ESF's - Your opinion?

[maradine]

Hovering's a recipe for a deci in the nether bits - dwell is circling on verticals in this context. Usually someone pulls a DBMAX and then it's time to get out of dodge.

[belch]

I like to call it loitering...fits my miscreant motif. :P

[AThreatToYou]

Rotary cannons are the ideal. The Air Hammer is effective still, I hear it's best for liberators. You VS/TR might want to try out your anti-ground primaries for anti-liberator/anti-sundy operations.

[Rothnang]

One of the main reasons why rocket pods are so good is because you don't have to hover for very long to get a kill with them. Any weapon that requires you to hover for longer than maybe 5 seconds is pretty pointless, since fighters can be downed in literally 2-3 seconds if they don't move.

[phungus]

I only know about the mossy and sythe's.

The starting gun is pretty much the same on both - decent, but not good at anything. To put this on par with the rotary it needs better dps vs armor, especially at range which is what it's good at.

The rotary/turbo are good at everything and excellent at dogfighting.

The light PPA is as described, though I think it needs to travel a wee bit faster. Situational, would be really cool if you could swap out equipment, everyone would buy this and use it at times if you could.

The Banshee just isn't any better at killing infantry then the rotary (and the nose gun isn't either, it's kinda helpful having a bigger CoF on the rotary against soft targets, especially since you have to close to CQ anyway for infantry to render). And it's terrible at dogfighting.

[Rothnang]

The basic gun had higher damage against armor at one point, the problem is that it made fighters crazy overpowered since you can fire one weapon while the other reloads. The result was people obliterating vehicles by alternating between rockets and the basic gun.

The basic gun isn't even that weak, when you hit a tank from behind with a clip from it it takes out more than half its health easily. You need to hit a tank from behind with rocket pods at this point to kill it as well.

Ultimately it just still feels like the primary weapons are the "white damage" of fighters, while the pods are the real main attack.

[Thunderhawk]

ESFs again...................

From a VS perspective:-

1. Hailstorm Turbo Laser:

• Good vs other ESFs (not as good as the insane Mossie M18 Rotary - That shit is crazy)
• Can take out Infantry easily, but requires good aim.
• Can Weaken Lightnings from the rear and give MBTs something to worry about.

2. Light PPA:

• Deadly against Infantry and clumps of infantry (Better than Rocket Pods)
• Meh against anything else.
• Leaves you totally vulnerable to Air as hitting an ESf with it is like trying to play pin the tail on the donkey whilst blind, upside down, and the donkey spinning.

3. Dual Photon Pods:

• Takes an entire clip to kill 1 infantryman (14 Rockets) and will only get multiple kills if they are all clumped around a sunderer.
• Main weapon to take down a Liberator quickly, and then finish off wiht the Hailstorm whilst it tries to run away.
• GODLY against MBTs and Lightnings from the Rear (1 Clip 1 Kill if all Rockets hit the rear)
• Good against other targets like Turrets, takes 3-4 clips to kill a Sunderer

4. Photon A2A Missile Pods:

• Easymode A2A for ESFs vs ESFs
• Pilots using them tend to be looked down upon by other pilots (including myself) as they are no skill options to thin the skies from "newbie" pilots.
• Would rather they never existed (even though I do occasionally use them but I feel dirty afterwards and need to bath in bleach).

5. Saron Laser Cannon:

• Have not used since Tech test and getting the Hailstorm, so cannot comment on it, but from all accounts is deadly accurate against infantry

[Dougnifico]

My personal gripe with ESF's is that I honestly believe they should have been split into a fighter without a real hover ability, and a strike fighter (light bomber) that is based on air to ground and can hover but gets annihilated by AtA but would be resistant to AtG.

That aside, main weapons are fine, but I'm a shitty pilot so.... ya.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally Posted by Thunderhawk

ESFs again...................

4. Photon A2A Missile Pods:

• Easymode A2A for ESFs vs ESFs
• Pilots using them tend to be looked down upon by other pilots (including myself) as they are no skill options to thin the skies from "newbie" pilots.
• Would rather they never existed (even though I do occasionally use them but I feel dirty afterwards and need to bath in bleach).

Honestly I don't see how the A2A missiles are any worse than the A2G rockets. From the PoV of a non-pilot they both seem to be overpowered in their specific role, and the only balance either of them has is that by taking one you can't have the other.

