ESF(fighters) are unbalanced, not the GALAXIES NOR THE LIBERATOR.

Everything is in the title. Get it in your head.

ESF are freaking annoying. They are way too many of them, they are way too powerful, they are tougher than a rock and hit like one. There is no counter play against them unless the ground have 3 time as many anti-aircraft then there are aircrafts. Rock shouldn't beat rock. ESF are supposed to be GLASS CANONS, not TITANIUM CANONS.

Rockets pods are WAY too accurate.

There should be rocket pods specialised for infantry.
There should be rocket pods specialised for armor.

NOT BOTH at the same time.

My Mossie dies pretty damn fast to everything... but I also haven't upgraded anything about it.

Ok. May I ask how you would have AV rocket pods that didn't damage infantry. Any ideas?

AI is easy - just make it like grenades - big explosion, vehicles barely affected, infantry die.

ESF are glass cannons, what are you talking about?

Any Sundy's stock guns can ward off a ESF if the guns focus on them, even if they have rocket pods. MAXes can destroy them too, and most AA guns on the ground can so serious damage.

Other Libs and galaxies can gun them down with proper positioning, it's all about skill.

I think ESFs are just about right.

If ESFs were glass cannons, the Sundy's stock guns would shoot one down.

Same thing for a Skyguard or 2 AA MAXs.

ESFs are not glass cannons, because they could meet their counter and get away alive very easily.

No ESFs are fine they have strengths and weaknesses, they are shredded quickly by accurate aa fire and even small arms can do noticeable damage (3 or 4 guys focuses firing small arms will make short work of ESFs).

You are mixing up a specific problem with the rocket pods with the vehicle itself. The regular gun on the ESF takes an eternity to kill any armoured targets and without splash will rarely kill infantry. The A2A missiles are fine and a good means of keeping other ESFs in check as well as being an effective weapon against Libs (although they could stand not being fire and forget).

I too believe ESFs are probably just right, though they are pretty difficult to kill from the rear of a Liberator. Seems I have to go through two belts of an upgraded rear gun just to scare one off. If the pilot is a good one, they can take us out of the sky long before I can take them out, something that makes sense in most cases (Libs should have some light escort at least) but if a clumsy pilot wants to follow us at directly 6 oclock (rather than using elevation to their advantage) I should be able to rip them a new one.

Outside of that scenario, they're not too bad. Mine sucks, but I'm also a bad pilot, lol...I stick to gunning for others.

All those can easily kill a ESF it it doesn't bug out, which has the same end result (except you don't get a nice cert reward).

I think there is just a giant misconception about AA going on because people are confusing their inability to land a hit on an aircraft with the AA itself being subpar in terms of DPS.

ESF's are fine in terms of health. Any change to this is going to completely imbalance the state of air to air combat right now which (other than a few people crying about A2A Pods) is actually in a fairly decent state right now.

There are also a few really good AA Max players out there who are just reaping the glorious fields of exp right now because they figured out how to aim.

Also, rocket pods have a fairly decent spread at any amount of range and require very low flight to be at their peak accuracy, so if your team can't swat off a ESF just hovering at low alt then well... they're doing it wrong

If it does bug out it gets away alive, no matter how good a shot the AA gunner is.

From what I've read it took either ground forces or massed coordinated air attacks to take out Skyguards in PS1, because uncoordinated ESF attacks were nearly free kills for AA units.

Which makes sense if you are into realism. A SAM turret or some AA cannons/guns in the real world are terrifying. They can tear things to pieces, because face it anything that flies doesn't have much armor. These are priority targets for infantry and armor if they are present because they won't receive any air support, evacs, supply drops or reinforcements.

Well that depends on how long the pilot waits before cutting and running and how good the AA player is at aiming and anticipating the ESFs position. But generally yes the pilot can get away from fixed ground aa.. How could it possibly work differently? If ground aa could easily kill you before you could get away then by extension they could kill you before you had time to do anything. Air would become completely pointless. We know this to be true because it was tried in Beta.

