[Suggestion] ESF Changes: from a pilot's perspective

[Legolas]

Um, maybe this should be moved to the Ideas section now?

**Updated post based on replies.**

Basically -- I think ESFs give one person too much power as it currently stands, and I'm mainly a pilot on Miller. I made this after I was bored so I watched another Mosquito guy flying on Twitch. His gameplay was a horribly dull but supremely successful farm of NC in pretty much any location he was at. I never saw him die once except for when he crashed... he killed way over fourty people without a scratch. It was too much. Bunch of other stuff is in too.


Suggestions

Dynamic XP.
- If a weapon like the Rocket Pod is being exploited, lower the XP gained from killing certain target types with them. I.e; infantry killed with pods grants you less XP than infantry killed with the main cannon. Dynamic XP could reward decent play as opposed to spammy behaviour. There could even be more XP rewarded for people flying fast and close to the ground, or upside down to highlight better skill or behaviour.

No XP for Repairing Yourself.
- Nobody I know wants this.

Repairing Yourself.
- Its too cheap that an ESF can be repaired in seconds. The same goes for other vehicles. Maybe slow the repair rate down? You could make it so that every time you take over __% damage you loose _% off the total health permanently, meaning that your ESF gets weaker over time as you constantly repair it? That could stop the self-repair spam.

A2A Missiles.
- Make it so we have to maintain a tight CoF on the target in order to keep the lock. This is more interesting and dynamic than the FaF we have now.

Rocket Pod Rocket Speed.
- Rockets could be slower or build up speed before they fully ignite to encourage actual aiming/piloting. It would also lower their effectiveness against aircraft which is good because the Pods aren't meant to be used against other ESFs. Didn't a previous patch back in Beta have more of an acceleration thing with the rockets like this?

Rocket Pod Rocket Dynamic CoF.
- Maybe a dynamic CoF could be used so that the more you are turning the higher the CoF you have. This is only to stop pilots using them against other ESFs as much. If you want a pod that can hurt other aircraft you should be using A2A not A2G.

Longer Rearming Time.
- It is far too easy to fully rearm all your rockets. Nothing else in the game, almost, can fill its ammo back up so easily. We desperately need to eliminate the rocket spam and I think that if pilots want rockets they should learn to use them more sparingly and efficiently. The ease of rearming grants you too much power too quickly. Tanks can't just completely rearm inside minutes so why should one man aircraft? The amount of power you get with ammo certs and these fast reloading times is over the top in my opinion.

Less Ammo For Rocket Pods.
- Less is more. Make us pilots work to get kills. Pilots should be far more careful with their rockets, and be encouraged to use their "primary" cannon more often. If something is a secondary weapon it should have a secondary role.

Accel/Decel.
- I think ESFs should have slower initial accel so that pilots are less likely to hover-farm hover-spam doorways, as they would not be able to just fly-stop-spam-escape so easily.
- I also think slower decel would encourage dogfighting rather than slow turnfighting and reduce the almost FPS-like stop-aim-shoot. Too often I see aircraft stalling so that their turning (aiming) radius is shorter, so that they may shoot the enemy faster.
- Giving ESFs the ability to insta-stop makes them too effective and easy to control. They should be more like normal fighters.

Flak.
- Make flak rattle an ESF more. Make it harder to control when under heavy flak fire, kind of like a flinching mechanic. Do not overdo it like explosions though. This would add a small portion of challenge for us and make it more interesting.

Spotting change.
- Remove spotted infantry but keep spotted vehicles. Also make it so when any friendly vehicles and infantry are within your line of sight that they are instantly spotted for you and you only. As a pilot I know that this would help tremendously in keeping aircraft off of general players and pitching them against other air and vehicles which is where they should be.

Other Suggestions

Increase the Speed.
- They feel too much like weird helicopters at the moment and are less satisfying to fly than in Beta.

Dual Fire.
- After the above changes, make it so we can fire the primary cannon and the secondary pods at the same time. Not being able to do this is weird and would be unnecessary if the secondaries were balanced to begin with. Perhaps this could be certed into somehow as to avoid any scope upgrade problems.

