Balancing Aircraft/AA with Altitude

[Malorn]

I'm going to venture into sensitive territory for a lot of planetsiders - Aircraft / AA balance!

As some may have surmised from my other posts, I subscribe to the religion of Tradeoffs. Tradeoffs are the key to balancing games effectively and making player choices meaningful and impactful.

One area where tradeoffs seem a bit lax is AA & Aircraft. Having been a longtime Liberator pilot and a longtime tank driver, I have a love-hate relationship with AA. I hate it when I fly and I love it when I'm on the ground. One idea presented to me by an outfit mate is the idea of Altitude being a factor in aircraft and AA balance, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

The core idea is this - most AA is effective close to the ground to medium altitude, while very little ground-based AA is effective at high altitude.

What this does is give pilots tradeoff decisions on where they want to fly as well as add a whole new dynamic to the game. For example, high-flying galaxies and Liberators will be largely unaffected by ground-based AA, making aircraft their primary threat. You'd have a sort of WWII style combat where fighters (wasps, skeets, reavers) go up to take down the bombers and galaxie and dogfight each other for control of the skies. And while they do all that they aren't really affected by ground-based AA. As a lib pilot I think this is a really cool concept. I think those pilots who enjoy dogfighting would enjoy that as well.

There would be a whole different battle going on at high altitude where the ground-based battle would have little effect. But you'd still want supremacy up there because he who controls high altitude controls Liberator bombing and Galaxy drops. Other than gals and libs, high altitude aircraft pose little threat to ground forces, so the lack of ground AA being effective against them isn't a penalty to ground forces either.

At low-altitudes pilots have other ways of defending against AA, mainly using terrain and hills and buildings to break line-of-sight or sneak up on ground targets. But low-altitude is also where Infantry-based AA and other ground based AA is effective. This then makes it a game of cat-and-mouse at low altitudes, where the advantage of flying low altitude is accuracy on ground targets (a high flying lib's bombs are rather easy to dodge for infantry and vehicles, so even Libs may want to go low-altitude for more accurate bombing).

There's more to the idea too. Consider the possibility of having AA weaponry that has different levels of effectiveness based on altitude. Most AA should be effective at low-altitude, but you could also have some rare and resource-expensive stationary AA structures that are also effective against high altitude (the rough equivalent of WWII flak guns). The tradeoff would be that the ground-based AA that is effective at high altitudes is NOT effectve at low altitudes. Meaning low-altitude air-to-ground would be effective against them. So combined-arms becomes a lot more relevant in the war to control the skies and have effective air-to-ground supremacy.

So you could have a flak gun that could either be high altitude effective or low altitude effective. Ammo type might be a factor as well. Consider a skyguard having to swap out ammo types to shoot at aircraft of different altitudes. You could get fancier as well and have flak guns specifically have a range-adjustment where you choose the altitude at which the flak will be effective, so switching between high altitude and low alitutide is difficult and requires some gunner skill to properly estimate target distances and set the appropriate flak range (so if you die to it you know that at least the gunner had some semblence of skill).

That last paragraph was just me brainstorming - I haven't given it too much thought but overall I believe altitude has a huge potential to add a lot more dynamicism to the aircraft / AA game by giving pilots choices.

The core Idea is this - break things up along the z-axis (that's vertical for non-techies), and split AA effectiveness up along those lines.

Flame on!

[Bags]

Surprisingly, I like how it works in PS1, where height doesn't matter.

[CutterJohn]

I dislike, in general, the concept of attacking from where another can't shoot you back. My preference would be that lib bombs and gal hot drops must take place within AA range of the ground. The counter to air should not be required to be other air.

The concept of high altitude AA vs low altitude AA is ok, except for the fact that a low altitude aircraft can easily become a high altitude one, and vice versa. If a low altitude AA can just as easily switch to high altitude AA through an alternate fire or alternate ammo, all is good.

In other words, I'm pretty sure the flight ceiling in PS was made arbitrarily low for a very good reason. I'm in favor of raising that, but not really in favor of raising the ceiling you can attack from or drop troops from.

That said, if its impossible to both hover and attack(I'd say no hover, but I want it in for unrelated reasons), doing things such as camping the vehicle pad with a lib would be difficult at best, and as you say its pretty easy for infantry/vehicles to duck out of the way. Gals are still an issue however.

[Malorn]

I dislike, in general, the concept of attacking from where another can't shoot you back. My preference would be that lib bombs and gal hot drops must take place within AA range of the ground. The counter to air should not be required to be other air.

I agree with this as well. Liberators are the only aircraft that can attack ground targets from high altitude effectively. However - if bomb drop rate remains what it was in PS1 it was very easy for any infantry that was paying attention to avoid Liberators. Same thing for moving vehicles. Libs were the biggest threat to targets that were stationary, like an AMS. I think this is acceptable because it gives you reason to control the sky and have dogfighting aircraft. It would also be reason to put down high-alitutide effective AA guns. Engineers could build these or modify base turrets to be high-altitude AA guns to ward off Libs and galaxy drops.

All other aircraft are not effective against ground targets when they are at high altitude, so ground targets dont' really need to worry about high alititude aircraft.


The concept of high altitude AA vs low altitude AA is ok, except for the fact that a low altitude aircraft can easily become a high altitude one, and vice versa. If a low altitude AA can just as easily switch to high altitude AA through an alternate fire or alternate ammo, all is good.

True, but if ground based AA wards off aircraft, did it not accomplish its mission? The aircraft buggered off or died.

Also, I didn't talk about "Medium" altitude, so medium altitude is the killzone where both high and low would be moderately effective, so aircraft would not want to hang out there. Any aircraft moving between high and low would be vulnerable to both for a short time. It would take some time to escape from the threat of low-altitude, and I imaine that aircraf twon't be able to climb super fast so there's always risk.

Also, low altitude aircraft would be vulnerable to high-altitude aircraft. I think it gives more value and gameplay options for pilots who like dogfighting and gives those players strong strategic value in the battle.

[Sentrosi]

This idea is Sentrosi approved. :thumbsup:

I like this idea. Even as a Galaxy pilot I love this idea. I would love some escorts into enemy territory that would help stave off harm to my Galaxy.

My one request, if this goes in, is this. Make the Galaxy able to defend herself. I'd love to see turrets on the top, bottom and tail with an upgrade option for the pilot tree to get a chin turret.

[Atuday]

I think that altitude should not matter although perhaps range to target should. What I mean by that is missile x takes y amount of time to travel a given amount of distance. If an aircraft is high up enough it would be easier to avoid the missile but it would still be coming after them.

On the flip side of this things with the lancer style of aim and fire where dodging is much much harder due to the speed of the projectile need to be balanced. This would possibly include decreasing damage over distance. Nothing is scarier than trying to fly a reaver through a hail of lancer shots because it is so hard to dodge them.

[Malorn]

My one request, if this goes in, is this. Make the Galaxy able to defend herself. I'd love to see turrets on the top, bottom and tail with an upgrade option for the pilot tree to get a chin turret.

Personally I love the idea of the Flying Fortress from WWII with gunners fending off aircraft, fighters swarming and dogfighting escort fighters, pilots avoding Flak, etc. I like to see that in both the Liberator and the Galaxy for these high-altitude battles.

I want both the lib and the galaxy to have meaningful defensive guns. I think the bes tway to do it is to give the galaxy a top turret gunner in place of the side gunners. Tailgun + swivel gun on top of the galaxy means it will only be used for air defense and it would be reasonably effective air defense.

Air-to-Air specialized aircraft though like Wasps...well I would still want them effective at doing their job but the galaxy should have some reasonable Air defense via gunners.

[Raymac]

Surprisingly, I like how it works in PS1, where height doesn't matter.

It's funny, I both agree and disagree with this short statement. I like how it works in PS1 as well, but I believe height does matter. For example, it is harder for the TR AA Max to hit you if you are farther away, also you can break a lock-on easier at high altitudes because it's easier to get out of range.

