I don't play planetside 2 since a long time, like 2 or 3 years, and I'm back now. In the past I used to play with my airhammer, but now the thermal is nerfed and I can't see the infantry from the sky. You who were used to play with airhammer, banshee and the VS equivalent weapon (I forgot the name), what do you do now for keep playing with these weapons? Any tips? Thanks for the Help.
You don't need thermals to rack up kills with AI nose guns though, just pay attention. I never got to play back then, I have seen them in videos, that was unnecessary. Sorry if you crutched on those.
Such an aggressive comment for someone just asking for help. OP you're suppose to hit targets marked by ground forces, the devs are pushing for the combined arms aspect to be more pronounced in gameplay so they are slowly nerfing the ability for vehicles to be solo farmers. But despite these nerfs AI nose guns are still really broken so as long as your teammates are being useful and marking targets you'll be fine.
A little overboard perhaps but using the gun as intend, hunting infantry is silly easy and you don't need thermals.
Aye, you either have to do it naked eye or with help of teammates now. For naked eye it helps to fly perpendicular to target, use freelook and get stuff targeted up (Q spots) and then bank in and start your attack run. For team work, have your guys Q spot, but also have your squad leaders lay smoke where they want stuff blown up. Even though they no longer highlight infantry, The Threat detection optics will still cut through smoke and darkness and are still useful.
Just do what I see most airhammer pilots do, find a fight and, if attacking, strafe their spawn. If defending, find the deployed sunderer and strafe. Rinse, repeat, certs.
Thermals really were broken. I just want a DB Cash refund on all my AI guns. As for AI gun tactics... Infantry have a rendering problem in this game. If you fly full speed at a decent size fight they might not render till you're 150 or 200 meters away, sometimes worse. Get closer while out of sight, within 300 meters, to let the units load in to your game before you start an attack run. Scout radar is still incredibly powerful, and most players chose more powerful implants over sensor shield. Expand your map and zoom in to help spot individual targets, especially guys flanking. But, you give up flares and Fire Suppression, so you have to make quicker runs to avoid ground locks and you're at a sever disadvantage in an A2A fight. Run Stealth to add an additional second to enemy lock time against your aircraft. TR infantry has the only real defense against a good A2G pilot thanks to their Striker. Spawn room burster Maxes are your only threat from VS. If you catch a Max in the open, the Air Hammer is the best AI gun for taking them out, though you'll definitely want extended mags and you need to hold fire till you're very close to stand a chance against dual bursters. AI guns were severely nerfed against air targets, so you're sadly forced to run Coyotes if you want to stand a chance against enemy ESF. I hate Daybreak.
Well it really boils down, what you want to archive with the AH. Do you want to farm infantry? Go with ext fuel tanks, any frame, flares, threat detection, ext mag, stealth or NAR, first helps to keep farming second to fast return. Go to any hill where forces are camping and farm them away. But for the incredible high rate of anyone running a lock on you should change location pretty quick. If you want support your team give up the air hammer and take lol pods, then you can fight just everything. AH can do something against other ESF, but you need to be much better than the other side. Well and hoping he or she has no coyotes.
I spent 2000 certs on thermals, and then I got threat detection optics, wish I could refund all those wasted certs... it really bugs me that I wasted so many certs!
The only thing that really bugs me about the thermals and night vision now is the fact that you can't see your bullets when looking over the horizon line. Never could, but it would be real nice if that could finally be fixed. The Esamir sky in general can be very bright during the day, and trying to darken it with thermals can be detrimental as you can't see your shots. Regarding Air Hammer, I found it easier to hit aircraft with than people give credit. (close-ish range obv.) Good Reaver pilots can actually best others using other noseguns with AH, thanks to their (OP) vertical thrust. Rarely a bug(?) can also occur that can somehow prevent acceleration when facing downwards. Hard to reproduce this, but only ran into it when flying a Reaver with hover frame. Mosquito/Scythe, never ran into it. Maybe some other people noticed this as well? Tried to reproduce it again in VR but no dice, only happened in live play some months ago.
The biggest hint is to play on ultra when you're playing AI A2G, on lower settings the enemy infantry don't render until you're right on top of them, Making strafing runs impossible.
It's not a hard weapon to land hits with at all, it's the direct damage nerf that it received that keep it from being viable. Same as the Banshee. I'd happily sacrifice half of all AI guns' direct damage if that were added to their direct. Infantry would be happy, most pilots would still do just fine, and we wouldn't be forced to run Coyotes or run away from enemy ESF, both of which are lame. But, you know, Daybreak loves its well defined rock-paper-scissors rolls.... Unless you have an absolute potato, most everyone should be playing with textures on Ultra. From what I've read and seemed to have noticed on my machine, everything feels smoother even though frames were slightly lower. My understanding is that most GPUs work harder to compress textures than if you just went ahead and ran the game on higher settings. Render distance is another one of those things that most machines can max out without losing more than a couple of frames, at least outside of Hossin. Not such a big deal while infantry but really nice when flying. At least for me it helps keep me oriented in dog fights.
If you dont only play A2G ESF,you ll know where the most likely spots for concentrated infantry are anyway,in most bases.
You reaped the rewards for years, increasing certs and stats with broken features, but when they tone it down you're entitled to a refund? That just sounds crazy to me. You've probably received more in return in certs and other things, so isn't that a "reimbursement" enough?
This is conjecture. What about those who did not "reap the rewards"? Those who bought it just before the change? They even refunded the Prowler's Lockdown even though it was simply split rather than repurposed like thermals. There's a general consensus that they were too powerful on AI weapons. Not disputing that. But it's a fact that people bought it for their AI weapons, and it is now no longer the same tool. It doesn't matter how much you virtue signal that they abused a broken mechanic, a repurposed item needs to be refunded as a courtesy to the players.
I bought everything with real money when I first started playing this game, 2 or 3 months before the thermal nerf. Forgive me for being salty.