Additional Rocket Changes
- Make them more powerful against infantry. Having to fire dozens of rockets against a single HA is stupid and feels wrong. This change must be in addition to the Less Ammo change and the Longer Rearm Time change, as well as the Rocket Splash change.

MAX AA
- This is strictly an immersion peeve: I think the AA MAX is really overpowered for its size. That small gun it has should not be so effective against a large vehicle as an ESF. Just look at it... its pathetic. I can understand a large turret AA gun messing my aircraft up but that punny MAX AA gun is too small. Maybe make the MAX AA ability a homing missile instead? The MAX should be effective, but that tiny AA cannon it has weirds me out.

Friendly Air Collision.
- This really needs fixing somehow. Other people crash into me on airpads and in the air far too often, just as I crash into them in the air too. Not sure what to suggest here. You might think its a minor annoyance but it seems to happen all the time. I suppose I just have to "deal with it" but if there was a way to smooth it out...

[Meecrob]

OK, no.......just no...... i disagree with pretty much every point here. Fuel might be fun, but i dont think its needed seeing as you have to return to bases to rearm anyways.

- Medics can heal themselves (like use your ability).
- How does a larger CoF help in making peole work for their aim? a CoF makes it impossible to aim. plus they allready did this.
- Same goes with splash radius.... this has been reduced allready aswell.
- Spotted infantry were removed in previous patches, but it was annoying as hell.
- CoF on A2A i actually agree on.
- If you want increased speed invest in the racer airframe.

If you want to go and nerf something in the air do the liberators (even though i dont think they deserve a nerf either). ESF's had a large nerf round in the last patch. I am a reaver pilot and yes my k/d is "high", but my xp/hour isnt better if i AI max in an infantry battle or fly my A2G reaver. Plus with the dynamic xp coming my xp/hour as A2G will drop even more seeing as the spawn camping will be pretty much useless.

[ringring]

If you think maxes are overpowered I can tell you my outfit never deploys single maxes, there's no point. We deploy max nests, you have to to defend yourself from air.

[Beerbeer]

I don't believe you should get ANY experience for repairing your own vehicle. It's just stupid as you are doing it for yourself to begin with.

If legolas' repair idea isn't good, then nerf the crap out of repair times. Make it four to six times longer for tanks, esfs and libs. It should take a long time to be able to quickly bring that power back.

[SeraphC]

OK, no.......just no...... i disagree with pretty much every point here.

Same here. How can a person be so wrong.

You definitely don't need decreased exp for infantry kills. If they get killed by an ESF it's mostly because their position is entirely without consideration for air threats. Not really much different from getting killed by a tank on the open field.

Seriously, anyone still hating on ESF A2G abilities never gets in a plane and just can't be bothered to take air into consideration at all, ever. They just want to play in their little bubble.
I play both sides and seriously, if you die to A2G ESFs you made a fatal mistake, it happens. Your mistake, not the fault of game balance. If you constantly die to A2G ESFs you're a moron.

About the repair thing ... I'm fine with longer repair times, but it's just so irrelevant to almost anything. ESFs constantly need to repair, but there will always be new ones to take their place. Libs only need to repair if there's an AA army underneath them and in that event they probably won't return (unless with more libs).

[belch]

+1's to:

-XP shouldn't be gained from repairing your own vehicle.
-requiring a tighter CoF, or actually requiring the reticle be placed on the target to gain lock on A2A missiles.
-rocket splash, with focus on AV damage. But then, wasn't the last patch a nerf to AI damage already?

-1's to:

-less XP for infantry. I almost exclusively run A2A, but it is not unusual for me to use rotary cannon to gun down infantry. If anyone thinks doing so is extremely easy, they should give it a try first. But I understood your intent to be mainly rocket pods farming infantry...?
-less ammo and longer rearm times for rocket pods. The couple of times I have run them, I didn't think they were the OP ray gun everyone has made them out to be. But then, I have only run them post-patch and mainly used them as AV. I have been killed many times by rocket pod barrages tho...very spammy and frustrating.

*as a side note, I love the rocket pod farmers that complain when I take them down with an A2A missile. Loud complaints and angry tells especially from higher BR players. Let's me know I'm doing my job.

