How are good/effective Liberator pilots using their Libs these days?

[CasualCat]

If you've got a lot of hours in your lib (70hrs+) do you have a decent SPM? How are you using it to achieve that? I've seen people on the official forum with very high SPM who claim to be primarily Lib pilots, but haven't seen what they're doing to achieve that.

I've probably got >90hrs now in a Liberator, but my SPM in it is generally low.

First, I don't want to farm infantry with the Liberator. I'd prefer and always have to hunt vehicles.

I'm finding lately that I can't stay on station long enough to take out vehicles most of the time. Were I to compare time on station to time traveling/running/repairing it'd probably be something like 30%:70%. That number is likely worse on Esamir but better on Amerish.

I can stay alive generally if I'm not getting too aggressive, but then of course I'm not very effective either.

As an example say you come across a tank column with Skyguards. With an ESF I can loop around behind them and make multiple quick low passes generally taking out 1 tank each time.

With the Lib I can try to skirt the edges of their AA shield and hope my gunner can take out a Skyguard before we have to flee.

Don't get me wrong we get kills, but I don't feel like we're contributing all that much to the battle unless you count drawing the AA's attention so other things can get kills.

I honestly probably get more vehicle kills with the Tankbuster from other Libs wandering too close to us or ESFs flying at me head on than we get overall from the belly gun.

So what are you doing that works? What am I missing that could help me do better? Thanks!

ETA: typical setup:
High-G 3
Flares 2
Nanite repair 4

Tankbuster w/Magazine 3
Dalton w/reload 4 Zoom 3
Walker w/magazine 2 IR or Bulldog w/IR

[HiroshiChugi]

Apparently, you're missing a good gunner. xD What Server/Faction are you on? I just might join you for a day of Liberator bombing to show you what a REAL gunner is like. :P

[CasualCat]

Mattherson/VS though it very well could be my piloting contributing to the problem.

[HiroshiChugi]

Well, you're in luck! I have a VS on Mattherson, to test out VS weapons and keep in the loop of my enemies :P Hows does today at around maybe 4-5 PM US EST sound?


Edit: His name is CaptainSorrow. Add him if you want a good time in the Lib.


2nd Edit: LOL! I just realized how much youcan Rule 34 that...

[CasualCat]

Thanks it'll probably be ~4:30 earliest, will send an in-game tell.

[HiroshiChugi]

Alrighty then. See you there! :D

[Gonefshn]

Ill tail gun for you Cat :D

[KesTro]

It's all about the Shredder Lib with Reload Speed now. Get a tail gunner with a Walker and you're a flying Anti-Air fortress. Not to mention two clips unloaded on a sunderer will destroy it.

[Rothnang]

I mostly fly a Liberator and have mine pretty decked out. I have

Precision Bombing airframe 3
Nanites 4 / Flak 4
Flares 1 /Afterburner 1
Tankbuster with Magazine 3
Dalton with zoom 3 and reload 3


I've been pretty disappointed with the way the Liberator has developed lately. As the pilot I get relatively little XP, which is annoying, even when my Liberator is doing well, but that's really not what upsets me about the way the Liberator fits into the current game.


I really dislike how overpowered ESFs are compared to the Liberator. Any specced up ESF still has absolutely no difficulty killing a Liberator. Even if it packs a shredder, a good ESF pilot with a Hover airframe can run circles around you effortlessly.

The Airhammer is insanely overpowered against Liberators. It can just rip a Liberator in half in maybe 5 seconds. There is really nothing you can do about it. That gun is overpowered as hell in general, the only reason it gets a free pass right now is because the Reaver is so much worse than the Mosquito in every other way.

The tailgun is just no valid defense against an ESF. Even with a Walker on there, your chances of bringing down a good ESF pilot are low, and your chances of dodging their fire are likewise not very good.

Don't get me wrong here, I have no problem with the idea of being under serious threat by a dedicated air superiority craft, but that's not what an ESF is. As far as I'm concerned a single person unit that has to make no sacrifices to be able to attack absolutely any target in the game is overpowered and I see no reason why it should have an easy time killing Liberators without being outfitted to do so.


