ESF Air to Air Feedback for Devs

[Maarvy]

Originally Posted by Falcon_br

Did some brainstorming for 10 minutes and got the solution:
New empire specific a2a guns!
The mosquito gets more 2 rotaries on the wings, with great rate of fire but useless accuracy.
The Scythe got lancers on the wings, but with a cone dispersion close range, they can charge it to kill stupids low speed air units.
The reaver... Don't know, they already got the air hammer for that, maybe the old air hammer gets on the wings and the old one got nerfed to air combat, well, it is Nerfside anyway!

Please no more lancer wepons for vanu !!

How about some pulse lasers similar to the ones in mechwarrior for vanu ... with overheat insead of ammo .

[AThreatToYou]

Flux Tag Missile:

This is a lock-on TAG weapon that fires a TAG missile at an enemy aircraft. Flares will not counter the TAG missile but it can be evaded through terrain masking or shot down. The lockon time would be somewhere between 1.5 and 2 seconds.

Once the TAG Missile hits the target, a pilot can choose to fire the Flux-Whip. This is an extremely close range weapon (i'm not sure about the in-game meters, but, say 40m?) but will fire in any direction around the aircraft. This will burn the target, causing a damage-over-time effect that fire suppression systems would mitigate but not negate entirely. The speed of the aircraft hit will reduce damage taken (higher speed = less damage), but it will always take damage; the flux whip cannot miss.

On a full burn, the flux-whip would deal 50% an ESFs health or 40% if they had a fire suppression system. By default, the Flux-TAG Missile only loads for 1 round, certifiable up to 3 rounds. The TAG Missile can be fired without lock, but will not trigger the flux on anything but aircraft.

This weapon goes in the secondary slot.

GOALS:
- Discourage close-range circlejerking midair
- Discourage nose-duels (burn 30% when they get close)
- Encourage situational awareness (rotary+flux burn = dead ESF)

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

Flux Tag Missile:

This is a lock-on TAG weapon that fires a TAG missile at an enemy aircraft. Flares will not counter the TAG missile but it can be evaded through terrain masking or shot down. The lockon time would be somewhere between 1.5 and 2 seconds.

Once the TAG Missile hits the target, a pilot can choose to fire the Flux-Whip. This is an extremely close range weapon (i'm not sure about the in-game meters, but, say 40m?) but will fire in any direction around the aircraft. This will burn the target, causing a damage-over-time effect that fire suppression systems would mitigate but not negate entirely. The speed of the aircraft hit will reduce damage taken (higher speed = less damage), but it will always take damage; the flux whip cannot miss.

On a full burn, the flux-whip would deal 50% an ESFs health or 40% if they had a fire suppression system. By default, the Flux-TAG Missile only loads for 1 round, certifiable up to 3 rounds. The TAG Missile can be fired without lock, but will not trigger the flux on anything but aircraft.

This weapon goes in the secondary slot.

Ok, first I have no idea how you'd get something like this to work, and second...

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

GOALS:
- Discourage close-range circlejerking midair
- Discourage nose-duels (burn 30% when they get close)
- Encourage situational awareness (rotary+flux burn = dead ESF)

Yeah, I doubt it's going to do what you want...

You see the reason Aircraft start circling is because it's Dogfighting 101; Get the hell out from in front of the Enemy's Guns!
Easiest way to do that is to break hard, but a good Dogfighter will anticipate this and turn with you...
...So now you have two aircraft going in circles frantically trying to land a burst on the other.

This is why you are suppose to fly with a Wingman; You call out the Boogie tailing you, the two of you plan a set up flight pattern, and you lead your tail right into your Wingman's guns...
...But since most people fly solo it turns into whoever is better at Nose-duels.

[PredatorFour]

Hmm we have a great A2A machine gun and AA rockets already. The ROFLPODS can be used well in air too. Covers all the bases with them weapons alone.

What about being able to put AA max bursters on your ESF?? So instead of pods you can put one burster on and instead of nose gun/AB you can put another on, potentially giving you dual bursters in the skies.

I also like the semi rocket idea where you have to keep los on the target (really what the A2A rockets should've been imo)

[WSNeo]

Originally Posted by Whiteagle

...Like I've said before this sort of weapon would be pretty useless in Turning fights...

Air combat in Planetside 2 is not strictly "Turning fights" as you would put them. I'll be honest, I suck at dogfighting with the nose gun, so I rely on primarily speed and lock ons to get kills or pick off stragglers.

