Anti Air partisans - A global invitation

Regarding the flak:
Reduced CoF and reduction of flak range, yes.
Increased power, yes.
But tbh, the flak velocity needs to be increased.
People claim that flak has a range of 1 km etc. The burster & ranger flak has a velocity of 325 m/s, the skyguard 400m/s, etc.
This contrasts with noseguns with velocities of 750m/s, for example. Yes the noseguns require direct hits, but those aircraft can move into position; they can determine the engagement range far more easily.

Let's presume we halve the flak radius. So for skyguard it does 60 before 3m, then 1 at 4m.
How much area did we lose?
Well, we could go with a 2D approach, the circle around the aircraft has gotten smaller. 1/4th the surface area remaining.*
We could also see however, that we lose a bit more: if an aircraft at speed moves accross the skyguards view, in theory the extra "depth" from 8m area of flak can cause a hit, which a "4m flak" would miss.

Suggested new skyguard, numbers from a hat:
Minimum cone of fire : 0.65. (same as walker. ESF rotary weapons have CoF of 0.5; defaults have 0.3)
Bloom per shot: 0.03. Meaning after 20 flak rounds, you are back at the current CoF. 0.02 is of course an option; it is just to encourage some burst firing.
Velocity: 700 m/s. Big buff from 400, to be more comparable with noseguns.

An ESF nosegun, the reaver rotary shoots at an ESF.
320 dmg, 750 rpm, 62.5% dmg resisance. -> 320*750*(1-0.625)/60=1500 dps. TTK= 2s.

Current skyguard:
60 dmg, 480 rpm, -60% dmg resistance. -> 60*480*(1+0.6)/60=768 dps. TTK: 3.9s; also gives more time to press fire supression.

Skyguard to be: honestly depends on how flak really works. Can it be encoded to detonate for "best fit"? If it gets real damage drop-off from the center, can it "explode as close as possible" to an enemy aircraft?
Consider: 120 @ 1m, 1 @ 5m.
This puts 60 dmg at 3 m, which is the current value at 6m. But, if you fire accurately at a lib with that, they're gonna take notice pretty fast.
Ideally, flak would give less "shake" feedback to the pilots if it is hitting with "weak" hits, from 3-5m.
IF the skyguard is hitting within 1m of the ESF, he gets similar TTK as an ESF rotary, slightly better even (& from further range)
Keep in mind, the skyguard is Anti-Air; it is more specialized than the ESF, and the ESF can bring either coyotes or lockons to the party for A2A. Skyguard has bigger mag.

*:
a better way of looking at flak effect:
a direct hit doesn't need flak effect. Suppose, flak has a range of 6m. We say the aircraft is represented by a circle with radius 3.
We now reduce the effect of flak to 3m.
What is the ratio in area?
Flak 6m range: anything "shot" passing in 6m from the hull of the aircraft, detonates.
Total surface our lightning can shoot: (3+6)²*pi. = 81 pi.
Flak 3m range: (3+3)² * pi. 36 pi.
81/36 is only a difference in area of 2.25.

Let's suppose, we shoot a big galaxy, and the galaxy is represented by a circle with a radius of 5m. (I'm bad at estimating dimensions.. Also aircraft are not circular.. is the galaxy holding out it's wings for us to shoot or not etc. why couldn't the vanu have flying saucers dammit)
(5+6) ²= 121
(5+3)² = 64
121/64= 1.89

In other words: reducing the area of effect of flak, is a bigger advantage for small aircraft (ESF; valk a bit), than for big aircraft.
But I'd argue that's kind of desired anyway; this adds to the necessity of avoiding dmg with the ESF.
An option is also to have different flak areas of effect per weapon:
Maybe the skyguards gets the "new" flak, the burster stays as is, and the ranges goes in between or..

Crap, I forgot about the single burster arm. Allright an amendment: Ground forces start with one single weapon designed for AA.

Still, paying 450 resources for half a Burster MAX, needing a group of people to do it... It's not exactly ideal compared to what a couple of Uncerted Heavies or even uncerted tanks or aircraft can do against other groups of people. Especially as you can be done with half the amount of players and resources by investing certs into it.

It's a possibility, it's highly expensive and requires a high resource cost that most people who don't have the certs for another burster just don't have, let alone the relatively high co-operation it takes seeing Planetside 2's standards.

Yes, the G2A launcher has it's uses. But I never actually see the 3-locks-at-the-same-time happening, even when lock-ons passed through the terrain while chasing I have seen it maybe once or twice. Mostly, the long reload and thus TTK, as well as the way anything breaks the lock and missiles have a tendency to ram the ground (pro-tip, just before you think a lock will fire dive to the ground, the rocket will try to lead you and smash into it instantly, sometimes even damaging the user).
G2A lock-on users are also quite predictable. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% is at a Spawnbunker, what's not there is mostly at a Sunderer and easy prey. Learn where they are, seek a nice route to surprise them, kill them, repeat till they are tired of being killed by the thing they are trying to kill, watch as the skies clear of locks as they move to easy prey (read; join the infantry fight and hope their buddies form better targets).

