So every HA can be an aircraft counter?

[mirwalk]

Originally Posted by Sifer2

One of the most frustrating things in FPS games with air vehicles is when you just can't kill the damn things too. It's fun for the one guy in the Jet bombing everyone but pisses off way more people on the ground who keep taking shots at him but he always just boosts away. So having more AA out there to prevent that will only make the game play better for the majority IMO.

This is how I feel about air in most games. So far the air seems tough enough that 2 or 3 guys rocketing will have only a chase off effect. You would need a good number to be dropping planes left and right. Of course in those battles usually the amount of air targets increase.
I remember a few maps in BF3 (not the same game I know) where one or two good pilots would die like twice, but otherwise were cleaning up the whole match. Besides flak or gatling guns they could not be dropped. Flares, a little AB, some terrain jumps and no missile could track them, except the high class ones.

[Buggsy]

Originally Posted by ThermalReaper

Thanks TotalBiscuit! You rock!

Like the Liberator 3 player setup, though I'd nerf the nose gun about 20% and buff the tailgun and big cannon about 20%.

[Eyeklops]

Lock-on AA/AV 4TW!! I hope there are a few certs for reducing the lock-on time and an AA cert that substantially increases the chances the missile will not be distracted by flares or ECM. I also hope somewhere in the AA cert tree is access to upgraded missiles that give no lock-on warning. The last thing I wouldn't mind seeing is missiles you fire and they self acquire a lock on the nearest enemy target within 1000m. Then I can just puke these bad boys out like a champ and watch all the birds fall out of the sky while the hate tells roll in. Pure Pwnage.

[Vydofnir]

Based on what I've seen from just about every hands-on since before E3, it has been near impossible for a single HA to bring down an aircraft, and TB did not fair any better in the Raw & Uncut video. If what we've seen from videos is any indication of what we can expect, I believe it is safe to assume the following:

1) It takes quite a while to lock on.
2) Obstructions break the lock.
3) Pilots are notified of a lock and can quickly get out of range.
4) Aircraft can deploy countermeasures.
5) Afterburners can successfully outrun missiles.
6) Skilled pilots are able to outmaneuver missiles.
7) Even the lightest aircraft can sustain multiple missile hits.

That being said I think it would be much more frustrating to be a lone wolf HA trying to take down an aircraft than it would be to be the pilot of said aircraft, and that's fine by me. However, if you have more than one HA teaming up to bring down a single aircraft things might go the other way, and that seems fair to me as well. Of course, this will all get sorted out in beta.

In regards to AA and AT variants, I believe what we have seen so far is the basic, middle-of-the-road missile launcher, but I believe there with be specialized variants. If you skip to 18:24 of the video below, you can see descriptions for two variants of the TR launcher: The M9 SKEP Launcher for AT, and the ASP-30 Grounder for AA.


Although the weapon stats don't visibly change between the two, it is entirely possible that they will have varying effectiveness versus different armor types, or that the lock on mechanics will be different. At this point in the development the weapon stats that we see mean next to nothing, but it does go to show that they are working on specialized variants.

[Tehroth]

This game looks so damn fun. Argh I can't wait.

[Ivam Akorahil]

up your flying skills then, no zooming and cruising about above the battlefield, strike and hide tactics, quick flythroughs etc

Dont expect to hover over the enemy and pick off enemies without consquences, doesnt work in rl either

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Vydofnir

1) It takes quite a while to lock on.
2) Obstructions break the lock.
3) Pilots are notified of a lock and can quickly get out of range.
4) Aircraft can deploy countermeasures.
5) Afterburners can successfully outrun missiles.
6) Skilled pilots are able to outmaneuver missiles.
7) Even the lightest aircraft can sustain multiple missile hits.

My thoughts, for what that's worth:

1) Indifferent, trending towards Do Not Like
2) Like
3) Like, but see 5)
4) Like
5) Do Not Like
6) Like
7) Do Not Like, and would prefer a BF3-style aircraft disable at 50%

[Coreldan]

What exactly did BF3 vehicle disabled do? I rarely used them myself, but not once that I actually got "vehicle disabled" points did the vehicle stop or anything else.

Actually, when I played with my friends when we would manage to disable the vehicle we said "Vehicle fully functionalised" cos we were so pissed off that nothing ever happened despite the "disable".

[Revanmug]

"Disable" is a mechanic that should diaf... (pun intented)

After a certain amount of damage (50% health and under), your vehicule is disable, catch on fire and start to lose health until you repair it to full. It also make your ground vehicule very slow moving and air unit harder to control.

All it did was making people usually bail sooner rather than later and giving this impression that vehicule are weaker than they should.

