Adding Teamwork to Air Combat

[The Admiral]

In most games with air-to-air combat, such as the battlefield series, it inevitably degenerates into numerous individual dogfights with the only element of teamwork consisting of who has the bigger blob.

To correct this I propose that a customization option be added exclusively to the Galaxy that gives it a medium range early warning radar. Since destroying the Galaxies is already going to be the primary objective of all fighter pilots because of their strategic importance as the only mobile spawn vehicle, it makes sense to give galaxy pilots something to do besides being a flying target.
In practice, escort fighters could be vectored onto incoming enemy squadrons or used to ambush other squadrons that are operating without a supporting galaxy, tactics which closely mirror those used in RL.

[Traak]

In most games with air-to-air combat, such as the battlefield series, it inevitably degenerates into numerous individual dogfights with the only element of teamwork consisting of who has the bigger blob.

To correct this I propose that a customization option be added exclusively to the Galaxy that gives it a massive antiaircraft capability. Since destroying the Galaxies is already going to be the primary objective of all fighter pilots because of their inability to mount an effective defense, due to slower speed, and lack of effective firepower.

There, I fixed that quote for you.

The counter for Galaxies being picked on by the usual crop of cowards in planes is give them AA guns. Then the pilots will run away shrieking, as they do now, from anything that can effectively shoot back.

[SKYeXile]

There, I fixed that quote for you.

The counter for Galaxies being picked on by the usual crop of cowards in planes is give them AA guns. Then the pilots will run away shrieking, as they do now, from anything that can effectively shoot back.

this this one been reaver spammed while foot zerging too many times with no AV.

[Sabrak]

Like an AWACS ?

Sounds a good idea to me.

Something to unlock from the Galaxy's cert tree, and some sidegrades like longer range but longer refresh rate, or shorter range but an ability to spot ground vehicules, maybe.


The counter for Galaxies being picked on by the usual crop of cowards in planes is give them AA guns. Then the pilots will run away shrieking, as they do now, from anything that can effectively shoot back.

Not sure if trolling, but...
The Galaxy is a transport/support ship, it's not supposed to fight.
Leave its defense to the ES fighters (and Liberator gunships?).

[Effective]

I always found there was a bit of teamwork involved in flying in planetside, sure just flying around randomly in a massive A2A fight and shooting at anything you see seems like it works. But the system we used in TRx for our A2A dogfights (and I imagine prominent outfits such as DT/FC/AC/etc used something similar) was extremely efficient. You don't chase 1 target down, you shoot stuff sure, but you focus on enemy aircraft attempting to shoot down friendlies. This is all communicated via voice coms (mumble, TS, Vent). We've killed large groups of pilots on multiple occasions without losing anyone.

What do most pilots do when they see an enemy almost dead? They commit and attempt to kill him, as long as the guy who's almost dead can avoid him for just a little bit, his teammates can bring down the enemy pilot.

[Figment]

The only thing I would have liked to see in terms of bringing teamwork to aircraft was two seater Reavers instead of solo Reavers. As in multicrew vehicles being required to be effective against multicrew ground units - which would only be fair. Pilot vs pilot can be one guy. Pilot vs infantry, same. But why should a ground unit, regardless of its crew content, always be at the mercy of a solo pilot, let alone a group of solo pilots? :/

Clearly that's not happening, far from it sadly.

[Xyntech]

The only thing I would have liked to see in terms of bringing teamwork to aircraft was two seater Reavers instead of solo Reavers. As in multicrew vehicles being required to be effective against multicrew ground units - which would only be fair. Pilot vs pilot can be one guy. Pilot vs infantry, same. But why should a ground unit, regardless of its crew content, always be at the mercy of a solo pilot, let alone a group of solo pilots? :/

Clearly that's not happening, far from it sadly.

I bet you that none of the three ES fighters will be as tough and devastating as the PS1 Reaver, at least not compared with the rest of PS2's infantry and vehicle weapon damage output.

