ESF Air to Air Feedback for Devs

[Hamma]

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/332308256179511298

[Stardouser]

How about redesigning air so that instead of hover jockeying jets dogfight at speed using maneuvers somewhat similar to real life? Similar is the key word here, shooting for actual realism is not the idea.

That said, as for weapons, we have guns and short range heatseekers, radar and longer ranged BVR is really the only thing that has any RL parallel that we don't have.

[Dragonskin]

Something like this Protoss carrier haha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyff1Qq02-s

[Ziggypop]

In a game of logistics that Planetside 2 is (or should be-organized groups moving around faster than zergs), quickly getting players from place to place should be one of the primary factors in determining the success of a push though the upcoming "rush lanes". Air should the the means by which players are able to be moved around the fastest. Gal drops from one lane to the next should be the best way to attack or defend heavily defended or besieged bases. This should not be possible if one team has air superiority.

Sadly, ground AA offers the best AA there is, removing the need for ESFs to interact in larger battles- interactions that would lead to fun dynamics like dogfighting and Gal hunting/defending. Because of this and how well they excel at taking out unguarded ground troops, ESFs will dominate smaller to medium sized fights- until someone pulls a burster max and scares the ESF off. This dynamic is not fun for anyone involved. Picking off defenseless ground troops is not challenging, nor is pulling a burster only to see your only available target fly off into the distance- still alive (leaving that poor burster max with no more targets).

Hard counters are not fun, having no option for counter play is not fun, not being able to engage in large battles (or rather, not having a large impact on them) is not fun.

Nerf the Burster max (range, velocity or damage), Nerf the rocket pods (capacity, damage, or just allow ESFs to carry only one weapon), Nerf hovering, increase ESF, liberator speed, Buff damage done by small arms fire to Air, add damage degradation at range to Liberator bombs, prevent spawning in a lane you are not closest to (require transport to battles, not "/suicide" to the next battle), reward Gal pilots with xp for dropping players in specific hexes that are selected before takeoff.

Adding a shiny new toy for aircraft will not make the lack of an air "meta" any better. Move the role of air away from ground harassment to an enabler of logistics and you will see a larger need for dogfighting and escorting (and thus a need for your new AA specific ESF weapon)



That said: The two roles currently filled are a close range, offensive weapon (rotary) and a long range, defensive weapon (A2A missiles). The only other role I can see would be a AOE weapon with an arming time- after which clicking again would detonate the missile/dart/octopus, medium damage (maxdmg:1/6 of an ESF health), low rate of fire(largely influenced by the arming time), will dud if it contacts the ground: useful for engaging large groups of clustered enemy aircraft zerging together before attacking with a rotary.

[WSNeo]

Semi-active Air-to-Air Missile (SAAM):

Hits the air target as long as it remains in the SAAM Reticule

Similar to the weapon used here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aBrmm8XIlJg#t=265s


Advanced Long-ranged Air-to-Air Missile (XLAA):

Locks onto up to four targets within a long range, the downside would be that that could be countered by flares and possibly have a slower base lockon timer (Requiring people to cert into reducing the lockon time)

Advanced Medium-ranged Air-to-Air Missile (XMAA):
Locks onto up to four targets within a medium range (The tradeoff could be a higher damage capacity)

Ace Combat list of weapons:
http://acecombat.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Weapons

[LoliLoveFart]

I would love to see more A2A options for ESFs, the current A2A lock missle is probably the dullest shit you can do in an ESF, why not add a slow hard hitting missle that you have to LOS to keep the lock or fast weak missles perfect for tagging other fighters in a dog fight. Hell even a torpedo style weapon for gal busting would be better then hovering and getting a lock over and over again.

[Galron]

Id like to see A2A missiles back to their ORIGINAL lock on range, not that halved range bullshit that got slipped in to some patch. :mad::mad::mad:

[Kail]

I was thinking something interesting like "Flak Mines"


Shooting pops them backwards and slightly up
Right-clicking detonates immediately, otherwise they detonate after a couple seconds
Creates a cloud of "Flak" in the air, which damages aircraft passing through & reduces their manuverability while inside and a few seconds after (think a less powerful concussion grenade effect)
Lasts somewhere between 5-15 seconds.. with a volume of somewhere between "single ESF globe" size to "three ESF globe" size
The cloud would affect friendlies, enemies, and yourself equally


If being chased, you can use them to force your attacker to move around them / obscure their sight for a turn; they can ignore it if they want, but will be at a disadvantage if they do. In an actual dogfight, it would help prevent endless tight circling and force fighting to take wider circles / add extra things to watch for.

In a skill-based dogfight, I honestly don't think another forward-weapon is really what's needed; learning how to aim with the nosegun and being good with that is already a challenge. The problem from this newbie pilot's perspective is that once another ESF attacks you, the only recourse is tightly circle each other until someone (usually me) crashes into something or just gets tired and bugs out to try a different angle.

[Falcon_br]

First of all, nerf the air hammer, so it become useless to a2a, like the other two faction a2g nose gun.
You will need to change the damage type, it is doing a pure explosive now, what ESF got no resistance to it, while the other two weapons got 88% damage reduction to ESF!
Also, increase the lock on range on a2a missile, like it was before the nerf and became useless.
Increase all nose gun damage to air, so the battle become faster, in a great odd fight, if you hit 10% of your shots, you are luck! Or increase magazine and ammo capacity, already got both on maximum and I run out of ammo lots of time, the max ESF you can kill before returning to reload are 3.
Maybe a smaller, more agile with less range a2a missile? QAAM on ace combat.
The multiple lock on missiles from ace combat really don't have a place on Planetside 2.
Also you can add a FAEB to the game, it would be awesome! Fuel air explosive bomb will be better them an orbital bombardment and everyone will rage quit the game! Too bad it lacks penetration, so enemy tanks just fly for a kilometer killing everyone inside.

[Falcon_br]

Did some brainstorming for 10 minutes and got the solution:
New empire specific a2a guns!
The mosquito gets more 2 rotaries on the wings, with great rate of fire but useless accuracy.
The Scythe got lancers on the wings, but with a cone dispersion close range, they can charge it to kill stupids low speed air units.
The reaver... Don't know, they already got the air hammer for that, maybe the old air hammer gets on the wings and the old one got nerfed to air combat, well, it is Nerfside anyway!

[Whiteagle]

Hard counters are not fun, having no option for counter play is not fun, not being able to engage in large battles (or rather, not having a large impact on them) is not fun.
Well I don't know about Hard Counters, but being a "Deterrent only" certainly isn't entertaining...

Nerf the Burster max (range, velocity or damage), Nerf the rocket pods (capacity, damage, or just allow ESFs to carry only one weapon), Nerf hovering, increase ESF, liberator speed, Buff damage done by small arms fire to Air, add damage degradation at range to Liberator bombs, prevent spawning in a lane you are not closest to (require transport to battles, not "/suicide" to the next battle), reward Gal pilots with xp for dropping players in specific hexes that are selected before takeoff.
I'll agree with nerfing Burster Range and Rocket Pod DIRECT Damage, but I don't think Nerfs to ESF Hovering and Liberator Bomb Damage degradation or buffs to Air Speed and Small Arms Damage are going to help anybody.

I would actually buff Rocket Pod Splash if they're really suppose to be used as an Anti-Infantry weapon, then throw in some Faction flavor for Anti-Vehicle Secondaries.
(http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?p=919221&postcount=4)
Requiring Transport between unlinked Bases might be a good change, but we're probably going to want to hash out exactly what the limitations should be before hand, while the Galaxy Experiance Bonus sounds like a job for the Mission System!

Adding a shiny new toy for aircraft will not make the lack of an air "meta" any better. Move the role of air away from ground harassment to an enabler of logistics and you will see a larger need for dogfighting and escorting (and thus a need for your new AA specific ESF weapon)
Actually from the sounds of it they want to turn the current AA Missiles into Galaxy and Liberator Torpedoes, so what we really need are Anti-Fighter weapons...

That said: The two roles currently filled are a close range, offensive weapon (rotary) and a long range, defensive weapon (A2A missiles). The only other role I can see would be a AOE weapon with an arming time- after which clicking again would detonate the missile/dart/octopus, medium damage (maxdmg:1/6 of an ESF health), low rate of fire(largely influenced by the arming time), will dud if it contacts the ground: useful for engaging large groups of clustered enemy aircraft zerging together before attacking with a rotary.
...Like this for example.
This would basically be dumbfire Rocket C4, correct?
Fire it in a direction and then set it off when it gets close?

Semi-active Air-to-Air Missile (SAAM):

Hits the air target as long as it remains in the SAAM Reticule

Similar to the weapon used here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aBrmm8XIlJg#t=265s
...Like I've said before this sort of weapon would be pretty useless in Turning fights...

Ace Combat list of weapons:
http://acecombat.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Weapons
...AND THIS ISN'T ACE COMBAT!!!

Planetside 2 Aircraft engage at RIDICULOUSLY close ranges compared to the Ace Combat Series... I think at least by an Order of Magnitude or two.

I would love to see more A2A options for ESFs, the current A2A lock missle is probably the dullest shit you can do in an ESF, why not add a slow hard hitting missle that you have to LOS to keep the lock or fast weak missles perfect for tagging other fighters in a dog fight. Hell even a torpedo style weapon for gal busting would be better then hovering and getting a lock over and over again.
Well like I said before, what they want to do with the current AA Missile is turn it into a Gal and Lib Buster...

...But that leaves a SAAM style Missile without a niche, since it will be near impossible to keep the lock in a Dogfight and you'd be better off with the Gal Busting Torpedo anyways.

"Striker-style" AA Missiles would be nice though, even if they seem a bit too TR for the other factions...

I was thinking something interesting like "Flak Mines"


Shooting pops them backwards and slightly up
Right-clicking detonates immediately, otherwise they detonate after a couple seconds
Creates a cloud of "Flak" in the air, which damages aircraft passing through & reduces their manuverability while inside and a few seconds after (think a less powerful concussion grenade effect)
Lasts somewhere between 5-15 seconds.. with a volume of somewhere between "single ESF globe" size to "three ESF globe" size
The cloud would affect friendlies, enemies, and yourself equally


If being chased, you can use them to force your attacker to move around them / obscure their sight for a turn; they can ignore it if they want, but will be at a disadvantage if they do. In an actual dogfight, it would help prevent endless tight circling and force fighting to take wider circles / add extra things to watch for.
This might have some potential, considering it can be used in both Counter-offense and Defensive measures...

In a skill-based dogfight, I honestly don't think another forward-weapon is really what's needed; learning how to aim with the nosegun and being good with that is already a challenge. The problem from this newbie pilot's perspective is that once another ESF attacks you, the only recourse is tightly circle each other until someone (usually me) crashes into something or just gets tired and bugs out to try a different angle.
True enough, the only other option given so far that I can see myself using in a Dogfight are the "Striker-style" Missiles, and considering how much bad pilots whine about the actual Striker...

I starting thinking that maybe we could have Faction Flavored AA options, but then I realised the most NC appropriate one would be the Remote-detonated C4 Rocket, which certainly wouldn't be as useful as the other two in Turning fights.

[AThreatToYou]

Flux Tag Missile:

This is a lock-on TAG weapon that fires a TAG missile at an enemy aircraft. Flares will not counter the TAG missile but it can be evaded through terrain masking or shot down. The lockon time would be somewhere between 1.5 and 2 seconds.

Once the TAG Missile hits the target, a pilot can choose to fire the Flux-Whip. This is an extremely close range weapon (i'm not sure about the in-game meters, but, say 40m?) but will fire in any direction around the aircraft. This will burn the target, causing a damage-over-time effect that fire suppression systems would mitigate but not negate entirely. The speed of the aircraft hit will reduce damage taken (higher speed = less damage), but it will always take damage; the flux whip cannot miss.

On a full burn, the flux-whip would deal 50% an ESFs health or 40% if they had a fire suppression system. By default, the Flux-TAG Missile only loads for 1 round, certifiable up to 3 rounds. The TAG Missile can be fired without lock, but will not trigger the flux on anything but aircraft.

This weapon goes in the secondary slot.

GOALS:
- Discourage close-range circlejerking midair
- Discourage nose-duels (burn 30% when they get close)
- Encourage situational awareness (rotary+flux burn = dead ESF)

[Whiteagle]

Flux Tag Missile:

This is a lock-on TAG weapon that fires a TAG missile at an enemy aircraft. Flares will not counter the TAG missile but it can be evaded through terrain masking or shot down. The lockon time would be somewhere between 1.5 and 2 seconds.

Once the TAG Missile hits the target, a pilot can choose to fire the Flux-Whip. This is an extremely close range weapon (i'm not sure about the in-game meters, but, say 40m?) but will fire in any direction around the aircraft. This will burn the target, causing a damage-over-time effect that fire suppression systems would mitigate but not negate entirely. The speed of the aircraft hit will reduce damage taken (higher speed = less damage), but it will always take damage; the flux whip cannot miss.

On a full burn, the flux-whip would deal 50% an ESFs health or 40% if they had a fire suppression system. By default, the Flux-TAG Missile only loads for 1 round, certifiable up to 3 rounds. The TAG Missile can be fired without lock, but will not trigger the flux on anything but aircraft.

This weapon goes in the secondary slot.
Ok, first I have no idea how you'd get something like this to work, and second...

GOALS:
- Discourage close-range circlejerking midair
- Discourage nose-duels (burn 30% when they get close)
- Encourage situational awareness (rotary+flux burn = dead ESF)
Yeah, I doubt it's going to do what you want...

You see the reason Aircraft start circling is because it's Dogfighting 101; Get the hell out from in front of the Enemy's Guns!
Easiest way to do that is to break hard, but a good Dogfighter will anticipate this and turn with you...
...So now you have two aircraft going in circles frantically trying to land a burst on the other.

This is why you are suppose to fly with a Wingman; You call out the Boogie tailing you, the two of you plan a set up flight pattern, and you lead your tail right into your Wingman's guns...
...But since most people fly solo it turns into whoever is better at Nose-duels.

[PredatorFour]

Hmm we have a great A2A machine gun and AA rockets already. The ROFLPODS can be used well in air too. Covers all the bases with them weapons alone.

What about being able to put AA max bursters on your ESF?? So instead of pods you can put one burster on and instead of nose gun/AB you can put another on, potentially giving you dual bursters in the skies.

I also like the semi rocket idea where you have to keep los on the target (really what the A2A rockets should've been imo)

[WSNeo]

...Like I've said before this sort of weapon would be pretty useless in Turning fights...

Air combat in Planetside 2 is not strictly "Turning fights" as you would put them. I'll be honest, I suck at dogfighting with the nose gun, so I rely on primarily speed and lock ons to get kills or pick off stragglers.

Multilock missiles are for used for clearing out an airspace using hit and run tactics (requiring use of higher speed ESFs rather than the current "one size fits all hover and dogfighting frames") primarily used for clearing out a wide area of airspace or softening targets (by damaging or causing them to burn their flares leaving them open for other fighters). This would be most useful whenever you're trying to retake an airspace after you were suddenly swarmed by ESFs lolpodding the ground. In a scenario like that, no one ever attempts to pull ESFs to counter a force like that, they simply get on the ground, pull burster MAXes and do the best that they can while the ground force picks them off.

While this is not Ace Combat, you cannot deny that the game has done air combat right for 20+ years. I can argue that this is not Battlefield 3 due to driver/gunner tanks, Halo due to the console-inspired personal shield, or even Call of Duty (yes, I went there) do to it's inclusion of quick knife and incoming implants that, I would bet my hat that the devs make work more like COD-esque perks, rather than actual implants.

Staying on topic, this game has taken a lot from other games because the devs thought they were ideas that were done right. Just because it doesn't fit the primary playstyle that everyone has adopted in ESFs (nose gun other ESFs in "turning fights", rocket pods for everything else), does not mean that it cannot have a valid role in this game.

[CaptainTenneal]

How about redesigning air so that instead of hover jockeying jets dogfight at speed using maneuvers somewhat similar to real life? Similar is the key word here, shooting for actual realism is not the idea.

That said, as for weapons, we have guns and short range heatseekers, radar and longer ranged BVR is really the only thing that has any RL parallel that we don't have.

Absolutely, dogfighting has been reduced to two wildly jerking around an imaginary sphere, looks ridiculous. Chasing/fleeing through canyons and forests would be more realistic and fun.

[Boildown]

Absolutely, dogfighting has been reduced to two wildly jerking around an imaginary sphere, looks ridiculous. Chasing/fleeing through canyons and forests would be more realistic and fun.

Actually it reminds me a lot of the dogfighting in the re-imagined TV series Battlestar Galactica. Except that the ESFs are mostly on rails while the Colonials and Cylons could point their craft independent of their direction of motion.

That said, just about any WW2 era fighter could crush an army of ESFs. They are so slow, have terrible visibility out of the cockpit, no radar worth a damn (on par with most but not all WW2-era fighters). If I had a Spitfire V or later I would never lose a single engagement even at 5 to 1 odds against. And that technology is 70 years old. The ESFs seem positively anachronistic instead of futuristic. They only futuristic thing they have is self healing.

[Whiteagle]

Hmm we have a great A2A machine gun and AA rockets already. The ROFLPODS can be used well in air too. Covers all the bases with them weapons alone.
Eh, general consensus seems to be that the AA Missiles are crap...
Apparently a ninja Detection Range nerf left them unable to Lock on at distance, leaving them unable to be used as an Opening Shot.
Air-to-air guns seem to be all over the place, with them being considered the only thing to use to outright useless...

What about being able to put AA max bursters on your ESF?? So instead of pods you can put one burster on and instead of nose gun/AB you can put another on, potentially giving you dual bursters in the skies.
Flak Cannons do seem to be an obvious choice for Air Armament, but I think they'd have to be either a Primary or a Secondary and not a combination of both.
The way it seems to be set up is that a Weapon is either on the Nose or on the Wings, so you could maybe have a light Flak Gun for a Primary and then two huge Flak Cannons for Secondaries.

I also like the semi rocket idea where you have to keep los on the target (really what the A2A rockets should've been imo)
Except they will have to be completely useless or completely skill-less...
If you are able to keep your nose on the Target you might as well use your gun, but if you only need to keep your nose in the vague direction of the Target the missile needs to be fast flying enough to hit before it exits your detection cone.

This will just make Air Fights even more loopy, because it will be easier to exit the LoS Detection Cone by falling BEHIND your tail then to shake him with terrain.

Air combat in Planetside 2 is not strictly "Turning fights" as you would put them. I'll be honest, I suck at dogfighting with the nose gun, so I rely on primarily speed and lock ons to get kills or pick off stragglers.
Yeah, I'm not going to win any Dogfights any time soon either, but I do understand that they are a natural occurrence when you have fighter on fighter combat.
When you're both in high-maneuvering craft, it's less about who has the best missiles and more who is the BETTER PILOT!
This is the whole reason Aircraft still HAVE Nose Guns in the first place...

Multilock missiles are for used for clearing out an airspace using hit and run tactics (requiring use of higher speed ESFs rather than the current "one size fits all hover and dogfighting frames") primarily used for clearing out a wide area of airspace or softening targets (by damaging or causing them to burn their flares leaving them open for other fighters). This would be most useful whenever you're trying to retake an airspace after you were suddenly swarmed by ESFs lolpodding the ground. In a scenario like that, no one ever attempts to pull ESFs to counter a force like that, they simply get on the ground, pull burster MAXes and do the best that they can while the ground force picks them off.
Ok... how is this weapon going to acquire multiple locks?

Best way I can think of is having all of the targets within the Detection Cone before the missiles are fired.
Like the remote detonated Rocket this would only really be good for damaging clusters of Aircraft, probably the TR factional equivalent, and won't actually be useful FOR Dogfighting...

While this is not Ace Combat, you cannot deny that the game has done air combat right for 20+ years.
Yeah, and it's a game CENTERED AROUND AIR COMBAT!
Planetside 2 is a Combined Arms game, and Aircraft just have to deal with the fact that they are hamstrung so they do not unbalance Ground Combat.
They just can't give Aircraft the space to maneuver like they have in an air-centric game because it would give Air-to-Ground the ability to completely circumvent Ground-to-Air.

Absolutely, dogfighting has been reduced to two wildly jerking around an imaginary sphere, looks ridiculous. Chasing/fleeing through canyons and forests would be more realistic and fun.
That said, just about any WW2 era fighter could crush an army of ESFs. They are so slow, have terrible visibility out of the cockpit, no radar worth a damn (on par with most but not all WW2-era fighters). If I had a Spitfire V or later I would never lose a single engagement even at 5 to 1 odds against. And that technology is 70 years old. The ESFs seem positively anachronistic instead of futuristic. They only futuristic thing they have is self healing.
This is because they just can't have the room...
As has been said elsewhere ESF fly more like Helecopters then Fighter Jets, but they need to be otherwise they'd be impossible to balance with the rest of the game.

[NewSith]

All I want is a huge nerf to ESF hovering, so dogfights don't turn into a spiraled fight, ending up in complete stop of both participants.

No need for more A2A weapons, since the Air-To-Air combat is not even close to dynamic. Of course it's less stale than in PS1, but hell, just watch this:
BF3:First Gameplay END GAME PS3 Air Superiority OPERATION RIVERSIDE - YouTube

[NUBLERT]

Grappling hooks!

[maradine]

How about we give fighters a lift coefficient, subject them to gravity, and just let the problems sort themselves out. It would be, you know, dogfighting.

[AThreatToYou]

Ok, first I have no idea how you'd get something like this to work, and second...

Yeah, I doubt it's going to do what you want...

You see the reason Aircraft start circling is because it's Dogfighting 101; Get the hell out from in front of the Enemy's Guns!
Easiest way to do that is to break hard, but a good Dogfighter will anticipate this and turn with you...
...So now you have two aircraft going in circles frantically trying to land a burst on the other.

This is why you are suppose to fly with a Wingman; You call out the Boogie tailing you, the two of you plan a set up flight pattern, and you lead your tail right into your Wingman's guns...
...But since most people fly solo it turns into whoever is better at Nose-duels.

It would do exactly what I want, and that's discourage circlejerking duels, because of the exact reason you provided: there's no longer any way to get away from their guns with this weapon, provided they were TAG'd.

And if you fly with a wingman, you can rapidly take out unsuspecting targets with the flux.


Ok, first I have no idea how you'd get something like this to work,

While we don't have any TAG weapons in-game currently, I don't see why it wouldn't work. PS2 devs have their own engine, they can do whatever the fuck they want with it.


OR

Since aircraft are already in a 6DOF mode, switch the thrust vectors and turn vector controls (probably doable with a single toggle button) and allow them to fly independent of the direction they are facing. That prevents circlejerking because, like in Descent or Allegiance, you can flip around and keep firing after flying past your opponent, in addition to being able to face your opponent while doing a mid-air slide. The way to win then is through pure skill.

[bpostal]

Remember when you could hold down your middle mouse button in the lib and aim the nose cannon? That.

[Phreec]

Anything goes as long as it's not more of the usual skill less lock-on stuff. I don't think the game even needs more dogfighting weapons really, at least not for ESF vs ESF combat.

But here's a suggestion; how about some sort of floating air mines? You'd deploy them behind you, like flares, except they float in the air (maybe slowly fall towards the ground?) and detonate as someone flies into them?

Either make them large, heavy lumps that you could use for flying in front of enemy Galaxies and placing in their path or a 'cloud' of shrapnel that you could use to lure chasing enemy ESF's into.

[Maarvy]

Did some brainstorming for 10 minutes and got the solution:
New empire specific a2a guns!
The mosquito gets more 2 rotaries on the wings, with great rate of fire but useless accuracy.
The Scythe got lancers on the wings, but with a cone dispersion close range, they can charge it to kill stupids low speed air units.
The reaver... Don't know, they already got the air hammer for that, maybe the old air hammer gets on the wings and the old one got nerfed to air combat, well, it is Nerfside anyway!

Please no more lancer wepons for vanu !!

How about some pulse lasers similar to the ones in mechwarrior for vanu ... with overheat insead of ammo .

[SolLeks]

Air to air combat is fine, what is not fine is how AA is better at taking air out of the fight than air is.

also, why does everyone want to make ESF into generic flight sim #18957? No to more lock on skill missiles that can not be dodged and No to making this game into more of a BF3 clone. this game does not have proper flight physics to mimic jets, there is no loss of speed in a climb or gain in a dive, there is only go fast and go slower so all of you that want to turn this in to ace combat would just ruin air compleatly.

[Falcon_br]

Just give us a 3d air radar and all dodge fights will be much better!

