A question for you air aces

So I'm often seeing complaints about lock ons.

The more elite players say it's not that lock ons can kill aircraft, but that they can get taken down when having a duel with another air ace.

So my question is this, why should you be able to have a fight in the air, without interruption from the ground, when infantry can't engage other infantry without fear of being rocket podded?

Do you believe that you should be uninterruptible in your fun but infantry should not?

Us infantry peasants exist only to be farmed by our flying superiors.

The answer is always you didn't spend resources therefore what you enjoy doing doesn't matter

Sincerely,
Vehicle ******

I am no elite pilot, but fairly decent in the sky. I think you may be confused by what lock-ons most pilots are talkoing about. In my opinion obviously, I have no problem with being taken out by a heavy assault while dogfighting. As it is annoying its part of the combined arms style of gameplay. What does infact grind me is when I am in a heated dogfight with a formiddable oponent and to get locked on by another esf from behind and 100m away, getting killed by him and not the pilot I was deuling. That's what is the most annoying thing.

Welcome to a massively multiplayer FPS where you never know when you have to be aware you could get jumped by an opportunistic attacker taking advantage of your distraction (such as being caught up in a one on one duel with a 'worthy opponent') at any time. It happens to infantry, it happens to tanks, pilots deserve no special treatment in this regard.

I'm pretty sure they complain about all lock ons, not just a2a. Maybe I am mistaken and have not seen dozens of threads, saying they cant fly over enemy forces without getting destroyed by lock ons.

So how does this explain literally every ground vehicle besides Skyguard Lightnings being completely vulnerable to any Liberator or ESF that decides to **** up their day?

When I am lolpodding infantry I could not care less about HA lockons, they're easy to avoid with flares and running out of line of sight. I kill the HA locking on to me first and laugh.. they are like deer in the headlights.

When I fly high and fight other esf, that's when I find the HA lockons annoying. They work best against esf that are not attacking ground units, that's why they are stupid.

I think the range should be severely cut, but the lock time reduced to nothing and the velocity increased to compensate. Or maybe just make esf immune to them and double small arms damage vs esf instead. A heavy should not be able to drool on esfs that are ignoring him from 400m away.

So you are saying, it's fine for you to rocket pod infantry, who may just be wanting to fight other infantry. But, it's not fine for infantry to shoot you when you just want to engage other ESF?

I have to point out this us not a second account of mine. It's just an ESF pilot, that emphatically makes my point!

The problem here is that then HAs can't fire on ESFs with any real effect until they're at close range, long after the ESF can kill them with rocket pods. The range for G2A locks needs to be fairly reasonable otherwise it is effectively taking a knife to a gun fight. Even if it is a one-hit-kill knife you're almost always going to die before you get a chance to use it, and that moots the point of AA entirely.

They have to be effective at higher altitudes otherwise infantry are completely vulnerable to Liberators and Galaxies which are dropping infantry or bombarding the ground from up high. Besides, you're in a combat zone of course you're going to get shot.

The biggest difference in the air is that there's no cover in the air to block a lock in the same way there is for ground vehicles. That works both ways though in that air can almost always get a clear shot on the ground if they're (high) overhead, and if you nerf G2A you're going to magnify the problem of A2G. Getting locked in a dogfight is annoying but it's difficult to balance without something arbitrary and inexplicable like "AA doesn't effect ESFs above X00m but still kills Galaxies and Liberators".

If i see a bunch of juicy fighters overhead, i grab my HA with my lock on air missile launcher and farm some aircraft. I've made a bunch of certs for assists and kills. And nothing is more satisfying that seeing the cowards run away and stop hovering and spamming ground troops. A lot of times I sit on top of spawn or in an open area near spawn and fire away. if they kill me, i respawn and jump out again... no worries.

increase lock on range and shorten lock on time and I'd be a happy man.

No, that's not what I said.

It works the other way around too you know? Infantry are tiny, easy, free, use their counters against us free, can use cover, can be revived, can be rearmed anywhere, do not get locked on to- therefore cannot understand how unbelievably frustrating it is- and will respawn in a matter of seconds to do it all again. Even bases are being redesigned to exclude vehicles entirely... With no objectives vehicles can only resort to killing stuff, they are meant to be force multipliers and infantry enablers but instead simply become target practice till every infantry converges on the points and spawn. The most useful things vehicles do in PS2 is, sadly, camp spawns, camp points and kill Sunderers. There is no point doing anything else because they lack survivability vs. infantry. Why pull a skyguard when you can pull a HA? Why pull a tank when you can pull an AV mana?

