[Suggestion] Complete aircraft overhaul.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Demigan, Jan 22, 2018.

  1. adamts01

    But each engineer reps for twice the old amount. So 2 engineers, each repping while the other is cooling down, have the same sustained healing as 4 engineers in the past. Neat huh?.....



    And real tanks don't fly and real medics aren't necromancers. Let ESFs be unique, that's all this air game has going for it.
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  2. Campagne

    They already are unique and I daresay proper functioning flight systems outside of a simulation game are unique.

    Also every medic in every videogame ever is a necromancer. :p
  3. adamts01

    ACE Medical in Arma 3 is actually really cool. Androstine(?) injection and cpr after you've tourniqueted the limbs and started an IV is your best bet, but it's still iffy, even with 2 medics working on the guy. No wizardry there.
  4. Campagne

    Yeah, but that's a milisim. :p

    Battlefield, the first non-sim game with "combined arms" which I can think of off the top of my head, has magic shock paddles or whatever. Braindead with extreme trauma and ruptured organs? No problem! Modern medicine. :D
  5. Pikachu

    Maybe relevant.
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  6. strikearrow

    By your logic when a stalker infil. gets within knife range of you, then you should have a big chance of escaping his OHK knife. When a harasser catches a 3 man sunderer alone, the sunderer should have a good chance of killing the harasser. Sorry my friend, as it stands now, a single ESF must have a significant skill advantage over a 3 man lib. or a 3 man valk to actually have a chance of killing it. Against a 3 man Lib. specifically, a lone ESF is unlikely to actually kill it - which should not be the case at all. A 5 man Gal is going to straight up beat even 2 ESFs.

    Yes, in fact, you should be auto-killed just like if infantry runs into a max or a skyguard runs into an MBT.
  7. frozen north


    Even if you could gain VTOL in warpgate, that still would require a stat overhaul for ESF's. Principally, it would make it so that the extinguisher would become mandatory for reliable return, which would in turn mean a direct buff to AA launchers, since flares are now much less useful. This would then begin a constant balance wheel of one thing getting reworked or buffed/nerfed, which then requires another thing to get buffed/nerfed, in a constant cycle.

    Plus, removing VTOL outside of warpgate from ESF's would also result in a direct defensive buff to every other aircraft, as literally flying as slow as possible would basically make you almost invulnerable. This is because VTOL auto triggers when below a specific air speed, a speed that an ESF would no longer be able to fly at. This would then buff all other air power in a dogfight situation, to the point of making the ESF's basically useless.

    To make this worse, removing VTOL from other aircraft would be a huge mistake, since for the Valkyrie in particular, it would literally make it irrelevant. If it keeps its VTOL while ESF's don't, then it would be broken AF. If it loses it along with them, then its useless. There is no usable middle ground at that point.
  8. Demigan

    All those changes would be fine for a MILsim, but PS2 isn't a MILsim. Having G2A weapons that completely deny access to all aircraft is a terrible mechanic for both sides. The people manning the AAA would be sitting around doing nothing for eternity, then shoot one or two aircraft and then have another eternity of doing nothing (kind of what we have now, only this time they would actually be effective). In the meantime the aircraft would have to have some kind of warning system to know when and how the AAA would be disabled, and how long it might take for it to be up and running again.
    And the way you propose it, the moment that AAA goes down aircraft have practically free reign to annihilate anything. Oh sure they have to go for resupply runs more often, but who the hell cares? If a Liberator comes in, wipes out one or two vehicles and then goes for a supply run, then he still murdered a tank or two in a single run almost uncontested. This wouldn't be some kind of combined arms, it would in fact be the opposite as the units are only available one at a time. The notion of "if one unit is necessary to allow another unit to operate" is pretty prevalent on these forums and it's absolutely not combined arms.

    That's why I'm proposing a system where all aircraft have a similar capability, but differing methods to achieve it. AA and AAA should have similar capabilities. Powerful but not able to deny aircraft from entering or performing. Just like AV weapons aren't capable of denying vehicles from entering or performing, AV weapons are just par of the course.
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  9. frozen north


    I'll start with what I see as being the first issue. Do to the way that frankly every AA weapon in this game is designed, the strength of AA is heavily related to distance to the target aircraft. Forcing combat pilots to fly lower for reliable damage makes them significantly more vulnerable to AA, not to mention it also leaves them much more vulnerable to other aircraft. In turn, durability of air power would likely need to spike across the board.

