Airborne Light Assault - Counts as Aircraft for AA?

[Neurotoxin]

Greetings PSU Community!

I have been contemplating the issue of Light Assault as AA. While it is still an infantry role, Light Assault will be able to take to the skies rapidly, rendering some conventional weapons ineffective against them during this time.

Instead of asking if anyone knows from any interviews or intel whether AA affects airborne Light Assault or not, I figured I'd take the opportunity to create a poll for the community to get a general sense of how everyone feels about it.

Option 1 - AA does not target or specially damage Light Assault while they are in the air.

Option 2 - AA will target and / or specially damage airborne Light Assault if no Aircraft is in the same direction, otherwise AA will prioritize to targeting Aircraft.

Option 3 - AA will target and / or specially damage airborne Light Assault in the same way as Aircraft.

[Goku]

Learn to aim better? I don't see any need for AA against infantry that will be in the air for a very brief amount of time. The whole point of the jet pack is to be more mobile. Whats the sense of using it if you are going to get blown out of the sky every time you light it up?

[Pozidriv]

From what we have seen, LA doesn't seem to have enough air time for me to consider the need to use AA or AAA weapons on them. I guess the word jumpjets would fit better than jetpack :P.

[Stardouser]

I do not know whether AA will be missile based, projectile based, or both, but if it's missile based, it should not lock onto light assault in the air. If it's projectile based, it should do very strong damage to any infantry that it hits, it should not be mysteriously weakened.

[Miir]

The Lightning’s available to all three factions, and comes outfitted with a Skyguard turret that’s effective at ground-to-air firing as it is against on-foot infantry.

Sounds like the Lightning has this covered either way.

[Mechzz]

Heat-seeking AA should lock onto those glowing jets in an instant. Including a few seconds after the bugger lands, as they'll still be red hot.

Video AA should fly straight up his glowin' ass

Bullet AA should have no special advantage or disadvantage.

[Biohazard]

I was more worried about flack projectiles. I think that they should not detonate near infantry.

[Xyntech]

Seems like a waste. Watch the GDC footage again. Higby is rarely in the air for more than a split second.

This isn't a jetpack like in Tribes. This is a glorified jump button. It's more like a simplified version of rocket jumping than anything.

If this just amounts to allowing lock on weapons to target Light Assault who are actively thrusting, I don't really see the point or the harm. If it amounts to increased AA damage on them, when they are already one of the least armored classes in the game, I can't see that it would be very balanced. Mobility is meant to offset shitty armor. Just nerf their armor against all weapons, or just nerf their mobility if it isn't properly balanced.

[Grognard]

Strongly against.

JJ = trade off for weak armor. Adding "biga$$flaktarget" to that seems inappropriate to me... unless you give me a Boba fett flamthrower with high duration jets, and stronger armor...

[Xyntech]

unless you give me a Boba fett flamthrower with high duration jets, and stronger armor...

Stop making me want to support this idea.

[Graywolves]

They're jumppacks/glidepacks.

I don't think it's necessary to allow AA to hit them.



But I voted yes because it would be cool if we could lock a missile onto Boba Fett.


Note: Boba Fett's lesson is that if you look bad ass, everyone will love you. Even if your only combat scene is getting knocked into a sarlacc pit and have virtually zero lines.

[SKYeXile]

god no, the jump jets jump straight, it doesn't look like you can move very well once you're in flight, light those bitches up with direct fire.

[Grognard]

Stop making me want to support this idea.

:D

[Eyeklops]

Seriously? ZOMG...if maxes could jump...should AA target them too?

[Neurotoxin]

Seriously? ZOMG...if maxes could jump...should AA target them too?

You know, it would probably make more sense that AA would target jumping MAXs while in the air... but I dunno if we will have jumping MAXs for anyone this time.

[Brusi]

Only if there are glider packs, and then again... only if there are multiple types of AA weapons, some stronger against lightly armor air compared to heavily armored air.

[headcrab13]

Nah, AA shouldn't target them. LA won't be a big threat while in the air. It will mostly be used as a way to get around and climb structures.

[RawketLawnchair]

Absolutely not.
As in BF3, when I get in AA, I'm focusing on AA specifically, never at ground units.
I want to take out all air in sight, if theres ground, I'm hopping out and going for my shotty.

[Kran De Loy]

No.

Manually aimed Vulcan turrets would still work on LA, but missile locks and auto-air-burst flak should not work on LA. My reasoning is from a .. 'story'? point of view as well as from game play considerations.