[Rago]

Sorry i can not agree, with you.I fly Libs sometimes, and i just can not agree to your suggestions.

I think that would change the balance to unfair/wrong.

AA is getting buffed and its hard even now !
3 Maxes shredder your lib to pieces ...

And breaker rockets are still very strong, just for example.

so no.

[NewSith]

Lower the XP Gained for Infantry.
- The less it takes to do something, the less XP we should get for it. 25XP?

No need, I mean try flying with only your primary gun and let's see how many infantry kills you'll get before you're shot out of the sky.

Increase XP for Flak Enemies.
- The skyguard, turrets and dual burster MAXes. This would add a risk reward factor for some people.

This falls into the same category. Besides we're about to see the dynamic XP system.

No XP for Repairing Yourself.
- Just... no.

Reasonable.

Repair Maximum.
- The repair gun should only be able to repair 20% (maybe?) of total ESF health. For example, if you are damaged down to 65% health, it should mean that you can only repair to maximum of 85%. Medics can't heal themselves, so why should engineers in powerful aircraft? Perhaps you should just never be able to repair yourself more than 75% of total.

This is a bad change, since ESFs can be pretty badlt damaged by just infantry primary guns. ESFs take damage from everyting and this change will not do ant good.

A2A Missiles.
- Make it so we have to maintain a tight CoF on the target in order to keep the lock. This is more skilled and interesting and dynamic than the FaF we have now.

FaF missiles is that one small thing that takes away from this game being completely AirSide. Make it harder and we'll see even more rocketpods flying around.

Rocket Pod Rockets.
- Rockets should be slower and with a slightly larger CoF to encourage actual aiming/piloting. It would also lower their effectiveness against aircraft. Perhaps they could start off slower but then quickly speed up -- didn't a previous patch back in Beta have more of an acceleration thing with the pods like this?

Somebody already said it - Bigger CoF = Higher RANDOM Projectile spread. It's impossible to aim something when all shots go wherever they want differently everytime.

Longer Rearming Time.
- It is far too easy to fully rearm all your rockets. Nothing else in the game, almost, can fill its ammo back up so easily. We desperately need to eliminate the rocket spam. If pilots want rockets they should learn to use them sparingly and efficiently.

Everything rearms as fast. Rearming speed has barely anything to do with the spam. It's like Saying that Grenades instagib infantry because you can esily replenush them at a q-term.

Less Ammo For Rocket Pods.
- Less is more. Make us pilots work to get kills. Pilots should be far more careful with their rockets, and be encouraged to use their "primary" cannon more often.

Good idea, yet insufficient. It will have effect only on 1v1 balance, while we all know the game cannot be balanced around it.

Rocket Splash.
- Rocket Pods should be anti-vehicular in nature. Lower their splash radius and rename them to AP Rocket Pods. Also change the explosion graphic so that its much smaller to give pilots a proper visual indicator of its splash.

I was proposing that for a very long time, I completely agree.

Fuel.
- Perhaps aircraft could use fuel while they fly. Say they use up 5% per minute which would give them about 20 minutes of fly time. This would not be annoying, yet it would ease air pressure off the ground slightly. Does anyone remember External Fuel Tanks from Beta? Add them back in to give pilots 500% more fuel and twice as much cannon ammo than normal. You could also make aircraft handle differently if they have low fuel, and hovering aircraft could use fuel up at over twice the rate of normal.

Fuel would make it a totally different experience to fly an ESF, that is actually a Metagame here. But only as long as you can refuel.

Accel/Decel.
- I don't agree with the perfect maneuverability of ESFs. They are too easy to fly. Make them more plane-like and less super-helicopter-like. To do this I recommend their deceleration is nerfed a lot, but not too much because we still have to land on airpads. This would encourage better dogfights rather than the stop and aim tish we have now.

Dogfights are totally not about standing still. It is either you or pilots you were facing were not very skilled allowing it to end up in a static fire exchange.

Flak.
- Make flak rattle an ESF more. Make it harder to control when under heavy flak fire, kind of like a flinching mechanic. Do not overdo it like explosions though. This would add a small portion of challenge for us and make it more interesting.

