Connery's newest fail favorite "A2AM"

Are a2a pods even good? I don't fly much and just pull them out now and then since I bought them and might as well get some use now and then... (got em before VR existed and pretty much just bought anything I wanted to check out so I could cert it a bit and see what it was about without having to hope for a perfect storm of events during a trial to use whatever, one of my most-regretted purchases) and every time I got a lock on somebody, I pretty much wasted my time and could have gotten a kill or near kill with rotary instead...they seem useless to me. Granted my scythe is more of a taxi that I dumped some certs into (unwisely) then anything ...

I played all of those, don't go thinking you're the only old flight simmer that plays ps2 (and it was called Chuck Yeager's Air Combat)

Who here is ready to create a toon on Connery just to A2A lock spam this guy. I'm considering it.

Your more then welcome to try, I do enjoy fresh faces on my kill board

Having trouble farming infantry with a2a competition snafu?

I'm not a very good pilot yet, so I do use A2A missiles when I go hunting other ESFs.

At the same time, I'm smart enough to know that at most they'll only give me a small advantage, because I'm probably only going to get one shot off, if even, before it comes down to fighting with cannons.

Unless there's coordinated groups of A2A missile users picking targets, cannons are still the best weapon for fighting ESFs. Missiles are just an opening volley.

Oh they can never put a damper on my farming.

AB fuel allows you another escape method, and also allows you to force close circle fights where you have advantage and A2AMs are useless...

Only other option worth giving up flares (because frankly, taking flares + AB fuel is pretty much EZ win against A2AM users... it's just that AB fuel does allow you to give them up) is for Scout Radar.

Due to threat of flak, most pilots take composite armor, which makes them show up on your radar. Moreover, it gives you a great support ability to help the ground fight, and you can provide it while hunting HA's and Infils. Rotary is good enough to assist any friendlies fighting tanks as well.

You go gurl!

Look man, sure, it is arguable that A2Am is balanced on a 1 Vs 1 scale (generally against a good pilot, that good pilot will smash in the face of an A2Am user). However, where A2Am becomes considerably skilless, are in situations where more than one enemy must be dealt with. While a good pilot can close the distance on a single enemy, dealing with two A2Am users at once is nigh impossible. As you attack one, the other just hovers off to the side and pops off missile after missile, without fear of them missing after their target has used it's single flare. That's all she wrote.

If that same good pilot was up against 2 pilots using guns, the odds would be slightly different, as the outnumbered pilot could still retreat while dodging and flying defensively, something utterly impossible to do against A2A Missiles. No weapon that can fire off 4,5 or even 6 shots between its hard counter, is balanced. No weapon that guarantees a hit (missiles fly through all terrain / **** netcode) is balanced. Summary = A2Am not balanced, nor do they require skill. Period.

As I said, you can always retreat. (AB interceptor ESF)

2 v 1? Fall back to friendly fighters and even the score.


They're relatively balanced... (though they ARE adding cert lines to AB fuel for a reason... they do need to be a better option). I'd say they are a lil bit more powerful and yes, they are pretty easy to use, but they do lose to better skilled pilots.


They're a weapon. Their entire point is air domination. If you take rocket pods to attack ground then know that A2AM ESF's are a hard counter to you. You should either stick near friendly AA or friendly A2A ESF's... at the very least operate in a pack yourselves so you can have safety of numbers if nothing else.

Wow, it's like you actually think your opinion on my A2A use matters. Wow, you're all dumba$$es.

Yeah, I'm considering it as well. Would be awesome to have a full platoon of A2A users **** up SNAFUS all day every day. I wonder how fast we could make him QQ-quit.

Don't you guys just hover in circles to fight anyway?

It's good to see ESFs try to kill other ESFs again rather than just flying into my burster MAX and jumping out to splatter themselves before I kill them.

But, yeah, not feeling any sympathy for aircraft being killed by anti-aircraft fire yet. In fact, it sounds like it's working as intended.

My whole point was that their use in groups is entirely too powerful compared to the Rotary. Rotary requires aiming to be effective. A2Am requires enough brain power to get an ESF off the ground and stare at an enemy to be effective.

Example:

3 Bad / Mediocre ESF pilots, attacking a lone ESF with their guns. What happens?
- Well, if that pilot being attacked is good, he could probably evade their fire for the most part and either turn the tides against them or fall back. Why? Because bullets miss. Dodging is a viable tactic. Aiming is key. If the pilot gets gunned down, his foes put bullets on target and were actively involved in it. Verdict - Skill

Another example:

3 Bad / Mediocre ESF pilots, attacking yet another lone ESF with A2Am. What happens?
- Yet again, assuming this pilot they are attacking is good, he would get locked and Pop Flares. At this point it all comes down to positioning. If they are high in the air, odds are, that pilot is not making it to cover, in 5 seconds he will be locked by each of those A2Am using ESFs and will be instantly annihilated. Maybe, he charges at one and manages to close the gap and Maybe kills them, but by then another missile has been ate. In the event the pilot being engaged was close to the ground, he may have a chance to LOS the ESFs, but LOS against missiles already fired, is something that cannot be reproduced with even 50% effectiveness at the moment. The only hope the pilot has is that those pursuing him are easily distracted or dumb. But that possibility only exists near the ground and has nothing to do with the weapons at all. If the pilot dies, he had no real way of fighting back or avoiding those 3 ESFs in a reliable ESF vs ESF fashion. Verdict - No skill

It's an argument about weapons that BOTH kill ESFs and other Air targets. One requires Aim, the other requires a pulse.

I've tried to use A2A missiles and they are not all that easy to use. I'm an OK pilot, but haven't invested a lot of time in learning tricks. If I try to use a missile, I have to get pretty close before it even starts to lock on. Then I have to keep the fighter in the crosshairs for a decent amount of time. If he is engaged with another fighter, it is a lot safer way of fighting as it prevents me from crashing into my faction mate. However, if I open with that, the fighter gets warning I am attacking and bugs out. If he actually comes at me, suddenly my A2A missiles are a detriment as he can fire in a leading fashion and I have to keep my nose pointed at him to even try to lock on. In most cases like that I have to switch to guns if I hadn't already started with them in the first place.

Most times A2A missiles are a tactical choice or something meant to change up a battle. It takes hover fights and throws a curve ball, and is a great way for fighters to engage Liberators with a margin of safety, or supporting other fighters. They are not as easy to use as people would think unless you have a lot of certs piled in, and even then they aren't guaranteed wins.

And after all that, once you get a lock, the guy can pop flares, invalidating all of your effort to lock on.

In short, they only make specific situations "easier", but even equipping them comes at a cost of either being able to attack ground or having better afterburners for pursuit / escape. It's not a "gimme" of XP.

So why do you use a weapon that's harder to use and complain that it's harder to use?

That would be somewhat like HA engaging each other and a sniper with a Semi-Auto rifle helping to pick off the enemy soldiers with body shots. Is it less skill than engaging in closer-range combat (or long range bolt action fire) since no one is shooting at you and all you have to do is generally aim at them? Yes. Is it tactically more skillful to have varied weapon systems to multiply the effectiveness of your forces? Yes, too.

This isn't jousting. We have all sorts of weapons that arguably require less "active skill" but the choice to use them in combined arms is a "tactical skill". HE rounds to support infantry at the expense of lesser anti-armor power. Shotguns for close range to put more power and, if it comes down to it, less aiming to get better overall damage on the move. These are tactical choices.

I don't really care how someone killed me. I care that they killed me. I'm dead. They are not, or at least not by me.