[maradine]

On armor, movement speed was cut to a crawl and the vehicle caught fire, bleeding its remaining health at about a two percent per second. If you had a dedicated engineer along, and managed to finish the immediate firefight (or reverse into cover), this wasn't typically fatal.

On aircraft, it reduced throttle input by about half and introduced a random-seeming vector of roll, pitch, and/or yaw into the controls, which you had to fight with. For the attack helos, you could frequently nurse them back to friendly ground if the initial control shock didn't kill you and the shooting had stopped. For jets, it was usually better to get back inside the infantry map boundaries and bail.

BF3 aircraft also had extinguishgers that would be good for a one-time bump back above 50% (which would then let you regen if you stayed alive long enough), but fitting one meant you weren't carrying flares or ECM.

I like the disabled mechanic. It was a good counterpoint to regenerating vehicle health. I don't see how one could live without the other, personally, but that's beta talk.

edit: to the preceding comment, I never found BF3 vehicles fragile in the least. If you limited your exposure to rocket fire, you were effectively immortal.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by WorldOfForms

AA MAXes in PS1 were not much of a threat if you used your brain. Hell, I was a fairly terrible pilot and yet AA never gave me any trouble. Hear a lock beep? Turn and burn. Problem disappears.

If they weren't a significant threat, you wouldn't run when they engaged you.

[Eyeklops]

Originally Posted by Vydofnir

1) It takes quite a while to lock on.
2) Obstructions break the lock.
3) Pilots are notified of a lock and can quickly get out of range.
4) Aircraft can deploy countermeasures.
5) Afterburners can successfully outrun missiles.
6) Skilled pilots are able to outmaneuver missiles.
7) Even the lightest aircraft can sustain multiple missile hits.

1) Make certs shorten the lock-on time
2) Agree, like.
3) Meh..no opinion.
4) Like
5) No way...shouldn't happen..ever. The only way an afterburner should save you is if you were on the fringe edge of the missiles max travel range when it was fired. If they make the max lock on range much smaller than the max missile travel range this should never be an issue.
6) This should be based on what angle the missile is coming in at once it reaches close proximity. If the missile is up your ass, outmaneuvering should not be possible. If the missile is coming head on, there should be some high % (but not %100) chance that you can easily avoid it.
7) 2 hits for a scythe & mossy, 3 for a reaver, 5 for a liberator, and 8 for a Galaxy, because I say so. Maybe add +1 to the for players highly certed into that aircraft.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

If they weren't a significant threat, you wouldn't run when they engaged you.

This. Good AA units got kills off of idiots (which there will be plenty of in a F2P game where every player can pull an aircraft), but AA's true strategic value in PS1 was area denial.

If you were certain that it was only a single guy with a Striker targeting you in PS1, you were generally safe to engage them 1 on 1, but the problem was if you weren't sure what was locking onto you, or if there were multiple lockons. I kind of hope they keep that mechanic for PS2, where you don't know what's locking onto you or how many things are locked on to you at once. You probably won't get a huge number of air kills with a lockon HA AV weapon in PS2, but as long as lockons are a scary enough thing, you'll definitely be able to scare any aircraft away.

[Revanmug]

Originally Posted by maradine

edit: to the preceding comment, I never found BF3 vehicles fragile in the least. If you limited your exposure to rocket fire, you were effectively immortal.

Which is the exact damn problem. Balance came to : get hit and you are fuck or don't and rape everything.

Air balance became a war of who got more countermeasure to the other's weapon since one AA missile was able to disable you (or is it 2 missile now with the nerf?). Hell, if the missile was hitting the cockpit, it would kill the pilot (bug that never got fix). Let's not talk about the Javelin that could one shot any air unit since it was not affected by flare or jammers. Wasn't that nerf too?

In the end, removing disable which would have given them more health but nerfing countermeasure would have make thing way better balance wise rather than a "Can't touch this! Can't touch this! ... Oh shit, we are hit, landing to repair/bail out" gameplay.

[LegioX]

Originally Posted by Revanmug

Which is the exact damn problem. Balance came to : get hit and you are fuck or don't and rape everything.

Air balance became a war of who got more countermeasure to the other's weapon since one AA missile was able to disable you (or is it 2 missile now with the nerf?). Hell, if the missile was hitting the cockpit, it would kill the pilot (bug that never got fix). Let's not talk about the Javelin that could one shot any air unit since it was not affected by flare or jammers. Wasn't that nerf too?

In the end, removing disable which would have given them more health but nerfing countermeasure would have make thing way better balance wise rather than a "Can't touch this! Can't touch this! ... Oh shit, we are hit, landing to repair/bail out" gameplay.

To bad in PS2 ill be there in my air-to-air cert plane to own any planes trying to get ground kills.