So now we have lattice on all continents. Kills the game for me as a pilot. I can't do jack S now.

As a pilot i want to be useful, i don't want to just roam around in empty regions dogfighting the occasional aircraft en route to the frontline.
I want to help my team on the ground capture points and supress the enemy, right? Sounds reasonable?
A reasonable expectation from a team-play oriented game, isn't it?

WIth the lattice, all this is shattered.
I can't do jack as a pilot now. Nothing. Squat.

I can't go anywhere near the frontline, because you simply DON'T fly over 48+ hostiles with lock-ons, flak, maxes, skyguards... You just don't do it if you know anything about being a good pilot. As many people have said, the core principle of being useful as a pilot is situational awareness and common sense.
Don't fly in where you know you will die. Don't make stupid decisions and don't do suicide runs against a full plutoon of heavy assaults and maxes.
Treat your aircraft like a lover, never let it get hurt, keep it away from harm.

Now that's impossible. Just impossible.
Every single god damn fight is a 48+ vs 48+ battle between 2 outposts. Every single one on Indar, Amerish, Esamir.
How can i do anything worth anything as a pilot now?

* I obviously can NOT fly over these battles since i'll get gibbed in less than a second, as i should be (because nobody should fly into a sea of hostiles and expect to live, obviously).
* I can't help my team by supplying scout radar coverage since i can't get close to the hostiles.
* I can't help my team advance by supressing or killing enemy snipers, sunderers or tanks, since by the time i'm in range to target them, they've got 20 guys in range to target me, maxes, skyguards or lock-ons.
* I can't help defend an outpost, when you have 10 prowlers and 3 skyguards covering every major attack, since there's such a massive player number in every battle. Not to mention sunderers with heavy assaults jumping out on the road.
* I can't do my particular skill, flying low weaving in and out between trees and rocks, because lock-on missiles cheat their way to automatically re-aquire lock when you break it, without the shooter needing to keep you in sights. So i can't evade the missiles no matter how damn Top Gun i fly through a bridge. Higby you thought this was a good idea, obviously you aren't a pilot.

So SOE, what do you want me to do? What do you want the players that love to fly, to do?
We can't help the battle what so ever, we can't go anywhere near the combat zone unless we are willing to play a stupid 5-min life expectancy role, which i'm not. And which we can't anyway due to the resource costs.
So what did you have in mind for pilots? Did you seriously think it was good enough to just have pilots roam around in useless territory that can't be captured, dogfighting occational enemies or taking out stray noobs that spawned in the wrong base?

Is this what ESF's are for now?
Because i don't see what the hell else we're supposed to do now.
ESF's were never built for plutoon on plutoon ground assaults. We're far too fragile for that, we're sneaky hunters, infiltrators of the sky, we're not bloody tanks!

I just have to be honest with you, i love the game to death.
But now, i lost any enjoyment i had from flying.
And for the record, no. I never lolpodfarmed anything, i flew exclusively with scout radar, light ppa and supported the ground troops in capturing outposts, taking out stragglers and reinforcements.
I never once was stupid enough to fly into plutoon on plutoon engagements.
Now i have no other option.

Look at the map, fly through the 1-12 enemies dectected zones to where you can flank the main hot spot battles. Skill pod and zoom away.. Or just skill pod the 1-12 enemies detected areas. Equip scout radar to make it even easier to find those 1-12 enemies detected.

As a side note, there was always a nice amount of air being used on Indar after lattice was implemented there. Maybe the problem isn't with the lattice, but yourself as a player?

What you can do is learn to fly and get flares. Seriously, flak is very easy to dodge.

Even on Indar when pop-cap is reached, there have been 0 times where every lattice link has been 48+ enemies. If you want squad combat (1-2 squads each side) it can still be readily found.

Soooo...
I guess farming spawns are harder now and enemies now shoot back...
And that made you so desperate that you HAD to create a thread about it.

I did some flying in the alert on Esamir just now - managed to stay in the air just fine but couldn't actually do anything. If you go near the front you get instantly locked or Flak'd. If you engage an enemy ESF they just fly back to their side and to follow would be suicide. Can't engage targets on the ground because I cannot do enough damage in time to make it worthwhile ( don't use roflPods).

I guess the only thing I could have done would be to fly around the front and attempt to stop enemy air getting to it.

Amerish has no lattice yet, so you can still fly there and hover-spam all you want.

The sweet spot for aircraft is about 1-12 battles and then 12-24. Frontl ine battles have always been a dead air zone for anything flying. It does NOT matter if you have flares because flak will kill you and there is a dozen or more heavies waiting to lock on you after you popped your flares.

Hit and runs can work, but all you doing is spending more time flying away from the battle and landing/hovering to repair then taking part in it.

Anyway, there is nothing you can do about it.