AA gunners need to accept that they are in primarily a deterrent role, which would be fine if they got certs for causing damage. Even so an ESF directly attacking a skyguard is likely to be killed quickly because the ESF has to fly directly at its target making it easy to hit in return. Even the regular guns on the sunderers can tear up and ESF in the hands of a skilled gunner.

...And the planes were Rock, the AA was Paper and ground units were Scissors in this particular match up.

Going that far would overdo it, but a single ESF should have only a few seconds of life under accurate Skyguard fire, not a few clips- just like it could blow up the AA tank in a single salvo of rockets and not several.

Similar TTK for similar resource and cert/SC price, and it boils down to tactics and skill.

The pilot could always do:

/y Hey guys, I've got an AA emplacement to >insert direction< of >insert area/landmark<. I need someone to help me out with SEAD, or a ground mission to clear them up.

How many times does it need to be said. It was tried in beta and it didn't work. Stronger AA totally cleared the skies. For one thing spotting air units against the sky background is vastly easier than spotting tanks against the ground (potentially hidden amongst rocks, trees or buildings).

Even with arguably OP rocket pods the current situation isn't far off balanced. You see way more tank than you do ESFs and half the ESFs are out there clearing out the other ESFs and Libs.

I believe ESF are fine right now. The problem is their counters are too ineffective. Most of the AA is so slow and inaccurate that the only reason it cant kill an ESF is because it can't hit it. AA is supposed to be a deterrent, but no one is afraid of them.

Thats just crazy talk, do you even pilot an ESF in game. I pilot a lot and I can tell you every ESF pilot who knows anything knows to be afraid of aa. If you're not careful it can ruin your day very quickly indeed. Being caught in a hover or slow flight by pretty much any aa and you will be lucky to get out with half your hitpoints intact, if an enemy fighter is around or there is more than one aa firing at you and its probably curtains unless you are right next to your warp gate.

What you don't understand is if they bought the skyguard cannon they think they should kill every ESF they see, cause it's they're god given right. Yet not one of them ever set foot in an ESF to see the other side of the story. Ridculous 6 year old like crying is ridiculous.

They get angry because they watch a video of some pod pilot killing 65 infantry without getting engaged by even one lockon missle, let alone any other esf, and think we all just kill everything we see and get 40000 xp per hour. Since they're too horible to fly out of the warpgate without crashing into the ground, they have no idea how esf pilots wind up spending lots of time doing nothing but running away and repairing, and spend many lives getting killed immediately after take off...

It's very frustrating for these folks playing the game and being so horrible, and then they get killed from above which they don't expect, and they get rabid.

Its funny, no one expects a single HA, AV MAX, or a Lightning to effortlessly solo a MBT. And yet, they get in the AA and they think they should solo every ESF that comes into their field of view.

The ultimate difference between an MBT and ESF is that the ESF can get away more easily when it gets in trouble. People seem to incorrectly assume that if they can't solo kill an ESF on the first pass that AA is underpowered.

Were AA guns more accurate back then?
Right now I could rather easily dodge small arms and Burster rounds, never met a Skyguard in my pilot career though.

If AA guns were dead accurate in early Beta, ESFs couldn't use their speed or maneuverability to avoid fire and that was the problem, not the fact they got blown up quickly when getting hit consistently.
Airplanes rely on not getting hit to survive, and are very capable of avoiding fire, both in reality and in PlanetSide 2.

The ESF happens to be the flying Lightning- the one man light and weak unit that gets speed for the loss of protection. HAs can defeat Lightnings quickly and easily if they get their tactics right, not to mention MBTs firing AP rounds.

The fact an ESF can break its attack and evade fire is its life insurance, the fact it can also finish its attack ignoring light AA fire and then run is what is imbalanced.
Fighters can easily team up, attack from multiple directions and overwhelm AA- no matter if they get shot down quickly or not, because they can avoid getting damaged allowing them to do SEAD quickly.
The loss of 1-2 ESFs per 1-2 Skyguards should be natural in this game.

Nobody wants to defeat the Lib- the flying MBT- with a single Burster, or even shoot one down instantly with a Skyguard.