ESF's - Your opinion?

[Assist]

So after reading through this, it seems that most agree that the only way to kill a liberator successfully is with the rocket pods. So my original statement stands still, the A2A primary guns are not strong enough for taking out Liberators, which is what they should be used for the most.

[ShadetheDruid]

Originally Posted by Assist

So after reading through this, it seems that most agree that the only way to kill a liberator successfully is with the rocket pods. So my original statement stands still, the A2A primary guns are not strong enough for taking out Liberators, which is what they should be used for the most.

Well, I wouldn't say they're the only way, considering I have plenty of success just using the default nose gun on Libs. But yes, rocket pods are probably way better at the task, which is a bit weird considering they're A2G.

Of course, the other problem with making the nose guns better so you can take on Libs easier is the knock on effect it would have with using them against anything that's not a Lib.

[Rothnang]

Originally Posted by Assist

So after reading through this, it seems that most agree that the only way to kill a liberator successfully is with the rocket pods. So my original statement stands still, the A2A primary guns are not strong enough for taking out Liberators, which is what they should be used for the most.

That's absolutely false. You can kill a Liberator EASILY with any of the fighter primary weapons. It takes sustained fire, but what can the Liberator really do about it? Use the tailgun? Fat chance of killing you with that if you're not stupid enough to get within 50 meters of it. Kill you with the bellygun? Also easily avoided by just staying far enough away from it. His front gun? If he can somehow outturn you he deserves the kill.

He can't get away from you, because you're faster. He can't outmaneuver you because you can outturn him. His defensive weapons are only really a threat if you get too close. The only defense he really has against fighter attack is if his own fighter cover or AA units intervene to save his skin, which is perfectly consistent with the idea of teamwork being rewarded, so there is really no good justification for fighters being able to kill a Liberator more quickly. That would remove the ability for fighters to protect their Liberators, since people would be able to just make a run on them and blow them up before anyone can intervene. If the Liberator has no support then he dies either way, since he can't run.

Originally Posted by Tatwi

If anything I'd leave the guns the same, remove lock on a2a missiles, and for a min forward speed of 60kph to fire weapons (which forces people to "dog fight" in the more traditional WWII manner rather than PS2's silly turrets in the sky style). But it all depends on what they are going for.

I agree there that the dogfighting element in this game is largely lost because there is no good reason to keep moving forward if someone is on your tail. In most of the oldschool space sims your turning speed got slower the slower you moved, so that's how they got around people just slamming on the breaks in the middle of a dogfight. Also they had a lockon feature where the game would always show you which direction your target was from you, so it wasn't so much of a game of hide and seek in the sky.

In PS2 you notice that pretty much only noobs will try to actually shake you off in a dogfight, most of the more advanced players just stop and move with vertical thrusters, which does two things: It gets rid of their condensation trails, so it becomes much harder to track them if they move off your screen, and it allows them to face their attacker and completely negate the advantage from having been behind them.

The most typical maneuver I see is: Head straight up, point nose down, throttle to zero, use verticals + roll to move sideways. It's much harder to keep track of an aircraft moving that way without leaving trails you can follow, and especially if the guy has stealth and doesn't show on radar you can lose him pretty quickly like that. One quick dip outside your view without a condensation trail you can use to find him again and you have no idea if he's now gunning for you or punched it and is already a kilometer away.

[MrBloodworth]

Eh, a few rockets and some nose gun action does the trick.

[Tatwi]

My computer is not new enough for me to be allowed to have an opinion on the matter. The amount of times I've slammed into invisible objects or face planted into ground in a fit of frame hitching vastly out numbers the amount of times I have shot at anything with the nose gun. However, the few times I have been able to shoot stuff, the stuff took damage, so I'd say it probably works fine for i5/i7 computer owners.

If anything I'd leave the guns the same, remove lock on a2a missiles, and for a min forward speed of 60kph to fire weapons (which forces people to "dog fight" in the more traditional WWII manner rather than PS2's silly turrets in the sky style). But it all depends on what they are going for.

[belch]

Gotta disagree about the nose guns being effective against the Libs. I mean, they do damage, yes. But it takes a LOT of it...which, unless he was foolish enough to try Libbin' it up on his own, you probably are not going to have time to gun him down. As a deterrent, it's not bad against the Libs. I have noticed that many will turn tail after 3 full magazines...heading straight for the territories they own of course.

I think the general contempt for the lock-on is a bit humorous. Not picking on you specifically Rothnang, but they are a completely valid tool. And they are hardly the uber-kill that people make them out to be. It's not like they don't have specific and effective counters. And as has been noted, the rocket pods are almost overly present. In a way, it is a natural progression to see the lock-ons become more prevalent. Probably from that grunt that got rocket podded into oblivion.

