It's about time someone said something about this.

The reason for tanks is to kill other tanks / farm infantry.
The reason for Sundy is to spawn infantry / farm infantry or vehicle as a battle sundy.
The reason for Harasser is to be speedy and have high dps while being squishy. (either farm vehicle/infantry)
The reason for ANT is to mine and build stuff.
The reason for SKYGUARD is to keep A2G esfs away.

Now I am pretty sure most of the people agree with the reasons that I have listed up above, but I'm sure more experienced people can do some other MLG things with it. who knows.

I like to fly. I like to dogfight and farm infantry here and there.
My question is why in the hell does every vehicle have flak on them? what is the point of skyguard if every other vehicle can put flaks on them?

I am not saying that they should remove flak from other vehicles besides skyguard. Being able to put flak on other vehicle besides Skyguard is somewhat fair. However, being able to pump out such high dps at such range is... is somewhat unfair. I think the skyguard should stay as it is because it is getting the job done for what they are designed for. However flaks on other vehicles needs some kind of nerf in my opinion. It is ridiculous when I get shot by ANT with flak rounds that are barely visible on my screen.. or harasser, mag, prowler, vanguard, sundy, and what not.

This is just my opinion, I would like to hear what other people has to say about this.

Because otherwise ESFs will absolutely wreck the grounders. It's not fun when aircraft pummel you to ashes with impunity. Besides, the job of the ESF is air superiority, not ground attack. Ground attack is the role of the Liberator. You should be getting your tanks on the ground to go for the ground-based flak.

Because flak is crap and people obviously want to **** their fighting ability for the odd occasion an aircraft stays in range long enough to die.

Flak on harasser and sunderer? because those took a nerf last patch didnt they? while skyguard took a buff. It can one clip an Esf now. It feels stronger now and can at least pose a threat to ESFs.

ESFs/Liberators/Galaxies farm vehicles/infantry without effort.

Hardly fair that the ground can try to fight back...

The problem for ground is and always will be that dedicated AA is low-skill, low reward, and low or non-existent versatility.

The problem for air is that AA is nearly unavoidable if you're in range; and in the case of flak, is designed around sustained fire, leaving no openings for attack.


Flak needs to be high damage, medium-high velocity, low detonation range, tight CoF, small mag size, and long reload. Right now it's a dedicated specialist weapon amounting to a deterrent, which is bad for everyone involved. It needs to be designed around air, which is low exposure time.

AA Lock-ons need to all be changed to a guided missile in exchange for more power. It should have a very small flak detonation range for small aircraft, but retain direct hit damage for larger aircraft or major damage to a hovering ESF. Obviously it should have a carefully tuned turn radius, otherwise it's "point at target = hit".

This is where I completely disagree, and why the air/ground relationship is so bad in this game. The whole point of any fps is to fight, and mechanics should promote that competitive fight and have it be enjoyable for both sides. Flak does the opposite. That weapon basically tells air that if you go within _____ hex, you'll start taking ______ damage. It's not fun to hold down the Skyguard trigger and hope rng takes care of you, its not fun fighting against a weapon that can't be dodged no matter what maneuvers you pull off.... Deterrent weapons are bad for the game. The Skyguard should instead be a killer, but for a weapon to have that sort of effectiveness it needs to require an appropriate level of skill, which flak takes next to none.

Rangers are broken again. Thanks Wrel.

This all sounds good, but the key problem is the linear damage of flak. Anything that could defend against a Lib at point blank would wreck everything at range, unless there's a damage falloff, which is why I've always proposed a switch to direct fire. Not sure if they can code damage falloff in to explosions. I definitely like the small mag size. Air battles work because you can take turns trading and reload while you're evading. Coyotes are broken because you can reload them while shooting your nosegun and pump out constant and easy dps. Timing evading and shooting would make a Skyguard vs LOLpod battle incredibly fun.

