[Suggestion] ESF Changes: from a pilot's perspective

[Legolas]

Um, maybe this should be moved to the Ideas section now?

**Updated post based on replies.**

Basically -- I think ESFs give one person too much power as it currently stands, and I'm mainly a pilot on Miller. I made this after I was bored so I watched another Mosquito guy flying on Twitch. His gameplay was a horribly dull but supremely successful farm of NC in pretty much any location he was at. I never saw him die once except for when he crashed... he killed way over fourty people without a scratch. It was too much. Bunch of other stuff is in too.


Suggestions

Dynamic XP.
- If a weapon like the Rocket Pod is being exploited, lower the XP gained from killing certain target types with them. I.e; infantry killed with pods grants you less XP than infantry killed with the main cannon. Dynamic XP could reward decent play as opposed to spammy behaviour. There could even be more XP rewarded for people flying fast and close to the ground, or upside down to highlight better skill or behaviour.

No XP for Repairing Yourself.
- Nobody I know wants this.

Repairing Yourself.
- Its too cheap that an ESF can be repaired in seconds. The same goes for other vehicles. Maybe slow the repair rate down? You could make it so that every time you take over __% damage you loose _% off the total health permanently, meaning that your ESF gets weaker over time as you constantly repair it? That could stop the self-repair spam.

A2A Missiles.
- Make it so we have to maintain a tight CoF on the target in order to keep the lock. This is more interesting and dynamic than the FaF we have now.

Rocket Pod Rocket Speed.
- Rockets could be slower or build up speed before they fully ignite to encourage actual aiming/piloting. It would also lower their effectiveness against aircraft which is good because the Pods aren't meant to be used against other ESFs. Didn't a previous patch back in Beta have more of an acceleration thing with the rockets like this?

Rocket Pod Rocket Dynamic CoF.
- Maybe a dynamic CoF could be used so that the more you are turning the higher the CoF you have. This is only to stop pilots using them against other ESFs as much. If you want a pod that can hurt other aircraft you should be using A2A not A2G.

Longer Rearming Time.
- It is far too easy to fully rearm all your rockets. Nothing else in the game, almost, can fill its ammo back up so easily. We desperately need to eliminate the rocket spam and I think that if pilots want rockets they should learn to use them more sparingly and efficiently. The ease of rearming grants you too much power too quickly. Tanks can't just completely rearm inside minutes so why should one man aircraft? The amount of power you get with ammo certs and these fast reloading times is over the top in my opinion.

Less Ammo For Rocket Pods.
- Less is more. Make us pilots work to get kills. Pilots should be far more careful with their rockets, and be encouraged to use their "primary" cannon more often. If something is a secondary weapon it should have a secondary role.

Accel/Decel.
- I think ESFs should have slower initial accel so that pilots are less likely to hover-farm hover-spam doorways, as they would not be able to just fly-stop-spam-escape so easily.
- I also think slower decel would encourage dogfighting rather than slow turnfighting and reduce the almost FPS-like stop-aim-shoot. Too often I see aircraft stalling so that their turning (aiming) radius is shorter, so that they may shoot the enemy faster.
- Giving ESFs the ability to insta-stop makes them too effective and easy to control. They should be more like normal fighters.

Flak.
- Make flak rattle an ESF more. Make it harder to control when under heavy flak fire, kind of like a flinching mechanic. Do not overdo it like explosions though. This would add a small portion of challenge for us and make it more interesting.

Spotting change.
- Remove spotted infantry but keep spotted vehicles. Also make it so when any friendly vehicles and infantry are within your line of sight that they are instantly spotted for you and you only. As a pilot I know that this would help tremendously in keeping aircraft off of general players and pitching them against other air and vehicles which is where they should be.

Other Suggestions

Increase the Speed.
- They feel too much like weird helicopters at the moment and are less satisfying to fly than in Beta.

Dual Fire.
- After the above changes, make it so we can fire the primary cannon and the secondary pods at the same time. Not being able to do this is weird and would be unnecessary if the secondaries were balanced to begin with. Perhaps this could be certed into somehow as to avoid any scope upgrade problems.

Additional Rocket Changes
- Make them more powerful against infantry. Having to fire dozens of rockets against a single HA is stupid and feels wrong. This change must be in addition to the Less Ammo change and the Longer Rearm Time change, as well as the Rocket Splash change.

MAX AA
- This is strictly an immersion peeve: I think the AA MAX is really overpowered for its size. That small gun it has should not be so effective against a large vehicle as an ESF. Just look at it... its pathetic. I can understand a large turret AA gun messing my aircraft up but that punny MAX AA gun is too small. Maybe make the MAX AA ability a homing missile instead? The MAX should be effective, but that tiny AA cannon it has weirds me out.

Friendly Air Collision.
- This really needs fixing somehow. Other people crash into me on airpads and in the air far too often, just as I crash into them in the air too. Not sure what to suggest here. You might think its a minor annoyance but it seems to happen all the time. I suppose I just have to "deal with it" but if there was a way to smooth it out...