ESF Air to Air Feedback for Devs

[CaptainTenneal]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by CaptainTenneal

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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...

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

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.

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

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.

Originally Posted by WSNeo

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...

Originally Posted by WSNeo

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...

Originally Posted by WSNeo

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.

Originally Posted by CaptainTenneal

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.

Originally Posted by Boildown

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:

[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]

Originally Posted by Whiteagle

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]

Originally Posted by 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!

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]

Originally Posted by Falcon_br

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]

Originally Posted by SolLeks

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]

Originally Posted by SolLeks

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.

Originally Posted by Falcon_br

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.