[SolLeks]

Just give us a 3d air radar and all dodge fights will be much better!

that would be nice as well xD.


One thing I don't quite get is this, If air can not effect the ground game, then what is the point of using air? Fights are won and lost on the ground, Air can not take a base and if they can not effect the taking of a base by helping friendlies and hindering the enemy, then why even have air? this is a combined arms game no?

[Falcon_br]

that would be nice as well xD.


One thing I don't quite get is this, If air can not effect the ground game, then what is the point of using air? Fights are won and lost on the ground, Air can not take a base and if they can not effect the taking of a base by helping friendlies and hindering the enemy, then why even have air? this is a combined arms game no?

Air units on Planetside are harasser units, to hit weak enemy positions and leave as soon as you are hit once!
It is a cert machine only.
It can't give air support, because as soon as you start doing it the enemy will pull lots of anti air.
It is not air superiority unit because of the same problem.
Even the liberator who can soak up more damage can't give any kind of real support without running everytime it is hit.
So I really don't know where air units fit on this game, the only really reason it to increase your k/d and give you easy certs.
Don't tell it is to kill galaxy, because even using rocket pods and rotary, it does not kill it fast enough to prevent the enemy of dropping into your base!

[Whiteagle]

One thing I don't quite get is this, If air can not effect the ground game, then what is the point of using air? Fights are won and lost on the ground, Air can not take a base and if they can not effect the taking of a base by helping friendlies and hindering the enemy, then why even have air? this is a combined arms game no?
Well that's where problems come in.
Vehicle Combat Game-play here has to be hyper compressed in order to share the same field as Infantry Combat.
This in turn means we need vehicles scaled down to maneuver in much smaller environment.
People complain that Anti-Air fighters shouldn't just circle each other, but that's pretty much what Dogfighting IS!
The only reason you don't notice this in games like Battlefield or Ace Combat is because the circles their are much, MUCH BIGGER and you don't really get to see them from a ground perspective.

Air units on Planetside are harasser units, to hit weak enemy positions and leave as soon as you are hit once!
It is a cert machine only.
It can't give air support, because as soon as you start doing it the enemy will pull lots of anti air.
It is not air superiority unit because of the same problem.
Well wait until we get Oceans, then you will see Anti-Air ESFs come into their own.

Liberators might need a slight Health Buff, but Ground Attack ESFs are suppose to be Harassment units.
Problem is, you can't flank with them right now because you only have two possible attack vectors, both being hitting the Enemy head on.

Once Aircraft are able to move outside of Continents, then you will see a need for Combat Air Patrols.

[SolLeks]

Well that's where problems come in.
Vehicle Combat Game-play here has to be hyper compressed in order to share the same field as Infantry Combat.
This in turn means we need vehicles scaled down to maneuver in much smaller environment.
People complain that Anti-Air fighters shouldn't just circle each other, but that's pretty much what Dogfighting IS!
The only reason you don't notice this in games like Battlefield or Ace Combat is because the circles their are much, MUCH BIGGER and you don't really get to see them from a ground perspective.


Well wait until we get Oceans, then you will see Anti-Air ESFs come into their own.

Liberators might need a slight Health Buff, but Ground Attack ESFs are suppose to be Harassment units.
Problem is, you can't flank with them right now because you only have two possible attack vectors, both being hitting the Enemy head on.

Once Aircraft are able to move outside of Continents, then you will see a need for Combat Air Patrols.

Air units on Planetside are harasser units, to hit weak enemy positions and leave as soon as you are hit once!
It is a cert machine only.
It can't give air support, because as soon as you start doing it the enemy will pull lots of anti air.
It is not air superiority unit because of the same problem.
Even the liberator who can soak up more damage can't give any kind of real support without running everytime it is hit.
So I really don't know where air units fit on this game, the only really reason it to increase your k/d and give you easy certs.
Don't tell it is to kill galaxy, because even using rocket pods and rotary, it does not kill it fast enough to prevent the enemy of dropping into your base!

the real problem is that AA is to powerful for the space we are in. give the bursters and G2AM less reach and air will have more of a roll again.

only thing is we will be back to infantry complaining that air is OP again... and the problems all go back to how bases are laid out...

why PS2 devs did not take more Qs from PS1 still boggles me.

[CraazyCanuck]

I think a few things need to happen before any further improvements to the air game can be had. Here’s what I had in mind.

Increased ceiling threshold. Switch Skyguard and Max burster. Make the skyguard's the true ground A2A threat while decreasing the range of the Max. Next they need to get rid of duality weapons platforms and allow focused combat for ESF. Get rid of Hovering ESF & Liberators, increase overall airspeed and introduce stalling. Allow only Gals the ability to hover, and its ability to do so is only a short period of time to execute accurate hot drops.

Change flares to munitions based platform with a magazine and reload time. It can be certed for improved capacity and reload time. Show incoming missiles on radar within a radius around your aircraft.

ESF A2G - rocketpods are gone and instead an A2G focused esf has two options for secondary.
1) Napalm/Plasma (call it what you will) (AI) - narrow area effect carpet, good damage against infantry and very weak damage vs armor/turrets. It has dot effect providing an area of denial. Small carry capacity. Certs can be used to improve area of effect and perhaps the length of the dot.
2) A2G AV lock on missiles. Short lock on, Fire and Forget missile. Limited capacity similar to the napalm. Excellent damage versus ground armor/turrets. Little damage against surrounding infantry caught in the explosion.

ESF A2A – 3 options
1) Dumbfire – equivalent to lolpods as they are now but focused dmg vs other aircraft. Improved velocity and dmg, but smaller carry capacity. Flares have no effect.
2) Medium Range A2A – lock on as they are right now without the 50% failure chance and improved velocity.
3) Long Range lock on – slower then medium range (equivalent to what the medium velocity is right now), takes longer to lock, smaller carry capacity but heavy hitter. ESF can avoid if aware enough. Meant as a liberator/gal hunter.

Nose Gun - 3 Options (these weapons will be very effective for their chosen target, and weak against all others) – AV (Tank Buster), AI (kobalt equivalent), AA (rotary/hailstorm)

Liberator – get rid of the Dalton and Zephyr. How and the hell does the aircraft even flying properly with those big heavy guns rotating around on that belly? Nose gun option is strictly AA or AV. Keeps the Tank buster but also has the option for a Rotary/Hailstorm equivalent.
Belly gunner is changed to Bombadier with various payload possibilities to allow them to focus on a particular target. Could allow a limited carry capacity for various types of bombs AI/AV/specials to be certed and carried to improve its versatility.

Specials can be various things - Napalm, AV bombs, Nanite Bombs to drop on friend armor with a large AE repair over time and its infantry equivalent. Larger versions of infantry flashbangs that work on infantry and vehicles/turrets, or improved smokescreens or their equivalent to hide friendly movements. Acid bombs that provide area denial in a larger area that effects infantry and armor both. A2A turret/mines that deploy and hover in place for a set duration.

Tail Gunner – Improved angle and rotation depending of the turret weapon chosen but. Turret Options
1) Burster AA gun
2) Medium or long range Missiles
3) Bulldog

Edit: dang lost a good chunk of my post.

[Kerrec]

I think a few things need to happen before any further improvements to the air game can be had. Here’s what I had in mind.

Increased ceiling threshold. Switch Skyguard and Max burster. Make the skyguard's the true ground A2A threat while decreasing the range of the Max. Next they need to get rid of duality weapons platforms and allow focused combat for ESF. Get rid of Hovering ESF & Liberators, increase overall airspeed and introduce stalling. Allow only Gals the ability to hover, and its ability to do so is only a short period of time to execute accurate hot drops.

Change flares to munitions based platform with a magazine and reload time. It can be certed for improved capacity and reload time. Show incoming missiles on radar within a radius around your aircraft.

ESF A2G - rocketpods are gone and instead an A2G focused esf has two options for secondary.
1) Napalm/Plasma (call it what you will) (AI) - narrow area effect carpet, good damage against infantry and very weak damage vs armor/turrets. It has dot effect providing an area of denial. Small carry capacity. Certs can be used to improve area of effect and perhaps the length of the dot.
2) A2G AV lock on missiles. Short lock on, Fire and Forget missile. Limited capacity similar to the napalm. Excellent damage versus ground armor/turrets. Little damage against surrounding infantry caught in the explosion.

ESF A2A – 3 options
1) Dumbfire – equivalent to lolpods as they are now but focused dmg vs other aircraft. Improved velocity and dmg, but smaller carry capacity. Flares have no effect.
2) Medium Range A2A – lock on as they are right now without the 50% failure chance and improved velocity.
3) Long Range lock on – slower then medium range (equivalent to what the medium velocity is right now), takes longer to lock, smaller carry capacity but heavy hitter. ESF can avoid if aware enough. Meant as a liberator/gal hunter.

Nose Gun - 3 Options (these weapons will be very effective for their chosen target, and weak against all others) – AV (Tank Buster), AI (kobalt equivalent), AA (rotary/hailstorm)

Liberator – get rid of the Dalton and Zephyr. How and the hell does the aircraft even flying properly with those big heavy guns rotating around on that belly? Nose gun option is strictly AA or AV. Keeps the Tank buster but also has the option for a Rotary/Hailstorm equivalent.
Belly gunner is changed to Bombadier with various payload possibilities to allow them to focus on a particular target. Could allow a limited carry capacity for various types of bombs AI/AV/specials to be certed and carried to improve its versatility.

Specials can be various things - Napalm, AV bombs, Nanite Bombs to drop on friend armor with a large AE repair over time and its infantry equivalent. Larger versions of infantry flashbangs that work on infantry and vehicles/turrets, or improved smokescreens or their equivalent to hide friendly movements. Acid bombs that provide area denial in a larger area that effects infantry and armor both. A2A turret/mines that deploy and hover in place for a set duration.

Tail Gunner – Improved angle and rotation depending of the turret weapon chosen but. Turret Options
1) Burster AA gun
2) Medium or long range Missiles
3) Bulldog

Edit: dang lost a good chunk of my post.

+1 from me.

[Assist]

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/332308256179511298

Side-grades, not upgrades.

[snafus]

Please no more lock on based weapons as they only apeal to the players who can't aim properly. We need fuel tanks with cert options and a passive speed boost for equipping them. The best A2A ESF fighters will roll with fuel tanks as it gives the largest advantage in a A2A engagement. Just increase the effectiveness of the Fuel tanks and you will see a wave of A2A ESF clearing all the rocket podders and libs.

[AThreatToYou]

Personally, I think the game AS A WHOLE is better off, popularity-wise, if aircraft suck. My reasoning is that most people cannot fly, and will thusly complain their asses off if aircraft can dominate the game because they do not even have mental access to them. Another reason is that most people don't even have adequate hardware to handle the framerate that flying requires, restricting even more players from flying. Finally, aircraft require immense situational awareness and flying experience that give it a high skill ceiling due to mechanics that are commonly associated with unpopular games.

That said, I think the Liberator needs an armor buff & complete re-work. ESF A2A i don't even know why we need more A2A. Flak shotgun nose gun?

[CraazyCanuck]

Please no more lock on based weapons as they only apeal to the players who can't aim properly. We need fuel tanks with cert options and a passive speed boost for equipping them. The best A2A ESF fighters will roll with fuel tanks as it gives the largest advantage in a A2A engagement. Just increase the effectiveness of the Fuel tanks and you will see a wave of A2A ESF clearing all the rocket podders and libs.

Sure I'd opt for a cert option to improve fuel pods but you can't please just one segment of skill level. You have to be able to allow people from all levels to participate else epic fail will occur. Good players will adapt as they already have to lock ons and if flares are changed to munitions based, things will be even better for those with the higher skill level and will come out on top in the majority of their engagements as it should be.

[Assist]

Maybe I'm on my own here, but I use rocket pods for A2A over lock-on missiles. A2A missiles will never kill a good pilot, they just take too long. Rocket Pods are just too good against armor, and the Liberator, to warrant using A2A missiles imo.
I think I am on my own in this matter though, because I see nothing wrong with A2A combat right now.

[Whiteagle]

That said, I think the Liberator needs an armor buff & complete re-work.
Armor Buff I can agree with, rework I'm unsure of...

I mean, I like it as a Gunship, I'd want the Tail Gun to get a better firing range so it can help with its Gunship Duties.
I'd much rather bring in an additional NEW two man Fighter/Bomber based on the Liberator model that flies more like an ESF if we really need a true Bomber.
That way it can't just loiter in the air and nuke everything, it has to make bombing runs!

Maybe I'm on my own here, but I use rocket pods for A2A over lock-on missiles. A2A missiles will never kill a good pilot, they just take too long. Rocket Pods are just too good against armor, and the Liberator, to warrant using A2A missiles imo.
I think I am on my own in this matter though, because I see nothing wrong with A2A combat right now.
Pretty much, but it might just be a server discrepancy, considering we Waterson players seem to be of the same opinion when it comes to Air Balance...
I know a Pilot in my outfit uses Rocketpods for AA as well...

[CraazyCanuck]

Maybe I'm on my own here, but I use rocket pods for A2A over lock-on missiles. A2A missiles will never kill a good pilot, they just take too long. Rocket Pods are just too good against armor, and the Liberator, to warrant using A2A missiles imo.
I think I am on my own in this matter though, because I see nothing wrong with A2A combat right now.

I two prefer lolpods for air combat. But that's just because air is messed up. Sad state of affairs when a ground oriented weapon is better at air then the air oriented weapon.

If they're not up for major changes then atleast improve the skyguard and decrease the range of the max and I think we'd see some happier fliers. Maxes will still be effective but against those who fly low and hunt infantry in turn. Skyguards are rendered at greater distances, making the playing field somewhat more balanced.

[CraazyCanuck]

That way it can't just loiter in the air and nuke everything, it has to make bombing runs!


Reason I suggest to remove hover for liberators and esf. At the same time improve their air speed and add stalling. It would keep everything on the move and make it harder for aircrews to sit there and farm.

[Whiteagle]

Reason I suggest to remove hover for liberators and esf. At the same time improve their air speed and add stalling. It would keep everything on the move and make it harder for aircrews to sit there and farm.
True, but Liberators as Gunships kind of need to loiter in order to give their gunner a chance to shoot.

[Ghoest9]

Dog fighting is a total joke unless they remake the Reaver.

Its far and away the worst fighter if the weapons are balanced. The only thing it has going for it is the asymetric balance of its Air Hammer.

[CraazyCanuck]

True, but Liberators as Gunships kind of need to loiter in order to give their gunner a chance to shoot.

True. But instead of hover spamming the liberator will be forced either to make passes or run tight belly to target turns to maintain their position. Stalling will require improved pilot skills to make those turns without becoming a dead stick. Stalling could be similar to the on flames effect for ease of implementation by the devs. Their gunners in turn will have to adjust and bring up their skill level as well. Any good air crew does this anyways...it just brings the average skill requirement up some, which will make the ground pounders happy and give them a chance to break the lock down or require more air to actually lock down an area as they make their passes.

First time last week I encountered a coordinated air squad who implemented timed runs as opposed to hover spamming. We were regrouping after just taking splitpeak when the enemy airsquad rolled in and caught us with our pants down. We reformed and pulled dual bursters etc. They did the smart thing and made esf passes in coordination with liberator fire covering the time between to deny us the ability to break free. While we took some down, the fact they were not hanging around kept more of them in air for longer as we could not concentrate fire long enough to take them out completely without overcommitting and loosing our AA.

Edit: In order to improve things somewhat for air crews...the dalton and zephyr could receive a "slight" rate of fire buff to improve their window of opportunity on a target(s). But personally I would love to see a bomber option as opposed to the zephyr/dalton.

[Obstruction]

Increase Liberator Team to 4 positions with both A2A and A2G capability

Issues


current choices for position 3 weaponry are limited, difficult to effectively implement, and undesirable. most libs go 2/3 and rarely use the tail.
liberators facing a single ESF present the most credible threat by banking nose-down and exposing the main (A2G) weapon.
A2A configuration is currently a choice that limits the team's overall effectiveness, while it should be a constant role.


Redresses


the first position 3 buff was a positive change. it needs to go further. new weapon choices and full vertical coverage, possibly even up to 270 deg spherical.
new weapon choices for position 3 should include the shredder and some type of lock on missle or fast reload dumbfire like the halberd.
a 4th position should be included along the dorsal surface, like postion 2 on the galaxy. limited weapon choices here would be fair. standard basilisk/drake/walker/ranger with full coverage would be sufficient.


i realize this is an ESF A2A thread, and this is my personal Liberator SoapBox.

however, i feel justified in briefly listing these points because the current A2A game is almost wholly ESF based. furthermore, the current A2A game is almost wholly Lone Wolf ESF based.

some of my points could also apply to the Galaxy, allowing shredders on position 4 and 5 and greatly increasing the coverage, and utility, of the tail with a lockon or fast reload dumbfire option.

i feel that some positive changes to teamwork based aircraft would positively affect the overall A2A game, and would even work hand in hand with some of the great ideas already listed here.

[Falcon_br]

I already thought in a new liberator, one with 3 gunners with the weapon to the sides.
Bigger them the standard liberator, but smaller them a galaxy, not for much.
Can only be deployed on tech plant and warp gates, same cost of the galaxy.
2 heavy weapons, one medium, like 2 dalton or 2 zephyr, or 1 each and the last one with the same weapons of the tail gunner of the liberator, but more smaller ground weapons, like a m60, a high velocity Vulcan, a dual link kobalt, who knows! I just know this game need more dual link weapons!
With a so heavy air support, with increase range because the weapons are on the side, air support will be more necessary, because it can't defend itself against chasing ESF, and they can kill most ground anti air because they are on the move with increase range and firepower.
Of course flying over a amp station with 6 turret and 3 maxes will still kill you fast, so you must circle it around and kill one anti air each time.

[Gatekeeper]

I think a few things need to happen before any further improvements to the air game can be had. Here’s what I had in mind.

Increased ceiling threshold. Switch Skyguard and Max burster. Make the skyguard's the true ground A2A threat while decreasing the range of the Max. Next they need to get rid of duality weapons platforms and allow focused combat for ESF. Get rid of Hovering ESF & Liberators, increase overall airspeed and introduce stalling. Allow only Gals the ability to hover, and its ability to do so is only a short period of time to execute accurate hot drops.

Change flares to munitions based platform with a magazine and reload time. It can be certed for improved capacity and reload time. Show incoming missiles on radar within a radius around your aircraft.

ESF A2G - rocketpods are gone and instead an A2G focused esf has two options for secondary.
1) Napalm/Plasma (call it what you will) (AI) - narrow area effect carpet, good damage against infantry and very weak damage vs armor/turrets. It has dot effect providing an area of denial. Small carry capacity. Certs can be used to improve area of effect and perhaps the length of the dot.
2) A2G AV lock on missiles. Short lock on, Fire and Forget missile. Limited capacity similar to the napalm. Excellent damage versus ground armor/turrets. Little damage against surrounding infantry caught in the explosion.

ESF A2A – 3 options
1) Dumbfire – equivalent to lolpods as they are now but focused dmg vs other aircraft. Improved velocity and dmg, but smaller carry capacity. Flares have no effect.
2) Medium Range A2A – lock on as they are right now without the 50% failure chance and improved velocity.
3) Long Range lock on – slower then medium range (equivalent to what the medium velocity is right now), takes longer to lock, smaller carry capacity but heavy hitter. ESF can avoid if aware enough. Meant as a liberator/gal hunter.

Nose Gun - 3 Options (these weapons will be very effective for their chosen target, and weak against all others) – AV (Tank Buster), AI (kobalt equivalent), AA (rotary/hailstorm)

Liberator – get rid of the Dalton and Zephyr. How and the hell does the aircraft even flying properly with those big heavy guns rotating around on that belly? Nose gun option is strictly AA or AV. Keeps the Tank buster but also has the option for a Rotary/Hailstorm equivalent.
Belly gunner is changed to Bombadier with various payload possibilities to allow them to focus on a particular target. Could allow a limited carry capacity for various types of bombs AI/AV/specials to be certed and carried to improve its versatility.

Specials can be various things - Napalm, AV bombs, Nanite Bombs to drop on friend armor with a large AE repair over time and its infantry equivalent. Larger versions of infantry flashbangs that work on infantry and vehicles/turrets, or improved smokescreens or their equivalent to hide friendly movements. Acid bombs that provide area denial in a larger area that effects infantry and armor both. A2A turret/mines that deploy and hover in place for a set duration.

Tail Gunner – Improved angle and rotation depending of the turret weapon chosen but. Turret Options
1) Burster AA gun
2) Medium or long range Missiles
3) Bulldog

Edit: dang lost a good chunk of my post.

Good ideas, although I think some of those would require a bit much work and so probably aren't practical in the short term.

IMO the key element that needs fixing in PS2 air-combat is the fact that certain weapons and certs are far too versatile and useful, and eclipse everything else (rocket pods, rotaries, flares).

What we need are more specialised options that force people to adopt certain roles and make them strong against particular targets - while being weak to others. We also need the default loadouts to be stronger, so that other options are genuinely sidegrades not upgrades.

My suggestions:


Split rocket pods into AI and AV varients. Make them weak against other ground targets. Make them utterly useless against air.
Remove afterburners completely unless fuel tanks are fitted.
Make nose-guns more specialised - defaults should be primarily AV, secondarily AA. Rotaries primarily AA, secondarily AV. PPA, etc. primarily AI, secondarily AV.
Make Dalton terrible against infantry. Make Zepher terrible against armour. Make Shredder ok against both. Prevent belly gun from firing when Lib isn't flying level (no more belly guns as AA).
Fix A2A missiles so they actually work reliably and are useful. I don't care if some pilots don't like lock-ons. Tough.
Make flares a secondary weapon. Give them ammo instead of a cool-down. Keep their cert cost about the same (i.e. cheap).
Highlight incoming missiles on radar and in HUD. Add warning sound that gets louder/more frequent as they close in.
Buff Lib tail-gun AA. Make it able to shoot down incoming missiles with some skill and team-work.

[Dougnifico]

Non-VTOL interceptor needed!

Overall, I think A2A should get a good buff. If it reaches a certain point, then G2A defenses can be buffed. I think A2A should be the principal way of killing aircraft. Its so much more fun than flak batteries and SAM missiles.

[Obstruction]

What we need are more specialised options that force people to adopt certain roles and make them strong against particular targets - while being weak to others. We also need the default loadouts to be stronger, so that other options are genuinely sidegrades not upgrades.

what you're actually saying here is nerf ESFs so that people

1. only dogfight at the flight ceiling or snipe off liberators

OR

2. get blown up by EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME

you really don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

besides i heard in the next update they're just going to replace all MBT and liberator weapons with rumble seats for burster maxes.

[Gatekeeper]

what you're actually saying here is nerf ESFs so that people

1. only dogfight at the flight ceiling or snipe off liberators

OR

2. get blown up by EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME

you really don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

besides i heard in the next update they're just going to replace all MBT and liberator weapons with rumble seats for burster maxes.

Yeah, I don't think that it what I was saying. What I was saying is that I'd like "ground-attack ESF" to be one specific role and "air-superiority ESF" to be another. And for ESFs within those roles to have some variety.

As opposed to the current situation where almost all ESFs seem to run with a rotary, rocket pods and flares - and are thus strong against air, infantry and ground vehicles and all the bloody same.

I appreciate that forcing ESFs to specialise would limit their power somewhat, and I'd be happy to see G2A nerfed a bit to compensate (especially Bursters). IMO the reason why AA has been constantly buffed and buffed again over the last 6 months is because rocket pods are so freaking overpowered and omnipresent and everyone hates being farmed by them.

So let's nerf them, make other strategies viable, and tone down the AA to match - everyone's a winner!

[Obstruction]

people won't play nerfed shit is what i'm saying. you think it will play out your way but you aren't cynical enough for game design.

[phungus]

So many people who don't fly ESFs commenting on this thread and giving advice.... Also alot of stupid/hard headed people demanding a complety redesigned "fixed wing" flight model that is never going to happen... This forum is just as bad as the Sony ones if this thread is any indication.



As someone who actually flys an ESF, alot there isn't much I can come up with that the devs can't on their own. However here are the main relevant issues for A2A fighting:


Issue 1: No 3d radar/minimap

This is the primary reason air to air sucks, aircraft are stuck with 2d radar designed for infantry combat. If ESFs are to focus more on aircraft and less on ground targets then they need a minimap/radar that actually encourages this behavior instead of discouraging it. Also the radar utility itself is only good at finding infantry, it is useless air to air.


