Colibri

The MX6A Pelican Urban Air Patrol Craft is the Asian Alliance's primary gunship in Red Alert 2: New World Order. Unlike its counterparts with the other sides, it is designed as a powerful anti-aircraft platform, but is also capable of effectively engaging ground targets, preferably structures, giving an attacking force an edge in a siege. Like many other crafts employed by the Alliance, the Pelican Gunship and its larger cousin, the Flamingo Bomber, are kept aloft by maglev drives and as such are capable of hovering in place and do not have to land when passive.

Stats

 * Type: Vector-thrust aircraft
 * Class: Ground support
 * Lv:
 * HP:
 * TechLevel:
 * Prerequisite: Assembly Plant, Air Pad
 * Cost: 1400$

Equipment

 * Polymer armor
 * Air-tight cockpit for two with advanced life-support system
 * Shoulder-mounted gattling guns
 * MiniMissile Launcher
 * ECM pod

Vectored Thrust
Glides on a stream of ionized air. Capable of stopping and hovering in place. Faster than helicopter movement, but capable of the same maneuverability. VTOL.

Upgrade: Cannon
The cannon is comparable to the light tank gun of the Lynx.

Minigun
Fires flechettes in a swerving arc from the unit's underside. This is used when engaging infantry and is ineffective against anything with more armor than a light vehicle. The fletcher turret is automated and independently controlled, swiveling from side to side as it fires. The vehicle itself can be given orders to move into weapon range of a target, but the turret will turn independently, saturating the area with monomolecular blades.

MiniMissile Array
The Colibri is armed with an array of missiles that can target both air and ground targets. Like all missiles of their type, they are highly maneuverable, but their range and firepower leaves for wishing. Still, they are highly valuable against soft target dispersed on the ground (such as infantry), or against the soft skin of aircraft. The sheer amount of missiles gives this weapon a blast zone comparable to that of a fragmentation warhead, despite the miniscule blast zone of each individual missile.

Promotion upgrade: Rail Gun
The Rail Gun is slow-firing and mostly effective against single high-value targets, however it has a line damage effect, meaning that if an opponent is foolish enough to line up several targets of merely mediocre value in sight of this weapon, it quickly makes its' few shots worthwhile as damage accumulates.

Strategy
While the railgun is capable of targeting air targets while the Colibri is in the air, and its damage and speed are going to down virtually any manmade aircraft in the game, the linear damage effect is almost completely meaningless in aerial combat, making this choice primarily a specialization suited to ground warfare. Because the Colibri is primarily a flanker (or should be employed as such), the practicality of the railgun is debatable, as the unit has to be positioned virtually frontally before an enemy armored column in order to make use of the line damage feature, a situation in which it is not likely to survive for a second shot. Of course, if the enemy deploys units in a row instead of a column, this point easily becomes an advantage. One can also risk to insert a Colibri in the back of enemy units, but chances of survival there are only better if the enemy has not given the usual fore-thought of positioning air cover in the rear. Catching an opponent off guard who has not done so, however, is a highly devastating. Finally, in uncoordinated "tank blob" circumstances, the railgun can excell by targeting tanks towards the center of the blob.

Promotion upgrade: Laser Gun
The Laser Gun has the advantage of suffering no damage penalty against any type of target. It is pretty much the only option to take to give the Colibri the ability to attack structures with someeffectiveness.