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.

[Revanmug]

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

I don't know if you only took the speed from the e3 stream but on this video, the reaver' speed seems to shift between 210 and 240 (without burner).

(easier to see at 56:30)

Hope that help a bit

[MrMorton]

Originally Posted by Revanmug

Planetside 2 - Dual Commentary Livestream with Matt Higby and TotalBiscuit - YouTube

I don't know if you only took the speed from the e3 stream but on this video, the reaver' speed seems to shift between 210 and 240 (without burner).

(easier to see at 56:30)

Hope that help a bit

ok not sure if anyone else is seeing what I am seeing, but I am very excited,

there seems to be some sort of speed retention/loss mechanic in the flight model

watch when he first takes off at 51:30

he is flying level as he approaches the nexus, and assuming he is flying at full speed, after using AB he bleeds speed down to 196.

however he is not using ab and proceeds to dive down circling the nexus, and reaches a speed of 240

Now I really want confirmation of whether the flight model supports energy loss/gain.

[MrMorton]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Looked to me like he was gaining speed above 220 when he was ascending, and lost it when he started descending. It could just be exponential speed loss after having afterburned so hard.

way to crush my hopes and dreams haha

yea I really wish they'd tell us more about air combat....


and ps2 people wanna chime in ?

[Revanmug]

Originally Posted by elfailo

What exactly do you mean by energy loss anyway?

Gravity maybe? I thought he meant if going up would decrease speed and diving increase speed. Then again, could have misunderstand him

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by Malorn

No, not at all.

Something about good piercings... well, nevermind.

[Algo]

Originally Posted by elfailo

What exactly do you mean by energy loss anyway?

Potential energy

High and fast = high energy
Low and slow = low energy

Turn too hard too much, lose energy, get shot etc.

[MrMorton]

this^

[Malorn]

The reason I put the "-ish" at the end of the Reaver & Mosquito numbers is because it was difficult to get a read on their top speed because it didn't seem to behave consistently.

Between the pilots constantly using little afterburner bursts and ascending/descending it was hard to get a bead on both the reaver and mosquito. The reaver seemed to hover around 210, while the Mosquito seemed to hover at 240, but both had significant variance. I believe gravity does matter for these aircraft, and they pick up speed when descending and lose it when ascending.

On the other hand, the Scythe did behave consistently. It accelerated quickly and reached 180 on the dot and stayed there. It also had different afterburner mechanics. Instead of rapidly accelerating and then tapering off like PS1 afterburners the Scythe instead immediately reaches maximum afterburner speed and then the moment the afterburner was let off it immediately went back to 180. So it was very abrupt. I believe that also means that the afterburner for the scythe will be used more tactically and has less value for rapid transit or for catching up to a reaver/mosquito since the reaver/mosquito appear to get more bang for their buck with the afterburner, but accelerate slower.

Based on this evidence and how they have told us that the Scythe flies differently and makes me think that the sythe doesn't play by the same rules as the Mosquito and Reaver. I think it ignores gravity and traditional flight mechanics. It seems to not behave the same with with inertia either (the afterburner is a good example). It will make for interesting dogfights. The scythe won't have speed but would be difficult to shake since it can simply cut corners faster. On the the other side of the coin the reaver and mosquito could use gravity and inertia to their advantage while the scythe cannot. For example, a reaver/mosquito pilot could dive for more speed/dinstance, and then climb and use natural gravity to slow them back down for a split-S or to make a tighter turn than the sythe pilot might expect. Both sides will learn these tricks so it'll be very interesting.

Seems the Scythe pilots have it easiest though, as they only need to learn to fight traditional aircraft, while the Reaver/Mosquito pilots need to learn how to do traditional dogfighting and scythe dogfighting.

[MrMorton]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The reason I put the "-ish" at the end of the Reaver & Mosquito numbers is because it was difficult to get a read on their top speed because it didn't seem to behave consistently.

Between the pilots constantly using little afterburner bursts and ascending/descending it was hard to get a bead on both the reaver and mosquito. The reaver seemed to hover around 210, while the Mosquito seemed to hover at 240, but both had significant variance. I believe gravity does matter for these aircraft, and they pick up speed when descending and lose it when ascending.

On the other hand, the Scythe did behave consistently. It accelerated quickly and reached 180 on the dot and stayed there. It also had different afterburner mechanics. Instead of rapidly accelerating and then tapering off like PS1 afterburners the Scythe instead immediately reaches maximum afterburner speed and then the moment the afterburner was let off it immediately went back to 180. So it was very abrupt. I believe that also means that the afterburner for the scythe will be used more tactically and has less value for rapid transit or for catching up to a reaver/mosquito since the reaver/mosquito appear to get more bang for their buck with the afterburner, but accelerate slower.

Based on this evidence and how they have told us that the Scythe flies differently and makes me think that the sythe doesn't play by the same rules as the Mosquito and Reaver. I think it ignores gravity and traditional flight mechanics. It seems to not behave the same with with inertia either (the afterburner is a good example). It will make for interesting dogfights. The scythe won't have speed but would be difficult to shake since it can simply cut corners faster. On the the other side of the coin the reaver and mosquito could use gravity and inertia to their advantage while the scythe cannot. For example, a reaver/mosquito pilot could dive for more speed/dinstance, and then climb and use natural gravity to slow them back down for a split-S or to make a tighter turn than the sythe pilot might expect. Both sides will learn these tricks so it'll be very interesting.

Seems the Scythe pilots have it easiest though, as they only need to learn to fight traditional aircraft, while the Reaver/Mosquito pilots need to learn how to do traditional dogfighting and scythe dogfighting.

what I am hoping is that ascending/descending does affect speed, previously I was under the impression it did not.

I would agree in part, the reaver probably has the hardest time, as a pilot has to constantly switch between turn fighting and booming/zooming,

the scythe is going to be harder to survive in over the mossie as everything can catch it

mossie is the easiest/most survivable imo because it can escape from any bad situation, and booming/zooming is the same whether the enemy is hovering or flying as long as you don't try to follow them.

[LegioX]

I just don't believe boom and zoom will work as suppose to be in this game.

1. The ceiling is to low

2. You have no proper implementation of kinetic energy when a plane is diving down on a target.

[MrMorton]

Originally Posted by LegioX

I just don't believe boom and zoom will work as suppose to be in this game.

1. The ceiling is to low

2. You have no proper implementation of kinetic energy when a plane is diving down on a target.

like I mentioned before, what we have seen in the flight model shows that the mosquito is ALWAYS faster than the other two aircraft, this means regardless of altitude or energy implementation, a mosquito can fly straight at another aircraft, strafe it, and then pop ab to extend away, rinse and repeat.

[LegioX]

But thats not booming and zooming. Thats a head on

[MrMorton]

Originally Posted by LegioX

But thats not booming and zooming. Thats a head on

when I said straight at, I meant with no altitude difference

the mosquito could always break off if the other aircraft saw the incoming mosquito and turned to face it.

[LegioX]

We shall see. I'm still campaigning for a look back view. Would not be hard to implement i would think. Sucks being forced to look straight ahead when someone is behind you.