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1: NC

2: NC and TR

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[kaenneth]

Is there nothing to the game outside of the direct combat zones? only reason to spawn is to do battle?

[Toaster]

It's a shooter.  You can drive/fly around empty continents, but eventually someone will take a potshot at you.

[Flying Dice]

Though hopefully at some point we'll have a more substantial metagame. But yes, it's an MMOFPS. You could, of course, just play as a Lib/Gal pilot or Sundie driver, but those aren't the most rewarding roles at the moment (to say the least).

[ductape]

I need help,this game is like crack, the better i get the more I want to play. I just put the forward grip on my Sweeper shotgun with slug ammo, I am a jetpacking sniper beats with this thing.

[Blizzlord]

Due to some random fluke in reality I thought it would be a good idea to halt work so and go back here to change the threads title to better reflect the current situation.

[alway]

Is there nothing to the game outside of the direct combat zones? only reason to spawn is to do battle?

Fun tips:
1. you are rarely noticed in an ESF when flying over combat zones at the max height of 1000m.
2. large bases deep in enemy territory do not have any enemies in them
3. large bases have many phalanx anti-air and anti-vehicle guns
4. phalanx guns give about the same xp as enemy kills do

Or in other words, you can hop over the front line, deep into enemy territory, and there will be no enemies there. You can then go to town on their phalanx turrets for a little cert grinding.

I haven't tested it, but I think infiltrators should still be able to convert the infantry resupply points; which means you could go in with an inf in an esf, destroy about 6 turrets in that, get out, convert a resupply point, switch to heavy, and go to town on the rest with rockets. Certainly not the fastest way of getting certs, but it's also not exactly hard to do.

[Jelle]

Egh I think I'm giving up on flying, it's just no fun anymore. Air to air missles are everywhere, I think I'll just refuse to fly until they change or remove those noskill missles. Really kills any fun left in flying, better stick to infantry.
It's like I said earlier some point, they should change air to air missles to be a weapon against liberators and would only be effective against hovering or real slow esf. Right now using air to air missles is just ten times as effective and a hundred times easier then using the nose gun. Missles should be a fucken secondary weapon, not some easymode weapon that destroys any hope of dogfights outsidea 1v1 situation. 
/end rant

[kisame12794]

But thats what rockets are for. They are that way in real life too, but real life planes have certed into countermeasures, ie. flares, chaff, and the like.

[Knight of Fools]

I wouldn't mind a AA rocket nerf if they buffed small arms fire against aircraft, because if what you're saying would really happen then ESFs would be unkillable. As it is, they're already pretty freaking hard to kill.

And don't get me started on Libs.

[Flying Dice]

I wouldn't mind a AA rocket nerf if they buffed small arms fire against aircraft, because if what you're saying would really happen then ESFs would be unkillable. As it is, they're already pretty freaking hard to kill.

And don't get me started on Libs.

Have you not been paying attention to the notes for the upcoming update? ESF work in any major battle has already been reduced to coming in low and fast, dumping ammo, and running away, given the sheer volume of G2A fire, and at the end of January AA is getting buffed.

[Jelle]

I'm speaking of air to air missles, these are the lock on missles outfitted on an ESF. Lock on missles on infantry isn't overpowered and is outright to weak, given how you can just fly away outside of locking distance.

Why lock on missles on aircraft are overpowered is locking on to someone is trivial, you can't just flare and make a get away like with infantry. The only thing you can do is turn around and fight wich works fine in 1v1, but spells your doom in large engagements. What's worse is there really is no way to see where the enemy is locking you from, add in vehicle stealth and finding the source of the missles is like finding a needle in a haystack, given how long range you can use those things.
There really is no way to combat it in a real large scale air battle, wich lends itself to air zergs, wich is all around bad for infantry to.

All in all air to air esf rarely even use their nose gun when outfitted with missles, wich is moronic. The ground to air strength is not even in the question, though personalyl I'd say it's in a good spot now.

[miauw62]

I wouldn't mind a AA rocket nerf if they buffed small arms fire against aircraft, because if what you're saying would really happen then ESFs would be unkillable. As it is, they're already pretty freaking hard to kill.

And don't get me started on Libs.

Have you not been paying attention to the notes for the upcoming update? ESF work in any major battle has already been reduced to coming in low and fast, dumping ammo, and running away, given the sheer volume of G2A fire, and at the end of January AA is getting buffed.

Yeah, but fuck liberators at the sky limit with vehicle stealth so you can't reach them.

[Thexor]

I'm speaking of air to air missles, these are the lock on missles outfitted on an ESF. Lock on missles on infantry isn't overpowered and is outright to weak, given how you can just fly away outside of locking distance.

Why lock on missles on aircraft are overpowered is locking on to someone is trivial, you can't just flare and make a get away like with infantry. The only thing you can do is turn around and fight wich works fine in 1v1, but spells your doom in large engagements. What's worse is there really is no way to see where the enemy is locking you from, add in vehicle stealth and finding the source of the missles is like finding a needle in a haystack, given how long range you can use those things.
There really is no way to combat it in a real large scale air battle, wich lends itself to air zergs, wich is all around bad for infantry to.

