Air to Ground Munition Selection

[Mechzz]

Originally Posted by Kipper

...but what's slightly interesting is that there's much less interest in a retarded deviant that can be dropped from a low level....

*Quote changed for comic effect*

So which member of these forums would you put forward as the first to be dropped from a Reaver flying below 100ft?
(jk)

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Kipper

Really? That's... dumb. Last BF I played with jets was BF2, I remember it took a little bit of time and skill to go back and sweep over the runway (you didn't have to actually land) to get repairs and rearm. Why would you not have that?

It sounds like it's going too far away from 'sim' into 'arcade' territory.

BF3's devs have been pursuing a sweeping policy of lowering the threshold, their new philosophy is best described as lowering the threshold, making the game easy to play, hard to master. The problem is that the hard to master bit really only has anything to do with getting used to the game's movement and everything, there are hardly any squad tools, communication tools, complex weapons systems, none of that to learn really. Commander was removed as part of this philosophy, for example, and when the Armored Kill expansion brings artillery, the artillery will almost certainly be fired by a VERY easy minimap firing control system that lets you simply point at red dots and fire. (and remember that in BF3, people don't just appear on the minimap if spotted manually by another player, but by simply firing their weapon too)

TL;DR: DICE is lowering the complexity of the game making it so easy for everyone(regardless of whether that ease is actually necessary). Bombs are one of the casualties of this.

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

BF3's devs have been pursuing a sweeping policy of lowering the threshold, their new philosophy is best described as lowering the threshold, making the game easy to play, hard to master. The problem is that the hard to master bit really only has anything to do with getting used to the game's movement and everything, there are hardly any squad tools, communication tools, complex weapons systems, none of that to learn really. Commander was removed as part of this philosophy, for example, and when the Armored Kill expansion brings artillery, the artillery will almost certainly be fired by a VERY easy minimap firing control system that lets you simply point at red dots and fire. (and remember that in BF3, people don't just appear on the minimap if spotted manually by another player, but by simply firing their weapon too)

TL;DR: DICE is lowering the complexity of the game making it so easy for everyone(regardless of whether that ease is actually necessary). Bombs are one of the casualties of this.

Or maybe they are just trying to get away from super powerful air based aoe weapons.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Or maybe they are just trying to get away from super powerful air based aoe weapons.

The only reason that would even be necessary, however, is:
1. Small maps allowing you to blast mercilessly. And even on BF3's so called large maps, the flags are packed tightly, which means that even on large maps, players congregate.
2. Unlimited ammo


Also, just like jets have been nerfed to the stone age by loss of their bombs, while infantry have been given Stingers, they are hardly powerful. In the current version of stingers, the lock range is so small that half the time you won't get a shot off and if you do, it will be long gone before a second shot(and your first shot is inevitably blocked by flares).

Basically, neither can rape the other.

Note, however, that this doesn't apply to helicopters, they retain some ability to rape.

[Kipper]

Anyway... back on topic.

For PS2.... My thoughts:

1. YES to a wide variation of weapons (not just for air, but for all) to increase tactical variety and lessen the chance of "this is the way it must be done" and increase the chance of "what new way of taking this area/facility can we think of?"

2. NO to carrying unlimited ammo (you can have more, just go back to a friendly base and land to get it) to reduce farming/carpet bombing and promote use of well targeted strikes.

[Marinealver]

Wouldn't mind seeing them be adjusted to say empire charastics. For example the NC libs would have TV guided Tank busting bombs while the TR would have say multiple rocket pods.

HARM I really couldn't say would fit into the game as well there is no real RADAR or better said everyone has radar with the mini map. Jamming and countermeasures would be better. Say chaf/flar or mabey even a holographic decoy.

[DaPope]

BF2142 working as a pilot/gunner team is without question one of the best times I have had playing in any game. The ability to work as a team to spot, target, and destroy targets is unmatched! Please, please, please let that happen!!!

I love having the option to outfit your aircraft as you see fit. Some might prefer to have a very fast machinegun, where others would prefer a slower firing cannon, still other want a wide spread rocket pod, if you keep the damage done from these similar it will make for some very interesting attacks packages and allow the pilots to tweak their load outs based upon expected targets and opposition.

[Anderz]

Originally Posted by DaPope

BF2142 working as a pilot/gunner team is without question one of the best times I have had playing in any game. The ability to work as a team to spot, target, and destroy targets is unmatched! Please, please, please let that happen!!!

