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1: NC

2: NC and TR

3: NC, TR and Vanu

[darkrider2]

Read some more.
Nosegun buffs across the board.
The Tomcats might actually be worth a damn against fleeing ESFs and do some actual damage against liberators and gals.

It's not THAT bad.
Still 5 missiles to kill a ESF... damn i hope that at least the lockon range is good.

Honestly, liberators and gals are 10x times easier to hit with the nosegun, at any range. At... 7? missiles to kill a liberator, no one will even bother, the nosegun would still be faster. I mean sure... the composite armor changes aren't half bad, but liberators have been near-to-irrelevant for a long time now.

I don't see anything about lock-on range.

oh and BTW this is roughly the 3rd or 4th time the Air Hammer has been directly nerfed. It was nerfed against planes a couple times back in the SOE days (non-NC pilots whined about it), then the ammo capacity was nerfed IIRC in a later patch... at least they're touching the light PPA this time around...

[Sonlirain]

Well i was reading the comments on that reddit post.

The chance of winning a 1vs4 or 1vs5 with those involved is 0% no matter how good you are

I can't win 1 vs 5. it's the tomcats fault and not me getting into a fight with 5 aircraft equipped for killing aircraft instead of rawkit pods for molesting ground fights.

I figured making them dodge-able is not reliable, so I really think you should either make them only lock into big aircraft or drop the lock mechanic altogether (besides, imagine how awesome a wireguided Tomcat would be).

I can imagine they would be so awesome that no one would ever use them.

A for the hammer... so basically any nosegun that's not a boring bullet sprayer is not halal as well?
Who would have thought!

[darkrider2]

Yeah basically.

[E. Albright]

Oh, god, those Reddit comments. So many skyknights.

My fav:

[In response to someone suggesting that G2A should lock faster at extremely close range]

Look, you keep talking about this from an infantry perspective. If you keep getting bombed by air who are swooping down to ground level and immediately flying away, that is not because infantry lacks the tools to deal with that.

(This is right after they argued that the infantry's "tools to deal with that" are ESFs)

...because heaven forbid that you use something other than ESF to provide Close Air Support, and heaven further forbid that you should have to fire from standoff ranges where the infantry have a chance to react and/or your accuracy is reduced. I mean, after all, we all know IRL strike fighters provide CAS within small arms range via cannons (which ofc they all have because they're more efficient than missiles) or dumb-fire rockets instead of high-altitude guided munition strikes...

[Rolan7]

This is pretty fascinating.
My brother plays air a lot, but I think mostly as galaxy pilot or turret gunner.  I know he uses ESFs (I have no idea how anyone uses the scythe), but he's no sky knight- he taught me how to take out ESFs with heavy anti-air missiles, and MAX AA cannons.  I should ask his opinion on these A2A missile nerfs.

[darkrider2]

yeah, it seems if sky nights hate/don't understand one thing, it's specialization. WHAT, that ESF equiped with all A2A gear downed me in my rocket-pod/nosegun setup??? F***KING NERF THIS SH*T SOE. WHAT, I've been killed by ground based Anti-Air, F***CKING NO-SKILL LOCK-ONS. WTF flak hits me from 3 hexes away? etc etc.

Obviously the game needs more single seater vehicles that can deal with every threat and come out on top, then call it "skill". Which btw, is basically what the heavy-assault defenders of elite-infantry-outfits do, don't even bother pointing out how dumb it is that one infantry class gets 4 medkits + overshield + anti-vehicle capability + the best primary guns in the game. And yeah, SOE pandered to them back in the day too.

[Akura]

Welp, looks like I'm not bothering to spend certs on my Mosquito ever again.

[Ozyton]

Hey. What if ESFs only had one weapon slot, like every other vehicle in the game...

Welp, looks like I'm not bothering to spend certs on my Mosquito ever again.

I would say, just to ferry yourself to fights, simply get the afterburner upgrades (and maybe speed airframe) but I think they made those default now.

[Sonlirain]

Hey. What if ESFs only had one weapon slot, like every other vehicle in the game...

Welp, looks like I'm not bothering to spend certs on my Mosquito ever again.

I would say, just to ferry yourself to fights, simply get the afterburner upgrades (and maybe speed airframe) but I think they made those default now.

To be frank Tanks get 2 weapons and so do Sunderers. Only you have to change seats to get ot the second weapon.

[Ozyton]

Ok, then make it so when you swap to the second weapon you lose all flight controls. Solo Liberator pilots do it all the time.