Imagine you are running through a tower and then you get a message that you are going to lose something like 33% of your health unless you leave the tower or press "F", you press F but then as you attempt to leave get the same message again from seemingly out of nowhere. You run as fast as you can but this thing chases you for miles and catches up with you very quickly. You lose 33% of your health and are now getting hit by something unrendered from hundreds of metres away which is the size of a handful of pixels. You cannot get near it and your weapons wouldn't be much good even if you did. What would you do? You would leave the tower altogether right? That's what it is like flying in PS2.

You are prevented from doing anything anywhere there is something happening, even if you are attacking other aircraft- which have no impact on the ground at all- and ignoring the ground entirely, you will still get locked on to. I used to love A2G, making runs on unsuspecting armored columns and taking out sunderers, the idea that my employed skill that I have amassed over hundreds of hours of practice is making "a difference" to the larger objective. I recently realised it is futile and joined the "skygod master race". I now run primarily A2A X-AB setups, and have accepted that killing other air is not making any difference all but is the part I can enjoy mostly without getting bothered too much by point and click to win types.

Before you say it. I have spent most of my time as infantry, spent a fair bit of time in ground vehicles and have 220 something hours in my Reaver. I like to think I have a wide perspective.

You can't drive your tank into a nest of heavies either. It's combined arms, if you want to make a difference then coordinate with ground forces to get the AA killed. Or if you just want to play aircraft dogfights, don't do it over the front line (or play a game with better aircraft mechanics, heh).

You are right infantry don't have that in towers. Nope I get no warning from that bouncing Betty, no warning from that SMG infiltrator, no warning from that shotgun light assault. I get killed instantly, no warning, no time to react.

Lock ons at least tell to brace for impact or run now. Would you rather the instagib that infantry have? I think you would complain more if you had that.

I get that air to air duels are fun. But interruption is part of an MMO.

I used to be a Gunslinger in SWTOR, when I got in a fight with a Sniper, that was the same type if duel, we wanted no one to interfere, it was an honour fight, even though no words were spoken. I accepted that we had no right to complain when so one did interfere, as half the time they think they help

It's not so much that Lockons are overpowered (which currently, they are) it's that they avoid all terrain, and the ONLY way currently to avoid Lockons is to run flares, which not many do anymore due to the buffing of Fire Suppression. We can't outrun them unless we have completely full, fully certed AB tanks, and even then only BARELY outrun (you MUST be using Racer 3 at that point).

Lockons might as well instagib. 2 hits and you're on fire.

What's that you say? Tanks aren't immune to AV weaponry?

Huh.. funny.. my ESF isn't immune to ANY weaponry.

QQ MOAR PLS.

I'd gladly leave aircraft alone if they would leave me alone. But it appears to be impossible to resist that easy XP from us ground ants. So I shall continue to harass you with all AA stuff I got.

Read what I said again.

"Infantry are tiny, easy, free, use their counters against us free, can use cover, can be revived, can be rearmed anywhere, do not get locked on to- therefore cannot understand how unbelievably frustrating it is- and will respawn in a matter of seconds to do it all again."

You are contorting what I am saying and seeking sympathy for something that has absolutely no relevance to the Ground to Air and Air to Ground discussion. Not to mention that air costs resources and cannot be revived. Your death as a result of a bouncing betty cost the user resources, your death as a result of the Infil is him using his advantage (his cloak) well, your death as a result of the LA with the Shotty is again the LA using his (his jetpack and agility) advantage well. What did you penalty did you pay in your death? 10secs waiting to respawn a short distance away.

When somebody uses resources it is because they are paying for a force multiplier... some lackey standing there with his free HA, his one time cost- free and easy to use- lock on launcher, and staring and clicking in a general direction and countering or completely denying airspace is a terrible game mechanic. It is designed for people who think they are entitled to counter everything, anywhere at anytime with little or no effort. I accept attacking an AA counter like a Skyguard is difficult, very difficult, and recognise the risks involved. If I do counter it I gain a small reward but have made very little impact in the greater scheme of things. This is because again, some dude will just pull his HA and deny me the airspace I just won back with his lock on anyway. What is the point in flying with BS like that?

So much strawman from the OP, who clearly believes he's found the ultimate counter argument, and must sculpt everyone else's argument to be countered by it.

Strawman? How, show me how it's stawman. Or can you not add to the discussion?

If you are reffering to my sig, it's completely true. Even the guy I'm having a reasoned discussion with says most ESF pilots don't use flares, but then complains that 2 lock ons get him to the red. They would not if people actually used their counter measure.

The only avenue left is now the it costs resources, which is what someone other than me said would be used as justification, they were right.

Air have serious entitlement issues, I just enjoy winding them up about it