[Suggestion] AA is Stupid, Let's Fix That

InfantrySide strickes back! But really, why are the cannons being nerfed?

Well, a lot of infantry players don't like getting instagibbed by HE rounds from 400m away, and (from what I've read in the test server discussion threads), they seem to be trying to find a way to nerf HE rounds and still make them worth using relative to the other choices, which means they have to nerf all of them. In fairness, it's called the Test Server for a reason, and no one really knows that the final changes will be, if any.

No idea why the devs have to nerf EVERYTHING else. Why nerf AP? It has no splash. Why nerf HEAT? It's a balance. Just make HE have a larger radius at the cost of lower damage. Instead of making the cannon like this, make it an ammo option, make it a CHOICE the player can make.

you say that, but I remember why anchor modes velocity bonus got nerfed.

Well you see, the way it works is that any weapon that actually kills a pilot must be a "low skill weapon".

After all, what kind of noob can't hit a compact-car sized object traveling at 300+ km/h 800m in the air with a hand-thrown rock? Hand-thrown rocks are all the AA you need.

Im going to make a nice list for you of how things currently are so you can wake up from your fantasy world.

A single Skyguard(AKA the most expensive and specialized ground AA in the game) needs:

4 seconds of constant fire and 100% accuracy to kill a stock ESF and goes on like this:
5 seconds 80% accuracy
6 seconds 66,67%
7 seconds 57,14%
8 seconds 50%
(close to)9 seconds 45,71%

After close to 9 seconds the Skyguard is out of ammo and has to reload.
Yes thats right, a Skyguard needs a minimum of almost 46% accuracy to kill a stock ESF without reloading and it needs the ESF to stick around for almost 9 seconds to do so if it "only" has that low accuracy.

If the ESF has Fire Suppression(most do) that adds 25% health, or 1 second to the TTK wich puts the list like this:

5 seconds of constant fire and 100% accuracy to kill a ESF with Fire Suppression
6 seconds 83,33%
7 seconds 71,42%
8 seconds 62,5%
(close to)9 seconds 57,14%


Anyone that has any sort of experience flying can tell you that in 5 seconds a ESF can move a long distance, actually the basic AB lasts about 3-4 seconds!
So somehow pilots still think Skyguards are good enough/too good when its actually a small miracle everytime a ESF dies to a single ESF... a miracle or the pilot served his head on a platter. I mean if you check sometime how far you can get in 6 seconds, there is almost no way a Skyguard would be able to have LOS on you for that long and even if it did he would need 66,67-83,33% accuracy to take down the ESF.

Actually if you think about it there are very few "realistic" entries in this list because if you pick a short time the accuracy demand is unrealistically high while if we pick a lower accuracy % its a unrealistically long fight. ESF dont stick around for 6-8 seconds when being shot at by flak.

Anyways... yeah. Skyguards so OP! please nerf the 8 rounds per second ROF to make it fire even slower and the damage is way too high, it only takes 32 hits to kill a stock ESF.. thats like... only 45,7% of the entire clip! *durhurhurhur* /sarcasm



*Edit*
Realised that pilots will not understand what I really mean by miracle up there..
Stock AB lasts 3-4 seconds during wich the ESF moves very very fast(obviously). Skyguards shots move 400m/s, a ESF using AB means you have to aim waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of it to hit meaning if the ESF makes a slight move the shots will miss, maintaining a ~90% accuracy on such a target is a small miracle... because if you dont have that kind of % the ESF will more than likely break LOS before you can put out enough shots to kill it.

You also forgot that with a velocity of 400 m/s that means if an ESF is 400m away the Skyguard has to lead its shot by a full second. So those saying they are being hit "hexes away" are flying extremely predictably.

The person living in a fantasy world is you, where we gauge proxy-burst G2A weaponry in terms of 1v1 engagements. How drastically do you think a singular lock-on will affect a Skyguards TTK against ESFs? Is your tunnel vision regarding the matter so narrow that you would balance that weapon around being the sole source of damage versus the most fragile and exposed vehicle in the game?

I don't find Skyguards to be overpowered in the least, but if you want to talk about 'realistic' in regards to gunner accuracy vs a maneuverable craft you should try and be realistic about the situation as a whole.

Thats true, another thing is that a Skyguard will miss shots on a stationary ESF at around 350-400m away meaning its close to impossible to even get a 5 second TTK unless the ESF is very close.

Also people tend to forget that ESFs are actually flying so the distance between a Skyguard thats on the ground to a ESF will be several hundred meters away even if the ESF is "ontop" of the Skyguard and any distance meassured with waypoints will be short quite a few meters depending on how high up the ESF is.