Honestly, I feel the nature of the game simply makes ESFs more powerful than they should. Namely being able to hover at any angle other than completely horizontal. If they were forced to move at a certain speed to avoid stalling or being forced into 'hover mode' then they would be changing zones constantly, and I don't think the servers would appreciate that much. It would also play completely differently, making their AtG much more hit and run instead of hovering and spamming lolpods/banshee/ppa/whatever NC uses (It'd also make those weapons kinda unusable in their current form). It could make things like laser guided bombs (with someone on ground using the laser) or just dumb bombs an interesting option.

Of course, the game makes flying very easy (I'm talking about physics-wise) because new players need to be able to fly. This is alright for galaxies and maybe liberators, but ESFs... hmm...

Although, I'm an infantry scrub so I could be talking out of my ass.

[Orb]

Scythe is my favorite ESF. You can get into all kinds of crazy places. I used to hide under biolabs (in the shield) all the time when running away from sky knights.

Personally, I fly air to ground PPAs occasionally with afterburners. It's only really effective when there's no enemy air (I haven't been saved by friendly flak in weeks when being chased, people are oblivious unless they're getting farmed) and there's maybe light AA at best. One flak Max will ruin your day, or more than one lock on and force you to buzz off. Skyguards can be a pain but they're also avoidable usually.

It's also not easy. I crash all the time (though maybe I'm bad). PPA takes like 4-5 direct shots to kill, which is almost a full second. I usually have to be fairly close to secure a kill (which usually means I'm Shrieked), or get lucky and find a bunch of dummies swarming a small piece of cover. That's when the PPA is at its best, with its large AOE.

I think the balance between air-ground is fine, though I think that lock-on buff based on range is a pretty cool idea.

[E. Albright]

The problem is that there is a segment of the flier population who has been flying forever, and have refined their expertise with a certain playstyle, and have been very loud to the point that the devs have made serial balance changes that favor their playstyle.

If you crash a lot when you're flying close to the ground, it means you can't fly an ESF like it's a helicopter, which means you're not the people G2A is being balanced around. Which is unfortunate, because those people have a seriously warped and frankly myopic vision of what A2A, A2G, and G2A should be (and it pretty much starts and ends with "how I've gotten good at playing").

Seriously, the only thing that needs said about how messed up PS2 ESF mechanics are (and by correlation, ESF roles) is that it's taken for granted in balance discussions that the way two ESFs will fight each other is point blank facing nose-to-nose for the duration of the "dogfight" (I'm kinda reluctant to apply that term here, even with the scare quotes)...

[Akura]

Hey. What if ESFs only had one weapon slot, like every other vehicle in the game...

Welp, looks like I'm not bothering to spend certs on my Mosquito ever again.

I would say, just to ferry yourself to fights, simply get the afterburner upgrades (and maybe speed airframe) but I think they made those default now.

To be frank Tanks get 2 weapons and so do Sunderers. Only you have to change seats to get ot the second weapon.

Not the Lightning, but each faction's MBT does.

Ok, then make it so when you swap to the second weapon you lose all flight controls. Solo Liberator pilots do it all the time.

Valkyrie also does this, and handles better than a Liberator.

Unrelated, but I've noticed nobody seems to use Valkyrie's for squad drops, it's always the Galaxy. Valkyrie's are faster and less of a target, and as far as I know can respawn squad members over enemy territory with the Squad Logistics System, whereas the Galaxy can only do it over friendly territory.

Namely being able to hover at any angle other than completely horizontal.

I've yet to achieve a static hover at any angle in a Mosquito. Supposedly the Scythe can, but I don't play VS. Also, there is some justification for the aircraft physics: if you look at the craft in third person, you'll see that most if not all have vectored thrusters. Slow down and apply upward thrust, and you'll see the thrusters changing orientation.

The problem is that there is a segment of the flier population who has been flying forever, and have refined their expertise with a certain playstyle, and have been very loud to the point that the devs have made serial balance changes that favor their playstyle.

And the funny part to this is that a skynight on the DBG forum posted a link to an Extra Credit video about punishing people for doing exactly this as an argument for removing A2A missiles.

[Sonlirain]

Ok, then make it so when you swap to the second weapon you lose all flight controls. Solo Liberator pilots do it all the time.

Then the ESF would have to be a 2 seater with the second person manning the forward firing secondary weapon not really fun unless the secondaries get a largish arc of fire.
Also if the ESF fell like a brick every time a player switched to A2A missiles it probably wouldn't be even possible to get a lock (and maintaining it because the missiles are basically laser guided).

To be frank all ESF secondaries are borderline useless anyway outside of maybe the antiground rocket pods.

[miauw62]

who needs pods when you can farm infantry just as even more easily with the AH

that's all ESF pilots really seem to do, anyway