[Suggestion] Punish bad flight practices

"Blackmail is such an ugly word... I prefer extortion! The "X" makes it sound cool."

OP's utterly wrong here, but even he, like a clock with no batteries,can occasionally be right.
And he's right on the fact that air craft have abusive capabilities.

Infantry.
Farming.
The ONLY aircraft that should be able to easily kill infantry directly should be zephyr/duster/bulldog liberators.

Battle Galaxies can take ludicrous amounts of punishment, and mop entire platoons with dual bulldogs which possess double the loaded and reserve ammo (as there are two of them).

But by FAR, the worst offenders are ESF's, which can laughably easily LOLpod and banshee/PPA/AH infantry (at least the AH requires targeting one or two at a time, versus the banshee and LPPA farming like they're ordering donuts by the dozen) before anyone can establish a lock (which are immensely easy to break now).

ESF's infantry farming capabilities are as broken as the instagib 2,000 damage that the Phoenix posessed when it was released.


Libs used for AI make sense, as running a zephyr or duster leaves it exceptionally weak to ESF's, and would have to stay butt end facing the enemy for the walker to chase off just single targets at a time.
(And the Valk is fine due to it's low speeds, large profile, and it's single weapon space which has low proficiency AI weapons.)
As well, they're slow enough that a few burster maxes can chase them off far enough to buy the infantry several minutes to push out between each pass.
With ESF's, lockons are entirely useless thanks to their ability to hit and run, or just stay by a pole or hill and fly back and forth constantly breaking the lock, and they can do strafing runs at +100-150m that are impossible to stop with anything but a burster max.

An ESF pulls one vehicle, and he's got his nanites back by the time he hits the front line. Then it's just a free farm fest from base to base til he gets killed by a fluke, gets too cocky by the burster maxes, or gets dalton'd.

Now all we need is a Trench Run...

sooooooo... that would mean removing reverse maneuver?

Oh my god, just use a little effort in flying, A LITTLE; reading your text you expect to fly in a straight line and own people...

Thats a lost bet I think, considering I have about 6 hours total in libs by over 1600 hours playtime.
I just don't think anything remotely challenging should be removed.

Indeed, been a year or two.

The fix is a somewhat complicated one:

Remove reverse manuever on ESFs, lower the skill floor that is required to be viable in the air vs other ESFs. Then we can see ESFs buffed against other threats (like the Lib).

But that's taboo by the ace pilots. So you have to spend more hours in VR. Yes its the only vehicle in the game that requires it. But its how it works. If you can't take on a Lib, then get a buddy in a Lib and fly drills for about 20 hours until you can. If that doesn't work, repeat until it does.

Its stupid, but until we see fundamental changes in how ESF's function, that's just how it will be.

TLDR to read thread but:
Could do what PS1 did with Libs

Couldn't drop your payload if the Lib wasn't within a certain Angle of being level with the ground. This would completely prevent belly gun firing inversions. Tailgun and Nosegun would still function. And I'd probably allow the shredder to be exempt to this rule since its arc is smaller (last time I checked) and it's a bullet spitter not a 'bomb' dropper.

This would help keep Libs the ground pounders they're supposed to be without being potent AA platforms as well.

tbh I don't think we need to punish bad flying practices as vehicle suicide kills more aircraft than aircraft killing aircraft. Its kinda sad now that I think about it.

Thats a better argument for fully customizable flight controls when compared to the crazy Yaw fixed to Keyboard everyone needs to use.

I would be very surprised if SOE changes the way the liberator flies or shoots 2 years into the game's life.

So try this. Do not think of the liberator's main weak spot as the top. Think of that as a minor weak spot, take advantage of it when you can but don't focus on it. Instead think of distance as the liberator's weakness. The tank buster, dalton, hyenas, shredder and (to some degree) walker all struggle to hit an ESF at long range, assuming the ESF is moving unpredictably. ESF nose guns, on the other hand, can easily hit the much larger and less maneuverable liberator at that range. So concentrate on keeping the range open and wearing the liberator down.

I've gotten angry tells from liberator crews that I'm cheap or don't fight fair because I won't close with them. One gunner told me they hate seeing me coming because it's going to be a drawn out render distance fight that they always lose. Rather than being insulted by those tells I think they're complements, telling me that I'm using a method with a high success rate.

Incidentally if a lib doesn't turn the belly gun or tank buster towards you you should close the distance to kill it faster.

Moin

The problem here isn't that the lib is OP or that the flight mechanics suck (which is subjective), the problem is that you're going 1vs2 against players who are better than you. In that case you should team up with 1-2 other ESFs.

I Disagree with everything you say.

This would actually work out better than what I've suggested.

Abuse? Lawl.

The game punishes bad flight practices as it is right now, if you are fighting somebody better than you and you fly in a predictable manner, you will be punished.

**** tier players shouldn't always be able to kill non-**** tier players, sorry.

When you remove the "reverse maneuver" you don't lower the skill floor, you lower the skill ceiling, big difference.
Making the reverse maneuver easier to understand and learn is lowering the skill floor.

I almost never fly a lib and when I do I'm not that great in it. But what I find funny is that you completely ignore the players that don't agree with you even though we are giving you advice on what you are doing wrong, using a "interceptor tactic" and engaging a the top side of a lib is not the proper way of engaging a lib. That's your problem, not that the lib can go belly up. But instead of changing how you play you want the game to change so you will have an easier time. As I said I take on some of the best lib crews in the world with a 50% win rate and there is no reason at all why you wouldn't be able to do that too.

Nah, the reverse maneuver is very much possible. With the right TWR at least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PptMrBFAO-A&feature=youtu.be

dogfights would be so freaking insane if ESFs had that huge level of thrust

Yeah, I watched that video. But the physics that enable such flight aren't in Planetside, only a never-sealed bug that became a "feature" that should have been eradicated long ago, or given a real option as a feature with proper controls to enable it.

Also, that's a tiny RC heli, not a full-grown nanite-produced ESF. If an ESF was capable of even half those movements than it would also be strong enough to ram the ground head-on at 1700 KM/h without a dent. But it's a game. I don't mind the reverse maneuver itself, I mind the fact that it's a bug rather than a feature, and that it's a win-all feature at that. There's just two things you can do in air-battles: Go hover-fighting or use reverse maneuver, preferably both. Other forms of aircraft warfare should become equally viable (so don't nerf the reverse maneuver, but improve other aircraft combat options). That way people can pick more types of loadouts&frames for different types of combat and flight styles. This opens up the air-game for more interesting and varied gameplay for everyone, and removes the elitism that negates good air-combat for a large portion of the playerbase.