Levitation Pad

## Introduction

The **Levitation Pad** is General Malcolm "Ace" Granger's basic Aircraft production building, it is an airfield that holds 5 aircrafts.

## Overview

Granger became dissatisfied by the fact the Airfield was a waste of space (due to its length) and always making his aircrafts unable to take off simultaneously as four aircrafts have to share two lanes each. He also was annoyed by the take off time so slow that sometimes his enemies can destroy the aircraft before they could take off. Hence, after he successfully researched on VTOL technology, he decided to implement it in his own version of airfield: the Levitation Pad.

The Levitation Pad is a VTOL Airfield made by combining five squares with a circle above together to form a rectangle. Its main facility is its five magnetic levitation landing pads that can firmly stick the magnetic landing base of a VTOL aircraft without the risk of the aircraft being toppled over. To take off, the pads will gradually reduce their magnetic force and allow the VTOL aircraft to rise up before it activates its afterburners to pursuit an enemy. When the aircraft finished its job ,it will then fly above a pad and the pad's magnetic force will become stronger to pull the aircraft back. Engineers can simply sit in the small room of the airfield's tower and check for the aircraft's maintenance such as repairing, refuelling and rearming. It also has one helicopter pad for the production and maintenance of helicopters. It provides three upgrades: Jet missiles (Nicknamed Frog Missiles) that can automatically pursuit the second enemy when it destroys the first target/retargeting missile that can find its way back on a target if missed, bigger clip size for Comanche Missiles and magnesium-based countermeasure flares to intercept any AA missiles attacking a flying aircraft.

The Levitation Pad is basically an advanced version of the USA Airfield. It can allow aircrafts to take off almost instantly and can house one more aircraft, this means Granger can make his bombing runs slightly faster than other generals. However, just like the original airbase, all strike fighters and bombers depend on this structure. Should an airfield full of aircrafts be destroyed, the aircrafts will all perish together. If the structure is destroyed when its aircrafts are away, the said aircrafts will land on another available Levitation Pad or simply land on their original place where the pad used to be.

## Units Produced

### Rank 1

* **RAH-66 Comanche** - Helicopter gunship, effective against ground targets.
* **F-18 Hornet** - Basic strike fighter.
* **F-22A King Raptor** - Air superiority fighter.
* **F-16XL** - Flying artillery.
* **RQ-3 Dark Star** - Stealth unarmed recon drone, detects stealth units.
* **Pave Low** - Heavy attack helicopter, launches cruise missiles at enemies.
* **Combat Puma** - Support helicopter, armed with a grenade launcher, effective against infantry, passengers can fire from inside.

### Rank 3

* **F-35 JSF** - Advanced strike fighter, stealthed when not attacking.

### Rank 5

* **Aurora Alpha** - Supersonic bomber armed with a fuel air bomb, cannot be intercepted until payload is dropped.

## Upgrades

* **Countermeasures** - Allows aircraft to evade missiles and become 20% more resistant to AA weapons.
* **Frog Missiles** - Allows F-18 Hornet jet missiles to target another unit if the original target is destroyed, and gives F-22A King Raptor a single retargeting missile.
* **Advanced Comanche Missiles** - Increases the clip size of RAH-66 Comanches by 50% (4 to 6) and decreases missile reload time by 10%

## Assessment

Pros:

* Can hold 5 aircraft, one more than the vanilla USA Airfield.
* Repairs and rearms aircrafts.
* Provides several useful upgrades.
* All aircraft stationed on it can take off simultaneously.
* Available at Tier One after a Supply Center is built.

Cons:

* Aircrafts docking on it can be destroyed if the structure is destroyed.
* Quite fragile.
* Take a quite big space despite being less long.