Do not let this dalton ammo cap nerf happen

The flying part is exactly why you don't even need as much ammo. It takes you way less time to go rearm at an airpad than it takes me to rearm at an ammo tower. If I can take two or three minutes out of my tanking to make a trip to an ammo tower, you can take 20 seconds out of your farming to do the same. You're still carrying more potential damage due to the stronger shell.

On that note though ESFs get way too many rockets too. What would you ever need 112 of the damn things for? We have rearming pads for a reason.

I support this change in spirit, but they might be cutting it too far.
ESF secondaries definitely need this change eventually (to curb rocket and coyote spamming), and resupply galaxies need to be a thing.

So you actually have to aim and hit the target directly to deal damage to armor? Who knew? The Dalton was the only weapon to deal Area Splash damage to Heavy armor, and now it will not exist. You already want to make direct hits land to deal any sort of significant damage to armor, so what's the problem here? That we can't deal with not dealing damage if we cannot directly hit a target? This argument sounds a bit, ill-conceived, if you ask me. Direct hits have always been what you tried to achieve unless you have no experience or ability to use a Dalton, how is this any different now?

And it takes me normally 1-3 shots to kill armor after a good tank bust from my pilot, thats 10-25 pieces of armor per rearm, accounting for a few misses, not 1-2.

But the lib needs that much ammo.

Since now I could not hear any argument that actually makes sense that the lib ammo should be cut down.
I only hear the reason that they should have to rearm more often and others have to do it too.. Well, where was the problem exactly?

Do you honestly think that every time I encounter 2 ESFs I'm going to have my full 40 rounds? That wasn't my point. My point was that a lib is constantly attacked by enemy air to and from a fight/resupply point. By the time I actually get to a fight or on my way back I'll be completely defenseless. It's not just about "being mindful of my ammo count". I literally would have to resupply ever 2-3 minutes.

Um... what?
Obviously you're the one who didn't read my post, because I completely explained why this whole idea of "intended roles" for the dalton is BS, which you don't seem to understand. Nowhere did I mention anything about what's in the patch notes. I simply explained why you are indeed wrong.

For the love of god, I just wrote a whole paragraph (which you obviously didn't read) explaining to you why this "intended roles" BS is irrelevant and why things that involve skill should not be taken out of the game. I literally JUST explained why, that even though for instance and AP tank is primarily used to kill armor, it can still kill bad infantry if someone has skill aiming. No matter what, bad players die to skilled players. And that's how it should be. And what supposed nerfs to AP tanks are you talking about? They have always been able to 1 shot infantry?

Pretty much, this is a much-needed nerf to separate the good Lib pilots from the bad ones.

Also it might score me some extra repair points when damaged libs land on a tower I happen to be in to rearm. *cough* Seriously though I facepalm so hard when I see a friendly Lib charging into battle with less than 20% of its health.

This is the problem with the argument that 40 dalton rounds on a lib is okay (I understand flag said he didn't necessarily support it but still).
You people need to stop comparing air vehicles' ammo supply to ground vehicles. As I explained, with a dalton you can easily burn through tons of ammo to and from wherever you are going. With a tank, you usually only take select shots that you know you can hit. You don't end up going through 20-30 shots trying to kill another tank because you're not trying to hit a moving target flying through the air while being attached to another moving vehicle flying through the air.
Also with ground vehicles, more often than not, you are much more close to the fight. This mean you consistently have friendly ammo sundies and close by ammo towers. If air tries to land too near a fight, they will simply be killed. I would like to see another argument other than "well my tank has about 40 shots, so obviously it's ok for the dalton to have 40 shots".

I'm more concerned about people having to invest (or worse, already invested) 2000+ certs just to make the ammo last as long as a pre-nerf default. I think a cert refund would really help with the hard feelings, at least for those who feel scammed.

The lib doesn't need ammo. It's gunners do. Because as one aim is poor, the need of more ammo capacity is required for sustained operation in selected combat zone.