I really hate what they did to my Dalton. I never cared for killing infantry with it, the one thing I wanted it for was sniping enemy vehicles, and they broke it by giving it the same stupidly huge bullet drop that they specifically removed during beta because it was too difficult to hit anything.

With the bullet drop you need an insanely good gunner to actually land long range shots with this thing while you're moving. Instead of giving the Liberator a better incentive to keep moving they changed it so that hovering is more powerful.

The splash radius on the Dalton was reduced from 10 meters to 9 meters. I say reduce it to 3 meters and give it the old accuracy back. I don't care about killing infantry, I want my gunner to be able to snipe enemy tanks even while I'm moving.


I'm not at all happy with how fragile the Liberator is to certain weapons. Tank guns, Vulcans, Dumbfire rockets - a lot of that stuff just does unreasonable amounts of damage to a Lib IMO. The reason why that sucks is because it just flat out bars you from flying low, which really takes away a lot of the fun you could be having.

I made a video about that once, flying a Liberator alone with just the tankbuster and simply enjoying the piloting and zipping around terrain, ducking behind hills and doing quick tankbuster runs, and that really is a ton of fun, but the game just punishes you relentlessly for doing it at this point. The amount of things that can kill you outright in seconds when you're flying low is absurd. I'm not saying the Liberator should never die, but I just don't feel like the "difficulty vs. reward" curve is reasonable when it comes to shooting a Liberator with a Vulcan or even a tank gun.

I don't really see why Liberator pilots need to be discouraged so much from going low, because that's where the best fights happen, even for the people on the ground. It's just so incredibly stacked in favor of the ground based units that Liberators are forced to resort to high altitude bombing, which isn't really fun for either side.


Balance wise I think the vertical thrust on the stock Liberator is too low. I think they should raise it by at least 50%. Currently it seems like every really high end Liberator pilot goes for the High G airframe because all the other airframes are simply too slow on the vertical thrust to dodge any incoming fire and have a tendency to send your Liberator into a 3-4 second stall while they bleed off its momentum when you're trying to turn around, which will easily get you killed when the reason why you are turning around is a lot of hurt in your face.

The High G airframe should stay where it is, but you shouldn't be forced to use it to have any ability to dodge incoming fire IMO. The baseline needs to be higher than it currently is.


The back gun is still a wound in the world that feasts on peoples dreams. Nobody in their right mind wants to be a dedicated Liberator back gunner. This seats just needs another function besides waiting for the inevitable ESF that still has a pretty decent chance of killing you even with the back gun manned.


Flares should just be default equipment on all aircraft. It's a freaking joke that you have to slot them when it's painfully obvious that they are the only decent defense against lock ons. Higby even talked about it in his ESL video where he said you could use one rocket from the Striker to waste someones flare - but what that really tells you is that even Higby thinks everyone has flares, and an item like that should not be slotted as though it's a choice.


Overall i'm not unhappy with the Liberator, I still have fun flying it. There are a lot of things I wish they would change though, because what I notice is that I easily have the most fun in a Liberator when I'm using it late at night where the enemies are a little thinned out and you can pull off more daring maneuvers, go low, tankbust people, etc.

What I would change about it:

1. Allow XP distribution for all people in it.
2. Camera guided missiles for the back gunner.
3. increase the baseline vertical thrust so all airframes have reasonable amounts.
4. Make it more resistent to a lot of the ground based weaponry that does insane damage to it just because it's supposedly difficult to hit with. It doesn't have to be a flying tank, but the game shouldn't punish Liberator pilots for going low and making things interesting.
5. Make it much more reistent to ESF front guns, specially the airhammer. Instead make it take maybe 1 less A2A missiles to kill a Liberator so that fighters with an A2A setup are the biggest threat to a Liberator, not any random missile spammer.
6. Make flares standard on all aircraft.
7. Make the Dalton a straight shooter with a fast projectile and little splash so its good at killing tanks again.

