Ok so im tired of people whining that GPG made gunships overpowered blah blah blah so here is the actualy math behind gunships, and gunships compared to other units etc...

So all gunships are Aeon and the anti air is UEF.

So Aeon Gunships:
Mass = 71
Energy = 166
Time to build = 24 Seconds

Now UEF anti air:
Mass = 36
Energy = 90
Time to build = 15 seconds

So i wont go into the detail of math that i did, but ill put this in simple terms. 5 mins worth of production in gunships and 5 mins in UEF aa results in 12.5 gunships and 20 anti air.This works out to roughly 12 gunships math wise.

12.5 gunships costs =
mass = 887.5
energy = 2075

and 20 uef aa costs:
Mass = 720
Energy = 1800

as well, lets not forgot that it takes the aeon about 1.5 extra minutes to get out a single gunship wich will add roughly 6 anti air but i wont go into details. Now in a battle between 12 un altered gunships and 20 unaltered anti airs, the anti airs win. Now your telling me that a unit that costs 160 more mass, 275 more energy, and still looses and a fair battle is overpowered? plus the uef can pump out an additional 6 anti air? like comon guys, common sense dictates that gunships are easily counterable by simple land forces alone.

Now i must play devils advicate and make one small comment. If the aeon gunships get the flares, then i have tested that 5 gunships can drop 30 anti air uef units. Wich i agree 100% is overpowered. However in a straight up un altered fight, gunships are by far overpowered, they are actualy at a disadvantage.

P.S. if you would like to see the rest of the complicated math lemme know.

I think the point is, you don't always spend all your money on defensive AA... someone may prepare a bunch of gunships, but you may be preparing something else and only have a regular amount of AA.

Complicated maths, what does it involve ?

The problem is that dedicated AA can't do much else besides, well, shoot things that are airborne. They are worthless in land combat. Which means you're going to have to build other things besides them. Gunships, on the other hand, can do almost everything. They can attack land, other gunships, most navy, buildings and can even take on AA without geting WTFpwned.

And then I'm not even mentioning the massive movement advantage gunships have over land AA. Does a certain area have too much AA? No problem, just move to another and destroy whatever is there. It's impossible to have enough AA covering all your assets to keep you safe from a gunship spammer. Combine that with the fact that fighters just aren't able do down gunships fast enough and you have a good recipe for IMBAness.

did you test whether the AA can kill the gunshiops before they kill a commander???

This. Gunships are offence, AA is defence. AA can't be everywhere at once, and serves no other purpose. Gunships can exploit weak AA areas and harass, and can be used in multiple roles (offence and defence).

I have yet to play an mp match, so i'm not commenting on whether they are in fact op or not, just that a direct comparison time and resource wise fails.

Edit: Ninja'd

I remember someone mentioned the extra 600 shield for gunship is a bit too mucn, and currently all air force's shield upgrade gives too much shield than land forces.

IMO the land shields should be equal to the air shields. Your basic Rockhead has 1500 health, and it's shield is only 150 for 7 RP. That's tiny.

K heres my 2 cents. Build an air factory off the bat like the old games for a quick scout, bamn u notice that they are building air as well. K, looks like u know what to do. ive also noticed alot in MP that people will pick either air, or land, and stick to either or. why? build 2 air factories with wasps/fighter bombers on repeat build and have some air superiorty instead of mass producing assault bots. All im saying is people dont seem to be able to counter gunships and i honestly dont find them that hard. just gets annoying when noone changes there strategy and expects a different outcome.

Me and eric, the guy who posted this orginally tested multiple times,

Now according to his math I should be able to counter his gunshiips with an even amout of economy wise AA ground or w/e
Now again as someone stated that only a small area.

Now so I wanna slow him down. I move into his base with my (non exsistant) land force to attack him as my base is defend enough.

Now either he A) Kill all of those units on the move, or B expands and then kills everything.

Lets face it, the ground AA sucks its 190 mass to do fuckall.
And Aeon get flares, which makes it even worse.

I honestly wouldnt mind the fact that the gunships are as strong but they NEED to be slowed down A ton and Hp needs to be lowered.

