The Lancer is now my go-to AA weapon

So basically you want it to be so easy to take down ESFs that it essentially makes flying an ESF weak an useless. And just because the other options aren't fun for you? What about the fun of the people that fly an ESF? Might as well take them out of the game at that point. When the rockets were broken it was the most frustrating thing flying an ESF. Sadly, that's when I was learning to fly one too, and I about gave up. Fortunately they fixed it so the rockets where an automatic hit like they were.

Nope. This is a game that's designed to have vehicles that are more powerful that infantry. That's just how these games work. Maxes slay infantry far more effectively than an ESF can, and they can be revived as well. Tanks and other vehicles are more powerful than infantry as well. But they are easier to use, so everyone can hop into them and get lots of kills. You can't do that in an ESF without lots of hours spent learning to fly and how to stay alive.

Anyone that claims otherwise is full of it, the skill gap between driving a tank or max and flying an ESF is significant. Even with rocketpods it's not easy to hop in and farm. And if the rocket pods were taken out we'd have people complaining about the nose guns because they are just as effective with a little more practice.

It's kinda funny how you said you have nothing to defend yourself, and when I listed the things available to you, your response was "yeah but those things aren't fun". I don't know if you're just trying to be right or if we are getting to the heart of the issue. I can relate to the argument that it's not as fun as doing something else, but a lot of things aren't. I don't like camping a capture point, but it's gotta be done. I don't like repairing turrets, but if don't then they often don't get repaired(or at least not fast enough). I don't mind farming air targets with my annihilator though. Pulling a burster max isn't really that great, but at least I can change my loadout and hunt infantry when the air is clean.

I'm gonna need to see a link to that.

I believe it though. Like I said already, I mostly get assists with my annihilator. I think it compliments more powerful AA weapons better than anything, and that includes friendly air. But I'm pretty sure that a lot of those assists were kills for someone else because I was there. I shoot them, they have to hobble away, someone else gets an easy kill. It works well, and I see nothing wrong with that.

Oh, you think lock-on launchers are poop? Have you tried using a Ranger recently?

Edit: Please don't bring Lancers to attention or there'll be more people using them and then they'd nerf one of the reasons why I'm still playing VS.

Yet another thread with one ESF fan seeing no problem with them taking on squads of infantry with impunity.
Resources? The sunderers you target (even when your faction's not in the area) cost resources as well, but their AA options are nothing compared to your A2G ones.

If the fun of ESF pilots involves more than sitting there lolpodding everything into oblivion with no risk of being destroyed then i'm fine with that. I don't think that anyone would ever say that an ESF is weak and useless!

The thing is that vehicles will always need to be able to be destroyed by a resource cost free method. No one is going to spend 100 resource points on a rocket that wont actually guarantee a kill and is then gone.

If you believe that, you either have no skill as a vehicle pilot, only ever engage in situations where there are no ground support, have never gotten out of your vehicle or are just lying.


I suppose its possible you could be such a skilled infantry player that you never get killed trying to achieve lock-on, if so, please post a video to teach the rest of us.

Oh please ...

I love flying but am a truly rubbish pilot ... can't remember the last time I was taken out by a lock-on rocket though.

My suggestion is stop hovering outside spawn rooms with no ground support and you won't have to worry.

Esf's no longer need to close the distance, in fact since the lock-on nerf they do exactly the opposite and stay out of rocket range.
They now have their new missile that they can use at stand-off ranges and laugh at infantry.

So yea I can see where a Lancer would be superior, in fact it has always been superior compared to the other ESRL's. For some unknown reason the VS has taken forever to discover it's superiority.

It is only superior when used in a group, and a lot of people dont play organized.
Solo Lancer can tickle armor or aircraft a little but thats it.

I'm starting to realize that people might just be too inept to counter me if I decide to hop into an ESF and spam rocket pods at them. I always figured that people were at least as smart about it as I am, but apparently everyone curls up into the fetal position when they see an ESF approaching and just wait for death.

So I'm happy to announce that I will be farming with my rocketpods until the whining brings about more nerfs or people shut up and decide to actually learn to play instead of whining on the forum.

Also thanks for the ego boost. Here I was thinking I'm just average at best, but apparently I'm some sort of genius at shooting air targets with a lock-on. I have mastered the intricacies of the most skill-less weapon type in the game. I AM A GOD.

