Pilot Ethics

[KeviN]

/rant on

Okay, I'm getting tired of pilots (reavers especially) just bailing or after burning straight to a base every time they get below half health. If you certed in Air Cav, you should expect to dogfight some, not just use your rocket spam on helpless softies. Personally, I wont bail if I get taken down in 1v1 or 2v1, but if I'm getting nailed by AA too, I will.

If you shoot me down, you have outskilled me, and deserve the experience, and I expect the same back. Anyways, you'll never get any better as a pilot if you just bail any time you're in danger.

/rant off


PS: Reaver rocket spam damage on infantry needs to be nerfed greatly, I think this would really help the problem.

[ObnoxiousFrog]

If I'm going down (meaning the vehicle locks up and starts to rocket into the ground) I'm going to try and bail. If they kill me while I'm going down or after I hit the ground, they win. If I manage to evade them, I win. It's pretty fair to me.

[Dharkbayne]

I think they should get xp when they make a vehicle "lock up", since they *did* destroy the vehicle, after all. Then if the pilot bails, they can kill him on the ground, and if he doesn't, they get the XP when it blows up.

[DeltaForceAlpha]

Yea, those are some good points. I tend to go as long as I can, but if I'm wearing an infiltration suit I try to bail into cover (trees) and sneak away.

[AztecWarrior]

I only eject when I'm about to lose control or already have. Doesn't matter who's shooting at me. One point: I'm tired of the guy just jumping out slow as hell so I die. I want ejection seats.

[Baneblade]

I think he means ppl like NVSniper who eject the moment someone hits them, fatal or not.

I dont think you should even get to bail unless its out of control.

[JakeLogan]

Well when I fly it's usually a Lib, I only fly with a full crew if they are my outfit mates. When flying a bomber it's essential to have TS the bombadier can give you directions on whether to strafe left or right.I refuse to fly with a bomber and no tailgunner because then they are flat out targets for other aircraft. If I go solo I usually stick low to the ground so I provide less of a target. if I can only get a tailgunner same thing only now we have more strafing ability after I make my pass with the 35 he can do some damage with the 25. Then with the full crew I usually fly at mid altitude I find it easier to lose lock from AA maxs that way just drop to the ground and find some cover. but the whole bailing thing is kinda hard to do at low alititude.

[I Hate Pants]

I think that if you fly a Mosquito and use it to bail out once you get above a tower or a base that you should die once you hit the ground.

I also think Reavers should blow up everytime you lock onto infantry for more than 2 seconds. After the reaver blows up, a searing hot burn sensastion runs through the cord of your mouse seriously scolding your right hand. Afterwards on your montior it says in big bold letters that "you have no skills because you certed with reaver just to gain easy kills."

[JetRaiden]

I hate dogfighting 1v1 because the piloting system is so limited that its just 2 people trying to out-circle eachother.

[Peacemaker]

certed and using a reaver does not mean you have no skills. It takes a HUGE amount of skill and probably is the hardest thing to do in game if your a pilot flying through AA infested Zerg battles. Dodging and destroying 5 Vanu AA maxs and a skyguard is not skill less.

[Baneblade]

My Reaver only kills infantry that shoot it first. Or when they are too close to something else Im shooting at.

I really like shooting down Mosquitos with it :)

[ORANGE]

certed and using a reaver does not mean you have no skills. It takes a HUGE amount of skill and probably is the hardest thing to do in game if your a pilot flying through AA infested Zerg battles. Dodging and destroying 5 Vanu AA maxs and a skyguard is not skill less.
Peace actually took out so many NC AA maxes with his reaver one night he got a tell saying a CR5 had put a bounty on his head of some sort

oh yeah I have no problem rocket spamming infantry if there is no enemy air around and even if there is and it is more important to keep the infantry from zerging into a tower for example I have no problem with it, however if you want a dedicated anti-infantry anti-tank air vehicle get in a libby and load up all 35s with a coupla boxes of the rear gunner ammo and go blow shit up if you are flying a mossie I expect you to be taking out enemy air not chasing a single infantry guy halfway across the damn cont and if your in the air and you see a friendly getting anally raped by a group of enemy air don't run away push in and mix it up a bit, ok off to bed now

