Why do people still think lolpods are OP?

1. Top armor seems to do nothing to mitigate rocket damage. Even after the buff. It just seems like it's too easy to hit the back of the tank. A mine guard protects against mines very well, side armor protects against anything attacking the side very well. Why does top armor not work?
2. ESFs fly at 4-5 times the speed of a tank, even more with afterburners. And they can fly in straight lines. Getting somewhere in an ESF is probably about 10 times faster than doing so than in a tank. That makes it very, very frustrating when an ESF nearly instagibs you.
3. Pods vs infantry seems fine, I don't see nearly as many people die from it since splash damage nerf and AA buffs.

@shd: Well maybe that's the problem then. Fights getting smaller and smaller. When you are sitting in the only tank around, you are pretty powerless against any kind of air and that just feels absolutely awful. So basically you decide to roll tank/infantry to actually capture bases, while your enemy rolls air just to stop you. And just like in the real world, simply bombing some place doesn't make you win the battle. You have to get your hands dirty and that's not something many pilots do.

4 rockets to kill an infantry soldier , 6 to blow up a lightning tank .

Makes sense right ..

/Sarcasm

I vote to make tanks rear armor a little less vulnerable to rocket pods .

Liberators should be destroying tanks not every man and his rocket pods , they have taken most of if not all incentive to use a gunship anymore .. whats the point when an esf with rocket pods does this more effectivly .

The roflPods were OP since beta and are still OP now. The devs have tried to balance this by making AA a little bit stronger but that has never countered the issue which is the OPness of the pods. All the AA buff did was make it more frustrating to be a pilot.

What they should do is reduce the AA effectiveness of Burster maxes and AA turrets. The Walker and G-40 are already weak enough. Reduce the salvo size of the pods to 8-10 rockets and make the ESF carry a maximum of 4 salvos. This would make it less frustrating for pilots to fly around but more of a challenge to get a kill with the roflPods. Even with this change I feel the ESF would still have the upper hand against an MBT but it wouldn't be a 'risk free' kill like it is now.

This is coming from someone who drives an MBT and flies an ESF. Though I haven't unlocked the pods, I feel they are lame and unfair on opponents.

Oh so lolpods are like shooting infantry with a HE lightning. Unless you have pinpoint accuracy you have to wait some seconds before actually killing them (in the case of the lightning, you have to wait for the reload).

There's a difference, however. The HE lightning is specifically tailored against countering infantry and does crap damage to everything else.

The lolpod is like that but it also instagibs MBTs, liberators, galaxies.....

They still are OP
Most classes have to specialize, ie, choose to go for infantry or vehicles, the lol pods can kill everything with no discrimination.
I realize most ESF pilots are thick, butt its only fair to make them have to specialize too, i realize most of them wont be able to understand this, but that is the case, they need changing.

As an aside, I'd just like to say this is exactly what it should feel like. This is a game about large battles that ideally consist of multiple types of infantry, armor, and air units being deployed. The optimal experience is to have a coordinated infantry, armor, and air offensive so that they cover the other unit's weaknesses. Air is good for protecting armor from being flanked, armor is good for clearing a path for the infantry, infantry are good for capping bases and securing more ground for armor to use, among other things.

I do agree resources don't mean **** if you're even half decent as a pilot/tank driver, though.

Onto rocketpods.

So, question for all the people who think infantry are just hanging out in the wind: what sort of attack do you want to perform with the rocketpods in order to be the most effective and gain the most certs?

The correct answer to this question is to attack clustered groups of infantry. It's true that taking out tanks is important, and a good source of EXP for ESFs, but a large part of every battle is the infantry quagmire that armor can't engage with. Thus, air units can be effective at helping the infantry units push forward by exploiting the defender's poor choice to cluster together.

Well, that sure sucks for the infantry, right? I mean, they just have a gaggle of ESFs swoop in and out constantly and no one is left alive, right?

From the experiences I've had as a pilot, and what I've seen, this is far from the case in any significant battle. In order to clear out a group of infantry, you need to know where they are so you can approach at the appropriate angle to maximize your kills and support. This sort of scouting requires at least one pass over, given no sort of team oriented communication. Once you approach, you must make sure the infantry have actually rendered- if you shoot rocketpods at the ground and you haven't rendered the infantry that are actually there, your rocketpods will do no damage. So you must slow way down, especially for large battles, and wait for the infantry to load in. Then, you have to unload your salvo, which takes a non-trivial amount of time. During all this time, you are essentially a sitting duck for any burster MAX, which you can be sure there will be at least one of.

