How do you actually fly? No theory.

They are good suggestions.
But flying in a pack wouldn't make it any better when there's 5 lockdown Burster MAXes sitting on a ledge.
You'd still get obliterated in moments.

The only way to get kills as Air now is in small battles where the enemy is too stupid to pull AA, spawn-camping an already camped room, and killing lone wolves. That's what people call a "smart" pilot.

Yup. And these "smart" pilots are then used in arguments that aircraft is fine and doesn't need a buff...

Any type of effective roles vehicles had have been completely removed from this game. No one should be fooling themselves and still calling this game combined arms.

Well, actually; it -would- make it better, because if you fly alone, all the MAXes would focus on you. If you fly together, there's a lot of different targets to pick from, and you'll have a higher chance of surviving/getting away.

So flying in a pack is still better

Better, as in getting 5 extra seconds to run away. And maybe one kill.

Five seconds is a century when you're flying

You speak the truth fellow pilot.
And I'm sure that the rest of the Planetside community is now noticing that pilots are near extinct. It's only a matter of time before ESFs are practically removed from the game altogether.

Holy ego batman.

If you're in the air, you're dead.
I fly 3m off the ground, it seems to be the only way it works. Acting like a high speed hovercraft,and ambush people not expecting you coming that low. There is a cost though, you can get tank rounded, or random spam , or just smash into things. But my survivability is still much longer and kill count doing the fast strafe runs.

if you hover you're dead.
If you're in the air you're dead.

But then with the lock on striker, even hugging the ground, and even putting mountains between y ou doesnt stop it either.
I only fly into areas with moderate activity now. Otherwise its a huge waste of a good ESF.

Dogfighters honor code - you don't have it.

Try not to fly into 4 platoons. Look for 1-12 detected areas away from the front lines for targets of opportunity. Sundies. Libbies hunting your sundiies. Stuff that's on fire.

ok ill try an explain it more
if i get a lock on for me it isnt an issue, i can easily get away by using flares, those few seconds are plenty for me to go do some crazy maneuver into the trees or rocks and come back to keep rocket podding away
A2A ESF i let them get me with one rocket usually then take them out with the nosegun, you just have to be fast as most A2A ESF with A2A missles will just keep on their missles and not change over to nosegun and thats their weakness - attack hard and fast any A2A missles user

flak? it take a fair amount of flak to take you down so the only way you would stay out of the area is if there are 2 or 3 bursters (in which case you shouldnt be there alone - 3x your counter means you dont go there until backup) if there is a single burster you identify his position on the first run then come back and rocketpod his butt
if there are more than 1burster/flak cannon then you wait for (or get) reinforcements and concentrate fire - 2-3 ESF focusing fire on the same target should handle them quite easily

why? because i dont have any issues flying? and find it easy even as a bad pilot?

You really aren't a pilot after all.
You should know that facing off against a single burster MAX is complete suicide. 1v1, he'll take out a majority of your health even when you get the first shot. And it's not like you'll find a Burster MAX completely alone. There's most likely HAs with dumbfires and lock-ons, a tank's main cannon, and other Burster MAXes.

And why the hell should 3 200 resource ESFs have to concentrate on one Burster MAX with a ton of co-ordination to take him out? Even if you do take him out, he could be rezzed, or you'll just meet another AA MAX.

And lock-ons are a major issue now. They follow your flight path, so without flares, which cool-down every 20 secs on the MAX RANK, there's no way of avoiding them.

Edit: Let me guess, you spend your time as a pilot:
1: Hunting lone sundies/lone wolves.
2: Spawn-camping already camped rooms.
3. Going to small skirmishes that have no AA.

You're one of those so-called "skilled" pilots that people talk about when they say Air needs no buffs.
And judging from that play-time, I bet you got most of your stats from the broken balance in December. When AA was a joke.

well im not having any of those issues while flying
i can usually get a single burster max - once his position has been identified i sneak up from behind or from max flight ceiling from directly above, they usually dont look directly above them and hit them with the rockets and nosegun immediately after while rockets are reloading - that usually does it

tanks main cannon can only shoot you if you are real low and hovering
dumbfires - again only if you are real slow low and hovering

i have outrun rockets through rocks and trees without issue

if im not having any of the problems most others are facing then maybe i should rethink me being a "bad pilot" to "good pilot"

I wonder why they would even bother with the air ships/bases they were planning, given how hopeless AIR is atm.

Send me a tell in game, I'll share what I can and we can fly around a bit.

You're a ******* liar.

Yeah, we should also make infantry immune to tanks and tanks immune to infantry. That'll be awesome.

More proof.
Since rockets follow your flight path, there's no way to lose them except flares.
You also seem to think of every situation containing only ONE Burster MAX. We all know that out side of small skirmishes, there's always 3-4 at least grouped up on a hill or air pad. No way to kill those guys.
And flying between trees? Seems highly unlikely. The scythe's arms love to hug them trees......

Also, only thing that would really help the balance, would be the flight control scheme. Everyone runs pods since you can do considerable damage without direct hits. But with the AI and AA noseguns, it's nigh impossible to get a direct hit on infantry. Hence the pod spamming. When we can yaw with our mouse, you'll definitely see more people run with noseguns for A2G.

That sure was blunt, and straightforward.

I'm wondering how they'll implement those carriers.
Will there be one per faction, with some sort of leadership system to control them?
Or will they be 750 resource vehicles.......killed in 1 min by bursters?

Find the small fights with little to no AA, go behind enemy lines to assassinate enemy esf (trust me, as long as you're running stealth and staying close to the ground it's amazing how oblivious enemy pilots can be). Always stay close to the ground. You might want to fly at the sky ceiling for transport purposes only, but when you're planning to actually engage something I suggest you try to hug the terrain as closely as you can, which will break locks and allow you to very quickly break LOS from flak.
Air can't really contribute to the bigger fights, use your mobility to find the weak spots in the enemy defense where you can make a difference.