 1. Slight cost reduction and health nerf to bring it inline with Teir 1 structures.
Teir 2, Increase refuel and repair rate by 15%. Increase station health by 20%. Costs 800, 5000. Build time undecided.
Teir 3: Increase refuel and repair rate by furthur 15%. Add station sheild to protect refueling aircraft (sheild of 800 HP). Costs 1200, 10000. Build rate undecided.

Air role changed from assault to support. Only long range aircraft will be Scout craft and Bombers (except torpedo bombers: see below).

Tech 1 Changes:
Scouts: Maintain higher fuel allowance. Increase in speed of 15 - 20%.
Interceptors: Role changed to PRIMARY source of Anti-Air. Slight cost increase (10%).
Bombers: Maintain higher fuel allowance. Role becomes harrasment and support unit. Ideal for attacking enemy Mexes outside of feasable land assault range.
Gunship (Cybran): Loses less fuel than other craft (only 10% drop) in order to maintain role as troop support craft.
Transport: Fuel allowance unchanged. Is able to dock on refuel platform (takes up whole platform during processs).

Tech 2 Changes:
Multirole Fighter: Same AA DPS as Interceptor. Slightly higher health. Build cost reduced to compensate. Role is AA support and Anti-Ground.
Combat Fighter (Aeon): Only slightly higher health than Interceptor, but greater AA DPS than interceptor. Higher speed than multirole. Cost adjustments to be decided.
Torpedo Bomber: Sharp fuel reduction to bring unit closer to defensive. Unable to launch out-to-sea assaults without naval air staging support. Also usefull as naval support unit, if naval air staging present.
Gunship: Little fuel reduction, but health reduced slightly, changing unit role from fast-attack raider to combat support, as is downed quickly by AA.
Guided Missle (Aeon): Larger range, allowing strikes deep into enemy territory. Possible health reduction and speed increase (helps stop fighter interception unless it flys right nearby, but allows anti-air structures to kill it still.)
Transport: Health re-buffed to pre-nerf levels (can someone give me values for this please?). Can refuel and Air Staging. Otherwise unchanged.

Tech 3 Changes:
Spy Plane: Wider vision range, lower fuel (but still quite high, allowing multiple passes between enemy and home base on most maps, and as one off recce missions on v.large maps). Otherwise unchanged.
ASF: Cost dramatically increased (at least doubled), AA dps adjusted to be about 50% higher than Multirole fighter, 30% higher than combat fighter. Build time increased. Designed for use in conjunction with Multiroles. Aeon cost increased more due to superior T2 Combat Fighter.
Strategic Bomber: Long range strike bomber, ideal for specific, targeted destruction. Largely unchanged.
Heavy Gunship: Fuel reduction inline with T2 gunship (approx 25% more than T2 gunship).
AA Gunship (Aeon): Fuel reduced inline with T2 gunship (not as severe). AA capabilities remain, Air to Ground DPS only slightly more than T2 gunship. Health slightly reduced. Ideal as advanced troop support unit.
Torpedo Bomber (Aeon): Greater fuel capacity than T2 Torpedo Bomber, allowing deeper strikes into naval territory without support. Possible health reduction (undecided).
Transport (UEF): Largly unchanged, possible fuel increase as CANNOT refuel at air staging. Can only refuel by idleling. Slight heath nerf, sheild buff.



Feel free to comment, expand, destroy and re-write my ideas. These are my ideas only and I want somthing that works for (nearly) everybody! So post anything on your opinions as to this mod. Any values (health/fuel adjustments/cost adjustment) are very rough estimates and subject to change at any time.

[statement]you got an idea for a mod[/statement]

hey i can model for you, if you want... no texturing though, or anything beyond modeling

For me it looks like a nerf to ASF's and Restorers really not a major ballance change. I think just decreasing speed of ASF by about 5 and lowering dps slightelly would do the job. As for Restorers health nerf would suffice.

But thats just my opinion.

It's designed to reduce ASF spam and adjust how Air is used. Make it more of a support to the main land war rather than an assault of it's own. You can still do assaults, it just takes more logistics (Carriers/Cursiers with air refuel, forward airstaging firebases e.t.c.)

Thanks for yout points though. I agree many problems could be solved with slight adjustments, but I'm not looking to balence current Air, but re-balence it into a new form. If I can.

has this mod been released yet? i really want to take a crack at it.

also, i once made a air-balance mod (was for vanilla) and also made transports land on air-stagings. i noticed that when on ferry-routes transports did not stop to repair or refuel, and if you manually told transports to refuel while they were carrying units they'd still happily refuel.

the AI component might be out of reach for you (i couldn't nut it out either), so one of the more skilled modders here might need to take a look at it.

also, as i really nerfed my flight-times down on my inties and ASFs i found that i couldn't refuel fast enough late-game. so i made my air-stagings refuel 4 T2 planes and 2 T3 planes at a time. i can give you that script if you're interested.

fuel is not the problem

Agreed. Fuel is nor the problem in the FA way of Air Balance. I am not trying to fix FA Air balance, I am trying to re-balance Air in a different way. Whether or not it works it remains to be seen.

@BulletMagnet:
I would be very interested in that script, and I would try to build it into the upgrades of the Air staging.