PS2's NC Reaver will undoubtedly be the most durable and deal the most damage, but I imagine that all three eaircraft will probably be more like the Mosquito from PS1, only with a little more versatility.

Hopefully the new Liberator, being a gunship instead of a bomber, will perform like the multi crewed Reaver that you want.

[Raymac]

I really like the idea of being able to cert Galaxies into more of an AWACS role. One of the most fun times I've had in PS1 has been flying in organized squadrons, and working together to call out targets. Also, I've been on the receiving end of Effective and his TRx crew. But it was often rare to see 2 well organized squadrons going head to head. A Galaxy like this might make that easier to accomplish.

The reaver was very much a glass cannon in PS1 if there was any AA around, and I'd like to see that continued, and in fact enhanced in PS2. The more AA options there are, the better.

[Nephilimuk]

EVE like target calling or focused fire would be great for SL's of air squads

[LongBow]

I honestly am still reeling about this "gals as spawn points" thing, as one myself I have no Idea how my role is going to change. though we were basically wearing a deer suit as it was!

AWACS are cool and I approve of this message, however I believe an image of an early mosie was shown without a cannon and with some form of Ariel/cattle prod.

My thoughts on this whole thread though are that I'm not apprehensive about Galaxies I'm just genuinely confused, so requesting features is at this time otherwise void...

[SKYeXile]

I always found there was a bit of teamwork involved in flying in planetside, sure just flying around randomly in a massive A2A fight and shooting at anything you see seems like it works. But the system we used in TRx for our A2A dogfights (and I imagine prominent outfits such as DT/FC/AC/etc used something similar) was extremely efficient. You don't chase 1 target down, you shoot stuff sure, but you focus on enemy aircraft attempting to shoot down friendlies. This is all communicated via voice coms (mumble, TS, Vent). We've killed large groups of pilots on multiple occasions without losing anyone.

What do most pilots do when they see an enemy almost dead? They commit and attempt to kill him, as long as the guy who's almost dead can avoid him for just a little bit, his teammates can bring down the enemy pilot.

^this
prettymuch how dogfighting is IRL..or how i expect it to be after watching top gun...

[Raymac]

^this
prettymuch how dogfighting is IRL..or how i expect it to be after watching top gun...

Like you ever watched anything other than the volleyball scene in that movie

[Traak]

The Galaxy is a transport/support ship, it's not supposed to fight. Leave its defense to the ES fighters (and Liberator gunships?).

Leave the protection of a vulnerable ANYTHING to others? You have never actually PLAYED Planetside, I'm guessing.

I will enlighten you: Planetside is a massively multiplayer game where the heavily-armed avoid anything that smacks of teamwork or strategic value in favor of brainless splatter-festing.

I can count the number of times an HA (or ANYONE, but this particular heroic and teamwork-oriented individual was HA) has lingered around my AMS to protect it from incursion in eight years on ONE finger. He was a TR, with an MCG, I think it happened about five years ago. It's easy to remember, because it has happened so seldom. We were near some trees, not far from a base wall, but it wasn't within view. He was also wearing Rexo. If I knew it would never happen again, I would have taken a screenshot.

If you leave protection of ANYTHING in this game to people who aren't directly covering their own butts or padding their kill stats, you might as well just orbital strike it yourself.f

Put AA cannons on the Galaxy, with a completely spherical, resultant overlapping field of fire, and then you will see it protected. You have to make rewards direct and relevant to the players, because most of them can't see past their own reticle.

Geez, expecting anyone else to have the foresight to protect a spawn point? If, perhaps a newly evolved uber-species of human beings starts playing the game who have no ties to the existing human race? I don't know. It ain't gonna happen with the present crop.

Teamwork? Protection of a spawn point by others? You can't be talking about any Planetside game in this universe. Make the direct reward of protecting the Galaxy directly rewarded by YOU NOT DYING because you are inside it, manning the rotary flak cannons, with the added bonus of you being able to score kills, and that will do it.

