Flak cannon to weak against liberator?

Did you even read my post? If you did you didn't understand the problem.

Good troll, you even try to make it look like you were actually serious

No. It is accurate, according to the way AA is, and has been, designed. If AA wants to be able to deny the entire airspace for a base, it cannot simply kill any air that enters that space in seconds, unless their are large amounts of AA, such as 3-4 skyguards. It's not fair to pilots to die when they have no way of knowing where AA is upon flying over territory which is still friendly.

Don't tell me that pilots should know where AA is because there are people on the ground. This isn't ARMA, players do not attempt to carry most important details to each other unless they're in a well organized platoon.

What is the purpose of ESFs, if not to control the air space? Currently, the 'air game' is in an awful state. ESFs have no reason to protect liberators/galaxies because there is no extra guarenteed XP in it for them. Liberators weapons are fairly weak, and they defenseless against air unless they have a competent dalton gunner. Liberators barely have a place in the game because all of their time is occupied by attempting to defend themselves from other air because ESFs have no incentive to do it. Galaxies have no use outside of troop transportation to attack bases. Due to the spawning changes, they are now slightly more useful for switching between lattice lines, but they are still mostly just transport buses. They should be utility buses too.

Mocking someone for having a different opinion is both childish and destructive. Take this discussion serious or don't bother to waste space in this thread. Your mockery is not appreciated. I am very much serious about this.

Not when your opinion is pants on head ********.

I agree with many of your opinions, in particular in the last paragraph. However, the argument that it isn't fair rings empty to me. If it is unfair that a liberator have to be alone because coordinating escorts is hard, how is it fair that a ground AA, like a skyguard, have to fight alone because it's too hard to coordinate focused fire? As was argued to me, this is a multiplayer game not a singleplayer game.

Saying that aircrafts need handicap because they are hard to use efficiently is basically saying that because one is a bad pilot one needs extra treatment.

I have to say that this thread is getting out of topic fast, I meant this to be a discussion about how the Flak cannon, Ranger, is underpowered in comparison to other guns and in relationship to liberator armor. Not the balance of Aircrafts vs Ground AA as a whole.

Constructive discussion and no mocking please. I will report any unserious users to moderators if this escalates.

Aaaaand you broke your own argument. I didn't even have to put effort into that one. Looks like AA does kill air after all and I was right that your statement was inaccurate. Thank you, have a good day.

Where did I say that it was impossible for AA to kill air? I said that killing air wasn't the direct job of AA. I didn't say that killing air wasn't a byproduct of deterring air.

GAA (Ground anti-Air) can not be a deterrent unless it has the potential to kill an aircraft. That does not mean that it will kill it easily but only that the Air has reason to want to get out of the attention of AA expediently with only enough leniency to allow it to try something bold. That is why the Aircraft is deterred - the risk of being destroyed. Considerations beyond that are insignificant unless SOE wants GAA to become a support for AAA (Air anti-Air) and, instead of comprehensive damage, GAA firepower would hamper the ability of enemy Air to function at any sort of proficiency (e.g., maneuvering, visibility, etc.). Speculation like that is neither here nor there. Pre-buff AA demonstrated how Air behaved when it wasn't concerned about AA damage - an unbound monster to everything else in the game.

There is only a very short window where Flak-AA can be applied. If we balance it for the speed of ESFs, then it won't be strong enough to deal with anything bigger. If we balance it for the tankiness of a Liberator, ESFs would be shredded too easily.

The role of Vehicle-mounted secondaries is to provide additional sources of aggression, but not to actually be a primary source of anti-Air. All you really are doing is drawing attention to yourself. You might be able to solo an ESF with well-trained fire or a stray shot to get the last bar of health; but, Liberators are way out of the secondaries' league. Liberators are even slightly out of the league of AA MAXes if not for the MAX's mobility and the Liberator pilot's occasional overconfidence. Skyguards and base turrets work best for the larger Air vehicles but they work best at some range. Combinations of AA sources working in unison are the best.

WTF. Wow, I really wish I didn't buy that Ranger now.

That seems kind of weird though. Why would they make the Basilisk (middle ground between AI & AV) stronger against aircraft than the Ranger (pure AA/doesn't effect ground vehicles)?

Is the Walker at least better at Anti-Air than the Basilisk?

libs need armor buff? are you trolling? they are already flying tanks, they have more health than a MBT and have no weak spots!

you can easily farm dozens of kills with the lib when there is no enemy aircraft around.

Libs are probably too strong against everything, but the Ranger is just non-sensically crap. As BW says above it is worse than the stock weapon at AA, despite nominally being an AA weapon. That's just silly.

the ranger exists to trick players into buying it, so they have to spend more money when they realize it is garbage.

That or the devs don't know how to balance it because no one uses it, and the devs seem to only use statistical data rather than game experience when balancing weapons.

And there he goes posting inaccuracies again.....

Denixen, I've got a page full of rant for you but it'll have to wait until I get home. You want a explanation, you'll get one.

Buff against libs...?

What the...Out of all vehicles...

I believe the weapon you're looking for is "Skyguard"

It is very sad that a dedicated AA gun like the Ranger is worst than a generic gun like the Basilisk.

To explain the position of the air guys posting in this thread, they are frustrated because ground-only players can be very narrow minded. They don't know what it's like to fly and they often think air units should be free xp if they only choose the correct weapon for the job. The Liberator is a 2 sometimes 3 manned vehicle that doesn't just require those people to be inside the vehicle, they often setup a TS channel so that they can communicate with each other to better coordinate the attack. Without coordination and skill, a Liberator is probably the easiest thing to kill in the game. By comparison, you alone in a sundy not talking to or coordinating with anyone and manning a single AA gun attached to your vehicle expect to not only deter, but kill said vehicle within a small window of time shows that you aren't looking for balance.

EDIT: I'll also add that the skill requirement in this situation is balanced away from the Liberator. If the Belly gun on the Liberator misses your Sundy by 5m (which is easy to do considering the rounds have projectile drop and the ship is constantly moving and repositioning which changes the aim angle) it does no damage, splash from the bellygun does not damage armor. The flak gun you are firing will cause damage to air units even if you only land the shells "sort of close enough I guess" to them, because they explode and cause splash damage. Flak is very hard to avoid when you are flying because there is nothing to hide behind in the middle of the sky.

EDIT-2: Stop whining peasant.