The G2A launcher is probably the only thing that's relatively in the right place. Since it's an infantry weapon it shouldn't hold too much power and mostly scare things off, just like a dumbfire will damage tanks but good luck killing it solo. However, in larger groups you can easily fight back with them, and even a solo guy will force tanks to go back and repair, or even move away.
In a tank's case, this solves the problem. Tanks take long to travel from base to base and are vulnerable while in transit, or even when they move back for repairs you can follow and have hopes of destroying them or taking out the engineers. In aircraft cases they might be at the next base killing targets in under a minute, which makes any weapon that only scares away only useful for the one using it and not for anyone in adjacent area's.

I learned to play long ago. The fact that aircraft users flee at the slightest sign of AA is their problem, not mine. Or rather, it's the problem of the next base, as that's where they'll go after being locked on and being afraid. Myself I just fly around, look for a nice approach route and kill them where they stand a few times.

Also, how come I'm crying? Just because you have a success story on your hands doesn't mean the entire game is suddenly perfect. I see an imbalance, I try to correct it. I don't ask for direct buffs, I ask for changes as the current system just isn't fun for most people, which is why they cry for either OP or UP depending on the group you ask. G2A launchers? "Look into the sky and hit or miss based on luck" launchers? Not exactly how the game should be played. Skyguards? "aim in the general direction and hit" machines. At long range it suddenly becomes a skillful game... but COF means that the skill needed is reduced and the total amount of hits you can score is also reduced regardless of how skillful you are, seeing how many hits you need at relatively close range on the weakest aircraft (ESF, 35+ hits) this means you don't stand a chance to kill any unless they make a mistake or already damaged by someone else. There's no FUN in that, any skill you do need is instantly bogged down by systems that reduce the maximum damage potential you can achieve as well as skill reducers which cause it in the first place.

Edit:
There's one real skillful AA weapon in the game; Walkers. But they are secondary weapons and need their damage limited. If all bullets hit and it's in CQC, one Walker can be slightly stronger than a Skyguard. Since most engagements are not CQC and the Walker will miss a load more shots it's a lot worse, especially against zippy ESF. Against big targets such as the Liberator we suddenly find rather irksome Damage reductions. Liberators currently have 75% damage reduction against Walker-style bullets... This means the extra skill required to hit and damage goes largely unrewarded.
More Walker style weapons, I'm all for it. As someone suggested a dual Walker Lightning wouldn't be amiss, as it can move itself, aim for itself and has it's skill rewarded with a possible double damage, although I would rather just design a whole new AA system to begin with.

If I remember correctly, Flak used to work like this:
A flak pellet would enter hit-range. It would keep flying and either hit the aircraft for maximum damage. The moment the pellet's distance compared to the aircraft increased it would explode. So a pellet could go millimeters passed the chassis, and the moment it started getting farther away it exploded. This way people who were more accurate were rewarded more as they dealt better damage, especially with direct hits.
I think they scrapped it for performance issues or that they wanted more consistent hits to calculate with. Either way, I think they used to have something like that system.

I just had a genius idea to fix the entire air game! (libs should also still have varying armor like an MBT as I said in my post above)
get rid of fire suppression
No more barely escaping, they're on fire, they're going down they need to choose to bail, ditch or land and repair. No more libs catching tank shells being on fire and escaping over that mountain due to an extra pad of health.
If you're esf is on fire and you're at high altitude and you neglected to put in the ejection system or play as a LA you're going to die.

I guarentee if this happens the air game will change, this way if you dogfight that ace and JUST barely get him on fire before you die you still might just get credit for the kill.

Refund the fire suppression upgrade.

Problem solved with the fixes proposed and a buff to the ranger (ranger needs more dps for being such a close range weapon), which technically would make the walker a long range AA weapon while the ranger is a higher damage close range AA weapon that will shred aircraft (make it a quad barrel flak gun for moar dakka)

Or just change it so fire suppression just suppresses on-board fires and doesn't act like an insta-heal? It will stop critical damage from having that DoT effect, but it wouldn't repair your vehicle from the current HP level. Any subsequent hits could resume the DoT effect (restarting the fire).

I assume this would affect ground units as well, and I'm all for fair changes like this.

I said rarely anyone buys 1000 cert weapons that are dedicated AA, because we are referring to skyguards and burster arms specifically. It's pretty clear in the 3 month uniques that skyguards and dual bursters are uncommon. Are you trying to find another statistics that would somehow prove this? It's quite obvious to anyone else who plays the game that 1000 certs for dedicated AA would be low on the priority list on things to buy.

I don't think you know what a logical fallacy means. You were complaining that I went back and forth between KPH and total kill numbers for pods & hornets. I told you in my post that skyguards are rare, hornet and pods are rare, therefore they make a good comparison in your first data set, which is total kills. From that data set, it proves Pods & Hornets are rarely used for AA. How is that a logical fallacy?

We've been over this several times. The kill chart has up to 30% error, which you just proved yourself with the whole NC skyguard use cases. All it proves is how many kills were used with the weapon, with complete disregard with how many people have the weapon.

You just contradicted yourself. If pods&hornets are not commonly used as a AA weapon. Why are you claiming they give a high aircraft kill statistic? Where did you find this statistic? Did you just find the KPH and assume all of it was aircraft? I'm sure a percentage of the KPH is aircraft, but if you actually played with any of these weapons you would realize that percentage is miniscule and not worth considering.

I understand usage rate as it pertains to KPH. But this is just a story and shows no proof that hornets and pods are used for AA work.