Issue 2: AA MAXes instantly establish air supremecy anywhere they spawn

If ESFs are to have an air supremecy role then air to air ESFs need to have an actual purpose. Right now with AA MAXes working how they do this just isn't a practical. It's always better to grab AA MAXes in an area to clear the air and establish air supremecy.


Issue 3: Mosquito speed

OK, Mosquito speed isn't bad itself, it provides flavor for the factions and I still think the sythe is better. However giving all factions the ability to utilize a high speed interceptor unit will help alot in evening out the airgame and allow for players in all factions to be aircraft hunters. I would really like to see a high speed intercepter, with say a 275 kph base speed - such a craft would need to not have a secondary and be stuck with a nose gun.


Issue 4: Southern Indar's flight ceiling

You can't fly on southern indar without taking flak damage from what seems like omniprecent sources. I need the ability to get above ground flak!


Issue 5: lack of A2A options, and A2Am are broken as is

There are plenty of sources to find good ideas for A2A weapons, but yes having another option then a broken fire and forget lock on would be nice. Personally I just want a high velocity heavy hitting dumbfire rocket.


Issue 6: A2A combat doesn't properly credit kills.

Seriously whoever the fuck dev that still thinks it's a good idea to give everyone a single button instant "kill deny" and "XP deny" button is a moron and shouldn't be designing a game, period. Humans are emotional creatures driven by emotions, if A2A combat is going to more often then not result in frustration instead of satisfaction from an emotional standpoint - even when a battle is won - then people aren't going to fly Air to Air very often. Just fucking fixing kill credits for bailers and intentional crashers would do alot to encourage ESF pilots to focus more on air combat. This is just goddamn common sense...


Issue 7: Flares are mandatory

Why even have a utility slot? Except for very experienced TR pilots with over 200 hours who can use radar, everyone else must use flares. No other utility is viable for anyone except highly experienced TR pilots who don't have to deal with strikers, and even then the one other utility "radar" you see some mossys utilize is purely for infantry farming...

[SolLeks]

Yeah, I don't think that it what I was saying. What I was saying is that I'd like "ground-attack ESF" to be one specific role and "air-superiority ESF" to be another. And for ESFs within those roles to have some variety.

As opposed to the current situation where almost all ESFs seem to run with a rotary, rocket pods and flares - and are thus strong against air, infantry and ground vehicles and all the bloody same.

I appreciate that forcing ESFs to specialise would limit their power somewhat, and I'd be happy to see G2A nerfed a bit to compensate (especially Bursters). IMO the reason why AA has been constantly buffed and buffed again over the last 6 months is because rocket pods are so freaking overpowered and omnipresent and everyone hates being farmed by them.

So let's nerf them, make other strategies viable, and tone down the AA to match - everyone's a winner!

Wile I like the over all ideas in your thread, I still think all aircraft should be able to defend themselves from other aircraft.

What you are suggesting sounds like if we made HAs only able to take a SMG if they have a rocket launcher, and if they want a LMG, then they would have to take a non AV / AA weapon. (tba I kinda like this idea to cut down on how much AV /AA infantry can have, and hell ya Jackhammer + EM6 loadout).

[Kail]

Not strictly new ESF weapons, I was thinking today that it would also be cool to have ES abilities for the ESFs.

TR - Lateral Scramjets
Causes the Mosquito to immediately barrel-role to the left or right (based on the lateral direction the aircraft is moving); distance should be two to four mosquito-width's or so, enough to safely evade.

VS - Phase Displacer
Teleports the Scythe forward. Distance should be two to four Scythe-lengths or so, enough to safely evade.

NC - Shield
Basically the Vanguard shield, with timing / cooldown tweaked to suit ESF combat. Sorry NC, I didn't have any bright ideas that could compete with shielding.


The goal with each is to provide a different kind of air defense. Might be interesting if Flares were removed and their effect added to each ESF ability (ie, activating any of those three breaks lockons, and prevents lockons while active - in this case NC get the stronger ability against lockons since roll & teleport are only "active" for a second or two)

[Corewin]

ESF vs ESF Combat IS FINE. We are looking for things that ADD to this element, not cheap BS that caters to bad pilots with bad aim. Take it from someone who is considerably skilled at flying in this game, dogfights are bar none the most rewarding aspect it has going for it. Lets not screw that up.

Weapons
Guns
Rotaries are fine. They fill the close in high dps roll well.
The default guns fill a niche of there own. Decent damage, with accuracy at range.
Ground based primaries are still a bit borked, but at least they are making some headway on re imagining them.

Secondaries
As some have mentioned before. A2AM needs to be reticule based. Missile tracking should be lost when an aircraft has left a designated "lock" circle on the hud. A mixture between the NC Max's Raven and AV Mana turret. Damage would need to be reduced significantly. (Or widen turn radius) Ammo reserves could be readjusted to compensate. (The only way I would condone a buff of the current A2AM, would be if Flares are completely revamped to be Ammo based.)

Rocket Pods could possibly be turned into A2GM pods. Requiring a lock and keeping enemy vehicles in a circle similar to the A2AM suggestion. Would certainly cut back on spam, and keep them focused on vehicles rather than Infantry.

Arguably, just that one change from rocket pods to A2GM ala Hellfire/TOW. You make create a need for a specific target to be picked out and "engaged" rather than "spammed". Making reload speeds on this rather lengthy would also help. (This is honestly just an excuse to keep infantry out of the crosshairs of pods, but a more or less workable one)


Real changes that need to be discussed.

I want to hear suggestions on what a Galaxy could be fitted out to do, that would make it a high value target to seek out, rather than avoid because you'd just be wasting ammo on it. Maybe an AWACs Gal. Or the ability to move vehicles at the expense of the 11 passenger seats.

OR

Raising the flight ceiling by 1000M. (2000M in total)
Adding clouds.
Moving all control points tied to Aviation resources up to 1300M.
Control of them is determined by Air superiority. (More friendly aircraft within a 500M radius)

TL:DR
Air needs a rethink in the objectives department. Not the application. (for the most part)

[Ohaunlaim]

As for the Galaxy I think a number of options might be interesting to have.

1. Long range air radar that also lowers lock-on times against aircraft by up to 0.5 seconds for friendly units.

2. Medium range ground radar (vehicle only) that also lowers lock-on times against aircraft by up to 0.5 seconds for friendly units.

3. Squad spawn generator allowing squad members to spawn into the galaxy in-flight or landed, with a very high spawn timer.

4. Air and ground re-arm system for use in-flight or landed (comparably larger range than sunderer version for the aircraft re-arming).

5. Vehicle transport ability based on size/weight/other. (for example... up to 1 Sunderer, 1 MBT, 2 Lightnings, 3 Harassers, or 6 Quads)

6. Just-under-medium-range, low-power, jamming generator to mess up enemy mini-maps (only?) for a short duration. (Aiding in hotdrops.)

7. Galaxy booster pods for quick getaways or insertions.

[Shamrock]

I think a few things need to happen before any further improvements to the air game can be had. Here’s what I had in mind.

Increased ceiling threshold. Switch Skyguard and Max burster. Make the skyguard's the true ground A2A threat while decreasing the range of the Max. Next they need to get rid of duality weapons platforms and allow focused combat for ESF. Get rid of Hovering ESF & Liberators, increase overall airspeed and introduce stalling. Allow only Gals the ability to hover, and its ability to do so is only a short period of time to execute accurate hot drops.

Change flares to munitions based platform with a magazine and reload time. It can be certed for improved capacity and reload time. Show incoming missiles on radar within a radius around your aircraft.

ESF A2G - rocketpods are gone and instead an A2G focused esf has two options for secondary.
1) Napalm/Plasma (call it what you will) (AI) - narrow area effect carpet, good damage against infantry and very weak damage vs armor/turrets. It has dot effect providing an area of denial. Small carry capacity. Certs can be used to improve area of effect and perhaps the length of the dot.
2) A2G AV lock on missiles. Short lock on, Fire and Forget missile. Limited capacity similar to the napalm. Excellent damage versus ground armor/turrets. Little damage against surrounding infantry caught in the explosion.

ESF A2A – 3 options
1) Dumbfire – equivalent to lolpods as they are now but focused dmg vs other aircraft. Improved velocity and dmg, but smaller carry capacity. Flares have no effect.
2) Medium Range A2A – lock on as they are right now without the 50% failure chance and improved velocity.
3) Long Range lock on – slower then medium range (equivalent to what the medium velocity is right now), takes longer to lock, smaller carry capacity but heavy hitter. ESF can avoid if aware enough. Meant as a liberator/gal hunter.

Nose Gun - 3 Options (these weapons will be very effective for their chosen target, and weak against all others) – AV (Tank Buster), AI (kobalt equivalent), AA (rotary/hailstorm)

Liberator – get rid of the Dalton and Zephyr. How and the hell does the aircraft even flying properly with those big heavy guns rotating around on that belly? Nose gun option is strictly AA or AV. Keeps the Tank buster but also has the option for a Rotary/Hailstorm equivalent.
Belly gunner is changed to Bombadier with various payload possibilities to allow them to focus on a particular target. Could allow a limited carry capacity for various types of bombs AI/AV/specials to be certed and carried to improve its versatility.

Specials can be various things - Napalm, AV bombs, Nanite Bombs to drop on friend armor with a large AE repair over time and its infantry equivalent. Larger versions of infantry flashbangs that work on infantry and vehicles/turrets, or improved smokescreens or their equivalent to hide friendly movements. Acid bombs that provide area denial in a larger area that effects infantry and armor both. A2A turret/mines that deploy and hover in place for a set duration.

Tail Gunner – Improved angle and rotation depending of the turret weapon chosen but. Turret Options
1) Burster AA gun
2) Medium or long range Missiles
3) Bulldog

Edit: dang lost a good chunk of my post.

Some nice ideas here, +1 from me too :)

[phungus]

Nice to see actual ESF pilots posting now.

I'm surprised no one has commented on the two primary issues I adressed with my above post:
1) No 3D minimap/radar - the tactical information given to ESFs is designed for infantry combat, this is the primary reason ESFs find themselves focusing on ground targets. Give ESFs a functioning 3d radar and A2A would be far more viable.
2) Game mechanics deny kills to A2A ESFs more often then any other class/vehicle - this highly discourages A2A gameplay as every player who decides to go A2A with their ESF often find themselves being punished with frustration rather then rewarded when they actually win an air battle.


I know neat new flashy weapons are what people want and focus on, however these are not the primary causes of ESFs mainly focusing on ground instead of air targets. If players who choose to focus on air targets with ESFs were actually properly credited with kills and given their pavlovian reward instead of getting punished for going A2A then A2A would be much more viable. Also a proper 3d radar is imperative, especially for new pilots (spare me the "l2p" argument, we are talking about how to improve the game and get ESFs to focus more on A2A combat, not trying to puff our chests out and talking about how awesome we are that we can use inferior and inefective tools to still get the job done).

Those are the two main reasons A2A isn't as enjoyable as A2G, surprised no one has even acknowledged either issue...

[Whiteagle]

I have to ask phungus, how are you expecting them to do a 3-d mini-map?

From what I remember from Second Life, those kinds of displays are a lot more resource intensive then then the X-Y-Rotation over a map picture we have now.

[Gatekeeper]

Wile I like the over all ideas in your thread, I still think all aircraft should be able to defend themselves from other aircraft.

What you are suggesting sounds like if we made HAs only able to take a SMG if they have a rocket launcher, and if they want a LMG, then they would have to take a non AV / AA weapon. (tba I kinda like this idea to cut down on how much AV /AA infantry can have, and hell ya Jackhammer + EM6 loadout).

I'm not saying a ground-attack ESF should be incapable of defending itself against an air-superiority ESF, just that it should be at a disadvantage. A good pilot with an anti-ground setup might still win against an inexperienced interceptor - but by choosing to be strong against ground targets, he makes it harder for himself to win against air.

I guess the way to think about it is more like choosing what class of infantry you want to play, or what range category you want to be strong in. Is it better to take a shotgun or SMG, or a sniper-rifle or LMG? Whatever you do, you always make yourself weak to something else. The trouble with rocket pods currently is you're not making any trade-off - A2A missiles are crappy and buggy, and there's nothing to stop a ground-attack fighter just taking flares to negate them anyway.

As for the Galaxy I think a number of options might be interesting to have.

1. Long range air radar that also lowers lock-on times against aircraft by up to 0.5 seconds for friendly units.

2. Medium range ground radar (vehicle only) that also lowers lock-on times against aircraft by up to 0.5 seconds for friendly units.

3. Squad spawn generator allowing squad members to spawn into the galaxy in-flight or landed, with a very high spawn timer.

4. Air and ground re-arm system for use in-flight or landed (comparably larger range than sunderer version for the aircraft re-arming).

5. Vehicle transport ability based on size/weight/other. (for example... up to 1 Sunderer, 1 MBT, 2 Lightnings, 3 Harassers, or 6 Quads)

6. Just-under-medium-range, low-power, jamming generator to mess up enemy mini-maps (only?) for a short duration. (Aiding in hotdrops.)

7. Galaxy booster pods for quick getaways or insertions.

I like the idea of some more options for Gals outside of different guns - it would be nice to give them a proper role on the battlefield. The idea of long-range radar is good - making the Gal a genuine strategic target that the enemy really needs to take down. To cement this aspect, make long-range radar Gals show up on enemy radar at the same distance - so they know they need to come and kill it!

My idea for a Gal upgrade is to let it function as an AMS again - but to only allow it to 'deploy' while hovering at a certain height above the ground - with troops who spawn there hot-dropping from it straight onto the battlefield below.

I have to ask phungus, how are you expecting them to do a 3-d mini-map?

From what I remember from Second Life, those kinds of displays are a lot more resource intensive then then the X-Y-Rotation over a map picture we have now.

The best idea I can come up with for a simple semi-3d radar upgrade is to make the mini-map work more like GTA, where the blips themselves point up or down to show you whether they're above you or below you. Not sure how we'd marry that to the current indicators that show the direction the enemy is facing though. Could have it as an option to toggle between the modes maybe?

[ToweTwelve]

Cripple (EMP) lock-on missile:
damage - 5 or 6 rockets to kill esf;
reload time - 4 or 5 sec;
lock-on time - 2 or 3 sec to get lock on;
a need to maintain lock - you need to hold enemy in reticule to hit the target;
effect - enemy aircraft will get the control penalty, as it is in critical state (burning) for 5 or 10 sec, cannot be countered by critical repairs;
can be countered by flares.
All numbers may vary for balance sake.

[CraazyCanuck]

Some nice Gal ideas.

Could also add an ammo/repair feature to a gal, that any nearby aircraft can benefit from. Keeps friendly aircraft in the air instead of having to land and repair/rearm.

[Gatekeeper]

Some nice Gal ideas.

Could also add an ammo/repair feature to a gal, that any nearby aircraft can benefit from. Keeps friendly aircraft in the air instead of having to land and repair/rearm.

One way of doing this would be to tie a fixed percentage of hull repair to each reload cycle, but to disable weapons while receiving ammo/repairs. That would prevent people abusing it to create invincible Gal swarms ;)

Then you could also apply this to ammo towers and landing pads, but as some kind of base benefit (Amp Station? Interlink?).

[CraazyCanuck]

Excellent point.

[Pella]

I do believe that the current rotary's should be purely for Ground AI/AV.

Introducing a New A2A nose gun, That is on the same level of TTK as the M18 Rotary. But with the range slighly less than the needler. And you cannot equip rocket pods at the same time.

So this will split ESF's into separate AV/AI AND A2A Only. Not 1 that can do all like currently.

Add in the following, That goes in the Rocketpod's or afterburner slot.

NS Fuselage
+25% After Burner capacity than default.
+20% Increase to Flak Resistance / Further boosted by composite armor.

Tied in with the new NS Rotary, This will be a perfect ESF for dog fighting. And im sure all dog fighters out there will appreciate the move.

[PredatorFour]

I do believe that the current rotary's should be purely for Ground AI/AV.

Introducing a New A2A nose gun, That is on the same level of TTK as the M18 Rotary. But with the range slighly less than the needler. And you cannot equip rocket pods at the same time.

So this will split ESF's into separate AV/AI AND A2A Only. Not 1 that can do all like currently.

Add in the following, That goes in the Rocketpod's or afterburner slot.

NS Fuselage
+25% After Burner capacity than default.
+20% Increase to Flak Resistance / Further boosted by composite armor.

Tied in with the new NS Rotary, This will be a perfect ESF for dog fighting. And im sure all dog fighters out there will appreciate the move.

Sounds good, only thing is would adding the new rotary stop people using the previous rotary for air? Or would the rotary we have now have some damage reduction against air?

I like the flak buff fuselage that'd be cool.

[Pella]

Sounds good, only thing is would adding the new rotary stop people using the previous rotary for air? Or would the rotary we have now have some damage reduction against air?

I like the flak buff fuselage that'd be cool.

Nerf the current rotary. So the dmg % is more on ground vehicles.

Look at mine and Higbys tweets. He seems engaged in the Idea.

[Whiteagle]

Some nice Gal ideas.

Could also add an ammo/repair feature to a gal, that any nearby aircraft can benefit from. Keeps friendly aircraft in the air instead of having to land and repair/rearm.
One way of doing this would be to tie a fixed percentage of hull repair to each reload cycle, but to disable weapons while receiving ammo/repairs. That would prevent people abusing it to create invincible Gal swarms ;)

Then you could also apply this to ammo towers and landing pads, but as some kind of base benefit (Amp Station? Interlink?).
Personally I'd make a "Repair" turret that replaces the Galaxies Guns and works like the Engineer's Glue Gun, while the rearm can still be an aura like on the Sunderer and Pads.
(http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=47822)That way the Galaxy sacrifices Offensive Power for such a Utility, and requires extra man power to make the most of that Utility.

[phungus]

I have to ask phungus, how are you expecting them to do a 3-d mini-map?

From what I remember from Second Life, those kinds of displays are a lot more resource intensive then then the X-Y-Rotation over a map picture we have now.

Games that were coded on the megabyte scale, like Wing Commander and Allegiance, had working 3d minimaps. Think about it, every object in this game must have a integer variables that define their postional coordinates in an (X,Y,Z) as part of the object's properties and these coordinates must be being sent to clients frequently to move objects around. I don't have access to the API, I don't know the call functions to get the integer variables that define the coordinate position, but I'm sure they are there (how else would position be determined and shared among clients?). I'm not a great coder, but I know I could create and code a working 3d minimap for ESFs within about a week if I did have access to the API. I'm sure Higby has better people then me working for him, the question is if he thinks it's worth it to put someone on it for a week, plus then putting someone on incorparating it into the ESF cockpit for aesthetics, which could be another few days. There's probably at least 10 things everyone has to do right now and adding an extra isn't helping, so I can see how such a thing can get passed over and ignored.

While 3d radar might not be trivial, it's not superdifficult and would take no more time and money then creating a new weapon. The issue is whether or not Higby thinks it's worth it. I know a lack of 3d radar is one of the biggest reasons ESF pilots focus on ground targets more then other air targets - the telemetric data they get is focused toward ground forces and completely ignores 3d movement, an essential part of A2A combat. Humans can really only effectively react to the information they have available to them, they can infer information by reasoning (one of our stronger atributes as a species) but the fact remains that so long as ESFs lack this critical information they will be subconsiously encouraged to focus on ground targets. ESFs will never be efficient in an A2A role so long as their main source of telemetry (the minimap) is only really functional for ground combat and 2d movement.

[Whiteagle]

Games that were coded on the megabyte scale, like Wing Commander and Allegiance, had working 3d minimaps. Think about it, every object in this game must have a integer variables that define their postional coordinates in an (X,Y,Z) as part of the object's properties and these coordinates must be being sent to clients frequently to move objects around. I don't have access to the API, I don't know the call functions to get the integer variables that define the coordinate position, but I'm sure they are there (how else would position be determined and shared among clients?). I'm not a great coder, but I know I could create and code a working 3d minimap for ESFs within about a week if I did have access to the API. I'm sure Higby has better people then me working for him, the question is if he thinks it's worth it to put someone on it for a week, plus then putting someone on incorparating it into the ESF cockpit for aesthetics, which could be another few days. There's probably at least 10 things everyone has to do right now and adding an extra isn't helping, so I can see how such a thing can get passed over and ignored.

While 3d radar might not be trivial, it's not superdifficult and would take no more time and money then creating a new weapon. The issue is whether or not Higby thinks it's worth it. I know a lack of 3d radar is one of the biggest reasons ESF pilots focus on ground targets more then other air targets - the telemetric data they get is focused toward ground forces and completely ignores 3d movement, an essential part of A2A combat. Humans can really only effectively react to the information they have available to them, they can infer information by reasoning (one of our stronger atributes as a species) but the fact remains that so long as ESFs lack this critical information they will be subconsiously encouraged to focus on ground targets. ESFs will never be efficient in an A2A role so long as their main source of telemetry (the minimap) is only really functional for ground combat and 2d movement.
Oh I know it's very much possible with the Positional Data already in the game, but the problem becomes how to DISPLAY it!

That's what made them impractical in Second Life, since such a HUD had to be a rotating Sphere with you at the center, any client around you represented by a point set at their relative position, and the entire set up would mirror your rotations.

It's a bit more complicated then just getting their Global X-Y position and rotation then correlating that to the picture of the ground you see on your Current Mini-map, so I wonder how feasible it really is.

[phungus]

I have to ask phungus, how are you expecting them to do a 3-d mini-map?

From what I remember from Second Life, those kinds of displays are a lot more resource intensive then then the X-Y-Rotation over a map picture we have now.

Oh I know it's very much possible with the Positional Data already in the game, but the problem becomes how to DISPLAY it!

That's what made them impractical in Second Life, since such a HUD had to be a rotating Sphere with you at the center, any client around you represented by a point set at their relative position, and the entire set up would mirror your rotations.

It's a bit more complicated then just getting their Global X-Y position and rotation then correlating that to the picture of the ground you see on your Current Mini-map, so I wonder how feasible it really is.

it doesn't need to be perfect. Sensory perception in humans is incredibly fluid and can even spontaniously create new systems to process non hardwired sensory data. Look at older games and how they did it, there are numerous examples of old games on the NES that handled 3d radar - it just needs to be functional, currently the minimap for ESFs is just the infantry minimap, designed for ifantry combat but a little bit bigger. There were functional 3d radars in older games that pretty much ignored the front-back axis (should be very simple to code) but the player can subconsiously figure this out based on what they are seeing, and after a day was never really an issue.

I don't think there needs to be a perfect 3d minimap for ESFs, they just need something that actually takes into account they are ESFs and not infantry. Currently the minimap information is designed for infantry to attack infantry, it's not surprise then that ESFs find themselves focusing on infantry...

[AThreatToYou]

I'd just put an altitude map in the center of the ESF console. Then they can use the minimap to determine the X and Y coordinates matching the Z and X provided by altitude map.

The altitude map would provide an X (distance from ESF in lateral, flat-plane meters) and Z (distance from ESF in vertical meters). Minimap provides both lateral coordinates (X and Y).

[Higby]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!

[Pella]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!


All is good. Something as big as this requires good feedback from the community before putting it live. So i would rather wait until we all agree it's good. As there is alot of balance issues to be had with any ESF changes.

[phungus]

All is good. Something as big as this requires good feedback from the community before putting it live. So i would rather wait until we all agree it's good. As there is alot of balance issues to be had with any ESF changes.

Agreed. I think it's good that the ESF update isn't being rushed, the issues with ESF are complex.

[maradine]

At risk of repeating myself - double the flight ceiling. Things that wish to transit while avoiding ground fire will use the extra space. Things that wish to kill those things will hunt them. All of a sudden, you have a bunch of air combat happening out of the range of the AAA, just like everyone wants, and you didn't have to change much to get there.

[RSphil]

well atm i dont dogfight as they always end up as hover wars and coming from a WW2 combat flight sim that is pure dogfighting it annoys me that eveyone slams on the breaks and just hover around to fight.
if that can be sorted id enjoy it much more.

as for weapons the guns seem good atm but the A2A rockets are a bit of a wast as we all have decoys. id love to see the decoys fire like the F/A18 for the ESF as in firing 4 or 5 in rapid succession but counting as one. just for looks more then anything else, the Gal and lib could fire them like the C130's 4-5 from either side. that would look cool.

if you fire a missile and the enemy deploys a decoy it could maybe seek for a few seconds or try to find a another target maybe?
long range and short range variants could be cool.
maybe in the future have a sort of AWAC Gal and the ESF could lock onto targets that the AWAC marks for you? there are lots of ideas and tweaks that can be done. some good ideas about and i cant wait to see what the PS2 gods come up with.

