There are no outfits (that matter) running serious air for ops on Mattherson

You intercepted the air raid at best, but TR had the air raid there, not you.

And you still don't get it - what you're doing has little to no impact to the actual metagame and doesn't really do much than clear the air portion of the incoming zerg. Like that Lightning and tank you killed makes much of a difference.

Go try doing some meaningful air raids, and see how far you get. Its easy to vulture your way around, but if you had to actually face intense AA fire, you'd be nothing more than flying toast too.

The current climate of air combat in this game isn't friendly to mediocre or below pilots. That's why you don't see squadrons active anymore, or making an impact. You still see solo aces flying around dominating things, but due to the challenge of navigating strong AA and other aircraft, the scores of noobs in noob squadrons have all but disappeared. I've seen BWC's supposed Dragon unit, and despite how much they try and convince themselves they play a major role in BWC's successful pushes, its the ground coupled with other outfits that's solely responsible for winning the battle.

I literally just did an Op with them the past week, and at one point the VS had three heavily guarded Sunderers on Amerish as we attempted to warp gate them (and later did) . Based on infantry reports Task force Dragon was given the objective to take them out and they succeeded in taking all 3 out. Later the commander of the outfit complemented Task force Dragon during debrief, because he gave them that hard objective even though he thought they had a high chance of being downed once in the area due to high enemy presence. They exceeded expectations, and during that same time while I was rolling with Task Force Rampage ( BWC's Tank and Armor Division) there were times we needed air support and Task force dragon came in and the NC's Vanguards and Infantry were liquified.

I don't know when was the last time you've seen them in action, but when they have all their pilots in the air Task force Dragon is effective to say the least. No individual task force is as effective by themselves, and that includes Task force Dragon, as they are while working together with the other task forces. But truth be told Task force Dragon is a very valuable asset to BWC.

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"Based on infantry reports"
"complemented Task force Dragon during debrief"

Ok, I see you enjoy "roleplaying". That's great. But for a brief moment, suspend your fantasy and look at this from everybody else's perspective.

Your "squadron" took out Sundies. I don't know how many Dragon force players had to pilot to take those Sundies out, but I'll guess quite a few. Meanwhile at another Sundy in a different location, an LA from some other outfit glides in and blows it up. A squadron to kill a Sundy, or one man? Simply put, air squadrons are pointless right now, as originally suggested by the op of this thread.

During your next debriefing (funny), ask the commander why he's sending so many of his kids up in ESF's to die, when the optimal way of doing it is via ground.

How did the 4 of us have "no impact" when we literally cleared out 12+ enemy aircraft that were surrounding our bio lab?

The enemy air was hovering around the base attacking NC ground and keeping them pinned indoors. They weren't afk.

We killed the air, our ground can push out. Mission successful.

Are you going to watch my video and pretend like we didn't turn the battle around by clearing out enemy air? OBVIOUSLY there wasn't enough NC AA on the ground, or else there wouldn't be 12+ enemy aircraft milling about blockading the biolab exits.

Roleplaying? Get real, the outfit is lead by multiple military vets and people currently in the military. It's not role playing lol.... Also this is coming from a Tanker who roles with their Rampage Armor Division, I don't even fly, I just watch what task force dragon does so really what bias could I have if I'm not the one behind the kills. I'm only reporting what I've been present to witness and hear, but hey if you don't believe me that's your deal not mine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You'll get tons of flaming here...every john around is gonna say "Hey we do this and we do that" But overall, the state of air is just horrible. The idea was that it is area-denying. Then, it turned into a COUNTER for that area (meaning if you are in that area you are pretty much dead).

With all of the super buffed AA and with the lattice system funnelling people to specific areas, where can aircraft go to fight? We are being denied at EVERY major battle. All infantry/AA guns/ maxes see air way before the air sees them. We literally cannot get in an area to shoot anything because we are being shot at before we can even see anything!!

On Connery, our outfits ordered a major liberator rush to try and help our infantry/ground make a final push on the last base the VS were holding for their bonus. The massive liberator cavalary lasted about 30 seconds. With the new populations and the new lattice system, SOE really needs to work on balancing out AA. AA was balanced to the point where a single AA can counter and kill a single aircraft in an area, rather easily if the aircraft stayed around. Now, if there are just two AA turrets up and an aircraft comes in an area, it is annihilated. Add in about 30 more AA turrets/maxes and you have a standard, typical, fight on a lattice system line on Indar in the Connery server. Air literally flies remotely close enough to hit something and it is destroyed by 30 AA maxes/turrets.

