Lolpods and flares vs the future lock on

Firstly I like how you say Hossin will be perfect for air to farm... trees are the best AA in the game.

Secondly, lock on weapons are cheap. Imo they shouldn't even be in the game. There are plenty of other ways to defend against ESF attacks

- Grab your own ESF
- Get a Skyguard
- Grab Bursters
- Jump in one of the bases AA turrets
- Use other AA such as Vulcan or Rangers
- If VS use Lancers

Seriously everyone should be able to do at least one of the above there is no need for such cheap weapons

Yeah, the lock-on was never meant to be the hard counter to the ESF...

$KYGUARD 4 LYFE.

A few seconds in front of a Skyguard and the ESF will never lolpod again. I've actually had people THANK me for bringing it along when I'm the only AA in the squad.

op got it wrong. It'll go this way. ESF derps around - gets locked on - attacker gets auto spotted - has to keep the line of sight so standing around in the open most likely - quick flares (or eat the missile), rotary to the face, next.
Other than that, you didn't consider the increased missile speed that will make escaping from it to behind an obstacle in time harder. Less esf will use flares, so you can set up small esf annihilation squads of 3 lockonners. Locked on at the right place and time, it cannot escape without flares. I personally see myself having lots of fun both as air and ground unit.

Costs 250 air resources, standard footsoldier will get shot down within 10 seconds, can't be obtained everywhere.

Costs 300 mech resources, can't be obtained everywhere, can't always be brought where you need it, is free XP for harrassers.

Costs 300 infantry resources, pretty bad since the nerf (I can rocketpod MAXes fairly safely from far away now).

Very limited supply, everything on the battlefield targets them, take a million years to repair

Same as skyguard.

Only one third of the playerbase is VS, also Lancers really aren't very good at that...

You really don't want standard infantry to be able to defend in any effective way against air, do you?
And before I'm accused of being biased, I have every anti-air weapon, and every air weapon as well, and fly every day.

What we want is for it to be harder for the invisible guys on the ground to shoot us down while we dogfight. There is no way some guy with zero practice or skill should be able to easily kill something that takes hundreds of hours to master. Especially since we have no way to retaliate.


As far as you being able to defend yourself; why should you get to kill everything in the game and be invisible while you are doing it? You do know that esf's are vuln to small arms? That one dumbfire will explode an esf. If you want to kill hovering lolpodders, there are options available that while requiring skill are effective.

If you really want to kill hovering planes, just jump in an esf, its easy to shoot down podders who hover with an ESF.

1. Not a lot of people like flying and even if someone where just jump into an ESF, they'd get slaughtered because chances are they won't be any good or the Pod Spammer is an "Ace" pilot.
2, 3, 5, & 6. Those things all cost 1000 certs, which if you are a F2P player who is good, it's going to take over a week if you save up and resist the urge to spend, but if you are a F2P player who is bad (like me) then it's going to take you forever especially when you can't resist the urge to spend (like me).
4. Viable, if every so often people actually bothered to repair them.

(3. Also seeing as how a second burster costs 1000 certs, using one is just always going to be ineffective when you are by yourself or in a very small squad.)

*: the same can be said about Rocket Pods.

The no-skill launcher got a no-skill counter a.k.a flares. If you still get taken down to launchers only while having flares, well... you're just bad. If you get taken down by a launcher while in a "dogfight", then you got taken down by teamwork, you should have had ground support as well.

If you can't kill, then you can't protect yourself, as pilots will just treat that as minor annoyance. Any air deterrent needs to be able to kill air more or less efficiently or it's useless. As for the invisible part, it's just missing features that are coming anyway.
And seriously, how often do you get taken down by small arm fire or dumbfire launchers? If your answer is "more than once a week", then you might need to reconsider your pilot career. Treating them as potential counter is laughable at best.

Good old "Air should be the deterrent to air"... we've been there already, it was in december, that was a complete debacle.

That was back in december when there was no incentive for taking down other ESFs. Now, you get nearly 1000xp just for killing one.
If you're a decent pilot, this brings in way more certs than lolpodding some lone infantry in the middle of nowhere.

The strong incentive back then was being able to get out of buildings. The reason it was a total failure was not the lack of extra XP, it was because rocketpods were so completely OP that any feeble attempt at going anti-air was always met with a quick death. Remember, it was the time when a clip of pods could annihilate an entire squad.

And the farming was so good for pilots that the skies were filled with ESF that didn't really care about eachother, and were constantly pointing their nose at the ground instead. Why do you think people have resented pilots since then? The very reason I started putting money into that game was to get decent ground anti-air weapons, because ESF just weren't doing their job at all.

I have no memories of the OP pods. No idea why as I still played at that time. :/
Well rocket-pods aren't THAT strong now. Most pilots even attack one another now. Never once have I seen 2 ESFs ignore each other in the current state of the game.

What they really should do is remove the lock-on feature entirely. Make it completely Fly-by-wire. Give the rockets enough speed to reach max range fairly quickly and be done with it.

Im sorry you cant have your 0skill weapons again


Try flying an ESF then make a post like this

No if you die to lock-ons you are just like everyone else who doesnt play TR. Strikers suck. They are being changed for a reason, hope you enjoy it. Also you show your ignorance here by failing to think about the fact that there is no way to differentiate between air and ground locks, and that the technique for dealing with each is different. When another plane locks on you, you flare and turn to fight him. When it is a ground lock, you flare and AB away never to return.

Since there is no way to tell the difference you can get screwed pretty easily. But if it is just one or the other, even if you react the wrong way, cause you have no real way of knowing, it can be ok, you can recover from that. BUT here is the thing, if it's a plane on your butt, and a guy on the ground, then you are screwed. You turn to fight the plane, and the guy on the ground does 80% damage to you with his zero skill weapon.

I mean the circle for lock-ons is 3x the size of an ESF, AND it locks even outside that circle.

How you can defend a game mechanic like that is only through sheer ignorance.

I don't get taken down by small arms fire or dumbfires ever, because i don't run rocket pods, and rarely ever look to kill infantry unless its a LA pilot who bailed out of a plane. But if there is a hovering podder it doesnt take a lot to drive him away. I can scare most pilots off with an smg.

Against a half decent pilot it mean you will NEVER hit with a AA missle, simple as that.

If flares still work the same way then even a NOT half decent pilot should rarely get hit.

The part I worry about is the reduced lifespan of the missiles.

As long as the G2A gets XP for scaring them away...

Not an elegant solution to the multiple-lockon problem... but scaring the ESF away is all it usually does anyhow.

Maybe they'll lower the reload time of G2A launchers as a consequence.

The problem is vs good pilots getting a lock-on and holding it (even if it is instant) will be very difficult (it's nigh-impossible with current AA launchers, with flares).

The really good ones fly in a style that basically breaks locks habitually, with this new system they may very well effectively be immune to lock-on AA.

The only way I see that ending is nerfing ESFs down so the skill-cap is much lower, after a few month of ridculous farming from the really good pilots.





I just wish they'd seperated out A2A and A2G fighters in the first place, it would have avoided most of this nonsense as in PS1.

Learn to shoot a rocket launcher without lock on. When the ESF is close and standing still, shoot, it's so easy to hit it. Also play without the idiotic T2 Striker, that thing needs a big nerf.

I can't imagine the amount of crying that would ensue if everyone who currently uses rocketpods to kill infantry suddenly switched to using the nose gun. It's so much more effective and quicker, infantry don't even have a chance.

It also requires AIM. Which the pods don't.