Nice try. You had no idea how to use the site you were quoting statistics on and are now trying to cover it up. Let's go over the time line:

I wrote:
Your "Oracle of Death" site shows the 3 month average uniques
You made this snarky remark:
First of all, Oracle of Death uses 1 month statistics, 30 days. Each day they remove the data from 30 days ago and add the data from today to make the newest and most accurate data.

Oh, so they apparently removed the 30 day data and then it magically re-appears again for the 2month and 6 month data.
I started referencing a 3 month statistic, not you. I used it to prove rotaries & fuel tanks were more common than rotaries & missiles. This had nothing to do with any of your data, so cut the facade we all see right through it.

No, not longer, more dodge attempts. Tomcats do the exact same things I do with my nosegun, so Tomcats doesn't add versatility, it just makes my mid-range AA engagements more efficient by adding more DPS. Fuel pods add versatility, because I can engage libs long range and still have enough fuel for dodge attempts for almost every dalton shot. I can engage at short range by AB in close. I can chase down smokers and fleeing targets.

I seriously don't care what happened in your tomcat discussion. Leave me out of it. Just, because you can't remember who you started arguments with doesn't mean it's OK to start accusing me of saying things I never did.

There are more nose cannon uniques than secondary weapon uniques, I've already shown you the data.

Did you just make up the "big game hunting" term? I have never seen anyone claim to have a "big game hunting" setup. Even if they did, default nose gun + fuel tanks is the best setup. It lets you plink down Libs from range without risking getting daltoned. Newbies who are learning to fly will just have to deal with learning how to Rm and hover fight. There are no alternatives, lock ons are just a temporary crutch. Trying to find some alternate method will only hamper your time learning the RM, because it is that dominant. My experience does count, especially since it seems like you have almost no experience in ESF game play.

I meant to say, your reasoning is flawed. I calculated the 30% error rate, not you, go back to my post if you want to see the calculation. You just wrote up a lengthy theory on why NC players have more skyguards than TR and therefore why the error rate is present. (Not accounting for all environmental factors) That's pretty much concrete proof that your approach is wrong.

No you misinterpret the data. The fact that there's few uniques means that Skyguards and Bursters aren't used that much (and score a kill). This doesn't mean that they aren't bought.
It's the same with the argument the OP gives, but you haven't reacted to that. The OP says that people do buy and use Liberator weapons, it's just that they only use it once or twice a month.
So unless you come with some convincing data that shows that no-one actually buys them, rather than that everyone buys them but doesn's use them due to being an unfun game mechanic and that any other duty such as AV or AI can get you 3x the points in the same time easily.
I also looked at the Dasanfall user stats. So far I think I can find proof enough for my theory.

Because you never said that. All you said was that they were rare, no-one buys them, which in itself shows that you know nothing about what aircraft users buy, there's 2375 NC players with more than 500 kills on their Breaker Rocketpods. there's 5000 players who have got more than 500 kills on the starter NC Carbine. So Rocketpods already seem a ton of usage and cert buys!
Compare that to the Vortek, which gets 1025 people with more than 500 kills on it...
And the starter M20 Mustang gets 503 people with more than 500 kills on it... even though it's a free weapon.
So Rocketpods aren't only bought by the masses, they are used by the masses as well.

Also, I have data that shows that they are used in an AA role. It might be as finishers or as big-aircraft hunters, but that doesn't mean they aren't used for it. Similar to AP canons being much more potent against Libs than ESF due to hit-chance, you have to take weapons not intended for such a use into account. Since Rocketpods for instance do get aircraft kills, and a nice KPH of it as well, it means they are used for AA, probably as "oh **** he's nearly down let's switch and hope I get a kill", but that doesn't mean it doesn't work well enough.

We've been over it, and you completely misunderstood as I proved that it wasn't useless. This is the big problem with how you operate. You ignore everything I say, but with one set of data, in this case the 30% Skyguard, you say "oh but i think I can debunk that!" So you question me about it. I give you several reasons why the NC Skyguard is performing better, you actually agreed with it as you said that Oracle of Death might have a mistake in the data, otherwise, why only come with this complaint now? If you already doubted the data itself, why complain about Oracle of Death? I say the data is correct and that if you calculate it the 30% difference is also correct due to faction diversity causing the NC to need to rely on it more. I have given reasons why, I have dug up some data to show you why.
What have you done? "I think it's too far off, therefore it's wrong"... Real nice one there. That's gonna convince a court.

Wait, you claim all kinds of stuff, but I keep redirecting you to Oracle of Death and you still don't know where the A KPH is?.
Here, just check this:
http://ps2oraclestats.com/monthlystats/

This is the monthly stats, which I've been using all that time. The fact that the weapon stat tracker can have more months is irrelevant, as we aren't comparing individual weapons are we? We are comparing the statistics of all AA weapons, including non-dedicated AA weapons. The Stat tracker can track up to 3 weapons total, whoop dee doo! That's not easy comparing you know.
Just check the monthly stats, go to "ESF weapons" and check A KPH. You'll see that the Hornets get about 3,10 aircraft kills per hour whenever they are used. So every time someone switches to the weapon, regardless of them fighting ground or air vehicles, on average over all players they get 3,10 aircraft kills per hour of usage. They have only a few hours of usage, 19 to 40 hours depending on the faction, so compared to the 400 to 600 hours of usage that the nosecannons get this is very little, but it should still be added to the total.

