TOW Missile anti-air range is OP?

[ImTimK]

Besides the Tox RPG/Stinger, no other ground to air missile has such range. It's longer than any 1v1 map in the game. That's a long friggin wire lmao.

Should it be more grounded?

[Jundiyy]

lol, I don't see a prob with it. Buff the weak. (Exile scared of TowVees now... 😂😛❤️)

[MTKing4]

It's true, just watch the spectre when beaming from across the map above towvees, they'll follow it to the end of the world

[ImTimK]

ChinaV has a lot of trouble with them, they dominate ground and air and whatever China buff we do, it's not going to help much against TowVee spam.

Why it would need such range in the first place? It literally makes them the best anti-Mig units in the game, much better than Gats or Quads in high quantities. China often losses it's Migs on the way home and it feels like cheap kills. Those are expensive losses which often means losing the game. It would be alot more balanced if USA had to rely more on Avengers (which are also already very tough).

Besides anti-Mig, the 2nd use-case is vs Comanche spam, which is often done in teamgames. Now this use-case shouldn't be nerfed, so my proposal would be finding the range at which the performance vs Commies doesn't change, but where Mig survivability will improve.

[commy2]

Similar to how Tox RPGs fire Stinger missiles, TOW-Vees fire Patriot missiles, but only when aiming at airborne. They have a different missile when firing at ground targets. The missile vs ground targets has fuel for 1 second, the Patriot one for 10 seconds. So this thing actually follows planes for 10 seconds.

[ImTimK]

How long does a normal Stinger track? And what are the missile speed differences between Patriots, Stingers and Tow?

[commy2]

5 seconds. Both Stinger and Patriot top speed is 400 feet/second, but Stinger accelerates twice as fast. Patriot reaches top speed under 1 second already tough, so that doesn't matter much.

[ZekeDlyoung]

Then perhaps the Humvee should get its own AA missile with a reduced fuel lifetime

[Jundiyy]

Tbh, I think you'd have to bring it down to like 2s or 3s if you want units to get away. Otherwise it wouldn't make a difference since units don't fly away that far and the Vees don't have the range anymore.

The missiles travel very fast, for comparison, I think a King Raptor travels at 175 (top of my head) and the missiles at 400.

So the planes really need to get out of range fast. Otherwise if they were at the edge of the Vee range when they were shot at, they'd still be hit with a slightly lowered rocket lifetime.

[xezon]

10 seconds is quite long indeed wow. That also means they are really goot at shooting down General Promotion planes.

[ReLaX82]

Dual Towvee can even own vChina and vchina has only ground units to face it as with tows any air unit will die.

[Jundiyy]

10 seconds is quite long indeed wow. That also means they are really goot at shooting down General Promotion planes.

As I said, the seconds are not the thing here, it's more the speed. They will catch most planes in 2 or 3 seconds. So you'd have to reduce it down to 2 or 3 seconds or else reduce the speed of the missiles. Same for GPs, they will catch them as well. Spectre is super fast hence why it will get away till it stops.

[ImTimK]

10 seconds is quite long indeed wow. That also means they are really goot at shooting down General Promotion planes.

As I said, the seconds are not the thing here, it's more the speed. They will catch most planes in 2 or 3 seconds. So you'd have to reduce it down to 2 or 3 seconds or else reduce the speed of the missiles. Same for GPs, they will catch them as well. Spectre is super fast hence why it will get away till it stops.

If you want an evading unit to beat 7-10 seconds of tracking, you'll have to nerf the speed MASSIVELY. Much more of a controversial thing than just capping the max distance if you ask me.

[Float1ngFree]

IMO having the same speed & fuel time as stationary Patriot Battery is wrong. That simply was a mistake (one of countless) where devs reused the existing model w/o any thoughts of implications.

I'm fine with the speed as AA missile has to be fast, but Fuel time could easily be cut in half, to 5s, and that would still hit in 95% of the times. I have 3000ms in my project and jets rarely get away.

[xezon]

Loaded Rocket Humvees with TOW Missile and Search and Destroy are perhaps the best ground unit in the game. It can fight everything.

Perhaps a bit of nerfing is ok here, when on the other hand we do a bit of buffing with the Avenger veteran weapon bonus with #2327. It would give the Avenger more punch but at the same time take the edge a bit off of Humvee vs airborne units.