Reavers take the worse of this since we are much less mobile. Good luck surviving in a reaver without Racer 3 in an actual battle on Indar now. Air was balanced because when populations were sporadic and spread, it would destroy people 1v1, 1v2, 1v3, and so forth. However, that is just not the state of the game, there is no more small battles (at least on Connery, on Indar). the Air Combat and the AA combat is just totally not balanced and horrible. They just keep shifting power from 1 to the other...the blizzard method

You didn't stop/disrupt the flow of troops into the bio-lab. You just cleared 12+ enemy aircraft that weren't really doing much more than milling around.

You sound a little sore here. Like I said, if you had to actually take on ground fire, you'd be chiming a whole different story.

Hey you want a pat on the back? You guys fly well, but like I said, you still don't do squat in the bigger picture. Try going A2G sometime and meaningfully impact outcomes and post another video, then we'll believe you.

And your definition of air raid - totally wrong and laughable.

The enemy aircraft were camping all the exits and preventing our troops from pushing out to reclaim the surrounding area.

When the biolab pads and vech bays are camped by rocket pods and liberators, even burster MAXes get pulped trying to go outside.
I'm sure you've been splattered before by rocket pods or zephyrs camping your base.

We killed them all.

Don't get so rustled, yo.

I killed some enemy ground targets as well in that video. You want to get technical? by your definition It was an air raid.

Air is almost stupidly effective when coordinated except when going up against a coordinated foe on a major push.

So basically 90% of the time coordinated air pwns all but its somehow ineffective.

OK.

Planetside 2 isn't the military, it's not even a military simulation. It's a videogame, therefor its roleplaying when you go through debriefings. I'm not knocking it, play the game however you want, your enjoyment is all that matters. But it's roleplaying, pretend, make believe.

As for NoctD and ThundaHawk.... you can spin it whichever way you want NoctD. Elite pilots (from any faction) will come in and clear whatever air zerg there is. They have a far more noticeable impact than squadrons of AIR FORCE DELTA ALPHA OMEGA roleplayers.

tango zulu foxtrot goose on lake

Double Post... these forums lag.

Well by that definition alright it is, and if you're not knocking it cool. I agree that you need to be above average is a pilot to be effective right now, but BWC's Task force Dragon has a lot of above average pilots. I'm not sure if you're arguing they aren't effective as a whole or not, but from what I've witnessed and heard they are, and that's what I'm trying to make the case for here.

Nope - an air raid basically means you are the aggressor and go in there to bomb the hell out of the enemy. What you did is not an air raid.

Why don't you get it? You're trying to say air can make a difference yet all you guys did is clear the airspace and nothing more. You still left it up to the ground troops to deal with the rest.

Let's face the facts - all your outfit does is as I said - opportunistic vulturing for the most part. You guys are good, but smart enough to know to avoid concentrations of ground fire too. Put you up against intense AA/flak, and you'll totally lose!

And that is why air doesn't impact the meta. Cause it isn't able to operate safely enough to meaningfully impact battles that involve tanks/infantry.

this thread is silly

you people are silly

I'm saying they have very little impact on successful BWC pushes. I've seen it, from the receiving end. Now I'm sure there are some BWC that might jump on here claiming otherwise. There's a reason why TE dropped their squadron.

I agree with your point, OP, but why do you have to be a massive **** about it?

The Biggest thing about Air Cav is that another organized outfit will counter it with a squad of bursters/mixed with heavies. All with flack armor and extended mags.

Right now, air only useful to camp spawns( especially when outnumbered), precision sunderer kills and to support armor. I've yet to see any outfit pull a successful air raid against another outfit during an op. It's just too easy to pull AA


I understand OPs point he's in our outfit and has seen how easy we crush well organized air raids.

I keep hearing "Air", but why aren't people differentiating between ESFs and Liberators? You can't just pod whole areas to death anymore. That's what the Lib is for. How many of these "squadrons" are bringing the right tools for the job?