Good gunners need less ammo and are effective within limited ammo pool.
They manage it and make every shot counts instead of random spam.
Spammability and carelessness was the problem.

Become flying snipers guys.

Should we also remove all the certs they gained from farming with easily spammable tools ?

What's your argument for libs having more ammo than tanks then?

Other than repeating over and over that 40 is scandalous?

I'm not sure what everyone is so upset about. I think this is a good change. Yes, the ammo count feels low but that is just from a relative standpoint. Yes, there will be more downtime flying to and from pads to rearm. But it's no different from most other vehicles in the game. Here's a couple examples:

- When I drive tanks, I go through ammo like hotcakes and have to rearm all the time (annoying but that's because of how much I fly Libs and don't have to rearm).
- Escort ESFs constantly have to R&R while we wait. Ammo goes incredibly quick (especially with rotaries) when dogfighting.
- Hell, even infantry need engies around all the time as their pools deplete absurdly fast. (Rockets, anybody?)

Here's what I see out of this change:

- You will place yourself in a role when you head up in a Lib. Want to do AA w/ Shredder? Okay, but that's about what you'll have the ammo for. Gonna run AtG with Dalton? Great, but that's what you're ammo is gonna be spent on. Part of the versatility problem was that the weapons never ran out of ammo and Lib could do what they wanted and switch roles at will. Hell, with NAR, you could sit in an area indefinitely. Forcing the Lib to make careful choices about its target selection by giving it a limited ammo pool is a good thing.

- This is going to highlight the effectiveness between bad, medicore, good, and great Lib crews. If you're good with a Lib, this isn't going to matter all that much. It's just a little more down time (which is fair). If you're not so hot (and waste ammo), you're now going to be penalized for it.

For those of you saying the Lib is a highly skill based weapon, this is the change you were hoping for. There is no performance hit here during actual combat. You'll be as good as you were previously. This change doesn't affect HOW effective you can be; it affects HOW LONG you can maintain that effectiveness in a given area. However, it simultaneously curbs the inflated effectiveness of pilots who can spam shots to great effect (which is a VERY important thing that needed to be changed).

P.S. I'll miss the satisfaction of hearing the *click click click* when the Dalton runs dry.

FUN NOTE: Not that many people would know... but the Duster chews through its ammo pool. We had to rearm way more often with it than any other weapon. One more reason the Duster is awful.

A Lib can cross large distances easy to rearm and the ammo source is always easily accessible. You also don't need to kill absolutely everything you see. If you are burning through lots of ammo stop shooting at every dam flash you see (I have honestly been chased by 5 libs at once whilst using my wraith flash.. when I got to a tower they hovered around the tower for a full 2 minutes waiting for me to exit and were still there when I wraith cloaked out of there 800m away to laugh at them in the distance) and everything else that you just straight out don't need to kill. When I am AV tanking and I kill an enemy tank and then the driver bails to do that silly redeploy dance to save his KDR I.. don't shoot him. It isn't worth the ammo and I couldn't care less about my KDR.

You don't need to try and hit an ESF with 20-30 dalton shots, call in friendly air eek: shock horror relying on teamwork ) and get them to deal with them or get your tail gunner to fend them off. There is literally no difference between your example of shooting at ESF with an AV weapon and tanks shooting at you with an AV weapon and both scenarios can use a lot of ammo.

Tanks that flank are typically the better ones that make the biggest difference in fights and they rarely have sunderers following them everywhere they go making running out of ammo a big problem. Sure the people spamming at everything whilst sitting in the middle of a zergball can have constant resupplies from random ammo sunderers but that just isn't the case when it comes to most AV tankers.

How many of those are direct hits and how many are splash hits though? The splash change is going to be a huge game change for the Dalton, even if you are getting direct hits 25 percent of the time that's a steep TTK change from the past. Currently it takes 3 direct hits to kill a lightning at 25 percent accuracy that would take 12 rounds. I don't think that's a ridiculous ammo consumption assumption. It's probably generous.

