Rockets, missiles.

[Juryrig]

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?