Agreed. 2142 had fantastic air battles!

Personally, I'd LOVE to see TV guided missiles as an option for the Liberator gunner. Does anyone have any information on what customization options there will be in that regard?

[CutterJohn]

I'll take one of each please. More weapons = better. With possibly the except of the TV missile.. Depends on how its balanced. If you lose control of it if you lose line of sight with the missile for more than a second or two, I'd be fine.

[Envenom]

checked all. More options the better

[Zekeen]

Ok, this post was made on the 23? How the hell did I miss this? It covers everything I wanted, and starts off with what I wanted more than anything, guns instead of rockets! I wanted to be able to outfit a Reaver with 5 chainguns so I could strafe run and do more in depth dog fights with other aircraft. I gotta say, that ALL the weapons CAN work, depending on the vehicle.

Guided missiles should be Liberator only, it CAN be overpowered, it's the freaking Liberator. I won't complain when blown to bits by one.

We DEFINITELY need some basic bombs, I'll miss em from PS1, and no, I didn't hate being a bomber, cause you got ALL the freaking kills. Just give the bomber a chain gun with the bomb deck to keep him from being bored.

Basic bombs for basic aircraft as well! Imagine being able to have some large bombs, like one for each weapon slot, with super high power, so you gotta reload after dropping. Give us that WW2 feel.

Laser guided is a definite. But no SOFLAM type devices, make it all user pointed, more interaction and teamwork then.

Altogether... I love this poll!

[Alderego]

Voted for everything but the fire and forget missiles.

But there should be restrictions though:
1) laser guided would have to be constant guide by a ground squad. It would go to wherever they point the laser: so no auto-locking on vehicles with the marker, it would be like aiming the missile yourself, only the aircraft fires it.
The laser signal would be interruptable with any kind of smoke: dodge behind a burning vehicle and that smoke would block the laser if it goes through, same with the grenades and stuff.

2) anti-radar: only works on some sort of gadget/upgrade that actively reveals the sky/ground. If you hit with it it either scrambles their signal for a bit (aka, making everything that it detects be displayed 10 times or so) or the unlock gets destroyed with some splash damage on the vehicle. The unlock would be unrepairable after it's destroyed, leaving the vehicle at a serious disadvantage with 1 less upgrade. (for which it already probably sacrificed something else if we can go by what Highby said that the upgrade/side-grade system would be like)

[maradine]

I want an unguided bomb that flips all landed Galaxies onto their backs in a 2km radius.

Do this for me.

[TeaReks]

I would like retarded bombs, but more importantly I think infantry should get a few colors of smoke grenades. Maybe 1 faction specific color and 2 others so that you could mask your intentions. Nothing that would block huge amounts of los, just something that could mark the ground for air to ground support.

A FO could mark the position with colored smoke and then you could have a few reavers fly NOE until the last second, pop up, lay into the smoked area and fly off.

This would allow the reavers to avoid most of the AA fire on the approach, but be balanced by the fact that the enemy would see the smoke so they could take cover or scatter.

This could add another layer of depth to the game without horribly unbalancing anything.

[meiam]

Well problem is the aircraft seems to be much closer to helicopter than to jet plane, this brings two big problem for bombing:

1) low flight ceiling, it's way too dangerous to send an aircraft do a bombing run when every single foot soldier can shoot at it with there hand gun. I know the ceiling is around 1000 M, but that seems to be from an arbitrary ocean level, so if you try to bomb something that's already at 400-500 M, you don't have a lot of room. Although this could always depending what the actual range of weapon.

2) Similar too 1, slow speed, the aircraft look like there exceedingly slow again, can't risk doing bombing run if everything is gonna be able to take you out. but in exchange they gained maneuverability, which mean there really more suited to be gunship.

Expanding on this is the fact that the world is non destructible, so dropping a blind fire bomb in tightly packed area won't much impact if it's an area with lot's of wall, since somebody even right next to a bomb going off but behind a wall will be unscratched.

I think a way to fix both problem would be to have dumb fire missile that would carpet bomb in a straight line and drop a very large amount of very small bomb that would scatter and hit a large area. You would just fire it, and the missile would fly a straight line and drop a bunch of bomb, so no real threat to yourself. Might seems cheap, but otherwise bombing would be high risk low reward.

Napalm would be cool if the fire would actually persist for a little while but could be taken out, maybe by running over it with a ground vehicle/max.