Oh, and just for your understanding of the site, as so far you haven't been very understanding, I've added the FAQ below:

• Kills - Daily sum of kills of the particular weapon
• Uniques - Daily sum of unique killers of the particular weapon - i.e to be a unique, at least one kill has been made with that weapon.
• KPU - Kills per Unique, i.e Kills / Uniques. For normal-high usage weapons, this is a performance stat and not a usage stat, as the average KPU is calculated on a per period basis (one day)
• Average BR - Average BR value of unique users
• Qn KPU - KPU broken down by Unique BR quartiles - Q1 = BR 1-25, Q2 = 26-50, Q3 = 51-75, Q4 = 76-100
• Headshots - Sum of kills that were made with a headshot
• Headshot % - Headshots / Kills - Percentage of kills by headshot
• V KPU - Vehicle KPU - ground vehicles destroyed / Uniques
• A KPU - Aircraft KPU - air vehicles destroyed / Uniques
• Playtime - Playtime in hours of the particular weapon
• KPH - Kills per Hour - Kills / Playtime
• V KPH - Vehicle Kills per Hour - ground vehicles destroyed / Playtime
• A KPU - Aircraft Kills per Hour - air vehicles destroyed / Playtime

.

The statistics on the site do. The story just shows how it goes. You can't finish it of with the dumbfire/nosecannon, you switch to a different weapon for second, get a kill, switch back. Hornets and Rocketpods aren't used per ce as AA weapons, but they do get AA kills, and these need to be added to the total.

Nice try, I am constantly talking about the montly usage as that's where for this case the useful stats are. Just going "but there's another function that does have more than 1 month statistics" doesn't mean I was wrong, as it was absolutely not the data I was using (not to mention that you haven't used any data yourself at all), the multi-month data isn't even data we could use that easily unless you have a week or two to sift through every weapon combination and jot down what this could mean for the weapons compared to each other. Since we don't have that time, we'll just stick to the tried and true monthly stats shall we?

Yes you are right, it has nothing to do with any of my data, because the data you are using can be more misleading in what I am trying to prove. Look, you can work as hard as you like to try and prove that fuel-pods are solely used on A2A aircraft, but that's just not the case. Besides, we are talking about AA being OP here, not what A2A loadouts are mostly flown with.
Also the data I was using works exactly like that. You go to places on the site that take too long to get a clear view, so we use the 1-month statistics.
How did you exactly prove that fuel tanks are more common? Fuel tanks aren't even in the list of weapons. and Rocketpods have 1000+ uniques, which is 600 more than your Rotary... Which puts your whole fuel tank stuff kind of on a rocker. This is the reason why in your previous post you used Tomcats and Coyotes right? Because the Rocketpods would mean you wouldn't have a leg to stand on? Of now you are going to say "but I am just trying to prove the loadout of A2A". But you then assume that everyone who uses a Rotarty automatically goes for an A2A loadout. How many people want to be able to go for A2A and A2G combinations? A pretty solid group if you look at the amount of uniques of Rocketpods. How many of the rotary users only use Fuel Tanks? If you look at your data and spread the users out assuming you are right that they only go for A2A loadouts, you already have more than half of the A2A users equipped with Tomcats or Coyote's. Add some Rocketpod users, Hornet users... and you got a sizable portion of fuel pods left. Yes, a sizable portion, but everything else is taken by secondaries.
Besides, Uniques alone doesn't prove anything, which is why I'm using other stuff, such as A KPH, A KPU, playtime etc.

Oh stop it, now you are just reaching. Tomcats work differently than nosecannons. Tomcats for instance are useless at CQC but great at the edges of it's lock-on range, as that's where the nosecannons will miss a lot and the tomcat will hit. With fuel pods you just can do the same tactics but keep them up for longer. Whoop die do!

I'm not accusing you, I'm saying that other pro-air people used the exact opposite arguments. Which puts you guys in a bit of a pickle as you all think the same but use opposites to prove it.

No you haven't shown me "the data", you've shown me a sliver of the data, which was 2 out of the 5 secondaries, one you can't even show (fuel pods), and cherry-picked with the lowest usage.
Also, ofcourse there are more nose-cannon uniques than secondary uniques! You always come equipped with a nosecannon, but you need to buy secondaries aside from the fuel pods! It's like saying "there's more starter Carbines than any other Carbine", ofcourse that's true because everyone starts with it.
I'm appalled that you even tried to use such reasoning 0.o

Yes I did just make up the big game hunting term. Everyone always talks about A2A, but I've found I used different loadouts depending on what I'm hunting, especially when I'm going A2A. And seeing how people attack the Libs, Galaxies and Valkyries I've been in, I'm no exception.
Your experience counts, but that doesn't mean your view of how it goes is correct. Just because you plink libs from a distance doesn't mean everyone does.

RM and hover fighting are dominant, and the fact that there are no alternatives is one of the biggest problems in the game. By all means, RM and hover fighting need to stay in, but other options and fighting styles need an update to make the game better. It shouldn't be about just 2 fighting styles, and may the best win. It should be about being able to select different fighting styles, if your enemy is better at one you should be able to go for another one and hope you can beat them with that. Different skillsets need all be rewarded. It's just ludicrous that the Dogfighting airframe for instance is worse in all aspects compared to Hover Frame only due to these two flying styles, which are based on game-limitations and a strangely coded air-controls.