Well, an interesting idea is all I can say.

Spotting change.
- Remove spotted infantry but keep spotted vehicles. Also make it so when any friendly vehicles and infantry are within your line of sight that they are instantly spotted for you and you only. As a pilot I know that this would help tremendously in keeping aircraft off of general players and pitching them against other air and vehicles which is where they should be.

People cling onto spotting being the source of all eveil, while it really isn't.

--------------------------------

Other Suggestions - You will all hate these if you don't read what I've done above.

Increase the Speed.
- They feel too much like weird helicopters at the moment and are less satisfying to fly than in Beta.

Increasing speed will only give them easier time running away from missiles and fla, you do realise that?

Dual Fire.
- After the above changes, make it so we can fire the primary cannon and the secondary pods at the same time. Not being able to do this is weird and would be unnecessary if the secondaries were balanced to begin with.

Reasonable.

Additional Rocket Changes
- Make them more powerful against infantry. Having to fire dozens of rockets against a single HA is stupid and feels wrong. This change must be in addition to the Less Ammo change and the Longer Rearm Time change, as well as the Rocket Splash change.

With this change I'd remove the splash as a whole.

MAX AA
...Maybe make the MAX AA ability a homing missile instead?

That's how it was in PS1 and this is in fact something that would make balancing Air vs AA way more easy.

Friendly Air Collision.
- This really needs fixing somehow. Other people crash into me on airpads and in the air far too often, just as I crash into them in the air too. Not sure what to suggest here.

This particular matter was change precisely because of how often some 3-man NC Liberators were flipped by a one-man Reaver intentionally. Go figure.

[Ohaunlaim]

Nice set of changes. I wouldn't find myself in a frothing internet rage if these were implemented. A few things though...

- No exp for repairing yourself, if implemented, should also apply to ground vehicles. This would make secondary gunning more popular. It would also ignite rioting amongst pilots of all vehicles. It would fall in line with the no-exp for healing self that medics have currently (medics CAN heal themselves with their area heal ability.)

- Repair maximum would be a very hard sell and I personally don't like the concept. Simply slowing the repair rate for all vehicles would be better. As it is now, low HP vehicles (including aircraft) repair way too fast.

- The fuel seems a bit unnecessary though and I don't really see how it would change anything, assuming fuel is replenished with munitions. If fuel isn't replenished, then you punish really careful pilots. Perhaps it replenishes super duper slow? I don't know, this doesn't really serve any purpose.

- Dual fire might be difficult with scopes on your weapons. Perhaps scopes could be for the aircraft as a whole and not tied to weapons at all. Push Z, middle-mouse-button, or some-such to activate scope. Can't see this working otherwise.

- I would like to see your rocket-pod into AV-rocket-pod changes be even more drastic, making them into a truly dedicated AV weapon choice. In exchange add a dedicated AI-rocket-pod designed with area spammage in mind (either a few large-splash, accurate rockets or lots of small-splash, inaccurate rockets.) I would also like to see a second dedicated AV weapon in the form of a guided missile (which would be balanced by a medium lock-range and longish lock-time.)

- I agree the MAX AA flack seems a bit odd given the size of their weapons. That is solely an immersion thing though. Changing them to missiles is a severe nerf considering the abundance of ways to neuter such. Instead make MAX AA be heavy caliber anti-air guns. You know, make them shoot bullets instead of explosive flack rounds. All you would need to do is change the hit animation and hit sounds (the flack explosion) into something less dramatic. You could even say its still a nerf because they actually need to hit their target instead of just getting close enough. Adjustments could always be made to bullet speed and such if necessary.

[Killjaeden]

Why make ESF worse? Just wait until you get XP for AA-ing and watch the air numbers dwindle. If that isn't enough, then you can nerf... One small step at a time. There's nothing wrong with AA maxes, they are fine.
OK, no.......just no...... i disagree
+1

[Thunderhawk]

http://i.imgur.com/wQGT7.gif

[Legolas]

@Seraph

I am mainly a pilot myself, and I see too much ESF abuse. Also, constant repairs are part of what I think undermines the game and leaves people feeling worn out - the back and forth between airpads feels too spammy.