[martyr]

pilot ethics:

i attack aircraft in my aircraft to minimize the threat to my outfit's and empire's soldiers, as aircraft pose a much greater threat than one single infantry in agile or worse.

if i've destroyed the aircraft, my mission has been successful. if they bail, good for them, they're lasher fodder - but no longer my concern, because i am a pilot.

i won't shoot at them after they've bailed, either in the air or on the ground, unless they pull out a phoenix or striker and further endanger myself or my airborne comrades.

[SuperSixOne]

If you manage to shoot me down in a fair (full armor vs. fullarmor fight) ill let you get the XP and more imporatnly the kill. If i got shot to shit by an AA max or striker fire im bailing if its convinent for me because you did no work you simply ganked the kill from someone else. If its ANY FORM OF AA i will bail if possibly because AA is cheap and fairly skillless. Only time ill bail in a fair fight would be if my main intention was to get on a tower... or something like that. Regardless if i get on the ground ill try to anoy you on the ground by shooting at you with my jackhammer but ill never kill myself with grenades or something of that sorts. (even tho i do cary 2jammers and 1plasma in my loadout)

[Sploogey]

yah im tired of reavers spamming 16-32 rockets to kill 1 agil exo

[SuperSixOne]

you shouldnt be footzerging in the first place. go in an open place with no AA cover and you deserve to get spammed to hell. If you get a tank reavers wont be able to take you down because it takes too long. Play smart and things like reavers shouldnt bother you too much.

[Incompetent]

If its ANY FORM OF AA i will bail if possibly because AA is cheap and fairly skillless.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

/me takes deep breath

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, the grunts on the ground with the strikers, those are the skillless people in the rocketspam equation.

Edt: Oh, am i the only one who thinks pilots should have to go through a bailing animation to get out instead of just instantly appearing next to there aircraft? Same with galaxy troops and the like, its stupid that only pilots get to just magically appear outside while ground troops are often killed before they can get out of damaged vehicles. It would be much nicer if the rest of us didn't have to rely on the pilots "ethics" to determine whether we get the kill/XP we earned. Either he waits to long and he dies or he jumps to early and sometimes wastes aircraft he could have saved. Not to mention if you made speed (or even direction) fluctuate randomly on aircraft once the pilot starts the bailing sequence, it could cut down on all those skillles HA whores who cert aircraft for taxis and make real pilots look much worse.

[GraniteRok]

Much like any other aspect of this game, if I can take someone out with it, I'll use it for the good of the empire. Yes, it's not nice being on the receiving end of rocket spam but if you're in the open, you're a target. It's irritating as hell, but live with it. There's no need to say nerf Reaver Rockets because it's meant for anti-vehicle. As most players, one will use it if one has the capability to use it for any purpose. Phoenix Snipers come to mind.... antivehicle weapon to snipe infantry? Reavers are fine, leave them as they are.

As for dogfights, if I'm half shotup and am able to bug out to repair, I will. If you don't chase me down to finish the kill, then you've lost the kill. If I get to the point where I'm too shotup and there's an opportunity to bail, I will. You will still have a chance to get me on the ground. For me anyway, more often than not, you'll get the kill because usually I'll get shot down before the chance to bail (never bothered to remap the bail key so it's usually not enough time to do the alt-g sequence before dieing).

[Doppler]

Actualy pilots bailing from aircraft doesnt really bothers me, what bothers me is a pilot can bail from a doomed craft easily, but an infantry guy who alt g's from his vehicle not only has to come to a near complete stop but FORCES THE VEHICLE DRIVER TO DO THE SAME.

[Eldanesh]

In my liberator I will shamelessly go after any gorund target, especially infantry.

Its funny because the 35mm has a faster ttk than an AA max. I only bail if I get more than 2 aircraft/AA maxs on me.

[Lartnev]

Its funny because the 35mm has a faster ttk than an AA max.

