Greetings forumside, Bored at work, I was reading the forums and often see it said that Air are often either fight breaking, or nearly useless once a critical mass is hit in a fight. Leading me to realize that aircraft really don't have much of a direction in Planetside 2. They just fly around looking for things to kill without much tactical use. This gave me the idea for a new Command ability that could either be stock or cartable similar to the Request Reinforcements cert. How about giving Squad/Platoon Commanders the ability to Request Air Strikes or Air Superiority missions. Placing the request would be easy, just add a new option to the Q menu that can be Context Sensitive to what target is being Q'd. The mission can then show up on the Continent Map, due to the extreme range aircraft can cover. Showing pilots they can participate in a mission, and by doing so, get extra XP similar to a bounty. In large fights, it is all but impossible to approach, acquire a target and strike from the air because you are moving at high speed or because if you slow down to hover you will be swatted by tons of AA. This will give aircraft a target before they even enter the Hex, showing an approximate heading and ground location to make a speedy strafing run. Appearing as a special spotted target for aircraft to see from the sky outside of the range of normal spotting. Upon dealing a certain level of damage, the aircraft is given XP for dealing damage to the target, similar to Air Deterrence for AA. Upon destruction of the target, all participating Aircraft get additional XP for completing the Air Strike. Air Superiority requests are the flip side of the Air Strike system. In a small fight, one or two aircraft can absolutely wreck all opposition until a certain mass of AA is built up. Similar to Air Strikes, the commander Q spots an enemy aircraft and Requests Air Superiority. Giving nearby friendly ESFs a target icon on the Continent Map that this Hex needs control of the air. Giving A2A aircraft a focused mission aside from wandering aimlessly and skirting battles for other aircraft to destroy. That 12 v 12 that is being tilted by a ESF or two? Call in your own! Upon destruction of the targeted craft all participating ESFs get a pot of XP just like the Air Strike. This can give both A2G and A2A craft more focused missions to accomplish with an XP reward for doing so. Giving A2G a precision target to swoop in and strike under heavy AA to be useful in larger fights, and giving A2A craft areas to sweep for other Aircraft to eliminate to help alleviate pressure on smaller fights. There could even be a Directive line added for X amount of missions. The reward could be something like a title "Ace" or special decals/cosmetics. My idea does limit the system to Squad Leaders only to avoid oversaturation of missions on the Map. But there could be a system within the squad/platoon that allows regular players to Request Airstrike/Superiority that then takes the request to the Squad Leader in a popup such as "JohnDoe is Requesting -Air Strike- on -Sunderer-" and giving the Squad Leader the power to Approve or Deny the request. What does Forumside think of a system like this? Would it improve the relationship and function of Aircraft in game? Would you change anything about the system? Discuss.
Its quicker and allows you to select a specific target. Q over Enemy Sunderer (Request Air Strike) and poof, Strike Requested. Paints a specific target for a quick strike so aircraft don't have to hover around and look for the target. It makes a bit more sense for the Air Superiority request to be map/hex selected :X
yeah id be more interested in a Continent wide viewable markers, like the Attack Defend ones, so all the air forces see it, i mean lots of air just kinda fly back and forth giving them all a target would rock. its just being for one hex youre likely to have no one see it if your timing is off
I'm not flying arround till I find a target, I chose small fight to have better chances to find low AA capability. The idea is good but now if a platoon leader use air strike request in a 96+ zerg, i don't think that I will come to help. Unless, we have a lot of aircrafts in our side. Most of the time I feel a bit lonely in the air (NC/miller)
I don't think this should be on a specific target, but in a specific point on the map. I think the bounty system already puts focus on others to kill them, but if you were able to Q and select air strikes on a specific unit and they would be tracked, it would negate stealth/cloak. If you know where a sunderer is, you could mark the area right under it (kind of like a squad waypoint) for an airstrike, but I don't like the idea of tracking an enemy for any period through a menu. But at that point it really just would be a squad waypoint that others could see.