(Example: ESF flying 500m above ground 700m away from the Skyguard if marked with a waypoint = actually 860m away)

Depending on what sort of lock-on it is, still not that much in terms of time and the distance a ESF can cover in that time and since we are assuming the lock-on actually hits we should also assume that the ESF is running Fire Suppression. Afaik a single AA lock-on does slightly less than 50% damage, suppression heals 25% leaving you with a close to 75% health ESF... it takes about 1 second less for the Skyguard to kill it.

I still think 3 seconds TTK with 100% accuracy against a target moving @ +320kph is a long time and still a much too high demand on accuracy for it to even happen.

Man portable coyotes would make flares kind of useless as you wouldnt get any warning to a missile headed your way until it locked less than one second before impact.

Mostly good ideas though; your skyguard tweak would also make it more effective against infantry. Not sure what effect that would have, you'd definitely have to fight more AA.

I don't skyguard as i buy my weapons with certs and i havent spared 1000 certs for one, but I have a little pity on them even as a pilot because theyre defenseless against ground forces and rarely kill me unless they suddenly open up when im close or I blatantly **** up. Plus its a lightning so they can't exactly switch loadouts unlike bursters: **** them. Its kind of a thankless role to play. Making them skill based sounds fine but I honestly don't think their DPS should get nerfed.

thanks to botji everthing is said - fly aswell and whish for fire supression+flak+flares+autorepair.... but i also have my skyguard... if i got an ESF on the hook in 50% of all cases i got away Oo so whats your point? flying in a wall of AA and wonder that you die? also guys how fly low and slow wondering bout got hit by my AP-vanguard? seriously moar mimimi plox....

i think everything is pretty fair as it is...

Infantry AA is at a fine point in the game right now, The lock on range must be within 400m and requires 3 seconds to complete the lock not including travel time. If you have fire suppression, That rocket is only going to take 25% of your health. So it takes 3 AA rockets to completely destroy your ESF which only has a 250 resource cost and is the fastest most maneuverable vehicle in this game.

As for the skyguard, That is not really infantry AA, That is a tank that has sacrificed 95% of its ground defenses to switch for air defense. You can see that skyguard just as far as it can see you with the exception that you have the ability to easily run away from it.

Why does it even matter how much skill it takes? Planetside isn't about personal skill,it's about organizing yourself and your allies. Skill is secondary to teamwork. Besides,do you guys really think SOE isn't aware of how easy lock ons are to use?

As for the skyguard. A skilled pilot who is paying attention to his surroundings will be able to escape most of the time. Otherwise you got weakened by the skyguard and killed by something else or vice versa. At flight ceiling it's a minor annoyance at best. And even if they cause you major headaches,guess what? Combined arms. Have someone go C4 it. Just because you're aircraft pilot doesn't mean you get to operate alone.

Heard that story before. You forget that rocket launchers used to be lockable as long as the air unit was SOMEWHERE within the viewfinder. The flykids cried and raged about how low skill it was and it was reduced to the tiny square in the center of the AA launchers viewfinder. You raged back then and you will rage in the future no matter what they do with the AA weapons. You people will not be happy until they completely remove the AA feature from this game, Then you will start calling for the damn small arms damage to be nerfed because it "kills to fast".

As for your comment on "low-skill weapons", What the hell do you call lolpods, or the AI nose cannons? Don't bother saying you have to aim them, You have to keep the circle on a body and the explosive damage will do the rest. Its no different from an AA launcher.

Let me also not forget to mention that those "Low-skill weapons" as you call them also require me to maintain a lock for 3 seconds while making sure I am not getting killed by other ground units and other air units in the air.

I'm not saying I agree with the dev's approach, just explaining my understanding of it, or at least what forumside says about it. Maybe they could just give HE rounds extreme damage dropoff. Make the tankers take some risks to farm.

Dropping from the flight ceiling is only worth doing if you know there isn't gonna be any enemy aircraft around. You put yourself much further away from cover from AA, any enemy air will see you right away and you'll be further from help from ground forces of your own.

It's better to perform drops whilst circling the combat zone at a altitude enough to not hit any buildings, and just enough to avoid dumbfires. You can also drop you load and then exit the combat zone and wait for the galaxy to fill up again before dropping again.

[quote="Verviedi, post: 2820489, member: 175503]
Next, Skyguards should do less damage and have a lower rate of fire, but less COF bloom and higher accuracy. By pressing the Mode Switch key, Skyguards could switch to direct contact ammo that is more effective against Liberators and Galaxies, but requires aim.[/quote]

I like the second part, but having a range reduction (or a range revamp) would be better than something like this (the TTK is already pretty long for SG). But again, I like the direct hit ammo.

so wut m8 ive been havin fun with the skyguard lately, my best record few days ago is 10 scythe and 1 lib.

op ? no i just hid my self and those lib didnt even try to find me

Not to mention that the average accuracy rate of Skyguards across all three factions is around 27%...