For Malorn, I like the concept, but as I was reading it, I couldn't figure out if you were describing PS1, or what you'd like to see in PS2. Basically, I think it is balanced just right in PS1. Sure, 1 single AA Max can deny a fairly large area to aircraft (I've done it quite a bit myself so it's not hard), but I believe thats the way it should be. If aircraft had free reign over the whole map, there wouldn't be much of a ground game.

So since the AA/Aircraft balance is just right in PS1, and altitude already does affect AA, the conclusion would be that I hope PS2 is similar to PS1 in this case. The only real new idea is the flak gun that is more effective at long range than short range which is a cool idea, but that feels a little niche for me, so perhaps that is a weapon system that could be added later in an update.

[Malorn]

I think that altitude should not matter although perhaps range to target should. What I mean by that is missile x takes y amount of time to travel a given amount of distance. If an aircraft is high up enough it would be easier to avoid the missile but it would still be coming after them.

On the flip side of this things with the lancer style of aim and fire where dodging is much much harder due to the speed of the projectile need to be balanced. This would possibly include decreasing damage over distance. Nothing is scarier than trying to fly a reaver through a hail of lancer shots because it is so hard to dodge them.

I chose altitude over distance because that provides pilots with reasonable guarantees that climbing = safety from most ground-AA. It also allows ground-based AA to be effective across larger ground distances. Damage degradation over absolute value of z difference makes sense. It doesn' thave to be linear. It could be like EVE where you have an "Optimal" range and a falloff distance. That's a good way to do range so it is reliable up to a certain point and then quickly drops off. I like that based on the z axis and not the distance though. Of course all weapons should have an effective range so maybe some combination of the two could work where the veritical distance has more of a weight than the other two components.

[CutterJohn]

All other aircraft are not effective against ground targets when they are at high altitude, so ground targets dont' really need to worry about high alititude aircraft.

They do, however, need to worry about dive bombing tactics. Without a flight ceiling, air can simply bypass AA on the periphery of the battle and head straight for the target.

[Sovereign]

Surprisingly, I like how it works in PS1, where height doesn't matter.

Granted I haven't played in a long while but I could had sworn that while playing counter air max this wasn't the case for certain aa like flak cannons...:confused:

Regardless I believe certain AA should have range height limitations, proper Aerodynamics should be applied to not just aircraft but also the missiles and other such AA projectiles.

[Malorn]

For Malorn, I like the concept, but as I was reading it, I couldn't figure out if you were describing PS1, or what you'd like to see in PS2.

I posted in the PS2 forum for a reason. Its PS2 but since we have very little information about air combat and AA in PS2 it is in the context of PS1, but assuming different AA types and higher flight ceiling.

Flak is a good exmaple of why I think altitude balancing is important. Not all AA is equal but you can have some basic characteristics like making some weapons effective against long-range targets and other effective against short-range.

Also high altitude should offer some reduced damage because you have no cover or other safety mechanism. Height/distnace *is* your defense, so I think having that a meaningful defense is important. As you said earlier in the thread it isn't fun to die to something that you can't shoot back to. That is true for both infantry and aircraft. Aircraft at the flight ceiling can't relaly shoot back on a swarm of infantry below firing up a locust swarm of strikers at them or flak barrages.

Generally in PS, the higher you go up the more vulnerable you become to AA. In some cases distnace will help you but a good flak gunner can lead appropriately and still land most of his shots. Sparrows will find their mark most easily, and starfires are still very effective. I think distance and height should matter and it should be reflected in AA effectiveness. Make AA effective at ranges where the aircraft can also be effective. Lib and gal are the exceptions as noted above, but for good reasons.

[Malorn]

They do, however, need to worry about dive bombing tactics. Without a flight ceiling, air can simply bypass AA on the periphery of the battle and head straight for the target.


I see you're worried about hit-and-run aircraft coming in and then booking up to high alittude to avoid reprisal, or using high altitude as cover and dive-bombing.

Dive-bombing effectiveness depends on how the aircraft handles and what ranges the AA is effective, the damage it does, and the durability of the aircraft. If it only takes a few shots to down an aircraft or aircraft can't effectively change altitudes that quickly then the concern is meaningless. Its also something that can easily be corrected by changing the damage degradation formulas of the AA and the flight characteristics of the aircraft. Unless they'r edesigned to be dive-bombers I dont' see the issue. Vultures might be the only intentional dive bomber in the game, but they're not exactly nimble vehicles so they would be vulnerable on the dive and vulnerable after it.

Its just a numbers balancing game, not a design issue.

[Aractain]

Im very suportive of skill based AA, that usually naturally becomes more difficult as range is increased, size goes down and speed goes up.

Also just think how cool it will be a armoured chassis with a 4 barreled 25mm cannon blazing up at the sky making the reavers jink around.

BLISS!

[Sovereign]

Also just think how cool it will be a armoured chassis with a 4 barreled 25mm cannon blazing up at the sky making the reavers jink around.

BLISS!
Indeed, without proper range differentials however this turns into obvious spray n' pray ignorant bliss...

Yep that's the way to encourage skilled play instead of thoughtful calculations going into every trajectory we should encourage twitches to just trigger away.. :rolleyes:

[Raymac]

I posted in the PS2 forum for a reason. Its PS2 but since we have very little information about air combat and AA in PS2 it is in the context of PS1, but assuming different AA types and higher flight ceiling.

Generally in PS, the higher you go up the more vulnerable you become to AA. In some cases distnace will help you but a good flak gunner can lead appropriately and still land most of his shots. Sparrows will find their mark most easily, and starfires are still very effective. I think distance and height should matter and it should be reflected in AA effectiveness. Make AA effective at ranges where the aircraft can also be effective. Lib and gal are the exceptions as noted above, but for good reasons.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as being snide by saying your post worked for both PS1 and PS2. I just meant, in my opinion, altitude alread affects AA even though there is no change in stats depending on height. And I'd really like to keep it that way. Even though I spend about 80% of my time in a Reaver, I really don't like the idea of AA having damage degredation over distance.

I believe that altitude already has enough of an affect on AA and doesn't really need to be changed. At high altitude, you can still avoid a good flak gunner by out manuevering since they have to lead you by so much, and as for the lock-on AA, the rounds will hit you, but you can get far enough away to break the lock and ensure that not enough rounds land to kill you.

The best place to see where high altitude already affects AA is on Hossin. I feel safer at max altitude there than I do flying map of the earth (although I do love flying through those swamps with afterburners going, dodging trees).

TL;DR - I like it exactly the way it is, so the closer PS2 is to PS1 for this issue, the more I'm likely to be happy about it.

[wildcat140679]

The core idea is this - most AA is effective close to the ground to medium altitude, while very little ground-based AA is effective at high altitude.

What this does is give pilots tradeoff decisions on where they want to fly as well as add a whole new dynamic to the game. For example, high-flying galaxies and Liberators will be largely unaffected by ground-based AA, making aircraft their primary threat



I like the idea in general, of a higher altitude where more aerial combat will take place and will be less interference from ground AA.

However, I for see many problems with aerial vehicles like a bomber that can throw down bombs, while being relatively safe from ground based AA, until properly countered by and air to air vehicle. You only need aerial superiority, control the skies and you can control the grounds as well. You simply carpet bomb the cr@p out of everything, push the enemy back in to there base and have ground infantry clean up. This kind of game play will get really old very quickly.


I'm not exactly sure to what degree you consider aerial units to be "relativity" safe from ground based AA.

Hugging the max flight ceiling where ground based AA have a very small attack window to counter act I don't consider to be very balanced.

I'm not exactly sure how you see this higher maximum altitude play out.

I'd suggest splitting up aerial combat in three levels of altitude.
(this might very well be what your saying, only different description)

Low altitude (0~200), where ground based AA and small arms are able to attack aerial vehicles.

Medium altitude(150~500), where only AA is able to deal with aerial vehicles properly and small arms can't reach it.

High altitude(400~700), aerial vehicles are safe from ground based attacks and only vulnerable to air to air attacks but are unable to attack ground based targets or perform high altitude infantry drops.

