The air combat is anything but balanced, but at least it offers several alternatives, several challenges and some payoff (I hope). Fighters armed with dual Lancers used to dominate the game, as it's the longest-range weapon. Then the idea of 'tank' appeared, which is quite natural concept for jrpg-like model of air combat (a skewed one, I'd say, since 1 ship can protect 3 others).
However, if you comment on the air combat, always clarify what diff level are you using. At highest diff enemy ships, especially the military ones, can dish out at least thrice as much punishment as on the easiest diff (re-fire rate for Battleship and many of its ilk is 23-46 sec on easiest diff, and - if my calcs are correct - 7-14 sec on the highest diff, if OXC is faithful to the original in that matter).
(I'm playing on the second hardest difficulty.)
I'm currently thinking that the need / payoff of air combat might be too small in the early to mid game. A large research and money investment is required just to get off the ground, and missiles and heavy weapon ammo is expensive to supply. If you do shoot down some ships, and successfully complete the ground assaults, the resources do pay for themselves - but that's only if you have the ability to do the missions and claim the rewards.
I'm finding that I've got plenty of missions without needing to shoot down anything. There are lots of landed ships, enemy bases, progroms, and mini-missions. My ground forces are stretched (I've got about 30 injured soldiers, and 10 more ready to fight); and my vaults are already full of loot. I don't need the additional resources from the crashes, and I don't want to build more barracks to hire more hands to do the missions anyway.
In the previous versions, early-game air combat was almost a necessity. It was possible to shoot down ships right from day 1; and since there were no mini-missions, the crashes were a major source of income. It isn't like that now. Air combat is an expensive and risky optional extra whose payoff is dwarfed by what we're getting for free. Shooting down peacekeeping missions is kind of attractive, but those missions are usually run by fairly strong enemy ships - and so it isn't a strong option until we get better air-combat tech anyway.
I've got one suggestion which may help adjust that balance. The suggestion is to give successful ground assault missions on landed ships a chance of generating crackdowns. (ie. if you defeat all enemies on a
landed ship, the ship's faction may choose to do a crackdown mission.) I see three main reasons for making this change:
- It makes sense from a role-play point of view. Destroying the craft and crew of a landed ship is just as damaging as shooting it out of the sky; so a crackdown is equally warranted.
- It incentivises shooting down civilian ships in the early game rather than risking crackdown from landed factional ships.
- It creates a need to shoot down crackdown Sentry ships when they do come looking for you.
On the other hand, it would make the early game a bit harder. If early-game crackdowns are going to be a problem for balance, then perhaps the crackdown chance could apply only to medium or larger ships; or perhaps they should only attempt a crackdown if the player's reputation is above a certain threshold.