Doesn't suprise me :)

[Electrofreak]

Air Calv isnt as easy a cert as people think. Sure its easy to grab a reaver and rocket some softies, but nothing is more challenging than a dogfight against multiple enemy aircraft or trying to fight an enemy who is well-protected by AA.

[Eldanesh]

Doesn't suprise me :)


Last time I tried, liberator kills a locked down burster with half life to spare.

[Lartnev]

Well you have a lot more armour than a poor little MAX, you should try it half damaged so it can be a fair fight :D

[Electrofreak]

Any AA MAX who lets himself get killed by an aircraft DESERVES to die IMHO.

[Rbstr]

Yes, unless its a lib gunship, the 35mm can kill a max faster than it can get them

[Peacemaker]

Unless the bastardized Starfires decide its a good idea to jump
or the NC one turns on their shields and ducks behind a tree.

[Cauldron Borne]

For Infantry hot drops it's REAL annoying to have the Gal kill you because it moved up or down SLIGHTLY while you dropped.

I use Air Cav. I'm pretty good at it too. I hate rocket spam. If you cert'd Air Cav for the rocket spam, you deserve to die a horrible death every thirty five seconds until you uncert it. They REALLY should nerf the Infantry killing power of the rockets. You want to kill infnatry? fine, use the 20mm. I have a load out with only ONE box of rockets. 20mm will kill infantry twice as fast with about 100x the efficiency. It only takes 20 rounds..out of 250... instead of a full clip...

And for any one who throws up this agrument: 'but it DOES take a full clip of rockets, that's balanced!' ummm...no. because you almost ALWAYS have an air pad that you can VERY quickly rearm at. Use the rockets for their intended purpose.

Oh, and I hot drop on towers when that is my goal. It's a common practice. Especially if Galaxies are hard to find. Shouldn't be penalized for that, yer finding an alternitave.

Now I'm also not saying I don't rocket spam masses of infnatry. I do it because they are all close together and the area effect works well then: snipers on a ridge. But not for some lone guy just running to hit destination.


And you blockheads with the 'If you're out in the open you deserve to get rocketspammed' speech. Use yer 20mms. Your the rocketspamming noobs. Use the 20mms. And infantry, as a rule, seek cover. We don't CHOOSE to be out there.



In short: ANYONE who has more infantry kills w/ theur reaver using rockets than anything else...is a rocket spamming killwhore noob that can't do anything in this game that requires actual skill.

[BlackHawk]

I bail if I get the chance, but never before my craft goes out of control. I don't let anyone kill me if I can do anything about it. You only get the xp if you work for it ;).

I use my Reaver for hunting vehicles and aircraft, so I don't worry about infantry much. I only go after them if there are no better targets.

[Sputty]

I don't think you understand the meaning of the word ethics
You may mean etiquette

[Sentrosi]

Ethics

Etiquette

These things an FPS does not make.

There are always going to be people who just do that stuff because they know it pisses them off. The other night during our ops night I shot down probably 20 or so aircraft, yet only registered 9 kills. Yes, it ticked me off to see that. But I'm not about to leave a highly volitile enemy air situation just to chase down one lonely coward. That person will meet their maker soon, especially if we're flying over a contested tower.

If you bail out of a vehicle, you're respawn timer should automatically add 10 seconds to your respawn time. Just a small penalty to pay for dodging a deserved kill.

But once again, like I said up top;

Ethics

Etiquette

These things an FPS does not make

[Zatrais]

Bollox, what kind of player will just simply let you kill him when he knows he's outskilled. The only smart thing to do is to bail and try to make a difference on the ground, not to give you, the enemy, experience. If you want the kill, dive down and kill him.

Tying to denie you the exp for a kill is a perfectly viable tactic.

Same with rocket spam, they're killing the enemy any way they can. Get a skyguard to counter them.

The entire point of planetside is to try to annahilate the enemy in any way possible and deny the oposing players whatever you can.

[Lartnev]

These things an FPS does not make.