Multilock missiles are for used for clearing out an airspace using hit and run tactics (requiring use of higher speed ESFs rather than the current "one size fits all hover and dogfighting frames") primarily used for clearing out a wide area of airspace or softening targets (by damaging or causing them to burn their flares leaving them open for other fighters). This would be most useful whenever you're trying to retake an airspace after you were suddenly swarmed by ESFs lolpodding the ground. In a scenario like that, no one ever attempts to pull ESFs to counter a force like that, they simply get on the ground, pull burster MAXes and do the best that they can while the ground force picks them off.

While this is not Ace Combat, you cannot deny that the game has done air combat right for 20+ years. I can argue that this is not Battlefield 3 due to driver/gunner tanks, Halo due to the console-inspired personal shield, or even Call of Duty (yes, I went there) do to it's inclusion of quick knife and incoming implants that, I would bet my hat that the devs make work more like COD-esque perks, rather than actual implants.

Staying on topic, this game has taken a lot from other games because the devs thought they were ideas that were done right. Just because it doesn't fit the primary playstyle that everyone has adopted in ESFs (nose gun other ESFs in "turning fights", rocket pods for everything else), does not mean that it cannot have a valid role in this game.

[maradine]

How about we give fighters a lift coefficient, subject them to gravity, and just let the problems sort themselves out. It would be, you know, dogfighting.

[Ghoest9]

Dog fighting is a total joke unless they remake the Reaver.

Its far and away the worst fighter if the weapons are balanced. The only thing it has going for it is the asymetric balance of its Air Hammer.

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

Hmm we have a great A2A machine gun and AA rockets already. The ROFLPODS can be used well in air too. Covers all the bases with them weapons alone.

Eh, general consensus seems to be that the AA Missiles are crap...
Apparently a ninja Detection Range nerf left them unable to Lock on at distance, leaving them unable to be used as an Opening Shot.
Air-to-air guns seem to be all over the place, with them being considered the only thing to use to outright useless...

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

What about being able to put AA max bursters on your ESF?? So instead of pods you can put one burster on and instead of nose gun/AB you can put another on, potentially giving you dual bursters in the skies.

Flak Cannons do seem to be an obvious choice for Air Armament, but I think they'd have to be either a Primary or a Secondary and not a combination of both.
The way it seems to be set up is that a Weapon is either on the Nose or on the Wings, so you could maybe have a light Flak Gun for a Primary and then two huge Flak Cannons for Secondaries.

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

I also like the semi rocket idea where you have to keep los on the target (really what the A2A rockets should've been imo)

Except they will have to be completely useless or completely skill-less...
If you are able to keep your nose on the Target you might as well use your gun, but if you only need to keep your nose in the vague direction of the Target the missile needs to be fast flying enough to hit before it exits your detection cone.

This will just make Air Fights even more loopy, because it will be easier to exit the LoS Detection Cone by falling BEHIND your tail then to shake him with terrain.

Originally Posted by WSNeo

Air combat in Planetside 2 is not strictly "Turning fights" as you would put them. I'll be honest, I suck at dogfighting with the nose gun, so I rely on primarily speed and lock ons to get kills or pick off stragglers.

Yeah, I'm not going to win any Dogfights any time soon either, but I do understand that they are a natural occurrence when you have fighter on fighter combat.
When you're both in high-maneuvering craft, it's less about who has the best missiles and more who is the BETTER PILOT!
This is the whole reason Aircraft still HAVE Nose Guns in the first place...

Originally Posted by WSNeo

Multilock missiles are for used for clearing out an airspace using hit and run tactics (requiring use of higher speed ESFs rather than the current "one size fits all hover and dogfighting frames") primarily used for clearing out a wide area of airspace or softening targets (by damaging or causing them to burn their flares leaving them open for other fighters). This would be most useful whenever you're trying to retake an airspace after you were suddenly swarmed by ESFs lolpodding the ground. In a scenario like that, no one ever attempts to pull ESFs to counter a force like that, they simply get on the ground, pull burster MAXes and do the best that they can while the ground force picks them off.

Ok... how is this weapon going to acquire multiple locks?

Best way I can think of is having all of the targets within the Detection Cone before the missiles are fired.
Like the remote detonated Rocket this would only really be good for damaging clusters of Aircraft, probably the TR factional equivalent, and won't actually be useful FOR Dogfighting...

