Are you seriously asking for even more air nerfs? Let the freaking dust settle, it's been nothing but nerfs to air lately. All this rampant air hate is just going to cause the nerf spree to go way to far.
You can't achieve balance this way, it happened before when AA was to strong and was overnerfed, same as vanu was underpowered and was overbuffed, nc was overpowered and was overnerfed (from what I've been told) and probably more balance decisions made by angry irrational gamers who will drive any rebalance way to far in the opposite direction.
Yes, I'm asking for more air nerfs. Even with all that's been done, an ESF that costs 200 air resources and has a single cert upgrade can effectively take on a small squad of infantry just by hovering nearby and spamming rockets. It arrives, dumps its load, and flies away before anyone can react. A fully certed heavy tank, which costs 250 resources, can't even do half as well against that same squad, and they can't even damage it with small arms fire!
Even more extreme, a liberator, which costs 300 resources, can eat two loafs of C4 (200 resources and the risk of actually placing them) and not even catch on fire. That's more health than a Sundie has.
Hit and run tactics are a part of what aircraft
are. I don't want to change that. I just want them to be more on par with everything else in the game, and make hit and run more ingrained with what you want to be doing in an aircraft. Did you land where a LA to drop two bricks of C4 on your windshield? You deserve to die, and he deserves to be rewarded for taking that risk! Did a Heavy Assault manage to nail your ESF with a dumb fire rocket? You should be blown to bits, especially if you were just hovering around, and he should be rewarded for that. Don't want a dumb fire rocket to take you out? Don't put yourself in that situation. It's the same reason helicopters in real life don't sit around waiting for a rocket to blow it to bits - They're no less dangerous, but they're certainly not invincible.
Also, if you noticed, most recent aircraft "nerfs" include increasing the damage of flak and ever so-slightly reducing the splash radii of aircraft projectiles. There was a very slight reduction in the effectiveness of a cert, but that doesn't do anything if the base numbers are still too high. If you read through my list of stuff I want them to implement (But know they won't), I also want them to heavily nerf flak along with aircraft. I don't want to make aircraft irrelevant, I want them to be more fun for everyone around, and I want them to require more skill to use at maximum efficiency.
Hovering would still have its place - You could still easily nuke wherever you want with impunity. But suddenly it comes with a risk that isn't just losing time to fly and repair. Oh, you had to run away and repair your poor little aircraft? I had to die after taking out half your health and didn't even get rewarded for it. How unfortunate for you. I want to feel respect for someone every time they manage to kill me, not suppress the urge to scream "COME ON" every time they instagib me while I have absolutely no fighting chance.
That said, all my adjustments focus primarily on air vs. infantry. Naturally other anti-air stuff would need to be toned down as needed. I'd even be in favor of increasing aircraft speed and maneuverability to balance the lower health - Let aircraft be dangerous, but don't let them simply dominate the field no matter the situation.
I'd like some fair fights that didn't boil down to who has the weapon with the highest RoF.
Wait, weren't you calling VS op a minute ago? Now it's TR that's OP?
That aside, I do agree that inf needs more of a chance against vehicles.
Don't mistake what I'm saying - Every faction has high RoF guns. It doesn't matter if you're TR, VS, or NC: Using a high RoF gun is better in almost every situation with the current mechanics (Flinching, per-point damage based recoil).
Most games have damage based recoil, but none with proper balance between high damage and low damage guns use a per-point system. Per point means that a 200 damage gun will have twice as much recoil as a 100 damage gun, rather than a bell curve that will limit the amount of recoil as you increase the damage. That makes high recoil weapons unfeasible at full auto compared to low recoil, especially at range, where high damage is supposed to be dominant. Also, with the obvious exception of getting a head shot with a sniper rifle, all high RoF guns have a faster TTK than slower firing, "harder hitting" guns. That is, assuming that the harder hitting gun can actually hit something. Throw in the fact that low recoil is inherently easier to control simply because it's smoother and more consistent, and you've got a gun that'll win a straight up face off at any range nearly every single time.
That said, all stock NC weapons have a slower RoF than any other empire's, and that prevents them from combining RoF with other tools, such as the under-barrel grenade launcher, like the TR can. I'm fine with that difference as long as high RoF and low RoF are balanced, and currently they are not.
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Edit: In other news:
I forgot to mention. I jacked my settings up using
this, turned my shadows down to 2, turned off Vertical Sync and motion blur and now I'm consistently getting 40 - 70 FPS. Apparently higher graphics shift a large portion of the load to the GPU, except shadows, which are purely CPU right now. I'm pretty tickled that my game looks so nice and runs so smoothly now.
If you've got a fair GPU and a mediocre CPU like me, it might be a good solution to having better FPS and graphics.