It's time: make lockon missiles appear on radar

Battlezone 2?

Id more like to see an 'incoming projectile' display in cockpit view. It would tell you how many meters away the missile is.

FFS make everything appear on radar, what are we talking about Sopwith Camels!! The aircraft in this game have the instrumentation of a cessna. It's stupid.

Appear on mini-map yes.

Also there should be a HUD display of missile direction and distance.

At this point with as much lock-on spam as we got and missiles not rendering most often then they do we need a client feed informational read on what is coming at us and from what direction.

+ a million, Thundahawk. Also, AFTERBURNER CERTS!

Awesome game!! The hover tanks rocked. BZ2 was a strange follow up but I still enjoyed it.

Such a bummer there wasn't another game.

I would counter-propose that the lock-on appear like a 'hit' but of a different color, such as yellow.

1.) the mini-map is over-filled as it is.
2.) my suggestion would actually be far more helpful to pilots because they'd instantly know where the lock is coming from.
(before it even fires)

I still remember flying over an NC base in PS1 and seeing like 60 missiles coming at me on the mini map...

In Planetside 1 you also got some idea as to the nature of the lock-on. If it was air to air you got the "Wasp" lock-on warning message.

The minimap showed all inbound missiles as red too. Friendly missiles were shown in green. I really miss the PS1 mini-map.

All those Sparrow MAX, Sparrow AA BFR, and Phoenix missiles all coming for your Reaver as you frantically try to afterburn up high enough and far enough away to escape. You take a few hits but make it to a friendly air pad. You hover underneath it and just start repairing when that one dysfunctional supercharged Sparrow missile that forgot to run out of fuel and followed you over three map grids, right through mountains, goes right up your tail pipe. Boom.

I remember it well. Good times

Finally haha I've been meaning to start a thread on this myself. Definitely need to show where missiles are coming from and also have different sounds for when there's a lock on you and when you have missiles coming at you. I only ever here the one sound. Also don't wann get too fancy but for aircraft it should probably be some sort of 3D globe radar so you can tell if its coming from below or above or what not, but I'd settle for just showing them 2d on the existing radar.

Dead is dead. If they bail and their craft is devoured by G2As, vehicle kill exp still gets conferred and another lib/ESF gets removed from the field.

It's more like this: libs and ESFs entering hostile territory can be G2A locked and be TOTALLY UNAWARE of the location or number of enemy launchers in the zone. The lib will have to fly on about 2 seconds minimum to gain vision over some of the launchers but by then it's already too late-- the missiles have been launched. At this point the aircraft pilot either flares or risks being gibbed. It's pretty cool watching a lib get annihilated by missiles from the outside, yes, but from inside the craft you can have zero idea of what's coming. Your fellow pilots can have no idea, either, because the G2A missiles won't necessarily render for them either.

In most scenarios, a lib would have to flare well before getting in render range of the infantry-- this means that before the liberator can even become a THREAT to enemy ground forces, it has already surrendered its main defensive option. After the lockon invulnerability fades, enemy ground forces can re-lock the lib, which has fired 1 salvo max. At this point, given enough G2A in combination with a flak gun or two, the lib is screwed.

The core problem with the current missile-less radar is this: ESF and liberators have NO WAY of gauging threat level because the initial lockon forces them to pop flares BEFORE infantry can even render on their scopes. Because the lib is slower than an ESF, it perpetually has to "guess" whether it is safe or not to engage enemy infantry: guess wrong and you lose your vehicle instantly.

(before you accuse me of being a liberator abuser, please... don't. I have 100-ish kills total on the lib, about 30 of which are from gunning). I actually feel bad for liberators for once!

Today, I managed to kill 15 mag riders at xroads tower during a multiplatoon zerg battle in my reaver despite the prevalence of G2A. I only managed this because I masked my approach vector by flying low and fast into the maggie's rear ends. I was splattered, once, during my runs by two burster MAXes but the rest of the time I managed to evade AA. Libs, unlike ESF, are limited by their size and speed to the number of approach vectors they can take. They cannot skim the ground with afterburners and therefore are likely to be discovered and G2A locked well before coming on target.