Bombers/galaxy will need to stay below 400 to enable them to drop there payload (bomb/troop), they will be with in the threat zone where ground based AA can harm them. If they pull there noses up on time and can get back to higher altitude on time where ground based AA can no longer harm them.

[CrystalViolet]

As long as they keep it balanced so that aircraft can be effective at both A2G and A2A, I like the idea. Playing PS1 recently I noticed that they've significantly increased the effectiveness of AA to the point where if you go anywhere near a base, it's beep beep beep explode.

[Bags]

As long as they keep it balanced so that aircraft can be effective at both A2G and A2A, I like the idea. Playing PS1 recently I noticed that they've significantly increased the effectiveness of AA to the point where if you go anywhere near a base, it's beep beep beep explode.

Unless it's TR in which case it's

FLALSGJKLGAGJAGALJAA AGJGAKGASJGAJKLGASKLGJASJG fly away.

[Malorn]

However, I for see many problems with aerial vehicles like a bomber that can throw down bombs, while being relatively safe from ground based AA, until properly countered by and air to air vehicle. You only need aerial superiority, control the skies and you can control the grounds as well. You simply carpet bomb the cr@p out of everything, push the enemy back in to there base and have ground infantry clean up. This kind of game play will get really old very quickly.

This is precisely why there would need ot also exist ground-based AA that specailized in countering high-altitude aircraft, much like flak guns of WWII. The key difference though is that those AA guns would work on high altitude but not low-altitude. You'd have to make a decision on what type of Anti-Air platform you wanted to build, one for ground support or one to counter strategic bombing & dropships.

So if an enemy were to control the skies and come in with lots of libs, the counter would be two-fold: 1) scramble your own aircraft and 2) pull out / build high-altitude AA. I am imaginging engineers would be a class suited to set up a stationary high-altitude AA turret or augment a base turret for that purpose. Likewise some infantry classes may have the option of AA, if so they may have different ammo types for different ranges. Most of the time they would likely run around with low-altitude AA since that is the biggest threat, but if the enemy swarmed bombers they could swap out to high-altitude AA to counter it.

I think there should be options to counter such a thing but due to the fact that typically a few libs won't be a significant threat to ground forces they will prefer to have low-altitude AA ready to go (if they don't it would be easy for a few reavers/mossies to come over a hill and farm the heck out of them).

That said, if one empire is just completely dominating the skies then they should get some benefit for that...like being able to carpet bomb the crap out of stuff and force the enemy to counter with high altitude AA and aircraft of their own. But carpet bombing wasn't all that effective in PS1. It killed the idiots who weren't paying attention but the best use of a lib was strategic bombing of AMS or suppressive bombing of a specific location (like a base wall overlooking the back door, the vehicle pad, or the main entrance). The bombs were too slow to do damage to targets if the lib was at high altitude. That's one reason I favored low-altitude bombing as a lib. More dangerous but you could get a lot more kills since infantry/vehicles have far less time to react to the bombs.

[CrystalViolet]

Unless it's TR in which case it's

FLALSGJKLGAGJAGALJAA AGJGAKGASJGAJKLGASKLGJASJG fly away.

lol, TR always got the short end of the stick balance wise. That original POS MCG was the main reason I defected back in 03. :P

[Malorn]

lol, TR always got the short end of the stick balance wise. That original POS MCG was the main reason I defected back in 03. :P

Not the case for everything. Early on the Cycler, Striker, and Pounder were amazing good. The MCG sorta sucked, but TR had no-fly zones anywhere there was infantry and the pounder max was ridiculously effective against suppressing troops. Of course you could only pilot one for about five minutes before being grieflocked, but I digress...

[Sirisian]

Fly through the clouds. I like where AA on the ground can attack anything. I usually low bomb, but I remember it used to take a while for mosquitos and reavers to kill me when I was sitting over the top of a vehicle pad. If we can still infinite hover I could see vehicle pad camping going on for minutes if no one can pull any vehicles.

[Duddy]

I like the idea overall but dislike the idea of unnatural "forced" limitations.

For example, if you had high altitude AA placements I'd much rather they be ineffective against close range targets due to a heavily slowed ability to track targets. This would make little to no difference at long range, but at close range aircraft would be easily able to out-maneuver said defenses yet if they were dumb enough to attack head on then they're still going to get hurt.

Also, as a fan of asymmetrical design (where appropriate), I think AA Maxes should have some differing innate strengths.

So for example, based on the low/mid/high alt idea and the PS1 Maxes as a base:

Sparrow could have some capability at the highest altitude but at the cost of some low altitude difficulties (longer locking time, slower damage degradation?)
Burster could be equally effective at all ranges, offset by the difficulty of getting shots to actually land at said ranges (travel time, lower but flat damage value?)
Starfire could be most effective at the low to mid range, but with the benefit of the highest damage (higher base damage, more damage degradation?)


Just ideas of course, the point being I'd hate to see too much symmetrical design (that's what common pool weapons are for!).

[Raymac]

As long as they keep it balanced so that aircraft can be effective at both A2G and A2A, I like the idea. Playing PS1 recently I noticed that they've significantly increased the effectiveness of AA to the point where if you go anywhere near a base, it's beep beep beep explode.

Call me a masochist, but I like that bases are dangerous for air. I like knowing that if I plan on doing a rocket strafing run near a base, that I have to bring my A game or I'll get blown out of the sky. It would feel like easy mode if there was less AA at bases. In fact, once you take out the AA at a base, you pretty much own the courtyard at that point. AA is super powerful in PS1, but I think thats the way it should be. Air superiority is essential, and should be difficult to achieve.

@Malorn - The more I think about your WW2 flak gun idea, the more I like it. My only concern would be lowering the gun to use it against ground troops, but that would be easy to fix by only allowing the flak to only explode at after a certain altitude.

[Peacemaker]

This was already in PS1. Most AA couldn't reach up to Max alt on a low ground level continent. I would like to see the flight ceiling increased a bit to make it more in line with what your saying. As it was in PS1 that "safe area" was about 350 - 400m... too small for a game of air superiority.

[EASyEightyEight]

I rather like how AA works in PS1 right now. Missiles for everything close, flak for everything up to the flight ceiling. Most people can't seem to hit anything that high anyway (I'll never understand how some people can't seem to lead a target.) I don't see any need to implement flak that hits harder the higher the altitude, that just seems kind of forced and doesn't feel too balancing towards aircraft. If something is that high, it's likely not doing too much damage. Bring in more flak cannons or throw aircraft at it to handle it, not beef one cannon up.

For lower flying vehicles, it would make sense for the alternate fire to use lock on missiles, ala the Striker (fire-and-forget is freaking cheap, and I say this hating aircraft with a passion.) Though, this is the part where a pilot could opt to upgrade their bird with counter-measures at the expense of something else useful (like afterburners?) On this note, I do agree with flak requiring a minimum travel distance before exploding into a cloud. It's shrapnel, not a puff of smoke. Detonating at 5m off the ground or from the barrel of the gun would do more harm than good. In this way, if a bird gets in too close, a single AA may be hosed, but a bird that close just means it's in range of literally everything else.

[Malorn]

Call me a masochist, but I like that bases are dangerous for air. I like knowing that if I plan on doing a rocket strafing run near a base, that I have to bring my A game or I'll get blown out of the sky. It would feel like easy mode if there was less AA at bases. In fact, once you take out the AA at a base, you pretty much own the courtyard at that point. AA is super powerful in PS1, but I think thats the way it should be. Air superiority is essential, and should be difficult to achieve.

I just wanted to point out that in my proposed altitude idea low-altitude would be the most common AA, and therefore it would still be quite dangerous to do a rocket-strafe run since that is what the ground forces would likely have readily on-hand. You'd want to use trees, hills, etc for cover and bey very fast to avoid it. So I think there's still be a lot of risk and danger there. The only real difference would be that in addition to hills and trees, altitude could also be something you could retreat up to, though trees and hills likely better.


@Malorn - The more I think about your WW2 flak gun idea, the more I like it. My only concern would be lowering the gun to use it against ground troops, but that would be easy to fix by only allowing the flak to only explode at after a certain altitude.

