The ugly truth: Fighting Air is Boring.

Well I've never held a very high opinion of squads who rely on Galaxies. It's not as extreme a difference as it was in PS1, but the core still remains true: 12 players in a Galaxy are dramatically less of a threat than 12 players in combat vehicles (air especially.)

So while I'd admit you will be able to shut down the weaker players on an empire, I'm not convinced whether that's going to be a better way to spend your time than working on the biggest threats from that empire. My hunch is the bigger threats will be a better use of your time. I'm not absolutely certain of that, but it's certainly what I focus on when I play.

Mind = blown. It's like flight is the only form of movement in the game, right?

'Tanks can't choose where they repair'... Nonsense. They travel at 1/3rd of the speed that aircraft do, but they still move, and thus they can still choose almost all of the same repair positions that aircraft can (aside from the easily visible top of mountain type spots).

And once again, you don't need to land beside an infantry zerg in order to get owned by a single infantry in exactly the same way as you don't need to drive into an infantry zerg in order to get owned by a single infantry.

Well that hasn't been my experience in a Skyguard. The most common thing is I chase them off. Sometimes I kill them. Extremely rarely, they kill me.

...and I don't even run top armor which would help shift things that much further in my favor.

Not really, NAR/FS/Racer is better for dodging shots because you can strafe and run around whilst getting more health. Still won't help much in a TB run but oh well.

Lucky you! It is however, quite easy to do and happens a fair bit. To the point where I'd much rather a Burster to a Skyguard, which might as well just have "Target" written on the side.

Yeah I hate it when I get a Vanguard on the ropes and it flies over a hill and reps up one hex away. So annoying.

Miller is getting boring right now for VS.Always underpopped by at least 10% by both factions,fighting battles that can't be won.

"Oh look base is getting took by 10 people lets throw 50 at them to secure it" ZzzzzZZZZzzzZZZzzZZ stupid sheep

Good lib crews eat Skyguards for breakfast, there are fortunately a lot of not-so-good Lib crews though.

That's another interesting thing about lib balance. If libs are made too hard to use, they won't be used except by pros, therefore skyguard would be even less rewarding, therefore those pros would be even better at dealing with small fights.

I can't see how they can make Libs "only good for pros".

I'm not saying that's what your suggestion would do, but if lib nerfs are as bad as people want, that's what could happen.

Maybe this is what a Skygod need. A break from the air, and try see Air unites from the ground perspective.

This entire thread is answer to you search for question: Why people don't pull AA.
Because it is not fun. How you feel in that 12 vs 12 fight when you have AA and try to kill Air unite?
Does this:
When I fight Air I feel like security guard in Disneyland. When everybody have fun I have to protect them against does dam air sky-gods.
Sound familiare?

Well no actually if we're talking about optimizing against Liberators Top Armor is just flat-out better than NAR.

Keep in mind I might actually understand a thing or two about Skyguard loadouts, given that the leaderboard would put me 1st ranked worldwide in SPM, 20th in VKPH, and 40th in KPH if I had the prerequisite 500 kills required to show up there (granted other sub-500-kill players who show up there too and push me down slightly if there was no prereq.)

In that context, my full comments on Skyguard loadouts are:

• Front Armor:air is rarely the thing doing damage to kill me and ground often is. Skyguards are reasonably damaging against ground targets (especially infantry) and with front armor I can be surprisingly bitey.
  • Top Armor is a close runner-up if I'm going into a particularly aggressive air zerg.
  • Proximity Radar isn't a terrible choice.
• Fire Suppression: the obvious choice for the self-repair.
• Scrapper:for the front armor synergy.
  • Racer is nearly tied in value. It has better synergy with the overall Skyguard playstyle (which usually involves moving long distances.)
  • Both have advantages against threats that appear to attack you, however Scrapper tends to optimize for the immediate reaction (you'll face your front armor towards them sooner, or you'll turn to flee sooner) while Racer is slower to react but lets you move really fast when you get facing the right direction.

NAR is only really useful on Liberators, and might be okay on MBTs. I never use it on Lightnings, as anytime it repairs enough to be useful I could've just found cover and repaired to full anyway.

Granted, I just had this conversation with someone who didn't understand* that directional damage is based on your angle relative to their facing, not based on the actual part of the vehicle you hit. So if you're in the rear 90-degree quadrant behind them and your shot hits their side or top, it's actually going to score a rear hit. Which is why even though the lightning front armor thing is this teeny-tiny bump, it actually provides significant value (increasing the already-great mitigation of your frontal armor.)

(*To be clear I don't fault anyone for failing to understand this rather unexpected and weird damage model. In fact if anyone understood this weird model immediately while playing, I wouldn't fault them for poking fun at me for taking so long to figure it out myself (played the game many months before I finally asked about it and had someone explain it to me.))