[Rothnang]

I don't know what you expect out of the guns. I fly both Liberators and Fighters and I have absolutely no problem taking out Liberators, but I also know that there isn't a whole lot you can do against a fighter that engages you from far away.

Currently it's pretty well balanced, if the fighter gets close to use rocket pods, Airhammer, PPA etc. which kill a Liberator very quickly you can put the hurt on him with your tailgun and sometimes bellygun, so you have a chance to fight back. If he stays at range and engages you with missiles or standard/rotary cannon he takes longer to kill you, but you need help to get rid of him.

I don't like hard counters. They invalidate peoples skill in a game like this, and to me it seems that some people just want Liberators to be a free kill for fighters, with no way of actually winning the fight. Also Rocket Pods + Rotary is already by far the best, most versatile combination of fighter weapons currently available, asking for that setup to be even more universally powerful is just insane. Being able to reload one weapon while firing the other also just really doesn't help the case for better guns as long as rocket pods can already kill a Liberator in short order.

When you see a Liberator with a fighter escort you pretty much shouldn't be able to kill it before killing the fighter. If you can get a kill that quickly it leaves people no room for teamwork.

Also let's not forget, the vast majority of fights between Liberator and Fighter don't happen with the Liberator at full health. Since the Liberator can't do anything to avoid a fight with an ESF it's really easy for fighters to pick up opportunistic kills on Liberators that are trying to head out of the combat zone.

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

I don't know what you expect out of the guns. I fly both Liberators and Fighters and I have absolutely no problem taking out Liberators, but I also know that there isn't a whole lot you can do against a fighter that engages you from far away.

Currently it's pretty well balanced, if the fighter gets close to use rocket pods, Airhammer, PPA etc. which kill a Liberator very quickly you can put the hurt on him with your tailgun and sometimes bellygun, so you have a chance to fight back. If he stays at range and engages you with missiles or standard/rotary cannon he takes longer to kill you, but you need help to get rid of him.

I don't like hard counters. They invalidate peoples skill in a game like this, and to me it seems that some people just want Liberators to be a free kill for fighters, with no way of actually winning the fight. Also Rocket Pods + Rotary is already by far the best, most versatile combination of fighter weapons currently available, asking for that setup to be even more universally powerful is just insane. Being able to reload one weapon while firing the other also just really doesn't help the case for better guns as long as rocket pods can already kill a Liberator in short order.

When you see a Liberator with a fighter escort you pretty much shouldn't be able to kill it before killing the fighter. If you can get a kill that quickly it leaves people no room for teamwork.

Also let's not forget, the vast majority of fights between Liberator and Fighter don't happen with the Liberator at full health. Since the Liberator can't do anything to avoid a fight with an ESF it's really easy for fighters to pick up opportunistic kills on Liberators that are trying to head out of the combat zone.

You seem to play against very bad Liberators, from what I can tell. There's plenty of Liberator pilots/gunners on Waterson that you cannot take out with 1 ESF. Even getting the jump, you still can't. Two ESF's against some of them won't get it done, to the point that I would bet on them every time against the best ESF pilots.

Maybe it's just two completely different experiences, but it seems to me that your experience against Liberators is that they're all horribly awful at A2A combat. If I stay at max range against a Liberator and try to kill him he's simply going to fly away. If I get medium range I'm going to die to the Dalton, and if I get close I'm going to die to the Dalton and Bulldog/Walker. I've expierenced this plenty of times, and I've done this plenty of times flying my Liberator for friends. I've had BR1 friends, first time logged in, get in my Dalton and take out ESF's from huge ranges. It's not difficult, there's no skill, and to suggest otherwise to me says that you don't have the personal experience. I don't know if maybe you're just talking from a theoretical point of view, but your scenarios simply don't happen in game against half-decent Libs.
Also, the best ESF weapon against Liberators is not the A2A missile. If I'm close enough to lock onto one of the good Liberators on Waterson, then I'm close enough to be shot down by their gunners. Considering it takes 4?5? A2A rockets to kill a Liberator, I'd say they're not half as good as the rocket pods when it comes to taking out Liberators. The best weapon, by far, against a Liberator is another Liberator. Tank Buster and Dalton are the two best weapons against a Liberator.

[Rothnang]

Dude, if someone is reliably shooting you down with a Dalton at any range that isn't practically you hugging the gun barrel report that mofo, because he's not aiming it by hand.

Honestly, Dalton vs. ESF at medium range is a really improbable shot, even for the most amazing gunners. I've had a Liberator up with some seriously good gunners, people where I know they can shoot down an ESF with the Dalton because I've seen them do it often enough to know it's not just luck. I still wouldn't ever turn my nose at fighters and roll around thinking they can do it every single time.