This last patch really helped reduce lock-ons as a harassment weapon, which is awesome, but they still suck as a defensive weapon.The Striker is completely OP at the moment for attacking air, but weak at defending against it. I like your idea, as long as the range isn't too great.

Technically, you can dodge flak projectiles with decent reliability after assessing that they're incoming (getting hit) and from where they are coming. I've seen it employed against my own Skyguard. The main drawback of the maneuver appears to be that it leaves the plane completely incapable of engaging in anything else as it involves such a crooked snaking spasm that target maintenance is next to impossible.

Trying to justify a complaint against a weapon by saying "no maneuvers you [can] pull off" is rather like admitting that unit is designed to counter your greatest strength and some other faculty is probably required to deal with the engagement. The element of surprise, perhaps. Being attacked while distracted with another target always tends to work well against me.

Wording it as "what maneuvers you pull off" is rather unfair to the engagement, though. Grounded AA has no need for complicated meanuvering of anything but its turret (or arms, or reticle) because it is grounded and stable by definition. Movement is highly important in Air to Air combat because manipulation of one's weapon is a manipulation of one's vehicle itself for the nosegun. Additionally, both vehicles are in motion, not just one of them. Edit: an exception to this may be a Harasser with an AA turret but I still don't think it's approaching the same level.

Ah, range is pretty important. I shouldn't let it get left out of a brainstorm.

We can all agree that the "I see you" damage at extreme range needs to go. My proposed flak would probably have an absolute range of 300m or so. What I want most is sources of flak to be very lethal within ~100m, which is more or less the defensive range of G2A units. A burst of damage with several seconds of downtime is also very important to promote dodging and trading blows, as you can agree.

From what I've heard around here, flak used to deal direct damage in addition to the explosion. In theory this is a good way to have it wreck a Lib face-to-face without being too powerful against smaller aircraft, however I'm guessing it was scrapped due to it causing unpredictable burst damage for ESFs anyway.

Honestly I don't want it to lose damage at range. It should be an accessible tool for putting some alpha on a large and/or hovering aircraft far away (up to 300m). An idea to otherwise limit ranged combat potential is to have it lose velocity after a certain amount of flight time.

Additionally, the devs need to pick a mutual interaction range for air and ground like they did for the ground vehicle game in the CAI (200m, though it's an "ideal" range rather than absolute, but you get the point). I don't like the thought of AA being capped at 300m while Hornets, Daltons, and some noseguns are still striking from past that range. Being completely unable to retaliate/respond is the biggest flaw in the current mess, and the standard needs to be set both ways should anything change.

There are two ways to go, area denial, or more skill with more lethality. But like with all weapons that require more precise aim, there are ways to be a less ideal target. I think air should be able to use fancy flying to be a poor target because unless you're doing dedicated A2G and planning attack runs for ground farming, you likely don't have the cover available that ground units have. And I absolutely think air shouldn't be able to deliver meaningful firepower while they're attempting to dodge fire, that would be fair, no complaints here. Currently, I'm back to farming small fights and attacking players outside of warpgates, because A2A aircraft are once again pushed out of big battles. Considering the different paths, I'd argue for the Skyguard to be a small magazine, accurate, super Walker that could 1-clip an ESF out to 100m if the majority of shots landed, and 2 clip a Lib at 50 or so. This would also be better against infantry and Harassers so it's not a wasted vehicle when air isn't around. Rangers need that 50% damage buff removed, as we're back to a single Ranger Harasser blocking air from an entire faction from leaving their warpgate. It's a top gun, supplementary or defensive, it shouldn't be nearly as powerful as it is. Balance in this game is such a ******* joke.

300m is out of the question, as Hornets can 2-clip any tank in the game in around 3 seconds from 450m, so AA needs to be semi-effective at that range. Plus, it's easy enough to get nosegun hits at 800m if you're not taking any return fire, so AA has to be able to deal at least some damage at that range, either that or ESF noseguns need a slight accuracy nerf, which would also promote more interesting close quarters fighting in the air.

