So is there any reason to build Tacjets on Apollo?

[Forbiddentwo]

They seem pretty weak and fragile and their range is insanely short unless you have a carrier. Speaking of which, are carriers worth it?

It doesn't help that it can't even attack worms without getting King Konged...

Am I missing something?

 

[AriochIV]

Tacjets are good for one thing; shooting down enemy tacjets. On occasion the AI will use tacjets to bombard your land forces, sometimes to good effect, especially early in the game when they rush. And you can negate them by using your own as interceptors.

That's pretty much it.

 

[Ryika]

Tacjets are - like all the other aircrafts - extremely weak and fragile. Damage is low, but they're a small defenders bonus and basically have the most defensive mobility you can think of. They're "everywhere at the same time" - without being able to be attacked. Without weapons of mass destruction it would be really hard to attack if they had high damage potential. So I think their damage is actually okay.

What's NOT okay in my eyes is how easily they die to basically anything. That makes them pretty useless - you just can't attack the important units in the center of the battle. And on top of that, AI is really weak, so you'll probably never need to stack your defensive forces as much as possible. So my final verdict is basically: Unit is crap. The only situation in which I build some is if I share close borders with a neighbor who has a hugh airforce. Fortifying for a few turns and intercepting until he's wasted all his stuff leads to way less losses than running into a barrage of 3 cities full of aircrafts.

And carriers are kind of crappy overall. Player should win any sea battle with ease and being able to send some aircrafts a few tiles inland doesn't really do anything without a real force to support them.

 

[Idleray]

Tacjets are NOT useless on apollo. Besides using them to intercept enemy aircraft which is vital, they can be used to finish off enemy units on low hp. I have noticed that like Civ V bombers the amount of damage that they take has a proportional relationship to how much hp the enemy has left, this means the optimum way to use them is to soften up an enemy unit up before using the tacjet on them. This can ensure you get max usage out of them.

 

[Aeson]

I agree with Idleray on all points.

Once upgraded they become good city bombardment options and great for finishing off weak units so your melee don't have to waste a turn attacking. Intercepting is helpful, but not really important as the AI will tend to suicide their own on tough targets and won't replace them fast enough.

Carriers and rebasing give air units extremely fast movement and they're cheap to replace. On Carriers they heal while moving to the next target. If the city is near the coast but not on it, air bombardment is often the best way to reduce city defenses (though as Idleray says, don't lead off with the air bombardment, use it after the city is lower HP). Especially if the terrain is rough.

 

[KingCraig]

Being a CiV G&K player, I got hooked on stealth bombers, which can fly half-way around the world and obliterate city defenses quickly. I used them as much as possible. Now, TAC jets aren't even nerfed bombers. They're like wee baby planes. So I only use them for defence against AI jets, and for finishing off the wounded, as mentioned above. Now I rely heavily on melee units, because ranged units of all kinds are just too weak, whereas it was the opposite in Civ5.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Funny, my experience is completely different. Even o Apollo, I usually far ahead of AI in Affinities.

I don't have any problems with enemy aircraft - they usually just die attacking my strong units. Instead I use air units to attack enemy units. Finishing wounded units is best, but 3 units of 3-4 level aircraft could finish even quite strong unit at full health. With their range they are really useful.

 

[Pietato]

They are actually much better than they seem at attacking cities.

 

[stealth_nsk]

They are actually much better than they seem at attacking cities.

Another different experience. Cool

 

[Roxlimn]

Don't know about Tacjets, but anything Needlejets and higher are remarkably effective if you can position them right. The AI has a bad habit of spacing its cities too close, so once you can home in a city, a Needlejet squadron will give you a commanding advantage. The higher tech aircraft are even better, of course.

I used about 6 Needlejets to offset a Strength disadvantage fighting Battlesuits with basic CNDRs, and Hutama had more Battlesuits - 5 vs. my 1 CNDR. Ranged units were not of much use because the Hilly terrain meant they couldn't concentrate fire effectively.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I hardly use them for anything other than defensive interceptions tbqh

 

[kyrilocy]

To me carriers for most time are aircraft transporters, shipping planes to place far away aka. another continent.

 

[purplecow]

Park a loaded carrier under an orbital laser and you control the seas around it forever.

 

[Joch]

The big advantage with jets is that they can be quickly repositioned from one area to another allowing you to quickly build up units at a threatened spot. I like to keep a few around as a quick reaction force.

 

[Roxlimn]

Jets allow concentration of firepower with greater facility than Ranged Units. They also allow you to conserve movement on ground units where that's a lot more limited and important. As an example, the jets allow killing of weakened enemy units without compromising your own ground unit positions.

 

[Manannan]

Tacjets are generally useless, although they start to have uses once they get upgraded. In the early game the AI has a bad habit of suiciding it's tacjets on battlesuits/cndrs/xenoswarms, which take almost no damage in the process. Not really worth building fragile interceptors to do what ground units are already doing anyway. Only worth building up later when the AI's airforce is capable of actually doing some damage (which still isn't very much mind you), and even then only in limited amounts.

 

[omniclast]

Are we talking about Tacjets or the whole line of units? T1 tacjets are indeed pretty flimsy and useless, but T2 and higher are quite useful. You just have to know what you're going to use them for, and then stack their bonuses. Also, building nodes around the cities where you launch them from will negate most of the damage they take from attacking units or cities, so you can use them continuously without stopping to heal.

For purity -> take bonuses vs. land and sea units and heal every turn, plus carrier 20% bonus for attacking. T4 purity air units on carriers take out T1 Xeno Titans in 4-5 shots. Wrecked my human buddy with this (and he had a LOT of XTs).

For supremacy -> Couple ways to play this one - The vindicator 1 aircraft slot plus a seraph with T2 intercept bonus and double intercept is pretty sweet on water maps. But I really like the free rebase with anti-city buffs - means you can use them to take a city, then next turn rebase and start attacking the next city immediately.

For harmony -> the +2 range when full HP is deceptively good. Haven't found much of a use for the scatter. But IMO Harmony's pretty weak militarily so I don't go this route too often.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The main problem I found with aircraft is naval attack bug. If you attack an embarked unit, the preview shows destruction of it, but instead aircraft starts to attack for a long time in loop. The animation ends on some timer event, but damage isn't calculated correctly.

If the bug will be fixed, the aircraft will be deadly at destroying enemy forces with its range, as A often embarks units when moving against you.

 

[Forbiddentwo]

Are we talking about Tacjets or the whole line of units? T1 tacjets are indeed pretty flimsy and useless, but T2 and higher are quite useful. You just have to know what you're going to use them for, and then stack their bonuses. Also, building nodes around the cities where you launch them from will negate most of the damage they take from attacking units or cities, so you can use them continuously without stopping to heal

I don't suppose the node bonuses stack?

Oh wait, nodes are the healing improvement... does that mean I'd need the enemy to be next to a node, or that I'd need one next to the city they are based in?

 

[Lucius_]

Tacjets are fairly weak and only good defensively. Once you get to higher tiers, they get much better and they increase in range with each affinity upgrade.

If you aren't using an air force defensively or offensively by midgame, then you are seriously gimping yourself.