Flying has become pure garbage.

Hello there.

I am Piloting and i slowly get tired of it.
Everyone play heavy and of course with a Lockon. (My Record was Lock G x 37 WTF? that were enough to kill 12 ESF) This tells you whats wrong.
Flares? Too long Cooldown.
Flakturrets have nearly no hitbox while one alone have enough life to destroy alot of Airplanes while getting shot.(i have tested it ) and dont tell me something about hornets.
Nearly every base base a few Flakturrets wich makes Airsupport useless. Other Problem i see nothing while they hit me due the explosions. (And huge Stuttering)

I dont want an easy farm but sometimes i even dont see the base and i get lock a lock on or a Flakturret shoot already in my direction while i even dont see where it come from.

And then anyone complain about buff anti-air ? What do you want ? 1 Hit galaxy´s Lib and ESF with a single rocket ?
In Small Combat i can understand but in huge battles?

Your whole argument comes down to:

"all these things are trying to kill me before I kill them, but they are not effective at doing so".

true ... but all those things are almost impossible to kill as esf (and some even as lib) ^^

With the repair stuff in place as it is ... you can't even prepare a base for your factions assault, since the turrets will just repair themselfs within minutes ... which means the things that are almost certain doom to engage (once manned by a half competent user) will just always be avaliable no matter what the pilot does.

And ... why ... why do esf's render at a longer range than base turrets?
It's frustrating enough having to face em ... getting shot by flak you can't see is just a bit overkill

On Hossin its fine. I have enough directions to retreat. But fly on Esamir or Indar (while Indar is most populated Continent)
On esamir you leave the western or eastern Warpgate and you can turn back to repair before you have engaged anything what makes an Airplane complete useless.

The problem is that there is a very fine line between not being able to fly anywhere near your destination without being shot down, and being able to farm ground with impunity. It's impossible to balance Air and AA with every possible population in consideration.

The relationship between the ground and the air is just one big mess.

are u HONESTLY complaining about air being underpowered? air can kill anything single handedly. there are NO 1 man ground weapon that can kill air (except ap tank rounds, but that takes a lot of skill and luck). if anything air is OVERPOWERED

if u get instagib'd by ground then dont fly into a 48-96 enemy pop without some friendly aircrafts. u deserve wat u get if u rush against so many enemies all by urself

I'm sorry but... You suck.

Your stats almost everywhere are below average, with the exception of some infantry-worn weapons that are about average. Now I've always said that low skilled players their opinion counts just as much as high-skill players, but I've also added that the low-skilled player should know what he's talking about. You have one AA weapon, the Grounder, and your stats are abysmal even with that. Still you claim that there's a million lock-ons around!
I bet your encounter with 37 ground lock-ons was just as the Swarm came out, and you hit one outfit that thought it fun to try it out with half a dozen players. So you weren't attacked by enough to kill 12 ESF, because the Swarm doesn't fire 5 missiles of that power.

I've heard the "oh my god there's lock-ons everywhere" since they were released, and whenever I fly... It takes me past 3 or 4 fights to even find a single one. People fly incredible distances in this game and because of that are more likely to find one lock-on. Then they have confirmation bias and say "jep, lock ons everywhere", while completely ignoring the X battles that had no lock ons at all!
Just keep in mind: How many times do you ever have your vehicle destroyed by an AA lock on? Not much? Rarely at all? Well here's a newsflash: Every single AA rocketlauncher kills more ground vehicles than it does aircraft.

Flak turrets are supposed to kill aircraft, and can't do much else. If you can A: Not kill them and B: Not escape them, then you must be having a barbecue up there or something because I don't see how that can happen! Most AA turrets aren't even occupied! The most dangerous AA turrets you can actually meet are hacked turrets at your own base! And even then only if you are either heavily damaged or not paying attention!

Also just because you missed it: AA has a scaling problem. 1 AA weapon is too weak, multiple AA weapons quickly becomes too powerful. The reason is the skill-reducing mechanics of flak and lock-ons. Because it would be unfair for aircraft to be auto-killed just because they came into range of an AA weapon the DPS is kept in check, but that also means that AA weapons solo can't really do anything against aircraft. But when you use more people with the weapon you overcome the DPS limitation and you can auto-kill aircraft anyway.
And for some reason people just accept this, lay down their heads and say "well it was designed that way". What the actual ****! Seriously? AA needs to be lethal, at the same time aircraft need to be able to fly over 15 different AA sources and get out without a single bit of damage because they could damn well dodge that ****! That's a fair system! Skill vs Skill! Not limited DPS&Heavy skill reducing mechanics vs skill!

But it is possible! It really is!
Any fight you join, you know that there's going to be AV weapons present, and that almost every weapon in the game can be used as AI weapon (with the exception off... G2A weapons). It's completely possible to design an G2A system that's both useful, lethal, and does not curbstomp aircraft "just because you pulled 4 of them". Aircraft should know that no matter how big or small a fight, there will be AA present. And assume that it isn't a problem.