During large scale battles, which this game kind of touts as it's main feature, rocketpod runs are extremely risky due to how infantry units pop in. Even if you have good intel, you still have to slow down to account for infantry rendering, and then unload your salvo, all while being vulnerable to AA fire. If you find yourself subjected to intense rocketpods during a large fight, it's because your team is doing something wrong- most notably, not pulling AA units to absolutely demolish rocketpodders who try.

During smaller battles, the ESF can be more effective with less effort because infantry rendering won't be as wonky. It's easier to do strafing runs, much less likely you'll run into concentrated AA, and ESFs can deal with one burster MAX. Which brings up a question: why are we acting like a medium sized infantry battle should be solely decided on the strength of its infantry? Have you ever heard of calling in the cavalry?

This is a game about combined arms: an ESF pilot deciding a medium scale battle is intended functionality. ESFs and armor act as a deciding factor in which side will win because they are meant to easily deal with infantry and armor (relative to infantry dealing with anything). Otherwise you wind up with scenarios like the Crown and TI Alloys, where it's an endless siege of infantry throwing themselves into the meat grinder because the defense doesn't budge, and the offense only relents when completely exhausted of resources and cut off by the third faction.

That said, I do agree that a split between AI and AV rockets would be beneficial. I have no issues with how ESFs deal with tanks right now, but I think it should be a dedicated role, rather than a general role.

There's a ton more that can be said about how easy it is to effectively counter air with even a handful of players, how "balance" in a game about three distinct branches of engagement isn't about one particular experience, and a myriad of things related to tactics and strategy.

But the tl;dr to this word vomit is this: rocketpods aren't OP. There are some issues with the weapon in terms of how general their application is, but they aren't overpowered if you have any sort of team effort to defend against any kind of air.

Also, you people whining about the Liberator being less effective: the attack angle is the important part. Try shooting down a Liberator right above you with any tank. Good luck. If a Liberator gets above you, which is possible in larger battles if you can effectively suppress enemy air, you're pretty much screwed until AA scares them off or unless you can quickly back into cover (and it takes a lot longer than it takes to scare an ESF). ESFs must position themselves in a way that puts them much closer to your line of fire, so while their method is quicker, it is also riskier.

While that liberator is hovering above the tank, shooting the tank with its special anti-tank belly gun that requires teamwork of at least 2 people to use efficiently, the liberator is having a harder time killing the tank than an ESF due to the Dalton having lower TTK than rocketpods. During all this time, there's this huge ship in the sky soaking up every single flak shot from burster MAXes, a lot of shots from base turrets (which are just minor annoyances to ESFs as their cone of fire is ridiculous),, ESFs (sometimes even shooting at them with the lolpods themselves which of course deal huge damage against libs) and even tank shots or dumbfire missiles. That big ship is also slow, so it can't easily escape the massive punishment it is taking, and it goes down fast or is forced to try to escape ASAP, often with bad results.

Meanwhile, our friend the lolpodder comes flying very fast, unleashing a volley of lolpods into the 2/2 MBT, instagibbing it unless the tank can make a very fast lucky shot while their screen is covered in flame and shaking from the lolpods' explosion. After this is done, the ESF took some damage from the burster MAX and none from the turret, and afterburns away to repair.

If you think rocketpods are overpowered, trial it on your ESF. Try to get lots of infantry kills or that one salvo tank instagib everyone is discussing here. See if you can do it,

Majority of people who whine about it have never used it themselves. If you roll a tank by yourself behind enemy lines without a secondary gunner scanning the territory all around you, you deserve to get killed.

you tried and failed?
play something else pls..
speaker of a sad and bad community...
if you cant use it because you suck, call it op...

so true..
most of the guys complaining and whining here tried to fly but it was too hard.
now they whine about and call them lolpods.
pathetic.

As if you could judge how well it works after trying it for 5 minutes. You'll need more practice for that.

Why does the lone wolf in the self-propelled armored cannon deserve to die more than the lone wolf flying a fragile rocket-arsenal?