This is another reason why I like altitude as the factor and not distance. You can set the flak to detonate at a certain altitude (with some minor random variance in there of course). It oculd also have a minimum altitude, making it worthless against infantry. You can also make the damage very low against non-aircraft targets. That's more of a damage-type discussion though.

The mechanic I'm thinking sort of reminds me of how the rocket attachment worked in BF 2142 where you have a range-finder (or altitude-finder) on a target and then you used the mousewheel to adjust the distance. So for a flak gun user it would be a little delay between acquiring the target, getting the range, and then adjusting the altitude offset. For the pilot if they didn't change elevation then they'd get rocked by flak once it had acquired them and set the altitude. The gunner can observe the pilot changing and then lower/raise the flak altitude using mousewheel (or whatever button they want) and then it becomes a cat & mouse game. In either case it would take a lot more skill to use a flak gun. As a consequence they could make the flak gun considerably more effective.

Such a flak mechanic would certainly not be EZ-mode and I'd want to see it reward good skill by being quite deadly. Aircraft direclty assaulting a flak gun would be an interesting scenario too since hte flak user would acquire range and then reel it in while firing until they hit the mark.

I'm a little concerned that the flak idea would almost be too hard for most players to use effectively and pilots might make AA batteries easy pickings. One way to make it not quite so complicated is to give the Flak an effective spread of altitudes, like +/- 15 m or so that if it encountered aircraft anywhere in that spread it would detonate , otherwise it would go to its set range and detonate. That would make it so the gunner would need a ballpark figure as opposed to a precise range but would still need to make adjustments for evasive aircraft in order to hit them.

[Malorn]

I like the idea overall but dislike the idea of unnatural "forced" limitations.

For example, if you had high altitude AA placements I'd much rather they be ineffective against close range targets due to a heavily slowed ability to track targets. This would make little to no difference at long range, but at close range aircraft would be easily able to out-maneuver said defenses yet if they were dumb enough to attack head on then they're still going to get hurt.

Also, as a fan of asymmetrical design (where appropriate), I think AA Maxes should have some differing innate strengths.

So for example, based on the low/mid/high alt idea and the PS1 Maxes as a base:

Sparrow could have some capability at the highest altitude but at the cost of some low altitude difficulties (longer locking time, slower damage degradation?)
Burster could be equally effective at all ranges, offset by the difficulty of getting shots to actually land at said ranges (travel time, lower but flat damage value?)
Starfire could be most effective at the low to mid range, but with the benefit of the highest damage (higher base damage, more damage degradation?)


Just ideas of course, the point being I'd hate to see too much symmetrical design (that's what common pool weapons are for!).

I have a general comment about AA max and such here. I think AA is such a fundamental part of warfare that I would not want to see all that drastic of a difference between the empires in terms of AA capabiliteis and effectiveness.

Lock-on weaponry in general is hard to balance with AA because its generally easy to do. however, I'd like to see a lot more skill with lock-on weaponry in general. I like the idea of the phoenix becuase the shooter is very vulnerable while guiding the missile, and its only one warhead at a time so the rate of fire and the guidance system seems balanced.

The striker / sparrow / starfire needs some work. For those systems I like the idea of a warhead that will sort of smart-guide itself to the target if you get it close enough but the operator still needs to use it well.

For this I am thinking of BFBC2 with the laser-guided AV weapon where you pointed it to where you wanted the missile to converge and it moved toward that location. If you wanted it to hit a distant moving target you really needed to lead the laser ahead of the target, and the target could be evasive to avoid it. The operator is more mobile than the phoenix, and the wearhead itself should have a little bit of self-guidance so if you got it really close to the target the warhead would find its mark. Its sort of a cross between the phoenix and the lancer.

Lock-on weaponry could also be changed to have a much smaller lock on reticule so holding hte lock against an evasive target is harder. The warhead could also be less maneuverable so if you miss the lock for a bit yo ucould still miss even if you re-acquire. Basically means you' dhave to be good at holding the lock on the target in a small cone as opposed to something the size of a coke-can with a highly nimble projectile. Make the projectile less nimble, the lock reticule smaller, but reward a skille dplayer with a more powerful hit if they still manage to land it.

I would prefer to see a range of AA weaponry available to all factions rather than each faction having different effective AA. Air-Ground dynamics is just too important to not do that.

I alwyas hated how NC had piss-poor effective AA at low altitude while TR was the opposite and had grea tlow-altitude AA but weak high-altitude. The VS raped at all altitudes of course. That isn't good balance IMO.

[Raymac]

So, I'm curious, how do you picture this flak gun? Something hand-held? A vehicle? Something an engineer sets up in the field? Or maybe more like a base turret so it's only at bases?
Then the rate of fire? Are you picturing like a Skyguard or more like a Flail?

It does sound like something like this would have a bit of a learning curve, but most things do, so I wouldn't worry about that. Also, I'm imagining this as an addition to the AA that we know and love in PS1 like the Maxes and Skyguard, even the turret upgrades and cerbrus turrets. Those would be more geared for the lower altitudes, like you stated, and this new flak gun is for the high altitude planes?

[Duddy]

@Malorn

It is not my agenda to make the AA the same as in PS1, what I would like is some (significant) difference between all the AA Maxes.

You could make them all useful at close range, but I certainly don't want them to feel the same. I would like them to play differently, like they do now. Just perhaps without glaring issues like how the Sparrow is so weak close up. Perhaps your example from BFBC2 would be a fitting replacement for NC D:

How to differentiate them all otherwise is another question altogether, my example was only in a "If PS2 was PS1" sense.

[Malorn]

I'm hoping that AA max doesn't exist, at least not in the form it did in PS1

Instead I'd like to see MAXes as customizable weapon platforms where AA is part of a configuration for them, with possibly different AA options (lock-on, flak, etc). Sort of lame being shoehorned into a single role. I'd like to see MAX have the ability to choose their weapon systems and mix & match them. Part-AA, part AV, for example as an outdoor max. Sort of like how BFRs had different weapon options, only on a tiny scale with MAX with more customization options. Some options would cost more resources than others of course. I think jumpjets, shields, lockdown/overdrive, is a good mix of uniqueness. They would of course have some unique weaponry but I hope AA portion has some commonality.

MAX are definitely an area of improvement for PS2. Make give them more customization options, multiple weapon platforms, and tradeoff decisions. Ideally with some more room for skill in there too. I know folks complained they were too easy to play and I don't disagree. More options, more weapons with different characteristics. Adding in some different weapon configurations would go a long way to helping them balance out, especially if the AA options are rather similar. Again, I think AA is something that is too vital ot the balance of the game to have wide variance between the empires. There's room for flavor but it shouldn't be to the point where people hate flying against one empire or prefer flying against another due to differences in AA capabilities.

[Malorn]

So, I'm curious, how do you picture this flak gun? Something hand-held? A vehicle? Something an engineer sets up in the field? Or maybe more like a base turret so it's only at bases?
Then the rate of fire? Are you picturing like a Skyguard or more like a Flail?

It does sound like something like this would have a bit of a learning curve, but most things do, so I wouldn't worry about that. Also, I'm imagining this as an addition to the AA that we know and love in PS1 like the Maxes and Skyguard, even the turret upgrades and cerbrus turrets. Those would be more geared for the lower altitudes, like you stated, and this new flak gun is for the high altitude planes?

Flak is the AA that I think is the most balanced in the game and easiest to balance. It's easy to put flak on just about anything. They mentioned AA weaponry on tanks. That's one of the things that I was thinking altitude should really matter. Tanks shooting down liberators and galaxies is pretty ridiculous but a tank having some flak to have some reasonable defense against reavers and ward off skeets seems fine if it is a tradeoff and they are sacrificing something like a 20mm to get it.

At its simplest I'd like to see flak with different ammo types or characteristics, like flak that has a short range but a short arming distance (low-altitude flak), or flak that has a long range but a long arming distance (high altitude flak). Making infantry choose between those types is critical. Most will choose short because that's the immediate threat - reavers/skeets. Same thing with tanks I think. let them choose the type they want to equip but make it a tradeoff decision.