You've never played TFC have you? :)

Whilst it is kinda annoying when someone bails, I just think to myself "well that's what I would have done in the same situation." It's not about denying someone exp, it's about survival.

[Warborn]

PS: Reaver rocket spam damage on infantry needs to be nerfed greatly, I think this would really help the problem.

A resounding YES. The game would be so much better if Reaver rockets either had no splash (so they're only for vehicles/turrets) or did barely any damage to infantry.

[Dharkbayne]

A resounding YES. The game would be so much better if Reaver rockets either had no splash (so they're only for vehicles/turrets) or did barely any damage to infantry.

That's stupid, they're fucking missiles, if anything, they should BUFF the damage, and to make them spam less, reduce the AMOUNT of missiles.

[Sputty]

IMO, they should reduce the Reaver's missiles power greatly, increase rate of fire, and add a Reaver variant that has heavy anti vehicle missiles

[Thunder_Hawk]

People will do anything to survive in the game. the people that bail out when they get shot at are so skillless, they know they have no hope of winning in the air so they bail. once i get the game, i'll bail only if i loose control and have tryed every manuver go get him off my tail. chivalry left the battlefield with knights and samuri.

[KeviN]

I don't think you understand the meaning of the word ethics
You may mean etiquette
Whatever, I was tired when I wrote this. :p

Anyways, after reading all the post, I have to agree with Dhark. I think you should at least get the xp for the vehicle when it crashes.



The other night during our ops night I shot down probably 20 or so aircraft, yet only registered 9 kills. Yes, it ticked me off to see that. But I'm not about to leave a highly volitile enemy air situation just to chase down one lonely coward. That person will meet their maker soon, especially if we're flying over a contested tower.

It doesn't always register on the Kill/Death ratio, but the kills are still counted overall.

[Warborn]

That's stupid, they're fucking missiles, if anything, they should BUFF the damage, and to make them spam less, reduce the AMOUNT of missiles.

Yeah, because having one vehicle which is excellent at pretty much every role you can put it into is a brilliant idea. Almost as smart as making tanks annihilate anything that can't fly, but then, they're fixing that with BFRs from the sound of it.

And who gives a damn if they're missiles? A striker is a missile, does that kill people instantly? How about a phoenix missile? Or even a decimator? This is a game, and balance is all that matters. Making Reavers able to obliterate the stuff that's suppose to be a threat to them (infantry/MAXs) is stupid. The only thing that keeps them from ruling the game is that they don't have the endurance of a tank, and run out of rockets after blowing away a handful of infantry and MAXs. With any luck, they'll fix this obvious oversight and massive flaw in the game, regardless of what people like you think "should" happen because of realism, or whatever you want to call it. Reavers shouldn't be able to annihilate infantry and MAXs as they do. If Planetside is ever going to come close to fully realizing its potential, these all-in-one vehicles need to be addressed.

[Baneblade]

I would gladly trade those rockets for a Decimator equivalent. Right now you need to spam rockets no matter what you are trying to kill...cept maybe a Wraith.

[BlackHawk]

There are always going to be people who just do that stuff because they know it pisses them off. The other night during our ops night I shot down probably 20 or so aircraft, yet only registered 9 kills. Yes, it ticked me off to see that. But I'm not about to leave a highly volitile enemy air situation just to chase down one lonely coward. That person will meet their maker soon, especially if we're flying over a contested tower.

If you bail out of a vehicle, you're respawn timer should automatically add 10 seconds to your respawn time. Just a small penalty to pay for dodging a deserved kill.
Playing as a sniper, I am often robbed of kills by people running behind cover in order to repair and heal after I hit them once. That is simply not fair. They should stand perfectly still as soon as they get hit, so that I can reload and hit them again to get the kill. It's good ethics, or etiquette, to do so. If you run to cover after being hit by a sniper shot, your respawn timer should have an added 30 seconds, since you are robbing me of my kill and experience.


