[Vehicle] Skyguard Rework

As we all know - current Skyguard is a joke. It can only kill inexpirienced ESF pilots and ANY Liberator will tear him apart. So, here is my vision on Skyguard rework (not buff, because otherwise we will drown in skyknight`s salt):
1. Keep same Lightning chasis platform.
2. Replace Primary weapon with twin Walker-styled (accurate, high bullet speed, no flak) rotary autocannons with high elevation angle so it won`t be able to engage ground vehicles.
This will provide move fair skill duel between Pilot and Skyguard operator.
3. Add ability to deploy Skyguard (like sunderer) which will make it immobile, but allow use of weapon or system equipped in Secondary slot. Deploy and undeploy should take 3-5 seconds.
This will balance potential threat to Air targets with allowing them to engage stationary deployed Skyguard. And it will take more team effort to defend deployed Skyguard, making it valuable target to support.
4. Add Secondary slot options:

4.1. G2A Lock-on rocket system (Swarm styled).

4.2. G2A Proximity rocket system (Striker styled).

4.3. Relocate current passive 600m Engagement radar to Secondary slot option.

Secondary weapon slot will balance limited mobility of deployed Skyguard with choice between recon or more firepower.
5. Introduce new system for Perfomance slot - High-frequency Radar - which will broadcast Engagement radar data to all allies in it`s radius, while making Skyguard constantly appear on affected aircraft`s UI.

I spent nearly 3 hours in a SG yesterday over two factions. At last check over 3k kills.

I've found it a lot easier and more effective against air since DX11. Not just as there are a lot of new pilots but against all in general. Not so on infantry but I can live with that. a LOT less effective on harassers but still worth having a pop and as good as ever on shield busses / armour as part of a combined effort. Solo SG, go home. Allies are for cover, allied meat shield is life

Sure it would be nice if it was a little bit more effective against Harassers, nothing too much.

1. Agreed.
2. A) Hmmm not so sure about this, yeah on one hand but could see problems later on when the downloadable skills are available. B) Hell no, the DPS from an SG is always helpful when in a combined group and as with AP people will just use terrain to circumvent.
3. Nope, no way, hell no, nah. Too many SG drivers sit still, don't rotate their rear etc. This just makes you a sneak run in target for all competent Lib pilots.
4. Doesn't seem to be anything I would require to be effective. Just a toy box so again no thank you.
5. Nope. Currently threat radar is a mess and gives a lot of crap info at the wrong angles so giving this to everyone would confuse them to the point of ignoring all of it. Spot... Spot and always spot the relevant targets for the greater good!

All in all I'd be happy with a radar rework alone. Elite, 1984 version, style radar is still the best radar EVER. Clean, simple and all you need.

The fact that you manages to kill greedy pilots doesn`t mean that it`s overall perfomance is fine and it doesn`t make SG anything more than air DETERRENT. With it`s slow bullet velocity and hideous spread i would rather pull Burster MAX with Lockdown as TR.
2K22 AA weapon system is not a deterrent. It brings aircrafts down.

Is it a fact though?

I get that you're trying to dismiss my whole post without effort and I respect you have a view hence my detailed, and I thought respectful, reply.

If it's just a personal forum fight you require I'm out, have a great day sir

Here's the thing though, how fair is it to aircraft? Being exposed for a split second to have 4-5 locks from a skyguard come at you while also being pelted by something that has the bullet velocity of a better walker is not fun.

I'll grant, being bombed by something you can't really effectively fight is also not fun, but the skyguard is already the middle ground for that. One hand, you have the skyguard that stops ESFs and other light bombers from entering a space safely, on the other, you have the air that can still do something but not be completely shut out of fights.

The real problem lies that after the air leaves for easier prey, the skyguard has nothing to do.

So instead of making it this anti-air god, why not let it swap modes and have heavy bullets for infantry or armor combat? Or just increase the direct damage the pellets have now so it can be more like that?

The basic problem is always the same: Air can leave combat easily to find a different fight and they are a jack of all trades that can fight any opponent to a certain degree no matter the setup. On top of that with the right setup aircraft is still ranked quite high on the food chain(so it ain't the kind of jack of all trades that can do all, but nothing on a competitive level). The only downside of air is that it is expensive(tho nanites do not matter THAT much as they are for free) and hard to master.
You could call air balanced in the hand of noobs and mediocre players...but it's way too strong in the hands of skilled players and really, really, really frustrating to fight against as ALL G2A just turn into partly similar expensive non-rewarding deterence toys that have you stuck in place and make you an easy victim for anything but air(and if air knows where you are you are even an easy victim for them.).

Same arguments from both sides, will the air game change?

Personally, the only change to skyguards that I think should happen is increased damage damage to liberators at close range or with the bullet impact towards them as a lib can easily just hover over a skyguard at 50-75m and kill it without even getting close to burning while withstanding direct hits with 95% accuracy. Sure, you can now use flanker armor to take 20% less damage from a lib to survive long enough get it in burning, but that's still just stupid.

The problem with that interaction is that you have the massive skytank losing to a smaller nanite pool. Considering the specialization of the skyguard going against air, mostly killing a lib with one skyguard HP pool is actually pretty substantial. All you really needed was literally any other vehicle with a bassy or heavy with launcher to damage the lib and then you would've killed it.

But since we don't have a bigger skyguard, it wouldn't make sense.

I'm not talking about dealing more damage at mid-long range, i'm talking about a stationary liberator literally being able to tank direct shots while cackling manically with impunity at a skygaurd less than dumbfire rocket range. And fyi, the lightning is nearly as costly as a liberator, unlike harassers being less than half the cost of a lightning.

It's fairer for aircraft than it is for Skyguards.