LA jump packs are only powerful enough for LA, not because they're not powerful enough to lift an HA if the technology for it was amped up enough (see Warhammer 40k: Space Marines). LA jumppacks are only powerful enough to lift LA because the first priorities of a jump packs are speed and stealth for flanking. They have built in systems to reduce or eliminate the ability for AA systems to target them.

Gameplay wise LA are Light Assault, aside from Infiltrators they will have the least amount of armor, no access to heavy weapons and likely very limited access to heavy explosives. A glider pack upgrade has it's own limitations built in to compensate for longer (note: not long) distance flight and does not need any more from ground or air based opposition than they should already expect to have.

[Xyntech]

Considering I'm planning on primarily splitting my time between Scythe piloting and Light Assault, I'm glad to see the results of the poll.

Not that it would make that large a difference either way, considering that, as has been mentioned before, LA really is never in the air for that long. That may be different with the glider version, but the regular jumpers only use air time to get higher vantage points, not to fly.

Why not have AA target every infantry? Because all infantry can jump a short distance, which technically makes them air targets.

[Erendil]

Considering I'm planning on primarily splitting my time between Scythe piloting and Light Assault, I'm glad to see the results of the poll.

Not that it would make that large a difference either way, considering that, as has been mentioned before, LA really is never in the air for that long. That may be different with the glider version, but the regular jumpers only use air time to get higher vantage points, not to fly.

Why not have AA target every infantry? Because all infantry can jump a short distance, which technically makes them air targets.

LOL yeah I thought about that in the AA Targeting Landed Aircraft (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=40975) thread when someone mentioned if it was in the air, AA should lockon to it. :cool: But by that definition you'd have lockons for people falling off buildings, bailing from aircraft, hotdropping from gals, running quickly down a flight of stairs, etc. :D

More on topic, from a gameplay perspective I don't want AA to lock onto LA when using jumpjets. As you said its basically a scripted rocket jump and lasts <2 seconds so I'd not consider them air units to begin with.

Plus if there's both an enemy Liberator and a Jump-jetting LA in my LOS you damn well better believe that I want my Fission to lock onto the big nasssty gunship and not the small, squishy Cirque du Soleil wannabee hopping around on my screen in front of it.

I also presume the amount of AA ammo we can carry is going top be limited, so using it on softies seems like a waste of ammo, and you'd probably be able to kill the guy faster and more efficiently with small arms fire.

[Xyntech]

I hadn't even thought of that. Enemy LA jumping around to try to block their aircraft from being locked on to :lol:

This idea is sounding worse and worse the more I think about it. The biggest thing is that there are all sorts of problems with it, and it doesn't seem to solve any problems of it's own. Light Assault are going to have less armor and weaker firepower than Heavy Assault in the first place, and based on the "which class will you play" poll, Heavy Assault is going to have a lot of presence on the battlefield. Why does something else need to be extra effective against LA?

Want to kill LA? Get a Heavy Assault Anti Infantry gun, like the MCG for example. That will probably be 10x as effective on LA, even if AV were allowed to lock onto them. Got a vehicle? Use the machine gun. It sounds like they will be more effective than in the first game at mowing down infantry who don't have proper cover. LA jumping in the air will probably be just like skeet shooting for a lot of vehicles.

I guess it makes a little sense from a logic standpoint to have AA target them, but really only the gliders, since it's just a super jump most of the other time. But then, this is a fictional game with pew pew and respawning. One mans fictional logic can easily be countered by another. As was suggested previously, maybe part of LA's jump pack technology is that it has a low signature profile so as to avoid lockon, and doesn't have large enough exhaust intakes to be vulnerable to flak, rendering all AA weapons no more effective than they are on every other infantry.

Show a problem created by LA that AA would solve and I may reconsider, but as it stands, it seems like it would be pointless, from every single angle.

[Neurotoxin]

Many good arguments have been made here, and I'm glad it has been fairly civil and productive.

The overwhelming response from the polls and discussions reflects the desire from most to separate LA from Aircraft classification while in the air. It was fun to tease the idea, but I can see that there's not much need for such extreme weaponry against the second lightest infantry armor in the game.

At the same time, I can see that there could be some merit in an optional "decoy" sidegrade for LA, which allows them to disrupt AA tracking in order to help support incoming friendly aircraft.

That should probably go in the suggestions forum...

[Marinealver]

Probbibly be like the VS MAXs when jumping. Not much as Air. Besides It wouldn't make much since, I mean when those flight BFRs jumped it was pointless that AA was able to lock on. Especially when they only stayed in the air for a few seconds.