I can see engineers putting down stationary turrets that are flak cannons to put up some reasonable defense, but those turrets would need to be manned.

Rate of fire and damage can vary between flak platforms. I think a stationary turret should be one of the strongest forms of AA because it is both vulnerable to many things like AV, snipers, and aircraft, as well as having a limited and unmoving field of fire. Hand-held infantry flak should be like the rocklet - limited burst, limited range/accuracy.

If any vehicle can equip an AA secondary weapon then I think the need for specialized AA vehicles is no longer necessary. So perhaps we don't have a skyguard anymore, instead we have Enforcers, Threshers, and Marauders with secondary and minor flak guns with short-burst fire.

The key there is that there's a tradeoff between using flak vs some other weapon so the vehicle is giving up effectiveness to shoo off aircraft. But that all depends on how effective the AA is, how aircraft handles, how effective aircraft are against ground targets, etc...lots of variables.

I'd like to see non-flak guns too, like quad-barreled machienguns or miniguns that fire bursts of rounds into the air requiring some amount of accuracy by the gunner. Those could be by their nature low-altitude effectiveness, but I think we need some variety in the AA other than just flak flak flak. Anti-Air machineguns should probably have a minimal angle

Then again, we could also emulate German 88's which were AA guns that proved to be highly effective artillery. Perhaps a gun platform could be AA or AV depending on Ammunition type. So an engineer could build a cannon and change out ammo. One ammo type might be a slow ROF very hard hitting flak round that you have to do range-finding and ajustments and then fire one shot. If it hits it sould damn near instagib any aircraft but its so slow and hard to aim that fast moving aircraft probalby don't have to worry abou tit. But those that hover...well, they could be screwed. Then if there's no aircraft the engineer swaps out the ammo and it become sna Anti-Tank gun. or it could swap out ammo again and be an anti-infantry platform.

I really like the sound of that multi-use cannon that has low RoF but high damage. Big downsid eis that its stationary of course.

[EASyEightyEight]

Lot's of stuff.

Something like this may work. One could pick a primary weapons system, and then a weaker form of another primary as their secondary. Primary could be held/arm mounted and the secondary shoulder mounted (just would look cooler in my opinion.)

As for the previously unique faction abilities of the Maxes, they really should just be universal tertiary functions this time around. Pick one, but only one. SOE could introduce some new functions as well. I can understand wanting to give the factions more of an identity, but this one aspect of maxes was a glaring issue in my opinion.

[Nitro]

It has been said the Forgelight engine will support volumetric clouds, and It was suggested that aircraft may use them to hide in. I see a non-issue for any concerns over AA if this cloud cover is thick enough and at the right elevation to split the z-axis of the world essentially in half. Air superiority being fought over above the clouds, while the ground war wages on below them. Targeting highflying aircraft through cloud cover would be very difficult as would trying to drop bombs/soldiers accurately through them, but not impossible. This all becomes more dynamic and interesting depending on the weather situation at the time.

[PsychoXR-20]

It has been said the Forgelight engine will support volumetric clouds, and It was suggested that aircraft may use them to hide in. I see a non-issue for any concerns over AA if this cloud cover is thick enough and at the right elevation to split the z-axis of the world essentially in half. Air superiority being fought over above the clouds, while the ground war wages on below them. Targeting highflying aircraft through cloud cover would be very difficult as would trying to drop bombs/soldiers accurately through them, but not impossible. This all becomes more dynamic and interesting depending on the weather situation at the time.

To add to this, you could then add, either through implants or through deep tree specialization, some type of HUD overlay that allows you to see through said clouds. Perhaps you could just see the outline, or even maybe just an icon representing a target (no IFF, or again, maybe FF is handled through even deeper specialization). This would allow dedicated AA the ability to actually perform as AA, and allow dedicated bombers the ability to, for the most part, bomb accurately and safely; all the while not making either overpowered, as they will be required to sacrifice a great deal in order to achieve this.

[Sovereign]

You know after sifting through the site and sources and after looking at the VS max it seems to me that they may just make it more versatile as it may possibly be able to be airborne temporarily judging by the wings.. :p

So that adds in an entirely new dimension in the realm of AA if you were to have counter air airborne maxes. I know its radical and a quite far fetched but just throwing that out there to just entertain the thought...

[Senyu]

People like to complain when something adds variety, difficulty, and new playstyles. I however support the high alltitude

[DashRev]

It has been said the Forgelight engine will support volumetric clouds, and It was suggested that aircraft may use them to hide in. I see a non-issue for any concerns over AA if this cloud cover is thick enough and at the right elevation to split the z-axis of the world essentially in half. Air superiority being fought over above the clouds, while the ground war wages on below them. Targeting highflying aircraft through cloud cover would be very difficult as would trying to drop bombs/soldiers accurately through them, but not impossible. This all becomes more dynamic and interesting depending on the weather situation at the time.

This is what I hope to see. Double the average PS1 altitude ceiling and make the cloud level the midpoint between ground and the flight limit.

The higher up you go, the less effective AA will be, if only because you're either out of range or there's cloud between you and the ground.

But if you fly that high, you're going to be sacrificing your ground effectiveness. The only two vehicles that can even have an impact on a ground fight from that altitude are the Liberator or Galaxy. At that height your payload, whether it's players or bombs, is going to have a 8-16 second travel time.

I think a system like that adds a ton of depth to the air game without effecting the balance of the ground game.

[exLupo]

I'm liking the mixed range AA idea. Could lead to variety options with Gal specialization. Mods to support high altitude drops, etc. PS1 AA can often turn into an off-switch, something I'm not a fan of for any unit.

[Malorn]

It has been said the Forgelight engine will support volumetric clouds, and It was suggested that aircraft may use them to hide in. I see a non-issue for any concerns over AA if this cloud cover is thick enough and at the right elevation to split the z-axis of the world essentially in half. Air superiority being fought over above the clouds, while the ground war wages on below them. Targeting highflying aircraft through cloud cover would be very difficult as would trying to drop bombs/soldiers accurately through them, but not impossible. This all becomes more dynamic and interesting depending on the weather situation at the time.

That's a really interesting thought Nitro - cloud cover could naturally do altitude balancing as I describe without any other code changes necessary. It would also create very different flying characteristics on each continent if the weather patterns are different. Hossin might have low fog in many places, or Cery might have thick clouds up in those mountains. And all they would need is for cloud cover to break line of sight for lock-on weaponry.

I can see some rich gameplay as a result of that.

[Traak]

I think the AA is fine, now. Except that it doesn't have enough range to reach, well, aircraft, at high altitudes.

[Erendil]

I like the idea of a multi-tiered AA system for PS2, but I think that limiting all AA so that it only affects low or high targets is a BAD idea.

I say this because not only does it feel like an arbitrary limitation to put on the longer range AA, but more importantly the larger-scale battles will always have a mixture of both low and high altitude aircraft, and if every form of AA out there can only hit one or the other you've effectively cut the amount of AA out there in half for any given pilot flying in the area. So you'd have to setup twice as much AA as would otherwise be needed if an "either/or" tiered system weren't in place.

So, rather than forcing AA to choose between one or the other, I envision more of a 3-tiered system, where all AA is effective at low AA, only some of it at mid-altitute and a very select few can hit high altitude. But the high-alt AA would also be effective at low and mid alts as well. So, assuming, say, a 700m flight ceiling, here's what I see:

0-300m - Infantry general AV , vehicle mounted machine guns (which IMO need to be much more effective at AA than they are in PS1), cerb turrets (w/ similar range to the cerbs in PS1).