[Dougnifico]

Well Higby, its hard to do because we have an aircraft that is half jet and half helicopter. Ground farming is a very easy way to get XP. You could increase the potency of A2A weapons. You could also have the dogfighting airframe more severely cripple the ESF's ability to hover while providing more defense against G2A (so that only dogfighters get the added protection). You need to make it so that a suicide ejection is credited as a kill. You could also give an extra XP bump for A2A or ESF to ESF kills.

[AnamNantom]

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/332308256179511298

How about a weapon for the Scythe that will lock on and temporarily disrupt an enemy's flight controls, speed, UI, or etc. This could be akin to some of what happens with Eve Online' ships.

[Ohaunlaim]

One problem I see is that the most useful air unit is the ESF, next the Liberator, and way down the line the Galaxy.

If you can increase the Galaxy's usefulness (so they aren't solely for transport) without encroaching on the lib/esf roles (ie, killing things) then you will see more of these new support oriented air vehicles. They should only need one person to bring their support to the field. Just like a sunderer doesn't need to be full of passengers to be useful, so too should a Galaxy. Heck even further boost their resistance to ground fire just for shits and giggles.

Do this and suddenly you have beefy exp boxes flying around specifically for ESF's to either hunt or protect. Liberators could take advantage of or even support Galaxy operations (such as Ground vehicle radar or troop spawning). And now you have a full air environment:

Galaxies being the special support and transport air unit. Liberators being the main ground attack and suppression unit. ESF being the primary air attack and secondary ground attack unit.

Special weapons, new guns, tweaked boom-booms are all well and good, but give the ESFs more to shoot at than their counter parts or the poor ground huggers.

[Hyglak]

Must: Fix the bail-out /crash problem. A dogfight rarely rewards a kill.

Ideas:

- give ranks to pilots based on how much planes they shot down +
increase exp for shooting down the high ranking ones.

Stuff to buy/cert

- primary Weapon:
a Rotary with a Dmg-buff to air and higher bulletvelocity
( and fix the aiming on the Vortek <3)

a gun that fires small explosive projectiles, doing alot of dmg when staying close to a lib or gal.

secondary weapon:
- a canister of nanite-drones. needs to be released close to a Lib or gal and does dmg over time.
- a big "phoenix-like" a2a-missle suitable for hunting liberators and Galaxys

secondary slot ideas:

-Flare spender "Sunburst" - Flares without timer, but ammo-usage; certable, if need to cost ressources

-"Bird of Prey" - a cloak to replace stealth

-Radar, showing only flying vehicles but in a bigger radius. maybe just change the Scout.Radar

-Radarbomb, like a scoutflash for your friends on the ground.

-Ammo-Canister

-loudspeakerbomb, to unnerve the enemy with your empires Propaganda. -_-

Balance:

- modify Lock-On-missiles (because you can not remove them), shorten lock-on time but make esfs able to dodge or outrun them through flying wild maneuvers thus increasing the usefulness of AB and Racer.

- remove some a2a-ability from the lib, increase damage resistance vs. Ground-AA for the lib. (modify Dalton)

- Add a another Armortype that is good vs. a2a-guns

- modify stealth so that you have to activate it. buff the lock-on-time increase.

- make ground AA less effective above 500m, excluding direct hits.

[PredatorFour]

Ok here is a potentially wild addition but what about a new type of esf hull? I was thinking some kind of anti ram armour hull so people intentionally ramming you would not kill you, nor you them. Instead, any collision will just make the craft bounce then carry on. Just a random thought:p

[ARCStormtrooper]

As a decent A2A Reaver pilot, I'd like to see:


Easier counters to each weapon. i.e. remove full lockon capability of the A2A missiles. Make the missiles much less agile so that we don't absolutely need flares or even terrain to avoid them.
Give each ESF (1) a starting advantage to a particular performance stat. Right now, the Scythe has hover, the Mossie has speed and (seemingly) dogfighting, and the Reaver has nothing (really). I recommend the Reaver get speed (it has all those engines for goodness sakes). Give the Mossie dogfighting.
EMP air mines/missiles with a good radius that can cause any air vehicle to stall for 2-3 seconds.
Give an good air radar option. Maybe one that swaps out the mini map. You can even make it so that it does not pick up ground forces.
Nerf bullet speed, damage, and range of Burster MAXes. The turrets are fine I think.
Make S2A lockons less agile.
Make specific nose guns (rotary) even less effective against ground vehicles.
Make performance frames have active vulnerabilities: Racer has less turning speed, hover less acceleration speed, dogfighting less overall speed. Please make this a different percentage based on ESF and maybe build.


I obviously listed changes that I'd like to see that I believe can bring in a general benefit to the whole A2A system. But if I was to pick two that I feel would really separate the A2A's from the A2G builds, I think it would be the radar and the less agile A2A/S2A missiles.

[Kroova]

My thoughts (or those of previous posters that I like).

1) Increase the flight ceiling.
2) Increase fire-rate; decrease accuracy and projectile speed on Burster MAX.
3) Increase projectile speed on Skyguard.
4) Reduce A2A nosegun (Rotary, Vortex, Hailstorm) damage against Tanks, Sunderers, Harrassers, and turrets
5) Add a 5th turret seat on the Galaxy's nose. Allow Galaxies to equip A30 Walkers on every turret.
6) Give Liberator a new fast firing nosegun (similar to ESF AA noseguns) with less drop and more projectile velocity compared to Tankbuster. However, it is ineffective against ground targets.
7) Make Tankbuster slightly more accurate.
8) Allow Galaxies to equip a jammer that hides nearby friendly air units from radar and increases lock on time for enemy missiles.
9) Give ESFs an air version of Scout Radar that has greater range but only detects air units.
10) Split up A2AM into two variants: a slower, less manueverable one that is more effective against Libs/Gals and an agile, and a fast one more effective against ESFs.
11) Increase the added lock-on time effect of Stealth armor. (maybe increase the defensive bonus of flak armor as well.)

[VGCS]

Move Pods to the Primary Slot. I'm sick of getting farmed on the ground by these guys with Wallhacks and Aimbots who are just as impossible to stop when you pull your A2A Stealth Reaver to blindside them at top speed yet they still somehow know you're aimed right at them (and then they use the speedhacks too). We're talking really low B.R. people here too who obviously lost their last account. I have video of one of them and it's really blatant since the fact of the matter they all have Flares too which means they don't have Scout Radar at the same time... Take away their primary Botting advantage if they want to go pods. No Loadout should ever be the PERFECT loadout. Give them a real downside. PLEASE

[Greenthy]

1) Add Full fledged gunships like in PS1 (as in big beefy and circling kind, same exact set-up as PS1) They'll serve as the big threat only air can truely counter.
2) Add to the flight ceiling on some parts (more like relative to the ground: on some parts of the continents the fleight ceiling is already big enough)
3) Add to the usefulnes of the galaxy (like making it cary a vehicle/ANT (^^))
4) Make A2A fighters more viable. The current A2A is decent at best, but most of the time it's just as useful to bring an A2G fighter except those can shoot ground too.
5) (actually 4 bis) Add vehicle re-equiping (pads/rearm towers). This would solve the whole "will I get a A2G with my precious timer or A2A" : people will get that A2A more to fight air vehicles if needed. This is already possible for infantry, I don't see why vehicles shouldn't be able to.

[VaderShake]

Raise the flight ceiling by 25-50%

Increase the speed of the fighters giving them wider turning radious and a more dynamic feel

Make it more difficult to hover resulting in a stall making your aircraft drop rapidly with a 3 second drop for engine restart if hovers for more than 2-3 seconds (Galaxy aside)

Up the XP points for air to air kills

[phungus]

Up the XP points for air to air kills

Just need to actually credit a kill when an A2A pilot kills his opponent, right now more then half of the A2A kills made in this game go uncredited.

[SolLeks]

Raise the flight ceiling by 25-50%

Increase the speed of the fighters giving them wider turning radious and a more dynamic feel

Make it more difficult to hover resulting in a stall making your aircraft drop rapidly with a 3 second drop for engine restart if hovers for more than 2-3 seconds (Galaxy aside)

Up the XP points for air to air kills

Higher Flight ceiling will make no difference, speed is fine and why are so many people agenced the fact that these are VTOL aircraft? Stop thinking that they are 'jets' because they are not. Think Space helicopter / jet things (aka VTOL).

[SolLeks]

Move Pods to the Primary Slot. I'm sick of getting farmed on the ground by these guys with Wallhacks and Aimbots who are just as impossible to stop when you pull your A2A Stealth Reaver to blindside them at top speed yet they still somehow know you're aimed right at them (and then they use the speedhacks too). We're talking really low B.R. people here too who obviously lost their last account. I have video of one of them and it's really blatant since the fact of the matter they all have Flares too which means they don't have Scout Radar at the same time... Take away their primary Botting advantage if they want to go pods. No Loadout should ever be the PERFECT loadout. Give them a real downside. PLEASE

Balancing around hackers sounds like a very bad idea. Currently there is no 'perfect' loadout as a ESF with AB pods will do better facing a ESF with rockets, a ESF with rockets will kill ground /libs better and a ESF with A2AM will be able to snipe enemy ESF and kill libs / gals more effectively.

Now, if the differences are enough is up for debate.

[maradine]

Higher Flight ceiling will make no difference, speed is fine and why are so many people agenced the fact that these are VTOL aircraft? Stop thinking that they are 'jets' because they are not. Think Space helicopter / jet things (aka VTOL).

It would make a huge difference. One of the primary A2A complaints is that dogfights are ruined by flak intervention. Another 800 meters of space above the flak umbrella leads to some very interesting consequences, not least of which is pure air engagements.

[VGCS]

Balancing around hackers sounds like a very bad idea. Currently there is no 'perfect' loadout as a ESF with AB pods will do better facing a ESF with rockets, a ESF with rockets will kill ground /libs better and a ESF with A2AM will be able to snipe enemy ESF and kill libs / gals more effectively.

Now, if the differences are enough is up for debate.

They're really not... and the legit players who just happen to be hacker-tier are even more unstoppable b/c A2AM's just don't work on them either. They spin around and kill you instantly before you can even get a Lock. I've been PODDED by some of them in a Dogfight even while twisting and turning AND using the Extended Afterburner tanks barrel-rol Reaver Climb. I dunno, maybe those guys were cheating too and I just couldn't tell but if they're able to do that legitly too, then there obviously IS a best loadout when it comes to Air-VS-Air, and the actual one the Devs added for A2A is not it... Partly b/c Pods also have large collision hulls which matter a lot more than Lockons when you're talking about Skill Vs. Skill. I'd personally rather have new A2A's that are Wire-guided or something. Or maybe act like like Flak... B/c right now all the A2A's do is make you waste time watching a red box turn Green when you could have just as easily gunned the BAD pilots down in half the time... And that gun?? The podders get the same Gun. That's not fair. I don't care what excuse you could possibly try to justify it with. Rotary + Pods is too versatile and gives them too much self-defense potential tacked on to all their AV power

[Whiteagle]

It would make a huge difference. One of the primary A2A complaints is that dogfights are ruined by flak intervention. Another 800 meters of space above the flak umbrella leads to some very interesting consequences, not least of which is pure air engagements.
Except creating a space for air to be completely unreachable by ground, making ground defenses and terrain flow crafting completely worthless..

[VaderShake]

Higher Flight ceiling will make no difference, speed is fine and why are so many people agenced the fact that these are VTOL aircraft? Stop thinking that they are 'jets' because they are not. Think Space helicopter / jet things (aka VTOL).

A 2 A combat would be better if they were more like jets and you added a helo varient. maybe that's what they need to do add a jet fighter to each faction, fast fixed wing, air attack craft.

Let the current Reaver, Mossy, and flying tiara act as the "Space Helicopters"

[Ice]

On the topic of xp distribution.
One thing I really hate is the constant kill-stealing that occurs with a2a combat. I'll find an enemy pilot, engage in the "constant circling" dogfight with him and put in like 95% damage. Then right as a I reload and circle around for a shot, another esf, or some g2a will finish him off, granting me partial xp. While this isn't that big of a deal, it happens quite frequently and gets annoying, especially with big xp rewards such as libs that have been farming or gals.

[Whiteagle]

On the topic of xp distribution.
One thing I really hate is the constant kill-stealing that occurs with a2a combat. I'll find an enemy pilot, engage in the "constant circling" dogfight with him and put in like 95% damage. Then right as a I reload and circle around for a shot, another esf, or some g2a will finish him off, granting me partial xp. While this isn't that big of a deal, it happens quite frequently and gets annoying, especially with big xp rewards such as libs that have been farming or gals.
Fair enough, far more understandable then the people that whine about bail outs or decking on purpose to avoid giving the kill...

...Seriously guys, what makes you any better then us ground pounders who solo a tank only for the driver to bail and get away?

[CrankyTRex]

Most of what I'd say has been covered, so I'll just hit the things I'd like to reinforce.

I don't think raising the flight ceiling is a terribly effective choice. Anything that wants to hit the ground is going to be down at ~200-300m anyway, and those are the things the A2A craft should be there to stop.

It's kind of a catch-22. A2A can't really have a strong role so long as the AA does the job better (and puts the A2A at a disadvantage in combat), which it does. 2-3 Burster Maxes can lock down the sky pretty effectively, but the AA is so powerful because otherwise the ESFs can eat the ground's lunch.

As for actual combat:

1. Flight Physics
-spinning in place is boring and gives a lot of weight to who's certed out more. Aircraft at near-hover should be bricks. Inverted libs trying to pick people off with the tail gun should fall out of the sky. Using your altitude to gain speed and momentum should matter more. All of the AA seems to designed to force the ESF to act like a jet and then to kill a jet. Might as well turn the ESF into something more like the F-35 in BF2 and solve all those problems

2. Navigation
- it's hard to tell where you are, where other aircraft are, etc. I wish this game had a couple of more views, like a first-person view without the cockpit blocking everything. Just give me the HUD with a speed and an altitude indicator. As nice as the art is, it's just in my way. A head-on view, and a fly-by view would be nice too.

3. Bombs
-If rocket pods had been bombs that varied in type (AP, Napalm, EMP, etc.) we'd probably never have had the farming issue to begin with. Let's add some.
-Rocket pods need to only be useful at low speed or low altitude

4. Standard equipment
-flares should be standard equipment and everybody should get a secondary weapon to start with so that new pilots aren't at a disadvantage. We don't force infantry to start with just a pistol and no shield and ask them to cert for their rifle and overshield.
-with everyone having flares and flight physics coming into play, A2A missiles can have longer range and be less lock=hit/flare=block. It's silly to see a missile loop around an enemy aircraft and hit it in the cockpit. If you actually had to break after popping a flare, that would help too. If I'm aiming at something from above and to the side, the flare popping out the back is not going to break my lock or affect my missile.
-potentially add chaff and thus a radar A2A missile option.

Not particularly in favor of oddball weapons or sort of wire-guided missiles, but I wouldn't mind seeing how they work first.

Edit:
Almost forgot. Varied lock-on warnings. I'd like to know what is locked on to me. Is it on the ground or is it another aircraft?

[Ice]

...Seriously guys, what makes you any better then us ground pounders who solo a tank only for the driver to bail and get away

Not to spark this debate again :eek: , but once the pilot jumps out, he falls to apparent death, unless they are running light assault which only goes for like 1% of pilots. Thus any potential kill/xp is lost. Whereas the situation you've stated still leaves the chance of a kill, unless the driver suicides after leaving the vehicle, which I have never seen.

[Whiteagle]

Not to spark this debate again :eek: , but once the pilot jumps out, he falls to apparent death, unless they are running light assault which only goes for like 1% of pilots. Thus any potential kill/xp is lost. Whereas the situation you've stated still leaves the chance of a kill, unless the driver suicides after leaving the vehicle, which I have never seen.
Except he's going to be worth more then 100 extra XP if it was a menace or a revenge kill...
...If he's been that much of a problem you might as well just be thankful for getting him out of the sky.

[ChipMHazard]

I would personally prefer some more drastic changes be made to the ESFs, instead of just trying to add on new weapons and tweak the old ones. Kinda think that you guys shot yourselves in the foot when you made the ESF this versatile, going to be hard introducing other aircraft now.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=54887

But... Make a choice with the current rocket pods. Have the rockets deal splash damage only or deal very little splash damage/have a smaller splash radius. Make them AI or AT, not both. Alternatively you could,as has already been suggested, make rocket variants. Could even have one rocket type that's meant to be used against other ESFs: Fast, direct hit damage only, a new damage type that doesn't work well against tank armour.
I like the idea of making the current A2A missiles into slow heavy hitting Jachhammers (http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/1/16706/2106184-jackhammer.jpg), the idea of having reticule lock-on long/medium range A2A missiles and EMP missiles(They won't make the ESF drop like a rock, just disable its other systems leaving only flight controls and nose gun).

I also agree with increasing the flight ceiling. Think everyone else has already covered any other thoughts I might have on the subject.

[maradine]

Except creating a space for air to be completely unreachable by ground, making ground defenses and terrain flow crafting completely worthless..

Who cares if they're unreachable? They have to fly into the umbrella to have any effect below. Weapon ranges still apply, and terrain flow has always been something air can engage with or avoid at will. Plus, your fighter cover is presumably up there.

[Whiteagle]

Who cares if they're unreachable? They have to fly into the umbrella to have any effect below.
And they can fly back up to auto repair and then dip back down.

You guys complain about Burster MAXes doing the same thing with tiny Spawn Rooms and shields, imagine a shield 14 square kilometers that Roflpods and Libs can duck behind...

This would also kibosh any plans for Aerial repair and resupply, since an Air Fortress or Support Galaxy will just sit up there nigh unassailable.

Plus, your fighter cover is presumably up there.
If you even HAVE fighter cover to begin with!

Remember Burster were buffed to the point they're at now because the Developers originally wanted AIR to be the primary source of Anti-air...
Since good dedicated Air Superiority are a rare breed, this left most forces shit-out-of-luck when the much more common Air-Cav came around to blow all their crap up.

I'm not saying their shouldn't be a place for Air to fight Air, you guys should get a theater of your own, but if you put that area right ABOVE Ground Combat there are going to be issues.

Personally, I'd wait for intercontinental Oceans, a place where their isn't going to be much Infantry Combat period.

[maradine]

Intercontinental oceans as a traversable combat area is the longest of long odds - hoping for that as a fix is akin to waiting for the sequel.

Let me also set something straight - I think the current air/ground balance is great. I enjoy flakpacking the shit out of things, I enjoy pure dogfighting, and I enjoy the unfortunate and ridiculous monoculture that ESF fits have become. I'd be perfectly happy if nothing changed. But clearly a lot of people are not.

In that context, we change something.

So what if fighters can burn two minutes above the umbrella waiting for nano to regen? They're shot up, not carrying composite, and they're vulnerable to fighters - fighters which a whole bunch of people in this thread want to be. You exclaim "If you even HAVE fighter cover to begin with!" with the forum equivalent of a foaming mouth - this thread is full of people asking for that to be viable. This is a path for that to be viable.


Remember Burster were buffed to the point they're at now because the Developers originally wanted AIR to be the primary source of Anti-air...

This sentence defies logic. I'm going to assume you misspoke. Are you saying that that's what they wanted, but they failed? Or changed their minds? Or that they were wrong in their original intent? Or are wrong now? How do you get form A -> B?

[SolLeks]

It would make a huge difference. One of the primary A2A complaints is that dogfights are ruined by flak intervention. Another 800 meters of space above the flak umbrella leads to some very interesting consequences, not least of which is pure air engagements.

Just about everything that makes a difference in battle will be close to the ground. Libs, A2G ESF and thus A2A ESF will be close to the ground. Even on parts of the map that the 800m will mean you are high enough to not be hit by AA, you do not see much if any fights that high. With how A2AM are currently, you need some forum of cover to fly around if your flairs are down. Also using the mountains is very helpful if your using just your nosegun to ambush enemys that are following you and covering the reverse maneuver to not get killed mid turn. Having more air space will only effect people using air as a transport, It will do nothing for A2A fighting. The only way to make this effective is to then increase the range of ground attack aircraft, but then they will also be above the flack range and we will have much QQ from you ground forces.

They're really not... and the legit players who just happen to be hacker-tier are even more unstoppable b/c A2AM's just don't work on them either. They spin around and kill you instantly before you can even get a Lock. I've been PODDED by some of them in a Dogfight even while twisting and turning AND using the Extended Afterburner tanks barrel-rol Reaver Climb. I dunno, maybe those guys were cheating too and I just couldn't tell but if they're able to do that legitly too, then there obviously IS a best loadout when it comes to Air-VS-Air, and the actual one the Devs added for A2A is not it... Partly b/c Pods also have large collision hulls which matter a lot more than Lockons when you're talking about Skill Vs. Skill. I'd personally rather have new A2A's that are Wire-guided or something. Or maybe act like like Flak... B/c right now all the A2A's do is make you waste time watching a red box turn Green when you could have just as easily gunned the BAD pilots down in half the time... And that gun?? The podders get the same Gun. That's not fair. I don't care what excuse you could possibly try to justify it with. Rotary + Pods is too versatile and gives them too much self-defense potential tacked on to all their AV power

A lot of good pilots use pods, but they reconize that they will be outclassed by someone using AB tanks as the AB tanks let pilots do more thruster manuvers. I have not gotten hit by rocketpods in a long time since I started using ABpods and I am able to dodge a lot of the so called 'god tear' nosegun fighters (snafu, babacua, nox. Wile I am not better than them, I do put up a hell of a fight)

A 2 A combat would be better if they were more like jets and you added a helo varient. maybe that's what they need to do add a jet fighter to each faction, fast fixed wing, air attack craft.

Let the current Reaver, Mossy, and flying tiara act as the "Space Helicopters"

1. That assumes we have more realistic flight models.
2. the 'fights' would turn into 'high G turn fights' where people with joysticks or keys bound to nose up will win as long as they keep their speed at the correct speeds. It would turn air in basically what BF3 has and to be honest, its not that fun imo (I flew a lot in BF3). Sure fixed wing aircraft can be made to work, but why bother when the current VTOL aircraft are both part of lore and work fine once you master a few good maneuvers. I dare say, don't turn flying in this game into flying like 90% of the other games out there, this type of flying is more fun. I have many times been able to flip my aircraft around and continue to fly backwards wile shooting back at the enemy that is chasing me and I find doing stuff like that much more fun than anything you can do with BF3's Air.

[Whiteagle]

I'm saying that they wanted Air to counter Air, but Air to Ground was so prevalent that they HAD to buff Ground to Air so that Ground Combat would actually exist.

Really, how many people are going to run pure Anti-Air ESFs?
...The same number who pull Skyguard Lightnings?
When given a choice people are going to want to take the option that allows them the greatest effectiveness on the battlefield.

You may run with a Dedicated Anti-Air group, but some servers don't have Outfits that focus on Air Superiority.
Hell, one of the largest Terran Outfits on Waterson calls itself an Air Force, but I rarely see them Air borne in Force.

Simply put increasing the Flight ceiling isn't going to fix these problems.
Yes you'll create a theater AA ESFs can hunt in, but they will be the ONLY predator capable of taking down Ground Attack and Aerial Transport units that will abuse the hell out of this umbrella.
Basically, you will break the Ground Game trying to please the Air Game this way, as there will NOT be enough Anti-Air ESFs to keep this envelop clear.

[SolLeks]

I'm saying that they wanted Air to counter Air, but Air to Ground was so prevalent that they HAD to buff Ground to Air so that Ground Combat would actually exist.

Really, how many people are going to run pure Anti-Air ESFs?
...The same number who pull Skyguard Lightnings?
When given a choice people are going to want to take the option that allows them the greatest effectiveness on the battlefield.

You may run with a Dedicated Anti-Air group, but some servers don't have Outfits that focus on Air Superiority.
Hell, one of the largest Terran Outfits on Waterson calls itself an Air Force, but I rarely see them Air borne in Force.

Simply put increasing the Flight ceiling isn't going to fix these problems.
Yes you'll create a theater AA ESFs can hunt in, but they will be the ONLY predator capable of taking down Ground Attack and Aerial Transport units that will abuse the hell out of this umbrella.
Basically, you will break the Ground Game trying to please the Air Game this way, as there will NOT be enough Anti-Air ESFs to keep this envelop clear.

The reason for the lack of A2A ESF at the begening of the game was mainly due to how little exp you got for killing air. Back then you got about 75 exp + the pilot to down an ESF, Libs were 100 or so + pilot and gunners. thus getting an easy kill on a infantry that gave you 100 exp was well more worth it than risking a dogfight and getting only 175.