Originally Posted by WSNeo

While this is not Ace Combat, you cannot deny that the game has done air combat right for 20+ years.

Yeah, and it's a game CENTERED AROUND AIR COMBAT!
Planetside 2 is a Combined Arms game, and Aircraft just have to deal with the fact that they are hamstrung so they do not unbalance Ground Combat.
They just can't give Aircraft the space to maneuver like they have in an air-centric game because it would give Air-to-Ground the ability to completely circumvent Ground-to-Air.

Originally Posted by CaptainTenneal

Absolutely, dogfighting has been reduced to two wildly jerking around an imaginary sphere, looks ridiculous. Chasing/fleeing through canyons and forests would be more realistic and fun.

Originally Posted by Boildown

That said, just about any WW2 era fighter could crush an army of ESFs. They are so slow, have terrible visibility out of the cockpit, no radar worth a damn (on par with most but not all WW2-era fighters). If I had a Spitfire V or later I would never lose a single engagement even at 5 to 1 odds against. And that technology is 70 years old. The ESFs seem positively anachronistic instead of futuristic. They only futuristic thing they have is self healing.

This is because they just can't have the room...
As has been said elsewhere ESF fly more like Helecopters then Fighter Jets, but they need to be otherwise they'd be impossible to balance with the rest of the game.

[AThreatToYou]

Originally Posted by Whiteagle

Ok, first I have no idea how you'd get something like this to work, and second...

Yeah, I doubt it's going to do what you want...

You see the reason Aircraft start circling is because it's Dogfighting 101; Get the hell out from in front of the Enemy's Guns!
Easiest way to do that is to break hard, but a good Dogfighter will anticipate this and turn with you...
...So now you have two aircraft going in circles frantically trying to land a burst on the other.

This is why you are suppose to fly with a Wingman; You call out the Boogie tailing you, the two of you plan a set up flight pattern, and you lead your tail right into your Wingman's guns...
...But since most people fly solo it turns into whoever is better at Nose-duels.

It would do exactly what I want, and that's discourage circlejerking duels, because of the exact reason you provided: there's no longer any way to get away from their guns with this weapon, provided they were TAG'd.

And if you fly with a wingman, you can rapidly take out unsuspecting targets with the flux.

Ok, first I have no idea how you'd get something like this to work,

While we don't have any TAG weapons in-game currently, I don't see why it wouldn't work. PS2 devs have their own engine, they can do whatever the fuck they want with it.


OR

Since aircraft are already in a 6DOF mode, switch the thrust vectors and turn vector controls (probably doable with a single toggle button) and allow them to fly independent of the direction they are facing. That prevents circlejerking because, like in Descent or Allegiance, you can flip around and keep firing after flying past your opponent, in addition to being able to face your opponent while doing a mid-air slide. The way to win then is through pure skill.

[NewSith]

All I want is a huge nerf to ESF hovering, so dogfights don't turn into a spiraled fight, ending up in complete stop of both participants.

No need for more A2A weapons, since the Air-To-Air combat is not even close to dynamic. Of course it's less stale than in PS1, but hell, just watch this:

[NUBLERT]

Grappling hooks!

[bpostal]

Remember when you could hold down your middle mouse button in the lib and aim the nose cannon? That.

[Phreec]

Anything goes as long as it's not more of the usual skill less lock-on stuff. I don't think the game even needs more dogfighting weapons really, at least not for ESF vs ESF combat.

But here's a suggestion; how about some sort of floating air mines? You'd deploy them behind you, like flares, except they float in the air (maybe slowly fall towards the ground?) and detonate as someone flies into them?

Either make them large, heavy lumps that you could use for flying in front of enemy Galaxies and placing in their path or a 'cloud' of shrapnel that you could use to lure chasing enemy ESF's into.

[SolLeks]

Air to air combat is fine, what is not fine is how AA is better at taking air out of the fight than air is.

also, why does everyone want to make ESF into generic flight sim #18957? No to more lock on skill missiles that can not be dodged and No to making this game into more of a BF3 clone. this game does not have proper flight physics to mimic jets, there is no loss of speed in a climb or gain in a dive, there is only go fast and go slower so all of you that want to turn this in to ace combat would just ruin air compleatly.

[Falcon_br]

Just give us a 3d air radar and all dodge fights will be much better!