[Vehicle] Skyguard Rework

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Dargadon, May 15, 2019.

  1. Smallzz

    Or a rocket that acts like a concussion grenade and inverts all the flight controls for 10 seconds...
  2. Whiteagle

    The Flight Ceiling is at 800m, using the Pythagorean theorem, an Aircraft would only have to be more than 600 meters away HORIZONTALLY to be outside of a 1 kilometer render distance...

    I've taken out Sunderers with a Skyguard, and yes, it still DOES damage heavy armor
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  3. Skraggz

    I get that I was just making sure you didn't assume Harasser is heavy armor.

    As for a sundy if you sit in their deadspot just about anything can kill them. Doesn't mean it is effective.
  4. Skraggz

    Also you said 1k out, as in distance, we ain't solving a triangle but a line from you to target.
  5. Whiteagle

    An aircraft at an elevation of 800 meters and horozontally more than 600 meters from where someone is on the ground IS more than 1000 meters away directly.
    800^2+600^2=1000^2
  6. Skraggz

    This is under the assumption the air is flying at ceiling, which is rare. They are usually at 300-400 elevation. Again you didn't answer the question but commenced to dancing around it... why do you need to hit something 1000 meters away from you?
  7. Whiteagle

    Because it can easily get 1000 meters away from me by just going UP!
  8. Skraggz


    It could also do that by flying away, but it still doesn't answer why you need to shoot at something 1k meters away from you. Either way, a velocity change will not fix the weapon platform. It's insane CoF is also a huge problem, it is almost a lotto if you land a shot at that distance to begin with.
  9. Whiteagle

    Because if he goes straight up he can still hit me from 1k while I can't touch him, a rather large issue for an ANTI-AIRCRAFT WEAPON.

    Airbabby, you do know the Skyguard shoots Explosive Flak, right?
    More often than not, it's the explosion the rounds create in proximity to aircraft that does damage rather than the rounds themselves landing hits, so it's 1.5 minimum Cone of Fire isn't much of a problem, and I'm not even sure if there is any BLOOM!
    But with only 400 m/s muzzle velocity, those Flak rounds take FOREVER to get to where the target was, nearly 1.1 seconds factoring in your own suggested engagement altitude of 400 m and horizontal distance of only 200 m.
    GALAXIES are just nimble enough to evade you at those speeds, keeping a bead on a much more agile ESF is near impossible.

    To give you an idea of what a Skyguard has to deal with, get in a Scythe and try to dogfight with the Light PPA.
  10. Skraggz

    You have no idea what you are talking about if you think velocity is more important than the CoF from skyguard. This sounds like you are terrible at leading your shots. Scythes PPA operates completely different and is not intended for A2A. It does not put a spray and spray pattern in the sky. Also yes they are called flak, flak explodes.... it's kinda what it does. Detonation range is 5m or less.

    On top of that name calling is very unbecoming and usually shows that one has a weak arguement.
  11. Demigan

    You should try this: have a buddy hover stationary in the air 300m away from you, and fire at it with your Skyguard.

    You'll notice that even at 300m, more of your shots miss than hit. At 1000m you aren't likely to hit much. Scratch damage is what you'll do, nothing more.

    Which brings Skraggz's question back: Why would you want to try and hit an aircraft at 1000m?

    With AA turrets we've seen that shooting beyond 500m is important as it'll allow you a chance, however small, to actually kill an aircraft before it escapes even if it takes time to murder your allies. With the 500m restriction to it's flak it's become virtually useless. It's more important when hacked and used when damaged aircraft land on an airpad, except that even those damaged aircraft with the owner jumped out have a more than decent chance to escape. But shell velocity has little to do with this. With a tighter COF, more hits would be scored and skill would be more rewarded (such as the skill to lead the target). With only a velocity increase your skill isn't rewarded as even with pinpoint perfect shot at 300m you'll be missing more shots than you'll hit.

    Also let's examine your point:
    An aircraft engaging your Skyguard will most likely be an ESF, and ESF will have to be flying straight at you to hit your Skyguard. This means there is little leading required, even when the ESF uses space or C to change direction, the ESF remain 100% inside the massive COF, and there is no loss of hit chance compared to a stationary aircraft and pinpoint accuracy. A higher shell velocity wouldn't help you.
    At 1000m you also have that huge COF that will make you require more than 4 full magazines to kill a single ESF. It is likely that an ESF's fire suppression would be able to outrepair it, recharge and repair the ESF back to full again at that range.
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  12. Whiteagle

    I've been using the Skyguard since launch, and the fact that you don't know how important muzzle velocity when leading a target tells me you are a terrible marksman and shouldn't be speaking out on what the Skyguard does and doesn't need.

    Hint, slower muzzle velocity means it takes longer for your round to get to where it's going, meaning you have to lead further ahead of where your target WILL BE.
    Since Aircraft can pitch, yaw, and roll in addition to normal turning and changing speed, THEY CAN BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO LEAD, ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS SO FAR THAT THE TARGET IS BARELY WITHIN YOUR SIGHTS TO BEGIN WITH!

    These are specifically stated reasons that the Ranger is Garbage compared to the Walker, again, Dogfight with a Light PPA and you have nearly the same issues as the Skyguard.
  13. Skraggz

    Velocity will not compensate for you miss factor with that CoF, end of story. Range only magnifies this.
  14. Skraggz

  15. Whiteagle

    The Flak still explodes if it get's NEAR the Aircraft, the reason it has such a huge CoF in the first place is so you aren't hitting it with both the explosion AND the bullet, which again has a same damage type as and similar outpot to the Basilisk!
    Again, it's not that the shots are MISSING, it's that they take too long to get to an actual Air target.