Couldn't disagree with you more on all points. Flying is hard. Infantry is easy mode for this game. Looking at your stats, this holds true even for you. Your 1000 kills in the mosquito are a drop in the bucket compared to all your infantry kills. The overall impact an esf of lib has on the ground game is marginal. They are just harassers, being pesky and annoying. Not the killing machines you are making them out to be.

Are you serious? Do you stand in a mbt's line of sight to fire off your lock on's too? Here's a tip - don't engage something stronger then you from the front or at an angle where they have sight of you unless it's a last resort (like a max getting up in your face). Also, don't stand in enemy infiltrator darts/motion detectors. If you end up stuck somewhere you know you can't get out of, hide and hit that redeploy key and hope they don't get you before the timer runs out! Your personal survival depends entirely on your level of situational awareness and your knowledge of how to respond accordingly. Being reckless is a choice.

pretty sure it was lots lower than 25%. Top of the list was crashing into the ground (at 30 something%), followed by ESF noseguns, I think flak was after that. Almost positive that lock on where not even in the top 5.


As for the lancer, its solid AA, same damage as a lockon, has 900m/s travel speed, gives no warning, cant be countered by flares, and has a higher fire rate. Takes some doing to hit ESFs with any consistency, but libs and gals are easy peasy.

Because Infantry is what I do primarily right?

I am a proud Tank Busting Prowler of the TR good sir.

Just gonna point out you still have much more kills as infantry ^^ I just don't get all the hate vehicle users get. It's way easier, cheaper and rewarding to play infantry then it is anything else. I myself play mostly infantry but I can still sympathize with the people trying to play as pilots. A lot of misunderstandings about the difficulties they face and their overall impact on the battlefield.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...cHJlWkJXYy13WVROc2s2TTNjOWc&usp=sharing#gid=0

I didn't do the math but it's somewhere around 25%, I think. So G2A is really not directly killing that many ESFs.

You need to be carefull with that statistic tho cause there is for example only 1 annihilator in the list(so it's likely all 3 factions combined) while there are 6 bursters in it(2 arms, 3 factions....so 6). Most dedicated G2A ends up somewhere around 1.5% per faction(for example the skyguards or 2 bursters combined)...so are the 2 main cannons of the vanguard combined. The annihilator is at 0.6% per faction(maybe a bit above cause those with strikers, which is at 0.5% too, will not use the annihilator). And you have to take into account that everyone got the stock weapons which should increase how many ESFs those do kill(more guns, more kills).

And last but not least it only says something about the final kills....many of the collisions and suicides are likely due to pilots that try to land seriously damaged aircrafts or fleeing from attacks.

i think you mean somewhere around 6%, anihilator, hawk, nemisis, grounder, striker, and a2a all add together to be something near 6%. As a weirdly interesting tidbit, duel photon pods have killed more ESFs than photon a2a. didnt check breakers and hellfire, wonder if they follow the patern.

Cause nobody is using photon A2A. They are crap and you can't use them against anything else than air. Then you rather use the A2G photons which can be used against air as well. And you should not forget that a lot of ESFs are likely destroyed while being on the ground for repairs...there they are easy targets for A2G and a lot of the non-AA weapons that we see in that list(hey...even tank mines are in there. And C4 is responsible for 0.35%...you don't usually use that on flying aircrafts. ;-))....

I don't know what you are looking at with your 6%....but I meant exactly what I said. ;-)
Most of the AA does around 1.5% per faction(and you have to count it per faction if you want to compare it to the vanguard...cause only one faction can have the vanguard).

Edit: The annihilator seems to rank around 1.8% too...maybe that it's only one in that list means that is already the average for all 3 factions(and it's not all 3 combined as I thought). I got no idea why the annihilator should then be responsible for 3 times as many kills per faction(important!) as the striker tho...given that they are sidegrades right now and that the striker was superior for a long time(so it was sold a lot).

Brilliant, so you list a series of things you need to know and do to successfully fire of a lock-on rocket. Thank you, my point made. It is NOT a skill-less weapon.

PS: This list also has strange parallels with the "simple" steps a pilot needs to take to avoid lock-ons. Funny that.

Most g2a is just areal denial. The "pro pilots" just farm somewhere else.
No wonder the vanguard outperforms the true AA tough --> no warning + ohk is just ways better @ killing than lockons and flak, since both seem to be easly dodgeable.