MY NAME IS ERIC AND IM AN ******

IMMM AN ******

ASSSHOLL:LEEEEE

Did i also mention im eric and i suck Whale DOO DOOO

12.5 gunships costs =
mass = 887.5
energy = 2075
Total Health = 18125,0
DPS = 650,0
Time to kill opponent force taking in 0 causalities: 23,0 seconds

and 20 uef aa costs:
Mass = 720
Energy = 1800
Total Health = 15000
DPS = 880
Time to kill opponent force taking in 0 causalities: 20,5 seconds

But then, there is nothing that says the gunships has to be where the mobile AA is, they can just fly around to some other unprotected MEX, and if 1 Mex goes down, The mass efficiency of your AA drops much!

Look firstly the point of this thread isnt to say that building aa nonstop is the way to go. its simply to prove that gunships as a units are not op. If u want to counter gunships, build an air factory or two, pump out air to air ****, and move on with ur life. Just saying that people crying about gunships is really getting old fast

What we're trying to tell you is that you can't prove whether gunships are OP or not with raw stats alone but that you also have to take their maneuvrability and versatility into account.

Oh you'll be moving on alright, just as soon as those gunships send your commander to the afterlife.

You want to talk math? Count up how many of a UEF air fighter's rockets it takes to drop a single gunship. No kidding, it's like 20+. Have you seen how little damage they do?

I love the attempt though, really. "Look, they take less resources". You're comparing one of the most versatile units in the game with one that's immobile and can only hit air targets, what, did you expect the UEF AA to cost more resources or something?

Next patch, they need to buff AA so that it shoots down gunships about as fast as this thread got shot down

Why is there no report button? It's obviously useful.

immobile? im talking aa units r-tard and the get gauss upgrade so they rape air and they can take out land bases too. Maby u people need to read once or twice and then speak might help ur cause a little

So are PMs. (;

Its right next to the "easy Button" on the side of the Aeon Air factory.

my god obviously noone can comprehend anything im saying so im just not gonna post here anymore and let u all troll eachother all day long. But for those with an iq above that of my dog, ill say this one last time. if people build 2 factories with air to air on repeat as well as land they would be fine. infact put no points into air tech tree and do whatever u want, as long as u have air dominance, the opponent wont get out more than 10 gunships. ur golden. And i was simply comparing the fact that in comparison to other units, the stats and cost of the gunships is considerably shittier than that off the most common unit. obviously air has better manuvaribility, but what idiot would fight air with land. anyways, change a strategy instead of complaining about gunships. have fun trolling eachother

1. I'd like to see the complicated math.

2. It is true that AA is more than enough to deal with gunships, but the gunships are faster, so using them in a hit-and-run mission can be quite useful, just stop using them as soon as your enemy has got AA everywhere.
You're right about the gunships but I think you missed the strategies about "element of surprise" and "versatility".

From your latest quote:


Apparently, Fighters are weak, very weak, they apparently need a buff more than gunships do (I've got this information from comments of other people because I haven't had the time to play online yet, bur rest assured, those people know what they're talking about). So gaining air dominance with fighters is better countered with AA than gaining air dominance with gunships.

Last but not least. Ignore people like ericISan******* and send a PM to steveb (who made a thread about people finally getting banned if they don't behave) or Remmy (who most definitely has got more time to get things done even though he can't ban by himself).

So Air Counters Air, newsflash really.
So why did you even make an example containing mobile ground AA in the original post?

Even if you ignore the fact that the OP does nothing to account for the mobility advantage of gunships, the OP's post doesn't make a good point. Why? It does nothing to take into account upgrades, which is THE reason why Gunships become overpowered after about 10 minutes in a 3v3/4v4 game.

Let's say a Cybran gunship player researches to personal shields. For 11RP he gains about 430 HP and 600 HP in shields. So now his gunships have about 1880 + 600 HP in shields for a total of about 2480 HP.

Let's say the enemy was a UEF player, and he decided to upgrade the durability of his units as well. He researches to personal shields, which costs 17RP. In spite of that, he gains only 25% more health, and his shields - here is the real joke - give his mobile AA a huge boost of 75HP. 75HP! So your Archanist with these upgrades will have a measely 940HP with 75 HP of shields. That is over 1400 HP less than the gunships! Clearly, even in a straight up mass-for-mass fight the gunships will win because the research tree massively favors them.

The research tree for air is a real problem in general. The shield and health upgrades for air units are cheaper for the UEF and Cybran factions (and about the same for the Illuminate) than the upgrades for land units, yet the shield which air units receive is much better. It blatantly unbalanced, and considering how strong air units were in Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander at release, I'm starting to wonder if Chris Taylor just has a hard-on for gunships and prefers that they emerge victorious in every battle.