Wow, choppers are grossly OP !!!

[Yitzi]

You also have to look at expected mineral loss, not just the combat odds.  If an air unit costs 40M and infantry 20M, and it's 50-50 combat odds, then the defender is coming out ahead.  This is why infantry should cost less than air.  Air will still have use for scouting, bombarding sensors, or multi attacking lone units.  AAA although strong isn't a given on all land units as there are many other good abilities.  For sea I'll agree that AAA is pretty much a given in one slot once you get it.

Infantry does cost less than air, roughly half as much (assuming unarmored; for armored it's far cheaper.)  It's rovers that are (somewhat) more expensive than air.

[Nexii]

Yea, and rovers were probably somewhat overcosted by default (or air undercosted).  The only advantage rovers really have is mobile vs open.  I put rovers at 75% the cost of air, but 100% can be okay if you boost up that bonus a lot.

[Yitzi]

Yea, and rovers were probably somewhat overcosted by default (or air undercosted).  The only advantage rovers really have is mobile vs open.

No, they also can use maglevs which air can't, they don't need airbases to extend their range out of your territory, and ECM gives a much smaller bonus than AAA.

[Question]

? Wouldnt a missle air unit vs a plasma steel AAA defender be roughly 50-50?

But that's not even levels of tech; missile is level 4 requiring 8 techs total (counting itself), and plasma steel is level 2 requiring 3 techs total.  A better comparison would be missile vs. silksteel (level 4 requiring 10 techs total).

Of course, there is the issue of air power requiring Synthetic Fossil Fuels and nothing of significance until much later requiring Silksteel, but that can be fixed without my help.

Hmm i never really noticed that before, but i think its not an easy comparison tech wise because its much easier to get missles than to get silksteel. Its probably easier to get chaos guns than silksteel actually...and the game does max out armor strength as half of weapon strength (up till AX added string disruptors).

So am i right to say that pre-air power, people spam armorless rovers for offence, but that doesnt work after you get air power because airpower is cheaper, so people switch to AAA armored infantry? But if everyone is using AAA infantry that makes air units useless...

[Yitzi]

Hmm i never really noticed that before, but i think its not an easy comparison tech wise because its much easier to get missles than to get silksteel.

Not by much; if silksteel were needed for hab complexes, I think that would be enough to make things about even.

Its probably easier to get chaos guns than silksteel actually...and the game does max out armor strength as half of weapon strength (up till AX added string disruptors).

True; however, things only start to reach that point around T6 or 7 (probably meant to match where tachyon fields become available.)

So am i right to say that pre-air power, people spam armorless rovers for offence, but that doesnt work after you get air power because airpower is cheaper, so people switch to AAA armored infantry? But if everyone is using AAA infantry that makes air units useless...

But of course armorless rovers (possibly with support from armored rovers) are fairly good against AAA infantry...

Thus, you get what Extra Credits called "cyclical imbalance", which is a good way to keep the metagame fluid and interesting.