Now downing a lib will often grant me 1000 (I have membership + alpha for 100% boost) and killing an ESF can get me 800+. More people hunt air since its worth it now exp wise. Now I see dedicated air squads going around on Connery taking out everything they see with a mix of A2A and A2G equied ESF + the occasional lib. to top that off, its safer to fight aircraft then ground forces due to how prevalent and powerful AA is.

What needs to happen is this, give ESF a bit more breathing room in the space that matters via nerfing burster max's range to infintry render distance, they are infantry and the smallest, cheapest dedicated AA unit thus they should not be the most powerful. Give skygaurds a bit more range (either via better COF or faster projectile speed) to help protect out to vehicular render range. Let A2A ESF take out the ground attack ESF and this would also give noobs more room to make errors and thus get more planes in the air. this way everything has a intended roll in the fight and you will see dogfights above large battles.

As for you stating that some servers don't have dedicated air, that is no excuse. If your side does not bring air to the plate and the other team does, you SHOULD be at a disadvantage. Same with tanks. No more of this "infantry should be able to do everything alone" nonsense, That is not the spirit of planetside.

[Whiteagle]

What needs to happen is this, give ESF a bit more breathing room in the space that matters via nerfing burster max's range to infintry render distance, they are infantry and the smallest, cheapest dedicated AA unit thus they should not be the most powerful. Give skygaurds a bit more range (either via better COF or faster projectile speed) to help protect out to vehicular render range. Let A2A ESF take out the ground attack ESF and this would also give noobs more room to make errors and thus get more planes in the air. this way everything has a intended roll in the fight and you will see dogfights above large battles.
Indeed, but the Skyguard is probably going to need both buffs to compete...

As for you stating that some servers don't have dedicated air, that is no excuse. If your side does not bring air to the plate and the other team does, you SHOULD be at a disadvantage. Same with tanks. No more of this "infantry should be able to do everything alone" nonsense, That is not the spirit of planetside.
The game is called PLANETside, not AIRside...

As has been said before, I'd rather Air be gimped then the rest of the game be ruined for the sake of Air.

[VaderShake]

1. That assumes we have more realistic flight models.
2. the 'fights' would turn into 'high G turn fights' where people with joysticks or keys bound to nose up will win as long as they keep their speed at the correct speeds. It would turn air in basically what BF3 has and to be honest, its not that fun imo (I flew a lot in BF3). Sure fixed wing aircraft can be made to work, but why bother when the current VTOL aircraft are both part of lore and work fine once you master a few good maneuvers. I dare say, don't turn flying in this game into flying like 90% of the other games out there, this type of flying is more fun. I have many times been able to flip my aircraft around and continue to fly backwards wile shooting back at the enemy that is chasing me and I find doing stuff like that much more fun than anything you can do with BF3's Air.

BF3 air to air sucks, just like the rest of the BF3 gamepla, it's simplistic slow and boring. Desert Combat mod was better. he question is how to make air to air combat better not how to continue to promote aircraft raping soft targets in PS2 by hovering.

Upping the XP for killing air to air, giving people more flight room with faster more exciting aircraft to fly (like driving the Harrasser on the ground) would make me want to get in the air more. Right now aircraft seem more like troop rape machines rather than mighty airforces battling for control in the sky.

If they add larger air battleships like the concept art shows that would help tremendously if they are not going to change the way the current aircraft fly.

ps.

I'm not hating on the current aircraft I enjoy very much shooting them out of the sky with any means neccessary, but the air to air combat needs some help.

[SolLeks]

BF3 air to air sucks, just like the rest of the BF3 gamepla, it's simplistic slow and boring. Desert Combat mod was better. he question is how to make air to air combat better not how to continue to promote aircraft raping soft targets in PS2 by hovering.

Upping the XP for killing air to air, giving people more flight room with faster more exciting aircraft to fly (like driving the Harrasser on the ground) would make me want to get in the air more. Right now aircraft seem more like troop rape machines rather than mighty airforces battling for control in the sky.

If they add larger air battleships like the concept art shows that would help tremendously if they are not going to change the way the current aircraft fly.

ps.

I'm not hating on the current aircraft I enjoy very much shooting them out of the sky with any means neccessary, but the air to air combat needs some help.

When you fly air to air, do you get into good dogfights or is it always chased / chase?

V-Thrust Flight Tutorial: Part One - Keybindings - YouTube

Good video set on how to really fly the ESF, only 3 out so far but its Spadar so the rest will be good I am sure.

They don't feel like troop rape machines to me at all, Sure I will rotary a few infantry as my outfit takes a base, but that is not my main roll and not what I do if there are other ESF in the area.

Edit~ To be honest, my reaver feels more like a paper plane than a troop murder machine, 3 guys shooting LMGs at me will force me to go away but for some reasion, people just don't seem to do that much (I do when being attacked by ESF, made many run away). Also I agree with you on the BF3 gameplay, but that is what a lot of people seem to want to do to air.

[Obstruction]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!

what about AA firing from behind the spawn shield? is that emergent gameplay? on connery i just saw at least 3 of the top 100 players, including the number 1, firing as a max from behind spawn shields.

just make the whole base a warpgate bubble if that's your emergent G2A game.

[RaTzo]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!


We just need the ESF to be great at specific roles.

An A2G - Anti Armour ESF should be able to defend itself against a light air attack, but it should be VERY effective against armour. You shouldn't be able to hunt Libs and Tanks, but you shouldn't be insta-gibbed every time an A2A ESF shows up or a Lib rams you.

This should play the same with A2G anti personnel and A2A ESFs.

An A2A ESF should have little to no ability to engage ground targets.

ALSO - Lockons and Flares (or smoke for armour for that matter) - this whole system needs to be revamped. This is a balance system that trades skill and tactics for timers. If your flares are faster than the reload of your enemy you always win. If the reload time of your enemy is faster than your flares you always loose. This is completely displeasing for everyone involved.

ESFs need to be great at something again. They don't need to be great at everything, but they need to be great at something. They take too much skill, time, and certs for them to be as absolutely impotent as they are right now.

The idea that "if there is lots of AA I loose and if there is none I win" is close to the truth but it isn't entirely accurate. AA is VERY powerful and almost always INSTANTLY available.

If there is AA around the area is (usually) denied to ESFs if there is no AA around then the people getting "farmed" are without excuse. AA is a Max spawn away.

I hope you read and consider these things well Matt.

[RaTzo]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!

what about AA firing from behind the spawn shield? is that emergent gameplay? on connery i just saw at least 3 of the top 100 players, including the number 1, firing as a max from behind spawn shields.

just make the whole base a warpgate bubble if that's your emergent G2A game.

I think that protected spawns are a good idea. I think that people being able to shoot out of protected spawns is a TERRIBLE idea.

[VaderShake]

When you fly air to air, do you get into good dogfights or is it always chased / chase?

V-Thrust Flight Tutorial: Part One - Keybindings - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnC0zEOXW2o&list=PLbLUBQ4IWXPcXO6Ighqev6Nk5UyGatyQs)

Good video set on how to really fly the ESF, only 3 out so far but its Spadar so the rest will be good I am sure.

They don't feel like troop rape machines to me at all, Sure I will rotary a few infantry as my outfit takes a base, but that is not my main roll and not what I do if there are other ESF in the area.

Edit~ To be honest, my reaver feels more like a paper plane than a troop murder machine, 3 guys shooting LMGs at me will force me to go away but for some reasion, people just don't seem to do that much (I do when being attacked by ESF, made many run away). Also I agree with you on the BF3 gameplay, but that is what a lot of people seem to want to do to air.

I guess I'm jsut trying to say it seems to me aircraft as they currently stand are more interested in focusing on killing ground targets than each other right now and the hover ability seems to augment that. Why not remove or severly limit the hover ability and rely more on straffing runs to encorage more air to air play with higher xp for winning dog fights. I would also rather have dumb bombs added to aircraft for hitting ground targets than hover machine guns and rockets....I don't mind the rockets so much because they are limited.

Also I do not fly much (yet) but have in other games, we are trying to evolve our small outfit from ground pounding with infantry to utilizing land vehicles now. After they get better at that we can move on to air power.

[Obstruction]

I think that protected spawns are a good idea. I think that people being able to shoot out of protected spawns is a TERRIBLE idea.

you forgot to mention how they can run back into the shield after they leave.

the way that the tunnels move you quickly and spit you out of a one way exit is a good way to do protected spawns.

too bad they spit you out into a deathtrap instead of someplace useful.

[RaTzo]

On more thing.

I don't care about "great dogfights" or "great A2G battles" I care about the ESF MATTERING to the effort to win and hold territory.

I think ESFs should be effective and well rewarded for fulfilling meaningful missions in the area of operations.

Right now we ESF pilots don't really matter. We help in fringe ways but if we were not in the game the war would look almost entirely the same.

[VGCS]

A lot of good pilots use pods, but they reconize that they will be outclassed by someone using AB tanks as the AB tanks let pilots do more thruster manuvers. I have not gotten hit by rocketpods in a long time since I started using ABpods and I am able to dodge a lot of the so called 'god tear' nosegun fighters (snafu, babacua, nox. Wile I am not better than them, I do put up a hell of a fight)

Good for you... I've faced Snafu, Nox, Nuka, etc, even Scourge too. ...but how do you fare against Tyk0?
I've got a nice long video incase you don't know what I'm talking about.

PS: It's actually spelled Tier... And a couple of the more suspicious ones I've reported, haven't shown up in months which leads me to believe you're right about some of that "skill" being h4x that we don't need to account for specifically with balance changes. But it doesn't change my opinion that Pods should be a Primary slot item. That would actually be exactly the kind of buff our Reavers could use if you think about it since we're only supposed to be using them for hit & run anyway...

[SolLeks]

I guess I'm jsut trying to say it seems to me aircraft as they currently stand are more interested in focusing on killing ground targets than each other right now and the hover ability seems to augment that. Why not remove or severly limit the hover ability and rely more on straffing runs to encorage more air to air play with higher xp for winning dog fights. I would also rather have dumb bombs added to aircraft for hitting ground targets than hover machine guns and rockets....I don't mind the rockets so much because they are limited.

Also I do not fly much (yet) but have in other games, we are trying to evolve our small outfit from ground pounding with infantry to utilizing land vehicles now. After they get better at that we can move on to air power.

ah I see, you are not a pilot (yet, not harping, just stating) so you don't quite understand dogfights. Good dogfights in this game heavely rely on hover mode to do a lot of good manuvers that will keep our guns on target and keep ourselves out of the enemy's cross-hairs. Watch the 2ed and 3rd video from the set I posted and you will understand why hover is so important. Also, hovering around ground targets invites AA, Nearly 1hitting tank shells, nearly 1hitting dumbfire rockets and the general ground troops to fire at you and kill you, you currently have to do strafing runs on ground targets in order to survive if there is AA up. once you start flying more, you should be able to see this more.

Also good luck when you start, its rough out there today with all the AA and vet pilots. I suggest after certing into the basics (rank 1 for each slot) to start certing the cool down timer quite a bit, or else you will not get much practice time for quite a wile (cert it up until it is like 500 certs for the next level, save the 500+ ones till you have more certs in other stuff).

On more thing.

I don't care about "great dogfights" or "great A2G battles" I care about the ESF MATTERING to the effort to win and hold territory.

I think ESFs should be effective and well rewarded for fulfilling meaningful missions in the area of operations.

Right now we ESF pilots don't really matter. We help in fringe ways but if we were not in the game the war would look almost entirely the same.

I agree, but I do think to really matter, ESF eaither need to have effective ground attack or Libs need to be effective enough to dedicate a handful of pilots up at all times to get them were AA will fail.

Good for you... I've faced Snafu, Nox, Nuka, etc, even Scourge too. ...but how do you fare against Tyk0?
I've got a nice long video incase you don't know what I'm talking about.

PS: It's actually spelled Tier... And a couple of the more suspicious ones I've reported, haven't shown up in months which leads me to believe you're right about some of that "skill" being h4x that we don't need to account for specifically with balance changes. But it doesn't change my opinion that Pods should be a Primary slot item. That would actually be exactly the kind of buff our Reavers could use if you think about it since we're only supposed to be using them for hit & run anyway...

If Tyk0 is a connery pilot, I have probably fought him however I don't recognize the name off hand.

as for the spelling, I have shitty spelling so don't mind some misspellings or wrong word usage due to spell check + my reading failing me.

As for primary pod slots, I would not mind that change however I think that all ESF should be able to at least defend themselves vs other air, If that means they can only use the default nosegun (or ground attack) if using rocket pods then so be it.

[VGCS]

As for primary pod slots, I would not mind that change however I think that all ESF should be able to at least defend themselves vs other air, If that means they can only use the default nosegun (or ground attack) if using rocket pods then so be it.

Well definitely.... I was really thinking that the Extended AB tanks would be "defense enough" against a Rotory+A2AM user anyway. That's basically all that some of the beginner pilots in my outfit could handle frankly. One of the reasons they 'crutch' so much on pulling Tank columns for fighting other Armor is because they can't fly away fast enough from real A2A players. Shaking up the loadout options would really give them a reason to invest in Racer Airframe and get more comfortable pulling Reavers instead of always jumping into a Galaxy or Vanguard like they do now...

[CliffordtheDuck]

AA maxes are invincible. They sit behind the spawn room shield. This is broken gameplay.

It takes a lot of skill, resources and certs to utilize an ESF. Anyone can get quick access to a variety of AA that is super easy to use and super effective.

[Whiteagle]

It takes a lot of skill, resources and certs to utilize an ESF. Anyone can get quick access to a variety of AA that is super easy to use and super effective.
But the reality is you just suck at ESFs...
Seriously, if you actually HAD the skills to fly you wouldn't whine about Ground AA as it is right now.

[SolLeks]

But the reality is you just suck at ESFs...
Seriously, if you actually HAD the skills to fly you wouldn't whine about Ground AA as it is right now.

Burster maxe's range is OP, I am a good flyer so your L2P point is invalid and childish. You must not fly.

[snafus]

But the reality is you just suck at ESFs...
Seriously, if you actually HAD the skills to fly you wouldn't whine about Ground AA as it is right now.

I don't suck and I think AA has become quite OP in its current state. I truly feel sorry for any player trying to learn how to fly on Connery atm with how bad the AA situation is. Having legions of invisible burster maxs and HA's G2AM firing at us while trying to dogfight isn't easily over come. AA in this game has always been great since launch. The largest issue was people either didn't pull it or lacked the certs to really maximize their potential. Now it is second nature for most outfits I fight to pull one at even the sound of a ESF engine. And god help you if they recognize the pilot as a threat. Because that flak will be thick enough to get out and walk on.

[Artalion]

I don't think you should have to be an elite pilot in order to have fun while flying in Planetside 2.

A good change to ESF's would be to make the differences between the various airframes more noticeable. One of the reasons that hover airframe is preferred is because it can go faster than the racer if you tilt the nose down a little and hit the spacebar.

The more of a difference there is between the equipment, the more radical the behavior of different fighters can become. Higby talked about adding new weapons with either greater range or faster lock on times, but this wouldn't be necessary if the certs governing range and lock on times respectively were more powerful. Want your A2A missiles to launch from further distances, cert the range. Do you want them to lock on quickly for those windy canyon dogfights? Cert up the lock on times. All that remains for the devs is to make sure they can't have both.

Certain combinations might be advantageous. Flares are nice, but if you combine a vehicle stealth with a dogfighting frame, then you might be able to avoid being locked on in the first place.

There are many different options, but the easiest ones to implement and undo would be to change the certs around to be more or less advantageous, as game balance is refined. ESF certs may not be strong enough to affect gameplay in a meaningful way.

Some people have complained about having their dogfights broken up. The thing to keep in mind is that PS2 has some serious teamwork elements. It may not be realistic to expect one on one duels when the sky is swarming with fighters.

[ItZMuRdA]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!

All sounds good to me, but I hope that there will be some compensation in reducing ground AA effectiveness rather than assuming that people will pull it less. Currently even a 1v1 with an ESF and a Burster usually ends up with the Burster winning if you try to toe-to-toe it, which wasn't the case in PS1. Add in a few more people playing A2A roles and as you said, the ESF has no chance of doing anything useful at that location -- even trying to dogfight other air with the ground targets spamming AA at them.

I would love for air to be able to deal with air, and ground AA only to be a necessary deterrent when an ESF or Lib is attempting to take out ground targets. Perhaps you can keep that in mind and limit ground AA effectiveness, especially at range, so that this change doesn't just turn into a flat increase in the amount of anti-air, thus making flying even more frustrating.

[Booface]

If a big part of the issue is that you have ESFs equipping pods and AA noseguns, then the issue is maybe looking at why a combo build is desirable over a dedicated build. Please don't take away the option of a combo build, just find a way to make it so that the roles of the AA nosegun and A2A missiles don't overlap so much.

Example: Right now, there's no reason to have A2A missiles and noseguns. You can't use them both at the same time after all. So you use Pods and noseguns, because the noseguns are superior to A2A missiles, and you lose nothing by switching out the A2A missiles for pods.

My suggestion: Drastically increase the range for A2A missiles. The AA noseguns can be for close up work, and the A2A missiles can be reserved for long range work. Now give them a minimum arming range.

Increase the damage A2A missiles do to liberators and galaxies, but leave the damage they do to ESFs the same. Make them travel much faster but have less tracking, so they miss ESFs often but become more efficient against those bigger targets.

Now we have a clear reason why you'd want A2A missiles versus AA noseguns. You'll need your AA nosegun to defend yourself against ESFs, but your A2A pods will allow you to serve an interceptor role against liberators, galaxies, and to harass other ESFs as you close the distance (but not once the distance is closed).

The next step is splitting out the role of the AI noseguns versus the A2G pods. The AI noseguns (except for the Scythe PPA) already function great against infantry. Why not take the A2G pods and drastically increase velocity but reduce splash? Maybe even give them the armor piercing damage type. Make them longer ranged anti-tank weapons.

Oh, and reduce their ammo. Part of the reason you see pods used to farm infantry is because with enough certs you can spam them all day. If you lower the payload an ESF can carry, you'll start seeing pilots seeing using A2G pods on infantry as a waste--they'll want to save them for tanks, just like they should.

[ChipMHazard]

SNIP
They already tried reducing the effectiveness of ground based AA. That simply led to rocket pods dominating the battlefield.
I wouldn't mind having ground based AA be less effective overall IF rocket pods were made ineffective against ground targets or completely revamped into something else.

[Whiteagle]

They already tried reducing the effectiveness of ground based AA. That simply led to rocket pods dominating the battlefield.
I wouldn't mind having ground based AA be less effective overall IF rocket pods were made ineffective against ground targets or completely revamped into something else.
Indeed, the "Ground as a Deterrent" method was a complete failure, and even if Rocket Pods were altered to be large but weak saturation explosives for area suppression like the Devs are planning their Spawn camping role would quickly be taken up by Liberators.

I would agree to reducing the effective range on MAX Bursters down to Infantry Rendering ranges while boosting the reach of the Skyguard to compensate, but that begs the question; What IS the standard Infantry Rendering Range?

The other day we were trying to keep Terran control of Indar and the Vanu were right at Crater Firing Range.
I pulled an HE Lightning to thin out the purple swarm... and to actually get some use out of my HE Lightning for once...

...Problem was, when I got on top of the ridge outside the Terran Warpgate, I could barely see anyone at Crater Firing Range, despite the fact that I knew the area was swimming in Vanu softies.
How far of a distance is that?
Is this normal, or was it an issue with the huge number of players in the area?
Is the distance between two Bases too far for Bursters to be able to hit, or is it that most Pilots just aren't seeing huge MAX clusters until they suddenly pop up right in front of them?

Personally I don't mind the strength of Ground Anti-Air now when I fly, which I've been trying to do a lot of recently because of arguments like these.
When I get taken down, it's either because I strafed an AA nest too close/one too many times or are shot down by an Enemy AA ESF.
Of course I'm on Waterson, so maybe our lack of Anti-Air Outfits have something to do with it.
I do think that a Duel Burster MAX isn't going to win against an ESF hands down, because both smart MAXes and ESF Pilots don't try to linger in one spot long enough to get hosed down by the other's fire.
Thing is, you usually have ROFLPODders who just sit there and expect to tank all the flak sent at them, or Huge Zergs that pull huge numbers of Busters at the same time due to the Hive Mind.
So I doubt MAXes are OP due to actually having too much Air killing power, and more do to the fact that they are easily spammed.
...But then again, compared to the power Air can have over Ground, I'd rather have too many MAXes down where Infantry can shoot them in the face then ESFs buzzing around nuking everything into oblivion.

[SolLeks]

They already tried reducing the effectiveness of ground based AA. That simply led to rocket pods dominating the battlefield.
I wouldn't mind having ground based AA be less effective overall IF rocket pods were made ineffective against ground targets or completely revamped into something else.

That is why we need to keep the bursters deadly as they are, yet give them a reasonable range.

Assuming render range for infantry is 200m and tanks is 600m, Infantry class AA should only be able to effect up to the 200m render range and tank class AA should effect up to the 600m range (turrets are fine as they are now, deadly and long range, but they are turrets so that is fine. This is also assuming the 200m and 600m are correct distances, if not, replace with correct.).

That way, Pilots get room to breath and infantry / tanks have good anti air coverage. Effective range for ESF weapons vs infantry is only 50 - 100 meters and for tanks is 50 - 250 meters or so anyway, so anything that wants to attack them will be well within AA range before becoming accurate. Libs get a bit more hight but will still need to be low enough to render their targets, and thus in AA range.

This will also keep AA from hitting pilots that are not attacking ground and it will force people to think before moving out. Do I want that skygaurd in my tank column? Currently no as you can stop a sundie and deploy 2 bursters to kill all air in a 3 hex radius, but if the changes I in vision were in place, you WOULD HAVE TO pull that skygaurd a bit before hand to even out your forces... Or have air support, you know, the lil planes in the sky that currently don't do anything of any substance may become useful in helping protect your tanks and infantry?


Edit~ On ground as a deterrent, It was not a failure. Back when the game launched, my outfit would do secusefull AA batteries that would take out all aircraft from around a base. The only reasion it did not work in the over all game is because there was a few things not impilimented or done that we have now.

1. No EXP was givin.
2. When a kill was gotten, it was less than killing a single infantry
3. People did not have the certs to spend on AA.

And from a combination of all of these things, people would not pull AA for the most part.

Now we have all these things, G2A damage EXP, ESF are now worth killing and people are flowing in certs / SC.

[Crysis]

I would like to see a lot of these ideas listed below come into existence; I see a lot of good ideas. I would like to add one to the mix kind of an off topic but would add a whole new concept to game play and make the constant grind of world cap front line battle dimensions change a little.

I would like to see an airship it’s made by players donating their aero points when there is enough gathered a ship could be spawned. This ship would act as a mobile warp gate that would allow a faction to break out if warp gated and move past the lines to a rear area and start capping bases in reverse. This command ship let’s call it, would allow players to spawn aircraft, pod drop. Possibly have some air to air and air to ground capability for defense. This command ship would only be able to spawn aircraft but its landing platform would offer repair and resupply capability and to make sure it’s not abused when you arrive on the landing platform it would cost you aero points to repair and resupply as a balance measure. This would make it hard once your fighter craft goes down to spawn a Liberator or Galaxy if you keep going back to the well to many times.

This would aid in slowing down or stop the gate camping requiring the opposing faction to change tactics and spawn air craft and ground to air units to deal with the command ship. When the ship is active commander’s would have abilities like say battlefield 2 did he could drop supplies, artillery drops and provides a mass radar to ground targets and air vehicles every so many minutes. There would be a seat in the command deck for all the different abilities the ship had to offer.

The balance with it would be it could not spawn tanks or vehicles so once troops are on the ground they are on their own the only support they have is the aircraft overhead. Kind of like an air assault or airborne unit. Only one would be able to be active at a time or one per day per faction.

Just and idea to try to add another aspect to the game.
Crysis232 (WIN)

[SolLeks]

I would like to see a lot of these ideas listed below come into existence; I see a lot of good ideas. I would like to add one to the mix kind of an off topic but would add a whole new concept to game play and make the constant grind of world cap front line battle dimensions change a little.

I would like to see an airship it’s made by players donating their aero points when there is enough gathered a ship could be spawned. This ship would act as a mobile warp gate that would allow a faction to break out if warp gated and move past the lines to a rear area and start capping bases in reverse. This command ship let’s call it, would allow players to spawn aircraft, pod drop. Possibly have some air to air and air to ground capability for defense. This command ship would only be able to spawn aircraft but its landing platform would offer repair and resupply capability and to make sure it’s not abused when you arrive on the landing platform it would cost you aero points to repair and resupply as a balance measure. This would make it hard once your fighter craft goes down to spawn a Liberator or Galaxy if you keep going back to the well to many times.

