I remember sombody did say they reduce the ammo velocity of MBT maingun because it kills aircrafts more than they wanted to. I suggest to increase rocket velocity but not too much it would make it close to become like a Lancer.
Increasing rocket speed certainly worked for the Striker, although it was pretty poor to start with and the increase has not made it OP. It would be nice for the Phoenix although it might be harder to control. It is frustrating to see even a great lumbering Galaxy able to outrun my rocket in a straight, stern chase. But overall I think it is like the LMG changes - the better case is for making the relatively weak variants a bit more of a viable choice, rather than a blanket buff (and maybe that has already happened?)
I didn't mention lock-ons. New players can practice leading their shots with dumbfires to nearly, or definitively (in the decimator's case) 1 shot ESFs. With enough practice, this becomes fairly reliable at closer ranges. There is no reason to buff rocket velocity, especially because of the effects it would have against tanks as well - 2 infantry are already deadly enough at 50 or less meters. We don't want to completely kill the ground game.
Just take the dumb fire AA launcher in your standard load outs. You have dumb fire for tanks and infantry and an air lock on when required.
Giving the base all around launcher is the point of starting out. After you get certs, you specialize in more areas. The base trades nothing and gives good damage, the lockons trade damage for air or ground tracking, the decimator trades speed for damage, annhil trades dumbfire (useful against maxes) and damage for locking on to both. Making everyone an anti air player is both unfair to airplayers and regular players that want to fight tanks or maxes.
It's pretty easy to get the lock on launcher, its cheaper. Also there are such a thing called base turrets that introduce leading targets as a part of the game for new players. If you simply let the base be the lock on, what reason would players have to buy the base over the decimator? Plus it would be unfair to the air game if every single player that ever was could easily lock on and send a volly to an airborne target, making air to ground interactions completely negative for air and if air can't possitively affect the situation on the ground then whats the point of air support?
New player can use phalanx, basilisk, AA max (only one arm, but it's enough to deter ESF) and stock RL. They can also try for 30 min every weapon or use ally vehicle/gun. New player aren't totally helpless against air.
The rocket launchers in PS2 are ******** by design anyway. All of them. The lock-on launchers just love to hit the terrain, have to start all over from 0% each time some branch or someshít blockes line of sight to a target, are incapable of locking on to a 66% exposed Sunderer or a tank with it's turret popping out, being able to fire at you. Meanwhile drivers and pilots get a nice warning while you're doing so so that they can spot and prepare to one-shot you while you don't get such a warning. Oh and also you need many more hit than they do. Dumbfire rocket launchers want you to aim down sights for no good reason as you aren't aiming at the target because of the highly ballistic flight path in most cases anyway. Basically you can't see your actual target due to this most of the time but have to guess and aiming down sights actually makes aiming HARDER. For newbies there won't be an anti air launcher because there are some in the game which would then be useless.