It might have been Fate that told me about how flak used to be. Apparently the projectile would continue after burst but not do damage. Your proposals plus a direct hit would be a decent enough band aid to get me to shut up. I really wish the devs would be more engaged in this issue, as its been raging for quite a long time and most of their solutions just make things worse (free engagement radar, A2A missiles, Ranger buffs....).

300m is perfect, right where infantry render so vehicles can fight back. The only real problem right now is the Striker, it's easy enough to hit ESF out to 800 and take half their health if they're hovering in a dog fight or hovering over a base in the next hex.

They've been consistently buffed.

When the second weapon is removed from the ESF they can take flak away from ground vehicles.

whaaaa! whaaaa! Skynights whinging because somebody on the ground interrupts their A2G farm.

Cheesy weapons like Mustang AH are designed for nothing but to troll infantry units on the ground. I had a Max 1 clipped from full health yesterday - despite packing full kinetic armour. Why - because the Mustang is a shotgun that deals direct damage - but which also has explosion damage - and in a Max you can only mitigate one type of damage at a time - so whichever type you pick - you are dead if you find an ESF with mustang - or one with a rotary and lolpods.

Skynights bring it on themselves really - they want to farm infantry with impunity - but then dissapear as soon as something starts shooting back. If they concentrated their efforts on performing an air superiority role - ground units would mostly leave them to it. I only tend to pull AA when I (or my team on the ground) are getting farmed.

Nah. It's common to be flying above fights and still get hit by flak.

While I get the A2G weapons are cheezy, who would pull air to counter air if it posed no threat to the ground? If air only dealt with air, one faction would own the skies uncontested because they don't have an effect on the objective gameplay, or it would be nonexistent.

Air needs to have an effect on ground, how much is the problem at hand.

I get the impression that one AA weapon on it's own can be avoided before it kills but several AA weapons together are pretty lethal. I imagine that the old experience still applies - that aircraft own small ground forces but are owned by larger ground forces.

AFAIK the only specific vehicle flak weapons are the Walker and the Ranger, which are undeniably effective against air but have limitations against ground targets . The Basilisk is multi role and Kobalt can hurt esfs like any other anti infantry weapons. Neither of them feels all that lethal to aircraft and nerfing those two would impact on their wider (and some would say, primary) roles against light ground vehicles and infantry. The fact that the Bassie is stock on all vehicles (IIRC) and hence may be quite common may add to the number of AA weapons around and hence, inflated perceptions of how effective they are individually.

I haven't used the Skyguard but I think people would challenge you view that it does the job.........except when it is in larger numbers, the same way other AA needs to be effective (unusual to see many Skyguards, as I suspect few people will probably take a tank that is not good against other tanks).

So the vehicle user choice is a multi role weapon of some use against air or a flak weapon of limited use against ground targets = but they all get one of the two, unless they go for exclusively ground target weapons like Bulldog or Fury, which seem a bit less popular nowadays. In fact, I have heard people say that the Bassie is a better choice than Bulldog/Fury since the last balance pass on them (so, more AA capable weapons around).

I don't think anything needs to change with the weapons tbh but I saw in the early CAI notes that there may be a balance pass on aircraft resistance, like there was for ground vehicles in the last big patch. That may alter things one way or another. I believe the Valk is already more resistant to ground fire................

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Either way, most pilots have always argued for AA weapons to be incredibly lethal at defensive ranges, but that don't dominate the flight ceiling where infantry don't even render. What we have now is a single 150 Nanite Ranger locking down an entire hex, and that's just silly. Not as silly as your rant, but still quite silly.

In this odd scenario perhaps the Lib would be the dedicated, fragile, A2G unit the A2A had cleared for and then covered. All at height....

Then, perhaps, the other faction would get their Douglas Bader type A2A guys to go fight the A2G while mixing with the A2A Adolf Galland types at the same time....

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I imagine it would all be very highly skilled with lots of Ehonour and moustaches.