So when are you addig anti-air to game?

Flares already common may as well shelf the GTA rocket launcher now.

Flares should break any rocket lock but should not prevent an aircraft from being re-locked onto straight away.

Best part is locking onto an aircraft as he flys at you and watch your rocket proceed to fly off into oblivion because he moved 2 feet up.

Light fighter still make solo runs where they get 5+ kills and escape.

Im sorry for being so abrasive, but, light fighters and libs (2 guys) don't take team work. They just take hovering around and spam. There should be AA in the game that beats light fighter 1v1.

This is just jibberish. I'm sorry, but, it is. I do apologise for my tone earlier, but, when you come out with such complete fiction it is hard not to become frustrated. Light fighters can just go solo tragets pretty much anywhere on the map. I have mentioned i8t before, but, I have done this myself, it's easy mode spam play. Running in my outfit last night we had 3 full sundies, most with grounders. We waited locked and fire as one unit on sky targets and still ALOT got away.

Perhaps, you need a better computer? My sight range is just fine. Point being the paragraph I have highlighted above is fiction. In reality the opposite is true. If the above paragraph was true this thread wouldn't exsist and AA would be fine

Double Burster arm is pretty much death to ESF's. You must have never hovered in front of one if you think they can't take a fighter in 1v1. Might change over time as dedicated pilots try to get flak armor but it's very expensive.

Wow, ye tanks can run too, just not in any direction and at about a 1/10th the speed. Not to mention, an aircraft can attack from any direction it pleases. I mean, your whole arguement is jibberish. You compare the escape capabilities of tanks to jets? WHAT?! Kind of no point in reading the rest of what you have said if you think that makes any logical sense.

I tried a skyguard today. First time in a month or so. Hm... Kinda felt a little bit like I wasn't even damaging anything (I'm a pretty good shot too)

Had a pretty fun time Dual-Burstering with two or three other MAXes certed for it. We were able to land hits on ESFs pretty handily but liberators required an absurd amount of ammunition, and more often than not they'd laugh off AA fire from us, any troops with AA missiles, and Skyguard fire to just obliterate us with giant sky cannons before we'd reduced them down to danger levels. Even against the Scythes and Reavers tooting around they were more likely to simply be driven off for a half minute or so before coming back and wiping out another several handfuls of people, instead of blowing to smithereens.

Before it's said, none of us are terribly incompetent and yes, we know how to lead our shots and adjust for speed.

Teamwork helps, yes, I don't think anyone is arguing the point that a well coordinated AA team is definitely far more dangerous than a bunch of jackanapes running willy-nilly pooping anti-aircraft fire up to the heavens. Teamwork allowed us all to get more kills than we would solo, but it still didn't seem very efficient, or effective.

I -really- don't want Aircraft to dissapear or suddenly become flying XP bags. I think Libs are badass, I love that they seem to be three-man Spectre gunships, but the time to kill feels like it needs a small adjustment. Of course, it's SOE we're talking about, and "small adjustments" have a habit of turning into "GAME DESTROYING ABOMINATIONS OF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT" but that's neither here nor there. AA just feels less effective than it should be. Not as a cure-all for your Aircraft Woes, but as a grave concern to your enemy pilots. That's all.

Oh, and the Skyguard is still hot, steaming, revolting garbage. I'm not usually so extreme in my opinions but Jeezly Crow, that thing might as well be a rapid fire Marshmallow Cannon. I feel like i'm doing as much good as a deranged elderly man would pelting a Liberator with his soiled nappies.

I do reply, however, the thing is one person saying that is just one example. What about all the people saying how as a fighter pilot they can solo 3 AA turret before going to repair?

Same thing.

Funny thing is, in 90% of the 'flyboys' post they do mention at one time or another that AA needs a buff. Also, all along I'm not saying and never have said I want to go back to early beta days where once you see a sighter is just insta dies. However, we are currently in a state where it is the opposite. AA at best even if loads of people are using it, makes planes run away. The only small buff I would like to see is that if enough people have gone AA planes start to die, not, runway. In particular, AA turrets and the sky guard should in a 1v1 with a light fighter win with relative ease. I'm did say relative! For example a Skyguard really should be leaving a fighter almost dead without a reload if it hits all it's shots. Esp when you consider that same fighter can kill the Skyguard in one run? Is this not fair?

Hence why I get frustrated at constantly repeating myself. Many of the opposition of buffing AA has been responded to. Most of it in the OP. Not to mention when others get insulting your just supposed to take it and not insult back, which I am going to try my best to do from now on. I should and do normally know better.