[/sarcasm]
:p

[Eldanesh]

I think reavers should stay as they are. It bugs me that 20mm is as weak as it is at AI, but it takes like 1/6 of their rockets to kill a damned infantry. In a skeedo you can whore waaaaaay more infantry kills and in a liberator I can practically kill 6 people and an ams in a clip :P

Honestly, I think there is a good air/infantry balance as is, I am just suprised people whine about reavers as much as they do, skeedos and libs are way worse imo- a good skeedo has way more potential, and a good liberator is nigh-impossible to down from the ground without zerging it.

[Terran Sniper]

I only eject when I'm about to lose control or already have. Doesn't matter who's shooting at me. One point: I'm tired of the guy just jumping out slow as hell so I die. I want ejection seats.
ejection seats=drop from higher altitude=longer drop times=more time for dude to kill you in the air

[Duffman]

i think they need to fix aircrafts so you can blow them up... i hate making a fully loaded lib go out of control just so i cant shoot it anymore becasue it drops 20 meters in half a second.

o and if you have ever been a burster you will know you get kill all the time by aircraft becuase you have no defence.

i personally do not bail when shot down by an aircraft only AA maxs.

[ObnoxiousFrog]

Install the 20mm gun on the reaver in the middle of it (it originally was intended like this), and give it Enforcer-esque rockets that fire both barrels quickly but take longer to reload. This would better define the 20mm as an accurate AI weapon and the rockets as slow-but-beefy AV weapons.

[Incompetent]

Air Calv isnt as easy a cert as people think. Sure its easy to grab a reaver and rocket some softies, but nothing is more challenging than a dogfight against multiple enemy aircraft or trying to fight an enemy who is well-protected by AA.
Half the reason i hate pilots is holier-than-thou attitudes like yours. The reaver is the biggest skill substitute in the game. Yeah, there are good reaver pilots, some very good, but drop the fucking ego and realize pilots are the ones that hold the advantages in this game.

[Dharkbayne]

Half the reason i hate pilots is holier-than-thou attitudes like yours. The reaver is the biggest skill substitute in the game. Yeah, there are good reaver pilots, some very good, but drop the fucking ego and realize pilots are the ones that hold the advantages in this game.

QF the fuck T

[I Hate Pants]

just about everyone who plays PS is certed with air cavalry. Doesn't that go to say something?

[Dharkbayne]

just about everyone who plays PS is certed with air cavalry. Doesn't that go to say something?

I'm certed in it, and I don't even *fly* reavers. No idea why, but about all my characters have it.

[Terran Sniper]

sputty, thats stupid. the whole point of a MISSILE is to inflict maximum damage to a target. how would that make you feel if a guy walked away from a heavy missile barrage? i know it'd piss me off

[Lartnev]

sputty, thats stupid. the whole point of a MISSILE is to inflict maximum damage to a target. how would that make you feel if a guy walked away from a heavy missile barrage? i know it'd piss me off

I'd know not to use it again :)

I don't mind dying to reavers, I mean it's a gunship and I'm a grunt, he has the advantage. But it's annoying when all they do is spam infantry with rockets, I do it on strafing runs, and try to shoot infantry with the 20mms (but I'm exceedingly poor).

[BlackHawk]

Install the 20mm gun on the reaver in the middle of it (it originally was intended like this), and give it Enforcer-esque rockets that fire both barrels quickly but take longer to reload. This would better define the 20mm as an accurate AI weapon and the rockets as slow-but-beefy AV weapons.
Nice idea, but if you make the rockets too powerful you get the BFV Helo syndrome. Everyone flying Reavers around one-shotting infantry.

[Warborn]

sputty, thats stupid. the whole point of a MISSILE is to inflict maximum damage to a target. how would that make you feel if a guy walked away from a heavy missile barrage? i know it'd piss me off

I can get barraged with Sparrow MAX missiles and walk away from it. I can take a bunch of Phoenix missiles to the face without dying either. Why does the Reaver have to be equipped with weapons that apparently nobody is ever suppose to be able to walk away from?

The developers would be making a step in the right direction of they turned the Reaver into an AV platform primarily, rather than an AV, AI, not-too-bad-against-aircraft, and anti-MAX one like it is now. The day the Reaver's rockets have little to no splash or greatly reduced damage to infantry is a day PS will stop being the balance trainwreck it is.

