Stormchilds are good as they are. They are the precision strike fighter perfect for the USA doctrine. It's takes a good commander to use these units early on to achieve dominance. Late game, they act as the primir building sniper. If any Anti-Air is out of place, two air fields of Stormchilds will fly in and out, leaving only a destroyed tech building in their wake. Yes they are fast, but their paper thin armor makes it fair for enemies who brought sufficient AA. Only 4 or 5 AA infantry is enough to take down these fast movers. Their damage is rather lack luster too. With not enough damage to take down a power plant like the four Eagles and no armor debuff to take down one light vehicle by itself.
Yet dispite their disadvantage comparing to the other Strike fighters I can't bring myself to say I would prefer any other jets besides the Stormchild. Even if the Black Eagle is an objectively better jet. Perhaps it's the excellent voice acting. Maybe it is the way the Jets seemingly instantly move to the location you selected. It could be that it brings a sense of pride when one uses skill, not stats, to out match the enemy.
Stormchilds is probably the most fair a jet can be in the crazy world of Mental Omega.
Btw, can we get the Black Eagle adjusted or something? Cause fk man Pacific Front really gets on a lot of people's nerves these days.
p.s @Teslaboi So if we were to give the weapon a particle effect should it be like the wolf hound missile or more alike the Guardian GI IFV combo missile?
Stormchilds strike me as sorta the average jet of the bunch in MO. They remind me of the Harrier in RA2; a plain old jet armed with standard missiles. Nothing crazy or special about them (unless you count being the only radar-invisible jet (to my knowledge, anyway) as special). Not saying it in a bad way though; I'm just pointing it out.
Compared to RA2, Harriers in MO are pretty good tank busters due to their armor debuffing missiles, especially if you're facing off T3 tanks (Nuwa Cannons and Mastodons in particular; those things have a lot of health, but a Harrier airstrike can do a lot of damage to them, if not outright destroy them).
Black Eagles from what it looks like only need a nerf to their damage against buildings, so they don't overlap with the Barracuda's role as building destroyer. Otherwise, they seem okay for the most part. They've very strong, but given it's the Black Eagle we're talking about, I'm not really surprised. They've got the most health, they're fast, they've got a cool weapon (no pun intended), etc.
The Stormchild, compared to these two, isn't exactly OP, but it doesn't feel UP either. It's fragile, but it's super fast, meaning that enemy AA has only a limited window to retaliate before the jets fly off. Their missiles do the lowest damage out of all the Allied jets and have no special effects, but they don't miss (Stormchild missiles are the fastest projectiles, so they're not going to miss their target, unlike the Harrier's and Black Eagle's missiles, which can miss if the unit they're targeting is fast enough and is on the move, I think), and they can still deal good damage regardless. Being radar-invisible is useful if your enemy is completely distracted or is more focused on using their radar to spot enemies approaching.
Don't forget that Stormchildren use lasers against infantry, which makes them wonderful infantry snipers
Stormchilds having lasers for infantry does mean they're more effective against infantry than, say, the Harrier. However, the lasers do use the same ammo for the missiles; meaning that if you fire the Stormchild's laser at an enemy infantry unit, you have one less missile attack to use against a vehicle. The lasers aren't exactly super efficient in terms of killing infantry spam, since they only get two shots and have to reload after that, but they're great for taking down hero units quickly, thanks to their speed. I wouldn't really use the lasers for basic infantry though; Stormchilds have better targets than a cheap conscript/G.I./etc.
Random idea for the Stormchild: What would happen if the Stormchild's speed was buffed to be equal to that of the Hummingbird? At the moment, the Hummingbird takes the prize for fastest air unit in MO, if I remember correctly. Stormchilds are right behind Hummingbirds in terms of speed. I wonder what would happen if Stormchilds had their speed buffed to be equal to the Hummingbird. They'd be harder to take down, certainly, since the enemy has an even smaller window of attack before the Stormchild flies off. Also, faster speed = the flight time between home airbase and enemies is shorter, meaning they reload earlier, and can go on more attack runs, if you're managing them correctly.
