About killing Aircraft with Skyguard

To be fair I supose I didn't mention upgrades. I run your second suggestion as my go-to AV Lightning setup (I have yet to actualy finish certing up on Stealth and I cannot honestly say I personaly like the Racer so I have only a single rank in that). I will give it another go with what I got the next time I run into a big airbattle and see if it works better, also dump a few more certs into those (since they would be useful for tank combat too no doubt).

It will require some getting used to not be able to count on NAR to keep the Lightning alive in case it takes a hit. Still, I will give it a go. Still, I can see where pilots come from. It went extremely fast to clear the skies of any threat, it just wasn't very rewarding and fun (yet, with practice I supose it would be).

I'm inclined to say though, the bigest problem with the Skyguard right now is just that you can't swap out of the Skyguard without pullin a new tank.

I know this as well, and I know I can make a difference for my team. That's the only reason I actualy pull Skyguards, when I know I absolutely have too.

It does not change the fact I feel cheated out of having fun with the thing, even if it is very beneficial. It's not a vehicle I would pull otherwise.

just saying 50% at mossie render distance isn't possible with a skyguard, I never said it was 10%, but the spread simply isn't capable of that even against a perfectly still mossie

Oh, so you think that at about 1500 meters you should still be able to drill my whale. That's cute. It might actually be balanced.... If you were the only skyguard on Auraxis.

i was tired when i wrote that. not entirely sure where "10%" came from, maybe something i saw in the OP, BUT the skyguard can't be very inaccurate because SOMETHING has to offset all of the shots i fire wide short or into nearby rocks that infantry hide in. the conclusion we can reach with my 24% accuracy is that the accuracy of the skyguard on average MUST be better than 24% (mathematically this must be true). i aimed for 50% because 50% accuracy from me would be somewhat flattering in most cases and 50% of 50% is slightly more than 24% AND 24% is about middle of the road when compared to my rifle stats for my heavy assault. considering the extreme ranges i am usually firing at this would indicate that the skyguard is very easy to hit with in combat.

bah!

if you are spending 99% of your time not firing then you are probably in the wrong place. go to the nearest big fight and you will find plenty of targets to chew on. i cert farm in my skyguard. that is mostly how i unlocked my lasher within a couple days of play. i am hoping to break my current record and get 10,000xp in one life, currently i think my record is over 8,000xp (i think that was a couple days ago when i scored 21 kills in a row, some of that was full liberator crews, and maybe a partially filled galaxy). anything below 3,000xp in a single life is pitiful and means i screwed up somehow.

Yet it's the only thing in the game that nets me a constant 25k-30k score/hr while having a big ol plate of spaghetti between me and my keyboard. I pretend the pasta sauce that gets splattered everywhere are the bloody tears of ******** pilots.

Thanks for all the good replies, and even video for arguments

I'd like to address some of these arguments and make a few points.

As some pointed out, the skyguard is a very special vehicle in some ways - the kind of gameplay, driving behaviour, the kind of opponent (Angry Birds!). One point for the wide cone of fire was that it would make it easier to get started and keeping the air clear without too much effort. But please consider that the skyguard is NOT meant for newbies - it's a 1000 cert weapon! And as such, I expect a weapon that scales with player skill, one that is efficient for the purpose it is designed.

The skyguard is designed to KILL AIRCRAFT NOT TO SCARE THEM.

If you need something to scare aircraft, that's what flak is for exactly - Skyguard is a machine gun, not flak.
Flak like the Ranger uses exploding shells to irritate and blind pilots but does less damage compared to the heavy machine guns like Skyguard or Walker.

If I can't hit and kill a moving aircraft in 50m distance and clear LOS, it sure is my fault. But if I can't hit sufficient rounds to kill a stationary lib or galaxy in 500 m, it's the weapon.

I can well imagine. IF the skyguard hits it makes too much damage compared to other vehicles, as it only takes one clip to take out a turret at close range, faster than an MBT can do (which doesn't really make sense to me).

So there are these suggestions (also taken from other posts here):

• Slightly lower the damage done by skyguards in general to balance the higher % of hits vs. turrets and other vehicles especially
• Make it possible to change loadouts (at least type of ammo and add-ons for weapons) for vehicles
• Introduce a flak-like ammo for skyguard that does much less damage but irritates pilots
• Introduce an add-on for extra wide cone of fire (to increase the flak effect)
• Introduce an add-on to minimize the cone of fire (to increase DPS for slow moving galaxies and libs)

And last but not least:

• Introduce a "Fire on my Mark" feature so that it's possible to concentrate fire to counter massive swarming.

skyguard uses flak, so, I'm a little confused.

This. You can even see the explosions if you go shoot one at aircraft in VR training. I think that entire post was meant to be about the Walker . . . or something else entirely.

Maybe by description, not by actual mechanic. Flak explodes on impact or in proximity, skyguard doesn't. It also doesn't irritate pilots, it passes through vehicle shields like all machine guns. Its stats are more comparable to the Walker than the Ranger in terms of RPM and damage.

Regardless of the animation, the difference is whether it triggers the indirect damage on proximity to aircraft or not. If Skyguard does that, then it's flak. The tooltip and its actual behavior when fired at targets suggests that it does what it says. What is your source for the claim that it doesn't explode on proximity?

Okay, wait a second. Obviously something has changed considerably since last time I checked. Now the projectiles ARE exploding in proximity of enemy aircraft. If I fire at a galaxy, almost 100% of bullets hit a Galaxy from 250m. I kill a galaxy in two clips from that distance... it seems someone read this thread

Thanks!

EDIT:
It's three clips to kill a galaxy, two to kill a lib, a half to kill a reaver in the VR now.

No its flak. IT does explode on impact or proximity.Its every good thing about the walker and the ranger combined then multiplied by 2.
Walkers and rangers pale in comparison, and that's pretty common knowledge. 1 skyguard beats 2 of either easily in all aspects, so using them to compare the skyguards mechanics might not work out so hot.

lol yeah, its always been that way FWI
It doesn't explode in prox to infantry/vehicles for balance reasons...

The skyguard is designed to both scare and kill aircraft. It lays down a steady stream of death thats very hard for a pilot to evade.

my god if i could do that to infantry i would rule the ground too. actually sometimes i do because drop pods count as aircraft so sometimes i fire on enemy drop pods to get hits on targets in cover. the drop pods only last a couple seconds on the ground, but the skyguard has a ROF of yes.

The thing with skyguards is that they scale very powerfully, which hasn't been emphasized enough. Yes, 1 skyguard is going to struggle killing good pilots, even ESFs, but does make things pretty unpleasant for them. 2 good skyguards and ESFs are in alot of trouble, and non-sniper libs start dropping. 4 your dropping gals before they reach drop points. 6 you have a rain of aircraft wreckage blotting out the sun until they run out of aircraft.

While your numbers and effect are correct, I have never seen more than 2 Skyguards in any area..
Then again, I can't get into big battles, (crash issues..)

I recommend you read "The Art of the Redeploy". To maximize their infuriation above 9000, go in as an infiltrator and when death swoops in: eject, cloack and redeploy... They will rage in their bedsheets and have dreams about hunting you down later.

Skyguard needs a buff to projectile velocity.

Bad necro is bad.