Burster Max vs. ESF

An AA Max only has 7 seconds worth of ammo unless it has Extended Magazines. It takes 5 seconds worth of ammo, with 100% hit accuracy, to destroy an un-upgraded ESF. 7 seconds of ammo leaves very little room for misses, which any decent ESF pilot can do by simply pulling a "Oh Sh*t" maneuver by rolling, swirving, and afterburning.



This is me firing at 100m at a Reaver in VR. I start firing just before the 1 second tick and the plane blows up just before the 6 second tick. That's 4.5-5 seconds of sustained fire with 100% accuracy (something that never happens in real gameplay). I waste a couple shots at the end, so I actually use about 21 out of 28 shells. That gives me about a 33% more damage I can deal; if an ESF has fully upgraded armor, reducing damage by 30%, that makes it practically impossible to destroy without extended Magazines (it would require landing pretty much every single flak shell out of the 56 a dual burster has; even then I'm not sure it could be done; 1.33 * 0.7 = 0.93, which would leave the plane on fire but alive).

A single burster Max only owns the skies if there are no Liberators and if ESF come in one at a time. A Liberator can take several clips from a Burster Max, and multiple ESF targeting the Burster Max can easily take it down. Even 1v1 a good ESF pilot can take on a Burster Max and win. What a burster max does is shut down the skies to lone wolf pilots lolpod farming infantry.

It's been rendering at vehicle distance for a few patches now - so you can't use that as an excuse.

But there isnt just an AA MAX in the whole map, there are over 2-4 AA MAX and they tend to stack the place hard. Making them virtually unattainable by air or enemy vehicles, since they just sit in a mountain or corner and they can vaporize everything that flys, Including liberators that are like a flying truck, those get vaporized pretty fast.

And here I was thinking we were looking at the OP's complaint that if he hovers a lone Burster Max can take him out in the 7 seconds before he can start moving.

So now you're talking 4 AA Maxes, plus 1-2 Engineers (because AA maxes eat through ammo like it's candy, and need some repairs as well), probably a Medic (to res the Maxes if they die), and probably a couple HA's acting as defensive support and AV/extra AA. So now you're talking an entire squad of people working together. That SHOULD be able to clear the skies of most air. ESPECIALLY lone wolf pilots acting in an uncoordinated fashion.

It's a combined arms game. If you want to remove the threat of an organized AA Squad then send in an organized squad of ground forces, maybe a couple tanks, and you will wipe the floor with the AA squad. Then the Air can move in and obliterate the rest of the competition. An organized squad of Liberators coming in high would also stand a chance against a coordinated squad of AA. What WON'T work is going in lone wolf style when the enemy is organized like that.

The reaver has a 15% dmg reduction bonus to AA, try that against a scythe or mosquito.. I doesn't take 7 secs burst to kill those. Also your assuming your facing full HP ESF, that's almost never case if they in battle. On average in battle a AA max from what i've seen and exp can usually get a kill in 4-5 secs if they got a good solution, but usually the ESF bugs out after 1-2 secs. taking significant dmg. As it is 1-2 AA max can keep a squadron of ESF ( 7 ESF ) at bay, which is a joke since the AA max cost about 200 rsrc while those 7 ESF cost 1400 rsrc. Air isn't a factor in battles they are at best a minor supporting role, when infantry and armor have cleaned up the AA Max, but at that point the battle is already won and all they do is just hover over the cap points like sad flies circling at the carrion.

All ESF have the very same hp and resistances.

I guess they changed that from beta or something, i read that the reaver had a 15% dmg reduction. Same obs stands, from my exp u don't need to do 7 secs of full dmg to kill a ESF in game, most of time its partially dmg already and most good ESF pilots bug out at 50% dmg either way.

again the shift key (by default) will activate your afterburners. Your wish is granted.

Anti-air, mainly flak is over powered right now. Just the sheer number of options and their range is what makes it OP. Rather than decreasing their damage, Max units and even heavy assaults (rocket launchers) should be made to resupply their ammo only at weapon terminals. Also, the range for burster Max needs to be reduced significantly.

If you want to keep the range values the same then give esfs an air to ground lock on missile as a counter.

Another issue is that Max units really should not be able to camp inside a spawn and keep spamming flak through their shields.

Let me get this straight ... Dual burster maxes hit too much and thus disable the hoverspamming ability of ESF ... forcing you to run away and repair before coming back.

Not really sure where the issue here was ?

AA Max is the only real combatant against aircraft from the ground which is most likely why nothing has been done and probably won't be.
If a squad chooses to bring out a lot of Maxes then there is a no fly zone in which the opposition has to communicate and make some sacrifices to get some of them down.
Skyguard is worse than ever with lowrider Lightning bug.