@Meecrob

Fuel - Yeah, good point.
Medics - I was talking about with their own gun. Besides, Medics can't escape pretty much any difficult situation, nor slaughter tanks in a single pass.
CoF - Yeah you are right. Perhaps it could be dynamic, like the more you maneuver the greater your CoF on Rockets, meaning that they are worse for use against other aircraft. I'd rather rocket pods had a ground role only.
Spotting - having it makes infantry too easy to see though.
Speed - I meant that the overall speed for ESFs has gone down since Beta. I think it should be higher by default. It is a minor complaint but I think they have become sluggish in comparison.

@belch

Less XP - Yeah. I would rather people not be rewarded for cheap stuff. Hopefully the dynamic XP will change this along with the other G2A and AA changes.
Rockets - I do not think the damage of Rocket Pods is OP, just the way the game forces you to use them. It is way too spammy.

@NewSith
- I really meant that rocket pods shouldn't grant so much XP if they are too easy to use. Maybe dynamic XP could change depending on the weapon you use?
- Repair: sure ESF go down quickly, but it is so easy to just land-repair-kill-land-repair-kill that I think something needs to be done about it. For all intents and purposes they are nigh on invincible in the hands of a careful pilot.
- Dogfights: when you are turning you slow down so that your turn radius is shorter so that you can aim quicker at the enemy. Isn't that what a good pilot does? I was exaggerating for effect when I said that dogfights are always still... I meant the mechanics tend toward slowness because you can easily achieve it. I'd rather we had real planes.
- Speed: Then increase the flak speed and missile speed, don't make ESF piloting slower and more static.

@Ohaunlaim
- Repair XP: yeah, no xp should be rewarded at all for your own vehicle.
- Repair: Yeah... I don't know what to say. The whole idea that a puny gun the size of a hamster can repair a massive attack fighter is kind of ridiculous to me.
- MAX AA: you are right, it is solely an immersion thing for me. Not really important I guess.

[ShadetheDruid]

Trying to fix issues caused by people using rocket pods with a general solution targetting all ESF pilots is a mistake. Problems with rocket pods are problems with rocket pods. Same for Libs; the issue isn't the Lib itself, it's the weapons it carries.

Just to be clear though (and at the risk of derailing), i'm not saying rocket pods (or things like the Zephyr) are too powerful either (or that AA doesn't need fixing, just to clarify that too), they're just too versatile. Everyone else (whether tank driver or infantry) has to choose from a decent generalist weapon, or a powerful specialist weapon. ESFs and Libs don't have this (except if they purposely don't use those weapons, which is the important part here).

I'm by no means a good pilot, but I don't feel any more hard to kill flying my Scythe (default nose gun with afterburner tanks) than I do in my Lightning (with HEAT cannon).

[SeraphC]

@Seraph
I am mainly a pilot myself, and I see too much ESF abuse. Also, constant repairs are part of what I think undermines the game and leaves people feeling worn out - the back and forth between airpads feels too spammy.


Please define ESF abuse ... Either your server hasn't hopped on the AA band wagon or you just don't know what you're talking about.
The only time when you can come close to abusing an ESF is when there are like 5 infantry guys around and they can't be bothered to look up before running from A to B. Any other time you will have turrets from neightbouring bases shooting at you, Sunderer guns, AA Maxes, A2A ESFs, Rocket Lauchers, ... And should you fly low avoiding those thing then all the average noob has to do is point his gun at the air and shoot.

A spawn bombing Liberator is a different issue, but that should be improved with and of the month patch.

When an ESF is inbound I hear and/or see it coming and I take cover. I've been "ninja-killed" by Magriders more often than by ESFs.

Just to be clear though (and at the risk of derailing), i'm not saying rocket pods (or things like the Zephyr) are too powerful either (or that AA doesn't need fixing, just to clarify that too), they're just too versatile. Everyone else (whether tank driver or infantry) has to choose from a decent generalist weapon, or a powerful specialist weapon. ESFs and Libs don't have this (except if they purposely don't use those weapons, which is the important part here).

I don't see how rocket pods are more versatile than for instance a MBT default HEAT cannon. And I feel a lot safer in my Vanguard than I do in my Reaver. Even when there are 10 guys with launchers coming at me.