I really enjoyed that. Now tell me the one with the fairies and the mean dragon and the princess!

That's the point. You wont last 5 min in a "tank instagibing, infantry decimating fortress of death". And planes have been countering tanks since WW2, that's why. Disregarding the fact you can one shot an esf if you can aim.

Because they are. It has too much damage against armor, and it's splash is nonsense against infantry, you need one to two hits to kill and you have 16 in your clip. That means guaranteed kills both infantry and armor. And then pilots complain about Annihilator being OP, not recognizing they have the god be-all-end-all weapon of mass destruction which is excellent against EVERYTHING.

I hate lolpods and everyone abusing it. I wish they ere put in line with other weapons in this game.

Should be 30 min if I'm not mistaken. True though that it doesn't give the whole picture but it's still an improvement over zero-experience-theoretizing. Many people don't have the certs to dump 1000 of them into a vehicle they don't plan on using. Maybe when we get VR training rooms they could try out the fighters there.

You've died to the dumbfire rocket? You aren't allowed to pilot an ESF ever again if you got hit by that super slow arcing projectile.

I dunno.. maybe because of shi like dis:
https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428010618035574049/killboard

HACKSAWROCKETPODSHACKSAWROCKETPODS

Also, heard that giving anti-infantry explosive rounds to vanguards was a good idea:
https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428010618038412193/killboard

I don't think lolpods are ridiculously overpowered now, I think they're in a good place.

Sooo.... did you ever manage to kill 8 people in a single mag with your lolpods?

Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about.

I say 1 tank in the field deserves to die. What the hell was it doing out there anyway? AA is really strong in the game, so have a deterrent.
From my experience, I get only 1-2 infantry kills per attack before running away to repair, lose tail or die horribly. You fly behind enemy frontlines and shoot a tank in its back - see how successful you'll be with all the flak and HEAT shells flying right at you, as well as infantry fire.

And don't dare using the word farming - xp gain is significantly lower than that of a medic or LA.

Last time I checked tanks don't instagib tanks (or did I get you wrong there?). It's quite the opposite, tanks take ages to destroy other tanks, since it's easy to keep the front facing a slow-moving enemy. One-shotting ESFs is fun, but it's a) hard and b) rare. Any pilot with half a brain I have met has run away when he's staring into that barrel. The ones that stayed were either safe from harm, because they were hidden behind massive explosions, or up so high I couldn't reach.... or exploded. Also pesky heavies hiding behind sand-dunes. You can't hit them and when they eventually pop out to rocket you, judging their distance vs bullet drop is hard.

Listen, right now the situation as I see it is this:
Pilots portrait tanks as impenetrable, infantry-slaughtering machines of terror. The reality is that tank drivers usually need several minutes to find a tank-terminal and drive anywhere near the action. Once you're there, you either get targeted by heavies immediately (tanks aren't exactly hard to overlook) or explode from pods or liberators. In the rare event that you do get a run, you have a lengthy trip back to an ammo tower ahead of you (that you can't find on a map).
Tank drivers think ESFs are tank-destroying, instagibbing cowards. And the reality is probably a lot different, since my experience in an ESF tells me that once you get hit, you better get the hell out of there.
The thing is, whenever I fly, I usually just bail and repair while getting resupplies at a tower. That takes less than a minute and I'm right back in the action. A tank would have gotten nowhere in that time. And I don't even have rocket pods. I use A2A missiles, because I think it's my job to get rid of enemy ESFs (though pods are probably better at this as well). I have tried them though, but didn't really get a chance to hit a lot of things. It's a new weapon and when you're trying to find out how to use it, you get shot down quickly.
This imbalance between driving and fighting makes tanks a LOT less enjoyable than planes.

It is 30 minutes, but see above. 30 minutes is a lot shorter than you think when you're adjusting to a new weapon. It probably means about 2 tries, since you will get shot down more often when you're concentrating on something else.

lol, do people really die to lolpods so often that they run to the forums to cry about it? I sure don't.

Feels good man.

They are not OP. 4-6 rockets to kill Infantry is ridiculous. Anyone who thinks otherwise is clinically insane.

My ideal damage that Pods should deal should be equivalent to that of Bad Company 2 with the Choppers.

In most games, people complaining that they die by stuff that decent players can counter are called noobs