Without some indication of the number of G2As aimed at an aircraft, it will ALWAYS have to flare premptively on approach. Ground targets appear as or after the lockon invulnerability ends, at which point it's a total crapshoot for the pilot.


> However! I will say this: I feel that overall the game balance is feeling better than it was a month ago. Liberators should not be the ultimate doom unit, nor should they be obliterated by invisible missiles with no way of assessing the threat. I think having missiles appear on the radar would be a big step toward fairer gameplay that frustrates neither those on the ground or in the air. You see 8 missiles coming straight at your craft? You flare and you stay the hell away from that area until ground forces clear it out. That's fair.

Knowing the number is fine, knowing the location without spotting isn't .. It would be like a big pointy arrow making the one advantage HA have ( small and able to hide ) moot .
So maybe as a compromise rather than the rockets on the radar your HUD displays how many separate locks you have ..
Ie:

LOCK ON ( 4 )

Sounds reasonable tbh. Don't see a reason why it shouldnt show all missiles. Could come as part of a minimap update, it needs a lot of work to be a bit more useful.

My radar is already clogged as it is.. No thanks...

I was thinking about it for quite some time. And not only for aircrafts, for ground vehicles too. Yesterday invisible missiles were hitting my sundy all the time. Either make them properly render or show on the minimap.

no,we got enough lag as it is.

Before they even think about adding missiles to radar they can sort out the issue of friendly units with stealth not appearing on Radar. I understand enemies not showing when they have stealth but why on earth can we not see friendlies on the radar. Sick of flying into stealthed scythes because I look at the map and it's all good, bank left, BOOM. Driving a Mag attacking some targets ahead, take a bit of fire , oh well I better reverse up and get some cover to repair, look the maps clear, Why's my tanks stuck, turn around stealthed friendly mag in the way, take one up the exhaust pipe, BOOM. There is no possible reason anybody can give me as to why friendly units do not appear on the minimap when stealthed that I will accept. FIX IT.

+1 this idea. The minimap wouldn't show you elevation and other useful information, a simple N/S/E/W indicator (if they wanna be fancy they can throw in NE, SE, NW, SW too!) and a meter count would give you a LOT more viability to dodging missiles.

I'm all for ground targets having good anti-air options, but getting to see where a missile comes from (maybe the lockon process constantly lights up the minimap like gunfire does?) and a reasonable approx. of how far it is from them would be much more fair for the ESF in question too. Maybe roll this into the stealth tree in fact? Certing in makes the missile indicator more advanced, first level gives the meter, second adds missiles to minimap, third adds directional, fourth advanced directional?

Yes, no. Flares usually pop in 3 angles behind you - there are 3 flares, one in a 45° angle left from the rear, one 45° to the right and one behind you. Now I dont know the exact mechanics but if you flare the missile won't immediately disappear obviously, but chase one of the popped flares. If the missile has been too close to you and you weren't flying fast, it can still hit you.

However I dont know if it's a bug but I agree with above, I noticed lock ons still hitting aircraft which used flares and afterburned away in a half loop.

Btw: hell yes. As it is, if I afterburn to a safer zone quickly and then slow down so the noise gets reduced, I can sometimes hear the missile and evade it in a sudden turn/loop. However 80% of the time it isn't even rendered thus making no sound! This is not fair towards aircraft and must be changed. Second thing, I'd greatly appreciate if I had a better chance to avoid it by seeing it on a radar. Doesn't need to be the minimap and shouldn't be on it, as it is already spammed with useless icons and dots. Just try to implement an extra part in the aircraft hud to show a radar with missiles around you that are locked on to you. That's the least we can expect from futuristic technology no!?
My 2 cents!