I think from reading this whole thing we can perhaps all agree, AA turrets need a buff, maybe not massive, but a buff. The Skyguard needs a big buff. I think if we had those two things and MAYBE, just a MAYBE, slight nerf on rocket pods, certainly against infantry at the very least we would be in a good place. Believe me if they do make changes and it ends up aircraft are just getting owned I will be one of the first to support changes.

But over all point is, at the moment aircraft are at the top of the food chain with nothing above them. It's like rock, paper, scissors, with aircraft being molten lava.

I love all the posts in this thread with "Air isn't overpowered, just get 2-3 guys with AA and they go down fast" yeah I think if it takes 3 people in dedicated anti-air setups with the sole intention of taking YOU out that air is a bit too powerful or rather that AA has been nerfed into the ground.

Air right now is the only effective counter to air, AA Max comes in second but it only works against the 'top guns' of the empire who hover 10 ft in front of you and would probably die to 3 HA's firing their SAWS at them.

Also if you're going to make a realism argument, experience in Afghanistan isn't exactly something you could consider legit as the only thing used by insurgents in Afghanistan is outdated MANPADs and maybe a ZU-23 autocannon, both are easily countered by modern equipment. Try flying against a Tunguska or a Buk or some other sort of strategic anti air and see how far you get.

I mostly fly a purely A2A mossie and (would like to) drive a skyguard. There's deffinately an impression that air is mostly countered by air and an occasional dual burster max. The problem is that skyguard is no longer a threat, except at close range - imho it was better balanced at the end of beta, from both perspectives. From the perspective of a pilot - it would be much more interesting if ground AAA was more of a factor, atleast a slight increase in range and accuracy (or bring back flak explosions) so it was at least marginally annoying. People whine a lot about the skyguard being a poor weapon for its role, especially for the price, and I agree, a slight buff to it would be a step towards solution to two problems at once, maybe even 3, the 3rd being an abundance of rocket bomber ESFs.

The real problem with AA before it got nerfed into the ground wasnt the fact it did a lot of damage it was it was far too easy to use. Real big fights would have maybe 3-4 skyguards who would annihilate anything that came within 1km of them. That was bad and it lead to the massive tank zerg.

Then SOE, overzealous as they are, nerfed the **** out of all AAA across the board and then BUFFED A2G Rocket pods and wonder why the Tank zerg turned into an Air zerg and now roam free destroying everything in their path like a force of nature. Good and terrible pilots alike are making bank from this terrible balance.

Now my point is this. Good pilots should be encouraged, good flying practices should be encouraged. People who fly well should be effective as they are now but bad pilots should be shot out of the sky. Who are the bad pilots you ask? The morons hovering while rocket spamming into vehicles and infantry, who only can manage this because there is no real effective counters to Air. Infantry can fire their rifles at them, tanks their secondary machine guns and burster max can also fire at them but they'll just fly off and live to hover another day. When hovering like this they should be incredibly vulnerable and should go down faster than the hover spammer could blink. They should suffer the fate of a single infantry man standing out in the open while 10 snipers are looking down their sights at him. Yesterday I was flying a Liberator and was able to hover completely still over a base for nearly 5 minutes while my gunner opened up on everything below and it was only until some fighters showed up that I was in any sort of danger. This was stupid but instead of being killed for being stupid I was rewarded and got kills instead of being killed

Buff all AAA but make their projectiles slow down much earlier and have significant bullet drop. For the skyguard either do this, or remove it's flak element and make it much more accurate so the skyguard does ridiculous damage but requires direct hits with it's guns. Increase the skill element

I love threads like this because it's so easy to spot the rocket podders from the rest of the players.

Sorry to say it but AA is a joke right now. Skyguards sucks, GtA launcher misses a lot even without flares, Turrets are immobile and bullet magnets, duel bursters is the only good option but those are inaccurate as hell so it's only good vs bad pilots.

This game right now is ESF heaven, the only thing that is a threat is other good pilots which is a joke IMO.

Skyguards definitely need a buff, the main problem is they no longer seem to have any flak component at all.

Well said sir!!!

+1

Im seeing more aircraft every hour of every day.

3 Busters Duel-AA on a single light plane "might" kill it before it hits the AB's and runs. But now were looking at 20ish aircraft per big battle and these rocket sworm's just cant be beat.
Tank are dead pretty much instantly.
Sunders dead instantly.
Now where in a tiny spawn room somewhere being camped with aircraft and infantry with no hope to escape.