-Can kill infantry with a good aim:

pods - check
cannon - check

(Mind you: spamming your pods in the general area of the target will not kill it. Indirect damage is far from great.)

-Can kill tanks in multiple shots

pods - check
cannon - check

(Pods can take down a Lightning w/o reload if you land them all, but landing them all on a moving target is not as easy as landing tank shots. Miss a round an you have to do a second run, exposing yourself again and way more than a tank would.)

-Can do serious damage to air with a good aim

pods - check
cannon - check

I don't know about the Libs guns but ESF pods are not the all-in-one goodness you think they are. They are just like a HEAT cannon, a bit of everything.

I'm by no means a good pilot, but I don't feel any more hard to kill flying my Scythe (default nose gun with afterburner tanks) than I do in my Lightning (with HEAT cannon).

Sounds about right.

[Thunderhawk]

Half the people complaining about ESFs should get in one and see what its like out there right now.....

Seriously, if I hear anyone whining about ESFs being overpowered now I am going to just go ape shit....

[FreeSpeech]

You dare take away self-repair points. It's a poxy amount of XP per tick as it is, you want to make it even harder for engineers? And it's not seconds to repair an ESF. I'm one off the max and it does not take mere seconds to repair a tank!

ESF's need a big damage output buff and Libs need a big health nerf. You can leave their guns stupidly powerful if you like but a Lib should not be able to just calmly sit there while you unleash 3 entire salvos of A2G rockets into it and it's still living and then simply float away while you continue to pelt it and it still doesn't die. You can't be so blind not to see that as a major problem when AIR can't take out AIR!!

Although don't buff Scythes, they're stupidly powerful as it is, the maneoverability and dodgy "thin" shape of the craft makes them insane at the moment, just lightly bump Mosquitos and seriously buff the crappy Reaver.

[Solkanarmy]

ESF's need a big damage output buff and Libs need a big health nerf. You can leave their guns stupidly powerful if you like but a Lib should not be able to just calmly sit there while you unleash 3 entire salvos of A2G rockets into it and it's still living and then simply float away while you continue to pelt it and it still doesn't die. You can't be so blind not to see that as a major problem when AIR can't take out AIR!!

ESFs don't need a damage output buff at all, if you use the correct weapons to take out liberators you'll find they die a lot more easily. However, this would mean that you can't rocket spam or infantry snipe as the FotM crowd are doing currently.

Also, Liberators feel pretty balanced for the moment - their health pool means that they, as a 3-man vehicle, usually have superiority over a single guy in a single plane, or a single guy on the ground, but if you get 2-3 people on that lib it'll go down, simples. The game should not be built around what you personally want to do in your single-seater plane.


Although don't buff Scythes, they're stupidly powerful as it is, the maneoverability and dodgy "thin" shape of the craft makes them insane at the moment, just lightly bump Mosquitos and seriously buff the crappy Reaver.

This part I agree with, Scythes are too manoeuvrable, and Reavers have issues hovering... Mosquitoes seem fine, in fairness.

[ShadetheDruid]

ESF's need a big damage output buff and Libs need a big health nerf. You can leave their guns stupidly powerful if you like but a Lib should not be able to just calmly sit there while you unleash 3 entire salvos of A2G rockets into it and it's still living and then simply float away while you continue to pelt it and it still doesn't die. You can't be so blind not to see that as a major problem when AIR can't take out AIR!!

Maybe try using your nose gun? That's what it's there for. I go Lib hunting all the time when I fly and have a lot of success with it. Yes, it does take a few magazines to take them out, but it's not like they move very fast.

[Meecrob]

Ok ill go a little more indepth this time:


Suggestions

Dynamic XP.
- If a weapon like the Rocket Pod is being exploited, lower the XP gained from killing certain target types with them. I.e; infantry killed with pods grants you less XP than infantry killed with the main cannon. Dynamic XP could reward decent play as opposed to spammy behaviour. There could even be more XP rewarded for people flying fast and close to the ground, or upside down to highlight better skill or behaviour.


