and the ships are complete morons in other ways- they never fire on anything automatically, which means you have to go clicking on the map screen to give firing orders, or they see the enemy through a scout plane etc or any other unit ahead of the main force- they can't see shit themselves.
The Core Contingency expansion pack (which is what really made the game, IMO) introduced an Automatic Radar Targeting structure which enables units to automatically fire on any units detected on radar.
BB's are horrible how they feel they must move on up to their target, instead of shelling from range
Having them Hold Position and letting them auto-acquire targets usually works fairly well.
Air rules TA. Case closed. Its a shame, really.
Not if the players know what they're doing. TA is at it's best when the players are constantly harassing and attacking each other, not when they're sitting back amassing huge nigh-unstoppable forces against each other behind elaborate base defenses.
If you're only on your fifth or sixth metal extractor and you have to contend with some of my tanks raiding your base, aircraft are going to do jack and shit for you before those tanks have crippled your economy. If you build tanks to counter my tanks, then you won't have the resources to spare for aircraft in any large quantity for quite some time.
Also, in both main flavors of TA (regular and with the Uberhack mod) there is significant power in the ground-based anti-air weapons (in a way even moreso with standard TA, as you should generally have plenty of missile units around for medium-long range support fire anyway), and while you're generally going to be at a disadvantage if you have
no fighters for interceptor work against bombers and gunships, this is really how it
should be; air power generally won't win the war all by itself, but it
does play a key role in a balanced multifaceted force.
)
They move fast, pull off stunts and are not so dumb as to sit there and get pounded 