All in all air to air esf rarely even use their nose gun when outfitted with missles, wich is moronic. The ground to air strength is not even in the question, though personalyl I'd say it's in a good spot now.

I really have to disagree on a lot of these points.

1) Lock-on range for A2A missiles is pathetic. I believe their lock-on range starts at ~250m, which is half the range of a G2A missile. Moreover, infantry with G2A launchers are a small target that can be mostly obscured by surrounding buildings; ESFs are large, highly-visible targets with almost no ability to take cover during combat. If you can't find the source of an A2A missile, that almost certainly means it's right behind you, on your tail, which is exactly where a pursuer in a dogfight should be. And vehicle stealth doesn't make a large impact in your ability to visually identify the enemy. 

2) Decent dogfighting pilots make heavy use of nose guns, for one trivial reason: A2A missiles take approximately three years(-ish) to reload when in combat. Even the 1000 cert upgrade reduces reload time by a pathetic 15%. You can fire off 1-2 full bursts from the Vortex Rotary (or your nation's equivalent) in the time it takes an A2A missile to reload, depending on whether you've upgraded the gun's magazine size.

3) Flares. Just flares. Wait until the missile's been launched, then enjoy your 5 seconds of complete immunity to A2A missiles before shooting down the poor fool with your main gun.

My personal experience has been that dogfighting usually comes down to 1v1 encounters, where the pursuer fires off their A2A missile and then tries to line up as many main gun shots as possible, while the target tries to juke and outmaneuver the pursuer in the hopes of changing the roles. Large air zergs degrade a bit, but even then the use of flares prevent the battle from relying entirely on A2A missiles.

Finally, remember that A2A pilots are pretty useless when it comes to attacking ground targets. I've seen more than one anti-air ESF group sit uselessly over the battlefield as a major installation was stolen from them, unable to do anything more than attempt a few futile strafing runs against enemy tanks. If worst comes to worst, any A2A ESF group can be handled by spawning as a G2A Heavy, or a Burster MAX, or even a Skyguard Lightning, and then shooting at them until they're forced to retreat. 

[Thexor]

Edit: Stupid 504 timeout giving me a double-post.  Same content as above.

[Jelle]

Lock-on range for A2A missiles is pathetic. I believe their lock-on range starts at ~250m, which is half the range of a G2A missile

I can't find the exact number to verify your claim, I'll test it out in game to be sure. From personal experience pathetic is the least I would call it.

If you can't find the source of an A2A missile, that almost certainly means it's right behind you, on your tail, which is exactly where a pursuer in a dogfight should be. And vehicle stealth doesn't make a large impact in your ability to visually identify the enemy.

This is not a matter of simply turning around. Your opponent could indeed be behind you, or he could be above or below or pretty much anywhere not in your field of vision. If you have absolutely no information to go on you can but search randomly around and hope you  get to see whomever is firing them before you're down, wich will be pretty damn fast with missles coming your way.

Decent dogfighting pilots make heavy use of nose guns, for one trivial reason: A2A missiles take approximately three years(-ish) to reload when in combat. Even the 1000 cert upgrade reduces reload time by a pathetic 15%. You can fire off 1-2 full bursts from the Vortex Rotary (or your nation's equivalent) in the time it takes an A2A missile to reload, depending on whether you've upgraded the gun's magazine size.

Use it to take down about 5% or so of the enemy esf, or whatever is left after two missles. Hardly what I would call heavy.

Flares. Just flares. Wait until the missile's been launched, then enjoy your 5 seconds of complete immunity to A2A missiles before shooting down the poor fool with your main gun.

If the enemy is on your tail or you don't know from what direction he's firing, five seconds is nothing. It serves its purpose against  ground to air missles, but in a dogfight you don't just want to buy time, you want to outmanouvre your opponent. This can take far more time unless your assailant is a complete incompetent.

Finally, remember that A2A pilots are pretty useless when it comes to attacking ground targets. I've seen more than one anti-air ESF group sit uselessly over the battlefield as a major installation was stolen from them, unable to do anything more than attempt a few futile strafing runs against enemy tanks. If worst comes to worst, any A2A ESF group can be handled by spawning as a G2A Heavy, or a Burster MAX, or even a Skyguard Lightning, and then shooting at them until they're forced to retreat. 

Then those pilots were foolish to idle around once they had completed their job. Once the air is clear the rest should have an easy time winning the fight, given how you have free reign with liberators and don't have to worry about enemy podders or libs. There's a whole map out there with enemy air units and you can get anywhere in moments in an ESF.
Using ground based AA works just as well against ESF without a2a missles.  This is about ESF being able to fight one another with nose guns.


Now don't get me wrong, yes I do use pods wich is why I complain. Yes I think pods are still to strong and need to be nerfed just the same (halving the magazine size seems fair to me). I'm just commenting on the sorry state air is in.