The dynamic experience that will come in effect on the 30th will decrease xp/hour for rocket pods, trust me. a chunk of kills come from shooting people on top of spawnbuildings / next to sunderers. These kills will be pretty much worthless.


No XP for Repairing Yourself.
- Nobody I know wants this.


In some way i do want this. I would like to see airpads work like they worked in PS1. Meaning they will repair you aswell. You won't get any repair xp for this.


Repairing Yourself.
- Its too cheap that an ESF can be repaired in seconds. The same goes for other vehicles. Maybe slow the repair rate down? You could make it so that every time you take over __% damage you loose _% off the total health permanently, meaning that your ESF gets weaker over time as you constantly repair it? That could stop the self-repair spam.



Here i can't say i agree in the slightest. Maxes can get repaired, tanks can get repaired, infantry can get healed. None of this works any different. ESF's even have the disadvantage they can't get repaired in combat wich all the previously mentioned can.



A2A Missiles.
- Make it so we have to maintain a tight CoF on the target in order to keep the lock. This is more interesting and dynamic than the FaF we have now.



Agreed actually ;), but..... like someone else stated this will just work adversly against holding back the rocket spam. Which most people seem to want.


Rocket Pod Rocket Speed.
- Rockets could be slower or build up speed before they fully ignite to encourage actual aiming/piloting. It would also lower their effectiveness against aircraft which is good because the Pods aren't meant to be used against other ESFs. Didn't a previous patch back in Beta have more of an acceleration thing with the rockets like this?



1. rocket speed is allready pretty low
2. Their effectiveness has allready been reduced against aircraft, there used to be a time where you could kill a lib with 1 salvo of rockets and some maincannon fire.
3. Rocketpods arent meant to be used against air? You clearly havent played PS1. A slow and big target like a gal should be a good target. And hitting a ESF is just plain hard to do.
4. Like i said the pods arent effective.... so much so its now better to shoot your maincannon than rockets.


Rocket Pod Rocket Dynamic CoF.
- Maybe a dynamic CoF could be used so that the more you are turning the higher the CoF you have. This is only to stop pilots using them against other ESFs as much. If you want a pod that can hurt other aircraft you should be using A2A not A2G.


This doesnt make sense to me. The rockets are fired from pods mechanicly, why would they get drift while moving?


Longer Rearming Time.
- It is far too easy to fully rearm all your rockets. Nothing else in the game, almost, can fill its ammo back up so easily. We desperately need to eliminate the rocket spam and I think that if pilots want rockets they should learn to use them more sparingly and efficiently. The ease of rearming grants you too much power too quickly. Tanks can't just completely rearm inside minutes so why should one man aircraft? The amount of power you get with ammo certs and these fast reloading times is over the top in my opinion.


Nothing else in game is out of ammo as fast aswell.


Less Ammo For Rocket Pods.
- Less is more. Make us pilots work to get kills. Pilots should be far more careful with their rockets, and be encouraged to use their "primary" cannon more often. If something is a secondary weapon it should have a secondary role.


Its not a secondary weapon, its a weapon for a different role. I have the ammo capacity maxed, wich gives me (assuming 6 rockets per infantry kill) a max of 12 kills with a full load. This is lower than any other vehicle weapon i can think of (by order of magnitudes).


Accel/Decel.
- I think ESFs should have slower initial accel so that pilots are less likely to hover-farm hover-spam doorways, as they would not be able to just fly-stop-spam-escape so easily.
- I also think slower decel would encourage dogfighting rather than slow turnfighting and reduce the almost FPS-like stop-aim-shoot. Too often I see aircraft stalling so that their turning (aiming) radius is shorter, so that they may shoot the enemy faster.
- Giving ESFs the ability to insta-stop makes them too effective and easy to control. They should be more like normal fighters.



I guess you can make this argument, but its subjective. I think it's fine the way it is.


Flak.
- Make flak rattle an ESF more. Make it harder to control when under heavy flak fire, kind of like a flinching mechanic. Do not overdo it like explosions though. This would add a small portion of challenge for us and make it more interesting.


For me flak allready works this way. I never go ..... ow im getting hit by some flak lets keep doing what im doing ;P.