It's ludicrous that people accept a system where either aircraft have no counter at all and can farm with impunity, or that they are completely incapable of functioning in a fight because the counter is used! Why am I the only one that can see that? Yes this is somewhat hyperbolic but it's not far from the truth!

It's not that other people don't accept the explanation of the situation that you have given. The reality is more that they don't accept the simplicity of the proposal - that it's easy to balance just by using a "skill applying" mechanic.

Do you know Stealth, besides the beneficial effect on minimap, also increases lock-on timer?

By the way personally I would take one simple step to make the air-ground relationship less painful: add domeshields to the ANT construction menu.

Weird, I enjoy flying.

Op likes to fly into 48-96 to try and farm but doesn't like it that people shoot back.

Nothing to see here.

/thread lol.

Tell that the poor two skyguards that got lolpodded trying to defend my vanguard. And the sundie. And my Vanguard. (Yes mossie lolpod swarm killed a total of ~10 skyguards, 3 sundies, 2 Vanguards and countless Harrassers and Reavers trying to stop em. It was horrifying *lol)
Or in short no. No to everything. Just no.

They did, just not when I proposed it.

I proposed a heavy nerf to flak detonation range and how easy lock-ons would lock so aircraft can avoid them. People complained about the status quo that flak was either too good or too bad right now, and how aircraft couldn't enter range etc.
Someone proposed a complete removal of flak, and replacing it with skillful machinegun fire like Walkers with slower muzzle velocity and more damage. And there was no complaint. Not. A. Single. One. People accepted it and thought it a good idea! But aside from 'let's replace flak' they never came further.

So I guess you are right. They do fail to see how easy it could be. I even thought ahead and eliminated the "big aircraft become cannon fodder/undefeatable" problem that would arise if all AA becomes an ESF killer but still have incredible power/no power against large aircraft.

Yeah, I remember reading that proposal thread. I didn't have the energy to participate at the time, though I would have been an objector.

If I had to produce a retroactive response, I guess it would be a question asking "When was the last time you jumped into a Galaxy and felt a great thrill at manning an M20 Drake?"

How would you feel with a dual-walker Lightning? If necessary you can reduce the muzzle velocity and tighten up COF, so only perfect hits will help you.

M20 Drakes have a limited turn ratio and you don't pilot it so you can't even adjust and keep enemies in your view. Although I did do some Galaxy AA work some time back and it was wonderful, assuming there weren't many other players inside. Just a 2/12 or 3/12 Galaxy, and a pilot that tries to keep the enemy in view. Bulldogs on the side to destroy any tanks or infantry that might be a good target of opportunity. The health and armor of the Gal make it a tough, tough nut, if you don't dive into the airspace head-on you can easily have one or two ESF break away and follow the juicy Gal, then use the top/rear gun to kill the ESF. Since the Pilot wanted to enjoy himself, he usually flew at the sky-ceiling and surveyed the area until we were either engaged, or he could sneak up on someone. Preferably some Liberators and ram them from above before they knew what was coming.

I don't see the point. What you are describing, in the kind of weapon from previous posts, would operate extremely similar to what we currently have in the Skyguard in terms of handling - you plan to aim the reticle in the path of the aircraft and sweep it forward slowly (lead) at a speed where you think follow-up shots will still interact with the aircraft's predicted positions.

It would be similar in handling, but completely different in the skill-level involved.

Current flak has a huge COF and detonation range, this means that the chance of some flak accidentally getting in an aircraft's path even when you are failing to lead properly is high. It also means that if you lead perfectly, a lot of flak will actually miss due to the large COF. This means that most of the hits are based on RNG, and that hitting an aircraft is a matter of holding the trigger in his general direction rather than skill.
We see this when multiple flak weapons are nearby each other. Aircraft simply get hit by too much, not because the flak users are necessarily good, but because of the RNG. This makes it impossible for aircraft to operate in AA territory, as being seen already means they will get hit by something and need to get away for repairs.

With a dual Walker, with muzzle velocity reduced, you have a weapon that requires an exponential skill increase the farther away an aircraft is. With tightened up COF you can only hit when your leading is dead-on and the aircraft does not do a dodging maneuver in the meantime. This means that if you get spotted by multiple AA sources, you could dodge them and still fight against the enemies, although the easy "hovering about and firing your entire mag" fighting won't be possible. That means that the power aircraft have is justified, because it takes skill and short attack runs to get your power on-target. Rather than "I am either prevented of firing on you, or I can hover out of your elevation and destroy you with impunity".
Since these dual-walker weapons would also be good against infantry, they would have another role to play when aircraft aren't around. They can easily protect friendly tanks from C4 fairies or pop-up Heavies, or even fight off AV nests on tower pads and the like by returning lots and lots of accurate bullets at them. This means that AA would be pulled more often in big and small fights, and you will see less uncontested aircraft destroying everything with impunity, you will also see more aircraft in big fights because now they can.