The only way I'd support taking out the A2A missiles is if you made the rocket pods a primary weapon, so you take them instead of your main gun. That way A2G gunships remain distinct from A2A fighters - which seems fair to me.

[MrBloodworth]

I don't normally fly, but i do have to say, when I do, perhaps the lock on changes combined was a bit too much. Maybe knock it back down by adding half a second back to lock on time.

Also, it seems everyone and their mom now has flairs.

Its a tricky thing indeed. You want Flying to be fun, enjoyable, and as profitable as ground game play, at the same time you want them to be present, but not ruin ground game play.

Tough nut to crack.

In both cases though, tossing in 20 ESF, or 20 A2G will always be a hammer.

[Rothnang]

The A2A missiles are easy to use, but if you're behind a guy you can kill him just fine with a rotary cannon, if he's coming straight at you you often don't have time to lock on, and most of the really good ESF pilots don't dogfight at speed anyways, but just go into a hover battle where inexperienced pilots quickly lose their bearings and the radar becomes next to useless since it doesn't show elevation.

What makes A2A missiles so annoying is that just like all the no-skill anti air weapons it's effectiveness goes up exponentially with multiple people using it.

In a regular dogfight there are only so many people who can be on your six at the same time before they start crashing into each other, and even just two people chasing you will start blocking each others shots. With A2A missiles you can have a ton of people shooting at you at the same time though, and that means that air battles have a tendency to very definitively favor the side with more fighters, to the point where its very well possible that they wipe out the entire opposition without taking any losses.

It's the same problem with mass AA guns or ground based lockon launchers, if you get a large enough group of them together the fact that people can't do jack to avoid getting hit with them just turns them insanely deadly. In any other form of combat people can adapt to the number of enemies they are facing, and fight from further away, or peeking out of cover only very quickly instead of having protracted firefights with people.

Mass Annihilators really dumb down the game.

[Hamma]

I'm pretty happy with all the Mosquito guns I use. I only use the A2A cannon however.

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Mass Annihilators really dumb down the game.

I'm going to say something that's not popular, and likely will not sway anyone's opinion on the matter. However.

The ability for a group to gather and all pull one thing in unison. Its exactly the core of what Planetside is about.

That's right. That right there, is called emergent game play, and in no way dumbs the game down, in fact when that happens. The ball is now in the oppositions court. Rise to the challenge, work together to overcome. Thats the core of Planetside.

What "dumbs a game down" is the LACK of tools to create your own game play situations, and responses. If somehow, there was an arbitrary rule that only X of Y can be fielded at once, that's a game that has been dumbed down.

In your scenario, they "won" that encounter. ask yourself what you and your group is going to do about it, and do it.

[Rothnang]

Originally Posted by MrBloodworth

The ability for a group to gather and all pull one thing in unison. Its exactly the core of what Planetside is about.

I fully agree, but that in no way excuses systems that no longer require the members of the group to have any skill, and don't give their opponents any ways of effectively defending themselves. (And no, flares don't count, they only give you 5 seconds before you're right back to being completely helpless against lockon weapons, that's not a counter, just a delay of frustrating gameplay)

When you have weapons that always hit and have no real counter you may have created a system that takes the number of players who are cooperating into account, but you have also created a system that has no interesting gameplay for either side.

I like that the game has a strong cooperative element, but nobody would ever argue that infantry combat or tank combat where you actually need to aim shots and your enemies can take cover is devoid of teamwork as a result.

Why should systems that utterly shit on the other core element of the game, being a skill based game where you don't just win by levels, stats and numbers, be excused?

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

(And no, flares don't count, they only give you 5 seconds before you're right back to being completely helpless against lockon weapons, that's not a counter, just a delay of frustrating gameplay)

No, they give you a 5 second grace period to get your shit out of the area. If you decide to stay, you have affirmatively chosen "completely helpless".

We do not, nor should we, have complete dominion of the battlefield when we're in the air. There are pockets that others have taken pains to deny to us. Armor doesn't have complete dominion on the ground. There are places that others have taken pains to deny. Infantry is pressed to have dominion anywhere. Not always having it your way is a fact of multi-unit gameplay. I'm sorry this frustrates you, and I'm disappointed you think that this "no-skill" counter has no place here, but it is a fact.