Spawn points should be like porcupines. You can know where they are, but if you get within touching distance, you're gonna get a hand or face full of quills. Making spawn points have a much, much larger SOI, and actual self-defenses would kill two birds with two stones: They wouldn't be oversaturated in the field, and they would discourage people picking on them for EZ killz, OMG I Totally OMG R000Lzzzzz0rZZZZZ!

Battle should be more focused on "closing with and killing the enemy" and less on "leaping, drooling in glee on the enemy nursery with a machete, to prevent any enemy from maturing and becoming a real threat." This isn't Rwanda, and facing fully-armed, fully cognizant enemies is what this game is really going to have to be about.

[Kouza]

Add To it? You dont add to it... You just do it.. Team work in A2A Combat was needed in PS1 If you wanted Air Domination or Superiority.

[Erendil]

I bet you that none of the three ES fighters will be as tough and devastating as the PS1 Reaver, at least not compared with the rest of PS2's infantry and vehicle weapon damage output.

PS2's NC Reaver will undoubtedly be the most durable and deal the most damage, but I imagine that all three eaircraft will probably be more like the Mosquito from PS1, only with a little more versatility.

Hopefully the new Liberator, being a gunship instead of a bomber, will perform like the multi crewed Reaver that you want.

This is what I'm thinking as well. ES fighters equipped w/ AV will probably be effective enough to hunt down injured MBT's and support vehicles, but they shouldn't be able to wtfbbq a 2-seater MBT at full strength like they can in PS1. Tank busting should be the role of the new lib gunship.

And Effect is right, teamwork over TS is already essential in PS1 if you want to come out on top in dogfights that involve any substantial number of planes. And the key is to concentrate on maneuvering to stay alive while still maximizing your chances of using opportunity fire to hit enemy aircraft that are not focused on you but have their attention directed elsewhere.

Over-committing yourself when chasing an injured foe is one of the surest ways to get yourself shot down by the foe's teammates. And flying solo without coordinating w/ your fellow pilots and being mindful of their vectors will often give the enemy the opportunity to isolate you from the pack and tear you up.

That said I love the idea of giving gals an AWACS system that lights up all enemy aircraft for your platoon to help facilitate coordination amongst pilots. This could bring about a small minigame within air combat where enemy air add stealth sidegrades, activate countermeasures to jam the radar, etc. It could also help you to pursue and engage enemy aircraft that are trying to lose you in the existing cloud cover or in the cover of darkness.

As for dedicated AA for gals... I'd be okay with it as a sidegrade. Gals already have machine guns though, so they're not completely defenseless like AMSes were in PS1. Hopefully vehicle-mounted machine guns will be more effective in general in PS2 than they were in PS1. I'm prertty sure they won't suffer from horrendous damage degradation like they did in PS1 so I suspect they'll be better at AA anyway.

[Zulthus]

I don't know about completely defenseless... I've found that AMSes have a pretty nice capability for rolling over softies... :D

[Traak]

To make teamwork more alluring, like a hooker, you have to dress it up and give the user a more direct and immediate motivation to engage in it.

And the best way to do that is make weapons that don't suck so hard they make a deep-space vacuum look like a dynamic overpressure from an RDX explosion, and to make it so that the people manning those weapons are actually IN the thing they are expected to protect.

What are you more motivated to protect? Some spawn point that won't kill you if it goes all mushroom-cloud, or your own plane with your own ass in it? Stuff that is support-oriented needs intrinsic rewards for the players to protect it, not extrinsic, airy-fairy "good for the empire" crap that just does not motivate.

When it's YOU you are protecting, not just some abstract spawn point or base, or mod, over yonder somewhere, it is going to have a lot more likelihood of surviving. Witness people mowing over my CE, for no reason whatsoever, other than they could who were in my empire. Now, if that was THEIR CE they had laid out, they wouldn't be so horny to ruin it for fun.

