I've been reading so many threads about the Air and AA balance and it got me thinking. I have the best air and AA certifications and weapons unlocked and I find the air vs ground battle very unsatisfying. It suddenly hit me that I think the main reason we have this problem is because all the aircraft in the game are hovering VTOL. I think if the air game in Planetside 2 was revamped with mostly STOL (short take off and landing) then we wouldn't have this problem. Thoughts?
i like the sound of fixed wing aircraft like jets, but those aircraft go really fast, you would have to have a massive map to do it right, i personally think a map that is all water save a few islands, with towers like crossroads, that is absolutlely huge would be great, it would be the perfect idea for the bastion class aircraft carrier/battleship. air and boats only and dozens of towers and destroyable/capturable battleships
Having regular jets would be more exciting for dogfights -> no circle jerking until you crash into each other. And you'd have actual strafing runs. But I think the problem would be you'd need loads of runways, which would look pretty silly and be impractical to land and repair en masse. Then again a continent with lots of bases 300 feet from each other looks pretty dumb as well.
Signed. If standard flight vehicles replaced the current ones, it'd be a real joy to use them as a strategic weapon instead of the skillless platform-to-attack-from it is now.
It's what we have now to be honest. But you know, what's missing? Realistic inertia. That's what would make it more like a regular fixed wing aircraft. I can see why they made the aircraft in-game more stable (I'm pure sure they'd be that stable in the future anyway with all the vectoring thrusts they have). But I know we'd all at least like 1 aircraft to be a bit less casual feeling.
Indar's small enough that you could have fighters take off from tech plants and warpgates...? When they put in Dropship Centers, perhaps they will have runways as well.
I always wished they wouldn't have made the ESF's able to hover in place like Planetside 1. Making them more like jets and less like a jet/helicopter hybrid would make them far more satisfying to use. Hell, I don't care if they can land VTOL. I just hate that they can hover spam like in Planetside 1. I fly my scythe primarily, but I get bored pretty quick because of how boring hoverspamming infantry until something eventually shoots me down is. "Dogfights" are just a game of who can abuse flaws in the game physics better than the other person. Some good ol' strafing runs would be a welcome change.
Hovering aircraft are EASY to destroy IF you're armed with an RPG (heat-locking or not). The problem is most gamers are playing "useless snipers" and DON'T have RPGs.
...... ............ ................ ....................................there are RPG's in this game?
I actually think it would be cool if they just split the ESF into jets and choppers. ESF -> A2A with minor A2G. Chopper -> A2G but with general purpose(basilisk) type weaponry against air. The liberator does fill the A2G role already, but the chopper would be more agile, have better acceleration, less armored, and would not be able to fire backwards(can't shoot back at ESFs if they're on your tail, forcing you to perform evasive maneuver). The chopper also wouldn't have access to bombs, being limited to grenade launchers, rockets and empire specific weaponry(saron, vulcan, enforcer) for A2G so they lack the raw power of bombing. But can be devastating to individual targets if the pilot and gunner work together and fire at the same thing at the same time. How would this at all improve balance? Well, for starters the choppers would cost more resources, and require 2 players to operate properly. It's easier to justify a vehicle's power if you require multiple people to operate it. Meanwhile, ESFs would lose their A2G strength because they can no longer hover in place. But if incoming at relatively slow speed, they could probably still kill a tank from the back so they wouldn't be totally useless against ground. ESFs would be able to move faster, so they can be squishier, as their speed will allow them to escape flak, and outrun missiles more easily. This means that foolish pilots die more easily. By splitting it up, instead of just removing VTOL, you won't upset those who like to use their ESF as a helicopter. And you'll take away the ESFs massive versatility, which is usually the cause of frustrating, because an ESF will first take down a tank, then the tank driver if he bails, then turn around and take down an ESF with the rotary. Which is just total madness, in my opinion. And helicopters are just ******* fun to fly and gun if done right.
Yeah. Dogfighting isn't great in Planetside 2. Whoever is able to to get on their adversaries' 6 o'clock will win the fight unless said adversary knows the whole fly-in-reverse move. But that move takes some skill to learn, creating an incredibly steep learning curve for pilots. Some sort of more but not absolutely fixed-wing aircraft would do wonders to balance the game in A2A and A2G battles. It would create a more even A2A playing field, since you couldn't simply switch between helicopter and plane when being shot at. As for A2G, since infantry and ground vehicles can't do a whole lot about aircraft as it is now, even when they're flying pretty slow on attack runs, it would only help balance air vs. ground if aircraft didn't have the ability to just hover and rocket pod whenever they pleased.
Yeah I don't think STOL would be a problem. Just make it so if aircraft aren't flying above a certain velocity they start to drop, but keep the current max speeds. Then also give them some magrider-like landing gear (or wheels?) so they can take off and land on roads.
For any remotely proper flying you'd need aerodynamics. Even basic physics in this game isn't working and you expect to get that? Further more, good luck trying to take off in warpgate. It would be cool, no doubt. Not with 1k absolute ceiling though. At modest speeds of ~300 kph two opposing planes will need about square kilometer of real estate to play over. How many Bursters and Annis is that? VTOL can be fixed if they change it so you needed minimum speed to not lose altitude at full thrusters. To land you would need to deploy landing gear which would shut weapon systems. With cooldown obviously. Hovering, and ease at which people are able to fly at low speeds is a problem because it allows crap pilots to just fire full salvo of rockets to kill one infantry. Since rockets cost nothing ... But mostly, rocket pods need to be split into HE and AP.
Having REAL physics on our current ESFs would make this far less important. All physics currently work as if thrust is generated from all sides of vehicles (ESF+Lib+Magrider), whilst there are definite and obvious thrusters. Further, the thrusters on ESFs are clearly intended to work as a VTOL in launch but a jet in flight (hence why you cannot manoeuvre them to the vertical position whilst traveling at speed); all that's missing is realistic physics and we'd be flying jets after taking off. What I'd prefer is a mix though; keys to alter thruster direction and realistic physics would make the gameplay the most unique and fun imho.
Negative. By 'proper joystick support' or 'proper wheel support', what any flight sim/vehicle sim aficionado means is 'better control with a joystick/wheel than you can achieve with the mouse and keyboard', otherwise why use them at at all? I'd rather a level playing field that doesn't require extra desk space (I have none) and investment. Moreso, there are so many developmental priorities that should come infinitely higher than this. I'd settle for a nice balanced game that isn't still in beta and has a real metagame. THEN we'll talk about balancing new flight controls versus old ones.
the maps aren't big enough for STOL craft sadly. You are right if we had high speed aircraft it would be fine but with the map sizes VTOL is the best option.