    Dive bombing would present its own nightmare, since it basically would allow for massive damage output, with effectively zero counter play. As it stands currently in game, high altitude flight can quickly leave a pilot immune to effective AA attacks. Since a dive bomb run followed by a level flight, low altitude escape gives AA the shortest time to effectively counter a target, air craft would become extremely reliable at killing ground targets. To balance this, air craft would likely need a reduction in durability.

    I think you can see what i'm getting at, because every bomb carrying aircraft would need to be both less and more durable at the same time.
  10. Nogrim313

    one of the most reasonable changes, frankly the redzone clunkyness with controls should actually be expanded on to take effect much sooner. say 50% hp to set you on fire/mess up the controls. with the rate of burning damage remaining the same as now (so you can limp away and actually land if you are on fire) this would make taking a decent chunk out of a pilot matter, and gives pilots the chance to either bail, or try to save it while making them easier to remove from combat, and for longer.


    outside of this the one thing that would be the least effort for the biggest shake up and really "fix" the air game and air 2 ground iterations would be cloud layers.
    basically just visual cover. this if done well would be just as easy to tweak sight line wise as most bases. gives aircraft a bit of safety during larger scale engagements and doesnt stop ground forces from keeping you spotted (side effect makes the Anti air radar on skyguards (and potentially threat detection optics) much more useful.


    bases like the crater and the crown would change drastically based on some simple cloud layering. the crater having a thing fog layer just below the rim, and the crown jutting high above indars cloud level.
    it creates a some what sectioning of the combat layers, keeps ESF eyes mostly in or above the clouds etc.

    personally clouds are a major part of the equation that has been missing.
  11. strikearrow

    Clouds would cause huge lag though....
  12. FateJH

    What if the clouds were rendered using a billboard effect with several layers?
  13. KaletheQuick

    Quick note. Isn't there a "Skylance" AAA thing in game(lore)? Can we get those? Like, it's a player base building, it charges up in range like an orbital strike, has the map icon and everything. Has exclusion zone with hives and orbitals... Could be cool. Maybe too cool for balance now, should probably buff air...
  14. KaletheQuick

    I'm going to assume you are joking, as reavers look like an Apache without the rotor blades.

    If you had scifi antigrav I bet they would fly all kinds of directions. The problem is entrenchment. Everyone who is good at air right now would lose all their time and effectively their cert investment if the air mechanics were changed.


    I get what you are saying, I love flight systems. One of my pet projects as a game dev is a combined arms game that centers around sky combat instead of infantry. The infantry would have a lot of good stuff to do though, as the flight model would be realistic and thus take time to master. So gotta have something for aspiring pilots to do!
  15. Campagne

    Afraid I'm (mostly) serious, not even Reavers are that fat. :p Not to mention the one-direction aerodynamics which would not favor vertical acceleration.

    While that would be a very legitimate issue, at least it can be said that it would be a strong minority whom would be negatively impacted by any changes. A sacrifice to improve the system overall.

    Sounds interesting, different. Is is very far into development yet?
  16. That_One_Kane_Guy

  17. strikearrow

    No idea.
  18. adamts01

    Nah, an ESF with Tomcats and minimal skill can wreck any Lib or Gal. We need to get back to guns as primary. I also disagree with you, a multi-crew aircraft should be able to fight back depending on loadout, just like every single other vehicle interaction in the game. Just like a Bassi or Bulldog Sundy can give a Harasser a run for its money, a Shredder/Walker Lib should require as many ESF pilots to take down, same with the Gal. Hard counters are a bad thing.


    I'm 100% against removing VTOL, that was just an easy fix. As for fire suppression being standard, you're absolutely right. ESF would also need default ejection seats if repair isn't an option.

    I agree with your vision of AA, just not your combined arms definition. Aircraft relying on ground to remove AA before aircraft can go to work and clear the area for ground to advance sounds pretty combined armsish to me.

    Only if infantry and everything else gets the same penalty. It makes sense that you'd stop bunny hopping after a 20mm to the dome.

    It's not like we have that many pilots anyway. Things need to change, and salty vets are going to be salty no matter what.
  19. Pikachu

    War Thunder has clouds, don't always look good though.
    [IMG]
  20. adamts01

    But so few players compared to PS2. I do want clouds, but I'd rather have farther render ranges, at least for aircraft vs aircraft.