My typical MAX day.
Big battle.

Walk outside got an insane number of snipers poping shots at me, rocket pods all around me and heavy troops hitting me with AV rockets near point blank with no cares of spash damage.

Medics cant get to me and live.

Lost 100 inf point for spawning the suit.

Now if this was a "New" game as far as being a new series or an original ideal I might stand it for a while, but this is PS2. PS1 had a working balance for most these current issues and they were tossed out the door.

PS1 the AA see's and fires first the aircraft should be dead, but if the aircraft see's the AA first the AA is dead. Thats what we want again in its still working good in PS1 as we speak.

PS2 we see an aircraft.. MAX or Skyguard fires you might as well put a huge neon sigh and arrow over your own head saying "FREE KILL HERE" since the MAX, SG cannot produce enought damage to take down the plane before you yourself is dead.

Now I understand the "Hardship" for new pilots to buy that rocket pod for mass killing and having to spend $7 or save the certs, but the Skyguard and MAX 2nd AA weapon cost also.

The answer lies in PS1.... years of gameplay even still played ignored for reasons still unknown.

Problems:

1. Jets costs 180 resources and respawn quickly. They cost less and respawn quicker than armor.
2. 180 resources gets you a weapon that can kill infantry, armor, air, and stationary guns.
3. 180 resources gets you the fastest vehicle in the game.
4. To "counter" those 180 resources, you need to spawn an AA MAX. Skyguards and Heavy Assaults can harass aircraft, and by no means will those aircraft stick around, but it is not possible to fire 3 HA missiles at a jet before it flies away. If you aren't sitting next to a sunderer to resupply, you've just spent 50-75% of your anti-vehicle ammo just to force a jet away from you. It's probably being flown by an engineer and can come back in roughly 90 seconds.
5. If you do spawn an AA MAX, you have put yourself in the absolute slowest weapon in the game, and the absolute most specialized. You are at a crawling pace, and you will be slaughtered by infantry, armor, and stationary guns. You can harass or kill only one thing in the game: aircraft.

The natural conclusion of the above points: jets are incredibly cheap for how versatile they are (can fight anything and go anywhere quickly), while their counter is incredibly ineffective in the "general" fight. Anyone who wants to counter a jet must lump themselves into a restricted role, while a jet never has to assume such a role. It is in fact the most versatile role.

We realize you are in a jet. In the real world, jets are pretty good. They also cost $150 million dollars. Jets in Planetside 2 are the 2nd cheapest vehicles in the game. The only thing cheaper than a jet is an ATV.

Yeah, the biggest issue with Air being OP isn't the mechanics of air so much as peoples reluctance to look up or fight back. Too many times I see great sunderer positions setup or a good group pushing forward to completely be wiped out by one single liberator that nobody wanted to put on bursters or shoot down with any type of AA. The minute players start realizing the Sky is as dangerous as the people on the ground then Air will be less of a problem. Myself and my Engineer partner are enough to keep all the ESF's out of the range of my bursters and as soon as I switch classes they all immediately come back in and mop up all the stupid Zerg running around as infiltrators and medics that don't revive/heal. Another thing is a lot of times you shoot at Air they don't even see you because your screen is cluttered with ******** making it really hard to see anywhere but directly in front of you...

All these complainers just need to use their brain. **** frustrates me with how dumb the average player is.

This is baseless and uninformed information based on poor gameplay. One singled Dual burster and one single HA with a Hawk can completely destroy groups of ESF's in the air by positioning properly. When you open up with dual bursters you can bring them low enough where that follow up Hawk rocket finishes them off easily. This can be done with 1 magazine per burster and 1 Hawk missile. The issue you are complaining about is how all of you have bad aim. Not so much how ineffective bursters are.

Look another rocked pod guy.
Too bad that the ESF can easily kill the HA or the Max and neutralize the threat. And if he doesn't want to he simply pops a flare and flies away to repair.

Oh look, another bad who makes excuses to further his own tear fueled rage. I don't fly, I have never flown, I hate flying. I almost ALWAYS roll out in dual burster max with my squad. I sit in the sunderer until stupid air tries to kill us and jump out to gib them. If I am not a dual burster I am an LA so I can place squad beacons and watch the battlefield to direct my squad. How about instead of crying, boiyo, you adapt, overcome, and become stronger?