Well, perhaps the target request could have some kind of timeout on it? Such as if the target isn't struck\destroyed within 60 seconds, the mission lapses. And the timer could be reduced by Stealth. And cloaking could outright remove the request. Making Cloak Sunderers more valuable against Air than Shield\Blockade buses in that sense. Could also divide up the request further between Targeted and Area requests, such as Air Strike for a target, and Air Bombardment for a area. Strikes being more suited to ESF activity and Bombardments being more liberators cup of tea.
Bump ^ I would also like to add that if this was implemented into the game it could also create a use for a new vehicle type and air type. Both for similar uses. Vehicle being a long range mobile artillery that you would aim with a map versus by sight. And a new type of bomber jet type, vertical take off but once up to speed wouldn't be able to turn that hard, could have varying types of bombs for different situations.
I was excited about this post, then I realized you necromanced it and added superfluous and un-related items to it :/ But that said, the OP does have a good kernel of an idea, that I hadn't seen before. Other posters suggestions about making it similar to offensive requests make it sound like a very viable and obvious addition.
This should simply be available to everyone, and communicable to every random, squad and platoon in the area. Also it shouldn't be limited to just airstrikes, but requests for infantry attacks and tank attacks should be available as well. Holding V you could get a different radial menu for AOE requests. This can be "there's a spawn somewhere here", but also "AA in the area" to let aircraft know to watchout and friendlies that they should try to destroy them. These requests would be visible like a waypoint for anyone within 1000m distance (500 for infantry?). It's also visible on the radar/map ofcourse. To prevent clutter players can set the amount that are shown at any point in time. I would personally set it around 3 to 4 requests at a time. Requests that apply to you are shown first, the closest requests having priority. So if you are in an aircraft, only aircraft requests are shown unless there are too few aircraft requests. Your own request is always shown ofcourse. Every player can place only one request at a time. If it's fulfilled they can place another one, so players can be punished for requesting the wrong target and won't be targeting everything they see. Squad/platoonleaders can place more, but only the first request is visible to the public, the rest is only visible to their squad/platoon.
How bout just let squad leaders in charge of those planes put down a smoke signal for them instead. But from the Q menu. Or etc menu. It's kinda stupid you can't tell air to shoot here without opening your map in a damn fight.
Should I have posted somewhere else with the "unrelated items." I posted here because I figure it would have all gone together. I mean the bomber and long range artillery wouldn't work that well with out the system the OP brought up. Just made sense to post here to me.
There was a vehicle in Planetside 1 similar to this, but it was a ground based artillery platform called the Flail. The Flail had to deploy before firing, and needed a spotter to Laze a target with a pointer to give the Flail a target reticle to aim at, giving it the proper arc and direction. The Flail was interesting because it used Reverse Damage Degradation. So, the closer the target was to the Flail, the less damage the shot did. But the farther away the Flail was, the damage ramped up the longer the shot was airborne. The Flail at incredible range could 1 shot pretty much ANYTHING in the game aside from Gun Variant BFRs, which could tank 1 shot but would die to the follow-up round if they didn't move quickly. The big problem with Flails though was with Squad Leader Waypoints, you could place 4 down at once and they also gave Flails in the squad semi-accurate targets. So a player could set up a Flail, make a "box" on the map with waypoints, and just shell the crap out of the inside of that box. Flail rounds saturating an entire base courtyard was a nightmare for both the attackers and defenders, since the Flail cant actually see the base its shelling, so it can easily hit Friendlies trying to capture the CY as much as it could hit Enemies trying to defend it. I would love to see the Flail return, but an oversaturation of them can lead to problems.
That sounds awesome. Seems like they could implement a limit to like only have 1 per platoon and only those in a platoon could spawn one. Or even to the extreme and say only platoon leaders can only spawn them and only 1 per platoon. Thus at max you would see maybe 10 on the map per faction and that would be on a packed day. This could also get players to think a bit more tactical in the large scale. Also I still think a bomber would be cool or even another attachment for the ESF give more variety for A2G. Another idea would be like high altitude bombing with galaxies, a special cert that would remove all the passenger slots save 1 so you would have the pilot, gunners, and 1 extra passenger. That extra passenger would have a new HUD in that position that would be aiming on the ground and they would control the bombing. I just think there needs to be like tactical bombing and artillery.