You have to make mission-critical stuff have immediate, personal rewards and threats for it to be adequately protected. Right now, that is not the case. There is nothing in the game that is support-oriented that can even defend itself, unless you call the ultra-weak guns on the Galaxy some form of defense.

Want to make them truly viable? Give them no damage degradation, and a ROF of a minigun: 5000rpm. Or better yet, as I said, flak that is area-effect and proximity-fused. Then it will be rewarding to defend yourself and your spawn point, not just feel like you are a rape victim that added that extra zesty thrill for your rapist by struggling. "I love it when they struggle" is the cry of sickos the world over. It isn't fun to be the person trying, but doomed to fail, to protect yourself, and that is the Galaxy as it sits now.

[Sabrak]

Leave the protection of a vulnerable ANYTHING to others? You have never actually PLAYED Planetside, I'm guessing.

I have played the game for years, thank you.

But yes, you're right.
Random people won't defend random spawn points.
That's where squads and outfits jump in action, though.
Ever planned an outfit raid from the Sanc, using Galaxies and Aircav?
Didn't the aircav actually defend the Gals, or at least tried its best?

That's the whole point of my post.
Coordination between gals and ES-fighters should be done easily via some tools like radars or whatever.
Random people might not try to defend the Gal, yes. But it's a MMOFPS. Make a squad or whatever you want, organise your shit and get your guys to defend your support vehicule.

Giving AA to a Galaxy, that's just plain stupid and overpowered.
Do that, and you can be sure to see a Gal-Fest in the air at every battle, fighting for air supremacy, with no fighters able to come anywhere around.

[inigma]

...I love the idea of giving gals an AWACS system...

For a second there I was thinking you were talking about a hair removal product for ladies.

[Traak]

I still think intrinsic rewards, such as "you didn't get blown to bits as you sat in the AA or AV turret of the deployed Galaxy Spawn Point, and you got to make kills," not just "sit there gibbering and crying hoping uncle doesn't come to YOUR room again tonight" is going to do a lot more to make the game fun, for support people, and yes, even the people who treat support as if it is their worst enemy and most hated ex-gf, because they will be in heated BATTLES, not just "Hunt for the weakest enemy, preferably unarmed, and kill him, then run away shrieking" that it is now.

Give support weapons and armor so they don't NEED to depend on the magnanimous kindheartedness of someone else. You don't see Planetside 2 Reavers needing a flying escort, or the tanks having to have a separate gun vehicle to protect them. We need support vehicles that are vehicles of war, not just the weak boy in the shower at prison. He doesn't NEED teammates. He needs a shank.

Let's quit pretending like anyone cares, directly, about anyone but themselves, and make the game so that the support people don't NEED others for protection. We got our own guns, our own armor, and our own balls. We don't need you riding to the rescue. We need YOU to go out and attack their main battle weapons while WE defend our XP-generating spawn point, ANT or whatever, OURSELVES.

Quit shackling the hands of the support vehicle crews and just give them weapons and armor. It's a FPS, not a FPSHHDBMGTTOMG First Person Sure Hope He Doesn't Blow Me Up This Time OMG.

In PS2, I want to see support vehicles and crews who aren't emasculated, unarmed, bleating sheep. I want spawn points and ANTS to be things you gotta get a whole lotta crew together to destroy. Who the heck ever came up with the idea that everyone gets the guns but the support people? Ever been on an FOB? Every soldier in the place, from the cooks to the machine gunners is packing an assault rifle, squad machine gun and/or sidearm, with ammo on his person.

Time for Sony to wake up and do the same, ON A VEHICULAR LEVEL. I don't WANT your charity, pilots and HA/AV people, I WANT MY OWN GUNS, ON MY OWN VEHICLE, THAT CAN PROTECT ITS OWN SELF. That way, the empire has a spawn point, and we don't have to depend on others, unlike ABSOLUTELY EVERY SINGLE OTHER PLAYER IN THE GAME, for protection.