Anyone can tankbust something to burning and let the belly gun finish, I got a gunner to almost 300 kills doing just that with the Duster. Doesn't mean you balance off that. That's an extreme case and most engagements are a lot more likely to rely on belly gun damage then the tankbuster. This is a huge nerf to the AV capabilities of the so called AV specialized weapon for the Liberator, on top of that its ammo is getting a heavy handed nerf. Its uncalled for and will make the weapon only usable to high BR's who have the certs to completely cert out the ammo and even then its still been nerfed at its specified role.

Well, I agree with the notion that the Lib needs to have it's spare ammo cut. But all the way to 20/40 is too far. 30-35 baseline with 2/3 (alternating) from the spare ammo cert seems fair to me.

You must be either only picking off random straggler tanks then or flying a Crutch Armor lib. Nobody is claiming it's hard to gun for someone who always goes for tankbust first, but that's not what the experienced crews generally do. Not to mention how the update will make libs unable to sneak up on tanks like they can now, gives tanks insanely buffed maneuverability to dodge and the ability to shoot accurately while moving. Oh, and makes liberators very vulnerable to tank shells again.

So, removing AV splash completely while making low passes on places with more than one tank a suicide makes this kind of nerf for the ammo capacity all the more crippling. Even tanks have more ammo capacity while it's way easier for them to hit their targets.

More ammo means long operational time over enemy territory, no need to worry about missing, and enhanced defense efficacy vs ESF.

Either way, my favourite argument's this:
"You need some teamwork to be able to operate somewhat effectively". It's the line we get to hear over and over and over again from lib pilots. A little bit of teamwork will make this ammo-nerf a complete non-issue. Just get someone to drive an ammo sundy to a resupply spot and you're golden.

And I thought SOE and other players wanted to make flying an aircraft more newbie friendlie? This is the exact opposite as you say.
It is not random spam on the dalton, every "spam" is important and requiered for the Dalton to effectively lead and adjust the shot.
I want to know the gunner who can hit with at least every second shot directly either a tank or a lib/ESF - You need MANY shots; As I said, you need to calculate of many things. Speed of the enemy vehicle relatively to the ground, speed of your liberator, movement of your lib relatively to the ground and target (Including altitudedrop/increase), bulletdrop + velocity, errors of your pilot and a brain reaction from the enemy.

Where was spammability and carelessness a problem? Now please don't come with spawncamplibs.

Yup, that's exactly what I was expecting. I figured 30 rounds stock, 3 rounds per rank (60 total), or 25 stock and 4 per rank (65 total).

I'm just glad they got the memo the Duster sucks, and didn't nerf it's ammo count. The splash radius boost is nice, but it doesn't change the CoF, which is currently 4 (four, no decimal place). That's why the Duster sucks. You can account for the slow projectile by getting close and leading well. You can account for the mediocre damage and tiny blast radius by getting close and aiming. What you can't account for is how far that guy can run between shots if you're actually letting the bloom reset, trying to be accurate, instead of having your pilot sit 30m above a spawn point as you mag-dump over and over again. The problem was, is, and will continue to be the CoF.

You know what else is really interesting, though? They didn't touch the Bulldog. At all. If nothing else, it needs an ammo reduction. It's already comparable to the Zephyr for AI, better than the Duster (++ proj. velocity, no CoF, minimal drop, comparable mag size, carries more ammo starting and certed). WTF?

The time it takes to go rearm is very circumstantial of where that Aircraft may be operating. Not to mention many of the near by pads are camped and watched by enemy armor or aircraft leaving fewer safe locations to rearm. Pilots also must always return with around 30% ammo in reserve to be able to defend them selves from interloping enemy air craft. This realistically creates far to much risk when you factor at max the belly gun carries 40 rounds. I fully support nerfing the current payload of 120 but 40 is a step to far and will only hurt lib game play not improve it.