And if I could alter the functionality of the unit in general:

8. Change the various guns that have a splash radius to instead be incendiary/poison gas/flesh eating nanite based weapons that create an area in their impact zone that damages infantry in it over time. dropping more than one incendiary in the same place wouldn't stack the effect, so you can't make an instant death fire. What that would do is give infantry much more meaningful counterplay to getting bombed, because they could run out of the affected areas. At the same time that gives the Liberator a more meaningful way to shape the battlefield, because instead of just killing people they can deny an area to them. If you bomb the roof of a house that has AA on it with incendiaries, even if you don't kill the AA because they ran off, they can't go back out on that roof for example.

[CraazyCanuck]

I have a liberator also with a dalton.

I rarely fly it because it is a deathtrap and everyone who's manned it complain about the dalton's accuracy.

I was thinking the same when you started talking about the rear turret, missile guide A2A only, and then I got to your point list.

I think making a A2A turret available to not only the liberator but the galaxy would be fun and make those turrets actually useful. As it stands right now the bulldog is a better choice.

[camycamera]

I hardly fly in libs, but i have killed by them plenty of times without noticing until i get killed by it. bastards bomb the shit out of everything, so i'd say they are effective... and pilots are making their libs hard to see.... god damn terrain....

[Saintlycow]

rarely see libs on Waterson, unless it's the zerg. HAd a two hour TI alloys fight without seeing a single liberator. It was glorious

[Falcon_br]

I am one of the few good lib pilots in Waterson.
But finding a good gunner is almost impossible, when I get one we can get lots of kills.
Most of the time I keep screaming in the mic because the floor is full of enemy and the gunner can't kill anything or anyone.
Also with my outfit members I always do a mic check because communication is essential, but in the last day the in game voice just failed to work in the most needed times.

[Rothnang]

Yea, I feel the same way. It's tough to get a good gunner for your Liberator.

Most people look at the Liberator gunners seat as purely something you do to farm certs, so they won't even get in if there is no Zephyr on it. Even fewer people can actually hit anything with the limp-Dalton we have now.

The problem with getting a really good gunner for your Dalton is that there are very few people who want to really dedicate themselves to the passenger seat of a vehicle, but with the crazy bullet drop you need someone who's really familiar with the weapon to be effective.

What I see as an honest detriment to the Liberator is that everyone who is really and truly dedicated to the Liberator is a Liberator Pilot. That's the person that puts all the certs in and the person that commands the unit into battle. That means there are very few people who are truly dedicated gunners.

When the Dalton was much easier to use I enjoyed my Liberator a lot more, because I met most of my friends on Planetside 2 through letting them gun for me and helping cool people get certs that way.

I don't mind flying with random people, but if the weapon is so high skilled that I need an amazing gunner to be effective it kind of ruins the Liberator, purely because it's nearly impossible to find someone who really wants to be the definitive Liberator gunner. What would you even spend your certs on if that's your gig? You can't make the gun any better if it's not your Liberator...

[Falcon_br]

I must admit the best galaxy pilot/gunner are from the NC on Waterson, they have offensive names and they are just 2, not 3 on the lib. They most of the times are on Esamir.
Like most good lib pilots do, they keep circleling the base with the belly pointed to it, hacking lots of kills, but that's not what they are good at.
Everyone know the high g airframe, points the belly to the back and hit your enemy esf with the dalton manover, I think everyone already tried it sometimes, maybe with one or two success. They hit you all the time with no miss! When I spot them and the names, I will always attack from above, and keep moving to the sides when chasing them, because I just see them landing and desconstructing, ONCE! Never successfully shot them down.

[Rothnang]

In all honesty, if someone is shooting down all ESFs that attack them successfully with a Dalton they are just hackers. I mean there is being a good shot and there is consistently doing something that is easily one of the most difficult shots in the game to pull off. I just don't believe that anyone is close to 100% on it.

I know a guy who is so good with a Dalton that the chances of success against an ESF are higher by pointing the bellygun than by pointing the tailgun, but even then he can only take out the guys that come in way close and wouldn't have been a big problem for the tailgun either. An ESF that stays at 200+ meters and hammers away with A2As and its gun is not something the Dalton can reliably shoot.