Make the FPS a FPS for EVERYONE. Quit sadistically punishing the support vehicles by making them weak, sissy, easy prey for EVERYONE.

Balance? Don't even talk to me about balance. They can crank out as many support vehicles as we can. All three sides can have however many will fit on a vehicular-SOI basis.

Gimme guns, Higby, ON MY SUPPORT VEHICLE. Then let's see the battles! Instead of Captain Shrieker being able to sit on his ass behind a turret and OS from afar, or any cloaker being able to run up, unhindered, or any airplane, or any vehicle, or any soldier, or any MAX, or pretty well ANYTHING, give the support vehicles TEETH. Not just the token peashooters on the Galaxy, I mean real weapons that demand you stay away or DIE, weapons with a spherical FOF around the whole vehicle. Wanna go up against a Galaxy? They you better bring a big team, especially if it lands and deploys, then your ass is grass.

Why? Why this emphasis on spawn point protection? Because SPAWN POINTS ARE WHAT PEOPLE NEED TO GET INTO THE FIGHT!

We don't need more of the 30-second spawn timers for people and five minute timers for vehicles, so that in addition to being killed by (usually a cheater/hacker/exploiter/dual empire scum) an enemy, we get our face rubbed in particularly stinky and maggot-ridden crap of having to wait to get back into the fray.

No. More gunning, less running. More owning less spawning (time-wise). Let's put the Shooter back in First Person Shooter, and remove waiting and travelling WAY too long to get to the point of even being able to get ONE shot in.

More survivable spawn points means more action. And whether it seems like it in your world, the reality in this game is that spawn points are disproportionately targeted, and are unbelievably weak and defenseless. This is bad because moving spawns FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR across the map makes gameplay into boring "wait to spawn, wait to get a vehicle, wait while I slog back to the front, wait while my implants fire up, wait for this, wait for that, wait, wait, wait." I don't want more inviolate spawns because I'm a support guy. I want more inviolate spawns because I like soldiers to spend more time gunning, less time running, as I have been saying in global since I first busted CR5.

It's good for the game to make it so support is strong and mighty. It makes us able to focus on killing enemies, instead of gaining our Boredom Merit Auraxium by lagging about spawn and other support stuff to protect it from an attack that may never come, as opposed to getting in the thick of it and KNOWING we have a fight on our hands.

Then you know who's gonna win? The best first person shooters. Not the best Long Distance OS'ers, or the Rocket Spam from 1200M guys who know they have absolutely no resistance whatsoever built into the spawn.

I hear the hot-drop guys whine about how CE slows the game down. I laugh, because I wasn't trying to slow them down, I was trying to kill them. But, the problem is it DOES slow the game down, another thing to add to the massive stinking heap of junk that SLOWS THE GAME DOWN.

Support vehicles with built-in defenses, both thick armor, and heavy, effective weapons that can swat you back if you swat them, from whatever distance you are at.

Then, watch the paradigm shift from the admittedly boring slog of trying to protect our weak, fat, slow pig AMS to "Now that the spawn point is fairly self-defending, we can get about the business of combat."

Quit making the support vehicles gutless, nutless victims, and let us protect our OWN stuff.

[FastAndFree]

Tanks do need escorts. Without AA cover tank columns get eaten alive by aircav.

If a Lodestar could fight off several vehicles. And repair other vehicles (including other Lodestars)
What would be the point of using tanks...


I agree that support needs to be more fun. But not by becoming BFRs with gluegun/spawntube attachments

[Raymac]

Tanks do need escorts. Without AA cover tank columns get eaten alive by aircav.

If a Lodestar could fight off several vehicles. And repair other vehicles (including other Lodestars)
What would be the point of using tanks...


