Over the last several versions I have gotten to do a lot of air combat, both offense and defense. While I like a lot of the adjustments that have been made, I do think there are some flaws in the current model that we can address. I've talked about all of these individually in various threads, so I though it made sense to centralize them all for an easy review.
1) Interception is too weak to act as a deterrent. To me the purpose of interception is to act as a defense against air attack. However, the current interception strength is too weak to accomplish this.
Generally interception will do 50ish damage when it hits, and sometimes can get into the 60s. While that's great damage, compared to the old system (where interception basically equals death), its not enough to stop me from attacking. I will snipe your unit, and heal my plane....ultimately winning the combat.
What this means is, there is no real defense from air attack. If you have a vulnerable unit, I will take it out. It doesn't matter if you damage a few of my planes, I will always attack safe in the knowledge my plane will survive, and your unit will not. Over time....I will simply win.
Because of this...all of the interesting nuance of interception is gone. I no longer bother with air sweeps (why waste the damage on my fighter when I can just bomb and do real damage...I can always just heal the damage later). In fact, I rarely bother with fighters anymore. My interception doesn't stop enemy planes, and I would rather bomb than air sweep....so what I have found is I make fighters less and less. I will add in the occasional anti-aircraft gun to slow down his bomber strikes...but I rarely trade in a precious aircraft slot for a fighter.
--Solution: Probably the simplest method is to increase the Air Superiority promotions of both fighters and anti-air craft guns from 75% to 90% or maybe even 100%. Interception should nearly kill a fresh plane...or there is no point to having it.
--Radical Solution: I personally think this idea is too radical, but its another option. Toss the entire interception system. Instead, intercepting units add +X air defense to all units in their intercepting range....and the effects stack. Air Sweeps reduce air defense by X to the target you strike.
Example: I have 2 Jet Fighters on intercept. These add +25 air defense each to all units within their range. I also have a Mobile Sam that adds +20 air defense to everything within 4. This means many units have Air Defense 70 + their base. When I go to attack, I quickly see that my bomber is going to take a lot of damage. I either take it, or do an air sweep, which reduces the damage by 30 (again note all this numbers are examples).
2) Carriers need more protection from aircraft. If you actually get into true modern naval warfare (aka carriers + ships), the issue right now is that carriers are too easy to take out from planes and guided missiles. The first to attack will kill the carriers...which cripples the strength of the naval force. Its too binary.
--Solution: I think the carrier should get the air superiority promotion (to give it some protection and beef up its interception). This combined with the interception increases above should give it the protection it needs so its not so easily taken out.
3) Stealth Bombers need to work on carriers. Heavy Bombers are not strong enough to deal with late modern/information era units...especially if the enemy has jet fighters and stealth bombers of their own. The simple solution is to allow stealth bombers to work on carriers. While I recognize that is not factual in the real world....IRL stealth bombers have a nigh global range with their mid air refueling capabilities. Many late game combats (if they are for actual stakes) involve projecting force into another continent. Without the ability to use stealth bombers, carriers become very weak. So unless people want to give the stealth bomber the range of an Xcom squad, I think this is a good compromise.
4) A rework of the Stealth Bomber: The stealth bomber has two problems to me right now. On the one hand, its current interception evasion just further weakens an already weak mechanic. Jet Fighters and Mobile SAMs are literally useless right now in most circumstances. On the other hand, cities do an incredible amount of damage to a unit designed to "evade defenses". So we have this weird situation where the unit is nigh invincible against units and crap against cities.
--Solution: I have been advocating for a reduction in city air defense but I think I have a better idea to kill two birds with one stone. Instead....remove the current 90% interception evasion and give them a "half damage from air defense" promotion.
So now, interception is still a factor against stealth bombers, and stealth bombers can bomb cities and other high air defense targets without a huge amount of damage. This allows the stealth bomber to bomb...but still allows interception to be relevant as a defense against the unit.