This would aid in slowing down or stop the gate camping requiring the opposing faction to change tactics and spawn air craft and ground to air units to deal with the command ship. When the ship is active commander’s would have abilities like say battlefield 2 did he could drop supplies, artillery drops and provides a mass radar to ground targets and air vehicles every so many minutes. There would be a seat in the command deck for all the different abilities the ship had to offer.

The balance with it would be it could not spawn tanks or vehicles so once troops are on the ground they are on their own the only support they have is the aircraft overhead. Kind of like an air assault or airborne unit. Only one would be able to be active at a time or one per day per faction.

Just and idea to try to add another aspect to the game.
Crysis232 (WIN)

I would love Titan mode >=)

[Whiteagle]

I would like to see an airship it’s made by players donating their aero points when there is enough gathered a ship could be spawned. This ship would act as a mobile warp gate that would allow a faction to break out if warp gated and move past the lines to a rear area and start capping bases in reverse. This command ship let’s call it, would allow players to spawn aircraft, pod drop. Possibly have some air to air and air to ground capability for defense. This command ship would only be able to spawn aircraft but its landing platform would offer repair and resupply capability and to make sure it’s not abused when you arrive on the landing platform it would cost you aero points to repair and resupply as a balance measure. This would make it hard once your fighter craft goes down to spawn a Liberator or Galaxy if you keep going back to the well to many times.

This would aid in slowing down or stop the gate camping requiring the opposing faction to change tactics and spawn air craft and ground to air units to deal with the command ship. When the ship is active commander’s would have abilities like say battlefield 2 did he could drop supplies, artillery drops and provides a mass radar to ground targets and air vehicles every so many minutes. There would be a seat in the command deck for all the different abilities the ship had to offer.

The balance with it would be it could not spawn tanks or vehicles so once troops are on the ground they are on their own the only support they have is the aircraft overhead. Kind of like an air assault or airborne unit. Only one would be able to be active at a time or one per day per faction.

Had an idea similar to this, but instead of an Air-carrier it was Factional Orbital Ships that kept moving from Continent to Continent.
Basically, moving Sanctuaries that also acted as HART Shuttles.

Don't know if this would provide what you'd want though, since I'd rather see Air Carriers as a seperate superheavy class of Air Vehicle to provide an Air-based target for Combat.

[CrankyTRex]

1. No EXP was givin.
2. When a kill was gotten, it was less than killing a single infantry
3. People did not have the certs to spend on AA.

And from a combination of all of these things, people would not pull AA for the most part.

Now we have all these things, G2A damage EXP, ESF are now worth killing and people are flowing in certs / SC.

Yeah I thought the balance was working itself out rather well once the XP went into play. People actually started using the turrets, which in my opinion should be the primary ground-based AA in the game anyway. They should be upgradeable by an engy to have better armor, range, maybe even go from flak to missile. Possibly even have the option to choose your round so that you could have some big AoE-style flak puffs that go off at a set range.

[ItZMuRdA]

That is why we need to keep the bursters deadly as they are, yet give them a reasonable range.

Right, my point was limiting range. If you want to accomplish fun air vs. air dogfights where air primarily deal with other air, then you can't have ground AA screwing up all the fun fights hundreds of meters in the air because they want some extra kills.

If we're going to bring a bunch of new tools into the game that are effectively anti-air, I believe the current ground AA needs to be limited in its power, primarily by reducing its effective range.

I already think AA is too powerful as it is and often "ruins" many dogfights when the ESFs in question aren't even a threat to the ground troops that the AA is supposed to be protecting. It should be powerful at preventing rocket spam, not a complete counter to all aircraft in the vicinity even if they are up high dogfighting.

[Crysis]

It was more of an idea of having a super heavy ship that would make the other factions change their course of action and strategy to end the same old same old. This would require the other factions to relocating assets to take the ship down which is no easy task based on the damage it would take. The command ship could be used offensively or defensively depending on the strategy that your faction’s leadership puts together. But it would have to be planned out because the amount of points to spawn it would take some time.

Let’s say it cost 100k aero and armor points to spawn one. That could take as long as a week to get enough resource points dedicated for one to spawn. You could make it a major bonus to take it down like an alert say 5000xp it be like an alert without an alert… what do you think?

[SolLeks]

Right, my point was limiting range. If you want to accomplish fun air vs. air dogfights where air primarily deal with other air, then you can't have ground AA screwing up all the fun fights hundreds of meters in the air because they want some extra kills.

If we're going to bring a bunch of new tools into the game that are effectively anti-air, I believe the current ground AA needs to be limited in its power, primarily by reducing its effective range.

I already think AA is too powerful as it is and often "ruins" many dogfights when the ESFs in question aren't even a threat to the ground troops that the AA is supposed to be protecting. It should be powerful at preventing rocket spam, not a complete counter to all aircraft in the vicinity even if they are up high dogfighting.

Yep, 100% agree.

[Starstriker]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!

If you're just looking for some good air-to-air loadouts, here are some thoughts:

1) Boost combat performance with non-weapon secondaries. I already use the afterburner tanks in my air-to-air loadout and it makes me much more agile in the air, but it isn't a decisive advantage unless I'm bugging out or chasing. Giving up the secondary means that rockets (the primary A2G weapon) aren't available, so providing performance boosts here is a surefire way to boost A2A performance. An elegant way to fit this in would be cert lines for the afterburner tanks to diversify and amplify their effect. For instance:

Improved afterburner characteristics, like fuel capacity, speed, or recharge rate)
Improved flight characteristics, like turn rate or speed increases ON TOP of air-frame bonuses


If air to air speced ESFs are just that much more agile and mobile than the targets they hunt, they'll have a distinct advantage in the air.

2) Add negative aspects to air to ground weapons. If equipping rockets or an air-to-ground nosegun meant that you turned and accelerated more sluggishly, you'd think twice about bringing an A2G fighter into a dogfight.

3) Add long range weapons for air-to-air secondaries that are NOT fire and forget. I say that because the air-to-air missiles back in their day of dominance were INCREDIBLY irritating, and I know many pilots refused to use them (myself included) because they felt "skill-less" and didn't provide much in the way of interesting gameplay. However, they filled a niche that the noseguns weren't filling: long range air-to-air combat. This is important when chasing distant targets or trying to provide air cover over an area. Here are some ideas for that:


All factions: wing mounted flak cannons. Significantly lower DPS than the noseguns (and possibly a minimum range) but the fudge factor of the shells allows for long-range air suppression and harassment.
Vanu: Precise beam weapon. Continuous fire with a finite ammo supply and a heat gauge.
TR: Air-to-air missiles, fired in salvos of 6 with high velocity. Target has to stay under the crosshair or they stop tracking, like the SAAM missiles mentioned by other posters.
NC: Gauss cannons. Basically air-to-air sniper rifles. Low fire rate, small magazine size, high velocity, heavy impact (on air targets).


A set of long-range weapons like this will allow air-superiority fighters to cover larger areas, engage targets before they can get too close, and more effectively chase.

4) Slightly off topic, but: please make sure that the air-to-air loadouts (afterburner tanks or custom secondaries, etc) are more obvious at a glance. Right now, the aircraft silhouettes don't convey a lot of information about exactly what kind of fighter you're facing. It'd be great if there were silhouette differences in A2A fighters that you could look for to better size up the opposition. Fuel tanks, rocket pods, and A2A missiles all look pretty similar at a glance, even when they aren't obscured by the rest of the vehicle.

Hope that's at all helpful. Thanks for soliciting feedback like this Higby, it's much appreciated.

[laovniux]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!


I think you've got that a bit wrong... Sure ESF was rewarding against ground when we could kill a tank in the back with half a photon pods clip but now you are not sure to kill him even with a full clip... And ESF against infantry? That is completely pointless the splash is completely useless, the direct hit can't one hit kill an infantry and if you try to stand still you will get shot down. The only time you try to hit ground targets with an ESF is only when there are VERY little enemies around you or there are a lot of friends. I can honestly say that 2 average esf's can't kill a single burster who knows how to move around and has an engineer with him. Sure a2a combat can use some work but at the moment I can't feel as much of a disadvantage using photons + rotary in the air then when I try to kill something on the ground. Ground can kill and ESF in a few seconds and if you think it is not overpowered take a look at this

http://youtu.be/iyTYRTMxSlE

Please improve air to ground 1st or at least give air more of a chance to escape.

[Gatekeeper]

Currently even a 1v1 with an ESF and a Burster usually ends up with the Burster winning if you try to toe-to-toe it, which wasn't the case in PS1.

Heh. You remember AA MAX effectiveness in PS1 very differently to me. If my Starfire died to a single Reaver I was very embarrassed.

Damn I miss my jump-jets :(

[CraazyCanuck]

Previous post mentioned certs for ammo increase etc. What this game needs for air is to take weight into consideration. Space. There is only so much space on an aircraft as well. Where's all that ammo/batteries stored? Why is there no weight for all that equipment. There should be consequences for a pilot certing out an ammo heavy craft. Air speed, manueverability, drop rate need to be negatively effected for an increase in weight.

Specialized air frames can compensate marginally for this. Afterburner certification can work along the same lines. You want a longer burst, it will require more fuel, inturn making you heavier. Another option would be to have a cert line for an improved burst. Same weight but the fuel system/grade of fuel improves the quality of the burst to give the pilot a higher top speed. While the duration for this speed will be shortened, their weight will not be negatively effected. Benefits with consequences. Pilots will have to take weight into consideration when certing out and allow pilots more options in how they spec out their aircraft.

Pilots that run light will be more manueverable and faster then one who opts for more ammo, more fuel but will have to make more trips back to the launchpad. Same deal for the liberators and galaxies. You want to run the dalton, the gun itself and the shells for it are much larger and much heavier then the zephyr, the zephyr heavier then the shredder, etc. Same works for the other gun placement decisions.

Composite armor, # flares, chaff (if they bring this onboard), specialized frames, various weapons, should all have an impact on your craft's weight. Another benefit to bringing weight into the equation is that the default aircraft will have some advantages for new pilots against some specialized aircraft and how they are certed out.

Edit: For those familiar with Mechwarrior, something along the lines of mech customization but for aircraft, and ground vehicles. This will open up new cert lines and more opportunities for SOE to entice SC expenditure. More thought process will have to go into customization. Which is good. Breaks the cookie cutter mold, and gives the player more options and will bring more diversification to the battlefield.

[Shogun]

how about an air-equivalent of the annoyonades?

something like an emp cannon that cleggs your opponents steering electronics, impacts his vision, disables his HUD or disables his afterburners or flares for a set amount of time or until it is repaired?

[SolLeks]

impacts his vision

I will pass on that one, VS have it right now and it really sucks.

[HelpLuperza]

Good ideas in here!

I've been lurking in the thread for a few days and I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're trying to do and when you can expect to see it. Our main goal here is to create some new, rewarding specs for ESFs to fly besides air-to-ground or more commonly hybrid specs like pods+rotaries which have no real downside. By creating some dedicated air-to-air specs and more specifically anti-ESF air-to-air specs, we hope that we can shift some number of pilots away from farming ground, and allow air to counter the ones that remain there a bit better. Ideally this results in fewer people being forced to run anti-air as infantry, and therefore makes close air-support a role with a bit more depth than "if there are lots of burster MAXes I'm done here, if not I win"

All of these changes are still 100% on the drawing board, they're not something you should expect to see in the next update or even the one after that - it's at least 3-4 GUs away, so please do keep the ideas flowing!
Ironically, I kind of accidently posted another thread about your orginal tweet before realizing that thier was this one here. oops... Anyways...
1) Thanks for replying Higby, your continued feedback means alot to us. Honestly, I know these things take time, but I am glad your guys are tackling air, because lately I a lot the people who I know who flew air either died, stop playing, or have been playing on ground as anti-air. Hopefully these new ideas when they come will help to bring back more people back into the air. So, please thanks for being their for us and continue to give us your thoughts on the topic.



2) Add negative aspects to air to ground weapons. If equipping rockets or an air-to-ground nosegun meant that you turned and accelerated more sluggishly, you'd think twice about bringing an A2G fighter into a dogfight.


2) As much as I would like this to happen as a lib pilot, who constantly gets shot down these days, I honestly think that in terms of fairness we should leave rockets alone. Instead might I propose that PS2 introduce some of the anti-missle or anti-flak ideas other people have suggested already. What do you think?

3) Galaxy Traction for PS2 Pirate: Just for the test server or a very small continent, I think it would be cool weapon or ability that temporarily allowed Infantry were able to walk on galaxies easier. This is because their is a popular PS2 minigame, called PS2 pirate, were each faction gets a gal with engineers, light assults, and maxes and pretends to be flying pirate ships. Its a really fun minigame, but it would be even more epic if like the ship could make a temporary banked turn without everyone dieing.

4) Have you guys heard of the Horizontal Reverse turn? http://oi44.tinypic.com/35jxi1f.jpg It would be nice if the new primary weapons you guys are thinking about would take advantage of this special turn for the VS and TR.

(P.S. I had a thinking about macross, but I am double checking this time to see if no one else has made the same comment about Air Rivals problems with multishot weapons).

[Ralek]

Lots of good ideas here (and some pretty bad ones).

I'm primarily a ground pounder, taking to the skies mostly when my outfit has a low amount of members on.

That being said, one of the reasons I dislike the A2A role so much is that it is very unrewarding, even more so than pulling burster MAX duty.

I reiterate some of the suggestions here:

Double the flight ceiling. Most good dogfights (multiple air to air on both sides) gets ruined by G2A intervention in a couple of minutes. It is natural... people see a lot of enemy aircraft they pull AA.

Remove the ability to bail from ESFs and Libs unless they have an ejection system equipped. Want to get out of your plane, land first.

Implement those changes first, then re-evaluate and take it from there.

[maradine]

I approve of this message. Also bourbon.

[Whiteagle]

Double the flight ceiling. Most good dogfights (multiple air to air on both sides) gets ruined by G2A intervention in a couple of minutes. It is natural... people see a lot of enemy aircraft they pull AA.
You guys don't realise how this will break the game, do you?

[phungus]

Higby why do you think it's a good idea for half of all Air to Air combat kills to go uncredited as suicides? Do you disagree that this heavily discourages air to air combat? Imagine if half of all infantry deaths had a 50% chance of going uncredted, do you think this would encourage people to play the game? I don't get it, I don't get the design goal here and why we are even discussing ways to improve A2A gameplay when A2A gameplay is designed to punish players by defacto randomly denying kill credits. Why do you want the game mechanics to punish air to air players?

[Roderick]

That video is ridiculous!

Sadly players who swear by the Burster MAX may find absolutely nothing wrong there with balance issues.

This is why some ESF players want the flight ceiling changed. The ESF is not a threat to the ground at a higher altitude. The Burster MAX is supposed to be an Air to Ground deterrent to protect infantry and ground vehicles from the ESF, etc.

In this video, the Burster MAX is used as a tool to promote player grief. Also makes me wonder how many logged off and played another game after being farmed at the Warpgate like that. Especially if there was an alert going on.

Add this to the list of problems left unchecked by SOE.

[snafus]

You guys don't realise how this will break the game, do you?

Bursters will have a harder time farming air is all I see happening.

[Whiteagle]

Bursters will have a harder time farming air is all I see happening.
Actually the opposite...
What do you think will happen when there is an area in the game that only one type of Vehicle can reach and it grants access anywhere?

[Sunrock]

How about redesigning air so that instead of hover jockeying jets dogfight at speed using maneuvers somewhat similar to real life? Similar is the key word here, shooting for actual realism is not the idea.

That said, as for weapons, we have guns and short range heatseekers, radar and longer ranged BVR is really the only thing that has any RL parallel that we don't have.

If all ESF was "nerfd" to the handling of the mossy as the mossy drops as a stone (with speed frame) if you go under 100km you would get that.

But I don't think there should be any new weapons for ESF dogfighting as that would just make things that are balanced now unbalanced.

[snafus]

Truth be told no amount of changes to A2A gameplay will bring back the air battles as they once were. That is all impossible unless they nerf AA. IT is simply to strong and allowing bursters to invisibly fire across multiple hexs and score hits on aircraft makes me sick. Air will die regardless of new weapons or tricked out fuel tanks. One thing has to be nerfed and air can come back and that is AA. You take away the bursters ability to engage beyond infantry render distance and you will have a aviation community again. Leave the sky guard as is or even buff it slightly but you MUST nerf the burster or air will never come back.

[snafus]

Actually the opposite...
What do you think will happen when there is an area in the game that only one type of Vehicle can reach and it grants access anywhere?


I know where you are heading with this and if one faction doesn't keep A2A ESF up then they will pay with an enemy that can move freely. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion each faction better keep a good airforce up or you will pay.

[Whiteagle]

I know where you are heading with this and if one faction doesn't keep A2A ESF up then they will pay with an enemy that can move freely. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion each faction better keep a good airforce up or you will pay.
And what happens when you can't?

Seriously, people whine about population imbalance now, wait until you need a large high skill population pool for a single unit to keep all the rest of your shit from being wrecked!

[snafus]

And what happens when you can't?

Seriously, people whine about population imbalance now, wait until you need a large high skill population pool for a single unit to keep all the rest of your shit from being wrecked!

You realize they cannot engage you from our supposed new flight ceiling. Yes they can go anywhere on the map but they must drop altitude to engage ground targets leaving them vulnerable to all your OP AA tools. This would give air the freedom they need to possibly be effective but would not leave you over exposed since rendering has and always will be in favor of ground forces. And currently as long as you can pop lock a continent then if a faction rolls primarily air they will be losing the ground battle with those resources going airborne.

[Whiteagle]

You realize they cannot engage you from our supposed new flight ceiling. Yes they can go anywhere on the map but they must drop altitude to engage ground targets leaving them vulnerable to all your OP AA tools. This would give air the freedom they need to possibly be effective but would not leave you over exposed since rendering has and always will be in favor of ground forces.
Ah, but here is where your solo focus on ESFs rears its ugly head!
ESFs might not be able to use this envelop to it's full advantage, since they've already got the maneuverability to use Terrain for the same purpose, but what of GALAXIES?

What happens when Gal Taxi's can just stream Zerg Troops all over the map?

Do you remember how bad AMS Galaxies were in Beta?

[maradine]

Then they have to be shot down. And the faction that doesn't do so is at a logistical disadvantage. Imagine that - winning the air war grants you a movement advantage! Shocking!

My god, people don't want negative consequences to anything around here.

[Whiteagle]

Then they have to be shot down. And the faction that doesn't do so is at a logistical disadvantage. Imagine that - winning the air war grants you a movement advantage!
But that's the problem, you ONLY have to win the Air War!
Everything else becomes secondary to ESFs taking down Galaxies, sort of how it was in Beta when Gals could spawn...

Why pull tanks?
They won't do shit when everyone rains in from the Sky...

You create a game where you either Turtle up in a Base or fly, I think we had enough of that at launch myself.

[maradine]

Pop quiz. Imagine a world where a fully crewed Galaxy can make it to its drop point with 100% assurance.

Is this world:

a) Fantasy.
b) The current reality.

[Whiteagle]

Well B if you can actually fill the Galaxy...

[Sunrock]

Pop quiz. Imagine a world where a fully crewed Galaxy can make it to its drop point with 100% assurance.



Well our outfit is doing that every day....

[maradine]

I'm glad you agree. And therefore, I posit that every Galaxy that wants to get through to a target and get the drop off already is, and therefore, raising the flight ceiling won't get any more of them through. You can't improve 100%.

[Whiteagle]

I'm glad you agree. And therefore, I posit that every Galaxy that wants to get through to a target and get the drop off already is, and therefore, raising the flight ceiling won't get any more of them through. You can't improve 100%.
Ah, but can they go to and fro from the Warpgate with impunity?

It's one thing for a Gal to get to the point, another entirely for it to make it back.

[maradine]

So what if they can or can't? The payload's been delivered, and that's what you fear. The payload.

[Whiteagle]

So what if they can or can't? The payload's been delivered, and that's what you fear. The payload.
No, I fear the NEXT payload, the one after that, and the one after THAT...

You starting to see where the issue comes in?

[maradine]

Unless your outfit magically mints 11 more members to drop every time you come back to the gate to stage a drop, I call that line of argument utter hogwash.

Completely unnecessary to point out, but for the sake of putting the final nail in the coffin, I also note that there's usually more than one capable Gal pilot on the team.

Again - in plain English - every Galaxy drop that wants to get through today is getting through.

[Whiteagle]

Unless your outfit magically mints 11 more members to drop every time you come back to the gate to stage a drop, I call that line of argument utter hogwash.
Who said anything about Outfit mates?
Just fill up with Pubs and keep taxi'ing.

Again - in plain English - every Galaxy drop that wants to get through today is getting through.
Yes, but Galaxy's aren't currently the outright best way to get anywhere right now!

You raise the flight ceiling and all you'll need is Air Superiorty and Gals to constantly rain down Pups from the Skies.

[maradine]

If Galaxies aren't the best way to get someone somewhere at their current 100% efficacy as you suggest, they won't be with a raised flight ceiling either, because their success rate can't get better. This is literally a math question. I'm not sure where and how I'm losing you.

[Neurotoxin]

Non-damage nullification weaponry would be great. A Secondary weapon radial EMP that disables weapon systems & afterburners on enemy aircraft for 5 seconds (and maybe also kills the UI) would give even the worst of pilots a way to fight back against enemy air. Galaxy pilots should get this as a stock feature, maybe Sunderers too.

Another suggestion is A2A (with dumbfire) rockets that deal minimal damage but shut off the engine for 2 to 3 seconds. This is meant to counter players using terrain and low-flying techniques, or to drop a hovering ESF or Liberator because they don't have the thrust or height to recover. If it affects ESF for 3 seconds, it only should affect Libs for 2 seconds, and Galaxy for 1 second.

Ferrous rounds could be added, which basically put easily-detectible metal scraps into the target so all AA lock-on weapons have a shorter lock time. Every hit reduces lock times by 5%, relative to the last hit. 2 hits is 5% of 95% (90.25%). 3 hits is 5% of 90.25% (87.74%). This caps out at 75%, and doesn't wear off until the damage itself is repaired. This also increases the range that the ESF automatically shows up on radar. Due to the inability to shield these rounds from sensors, the user of the Ferrous rounds also suffer an unavoidable 10% (or higher) reduction to lock time, and increase to automatic radar detection.

Raise the fight ceiling to 1200, insert an atmospheric / cloud layer around 850. This allows aircraft to fly high and avoid AA, but have no visibility of the situation below, and be vulnerable to high altitude A2A hunters.

Weaker A2A missiles that are fired 4-at-a-time in a drunken dumbfire pattern before lock is established, but lock can be established before or during flight to cause homing mechanisms to kick in. This prevents it from being potent for A2G uses (particularly why it has the drunken dumbfire rather than linear patterns), while giving pilots a way to trick or trap enemy aircraft and reduce their possible avenues of escape. These shouldn't be more powerful than a single A2A rocket, but flares shouldn't be able go grab more than 3 of the 4 A2A rockets, so minimal damage from these lock-on missiles may be unavoidable. However, their speed and maneuverability (and travel distance) are less than the standard A2A rocket, so the pilot really has to anticipate where the enemy will go to get the best effect.

Lock Designator for ESF air squads. One ESF establishes lock (with a non-weapon secondary) and all the other ESF have signigicatly reduced lock times for their missiles. Or it could be part of a new team weapon, an A2A missile that only works when an ally locks with a Lock Designator, but allows all allies to fire immediately and have the missile hit. Flares only shrug off the first 3 missiles, so a crew of 6 or more would be needed to truly instagib any 1 enemy ESF in the air.

Put Rangers on Liberators for the Tertiary weapon, and as an alternative to the Bulldog on Galaxys. This allows poor gunners to have a more forgiving weapon that somewhat blinds the pursuing aircraft, and lets the Galaxy be used as a flying A2A fortress.

[CliffordtheDuck]

AA is not too powerful in terms of damage. It is too accessible. The availability and amount of flak and lock-on rockets vs the the availability and amount of aircraft is extremely unbalanced.

It takes FAR fewer players and resources (and skill) to combat air than it does to actually field it.

