Some random thoughts on air combat in PS2

[MrMorton]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Reaver is going to be the A-10 Warthog of the skies. It will fly low for infantry AA protection and in return the Reaver will rape what ever stands in way of NC Army.

^this, without the rape

Originally Posted by elfailo

It wouldn't solve anything. The point the guy was making was that "Reavers synergize well in groups because of armor and damage". I have no clue how he reached that conclusion and frankly it seems he just threw it out randomly because he thought it sounded interesting, but I find that kind of gameplay utterly lame.



In PS1 you always had a chance to fight back. I got tag-teamed on a daily basis but I never felt completely without chance. The TTK's were high, but unfortunately the flight mechanics were dumb. The latter seems greatly improved in PS2, but the best isn't going to come out when you don't give pilots survivability and tools to turn the tables (getting back on top after someone gains the initiative on you).

Of course if it's 40vs1 you should lose, but nobody's arguing that.

I think he just means with the high damage of the reaper and the high armor, a group can just tank a sweep and focus fire to quickly pick off a few mossies

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

Wait, you don't know how I came to the conclusion because you find that style of play lame? I fail to see how that makes any sense, but I'll clarify for you....

A pack of reavers will be better than a pack of mosquitos because a mosquito only has a speed advantage over a reaver. This allows the mosquito to, theoretically, stay a step ahead of a a reaver and keep him from getting any hits on it. This is negated by having another reaver or two nearby to knock the mosquito off the first reaver. Since reavers have superior damage and toughness and the speed of the mosquito is no longer a factor, a pack of reavers could, theoretically, wipe out a pack of mosquitos. Same with Scythes. Now in a 1v1 dogfight, a reaver will probably come out on bottom. That's just the way things are.

Anytime you're outnumbered, you're probably going to die. You shouldn't be surprised or infuriated by the fact. Noone will be able to fight 3v1.

That will simply not happen, as a good mossie pilot will NEVER turn with another craft, rather they should use their speed to extend.

Originally Posted by Malorn

Something else to consider - one of the implants we saw in the Day 3 video was one that lowered the cert acquisition timer of various vehicles. The one I saw showed Scythe and Liberator down to 5 minutes. It is safe to assume the same exists for TR and NC. If the implant takes it to 5 minutes then one can assume the base is higher than that. Not sure if acquisition timer reductions via certs will shave more off that 5 minutes or if 5 minutes is the minimum. They might have stronger versions of the implant that take it to 4 or 3, maybe less.

Anyway, point is that in the demo we saw people get shot down then immediately go pick up another bird. In the real game, there will be an acquisition timer, and if the TTKs remain very fast like we saw it's not going to be all that fun to be a dedicated pilot if you spend 4 out of every 5 minutes waiting at a terminal. Good pilots can stay alive and make that timer be a non-factor but not if they get instagibbed.


Something I always liked about Planetside was how the dogfighting was with machineguns, WWII-style. That is until they introduced the Wasp. I don't mind the idea of A2A missiles, but they should be used to compliment the machineguns and not be substitutes and they should definitely not be instagibs.

Watch the mosquito at 41:50 in this video. He dies a few times but you can see some good dogfight engagements.
Planetside 2 E3 Stream - Day 3 - (feat. Totalbiscuit and Margaret Krohn) - YouTube

Notice how he uses machineguns and missiles together to take down the reavers. It looks like 2 missiles + some small amount of machinegun fire is enough to destroy a reaver.

I like the idea of missiles + machineguns where the missiles are added dps boosts but not your primary means of destroying aircraft. They help. They're an advantage but shouldn't be a crutch.

If reavers are stronger and have the ability to completely neglect machineguns in favor of a couple insta-gib missiles...well that's pretty shitty.

I also like the sound of the mosquito's machinegun. Sounds like the Raider 15mm from PS1.

Also another TR empire benefit is damage throughput. I would expect a mosquito who can keep some reasonable time on target would be able to put out more dps than a reaver. Perhaps the Mosquito guns have a wind-up with increased ROF? That would reward a pilot that could keep the target in his sights with higher dps, but failure to do it properly would just burn ammo unnecessarily. Could make for interesting tactics.

as far as piloting goes, I sort of envy the TR pilots who will likely (if piloted correctly) seldom ever die, however, I really am not worried about missiles, because in every game I have played players have found ways to avoid missile locks, it will be very easy in the scythe, but it may be trickier in the other two aircraft.

I do know there will be a cert to increase missile lock time, a mossie pilot could use that to get out of range before the missile can even be fired.

again not really sure about the reaver, its kind of the odd one out in all of this A2A theorycrafting.

Originally Posted by Malorn

The differences did not look minor to me.

Speeds excluding afterburner that I saw
Max speed of Scythe was 180
Max speed of Reaver was 210-ish
Max speed of Mosquito was 240-ish

Mosquito was roughly 33% faster than the Scythe, with the Reaver right in between. The Scythe also seemed noticably more maneuverable with the Mosquito easily and frequently overshooting the Scythe in dogfights. Not exactly how that will play out with experienced pilots when one aircraft has a noticeable speed advantage but the other has a noticable maneuverability advantage. Cyco, any thoughts?




No, not at all.

that is fantastic news.

so, the reaver will be able to boom and zoom the scythe, and the scythe will react the way it reacts to the mossie.

however, for balancing purposes the reaver NEEDS to have a better turning rate than the mossie, so that it can use the scythes' tactics against mossies.