Well last I checked the numbers came out where Dual Burster is just outright inferior to Skyguard by a significant margin. Certainly from a CoF / reliability point of view, that's the case.

Pick your argument man. You said they can't choose where to repair, when clearly they can.

If your argument is that they can't escape in order to repair as quickly, that's fine, but also part of the whole point of aircraft. Remind me how many lockon shots it took to force that tank to repair? 4? 5? More? And how many did it take to force that ESF to repair? 1... Oh, but it has a far easier job flying away to repair... Maybe 4, 5, or more times easier? Do you see what I'm getting at?

Air's resilience is in the ability to leave a conflict; a tank's resilience is in the ability to stay in a conflict.

I'm fine with ESF's. My issue is with Libs which have the resilience of a tank but still can escape as easily as an ESF. A lib is less tough than a Magrider or Prowler yes, but not by much and the advantages you gain in return are crazy.

It is inferior in damage, but far superior in "Not getting killed by Libs." thanks to Flak Armour, a smaller render range and an ability to hide in buildings.

I mean they're both bad at killing libs, but if you gotta have one I'll have the one that I can re-equip with Pounders if the air decides to leave.

Definitely not convinced of this. Certainly as a solo shredder lib, I have almost no problems killing Burster MAXes, but Skyguards are significantly harder to deal with.

In fact this was the thread where I posted my solo shredder lib videos right? I think I killed one or two burster MAXes in that video

What? Suicide is the top one> Needler/saron laser cannon above the rotaries? Anni but no striker?

This is obviously a "nerv air pls htey kills me to much"

Anyways, I shall try to be constructive as I play both air AND infantry.

FIRST: G2A Lock - on Rocket Launcher.. the BEST 250 certs you can spend in my humble opinion. If only MORE people knew about this...
Use that G2A RL all the time on your HA, it can also dumbfire. Whenever there's air, use it. I get loads of air kills/assists being the only lock on user in a fight. IT WORKS.

On the air side of things, I pee myself if I get a lock while in an ESF and Lib if on low health. I get the hell out of the area. So yes, G2A launchers work very well. And those AA phalanx turrets at every other base, they work well too (they're also free).
Skyguards rip me to shreds, walkers and basilisks aren't close behind. The problem is people just don't use them, they qq.

And if you want FUN, try using a decimator on ESFs and Libs... THAT is fun

G2A rockets have this thing called limited range, airchavs can sit outside and kill, then there's the problem of the lock on takes longer then said vehicles ttk vs infantry. So lock ons are next to useless vs aircraft (unless there's a open area with no cover for the aircraft to hide around, but there is cover for the infantry), dumb fires like the lancer are better as said airchavs can sit fairly still farming until they get the message of omg its time to repair, so afterburn away behind cover for 30 seconds.

This is not a deterrence, roll the burster max nerf back, roll the G2A missile damage/range back, surface weapons need to be able to send a clear message, YOU HAVE DIED, please select where you want to spawn to pilots. Then increase the damage of the ESF primaries against other air, in the hope that they might work as Air 2 air, then start nerfing AA, its getting almost like release, but with libs instead of ESF's.

That isn't a good thing as it may drive the ground pounders away from the game.

Tanks and other vehicles, infantry have a wealth of options to fight against them. Against Air, its either lock on's with limited lock on range, Burster max units (inaccurate low damage slow firing), dumb fires or grab a vehicle and considering that AA weapons are not so hot against ground especially the Skyguard.

Maybe if they released a buggy with a skyguard turret controlled by a gunner with access to a second weapon system like a basilisk, then it might be fun as it could defend against air (and drive around to make the air chavs work for it) and do other things like fight ground vehicles/infantry.

When you do damage said airchav, unless he is stupid and over extended and dies to a lucky hit, he will most likely either A) carry on farming and use fire suppression/auto repair or B) run away, repair and come back within a minute or two and attempt to kill you.

Fighting air is either boring (aka lack of things to shoot at), frustrating (they run away before you do much damage, only to come back from a different angle and get more kills) or annoying (they kill you after you fire a shot or two off only to do no damage other then to the paint work).

Bring back the Sparrow (fire and forget missile long lock on, and the missiles will follow air back home to the warp gate and not be deterred by flares, make them every pilots nightmare), Starfire (forget the flares option, as the missiles get updates from the max unit (a bit like how the striker should be), max will have to keep the target locked on, otherwise missiles go dumbfire unless the original target can be reacquired within a specific time frame. The missiles should do direct damage and also set the target on fire for that nice toasty feeling) Then give the TR max a new unique AA weapon, make them good at killing Air, make then fun to use, make them horrible to face.

Then balance them.

Air should not be the counter to everything, AA should be countered by ground. Ground without AA should die to Air, Air vs AA should DIE, it should not escape, repair up, it SHOULD DIE. No ifs, no buts. Air should need ground support to clear out AA.