Spotting change.
- Remove spotted infantry but keep spotted vehicles. Also make it so when any friendly vehicles and infantry are within your line of sight that they are instantly spotted for you and you only. As a pilot I know that this would help tremendously in keeping aircraft off of general players and pitching them against other air and vehicles which is where they should be.


I think a bigger problem here is the infrared/thermal vision. I rarely use spotted infantry this way. (seeing as the render distance for infantry is the way it is).

Anther misconception here " keeping aircraft off of general players and pitching them against other air and vehicles which is where they should be."
Aircraft in PS1 were meant to be effective against infantry. They are here aswell. I think if you want a semi realistic war scenario this is true. In real life aircraft are pretty much unstoppable by a person on the field (think napalm). I think its good that its toned down compared to reallife, but you shouldnt remove it, if you want a decent simulation of war.


Increase the Speed.
- They feel too much like weird helicopters at the moment and are less satisfying to fly than in Beta.


Like i said... invest in racer airframe. I have it maxed.


Dual Fire.
- After the above changes, make it so we can fire the primary cannon and the secondary pods at the same time. Not being able to do this is weird and would be unnecessary if the secondaries were balanced to begin with. Perhaps this could be certed into somehow as to avoid any scope upgrade problems.


Seeing as the 2 weapons usually have a different role i dont see this as a problem. And seeing that you can reload one weapon while firing the other makes this allready sort off possible when you use skill.


Additional Rocket Changes
- Make them more powerful against infantry. Having to fire dozens of rockets against a single HA is stupid and feels wrong. This change must be in addition to the Less Ammo change and the Longer Rearm Time change, as well as the Rocket Splash change.


This was aallready suggested before, but this will only make it worse from the infantry perspective seeing as the TTK in a reaver vs infantry will go down, meaning less time for the infantry to respond to the fact that hes being shot.


MAX AA
- This is strictly an immersion peeve: I think the AA MAX is really overpowered for its size. That small gun it has should not be so effective against a large vehicle as an ESF. Just look at it... its pathetic. I can understand a large turret AA gun messing my aircraft up but that punny MAX AA gun is too small. Maybe make the MAX AA ability a homing missile instead? The MAX should be effective, but that tiny AA cannon it has weirds me out.


Someone allready said the VS and NC max worked this way in PS1 (the TR max was the flak wich all AA maxes are based on now). The problem is that if you would do that now the fighters would actually have a counter measure against maxes, namely flares.

The biggest problem i see with AA maxes right now (and higby agrees) is their render distance. They can shoot at you without you ever knowing where its coming from. This makes ESF's unable to fight them effectively (like they did in PS1 where a AA max vs a reaver in a 1v1 could go either way).


Friendly Air Collision.
- This really needs fixing somehow. Other people crash into me on airpads and in the air far too often, just as I crash into them in the air too. Not sure what to suggest here. You might think its a minor annoyance but it seems to happen all the time. I suppose I just have to "deal with it" but if there was a way to smooth it out...

Fly more and it will happen less, i promise. Try not to get into situations where it might happen (camping a spawnbuilding with more than 3 aircraft for instance). Ofcourse it still happens to me sometimes, but its not a source of frustration for me.

[FreeSpeech]

When I said 3 salvos I probably should have also mentioned that includes the nose gun. So we're talking 3 salvos of main gun and breaker rockets and the liberator isn't even near death. In that time it takes any even remotely able player to simply get in the tail gun and blat you in 4 hits.

3 ESF's on one lib - as VS that happens a lot, but as NC, ha ha , you're lucky if you see Reavers in the air long enough!

[StumpyTheOzzie]

I don't believe you should get ANY experience for repairing your own vehicle. It's just stupid as you are doing it for yourself to begin with.

If legolas' repair idea isn't good, then nerf the crap out of repair times. Make it four to six times longer for tanks, esfs and libs. It should take a long time to be able to quickly bring that power back.

Hey! wow! That's actually a REALLY good idea!

The only downside is things like forward deployed sunderers. I know you didn't mention them in your post and I just want to emphasise that.

I'd hate my spawn points to be more fragile than they already are. Could a deployed sundy maybe have a 500% armour buff or something?