I actually have had a ton of fun flying around on Esamir with the massive amount of people. Maybe its because im a kind of risk vs reward kind of pilot. When I do A2G, I fly one foot above the ground, as fast as possible, strafing the enemy. This makes it hard for enemies to lock onto me because there is a lot more terrain for me to maneuver around, and I dont get bother by flak because they are all pointed with their head to the sky. When doing this, honestly, the only threat to me, is the ground, which is ussually my down fall Its fun as heck though, just the pure speed. I guess I use my A2G ESF as an extremely fast ground vehicle. When I do AA, I generally fly at the height ceiling, where lock-ons can't get me, and its hard for flak to kill me. When I see an ESF below me, I dive bomb down, and afterburn up to the flight ceiling as soon as I get the kill. Also fun as heck. You can still be very effective in large 48+ fights, which I look for when I fly an ESF.

So my tip to you, try some different types of flying. Don't act like you are some kind of invulnerable farm machine. The people on the ground are more of a threat to you, then you are to them. Always make sure you know the area, and know exactly where you can afterburn too to duck for cover. Flying in large battles is difficult, but you certainly are not useless, and its fun as heck to do.

Some ESFs prefer to get easy kills, hovering over small fights with their thermal vision on. I prefer flying for the thrill, when I need a break from the meat grinder, and I make sure that the biggest threat to me when flying in big battles is a tree, not a Burster Max or a lock on rocket.

I love playing tanks but I can't do my particular skill of driving towards the enemy and blowing everyone to bits since the bastards smoke my tank the moment I break cover! SOE, what should I do?

EDIT: Also, to be more constructive, if you try to use your ESF as a ground attack aircraft near bases or against massed enemy, you deserve to get shot down. The fact that it says 'fighter' in the name should give you a hint of what your role is supposed to be. Besides there are usually only two large fights going on at once, rest are 1-24 (use the built-in peep counter to identify optimal podding areas). Also if you fly low enough to be worried about flak you should be terrified of tank main cannons.

TLDR; Adapt?

It sounds as if you're achieving what any solo vehicle is expected to achieve. Not a lot.

The same thing would happen to a single tank or any other single vehicle.

Just die and stay dead...

Dam unguided misseles all the time killing my team...
Whenever i see a aircraft i just pick up my nemesis and blow the crap out of him

Huh?
A solo tank can help supress and pick off enemies at the frontline, eventually leading the charge.
A solo skyguard can defend the area from ESF's, being protected by friendly tanks.
A solo flash can even flank behind enemy lines and pick off medics and engineers.
They can all be a valued part of the battle.
A solo ESF can't do this. Unless i what, hover above a friendly tank and try to snipe people?
Never hover idle as an ESF.

People say equip scout radar, that's the thing, i run scout radar exclusively. But then the 15 lock-ons will get you if you go anywhere near the hostiles. Learn to fly? It doesn't matter how i weave and dive between forests and bridges since the new missile mechanics let locked on missiles automatically re-aquire lock. You can't shake them.
Every single lattice frontline had 48+ hostiles last time i played. That's why i posted this.
Because there were literally nowhere to go that wasn't an instant suicide hell hole.
Flak is easy to dodge, except when you've got 15 burster maxes that don't show up until you pass by the frontline.
So stay away from the frontline then, right? Yes i agree, but that is the point, there is nowhere else to go, there is no smaller fight to find.

So many infantry players here angry about lolpodders. I never use rocket pods, nor do i farm, find someone else to vent your anger at.
If someone bothered to read the post i stated i run with scout radar and light ppa to support the ground troops.
With lattice, i can't support the ground troops. That's the problem.

Strange, we've had Lattice on Indar for some time now and I've never experienced this feeling of worthlessness that you are detailing here. Have you checked all of your connections? Possibly start at the one between the seat and keyboard.

I'm probably the ****tiest pilot around and even I don't experience the same level of difficulty and frustration the OP is crowing about.

Love these forums. Every complaint a tank driver or ESF pilot has is responded to with "you're just a skilless infantry farmer".

Yeah people want to deny all the game changes that affect ESFs, when to the pilot himself, he knows when he would stay up in the air for up to 30 mins, and now can't last 3 mins.

Fly in air teams.

I've seen the TR on Waterson mount 12+ fighter attacks with fair regularity. Or get a couple of guys in Galaxies to run point and 80% of the AA will target them before they target the fighters.

Armor has already had to bunch up and offer each other mutual protection because of the amount of AV weapons and Harassers roaming around. Air is going to have to do the same to remain relevant in large fights.

If I'm solo'ing for a bit and I log in and see these groups that you are talking about, I always mount up with them. I've actually have been pretty entertained with flying escort for a Galaxy.

What are you talking about? If he says all three continents are like this then all three continents. If you see that Amerish doesn't have a lattice that is just because it's all in your head. Just look hard enough and eventually you will see the lines.... and blotchy blacks holes as well.... why do my eyes hurt?