People are only flying in Planetside through sheer perseverance right now.
During an alert we'd be more useful to our team if we were on the ground

[LeilaniRock]

Truth be told no amount of changes to A2A gameplay will bring back the air battles as they once were. That is all impossible unless they nerf AA. IT is simply to strong and allowing bursters to invisibly fire across multiple hexs and score hits on aircraft makes me sick. Air will die regardless of new weapons or tricked out fuel tanks. One thing has to be nerfed and air can come back and that is AA. You take away the bursters ability to engage beyond infantry render distance and you will have a aviation community again. Leave the sky guard as is or even buff it slightly but you MUST nerf the burster or air will never come back.

This! Problem solved (and i fly a lot-all three factions)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PurpleOtter]

It's not an Air to Air weapon, but how about an Engineer deployable: the Barrage Balloon, if an ESF crashes into it, it goes boom! Deploy over a base near you!

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSTEC_T2GcpCxuLOcSV6OmXQffrFpqVj 9cnc0oaXj-9WxCf2MJZMyEOeg

[snafus]

Who said anything about Outfit mates?
Just fill up with Pubs and keep taxi'ing.


You must play on a server with some bad ass pubs dude. Sorry to say back when Connery had some real population you saw Gal pilots begging people to load up and were rarely rewarded. That is simply a make believe scenario that isn't going to be a factor. Gals are only effective at getting troops on a hot location when some competence and comms are involved. Hell It would be great seeing a gall full of pubs doing nothing as the pilot is yelling at them to drop. Free certs is all I would imagine in that moment dude.

[CraazyCanuck]

*snip*

On mattherson and on waterson, I find myself loaded up with pubs in a Gal quite often. While it may take a bit longer at times to get a fullseater, I think it more has to do with time of day and whether an alert is active on another continent. Once loaded its easy enough to get the pubs out over the drop and sending them on their way by locking the gal down. Not many people use the in game comms, but there have been some gal pilots I've come across who give a quick squawk to warn of the incoming drop, or a heads up area chat. But mostly if its not outfit related its a quiet ride.

Barely play on Connery so not sure how bad things are there.

[camycamera]

Double the flight ceiling, it will make ESF fights better without being distracted and killed by ground units.

and imagine a Galaxy drop, people just drop down from the sky from nowhere, that would be awesome :D

[CliffordtheDuck]

Double the flight ceiling, it will make ESF fights better without being distracted and killed by ground units.

and imagine a Galaxy drop, people just drop down from the sky from nowhere, that would be awesome :D


I hope the devs don't actually pay attention to horrific design ideas like this.

[maradine]

Reasonably certain there isn't much of a consensus that this is a bad idea. I'm sure you'd like to elaborate, though.

[Shamrock]

if you think it is not overpowered take a look at this

http://youtu.be/iyTYRTMxSlE

Please improve air to ground 1st or at least give air more of a chance to escape.

That vid shows a full platoon of bursters with support engineers, a platoon of 28 players is not OP by blowing up 2 to 3 ESF pilots and suiciding GAL pilots.

[Whiteagle]

If Galaxies aren't the best way to get someone somewhere at their current 100% efficacy as you suggest, they won't be with a raised flight ceiling either, because their success rate can't get better. This is literally a math question. I'm not sure where and how I'm losing you.
It isn't about them getting TO the Drop, it's Galaxies getting BACK to the Warpgate unscathed because they can literally avoid anything but Air-to-air ESFs.

Reasonably certain there isn't much of a consensus that this is a bad idea. I'm sure you'd like to elaborate, though.
On mattherson and on waterson, I find myself loaded up with pubs in a Gal quite often. While it may take a bit longer at times to get a fullseater, I think it more has to do with time of day and whether an alert is active on another continent. Once loaded its easy enough to get the pubs out over the drop and sending them on their way by locking the gal down. Not many people use the in game comms, but there have been some gal pilots I've come across who give a quick squawk to warn of the incoming drop, or a heads up area chat. But mostly if its not outfit related its a quiet ride.
So now we've got Pub Air Taxi's constantly going back and forth from the Warpgate, dumping huge numbers down on every fight with no warning.

The ground game becomes completely irrelevant, because who ever gains Air Superiority will win through uncounterable mobility.

[Falcon_br]

Ok, after 12 pages the things that everyone agree are:
Increase flight ceiling, so galaxies can stealth drop soldiers all day long without any worries with anti air ground units, just keep one eye for those esf flying very high, maybe they got luck and on the whole map to choose, he was on the same place as you were so he can kill you if you are full of idiot gunners and you still have time to eject everyone so he doesn't get any kill!
Ok, this idea is really dumb, lets go to the next one:
3d radar on ESF, that would be great, but does anyone know how to implement it on the planetside 2 engines? It has been discussed here before... The game uses 2 axis, not three, it was not built to be a flight simulator, even the bullet drop doesn't works right because of the lack of z axis, so I really don't think it is possible to be implemented on the game.
The emp ability will really be more used to grief then to really help your team! I am pretty sure about that!
I am looking about the eve online ship to ship weapons, maybe I can find something that can be used on the game, I will also look other games, but it is really hard to find, my only bet until now is the QAAM from the ace combat series.

[Juryrig]

Ok, after 12 pages the things that everyone agree are:
Increase flight ceiling, so galaxies can stealth drop soldiers all day long without any worries with anti air ground units, just keep one eye for those esf flying very high, maybe they got luck and on the whole map to choose, he was on the same place as you were so he can kill you if you are full of idiot gunners and you still have time to eject everyone so he doesn't get any kill!
Ok, this idea is really dumb, lets go to the next one:

Just limit the height above terrain from which Gals can hot-drop. So they can transit in relative safety at high altitude, but have to drop to within range of ground based AA before they can offload. Play around with actual height/speed/drop rate/etc to get some kind of balance or utility/risk.

3d radar on ESF, that would be great, but does anyone know how to implement it on the planetside 2 engines? It has been discussed here before... The game uses 2 axis, not three, it was not built to be a flight simulator, even the bullet drop doesn't works right because of the lack of z axis, so I really don't think it is possible to be implemented on the game.

If the game only had two axes we wouldn't have flight at all.... David Braben coded a very, very clear and functional 3d pilot display in 'Elite' in 1984, when the entire game fit within 12 kilobytes. I'll never believe anyone who says it can't be done in PS2 because of 'technical reasons'. The data exists within the clients, it's just a question of how to display it.

There's no reason why it can't be completely separate to the existing minimap - some really elegant way to present the data in an integrated manner would be great, but I'd take a simple, non-integrated, toggleable solution over 'nothing' any day of the week.

Personal thoughts:

1) raise the flight ceiling, so there is a separate area of operation for air out of range of ground based AA, which also prevents air attacking ground from the 'safe zone' (give all the AG weapons a 'max range' beyond which their damage drops to zero
2) change flares to an ammo based system, and make them give a percentage chance of breaking lock, rather than 100% certainty. Start at 50%, increase through certs to 90 or 95%
3) split lolpods into AV/AI variants
4) give the aircraft a flight model reasonably based on physics and vectored thrust, rather than the magical float-model they currently have
5) change the altitude display to be height above ground, rather than height above SL - or make it selectable.

There have been loads of good suggestions made in the thread, it'd be nice to see a whole bunch of them tried on the test server to see how they actually play out. With the obvious caveat that there probably aren't enough bodies on the test server to test them thoroughly...maybe we could start a test-pilot recruiting drive?

[snafus]

That vid shows a full platoon of bursters with support engineers, a platoon of 28 players is not OP by blowing up 2 to 3 ESF pilots and suiciding GAL pilots.

It isn't so much that they got the kills it is the fact I know those pilots never saw the burster nest until they were around 100 meters. It should be a fair engagement where aircraft can at least see what is about to kill them. If that was a pile of sky guards then it would be absolutely fair as the pilots could see the threat approaching. But with bursters you don't usually see the tracers until you get close.

[Whiteagle]

It isn't so much that they got the kills it is the fact I know those pilots never saw the burster nest until they were around 100 meters. It should be a fair engagement where aircraft can at least see what is about to kill them. If that was a pile of sky guards then it would be absolutely fair as the pilots could see the threat approaching. But with bursters you don't usually see the tracers until you get close.
This is at least understandable, but is probably why increasing the flight ceiling is the worst thing they can do to fix it.

Burster MAXes probably have such a long reach in order to have a chance at scaring off an overhead Liberator hovering at the ceiling, but that means they are then have a range radius at least that distance in all directions.

Skyguards would need an even longer effective range to do the same thing, since they will most likely be firing at an angle instead of straight up.

[SolLeks]

This is at least understandable, but is probably why increasing the flight ceiling is the worst thing they can do to fix it.

Burster MAXes probably have such a long reach in order to have a chance at scaring off an overhead Liberator hovering at the ceiling, but that means they are then have a range radius at least that distance in all directions.

Skyguards would need an even longer effective range to do the same thing, since they will most likely be firing at an angle instead of straight up.

why dose anything need to scare off anything at ceiling, its not like they can even hurt you since what does not render, does not take damage.

[Whiteagle]

why dose anything need to scare off anything at ceiling, its not like they can even hurt you since what does not render, does not take damage.
Debatable, I've heard plenty of complaints about people getting killed by 'invisible Liberator' rounds, so who's to say unrendered kills don't happen.

...Actually, that might be the cause of both the "Striker still hits me even through a Mountain" and "The Second clip on the Striker is a dud" bugs; The second clip IS firing, but it's not rendering so it ghost straight to the Target without the User being any the wiser.

[SolLeks]

Debatable, I've heard plenty of complaints about people getting killed by 'invisible Liberator' rounds, so who's to say unrendered kills don't happen.

...Actually, that might be the cause of both the "Striker still hits me even through a Mountain" and "The Second clip on the Striker is a dud" bugs; The second clip IS firing, but it's not rendering so it ghost straight to the Target without the User being any the wiser.

I do remember the invisible lib rounds bug, but I thought that was fixed quite a wile ago but who knows. as for the 2ed one, that does make sense, however I was under the impression that the only player that matters render wise, is if he can see the enemy, not if the enemy can see him due to how CSHD works, I could be wrong however.

[Whiteagle]

I do remember the invisible lib rounds bug, but I thought that was fixed quite a wile ago but who knows. as for the 2ed one, that does make sense, however I was under the impression that the only player that matters render wise, is if he can see the enemy, not if the enemy can see him due to how CSHD works, I could be wrong however.
Indeed, we don't know how it work, let alone what kind of bugs that could slip pass the Devs due to unaccounted for variables that come up in gameplay.

I mean, all this could be the fault of that guy who streams Banjo Music over VOIP in the Warpgate...

[Obstruction]

probably more like tanks can't exactly look right overhead, or a lib can approach and acquire in the split second they happen not to be looking. and that an upgraded dalton reload is faster than the travel time from ~600m.

it is also probably the client side reconciliation issue, the same as someone rounding the corner and killing you while you're standing still on their screen and it reconciles as instant gibb for you. or on your screen you got behind cover, but on theirs you haven't yet. people rage but it's not that hard to understand.

this is all very well known stuff, and the main problem with multiplayer online competition.

anyways i fly a lib a lot more than anything else in the game and the only thing i do above 600 meters is look for lurking ESF or find the other Lib teams to engage in a duel.

[snafus]

This is at least understandable, but is probably why increasing the flight ceiling is the worst thing they can do to fix it.

Burster MAXes probably have such a long reach in order to have a chance at scaring off an overhead Liberator hovering at the ceiling, but that means they are then have a range radius at least that distance in all directions.

Skyguards would need an even longer effective range to do the same thing, since they will most likely be firing at an angle instead of straight up.

Burster in my opinion should only be effective at infantry render range. IF they do not reduce that then no amount of tweaking will give air a chance. And of course give a slight buff to the skyguard. It would do better with a faster turret transversal and tighter COF. These two changes would allow air the chance to engage in large fights but NOT be able to farm infantry without risk. And if a lib or ESF hangs at max alt and tries to rain down on your vehicles then your skyguards will be more then capable to eliminate the threat.

[snafus]

Debatable, I've heard plenty of complaints about people getting killed by 'invisible Liberator' rounds, so who's to say unrendered kills don't happen.

...Actually, that might be the cause of both the "Striker still hits me even through a Mountain" and "The Second clip on the Striker is a dud" bugs; The second clip IS firing, but it's not rendering so it ghost straight to the Target without the User being any the wiser.

Invisible rounds are a bug for all long range projectiles.

[Whiteagle]

And of course give a slight buff to the skyguard. It would do better with a faster turret transversal and tighter COF.
No, it needs a projectile speed boost so you can actually hit things with it, instead of needing to lead three plane lenghts ahead...

[Kail]

I was thinking the another night of how to allow newbie pilots like myself ways to be more effective by actually training / teaching better aiming and flying. What I thought might interesting is some enhancements & utility I came to appreciate from a game called X3 (Reunion / Terran Conflict / Albion Prelude).

Ill just call it "Tactical Computer" since I lack a better name, with one or both of the following:

Spotted aircraft visible to you have their markers anchored to the screen - what this means is that when they move offscreen, instead of the red triangle vanishing it sits at the edge of the screen, relative to where they are (so you can "turn" towards the marker to bring it back in view).
The last aircraft you spotted has a location prediction marker - basically, the game puts a small little circle on your screen based on you and the enemy's movement, and your weapon velocity, so the circle is an indicator of where you need to shoot to hit your target.


Note that these only apply to aircraft; it doesn't work against infantry or ground vehicles at all. The first point may actually just be really nice to have for every pilot regardless too.

The second point is something that I think would be really helpful though; it's not auto-aim or lockon weaponry so the player still needs to shoot straight, but it might help inexperienced pilots be more effective while they're learning.

[snafus]

No, it needs a projectile speed boost so you can actually hit things with it, instead of needing to lead three plane lenghts ahead...

Projectile speed is already faster then the burster by 50ms. The issue is the COF gives the illusion that the flak is moving slower but in reality it is faster. All the lighting needs is a buff to turret traversal and slight COF tightening and it will be a aircraft farming machine.

[Silvir]

So many pages so much text....so much lack of sleep.
Meh i'll kick the bucket with a fresh post and see what stirs.
Warning post might contain a lot of text and chance is it will be a bit messy. and if so apologies i just got back from a night shift :)


MAX AA = short range
Skyguard = long range
AA Turret = medium range
Fewer AA turrets and better placed to be protected against ground forces. Should have the highest Damage output of all AA? And heavy AA artillery option for some larger bases should be added to. To really scare the Gals trying to fly in and make Drop podding much cooler and more dangerous.

Increased AA damage
Increased lock on range
Air radar. only show air simple as that.

Air
higher flight ceiling around 2000 meters or so?
More speed around 100 km/h increase or more?
More specialised weapons.
Flares use Ammo
ESF flares are fewer and require a some kind of evasive to be fully efficient.
Gal/Lib flares are more and function better even when flying straight.
More distinction between hover and flyer.

A higher flight ceiling will give air their own little play ground to move around on. This should make Air to air combat more decisive and air superiority will be far more noticeable. To make this more interesting an increased top speed will make movement more rapid and air combat more intense. It along with higher AA damage will make air vs ground a more hit and run game where timing and know how a bit more important while the speed will allow beginners to escape if making mistakes. But punish accuracy.

unless they crash of course. This should also invite more for strafe runs instead of hover attacks which should gets its own little aircraft specialised for just that.

Pretty much they should focus air back to being fast and agile. And give them their own zone to move in from time to time away from the ground. Just like how infantry can move into Biolabs and now apparently will get shield domes above some bases. Which i'm strongly against. unless they can be taken down?

[Taramafor]

Make it slower to hover. Kind of like that jet in San Andreas where you have to move the thrusters to do so. Which at the same time, is the reason for its speed.

So thrusters that can be SLOWLY positioned so you can hover. If it's done too fast, you'll just end up with people that hit the breaks and hovering on the spot. This way, the breaks are slower and so is the amount of time it will take to get out of dodge once they're hit, meaning that one has to actually consider if it's worth doing so and risk becoming a sitting duck or if it's worth hovering over a spot and unleashing the ships full firepower.

I would advise binding the hover control to a single key compared to the manual control from San Andreas though. For easier hovering and stability of the ship.

[Shogun]

by the way, if the devs come up with empire specific abilities for the ESF, PLEASE FOR GODS SAKE don´t dare to reuse the abilities of max and tank again!

[TartarosCZ]

ESF vs ESF combat is the last thing that needs to be touched.

Flight ceiling is where it should be, raising it would solve exactly nothing. Hovering of anything anywhere is not a problem either. These are all bizarrely mislead and/or outdated "opinions". I wonder what game do those people play.

What needs to be touched a lot is the role of Libs and of G2A units. Basically I would adjust their effective range by the size of the target. ESF must be closer than a lib to be hit from ground.Then again whatever can hit the Lib must be rendered to him.

Oh and the Striker must be nerfed in G2A area, and Max Anchors and ZOE must not affect Burster at all. AT ALL.
Infantry weapons (that is, HA) in general must be only defensive. They absolutely must not be able to kill a plane once it disengaged.

[Sledgecrushr]

ESF vs ESF combat is the last thing that needs to be touched.

Flight ceiling is where it should be, raising it would solve exactly nothing. Hovering of anything anywhere is not a problem either. These are all bizarrely mislead and/or outdated "opinions". I wonder what game do those people play.

What needs to be touched a lot is the role of Libs and of G2A units. Basically I would adjust their effective range by the size of the target. ESF must be closer than a lib to be hit from ground.Then again whatever can hit the Lib must be rendered to him.

Oh and the Striker must be nerfed in G2A area, and Max Anchors and ZOE must not affect Burster at all. AT ALL.
Infantry weapons (that is, HA) in general must be only defensive. They absolutely must not be able to kill a plane once it disengaged.


Why shouldnt a ha be able to kill an airplane that is trying to run away?

[TartarosCZ]

Why shouldnt a ha be able to kill an airplane that is trying to run away?

Because that's not it's place. For that there should be specialised units - mostly friendly air, and to some extent AA Maxes.
There's too many HAs and they're too cheap to pull and maintain to be allowed to have this capability.

[Sledgecrushr]

Because that's not it's place. For that there should be specialised units - mostly friendly air, and to some extent AA Maxes.
There's too many HAs and they're too cheap to pull and maintain to be allowed to have this capability.

So you want to nerf the ha ability to combat air with their fairly expensive lock on rockets. Do you also want to nerf the ha dumbfire rockets? How about the lng and pistol, I put rounds into esf with those as well. Personally I think esf to ground balance is perfect.

Back on topic if the devs would give esf better tools to track other esf while they were fighting i think that would be cool.

[raumfahrer]

#Remove lock-on weapons completely. Completely.

#Sky ceiling at least 2000m.

#Manual control over engine direction (and landing gear while we're at it).

{This could be done as follows:

Accelerate and decelerate increase or decrease your percentage of thrust (0% to 100%). From 0% to 20% moves the engine. So at thrust 0% your engine is down and with every percentage more it moves up until it's horizontal at 20% (the actual thrust your engine does is constant from 0% to 20%; above 20% your actual thrust increases). Both vertical thrust and afterburner do not change the direction of your engine. Thrust percentage does not directly translate to your current speed. You could be hovering, increase thrust up to 100% and it'd take some time for you to reach your maximum speed (or stop halfway through by decreasing thrust to say 50% and end up at 50% of your maximum speed). That means at 20% thrust you'd be at minimum cruising speed.}

#More afterburner fuel by default and faster regeneration. Make battles faster.

These are strictly my air-to-air wishes.

[snafus]

Why shouldnt a ha be able to kill an airplane that is trying to run away?

Let my IR sights be able to see you at the max range of the G2AM and I am totally fine with you pew pewing at me.

[Whiteagle]

Let my IR sights be able to see you at the max range of the G2AM and I am totally fine with you pew pewing at me.
Dude, you're not using ZOOM Magnification?
No wonder you are running into things...

[SolLeks]

So you want to nerf the ha ability to combat air with their fairly expensive lock on rockets. Do you also want to nerf the ha dumbfire rockets? How about the lng and pistol, I put rounds into esf with those as well. Personally I think esf to ground balance is perfect.

Back on topic if the devs would give esf better tools to track other esf while they were fighting i think that would be cool.

Lol you called a lock on rocket launcher expensive? I can almost get 14 of your 'expensive' launchers for the ammount of certs I have put into my reaver (13948).

Your AA launcher is cheap, has no timer restriction, can be pulled without using any resorces, can be pulled from anywhere and has a lock on range that can lock on to me a good 200m before you render, thus being able to hurt me wile I can not hurt you. Your 'expensive' launcher should be for point defense only, it should not be a weapon you choose to engage air for any other reason then the air is attacking you. Your 'expensive' launcher should not have the range or tracking ability it does, Yes I want to NERF the HA's ability to attack air as it is a bit OP.

I really have to ask how short sighted you are if you think anyone is complaining about your pistol, LMG or dumbfire... That is a rehearing at its best.

[Sunrock]

Well I would not mind if the dog fighting become more like real dog fighting rather then hover wars.... If the hover ability of all the ESF's got nerfed a little bit you would solve allot of problems. The A2A would be more fun and the A2G would be more balanced.

I suggest that all ESF's should drop out of the sky like a rock if they travel slower then 70km/h but then also make all ESF max speed become closer to 400km/h

[Gatekeeper]

by the way, if the devs come up with empire specific abilities for the ESF, PLEASE FOR GODS SAKE don´t dare to reuse the abilities of max and tank again!

That would be awesome :D

Reaver: a handy-dandy shield!
Scythe: move faster! do more damage! take more damage :(
Mosquito: lock-down! (plummets out of the sky) :D

[SolLeks]

Well I would not mind if the dog fighting become more like real dog fighting rather then hover wars.... If the hover ability of all the ESF's got nerfed a little bit you would solve allot of problems. The A2A would be more fun and the A2G would be more balanced.

I suggest that all ESF's should drop out of the sky like a rock if they travel slower then 70km/h but then also make all ESF max speed become closer to 400km/h

But the Vtol factor is the thing that makes this game unique.

TBA hovering does not do anything in terms of A2G balance, we could easily make strafing passes and kill just as much as if one was hovering, and at least when an aircraft is hovering, it makes a much easier to hit target... Kind of a risk v reward.

Look at BF3, its not that hard to hit troops on the ground with their jets.

[typhaon]

How about redesigning air so that instead of hover jockeying jets dogfight at speed using maneuvers somewhat similar to real life? Similar is the key word here, shooting for actual realism is not the idea.

That said, as for weapons, we have guns and short range heatseekers, radar and longer ranged BVR is really the only thing that has any RL parallel that we don't have.

Yup... I think air balance is more affected by the (still) supreme maneuverability of ESF/Liberators, than any particular weapon issues - or the need for new weapons.

Give those aircraft more normal flight mechanics and I think you'll have a lot more room for adjusting weapon balance.


However... as someone that isn't very good at air-combat, but does well in the other parts of the game - my biggest problem is finding a balance in mouse sensitivity. I feel like I'm constantly either not sensitive enough to be able to FLY like I need.... or too sensitive that aiming becomes very hard for air-to-air situations.

I haven't found A2A missiles to be particularly useful in overcoming that issue.

FWIW - I'm also flying the reaver.

[Shogun]

That would be awesome :D

Reaver: a handy-dandy shield!
Scythe: move faster! do more damage! take more damage :(
Mosquito: lock-down! (plummets out of the sky) :D

as i know soe, the tr would not plummet out of the sky but hoover motionless.

and the nc shield would completely obstruct the view and disable weapons and afterburners.

[Sunrock]

But the Vtol factor is the thing that makes this game unique.

TBA hovering does not do anything in terms of A2G balance, we could easily make strafing passes and kill just as much as if one was hovering, and at least when an aircraft is hovering, it makes a much easier to hit target... Kind of a risk v reward.

Look at BF3, its not that hard to hit troops on the ground with their jets.

It's not that hard to hit troops on the ground in BF3 with jets thats true. But its allot harder to hit troops on the ground with jets in BF3 then it is in PS2 with ESFs. In fact the speed of the jets in BF3 makes it very hard to kill more then 1 infantry before you need to loop around or need to change direction for some reason. in PS2 you can easily get 10 kills without having to circle around to get into position again.

[SolLeks]

It's not that hard to hit troops on the ground in BF3 with jets thats true. But its allot harder to hit troops on the ground with jets in BF3 then it is in PS2 with ESFs. In fact the speed of the jets in BF3 makes it very hard to kill more then 1 infantry before you need to loop around or need to change direction for some reason. in PS2 you can easily get 10 kills without having to circle around to get into position again.

That is assuming you don't get hit by tank rounds/ dumbfire rounds, the infantry don't shoot at you (it takes around 3 LMG mags to kill an ESF, easy enough to do with a handful of players) not to forget about AA units themselves.