[juggalokilla]

thank god for strikers. Im mainly a grunt and i usually only striker down the spammers cause theyre annoying. my ouotfit all carries them with skyguards cause were all annoyed by them abusing their power. i wish i could run around in agile again, worrying about other infantry, but no, i have to spend 6 certs for rexo and av just to keep the annoying ass killwhores off my back. if they would stop spamming, i can focus on the ground more, maybe cert a plane myself

[Baneblade]

I have always thought the Reaver should be a 2 seat gunship. Let the back seater control a Phoenix-like missile, while the pilot uses the fixed 20mm (Gatling, not dual barrel).

Only problem I would have with it atm is no kill sharing.

[Peacemaker]

If they mounted the 20mm center line and decreased the rockets blast area I would still be happy. My personal best idea would be to have the reaver's rocket pod size halved, same ammo box size, damage to AV increased and AI damage decreased just an itty bit. Now mount that 20mm center line. This now makes you have to use two clips on one rexo (maybe even an agile) and standing still that long is a death trap. The fire rate of the pods should be the same.

Alternate: Everything is the same except for AV damage stays the same. Now the 8 rockets fire in a very quick salvo (nearly all at the same time). The Blast effect is halved. Now it makes it what it should be. A quick attack and run weapon.

[ZjinPS]

Strykers and reavers? Just getting a lock will ward off most. But unless the pilot is connected to a heart-lung machine and a feeding tube it's going to be hard to kill a 100% reaver before he turns and burns.

As for rocket spam, war is hell.

[ObnoxiousFrog]

Nice idea, but if you make the rockets too powerful you get the BFV Helo syndrome. Everyone flying Reavers around one-shotting infantry.

The thing about that is that the rockets wouldn't be devastating against invantry. They would hurt one quite a bit, but one salvo of the rockets wouldn't kill a rexo, and it would take 2 near-direct or direct hits to ice an agile. The whole concept is that these be more like real tankbuster rockets in that they fire slowly, go quickly, and punch a hole into armor (that being tanks and MAX units). The advantage of mounting the 20mm in a center line is that at present the 20mm is horribly innacurate, and against infantry that isn't good. So, the reaver is forced to use a weapon whos TTK and actual ammo consumption is worse than if it hit every time with 20mm bullets. So really, the use of rockets for AI spam is a result of relying on the splash damage to compensate for the innacuracy of the alternating-fire machine guns.

[Lartnev]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24342 :)

[Warborn]

Strykers and reavers? Just getting a lock will ward off most. But unless the pilot is connected to a heart-lung machine and a feeding tube it's going to be hard to kill a 100% reaver before he turns and burns.

It takes a lot of Strikers to down a Reaver. Most of the time they'll fly in, hover, spam a few guys, get hit by a bunch of rounds, then afterburn off to repair/reload at a nearby tower/base.

As for rocket spam, war is hell.

And that's why we play games like Planetside, so we can enjoy the good parts of war without all the shitty stuff like what you see in various videos from Iraq dotting the Intraweb.

[ZjinPS]

And that's why we play games like Planetside, so we can enjoy the good parts of war without all the shitty stuff like what you see in various videos from Iraq dotting the Intraweb.

Sorry for the fubar'd quote..



Good parts of war?

[Warborn]

Good parts of war?

To answer this, ask yourself why we watch action movies which involve firearms. People certainly do find some parts of conflict endearing. And, of course, we can't discount the thrill of competing against other people.

[Sputty]

Install the 20mm gun on the reaver in the middle of it (it originally was intended like this), and give it Enforcer-esque rockets that fire both barrels quickly but take longer to reload. This would better define the 20mm as an accurate AI weapon and the rockets as slow-but-beefy AV weapons.
Indeed, that's what I meant by my earlier post, although I can see the advantages in keeping an infantry only variant of the Reaver(weak, fast firing rockets designed to spread an area with damage quickly, hard to get kills with but effective to help your team)

And Incompetent's post was absolutely teh rox