300-500m - non-upgraded wall turrets, Tank/other vehicle mounted AA, Infantry dedicated AA weapon (think of a 3-shot disposable SAM, like a guided Deci only effective vs air), AA MAX lock-on weapons (all 3 empires would have this available)

500-700m - AA wall turrets, Skyguards, AA MAX flak-based weapons (all 3 empires would have this available)


EDIT: Actually, now that I think of it, as Nitro pointed out I like the idea of cloud cover being a natural way to cap the height at which AA is effective - at least lock-on AA - since maintaining a lock would be more difficult once you'd lose sight of the target in the clouds. However, you could still maintain the lock if you guessed the flight path of the evading aircraft corectly and your reticle still remains red. This would mean that FaF-based AA a la the SparrowMAX should probably not be in PS2 (but I don't like FaF to begin with so I wouldn't want it in PS2 regardless)

So flying into the clouds would help but wouldn't be a guaranteed way of escaping. And flak-based AA could still shot through the clouds just fine of course.

[DashRev]

I say this because not only does it feel like an arbitrary limitation to put on the longer range AA, but more importantly the larger-scale battles will always have a mixture of both low and high altitude aircraft, and if every form of AA out there can only hit one or the other you've effectively cut the amount of AA out there in half for any given pilot flying in the area. So you'd have to setup twice as much AA as would otherwise be needed if an "either/or" tiered system weren't in place.

That isn't really true. In a altitude tier system, you're going to see more low-mid range AA, if only because low-mid range aircraft have more of an effect on the ground. It then becomes really unlikely that you'll see any less low-mid range AA than you did in PlanetSide 1.

So if the concern then becomes that you don't see much mid-high range AA, you can evaluate it one of a few ways:

1) Is that even a problem? Are the mid-high range aircraft having such a meaningful impact on the ground that they need to be hard-countered?

2) Is the mid-high range AA not accessible enough? Are players not using it because it requires too much of an investment to train for or is too time-consuming to acquire and set up at a base?

3) Is mid-high range AA just not effective enough? Is it easily accessible, but just too ineffective to be worth it?

So, rather than forcing AA to choose between one or the other, I envision more of a 3-tiered system, where all AA is effective at low AA, only some of it at mid-altitute and a very select few can hit high altitude. But the high-alt AA would also be effective at low and mid alts as well. So, assuming, say, a 700m flight ceiling, here's what I see:

0-300m - Infantry general AV , vehicle mounted machine guns (which IMO need to be much more effective at AA than they are in PS1), cerb turrets (w/ similar range to the cerbs in PS1).

300-500m - non-upgraded wall turrets, Tank/other vehicle mounted AA, Infantry dedicated AA weapon (think of a 3-shot disposable SAM, like a guided Deci only effective vs air), AA MAX lock-on weapons (all 3 empires would have this available)

500-700m - AA wall turrets, Skyguards, AA MAX flak-based weapons (all 3 empires would have this available)

If high-altitude AA is just as effective at all flight levels, no one would ever seriously consider using anything but skyguards and flak addons.

[Erendil]

That isn't really true. In a altitude tier system, you're going to see more low-mid range AA, if only because low-mid range aircraft have more of an effect on the ground. It then becomes really unlikely that you'll see any less low-mid range AA than you did in PlanetSide 1.

You're making a huge assumption there - and a shaky one at that. With an either/or tiered AA system like the OP suggests, high altitude aircraft will will have a huge effect on the ground and will become a lot more common than you think in the form of high altitude bombing runs and Reavers/Mossies who will make divebombing strafing runs from up high down to the low-mid altitudes to fire, and then AB back into high altitude to escape.

So if the concern then becomes that you don't see much mid-high range AA, you can evaluate it one of a few ways:

1) Is that even a problem? Are the mid-high range aircraft having such a meaningful impact on the ground that they need to be hard-countered?

2) Is the mid-high range AA not accessible enough? Are players not using it because it requires too much of an investment to train for or is too time-consuming to acquire and set up at a base?

3) Is mid-high range AA just not effective enough? Is it easily accessible, but just too ineffective to be worth it?


I can tell you right now that not having a high altitude counter would be a HUGE problem. Were you around before the Burster MAX could hit flight ceiling, but after they nerfed the Striker so it couldn't either? The TR had no weapons that could hit flight ceiling and just 2 libs could shut down a TR courtyard with little opposition because it was logistically impossible to get aircraft from other bases up in the air fast enough and often enough to constantly chase away the libs. And the NC/VS knew this and used it quite often to their advantage. So yes, high altitude aircraft do need a hard counter.

The problem that I see is not whether or not high-altitude AA is effective enough, but instead it's the speed/versatility of aircraft, compared to how hard/time-consuming it might be to switch from low/mid altitude AA to high altitude AA. I think it'd be way too easy for aircraft to exploit the low/high weakness and constantly shift their attacks such that ground forces wouldn't be able to adapt and switch between AA types quickly enough.

Aircraft are already the most maneuverable units on the board and usually they get to choose when and where engagements take place with ground units. I'm concerned that the only way to counter altitude-shifting aircraft would end up being forced to prepare for both altitude contingencies, which would require setting up a lot more AA than what is required in a system where at least some AA can be effective at all altitudes. This would be especially true against organized air Outfits, where they could all coordinate all of their attacks so they come in either high or low. Hence my statement about having to deploy double the amount of AA needed for the same protection, since you won't know at what altitude the enemy will be attacking from until they arrive on the scene, and at that point it'd be too late to adapt should you be using the wrong type of AA.




If high-altitude AA is just as effective at all flight levels, no one would ever seriously consider using anything but skyguards and flak addons.

That is outright false. In PS1 we already have high-altitude AA that is equally effective at all flight levels, in the form of AA MAXes, AA Wall Turrets, and Skyguards. And yet people still use cerb turrets, hand-held AV, and vehicle-mounted machineguns as AA all the time.

In the system I outlined (which incidentally is quite similar to what we have in PS1), the weapon systems that can hit flight ceiling each have severe limitations: Wall turrets are immobile, AA MAXes are slow moving and have weak armour, and Skyguards have weak armour as well. So people that don't want to put up with those limitations will choose other forms of AA.

For example, maybe a Prowler team mainly wants to concentrate on tank warfare, but they want to have decent protection against air while doing so. So for them, mounting a mid-height AA flak cannon on their turret is just fine for them, since they're not out to hunt aircraft. They just want the AA to defend themselves in the event they get attacked by air.

[exLupo]

The TR had no weapons that could hit flight ceiling and just 2 libs could shut down a TR courtyard with little opposition because it was logistically impossible to get aircraft from other bases up in the air fast enough and often enough to constantly chase away the libs.

The center of this problem was that they could park above a base and bomb at will. This will not be possible in PS2's complete change in flight model (actually having one). Without max-range AA they would get one free pass and then only if there weren't already craft defending the sky. If players are assumed to be sitting in an AA MAX, just waiting for a plane to fly by the base, it's not a stretch to have players sitting in a plane, patrolling the airspace above the AA range waiting for a plane to fly by, too.

The biggest reason you don't get aerial patrols in PS1 -is- the ground based AA which makes such a role impossible.

[DashRev]

You're making a huge assumption there - and a shaky one at that. With an either/or tiered AA system like the OP suggests, high altitude aircraft will will have a huge effect on the ground and will become a lot more common than you think in the form of high altitude bombing runs and Reavers/Mossies who will make divebombing strafing runs from up high down to the low-mid altitudes to fire, and then AB back into high altitude to escape.
Reavers and Mossies have zero ground effectiveness at high altitude. If you were able to fly above the flight ceiling in PS1 (on any continent that isn't Searhus) you wouldn't be able to do anything to ground targets in either of those vehicles. You could barely see the ground, let alone hit anything at ground level. In that case, your only option is to do divebombing runs, which puts you well in range of any ground-based AA.

If they aren't in range to hit you, then you aren't in range to hit them. The sole exception to that rule is the bombers, Liberators and Vultures. But they also lose some combat effectiveness as well. If they wish to bomb from above AA range, their projectiles have an immense travel time, can be seen on radar, and can be avoided. But again, the bomber is not invulnerable from that high altitude. You're still vulnerable to any enemy aircraft

Increasing the flight ceiling without increasing AA range just adds an additional third-dimensional battlefield where aircraft can dogfight for control of the skies. The biggest and more important benefit for the empire controlling high-altitude is having a better chance of controlling mid and low altitude, but it doesn't make you any more effective at those levels without actually having to go there and put yourself in range of ground-based AA.