    I can probably easily pop a sitting Aircraft at 1k+ in my Skyguard, but a moving ESF only 400 meters out can be a near impossible target to paint if he's not flying in an arrow-straight line.
  16. Whiteagle

    Ok, I think I have a better way to put this.
    The current Skyguard is a Flak weapon.
    Flak weapons work by filling an area with Aircraft wreaking NOPE, the Skyguard specifically projects large swaths of potentially aircraft exploding nope, hence a wide minimum CoF.
    Tightening the CoF could make the Skyguard better able to hit where it's crosshairs are pointed, but this also narrows the swath of Flak and makes it less effective.
    Further more, you would still suffer from the abysmal Muzzle Velocity forcing stupendously long lead lengths.
    Seriously, this is why I suggested Dogfighting in a Scythe with a Light PPA, because it along with Submachine Guns are weapons with similar Muzzle Velocity to the Flak weapons.
    The Flak guns might honestly perform even WORSE if they just tightened the CoF, because their smaller swaths could result in LESS hits and make their "sluggish" responsiveness due to their low Muzzle Velocities even more noticeable.
  17. Demigan

    Flak used to be able to hit an aircraft directly, after which it would deal both direct and flak damage. Additionally, the shell would explode the moment the distance between the shell and aircraft increased, allowing for more damage when landing the shell close.
    Currently the flak shells cannot hit an aircraft directly the moment it has reached it's activation range (20m?). Even if you fire a shell directly at the enemy center, it would use a flak explosion rather than direct damage the moment it got within 8m distance of an aircraft. So your information is crooked.

    Flak isnt designed with "filling the air with flak" in mind. Early in the game the SOE devs claimed some peculiar things. In bèta flak was both accurate and powerful, but at launch was given the ridiculous COF we are stuck with. Then later the flak shells would no longer be able to deal both direct and indirect damage specifically so that aircraft would have an easier Tim assessing how much more damage they could take before bugging out, as aircraft that hovered close to a Skyguard got actually killed and being effective even when you surprise a stationary aircraft wasnt something a deterrent was supposed to do.
    The COF was then further refined to a specific damage model, namely the damage model of "enough shots miss even with pinpoint perfect precision so that aircraft can always escape".

    This means that if we reduce the COF, you require more leading skill to score hits, but you will actually be able to score enough hits for a kill of you've got the skill.
    "oh noes now only skillful people can play!" is the usual overreaction. But currently flak weapons have a skill floor of "see spot run" and if we changed the COF enough we should first pass "infantry level of aiming skills" before we reached "omg no one but elitists can use this". This would already have a massive improvement in gameplay for everyone involved. Aircraft can honestly say it was skill that downed them, aircraft would also know that scratch damage at range actually took skill rather than spray&pray, flak users would require similar skills they already need for other tasks and they would actually be REWARDED for having a higher skill.

    Should it still be too hard for some reason, you can then always up the muzzle velocity, but muzzle velocity is of secondary importance (teriary even when considering flak detonation range and the option to make shells slightly wire-guided).
  18. Whiteagle

    Because the current Flak Explosion is more effective thanks to ESF's having a negative Armor Resisance to it, as opposed to the 75% positive resistance it has to the round itself (Heavy Machine Gun).

    Uh, yes it is...

    Because like it or not, Airbabbies are some of the biggest whales pumping money into the game...
    I loved Beta AA as much as the next Planetman, but the whole reason we got hit so hard with the nerf bat in the first place is because we're up against one of the game's highest paying demographics.

    No, you WON'T!
    Unless you are some sort of aiming god constantly downing ESF with your SUBMACHINE GUNS, all of your shots are harmlessly going to wiff by where you thought an Aircraft was going to be.

    You want the weapon to be laser accurate, more like a Submachine Guns general firing profile, but the reality is even a Light Machine Gun hip firing profile is better at hitting Aircraft.
    Why?
    BECAUSE OF MUZZLE VELOCITY!

    Then you're making Flak too effective, and we're back to where we were at Launch.
    If we up the Muzzle Velocity just a tiny bit, that will have the effect of tightening the Cone due to simple physics.

    Honestly, it sounds like you "Skill" people are clamoring for a giant Walker, which isn't a bad idea as it's own Weapon, but it's a giant Machine Gun instead of a Flak Cannon specifically because it would be way to effective with the Explosive effect, and Walkers have some of the highest Muzzle Velocities in the game!

    In sort, Flak is too damn slow to take down Air, Tightening it's CoF isn't going to help with that and just makes the Skyguard harder to use for no actual benefit.
  19. Scrundle

    I need to be able to shoot aircraft at 1km away because they can come shoot me, I can't go to them.
    Aircraft have all the cards in their hand right now; you pilots make me laugh my *** off when you complain that the dedicated AA options hinder your farm in your general purpose anti-everything flying tanks (Which cost the same amount of NTUs).

    We'll talk about actual balance when my lock-ons start killing your aircraft (And the infiltrator that just bailed out of it, hardly fair that you get two "lives") with almost no warning and in one shot/volley, just like your weapons do to us worthless second-class ground plebeians. Doesn't sound like fun does it? It isn't.
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  20. Skraggz


    I am about the only one on here that openly admitted to flying often. I also agree that the skygaurd needs something as a buff. Your reading comprehension has failed you. Also you skill-less talent-less lockons never need to gib, If it was a wire guided platform.... Sure, or something that requires some skill other then pointing at the bad thing you don't like because you most likely can't fly yourself.