I agree that support needs to be more fun. But not by becoming BFRs with gluegun/spawntube attachments

B-17s had plenty of guns, but still needed a fighter escort. I don't see a problem with giving support vehicles weapons, but Traak's premise is flawed.

Defending something was boring, not because it didn't have weapons. It was boring because it wasn't getting attacked. An AMS's best defense was it's cloak. Defending anything that isn't being attacked, whether it's a cloaked AMS or a hack, is boring because you are waiting. When you attack something, you have the initiative and can generally find something to shoot at. When you are defending, the fight has to come to you.

Putting guns on a loadstar won't change anything. In fact, when I would hunt and take out loadstars, they were either defended by an AA Max or Skyguard, or by the aircraft and tanks that were repairing there.

There's nothing that can be done to make defending an objective that is not being attacked more exciting. The only thing you can do is tell the enemy where you are, and then fight them off.

[Traak]

B-17s had plenty of guns, but still needed a fighter escort.

They would be the equivalent of the Galaxy facing Reavers with its guns. I'm talking about giving it flak cannons, not nearly-useless machine guns.

The idea isn't entirely to make support have something to shoot. It's to keep enemies away from support and have them attack other armed enemies.

[Raymac]

They would be the equivalent of the Galaxy facing Reavers with its guns. I'm talking about giving it flak cannons, not nearly-useless machine guns.

The idea isn't entirely to make support have something to shoot. It's to keep enemies away from support and have them attack other armed enemies.

I understand, and that's fine. I've run into a few good gunners on Gals, but the majority of them aren't extremely effective. The point really is, it doesn't matter if they have machine guns, flak cannons, or the Death Blossom. None of those will change the fact that defending an objective that is not being attacked is inherantly boring. Waiting around with a bigger gun is still waiting around.

[The Admiral]

I believe that the only way for PS2 to achieve its full potential for epicness is if its not just a rampaging rabble of 2000 people. The game mechanics need to be specifically designed so that the horde will self-organize into a well-oiled fighting machine, which will only occur if it is easy to form a team, being in a well-organized team has incentives for the individual player, and a disciplined force is able to defeat a much a much larger force that is poorly organized. Why are real militaries well organized? Because it makes them more effective in battle. Many outfits will always pursue perfectly coordinated unit tactics as a raison d'etre, but you have to give the masses a reason to prefer making the effort to form a tank column or an airborne infantry unit over the kind of mindless murder-death-kill gameplay found in all other modern fps titles. If you do provide the proper environment, then I think you'll see even common players wanting to participate because that is the core of what makes this game epic and stand-out from the others in the first place.

I don't support giving the Galaxy uber-powered weapons, but I do think we need to have some reason for fighter pilots to at least coordinate with galaxy pilots, such as an AWACS radar that only the galaxy pilot can view, which makes him the eyes and ears of the attached fighter squadron(s).

[Tasorin]

We will be flying with a "Carrier Fleet" mentality. You should never run into a Gal by herself. Just like when you face a Naval Carrier you face the entire Fleet that is assigned to it. Expect to see a compliment of Gunships and Interceptors with Every Gal. When we break down into A2A dog fighting, you should be facing a 2:1 ratio that we hope to be able to maintain in even the larger A2A Global Fights. With Global and Phantom capabilities in the VoIP options out there we find it easy to communicate even when broken down into smaller groups. The hard part is herding the cats into the pen and getting them to shut the hell up for two seconds...

In short we will follow a Driver and a RIO as it were...

Never Leave Your Wingman


Sorry I couldn't resist.

[Traak]

I understand, and that's fine. I've run into a few good gunners on Gals, but the majority of them aren't extremely effective. The point really is, it doesn't matter if they have machine guns, flak cannons, or the Death Blossom. None of those will change the fact that defending an objective that is not being attacked is inherantly boring. Waiting around with a bigger gun is still waiting around.