You calculated a 30% error rate, I explained the 30% error rate. What's your problem? We have different factions with different weapons, which causes the NC to be less effective with some AA weapons even though they are inherently the same, because the other factions have abilities that boost it. We can actually find this in the statistics as well, which I showed you.
But your reasoning is... "there is a 30% error rate, thus it's wrong. No it's not wrong, how is it wrong? Can you give an exact reason how this error is faulty? Was it an erroneous data gathering? Was it a wide difference in skill of players? Was it cheaters? Maybe it was just a combination of skill variance, faction difference and usage? Just look at the Alerts, NC always loses the most alerts on all continents and all servers. Are the alerts suddenly now in error? Ofcourse not! This is because the faction has different weapons and playstyles, however small, than the other factions. This difference is enough that, even though many weapons score very good, the NC just can't win enough alerts.
The difference also means that NC Skyguards get more kills, I already explained you a myriad of reasons why this happens, but you just say "no it's an error rate, so it's wrong". Maybe it's not an error rate, but just the faction difference showing itself?

Nobody buys them means the same thing as nobody uses them for this conversation. Your argument is flawed. Using a kill list without taking into account the amount of people who "have the weapon/bought the weapon" makes it wrong.

I don't know how you think that convoluted analysis means anything, but I'll play along. Rocketpods and Hornets are very common? REALLY? That means there should be more Rocketpods & Hornet kills than Skyguards on your total kill list. Which again, comes back to my point. Rocket pods & Hornets are not listed in the top 25 of your kill list. Since you believe in that list so much to make claims that ground AA is up, then Pods & Hornets should end up even higher if it's as effective as Skyguard.

You seem to have a lot of theories on how AA weapons are used, despite clearly not having any experience using these weapons.

This isn't just one minor problem, your mistake applies for all weapons on the kill list. Apply your conclusion on NC Skyguards to the rest of the weapons on the kill list, then we can talk. Oracle of Death did nothing wrong, they just provided raw data. You misconstrued it. NC Skyguards is just one example. What about weapon ownership % that we just discussed above? You need to compensate for that skew as well.

Don't pull a strawman argument. I know what AKPH is. I'm in disbelief that you think 3 KPH on a 2ndary weapon is and I quote "I said their statistics indicated a high aircraft kills statistic. " Go ahead and add the Hornets & Pod kill per hour usage, it's roughly 10% of the AKPH based on the hours of use. Still doesn't change the fact that the KPH of Rotaries+hornets+pods vs Skyguards vs bursters are roughly the same. All this babble for 10% lol.

Don't change the subject, you messed up and are hiding it. You went on a tirade about stats I referenced. Not you. I always reference 3mo-1y data.

Monthly stats are BS. I already showed you why.

You talk so much you forgot what the original topic is most of the time. This started when I referenced Rotaries having roughly the same KPH as skyguards and dual bursters. You went on a 2 page rampage about adding pods & hornets to that data, which essentially came down to 10% and really doesn't change the main fact that their KPH is still roughly the same. That's how we ended up talking about A2A loadouts.

Which brings up my next point. Pods & Hornets are for A2G. This is why I referenced Tomcats and Coyotes, because they are A2A 2ndaries. If you want to replace them with A2G loadouts then fine, it just skews the data more to the fact that rotaries + a2g secondaries have the same kph as skyguards/dual bursters.

Lots of opinions from someone with little ESF experience. This isn't all the wrong, but it is a very narrow view, typical of a newbie.

Tomcats are useless at the edge of lock-on rage, because you will fade in and out of lock. You need to have at least a 100m buffer zone to make sure you get that lock. So it's really a mid-range weapon. Default nose guns are a long range weapon and can let you kill liberators out of lock-on range.

Fuel pods lets you dodge more times, close distance or flee.

I don't care. Leave me out of it.

2 out of 5 secondaries, because they are A2A load outs. Not cherry-picked with lowest usage.

And if it's so blatantly obvious that nose cannons have more uniques and it's appalling to even go through the reasoning process, why did you ask
"For instance, if what you said were true, than there would be many more nosecannon uniques than there are secondary weapon-uniques, as "any" A2A user goes for fuel pods and nosecannons right?"

Just stop pretending that you know enough about ESFs to lecture us on strategies.

Yeah sure, I agree with some of this, but it's off-topic to what we're discussing.

[/quote]

For the last time, the data is not wrong. Your application of the data is wrong. Your attempt to correlate a top 25 killed by chart to weapon efficiency has all sorts of holes in it. I pointed out one obvious one with the NC skyguard, which you then proved. Now apply that same logic to every weapon in that list.

I hate this thread really much.
ESF and Liberators are strong. ESF are highly AA capable, better than nearly all other guns in the game. Simply because they have a great mobility. They will also always have a good AI capability with the nose gun. They can vary their load out to include powerful AV. 4 seconds against an MBT? Only a deployed Prowler and the Lib can manage that feat. Or of you are stupid enough to allow someone to put 2 C4 down.
The Liberator has a ton more health and 2 insanely powered weapon systems. Maybe not as much as before, but still very much present. Also able to attack all targets with impunity.
Both can only reliably fired upon by other air or.... lock on and skyguard. They have the fewest weapons that can effectively counter them.