Also, somehow it really bothers me that people are adamant about the claim that Magriders are able to dodge tank shells, but at the same time fighters somehow can't dodge Dalton shells despite being one third the size, capable of movement on all axis, and having an effective dodge speed of around 60km/h... What's up with that? Are Dalton gunners just ten times better than tank gunners?

[belch]

oh, don't get me wrong. I have shot plenty of them down...but if I don't use A2A missiles, at best I can scare them off the objective. I am totally fine with that. If I feel like chasing him down and finishing him off, I know that there is likely going to be a price paid.

I am not looking for an easy kill on a Lib. But if we are talking about effectiveness of the nose gun? Well, expending 4 magazines (Tier 3, 51 rounds) of rotary at a rear oblique from above seems like it should take it down. If you get more than 4 passes, he was either way outside of his factions airspace alone, or is a horrid Lib pilot that didn't know when to get out of dodge. YMMV of course.

BTW, I also fly Libs. I don't fear ESF's nearly as much if they are running nose guns and rocket pods. Now that A2A missile...yeah, that takes a good bite out of me and shuts down operations early lol.

[Rothnang]

Yea, the air to air missile is the most dangerous weapon against Liberators, because like I said, if the fighters come in close you can shoot back. With the A2A missiles they can just hang back well out of the effective range of your tailgun and keep shooting missiles at you. If no friendly unit intervenes you will die, there is no two ways about it.

I personally don't mind the fact that enemy aircraft can retreat to their own airspace, that's how it should be. If every single air battle ended with one of the two aircraft dying, like it is in infantry combat there really wouldn't be any way to operate an aircraft for any meaningful length of time.

As far as I'm concerned fighters have no predator other than themselves. They are pretty much at the top of the foodchain in this game. It's not as bad as it used to be with all the AA buffs, and rocket nerfs, but fighters are still by far the most versatile unit in the game. They can try to either outrun or outfight anything they encounter, which isn't a boast any other unit in the game can make. All other units have some relationships with opposing units that are basically: "Have bad chances in a fight against it and can't get away from it".

[belch]

Of course they are powerful...at the top of the food chain though? I don't know. I have been shot down by just about every weapon in the game. I keep expecting some jerk in blue or purple to down me with a sling shot next...lol

I think maradine nailed it when he cited the benefits of air platforms in general, and ESF's in particular. In an airframe, you usually have the opportunity to get out of dodge when things get hairy. You really don't have that much wiggle room with other types of units. Sure you can duck into a room as a grunt...maybe that will buy you enough time to get your shield back up, maybe not. Sure you can use the terrain to mask your armored vehicle...maybe the threat doesn't chase you down and you have time to repair. Those are much smaller maybes than you have in any air frame. Your spoeed and 360 degree maneuverability are just going to give you a better chance of ducking out of fire in an ESF.

Of course, that isn't a certainty either, is it? (which is as it should be IMO)

[Rothnang]

All the benefits that ESFs have from being flying units don't really apply all that well to Liberators and Galaxies. In an ESF if someone is shooting at you you can start dodging them just by tapping the spacebar a bit, and if you're in trouble you can accelerate to 300 km/h in a second and burn for the hills.

In a Liberator or Galaxy if you ever get cought hovering in the crosshairs of an enemy it will take you as long just to turn and accelerate as it takes an ESF to be over the next mountain.

Did you see my Liberator video about fighting with the tankbuster? It shows a couple situations where I get killed by tanks or dumbfire rockets because the Liberator just can't get out of the way very quickly. The fact that it flips its wings into a nice broad-side-of-barn shape when it hovers also doesn't help.

[belch]

True. When I go Libbin', I don't let my vehicle damage get below the half way mark...while it isn't a guarantee of anything, I have found it extends the longevity by heaps. But then, I don't run Lib's for just anyone...it is my buddies, and I am trying to maximize our utility as fire support, and give my buddies a good run.

[Rothnang]

Never letting your health drop below 50% is pretty much a cardinal rule of all vehicles, because at 50% the smoke comes out and telegraphs to every enemy around "easy kill right here"...

The real rub with Liberators begins when you start wanting to do stuff like like hovering low to tankbust an actual tank with them. You quickly find that you don't have the agility to dodge or hitpoints to tank the kind of damage a tank can throw back at you. An ESF doesn't have that problem so much, because even a low flying ESF is relatively hard to hit, and it can get out of trouble just by using the vertical thrust. You really have to fly the Liberators as cheap as possible to really make them count right now.