That is why hovering is risk v reward. but aside from farming infintry in hovermode, the hover dogfights and other VTOL manuvers is where its at.

[maradine]

So, basically, playing an 5DoF FPS and not flying. :)

Don't worry, I love hover fights too.

[raumfahrer]

Add 100% velocity inheritance for all weapons.

[SolLeks]

So, basically, playing an 5DoF FPS and not flying. :)

Don't worry, I love hover fights too.

Well kinda, you still get a similar experiance to flying games depending on your playstyle, it is fun however to be able to flip around and fly backwards wile shooting at your enemy instead of just relying on 'getting behind him'

Whatever you decided to call it, I like the flying in this game more as it is unique, sure tweeks could be done to it but don't get rid of the VTOL aspect =/

[maradine]

I don't think they should get rid of it - it's a big part of the Planetside DNA. I do think, however, the addition of a dedicated fighter craft that actually flies (and at a real velocity to boot) would be interesting. Maps are probably too small, sadly.

[Sunrock]

That is assuming you don't get hit by tank rounds/ dumbfire rounds, the infantry don't shoot at you (it takes around 3 LMG mags to kill an ESF, easy enough to do with a handful of players) not to forget about AA units themselves.

That is why hovering is risk v reward. but aside from farming infintry in hovermode, the hover dogfights and other VTOL manuvers is where its at.

So what? What does that have to do with it. The player skill to fly in this game is just ludicrously easy mode compare to any other game. And the main reason for that is the hover stability. If we force the ESF to move faster the balance of the game will become allot better when it comes to A2A and A2G.

[SolLeks]

So what? What does that have to do with it. The player skill to fly in this game is just ludicrously easy mode compare to any other game. And the main reason for that is the hover stability. If we force the ESF to move faster the balance of the game will become allot better when it comes to A2A and A2G.

Oh really? this game is 'ludicrously easy mode' compared to what games exactly?

Edit~
This is what ESF A2A VTOL combat is really like, to bad the pilots I fought were not really that good.

2 Man Reaver Team - YouTube

[Sunrock]

Oh really? this game is 'ludicrously easy mode' compared to what games exactly?

Do you really want me to list all games? Well I can list a few from the top of my head. All Battlefield games, all GTA games that have flying... It's even easier then arcade games like R-Type

Here is a youtube clip of the game if your not old enough to have played it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjRAYV0jHBE

[Shogun]

hmmm, so you think flying in r-type was hard?
it was just up, down, left and right, and the ship did exactly what you pressed and when you pressed it.
how can anything be easier than that?

the game was hard, but the flying was easy.
this discussion is not about level design (the hard part of r-type)

[PredatorFour]

I like the v tol tricks you can do but i think what we need is a fighter that is alot faster to counter this. So you have your tricksters flying all over the place making it really hard to hit and you have these nippy speed demons also quite hard to hit. Would be a cool fight tactically and make the air fights more interesting.

Or they could just improve the air fights by making the airframes stand out more. i.e.

Hover - is pretty much about right as it is
Speed - make it even faster
Dog fight - Improve the handling even more

Give more options for the air to air playstyles.

[Sunrock]

hmmm, so you think flying in r-type was hard?
it was just up, down, left and right, and the ship did exactly what you pressed and when you pressed it.
how can anything be easier than that?

the game was hard, but the flying was easy.
this discussion is not about level design (the hard part of r-type)

Flying an ESF is just up down left right and your ship is doing exactly what you pressing too.

[PredatorFour]

You could say that about anything. In ANY game. There's alot more to flying than that.

[camycamera]

here is some ESF feedback: lower the cert price of hellfire missles, to say, at least 750c. it would make ESF AV more easier to get for F2Pers, lots of people have left because of this. a F2Per would only be able to get into an AA role as an ESF much quicker due to the cert prices.

[Shogun]

Flying an ESF is just up down left right and your ship is doing exactly what you pressing too.

that´s a straight lie!

when i draw a esf, i crash to the floor in less than one minute, no matter what buttons i press.
but i can play r-type without problems.

[Roderick]

R-Type was a great game for its time. Showing my age. :(

[SolLeks]

Flying an ESF is just up down left right and your ship is doing exactly what you pressing too.

More like:

Hold S
flip belly up
start pointing nose to sky
Watch jets until they point down (or the diff sound of the scythe)
hit shift
Fly backwards.

and if you srsly think that the battlefield games have a harder flight model and not just your preferred flight model, you are delusional.

[Shogun]

ps1´s flight model was easier to learn.
but maybe it´s just the stupid mouse and keybinding ps2 has in place.

for a proper flight model ps2 hasn´t enough space.
how many seconds does it take to fly from out of bounds to out of bounds with afterburner right now?
any mechanic that doesn´t rely on hoovering about will not work on that small continents.

[planitsider]

Air Game Balance
Right now, as it is, the problem with air combat in Planetside 2 is that a single ESF is much too effective as a multiple role combat craft. It excels at engaging infantry and armored targets on the ground, as well as all air targets. The role of the ESF has been previously stated as being an air superiority craft. The problem (and one main reason for the rise of rocket podding) is that not enough is happening in the air. The air battle is only important, because air has the potential to suppress ground. Beyond that, there's no reason to be in the air. You cannot take hexes from the air. If the ESF is going to be made into a more effective air combat craft, while reducing its utility as an air-to-ground attack craft, then more care must be given to developing a rich and engaging aerial arena. This post contains a proposal for doing so.





Galaxy
Bring back the deployable Galaxy, but instead of making it a spawn point, make it only deployable in midair. Deployable galaxies with different certification lines would provide major objectives for the air war, along with a dynamic, ever-changing battlefield. Deployable Galaxies would need a few basic upgrades to make them usable when stationary:

1. Autopilot/zero hover mode. When a Galaxy is deployed midair, it no longer needs a pilot, and will remain in place for 20 minutes (like a Sunderer). Deployment should take 10 seconds.

2. Aegis shield. The Aegis shield was developed to protect Galaxies from ground-to-air fire. It creates an impenetrable barrier against all types of weaponry. However, due to energy constraints and the needs of zero hover, this shield will only protect the bottom 40% of the Galaxy, and it can only be deployed when stationary. Even then, the shield takes a full 30 seconds (after the Galaxy has been deployed) to load, arm, and harden.

3. Reduced capacity. The extra equipment necessary for the deployable Galaxy should reduce the overall carrying capacity to six. This preserves the utility of the original Galaxy's design as a troop transport.




These three basic functions of a "deployed" Galaxy mean that they are not sitting ducks for skyguards, burster maxes, anything on the ground. However, limiting the Aegis shield to the bottom 40% means Galaxies cannot deploy at 100 meters either, as anything above that 40% plane will be able to damage it. This should make deployed Galaxies objectives that only enemy aircraft can take out (unless a pilot is feeling risky). In order to prevent the Aegis from being exploited at max ceiling, the maximum deployable altitude should be 900 meters.


New Certification Lines
Galaxy pilots could choose from three different certification lines in the utility category: aerial fortress, sensor array, or orbital command.




1. The aerial fortress is the air war support vehicle. This version of the galaxy, when deployed, allows allied aircraft to resupply on top of its single ammo pad. However, the aerial fortress can only resupply primary weapons for small craft (ESFs and Intruders, more on them later). This means that ESFs using missiles of any kind will need to return to real ammo vehicle pads in order to resupply secondary weapon systems. A second level aerial fortess also offers auto-repair to nearby aircraft. A third level aerial fortress broadcasts a missile blanket, which effectively kills all lock-on missile tracking within a 200 meter distance. This both makes the aerial fortress immune to lock-on missiles (only when deployed), but also provides refuge from them for any aircraft nearby.



2. The sensor array is the all seeing eye in the sky, which can support forward strikes through advanced, long range spotting, or cover allies as they retreat, jamming enemy radar through electronic warfare. The sensor array replaces each wing gun with a left and right observation deck. Enemy units spotted from an observation deck will remain in a "visible" state for twice as long as they normally would (the spotter will also be granted twice the XP). In deployed mode, the observation decks also passively reveal all stealth units within a certain range. Each observation deck contains a powerful microwave transmitter, which the observer can use to aim at various targets with different results. Spawn beacons being attacked by this weapon will be disrupted, only allowing intermittent spawning. When enemy vehicles are targeted, their systems can go haywire, and while under the fire of this transmitter, there's a chance that their secondary ability being randomly triggered. At the third level, the sensor array warns of enemy drop pods (displaying land points for allies), as well as scheduled enemy orbital strikes.




3. The orbital command is the key piece of the puzzle any commander needs to call down an orbital strike. The comsat uplink and targeting systems it carries grants the resolution necessary for reliable delivery of ordnance from space. With an orbital command in place, orbital strikes can be called down from the heavens within a certain distance of the deployed Galaxy. In addition, the orbital command provides a firing platform for the Icarus missile, a recon weapon designed for scouting and the disruption of enemy systems. The Icarus missile is a non-lethal, camera guided weapon, which will not damage targets upon impact. However, the remote pilot can 'detonate' it near enemy vehicles with varied effects. A detonated Icarus missile near a sunderer will disable its spawn unit for a certain amount of time. A detonated Icarus near an ESF will kill its flight controls for a short period.


These different types of Galaxies will interact with each other when their influence fields overlap. They each have a primary ability* which can never be effected. Abilities:
1. Aerial fortress - ammunition pad*, proximity auto-repair for vehicles, missile blanket
2. Sensor array - observation decks*, drop pod warnings, spawn disruption
3. Orbital command - icarus missile*, squad spawn, orbital strike
However, their secondary abilities can be disabled or mitigated by the presence of nearby enemy galaxies with alternative upgrades. Please see the chart below for a rough idea of how each loadout would affect the others.




Liberator
The current problem with the Liberator is two fold. First, ESF primary weapons are too strong against them. Second, there is little to no reason for Liberator crews to ever go 3/3, when they can operate 2/3 and have the bombardier switch to the tailgun in the scant few times it's a better choice (very rare). I believe that both of these problems can be fixed with a single change. It would be easy, from a balance standpoint, to simply increase the health of the Liberator or to provide it additional protection against machine gun fire. This is not the way to go.


The Liberator tailgun should be given a secondary ability (usable by pressing the ability key while in the tailgun position), which deploys a temporary nanite shield (much like the NC max riot shield). However, this shield, which I am calling the Active Defense Matrix (ADM), should follow the direction the tailgun is pointing, meaning you have to actually actively defend incoming fire, by 'catching' bullets. In addition, this ability should take between 5-10 seconds to 'arm' whenever a gunner jumps into this seat. This would mean that fleeing Liberators have a much greater chance of survival against enemy pursuers, but only if the tailgunner is active, smart, and skilled. A small XP bonus (like surface-to-air damage?) could be granted for successful damage prevented. The shield should have a short duration and a medium recharge, meaning it cannot be spammed, but should be used tactically.

And finally, the tailgunner should share XP with the bombardier just as the pilot does. This is a simple and easy fix that makes the role much more appealing. I also think the G40-F Ranger should be available to the tailgun, but that is a side issue.

Please see the image below for a mockup of the Active Defense Matrix





Air Roles
If the air roles are defined as follows:
ESF - air superiority fighter, designed to tackle air threats
Liberator - bomber, heavy air-to-ground craft, designed to tackle enemy vehicles
Galaxy - troop transport, operations platform


And I know some will argue with my judgment of the Liberator, but the Dalton and Shredder, despite how they're often used, are primarily anti-vehicle weapons. The Zepher is a weapon designed to suppress light armor/infantry, but from my judgment, the Liberator is primarily a bomber to be used against heavy targets (2 out of 3 bombardier weapons being designed for it, plus the tankbuster).


So as long as the ESF is further reduced from its air-to-ground effectiveness, this leaves out an important air role, which I have seen many threads suggest would be a necessary and welcome addition to the game: a helicopter/primarily VTOL aircraft, specifically designed to suppress infantry.

A lot of people will knee-jerk this suggestion after the lolpod era, but please read on before passing any judgment.

Intruder
The Intruder can be a new two man air vehicle that fills a distinct niche in the Planetside 2 aerial arena. This helicopter like vehicle can be configured for different attack loadouts and is primarily used for suppressing infantry and light armor during low altitude attack missions.




There are several special things I like about this idea.

1. Rumble seat with benefits. The Intruder's second seat is a rumble seat with a vehicle weapon option. What does this mean? It means that the player in the second seat can press interact to use the vehicle's secondary weapon, or he can opt to fire from the rail himself, with whatever weapons he brought with him. Max units cannot operate the secondary weapon.

2. No rocket pods, no explosive weaponry, period. The secondary weapon should be limited to either the M12 Kobalt or the M20 Basilisk. The primary weapon (pilot's weapon) should have the option of the M12 Koblat, the M20 Basilisk or M40 Fury.

3. Different platforms. Either side weapon options means you can outfit your Intruder with either a left side rumble seat or a right side rumble seat, creating different firing platforms adaptable to any situation. The third option is dropping the secondary weapon completely, trading it for a nanite repair generator. This is the 'fire truck' of the sky, meaning nearby vehicles will be repaired when near this special third option. The trade off in fire power allows your rumble seat passenger to look either direction.



4. Unique flight characteristics. The Intruder should be delicate, yet super agile, but very slow. In other words, it should have slightly more health than an ESF, twice the vertical lift of the average ESF, fast natural yaw, slow natural roll speed, and an extremely slow top speed (100 kph). Standard airframe upgrades should be available.


The Intruder would fill out the final role for aircraft. I see it as being a very situational specific (not a one size fits all) aircraft that will take incredible skill and teamwork to operate effectively. I also really like the idea of making the secondary gunner a rumble seat only, meaning he can be sniped, blown to bits, anything by ground troops. He faces real danger if he does not effectively take out enemy targets, which is something the ESF does not, whenever he is strafing with rocket pods. This concept craft would add greatly needed depth to the air war by creating a distinct fourth role. By extension, this enlarges the job of the air superiority role, the ESF.

Please let me know what you think about my ideas. Any suggestions/feedback is welcome. I think the combination of these three things (deployable galaxies, defendable liberators, intruders) would really spice up the air game, while solving the ESF problem.

[Sunrock]

and if you srsly think that the battlefield games have a harder flight model and not just your preferred flight model, you are delusional.

Well I can barely keep the air planes in the different BF games in the air and I never manage to land any of them without dying. However I rock as a chopper polite in BF3. I think I have 1 kill in BF3 with A2A jet fights. In PS2 I am at least an average skilled polite and have shot down several ESF, libs and galaxies. So yes I think the flight mech in BF is allot harder yes.

But the main reason I want all ESF to have higher lowest and fastest speed is because it would balance the game allot more. It would be easier to survive in the air but also hard to shoot down more then one target at the time. If you are forced to do flyby instead of hover you will lower the possible amount of kills per minutes you can get as you need to reposition your self after each kill. This makes it so we can go back to how powerful the A2G weapons was before the nerf witch I think is necessary for air to be potent again. It also makes it easier to disengage from Strikers, Bursters and the like. So IMO buffing ESF mini/max speed would be good for the entire game.

At least the scythe should be nerfed down to mossy handling and then nerf the River and the Mossy down equally in handling.

[maradine]

Oh really? this game is 'ludicrously easy mode' compared to what games exactly?


Well, anything by Eagle Dynamics, for starters. And then there's War Thunder. Oh, and the original Jane's blue box series. Falcon 4. And IL-2. Do you have a while? This list goes clear back to the mid 80s.

There's nothing wrong with PS2 air. It's fun, and has plenty of room for virtuosity, as clearly evidenced. Calling it "flight" and "hard", however makes me giggle into my cornflakes.

[SolLeks]

Well I can barely keep the air planes in the different BF games in the air and I never manage to land any of them without dying. However I rock as a chopper polite in BF3. I think I have 1 kill in BF3 with A2A jet fights. In PS2 I am at least an average skilled polite and have shot down several ESF, libs and galaxies. So yes I think the flight mech in BF is allot harder yes.


I am fairly good at combat landing jets in BF3 on any surface that does not have a lot of trees on it, in fact I helped make a cool little 'trick piloting' video for my old BF3 clan so its just diffrent. I was also a good chopper pilot but I was a much better jet pilot than chopper.


But the main reason I want all ESF to have higher lowest and fastest speed is because it would balance the game allot more. It would be easier to survive in the air but also hard to shoot down more then one target at the time. If you are forced to do flyby instead of hover you will lower the possible amount of kills per minutes you can get as you need to reposition your self after each kill.

This right here tells me you don't fly much currently. You are currently forced to do flybys if there is ANY AA in the area, and that still does not help survivibility wise. there is a risk vs reward for ESF right now, Hover and you risk getting easily shot by everything, wile having a easier chance to shoot at everything. Fly fast and your at much lower risk, however you will have a harder time shooting stuff, I like it that way. If we fly faster, not much will change other then the ammount of lead a burster will have to do to hit you.


This makes it so we can go back to how powerful the A2G weapons was before the nerf witch I think is necessary for air to be potent again. It also makes it easier to disengage from Strikers, Bursters and the like. So IMO buffing ESF mini/max speed would be good for the entire game.

Will not do anything imo.


At least the scythe should be nerfed down to mossy handling and then nerf the River and the Mossy down equally in handling.

Why? why make things fly more like bricks? trying to kill the fun of flying?

Well, anything by Eagle Dynamics, for starters. And then there's War Thunder. Oh, and the original Jane's blue box series. Falcon 4. And IL-2. Do you have a while? This list goes clear back to the mid 80s.

There's nothing wrong with PS2 air. It's fun, and has plenty of room for virtuosity, as clearly evidenced. Calling it "flight" and "hard", however makes me giggle into my cornflakes.

Ok, I guess I should have stated how many Arcade Flight type games are harder then this, Flight sims are obvusly going to be harder as they are sims. you are comparing two different types of games there buddy.

[maradine]

Hey, man, you said "games". :)

[SolLeks]

Hey, man, you said "games". :)

Wile this is true, I thought it would be common sense to compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges ^_^

[maradine]

I dunno, I think it's less "apples and oranges" and more of a continuum. Can you say where arcade stops and sim begins? Is it the inclusion of 2nd and 3rd order forces? A damage model? Number of controls? Having to start up the bird on the pad? It's a curious line of thought. If you come straight from PS1, HAWX probably feels like a sim.

Lol, HAWX.

We now return to your regularly scheduled feedback thread.

[SolLeks]

I dunno, I think it's less "apples and oranges" and more of a continuum. Can you say where arcade stops and sim begins? Is it the inclusion of 2nd and 3rd order forces? A damage model? Number of controls? Having to start up the bird on the pad? It's a curious line of thought. If you come straight from PS1, HAWX probably feels like a sim.

Lol, HAWX.

We now return to your regularly scheduled feedback thread.

I distinct sims from arcade like this.

If there is more of a focus on real life, its a sim. If there is more of a focus on gameplay, its arcade.

And back to the feedback xD.

[typhaon]

ps1´s flight model was easier to learn.
but maybe it´s just the stupid mouse and keybinding ps2 has in place.

for a proper flight model ps2 hasn´t enough space.
how many seconds does it take to fly from out of bounds to out of bounds with afterburner right now?
any mechanic that doesn´t rely on hoovering about will not work on that small continents.

Don't think the continents are too small... I think they are generally too tightly packed with bases.

There are also degrees of adjustment. We don't have to go from hover to 100% real flight... could move to something in between.

[Sunrock]

Will not do anything imo.



If you do a flyby in say 435km/h instead of 258Km/h you will increase survivability against AA. Now if you buff the weapons so you do equal amount of damage in the time frame you have your target in sight in 435km/h do same TTK during a flyby of 258km/h. Now you have increased the survivability against AA without buffing any armor of the ESF as that will unbalance other things. But we still have to balance out the buff of the ESF weapons. To do that you nerf the hover stability and/or turn rate of the ESF to make it harder to hit things when flying slowly.

Saying that that will do nothing is IMO not well thought through comment.

[PredatorFour]

At least the scythe should be nerfed down to mossy handling and then nerf the River and the Mossy down equally in handling.

Lol what? The stock mossie is easy to fly compared to the scythe wtf.

[typhaon]

An easy fix is to remove the A2G capability of ESF and add some kind of heavy bomber (think B-52) to the game. Tune Liberators so they are more for vehicle/tank busting -- but generally resistant to MAX flak... oh and make it so tanks/sunderers/etc. aren't such paper tigers to infantry.

I'd also tighten up the G2A capabilities...

Make MAX flak for nailing ESFs, as they swoop in to take out Liberators.

Make HA missiles for taking out Liberators.

Make Anti-Air turrets for taking out all, including Bombers.

Make ESFs for killing Liberators and Bombers... and make Bombers for carpet bombing infantry.

[Sunrock]

Lol what? The stock mossie is easy to fly compared to the scythe wtf.

What?! I have spent most of the time in a mossie but by far it's way more easier to dogfight in a scythe. You're delusional. Ands it's a fact that the scythe have the best turning rate and hover stability also it's frame make it harder to hit when you're horizontal to the opponent. The mossy is even harder to dogfight with then the River.

[PredatorFour]

You're delusional.

Yeh....That's why the top players are TR mossie whores across the servers. Your delusional too.

[Sunrock]

Yeh....That's why the top players are TR mossie whores across the servers. Your delusional too.

Your talking about daddy right? Yea.. He just sits and lolpod all day long. The mossy is really good for A2G fighting because of it's speed compare to the other ESF but sucks in A2A. Also Daddy also jumps out and logs out when he is about to get shut down to keep his K/D up.

[MrMak]

A member of my outfit once "roadkilled" (airkilled?) him midair when he atempted to do that. People like him are realy kind of pathetic.

[maradine]

For some people, the number is validation, not the art.

[snafus]

Your talking about daddy right? Yea.. He just sits and lolpod all day long. The mossy is really good for A2G fighting because of it's speed compare to the other ESF but sucks in A2A. Also Daddy also jumps out and logs out when he is about to get shut down to keep his K/D up.

It's a shame that the devs have not put in a delay before logging out can take place. But I really feel the Scythe is the best A2G ESF since they have them amazing Photon pods.

[phungus]

If I could do the ESF update, here are the changes I would make:

General:

-Give ESFs minor health regen by default so that composite and stealth are viable alternatives
-3d minimap for ESFs (make it simultaneously harder to farm infantry and easier for A2A)
-add 2 man air superiority fighter with forward facing gunner (pie in the sky dream, but i want an airial harrasser)
-add utility "Air Radar", only shows air and does not show ground enemies. Initial 300m range and goes to 500m range with full cert investment


Countermeasures:

-Add item "ECM" for ESFs, treated as ammo, get 1 by default - works like Bf3 flares (breaks current locks but no immunity)
-Give ESFs a single ECM by default
-Add ECM as upgrade choice to AB tanks, allowing carrying of extra ECM (it's ammo, most you should be able to take is 3).
-leave A2Am as they are


Weapons:

-Nerf rotary damage to infantry by about 15%
-Nerf rotary so it has damage falloff over range
-Buff needler to do more damage to armor, and over range compared to nerfed rotary
-Remove splash completely from rocket pods, make them practical as AV only
-Add HE rockets (empire specific or NS depending on maximizing $$$) that function like current rocket pods with almost no damage to armored targets
-Add empire specific "skill based" A2A weapons, wing guns for TR, LAZORs for vanu, and semi auto guass guns/dumbfire rockets for NC. (this will allow squaded and organized air to take a skill based dps increase instead of A2G or skilless A2Am - AB tanks just lose value in a group because they reduce your dps in the long run).

[omega four]

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/332308256179511298

I honestly can't think of adding anything else to ESF A2A weapons without disturbing the already delicate balance that exists today in aerial dogfights.

Some are already stating that A2AM are too powerful as is. And now SOE is thinking about adding more A2A weapons.

I know that SOE is a for-profit company and that PS2 is P2W, but this is starting to get a little ridiculous.

If I must offer an A2AM suggestion, then I pick aerial mines or flamethrowers. There was a James Bond movie where his aircraft had both those weapons and used them successfully against enemy jets.

[omega four]

I just tweeted my response to Higby about aerial mines and flamethrowers for A2A combat.

God help me and save my soul....

I honestly can't think of adding anything else to ESF A2A weapons without disturbing the already delicate balance that exists today in aerial dogfights.

Some are already stating that A2AM are too powerful as is. And now SOE is thinking about adding more A2A weapons.

I know that SOE is a for-profit company and that PS2 is P2W, but this is starting to get a little ridiculous.

If I must offer an A2AM suggestion, then I pick aerial mines or flamethrowers. There was a James Bond movie where his aircraft had both those weapons and used them successfully against enemy jets.