Now the other option. Lock on is only on the HA, and infantry can be damaged by EVERYTHING in the game. Air can get a temporary immunity against it as well. They are still effective against everything, but require a lot of dumbfires against tanks and aren't as practical against infantry as people sometimes portray.
The skyguard is effective against air. And that is pretty much it. It has a hard time with infantry that are close by! It hardly damages Harassers and you tickle tanks. Their range is considerable, but you have to lead quite a bit against air. Combine that with the mobility of air and their effectiveness drops even more. Now imagine that you do kill or scare away air.... then what? Your presence is certainly apriciated to prevent air coming back, but fun is different. You are literally just being there and doing nothing and garn no recognition or points.

And here you are complaining that they are too strong? Especially in groups? Go away and return much later. People who have nothing else to do will get other weapons. Also, it is their one redeeming point. Take many of them and they begin to form a match against air. They finally can take on Liberators that are coming head on.

AA must be changed to more skillful means. I agree about that. But I just hate the way you talk about something you have put barely any thought into.

It used to be like that, more or less. It was considered the most useless utility since it only worked on a very subtle hazard. In general, if you ended up in a sitaution where you are put into the burning state, you were still at great threat from enemy firepower and would probably die to that long before you died to the burning. The fact that you even had to activate it for it to be effective ...

I'm honestly not certain what we can do with the ability that wouldn't make it either too good not to use or not worth it at all.

Why not a heavy SAM for the skyguard, with a kobolt/basilisk mounted on the side. Locks onto aircraft within 300-500 m. deals 2000 damage, at the same time buff flares.
The SAM would have a 5s reload, 5-6s lockon time and has a special lock on the targeted enemy instead of "G-Lock" it would be "SAM LOCK", deals 2000 damage (give esfs a slight buff to resistances against this so they dont die but sets them on fire). This would essentially be a Vanguards AP tank shell homing in on your Aircraft.

Which is why I suggested removing it.

No it doesn't. Even if only 50 people use it and they score very very badly with it... isn't that a sign telling people why nobody buys/uses it? OP weapons that people can use are bought much more than other weapons, and you can see it in their stats as well.
Let's look at it from the other side again, I have to keep repeating myself here: It's used not that much but it does score well. Hey! Now we can look at what reason there is it scores well. As you keep saying, Hornets and Rocketpods aren't used for AA that much, but they still have a good score in it. How is that possible? Well, the only real logical explanation is that they are used for big aircraft such as Liberators and Galaxies, or in pinch fights to finish something off. So a Lib that landed for repairs? Prime target for a heavy-damage dealing Hornet right? Or some Rocketpods? Your nosecannon goes into reload, do you stick with it or switch to your secondary in the slight hopes of killing your target? You have a chance especially when they are damaged, and you equip them for a very short time. These are all reasons why these weapons score a good A KPH, despite having a low hours played and usage. Also, keep in mind that Oracle Of Deaths Uniques are all weapons that scored at least one kill, any weapon that was equipped but didn't get any kill isn't taken into account.

And again, I told you how to take into account that fewer people use a weapon: You take the amount of time played and use that in correlation with the time played on the main weapon, in this case the Nosecannons, and make the Nosecannons count for that much more.

...
You really don't read do you?
Hornets aren't used that much, Rocketpods are. On what do we base how effective the Rocketpods really are in A2A combat? Well on hours used, the amount of players that uses it doesn't come into it in any way.

What do we see then? We see that the best Rocketpod has 150 hours of usage, and 2,1 aircraft kills per hour of usage on average per player who uses it. This means 150*2,1=315 aircraft kills per month.
The lowest skyguard usage time is 136,6 hours coupled with the lowest A KPH among all 3 faction skyguards of 5,94. 136,6*5,94=811,404 kills per month. Hey! So the lowest scoring skyguard gets more kills per month, which is why it does show up in the top 25 aircraft kills, and the Rocketpod doesn't despite having about the same uniques.
So again, you have misinterpreted the data and come up with the wrong conclusion. The above example was a more simple piece that involved simple math.

Just read it all again.
And try to be clear, you now suddenly say that Rocketpods are AA weapons, while I said repeatedly that they aren't used for AA, but they do score AA kills. So somehow they get their kills, this might be an unintended usage, targets of opportunity (repairing/hovering aircraft) or panic-firing. But seeing that their stats do have a good amount of A2A kills it means that these situations happen often enough to actually get that score, and these weapons are always connected to a nosecannon, these stats need to be added to the nosecannons themselves.

You still haven't said anything more but "it's wrong" without actually proving it. I have given logical reasoning why the NC Skyguard gets more kills, and you have done... nothing but turn around the subject with pointing the finger at me every time and saying "but it's still wrong!"
Also, weapon ownership could be another reason why the NC Skyguards get 30% more kills. Imagine a TR/VS player who sees their options, and because they have an ability capable of upgrading the damage potential of their Bursters they pick that one instead of a Skyguard. The NC doesn't have such an advantage and will have more people picking a Skyguard in the end.
And yes, the NC Skyguard does have the most uniques besides having the most playtime as well, and the highest A KPH.

10% difference isn't big but 30% is? Where do you put the line?