I can tell you right now that not having a high altitude counter would be a HUGE problem. Were you around before the Burster MAX could hit flight ceiling, but after they nerfed the Striker so it couldn't either? The TR had no weapons that could hit flight ceiling and just 2 libs could shut down a TR courtyard with little opposition because it was logistically impossible to get aircraft from other bases up in the air fast enough and often enough to constantly chase away the libs. And the NC/VS knew this and used it quite often to their advantage. So yes, high altitude aircraft do need a hard counter.
You don't seem to be using my definition of high altitude. I mentioned high altitude starting above the current flight ceiling in PS1. Any ground-based AA would be just as effective in PS2 as they were in PS1, up to that range. But above that range, the effectiveness of both ground-to-air and air-to-ground begins to fall off dramatically.

In PS1, the most effective AA for aircraft flying at the current flight ceiling is already other aircraft. At that height and beyond it, which again is the definition I'm using for "high altitude" in PS2, the emphasis is going to shift even stronger toward aircraft-based AA. That opens the door for a layer of the battlefield whose focus is dogfights, adding more depth to the game in an area where I and many players had the most fun.

The problem that I see is not whether or not high-altitude AA is effective enough, but instead it's the speed/versatility of aircraft, compared to how hard/time-consuming it might be to switch from low/mid altitude AA to high altitude AA. I think it'd be way too easy for aircraft to exploit the low/high weakness and constantly shift their attacks such that ground forces wouldn't be able to adapt and switch between AA types quickly enough. You're concerned with how hard it "might be" to alternate between them when there is no evidence that:

1) It would be hard to switch from low-mid altitude AA to mid-high altitude AA.

2) That high-altitude AA is even necessary.

Aircraft are already the most maneuverable units on the board and usually they get to choose when and where engagements take place with ground units. I'm concerned that the only way to counter altitude-shifting aircraft would end up being forced to prepare for both altitude contingencies, which would require setting up a lot more AA than what is required in a system where at least some AA can be effective at all altitudes. This would be especially true against organized air Outfits, where they could all coordinate all of their attacks so they come in either high or low. Hence my statement about having to deploy double the amount of AA needed for the same protection.

And again, I don't think you're using the same definition for "high altitude" as what I've described it as in my other post. The further away you get from the ground, the less effective aircraft become at attacking the ground.

If it helps to imagine it, shift it horizontally and picture tanks. The further a tank gets from a facility, the less effective its cannons become. A Prowler lobbing shells from its absolute maximum distance is relying more on luck than anything to get kills. The same is true if you imagine a Flail firing at a base without waypoints to help it aim.

In either case, no one complains that the Prowler or Flail needs an absolute hard-counter that someone at that base can use to hit it from that range. The solution is to pull a vehicle and bring the fight to that Prowler or Flail, just like the solution for high-altitude aircraft would be to pull an aircraft of your own and take the fight to him.

[legendary]

The following is directed toward Reaver, Wasp, and Mosquito tactic:

The core motivation to inflect balancing on Aircraft is due to PS1’s long standing history of Air Power supremacy over ground forces. PS1 Air Power had the best mobility, and power.

A group of Reavers/ Skeeters could close large distances in a very short amount of time. Once local to their objective engage in fast pace dog fighting until they controlled the air space. Then proceed to clear the court yard of ground vehicles, combat engineering deployables, and AMS’s. Next they camp the doors for a few minutes of killing to get the defenders respawn timers up and then move inside for the base hack; game over. (Depending on the crew they might also chose to destroy the vehicle terminals from the air where available.)

The root dissatisfaction is with Air Powers ability to hover at low speeds and remain combat effective agents ground forces. It’s my hope that the new air combat engine will present such a change in velocity to make close corridor combat no longer plausible. A high speed flyby would still be practical against a ground target, but would require a spotter or a target in the open. Air power would no longer operate as helicopters, but be more Jet based.

[Erendil]

Reavers and Mossies have zero ground effectiveness at high altitude. If you were able to fly above the flight ceiling in PS1 (on any continent that isn't Searhus) you wouldn't be able to do anything to ground targets in either of those vehicles. You could barely see the ground, let alone hit anything at ground level. In that case, your only option is to do divebombing runs, which puts you well in range of any ground-based AA.

If they aren't in range to hit you, then you aren't in range to hit them. The sole exception to that rule is the bombers, Liberators and Vultures. But they also lose some combat effectiveness as well. If they wish to bomb from above AA range, their projectiles have an immense travel time, can be seen on radar, and can be avoided. But again, the bomber is not invulnerable from that high altitude. You're still vulnerable to any enemy aircraft

Increasing the flight ceiling without increasing AA range just adds an additional third-dimensional battlefield where aircraft can dogfight for control of the skies. The biggest and more important benefit for the empire controlling high-altitude is having a better chance of controlling mid and low altitude, but it doesn't make you any more effective at those levels without actually having to go there and put yourself in range of ground-based AA.


You don't seem to be using my definition of high altitude. I mentioned high altitude starting above the current flight ceiling in PS1. Any ground-based AA would be just as effective in PS2 as they were in PS1, up to that range. But above that range, the effectiveness of both ground-to-air and air-to-ground begins to fall off dramatically.

In PS1, the most effective AA for aircraft flying at the current flight ceiling is already other aircraft. At that height and beyond it, which again is the definition I'm using for "high altitude" in PS2, the emphasis is going to shift even stronger toward aircraft-based AA. That opens the door for a layer of the battlefield whose focus is dogfights, adding more depth to the game in an area where I and many players had the most fun.

You're concerned with how hard it "might be" to alternate between them when there is no evidence that:

1) It would be hard to switch from low-mid altitude AA to mid-high altitude AA.

2) That high-altitude AA is even necessary.



And again, I don't think you're using the same definition for "high altitude" as what I've described it as in my other post. The further away you get from the ground, the less effective aircraft become at attacking the ground.

If it helps to imagine it, shift it horizontally and picture tanks. The further a tank gets from a facility, the less effective its cannons become. A Prowler lobbing shells from its absolute maximum distance is relying more on luck than anything to get kills. The same is true if you imagine a Flail firing at a base without waypoints to help it aim.

In either case, no one complains that the Prowler or Flail needs an absolute hard-counter that someone at that base can use to hit it from that range. The solution is to pull a vehicle and bring the fight to that Prowler or Flail, just like the solution for high-altitude aircraft would be to pull an aircraft of your own and take the fight to him.

To all: my apologies for the length of this post, but I have grave reservations about air unit becoming too dominant in PS2, and DashRev these comments are not all directed specifically at you, so please bear with me….

For starters… DashRev, yes I am using your definition “high-altitude.” If you look at my first post you’ll see that I extended the flight ceiling as well to 700m, and that I extended the ranges of some – but not all – forms of AA such that the highest 200m is only still in range of highly-specialized and/or wall-mounted, flak-based AA (Skyguard, AA wall Turret, flak-based AA Max arm), which by their very nature will be less effective at hitting flight ceiling than low altitude targets due to travel time.

As a long-time PS1 pilot I love the idea of aircraft having an altitude range above-which they cannot effectively attack the ground and where they can in turn “fight for the skies” relatively undisturbed by ground forces, and love the added dimension to combat that this introduces. I also love the idea of having variable cloud-cover (preferably at around 60-70% the height of the flight ceiling) that aircraft can use to evade not only other aircraft, but ground-based AA as well.