Aircraft can still escape. Also the way the idea is described it's weapon systems while deployed work like an ESF. You can't fire your nosegun and secondary weapons simultaneously (but considering the extra features that aircraft have been given over time this is just a matter of time). Also it doesn't matter what loadout the aircraft has, escape is still possible unless they are practically on top of the enemy.
Aircraft are also multi-functional. An ESF can engage aircraft, infantry and tanks effectively in a single loadout if it wants! Liberators are less capable of attacking air, but well capable of murdering infantry and tanks simultaneously.

Now look at the Skyguard. Lightnings can only effectively engage aircraft with a single loadout, and this loadout is heavily gimped against any ground-based target. Yes it has some uses against Harassers and Sunderers and with support you can add DPS to a tank battle, but otherwise it's almost completely helpless. And it's still a land vehicle, so there's virtually no cover nearby, little in the way to flush aircraft out of cover like a nearby mountain range and you can be 50x as skilled as your opponents, it's not going to help you much.
Also the whole "but nahnite cost!" is a mute point. Shall we look at what an ESF can do for the same cost of a Lightning? Or how powerful a Valkyrie is?
"But what about the amount of crew to make it work!" I hear you say. Well what about it? An ESF can murder a 2/2 MBT faster than frankly any weapon in the game against a Liberator. Even if it's a 2/2 MBT vs a 2/3 Liberator. And if we go by crew, shouldn't a Clown Car with 12 dudes in it be exceedingly powerful? But at best I've seen them take out two vehicles before they are absolutely wiped out.

Let's put it in a simple format:

• Aircraft are multi-functional
• have a higher chance of escape
• have better chances of using cover
• have very high firepower, can quickly and effectively relocate when it finds resistance
• rewards for skill are exponential
• the targets that aircraft can engage are omniversally available
• the best and frankly only real counter is air itself. The devs and players even acknowledge this by saying they are deterrents, where every single other weapon in the game is simply a weapon that kills.

Dedicated AA weapons are:

• uni-functional
• often have virtually no chance of escape
• have little chance of using cover (and when they do it's more likely to give the aircraft a chance to get close than the AA unit a chance to be safe)
• have a relatively low firepower allowing the aircraft to always escape
• cannot quickly and effectively relocate
• Targets for AA weapons are the least available in the game
• Dedicated AA weapons are countered by almost anything, including the very air they are supposed to combat. Even the most resiliant AA weapon the Skyguard cannot hope to stand up against a solo Liberator.

Alot of these feel like repeats of a lack of mobility, the lack of targets is due to the dedication of the roll and/or the flight controls. Ppl dont want to dedicate time to learn them or can not grasp them.

Not debating against you, I agree there are issues, just felt like your cons were reworded repeats.

There are two things that cause the Skyguard's problem. Its mobility and it being treated as a deterrent. Yet does that mean all symptoms that are created from this dont need mentioning?

As an example we have two identical weapons, except that one has a higher punishment for misses (for example because it deals more damage per bullet but has the same DPS). The one with the punishment for misses is obviously the weakest and would need something to make it stand out.
The same thing for a weapon that has a lower magazine size, it would make hitting with each individual bullet more important.

Now imagine two identical weapons but one has a 10 second reload time. Each individual bullet has become important but it also means that you are punished more for misses, especially if you duck behind cover before unloading your entire magazine.
You could solve this by making the weapons identical, but that's boring. You could give it much higher accuracy so it is easier to land those hits and keep the punishment for misses as a downside. Or you give it a slight accuracy increase and a damage tier higher or any number of things.

The same goes for the Skyguard. We could make it more identical to the aircraft, meaning it would need to get a powerful hover or full flight capabilities and higher speeds. Or we could keep it a Lightning tank and think of individual solutions for each downside the tank has. You can solve each problem, or you can overbuff some parts of the tank and let some of the problems exist as a balance. No matter what, mentioning all consequences because of a lack of mobility is still important.

yes to additional (not replacement) walkerstyle mainturret ...

ABSOLUTE NO to secondary weapons ...
the lightning unlike a esf is heavy armored
we dont´n need 2 platforms with 2 weaponoptions for a player, heck i still would love the esf to lose its secondary weaponslot so all choices are primary ..

in that case both the esf and lightning should only have one weapon as primary ...

I was just saying seems like a bit of repeat. I still think lightning needs a Walker style weapon that has better torrent angles to fight infantry if need be just to defend, raise the av damage a notch higher then mbt, and raise it a good bit for aa.

Can't make long posts on a phone while at work...

Honestly just give the rounds a velocity boost so you don't have to lead by a freaking mile...

As a person that fly's more so than uses skygaurd I can tell you that will not be enough. A lot of the problem is the Cone from fire. and then the bullets aoe explosion. and higher velocity doesn't resolve the issue of it not working well against anything BUT air craft. It is incredibly focused on its role it can't defend itself a lot of the times. Thats why I think a walker based weapon would be better. Give it a bit of a buff on damage and I think that weapon would be great for AA. I should net more kills than deterrence.

Uh, I'm pretty sure Skyguards still damage Heavy Armor, right?
Yeah, it's not a great machine gun, but it could take out an unwary Harasser.
That's just it though, a Harrasser is a lot easier target to track at a lot closer range, but you might as well not bother if an ESF is more than a thousand meters away.

Why do you need to hit an esf that 1k meters away... that doesn't sound broken to you? At 1k out a lot of thing dont even render properly. Taking plink damage and not knowing where the source is because they haven't even rendered is not fun.

Also because you gotten the drop on a un aware harasser does not mean that it handles vehicles well. Harasser isn't even considered heavy armor, small arms can damage it.

If the fight between AA and A2G farmers isn't going to be fair, at least make it fun somehow. Give me a G2A rocket that does next to no damage but has an EMP, that drops aircraft from the sky for 20-30 seconds.