Also, I have given reasons as to why Skyguards get roughly equal kills. Here comes another repeat: It's because Skyguards are pulled when it's certain they'll get something to shoot at, increasing their chances of killing something. Then when it's gone the Skyguard is abandoned or destroyed beforehand.

Yeah! You did it once, easy to say that you "always" reference 3-mo-1y data!
Besides, the data you are using is too hard to interpret on the scale we are talking about.

Which is where all the trouble begins, the fact that you don't grasp that these stats are useful.

No I put some nuance into your "stats" (which were wrong, as you said it was all 8 A KPH while it doesn't rise above 6,5). Still I already proved that the nosecannons have more than enough reasons to have a similar A KPH in the very first post I brought it up, besides the fact that the secondaries would need to be added.

also, about your "10%"...
around 8 hours of playtime on a single A2A missiles with an A KPH of ~32 each
Around 15 hours of playtime on a single Coyote with an A KPH of ~13 each
Around 30 hours of playtime on a single Hornet with an A KPH of ~3 each
around 115 hours of playtime on a single Rocketpod with an A KPH of ~2,5 each

168hours playtime divided by 4=42 hours of playtime on average
50,5 A KPH total divided by 4=12,625 A KPH average
(this might be a slight mistake and you have to multiply them separately first but I'm not in the mood for the longer route)
530,25 kills per month extra that these weapons score for ESF. Remember the amount of aircraft that the (lowest) Skyguard scored? 811! I don't call that a small amount of extra kills the ESF score through their secondaries... And Rocketpods even weigh in the most kills of that amount!

Lost of opinions for someone with no AA experience at all.

Not that close to the edge ofcourse! You really don't have a single bit of nuance in you do you?
Also, do you really think that Liberators are the only aircraft you'll fight? Again the whole "Liiiiiiiiiiibs!" argument. Can you guys finally knock that off? We are talking about AA in all forms against all types of aircraft, this isn't just about Liberators.

Ooh boy, "more times"="more of the same, multiple times"=/= versatility.

I care! And please, if a pro-air player says something that you don't agree with, go into a discussion with them as well. As so far the only players you've gone into discussion with are the one's that are on the opposite side of your point of view. Being hypocritical about it and not pointing it out just because they are on your "side" doesn't make it any better.

Well, it was the first time you said anything else than "Hornets and pods" for A2A loadouts.

Just look at the big red letters and re-read the sentence. The difference in nosecannon uniques to secondary uniques would be the amount of Fuel Pods people equip (hopefully, as non-successful secondaries and primaries aren't counted). Seeing that there aren't many more nosecannon uniques in the quick survey I made... there aren't a lot of Fuel Pods equipped either.

Just stop pretending you know how anyone else flies but you.

It's a large part of why AA and the air-game in general are out of whack. So no, it isn't off-topic of what we are discussing, it just didn't come up until now.

No, you pointed out an anomaly. I investigated the anomaly and gave reasons as to why it was better.
Here's another example: The Halberd. Same DPS, reload etc on all factions, yet the TR one gets less KPH an V KPH than the others, and a pretty hefty amount less. Why is this? Well, faction diversity is why. Even though the weapon is the exact same across all factions, the TR Halberd is the most directly influenced by the tank it's mounted on. The Prowler is a high-DPS killer tank, due to the way it fires and how much damage it does it has a larger chance to score the kill than the Halberd on top. This is different on the other two MBT's, where the Halberd is more often the killer due to the slower reload speed and lower DPS on both tanks.
The NC Skyguard might not have it so directly influenced, but the concept is the same: because other weapons are less in AA power than on the other factions the NC need to rely on their Skyguard more.

Maybe change its workings?
Rather than insta-healing the plane back, you get only a small % of health back, such as 5-10%. The fire is extinguished and you can keep flying. Additionally your nanites temporarily protect you with a shield. So all damage you get is reduced by, say, 30% for a limited amount of time (6 seconds?)
So now you've got a whole different skill-level in using FS. Instead of "I'm hit to X damage, I'll just press it and have some health back" (or in case of hover/RM fighting, I'm hit to burning, use FS) you need to consider how hurt you are and how much damage you are about to receive. Enemy on your tail, about to attack flak, attacking a Lib that's about to get a good shot on you? Use FS to prevent some damage and hopefully survive! Damaged and fire erupting from your plane? You can still prevent it, and it will keep you alive just a little longer if you are still in the middle of a fight.

Ofcourse, this would be even more reason to overhaul flak, as a Lib using this type of FS, or an ESF, would be even more invulnerable to AA... A Lib or ESF can still overcome the FS damage reduction by simply hitting more to get the kill, AA can only deal a limited amount of damage, and aircraft can already get out of AA range before death in the current situation.

Because we need skillful AA, not "look into the sky and press a button" AA. Or that's what I'm for. Any lock-on or flak needs to be balanced so aircraft can always get away, otherwise any AA is too powerful if you just flew into their range and they can take you out almost no matter what. But because AA can't be that powerful, it also loses all capability of properly dealing with air, and becomes a deterrent instead, and one that can mostly deter after the enemy already has had a chance to fire.

My answers in orange.

You've got it wrong. I'm tired of your word twisting and lying. Let's look at OP.

Ok, I highlighted the important parts. Do you see anywhere the words: " AA IS OP"? I don't see it there. This thread WASN'T created to prove how AA is OP. It's what YOU and other people made of it.