But since we don’t yet know the flight speed/capabilities of aircraft in PS2, their armour (“staying power”), the max range of their weapons (although w/ today’s hardware I’m hoping most weapon ranges in general will increase), nor the effectiveness of available AA, we can only speak in general terms. So for purposes of these discussions it doesn’t matter whether the flight ceiling is 400m or 40,000m, as I see it there should be NO altitude at which an aircraft can attack ground forces but said ground forces cannot effectively defend themselves. So, in light of this assertion:

1) If bombers can attack the ground from flight ceiling but even the longest-range AA can’t fire back, we have a problem. Vehicles and infantry may be able to avoid incoming bombs, but wall turrets, drivers repping their vehicles, and deployable objects and vehicles (traps, CE, ANT’s, AMSes) cannot. Plus, having the only counter to a particular unit be another unit of a similar type is generally bad game design and can lead to all sorts of problems. We see this in PS1 when it comes to Air Cav, HA, MAXes, and BFR’s to name a few. IMO allowing bombers to be immune to ground-based AA when they’re bombing the ground from flight ceiling cannot be justified by saying they’re still vulnerable to other air.

2) DahRev, nobody complains about long-range Prowlers because the Prowler’s targets can fire back from their current location using wall turrets, AV MAXes, and even ESAV. Hell, even an OS can be used if the Prowler is lobbing shells from behind a hill. Sure you can pull your own tank and go meet him in the field if you’d like, but you’re not forced to do so in order to counter the Prowler. And as for flails, yes, people do complain about them all the time, even if unlazed. Especially when used in large numbers, like at Mekala the other day when 6-7 flails were being used (mostly unlazed) by both TR and NC to pound all around the base, making it difficult for VS to mount a decent counter attack and push out much less even find a safe place to repair. This is the kind of thing I see happening with bombers that are immune to AA at flight ceiling. I see wings of bombers carpet-bombing a base into oblivion, and the defenders unable to do anything about it.

3) If Air Cav and other assault aircraft can setup strafing runs on ground targets above the height off effective AA, divebomb to lower altitudes to make their attack, and then afterburn back up to above the height of effective AA before said AA has a reasonable chance to shoot them down, again we have a problem.

4) If the survivability of any aircraft is significantly increased in an “either/or” height-based AA implementation because it’s either too difficult or time-consuming to switch from low- to high-altitude AA, or if it’s too difficult for AA gunners to tell which form to use at a given target, then once more we have a problem. If these issues don’t exist then I’m not necessarily against such an AA implementation, although I fail to see how it adds much to the game beyond added complexity and a higher learning curve for new players in an already-complicated game (for some).

5) Lastly, AA needs to be designed such that ground forces can defend themselves against all air threats both in the field (skyguards, since PS2 will have field objectives as well as base objectives), during base defense (AA Wall turrets), and when trying to push out and retake a courtyard (AA MAXes). Hence my desire to have they be able to hit flight-ceiling bombers who might otherwise be circling the area just waiting to crush any ground-based resistance.

[DashRev]

In an attempt to make this a shorter reply, I'm cutting out quotes. So in order to try to keep it clear I'm going to use the same numbers to respond to the same points.

1) It looks like its just coming down to you and I having different interpretations of the effectiveness of weapons at their extreme maximum range. Looking realistically at a bomber sitting at the extended flight ceiling, safe from ground defenses, his bombs now have a travel time of 8-16 seconds. That might not sound like much, but if you actually start a stop watch and let it run for twelve seconds, its immense. Anything that isn't permanently stationary, including AMSs and a vehicle being repaired by hand, is going to have ample time to escape. With no vehicle boarding animations, you can literally hop back in your vehicle and drive a few feet to safety with tons of time to spare. Any bomb dropped from that height is going to be fully visible on radar for the entire duration of its flight. While technically possible, a bomber at that height is sacrificing almost all of his effectiveness.

With that said, your targets as a high altitude bomber are limited to only things that cannot move, which includes CE and base turrets. Neither of those things grant player kills. CE is neither pivotal to a base defense nor is it hard to replace. As for base turrets, even in PS1 they're one of the first defenses to die and one of the last to get repaired.

2) You're not really imagining the same scenario as a bomber at max altitude. All a prowler needs to do is find a slight hill to sit on from max range and he's completely untouchable by anything in the base. Having fired from a height advantage, there is nothing anyone in that base can hit the tank with.

To give you an example, a couple days ago the TR were attempting to take Searhus from the VS. Map of Searhus. (http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~dds250/ps/comp_field/searhus.jpg) It came to the point that we had taken Matagi and Akua, and were moving on to Oro and then Pele. Sitting along the rim of that volcano were tons of MBTs and BFRs, constantly shelling the area below. All of those vehicles were well out of range of the base, and the VS had no recourse but to bring the fight to the tanks if they wanted to defend themselves. But at the same time, those vehicles weren't even in render distance of any enemies at the base. They could see the facility but absolutely nothing within it. All of their kills in that base were designed entirely around luck, and TR only actually took the base when they realized they would have to leave the rim of that volcano and actually go down there en masse.

Defending yourself from bombers trying to do the same thing in PlanetSide 2 would actually be easier than this scenario, given that the VS would've actually had the ability to bring their own vehicles to the fight without the threat of any enemy ground-based AA. It would be purely an aircraft vs aircraft dogfight with zero ground interference.

3) I can't really tell if you're being hyperbolic or just unrealistic. You're describing a scenario that can already take place in PlanetSide 1. Imagine an aircraft approaching a base at flight ceiling, diving down to make an attack, and then ABing straight back up into the air and away from the base. All you'd be changing between PS1 and PS2 is that instead of being 20 meters further from the base horizontally, you'd be 20 meters further from the base vertically. Either way you're getting out of range of ground-base AA at an identical pace, just plotted on a different axis.

If you're saying that the ground-based AA are still reacting too slow to respond to you, then please tell me what empire you're fighting against, because as a pilot they sound like heaven.

4) This is where I start to think you're using too many fringe hypotheticals as cons. It feels like you're saying, "This could cause problems, lets not try it." instead of saying "Yeah, that could be interesting, but we have to make sure we balance it correctly."

I'm trying to make the argument that high-altitude aircraft don't need a ground-based counter. Their effectiveness is so compromised and there are other methods of air-based countering that its unnecessary for ground forces to always have a hard-counter.

That said, I certainly cede the fact that without testing, no one can fully anticipate every eventuality, myself included. That's why I'm open to the idea that if high altitude aircraft do become slightly too powerful, there is always the option of special high altitude AA that is rare, and offers a "light touch" just to keep high altitude aircraft in check.

But it appears like you're making the argument that before its even evident that high altitude AA is necessary, that its already underpowered because its too hard to obtain/switch to/understand. It seems like you're making some preemptive objections when its way too early for them.

5) This is another aspect of high altitude that I think really balances itself. Bases already have higher defenses. Its the natural gathering point for aircraft, whether to repair or rearm, or just form up and move out together. For that reason, you're going to have to break the door down and truly own the skies before you can even consider high altitude bombing without getting swarmed by enemy aircraft. You're flying an slow moving target with two players inside just begging to get picked off. Aircraft are already going to swarm you.

However, once you begin trying to bomb outside of a base in open-field engagements, you don't have to worry about that constant threat of enemy aircraft. But you do have to deal with the fact that your targets are a lot less bunched up. They don't have facility walls to contain them anymore. You're also dealing with a much more mobile force. Tanks are constantly pushing out and retreating to repair, infantry are pushing front lines and trying to grab the next hill or rock for cover. Trying to bomb from maximum altitude is a practice in insanity. Nothing you fire at is still going to be there when your bombs hit the ground. Like I mentioned above, people repairing tanks and AMSs out in the field have more time than they could ever want to pack up and move before your bombs hit the ground.

The only thing you're going to be crushing from high altitude is your own will to waste more time dropping bombs on empty fields.

[Talek Krell]

I like how height affects AA now. As a lib pilot I wouldn't approach an NC base in the same way I would a TR one.

Bursters are devastating at close range but have low shell velocity and strikers can only lock onto nearby targets so you're safest carpet bombing from the flight ceiling.

Sparrows don't miss once fired and will chase you well out of lock range and phoenixes, though not generally useful against aircraft, will most easily be able to hit you if they have plenty of distance to line up so it's best to make low flying hit and run attacks and use terrain to catch missiles for you. Flying at the ceiling just means more time for them to launch sparrows.