I don't know why, but my best time in PS2 was in the air, with squadmate. Infantry gameplay is often deadly serious, you have to be reactive, death await at every corner, there is no time to chat, and if you do your squad leader's head explode. The reptilian brain is in control. In the air, well, there are downtimes. Like : point your nose in the direction you want to go, and that's all you have to do for a minute or so. You won't be jumped on by a C4 faeries, you won't blow up on a mine, if you fly high enough AA don't engage you, and every threat make a noticable noise that gives you time to react, if it isn't plainly visible. In short, you can relax. That's when you have time to be social. The air fight are paced in a way you can often talk to the last guys you fought. When I do that as infantry, I often get killed in the process ^^. Not really a "great social experience".
The difference between a coordinate group of competent pilots, and the same number of decent skyknights solo/without coordination is immense. Teamwork is a huge force multiplier in the air. Your situational awareness is boosted hugely, not even considering the benefits to a Lib crew of being shadowed by an ESF or two. A small group of TR, (and 2 bad *** VS pilots) on Ceres have recently been regularly taking on the NC WDS ghostcap zerg late at night. ~8 players against 48+, absolutely dominating the NC aircraft (apparently our dalton gunner aimbots ). Granted a lot of the NC pilots are rocking lolpods and 0 skill, but the deciding factor is that we are used to flying with each other. We are familiar with each other's playstyle, and anticipate positioning of each other. The ability to kite a tail back to a waiting tankbuster has saved my skin countless times. ...enough epeen stroking. Suffice to say, the A2A game has by far the highest skill cap of the 3 "tiers" of PS2 combat, and in that arena more so than the others, teamwork matters orders of magnitude more than skill. One of the reasons that the air game (ESFs in particular) is seen as so inaccessible to newbies is that a lot of the more experienced pilots fly with wingmen. Hopping in an ESF and picking a fight solo, even a top tier pilot has a markedly finite lifespan. Teamwork makes all aspects of this game more fun, but I think it makes more difference in the air than anywhere else.
Being a pilot in PS2 does grant you an undeniable advantage in beach volleyball, over the other types of players...
Pretty much this. And yes to OP, it lets you chill out sometimes and have a chat (usually while disengaging and waiting for autorepair to kick in) which tanking/infantry doesnt.
Used to be in PS1, you had to fly in gals to get to battles... gave infantry combat the same kind of downtime. The game is so much better without instant action. Having a moment to talk to your outfit mates etc... joke... etc... we could use more community time. Luckily, the air game retains that kind of pace. Also, black operations (ie taking down base gen's) ... PS2 is great, but, in a rush to fill every second with twitch gameplay we lost alot of the moments that made Planetside a social game. I always just chalked that up to being from a different era of games thou... to be honest.
Annnnd now 'Danger zone' is stuck in my head. Thanks. On the actual topic. I personally have the opposite time than the OP. When I'm in the air I have to constantly worry about incoming targets, not over extending into enemy AA concentrations and not running into a tree/cliff/ground. Not to mention that I'm constantly worrying about my location as it relates to the rest of the mossies in the squad and staying on targets as they get updated. To me it's a whole hell of alot of work and the tempo seems much more fast paced for longer periods of time (until the aircraft explodes and suddenly you've got lots of time). Compare that to running as Infantry. Unless we're balls deep then there's not much traffic that needs to be passed. Sure, enemy incoming but that doesn't take but a second to acknowledge and issue orders. Once those few seconds have passed, you're free to continue the conversation. If you've played with a group long enough, you don't even need to pause the conversation while you deal with new and changing threats on the ground. Plus, you wanna see downtime? Some of these caps consist of brutal fighting for the first few minutes and then boredom for the rest of the time.
You'll have the best social experience with people you like. It doesn't matter if you fly, drive or walk, just people you could call 'friends'
A few months ago a half-squad of my friends defended a tower from a Vanu force three times our size not once, not twice, but three times as their sunderers were destroyed and they were forced to regroup to come at us again. C3 makes a huge difference in all aspects of the game.