The transport re-fueling automatticlly is likely a problem with the unit AI as you said. However it could also be a function priority problem (Getting the troops there > refueling self). I'll have a poke at it but I'm not sure if I'll get it. It proberbly is missing the script section that checkes plane damage and tells the plane to refuel.

Mod is currently in conceptual phase, but I hope to have an early version (likely including only fuel modifications): Soon!

hmmz, well my script actually modded all the T2 and T3 planes, not the stagings.

but i concur that the TPs could be prioritising their jobs over fuel, it may not have occured to me.

PM me your email addy, and i shall send you the mod.

You have my permission to include my AA units in this mod. This sounds interesting and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I think reducing some fuel levels quite a lot even could be good, as now the fuels don't really even matter in the end, if you just have one or two platform in your base. Keeping the planes able to refuel slowly on ground makes it simpler and more approachable, which is good.

The modelling on the platforms shouldn't be any problem at all, as the easiest way to go is just stitch up new version from the regular one. One thing that greatly affects their design however is how you want the different tiers to relate to each other. Would they be upgradeable from earlier ones and still buildable straight like mexes are? Or are they separate altogether. This is important if the building grows in size as it get better.

They would function similar to factories, upgrading linearly from tech 1. That way they become more tactically important, as it takes time to get one upgraded in the field. I'm looking at adding a little faction diversity by giving the Cybran T3 a stealth field (not as large as dedicated mobile stealth) allowing it to be used as a hidden firebase.

Thanks for letting me use the AA. I'm working on the fuel changes as the first thing that is going to change! Expected release: Eventually!

If you do the mod as you described in your post, you have fixed FA air balance, once the later tweaking has been done. I'm not worried about anything else than T3 ASF spam and T3 land being obsolete because there's no mobile T3 AA, but I have high hopes that this mod will fix those.


This would be the best way of making it IMO to minimize micromanagement. Also, should you think of making a T2 escort carrier? I mean a carrier without/with limited build capability and used mainly for refuelling. This is because it would increase strategic possibilities in other tiers than T3 also.

Cybrans already have that , its called the Siren, add one to each faction and you kill diversity.

unless its unarmed and has smaller capacity than the t3 carrier and cant build stuff....hmmm*goes and starts on a t2 carrier model*

yeah i like the idea of having air on a smaller scale as in to actully use carriers to not just build and store them. but also to support them and move em around at big maps. While your at it, can you see if you can fix that carriers can build while moving?

While I would absolutly love to fix that (because then we could to mid-air refuels with air carriers) I really wouldn't know where to start.

I'm very new to modding really, and I'm just looking to do the unit stat changes for now. As I get better I might expand my ideas.

I hope to have the first version of this mod by the end of the week (not much time for modding as I have some final exams this week).

@Bulletmagnet:
Airstaging slots I have sorted. In the Airstaging bluebrint there are entries for number of slots and how many slots T2 and T3 units take up.
A few problems with the upgradable airstaging, but I'm working on it. I have to duplicate each one for the factory like upgrades, and then re-set the references in the BP, and also give it the factory entry to show the Build menu which holds the upgrade icon.

@Lt. Hawkeye:
If your working on the carriers and they look anything like your other models, they would be AWESOME! ^_^. As for diversity...
Perhaps turn the UEF T2 Sheild boat into a one slot carrier,
Cybran maintains their one with the great AA,
Aeon perhaps gets a faster repair/refuel rate,
Not sure about sera...
Still, I'm gonna focus on getting the basics of the mod going before I start worrying about extra units!

Remember the models have to correspond the attach points too. The model has dummy bones named either AttachPoint, AttachPoint_Med or AttachPoint_Lrg, and of course as many of each as it's supposed to hold each attachclass units. So both those and the numbers on the blueprint have to correspond to have it take the right units in right spots of the platform. The rest is just up to how you want the units to change when upgraded (nice upgrade animations like facs and mexes ofc ).

Oh yeah...

Theres only 1 attach point for T3 aircraft...

Well If I get someone who can model (I can't for the life of me, but I might give it a go anyway) that could be fixed, otherwise I'll just use health and repair rate buffs to achieve a similar effect.

Posted initial UEF Changelog.

Please note that although the extra sheilds on the UEF T3 Gunship and Transport may seem unbalanced currently, they should not be with the inclusion of the T3 Mobile AA units.

The higher sheild T3 transport will allow for devastating "safe" drops, if the sheild holds, and it isn't intercepted.

The ASF has been adjusted to retain it's high DPS, but be significantly weaker, provoking it to be used in conjunction with T2 and T1 Jets.

Also note that I will attempt to balance Air Experimentals and Air Defense Structures in relation to this mod once the air units are complete (e.g. SAM being OP as most air should be T2).

glad you have liked my other models, i also have made some tier 3 air staging/naval bases, for Sera, UEF and Cybran, working on the Aeon one still. im actually liking some of your changes, if your interested maybe we could work together or even have this merged into my next version, or i could lend you the models+scripts of my tier 3 air staging(PM if your interested)

Are you doing other rebalance mods too?

I would like too help if you do. Although I'm not sure on a lot of your ideas, your on the right track.