The thread was here as an offer to give people a chance to get some kind of proper experience in well certed lib. So there view could be widened. So they know how HARD it is to be successful with it.

You've hijacked this thread.

You are a liar with bad reading comprehension and a real hypocrite.

If I was a mod, I would give you a warning and then ban you from this thread, because the intention of it has been lost in your made-up arguments.

Hey, there's mods everywhere. If they had thought that I was really that bad, they would have banned me from this thread, right? So far they did remove something of mine, which was me being angry and insulting, not anything else.

I'll take my time replying to the rest of your statements later. But seeing as you are now comming to the "but noes, this is simply wrong" stage without even bothering to come up with a slight reason as to why I think it's about time you quit.

As for AA being OP or not. The OP starts with commenting that AA is not UP. I did not hijack the thread by stating the other two options (it's good as it is or it's OP) and making a case for either.

Imagine if I said "Prowler is OP", then someone comes in and say "but Prowler is not OP", then I say to him "but we are only talking about OP Prowlers, don't hijack the thread"!
Seriously, this isn't the first time that you come with such an argument.

Which is probably why you're not one. Using the privilege to resolve personal fights that can easily be handled by ignoring the person is a sign that you may be devaluing the position and its authority.

But no one was taking Jawarisin up on his offer. In fact, most people who weren't taking Jawarisin up on his offer don't believe there's anything (more) to learn from the exercise. As far as I can scan, they've even stayed above the despicable level of casting doubts on Jawarisin's level of skill in piloting, which is a monumental improvement over how these kinds of thing normally go. It's like an Internet triumph of some kind! There's only been one person in ten pages hinting that they might have tried this, if only their server situation was better.

We've been in this thread long enough to have explored hypotheticals, intents, statistics, and anecdotes, and offer each other the possibility of simulatuing each others' experiences multiple times. We've gotten nowhere.

Edit: I had gone back to check something else in this thread and found a second potential candidate to Jawarisin's proposal.

I addressed so much of stuff you posted. Explained a lot too with the purpose of understanding, not winning a fight. I know there are mods here and my replies are removed too from time to time. I'm seeing OP's post as something different and I never said that AA is OP. Which you wrote that I did. How fair is this? Of course I'm quitting. I've no more time to lose on nothing.

Problem is, you misunderstood so much and therefore your explanation for understanding wasn't right.
Also, I was trying to prove that the OP was wrong in his assumptions that AA is not UP. When I use the best thing for it (statistics) you were one of the people who called is BS. I constantly explained how it wasn't BS. Somewhere along the line you came with the whole idea of showing how your experience somehow counted more by having more of it and "better", which I debunked with both showing how singular exprience from person to person doesn't matter and then I went on about how those stats weren't, and had to do something more extended for OP as well.

So a 10-page thread of which I hogged a ton of comes down to this: Some people used stats to prove their point, others didn't and repeatedly said it was "wrong" without providing any real reason or proof as to why it was wrong.

Also funny how you selectively cut out my whole explanation about how a real statistical research is performed and made no comment about it...

i think the problem is that you take statistical data (and your own interpretation of it) to be more truthy than the aggregate of 1000's of hours of experience. it's one thing to discount an anecdote such as "one time i soloed a lib with my skyguard, so therefore skyguard is a hard counter." that's like saying "my grandpa smoked until he was 97 and died from being hit by a bus. smoking doesn't cause cancer." but then there is such a thing as expert testimony. what we are saying, is that players with thousands of hours of experience (repeated testing, experiment, trial, learning by repetition) are qualified to give more accurate interpretations of a given data set, and identify incongruities between data and experiment.

it is possible that the data set you're referring to may have been collected in way, or under circumstances which do not accurately represent reality. when this is the case, it is the hypothetical model that is incorrect and must be redressed. this is the main intent of the original post in the thread. to perform experiments and review the results for honest discussion.

i offer the following definition:

i submit that there is a point in practice that a person becomes expert enough to give a reliable account. i base this on the legal definition of expert testimony offered here:

it goes on in the notes section to make two further points that i think should be highlighted here:

i assert that there comes a point in practice and amount of direct field experience, when a person is considered expert enough to speak against another person's interpretation of statistics. broad statistics do not always conform to repeatable, falsifiable experiment. the OP actually suggests collaborative experiment as a means of reaching common ground in this argument. but no one is taking him up on it. there are experts here making testimony, and it is being peer reviewed for inaccuracy i assure you. but just to simply dismiss experienced pilots as giving anecdotal evidence while your statistics are "real" is absurd.

our expert opinions come from specific knowledge in the field. we attack and are attacked by AA in the same situations, at the same bases, at the same pop levels daily. we've all repeated the same situations so often that we've experienced the full range of variation, and can reliably report on what works and what doesn't work with regard to AA. when your statistics show that the Ranger scores better than the Walker, for example, it should be acceptable for us to question those statistics because repeated experience tells me that i've sat on and tanked ranger sundies to death many times, while walker sundies are unapproachable.

so when you say:

you're saying that a layman can use their interpretation of statistics as a shield against people who question their ability to present a sound argument, but people with verifiable hours of specific field experience need a "real reason or proof," else they be dismissed.

and that is why people are insulted by your behavior.