Rockets, missiles.

Juryrig · 2012-12-05, 08:58 AM

I dropped this into one of the threads about the balance of air power, and I'm putting it in here just so it can sit at the top of a thread. Not that anyone'll ever read my ramblings, lol.

Currently the secondary ESF weapon 'rocket pods' is the go-to solution for killing anything if you're flying. Great against infantry (splash damage) great against vehicles (hit hard enough to kill an MBT) and, to my mind the greatest indicator of being 'broken', they are great against other air.

Granted if you are in a turning dogfight you probably won't get them to hit, but if you have an unsuspecting target you can start firing from their 6 o'clock without warning and one salvo will pretty much kill them off. By contrast the dedicated AA missiles give the target warning (the 'LOCK' cue) can be countermeasured by certing flares or can be evaded by good flying; PLUS it takes at least two hits (with corresponding time waiting for reload and re-aquisition of lock) to kill someone. (it may be three; someone with a lot more air kills than my pathetic single-digit total might be able to confirm).

It really doesn't seem right that an A2G weapon is more effective at A2A than the dedicated A2A weapon.

So, my suggestion is this:

Choice of secondary weapons for ESFs:

(1) Dumbfire rocket pods. These Air to Ground rockets are armed with fragmentation/flechette warheads, and provide excellent area suppression of soft targets. They are of limited use against vehicles. (Splash damage, effective against infantry, but affects vehicles no more than small arms fire; so, less effective against AC, pointless against armoured ground vehicles. Possibly also give them some more spread during flight time)

(2) Anti-vehicle missiles. These flexible anti-vehicle missiles feature a shaped-charge warhead effective at neutralising enemy vehicles either on the ground or in the air. Lock-on as they currently are, damage against a single target as it currently is - basically the A2A missiles as they stand but also able to lock onto ground vehicles, with the same reload time, re-acquisition time etc etc.

For anyone that currently has the existing pods or A2A missiles, remove them and refund the equivalent of SC used to buy them plus any certs invested in them. Then players are free to either buy and cert the new version, or pick something else entirely.

The question of whether AV missiles would be able to lock onto MAXes remains a question; I'm not sure of the best answer. Although I like the idea of a guy in just a suit knowing there's a missile locked onto him.....

*edited to add* also, Napalm. Can we have it, please?

psychobilly · 2012-12-05, 01:43 PM

Agree with this. SOE should have followed the tank model for rockets...

Tanks have AV rounds with zero splash. Same should be true of ESF AV missiles.

Smedley just tweeted: "New weapons coming Thursday. Next week awesome new anti vehicle ( including anti air you rocket pod haters) weapon"

The problem with rocketpods is NOT that we need AV weapons. The problem is that they don't follow the same basic balance design that armor follows. Smedley does not get it.

ShadetheDruid · 2012-12-05, 01:54 PM

This would make so much more sense, and the fliers wouldn't have to lose their precious potency.. It just wouldn't be against everything at the same time, same as the rest of us.

But I doubt we'll be getting anything like napalm any time soon. Considering what happened with the flamethrowers, if they added napalm it would probably get nicknamed "lagpalm" very quickly.

psychobilly · 2012-12-06, 01:57 AM

So there is a rocketpad nerf incoming, but the AOE range is not changed (just the inner damage radius). It doesn't address the core issue, and we will still see the same rocketpod spam.

SOE should have sucked it up, gave people refunds for rocketpods, and done what the OP suggested. Too bad.

Miffy · 2012-12-06, 10:14 AM

They should have split up rocket pod damage types to AI and AV but..... this doesn't do anything to nerf the rocket pods because if you hit it does max damage still......

The A2A like everything in this game is only really good when you have certed into it. Everyone keeps saying this and that is underpowered but you need certs to make anything good.