Yes, or try killing an ESF or Lib instead of infantry. Or try using the rotary instead of pods and extended ab. Or try going somewhere else, you have the speed to relocate fast.

Actually i find the skyguard quite good against vehicles, they do decent dmg to tanks and sunderers. The problem the skyguard has is it´s accuracy, way to low to be able to kill smth as small as an ESF except at short range. They do very nice dmg however to libs and galaxys(because they don´t miss that much on bigger targets). If they would change the COF and projectile speed from bursters to skyguard and viceversa both of them would be more balanced(maxes would still be powerful at close range but their effectiveness decrease by a lot at range, skyguards would be more effective at range where they should cause of the big **** gun they have and their fragility and side of the red target on their head).

Also, sry for the double post, was unintentional.

Problem atm is the following: If it´s a small scale fight, lets say not more than 2-3 squads per side, the balance between AA and Air is okay. This counts as long as we have the usual spread of units, and not a dedicated AA team amongst those squads.
In this small skirmish scenario ESF´s and Libs can deal serious dmg if they have good pilot´s but will still die if they are badies.

Now the part where there balance is non existant: Large scale epic battles, as in PS2´s supposed trademark.
In large battles, pilots face low render distance making strafing runs ny impossible because most target will pop up too late for them to put in some hits.
The amount of AA is insane, since SOE decided to give almost every unit in this game some AA, even if individually weapons like the A40 suck, they add to the AA present in the area. The result is that pilots get shot from a million of different sources, including small arms fire for ESF´s. If you only as much as afterburner over the warzone you risk getting popped. If you stay on the outskirts you are still at high risk while usually not having anything too shoot at, except other ESF´s which will retreat to their AA zone once engaged.
It´s even worse for libs, they aren´t nimble enough to dodge flakk, are alot easier to spot and even MBT´s have a good chance of hitting them. High altitude attack runs are again, not possible because the render distance will not show you your targets. That forces libs to go medium or low altitude to engage, a tactic that increases the risk to get shelled by AV turrets or tanks/RL´s alot.

People always think of unrealistic situations.

1 ESF vs 1 MAX

but we are playing on big scale battlefield.
You have not 1 MAX, but several.
Skyguard here and there, enemy ESF, AA turrets, other vehicle guns ranging from primary tank shells to secondary AA cannons.
Infantry rockets, rifles, AI turrets.

Its just an overkill at the moment. When we talk about combined arms I wonder where my place is, as i can not engage in any bigger fight as there is to much AA around.

The whole picture changes when Im with my outfit and we have smaller fights. Squads vs Squads. Just nowadays this is quiet seldom.

Don't hover then. Do bombing runs.

How should bombing runs help? You fly into contested Area, because of low render distance and very low vision of IR or thermo you have to slow down to hit anything, AA fires on you befor you can empty your clip, your afterburn out of the area but are down to half hp, you fly to a save place to repair but you have several enemy ESF on your six which will make short work out of you.

End of story.

Its like in BF3 after the stinger patch, guess it will be better to get the zoom on your weapons and fly unreachable for AA. So much fun!

I think the solution to this is modifying your expectations. By way of comparison, can you guess what happens to most infantry that choose to stand still while being completely out in the open?

OK SO....THE OP esf's are whining when they get what they been dishing for months?.....i use both,and ill tell ya if your flyin alone against more then 1 burster max.........your an idiot

If an ESF can kill a MAX in one pass, a MAX should be able to kill an ESF in the time frame of one pass. Oh, wait. That gets in the way of ESFs having perfect safety to mindlessly rocket everything on the ground for billions of points while everyone else has to just stop playing the game. I'll phrase this another way.

If an ESF doesn't want to be blown up by a burster MAX, the ESF shouldn't present an easy target by flying directly toward or away from it, should not stay at close range and should generally exhibit some form of piloting skill.

Flak is slow. Course corrections are fast. If a pilot knows what they're doing, they can evade flak. Flak has a relatively long travel time. An erratic flight path can force AA to have to spam flak into a wide area and hope some of it manages to stick. They won't do enough damage to get anywhere under those conditions.

If an ESF dies to AA either they screwed up or they didn't realize how much AA was over there. Likely due to a lack of recon of the battlefield from a safe distance. Which equates to screwing up.

Then again... If an ESF uses combined arms tactics and works in concert with friendly armor and infantry, it's unlikely that the AA will pose a threat for very long. Anywhere they go will be vulnerable to either ground or air. Snipers, tanks, rockets. Oh my!