Ah, but with people constantly spawning at it, ANYONE could jump in the AA turret and fend off some enemy air, or jump in the AV turret, or perhaps each turret does both, I don't know. With people spawning at the spawn point, no one would have to wait around, the defense OF the spawn point would be built into it, so instead of being some softie taking a missile barrage, you would be some softie able to jump in the AA turret.

During travel, when the ANT or Galaxy, and whatever else they have is moving, it would be nice to be able to defend yourself en route, while loaded with troops in the Galaxy, or loaded with NTU for whatever ANT they may or may not have.

My standard reaction to being at an AMS being attacked? Decon. There's nothing much else you can do. But with turrets on the Galaxy, you have more options than just run away!

[Effective]

Giving AA to galaxies is dumb. Just saying

[xSlideShow]

Giving AA to galaxies is dumb. Just saying

I'm xSlideShow and I approve this message.

[Fate]

Giving AA to galaxies is dumb. Just saying

QFMFT.

Teamwork should be encouraged, but not required. If you force something on people that they don't want they'll just find something else to play.

[Traak]

Right. Which is why Galaxies should have AA, so we aren't forced to rely on the caprice of someone else to protect our own asses. Would tanks be fun if you had the armor over here in one vehicle, and the gun, over here, in this other vehicle. But only if someone had the inclination to bring along a gun escort for your unarmed, but heavily armored tank?

As the pilots in the Vietnam war era said about dogfighting with ONLY sidewinder missiles: Give us guns!

Again, REAL guns, not the beanshooters the Galaxies have now. AA guns, and when they are deployed, AV also. People can then spawn to fight, not fight to spawn.

[SKYeXile]

Galaxies equipped with 3x 35mm's is more than enough, lets atleast encourage people to aim, if only for a split second.

[Fate]

Right. Which is why Galaxies should have AA, so we aren't forced to rely on the caprice of someone else to protect our own asses. Would tanks be fun if you had the armor over here in one vehicle, and the gun, over here, in this other vehicle. But only if someone had the inclination to bring along a gun escort for your unarmed, but heavily armored tank?

As the pilots in the Vietnam war era said about dogfighting with ONLY sidewinder missiles: Give us guns!

Again, REAL guns, not the beanshooters the Galaxies have now. AA guns, and when they are deployed, AV also. People can then spawn to fight, not fight to spawn.

While I can see the value of increasing the power of the weapons on the Galaxy (compared to the current version), but I don't think it would be right (or sane) to make them overpowered like you're suggesting. I don't like the idea of a Galaxy with weapons that make them completely impervious to AirCav, that's just a bad idea for a game mechanic. If it flies it should die to other things that fly, Skeeters and Reavers can die to each other, it doesn't make sense that a Galaxy should be an unmolestable air super fortress.

Also, your comparison about Vietnam is incorrect. The Top Gun program was initiated to teach pilots how to dogfight and utilize their guns as too many pilots were relying on their missiles to get the job done.

[Effective]

Im not against giving galaxies better guns, just not weapons that make them impossible to kill.

[LongBow]

Galaxies...
... are big - it makes them easy to spot and easy to hit.
... require four people to defend.
... have the fire-power of a single mosquito in any one arc.
... are slow.
... now have a target priority through the roof.
... role requires them to stay on station (no repairs).

result: you can't run, you can't fight and everyone wants to kill you!

honestly I'm looking forward to when it is finally explained why flying a gal is not the worst role in the game.

[The Admiral]

Yes, it would be nice to have some moderate defense capability, but would you prefer loading the galaxy with weaponry or giving it some other vital role in the air that would make fighters likely to defend it?

I think the game would be more interesting if the Galaxy does have to rely on fighters for protection to some degree, but also has the only air radar in the game, or some other support mechanic that makes it indispensable to nearby fighters.

[Talek Krell]

I've already suggested giving it modules that allow it to function as the new lody. Maybe re-arming aircraft could be a basic function that it keeps regardless? That would give fighters a more obvious stake in it's survival.