Air support in festering skies DLC
M
Mrxnecron
I think that with DLC festering skies we got simple and pleasant aviation mechanics, but it seems too detached from the main game, the ability to use the plane in tactical missions, depending on its equipment, would connect the DLC with the main game, giving us the opportunity to feel the DLC not as a mechanic torn out of the game, but as a full-fledged part of it. Perhaps something like the American AC-130, which once in a mission will arrange hell for the enemy to the musical accompaniment of the flight of the Valkyries.
Martin Mystik Jonáš
What about giving it as skill or "remote control weapon" to new class Pilot: https://phoenixpoint.canny.io/feedback/p/new-soldier-class-pilot
Twisted Kangaroo
All I'm saying is if we can do it they can do it and the thought of Sirens and Tritons burrowing behind me is frightening all they need is a Siren and two hitman alphas and you potentially have a squad wipe
M
Mrxnecron
You can add a new special gunner class to the phoenix research tree, which is needed to coordinate actions with aircraft, something like an air raider from the Earth Defense Forces.
A
Azrael Walker
I actually wanted to suggest a similar thing. I envisioned it working like this:
Add a bunch of new weapons and modules that are for air to ground combat. These obliviously need to be equipped on an aircraft to work and could do things like direct damage or shredding armour for weapons slots, to pinging the battlefield to show everything you don't currently have LoS as a radar blip for a turn or creating a one turn extraction square so you can emergency evac a wounded unit (but not a vehicle) for a tactical module.
As for activating these abilities Iv got two suggestions:
First first suggestion is to add flares that works like a grenade i.e. you throw it and the ability targets the square it lands in. You have different flares to activate weapon abilities or tactical abilities. On one hand this balances this somewhat by taking up inventory slots and carry weight, but on the other these would basically just replace grenades for damage and the usefulness of tactical modules is limited to throwing range.
Second suggestion is that the items equipped to the aircraft give all the members in the squad new abilities which are used to call in the air support. These would require LoS and maybe all 4 AP as you radio in instructions. All of these abilities would have a global cool down of a couple of turns so they cant be spammed by 8 squaddies in one turn and maybe a number of charges that only refresh if you return to a base so you have to ration them out on long patrols.
Setokaiva
I remember, back in the early days of the Fig campaign for Phoenix Point, that the devs had planned to include "tactics cards" -- air strikes, artillery, supply drops, and other call-downs that could shift the battle dramatically when used right. However, ultimately the game trended towards small-scale squad battles, rather than the platoon-sized conflicts that were envisioned where support of that scale might make sense.
I suppose I could still see armed transports providing CAS to your units on the ground, BUT, balancing that vis-a-vis the existing action economy and number of units on the field would be a far greater challenge than I think the devs are ready to handle right now.