Skyguards need far, FAR more Velocity.

You make it sound like there is a large difference between them when there isnt.

A stock Skyguard does 60 damage per shot with an RPM of 480 and 400 velocity = 480 DPS
A stock Burster does 56 damage per shot with an RPM of 220 and 325 velocity = 205,3 DPS * 2 = 410,6 DPS

The difference between a Skyguard and a 2x Burster MAX is 69,4 DPS wich is slightly more than a single shot from either of them hitting/missing but the Skyguard has more shots before having to reload so it can do more damage than the Burster MAX in a shorter period of time.

Unless the MAX has extended mags, then the Burster MAX has 84 shots vs the Skyguards 70 wich in damage means the MAX can do 4704 damage with every reload while a Skyguard can do 4200.

The Skyguard has slightly better stats in some areas while the Burster has better stats in others but as Nasher said, if its a TR MAX using lockdown the TR MAX is actually much closer if not better than the Skyguard in both ROF and Velocity, only the COF would be a bit better for the Skyguard.



So yeah, dont see why you are dissing his opinion when its actually sort of perhaps kinda true?
At least in a DPS race wich is imo the problem with AA, the Skyguard doesnt have enough and its one of the things you really need when targeting air.

I dont have the exact numbers on how much the lockdown affects Bursters but I did try them out in VR and its a notable difference in both ROF and velocity so wouldnt be suprised if the velocity and ROF actually goes past the Skyguards.

*Edit* Well the tooltip says it does 35-50% depending on weapon, even if its just 35% the Burster would have a RPM of 297 and 438,75 velocity. So if thats true a TR Burster MAX could have 84 shots doing 56 damage with 297 RPM and 438,75 velocity = 277,2 DPS * 2 = 554,4 DPS

Better than a Skyguard.

I'm hesitant to buy the skyguard because of this thread, boo.

The PS1 skyguard was excellent. Like the harasser in speed and manoeuvrability, with a flak and machine gun, and was okay against infantry, deadly against air.

I'd love to have a dedicated anti-air vehicle loadout but not if the Skyguard is junk. :S

if you are REALLY good at leading shots then the skyguard is amazing. against ESF it is a pretty solid weapon because it is around a 4 second TTK (if all of your shots are direct hits) and against galaxies it is good because you have plenty of time to put rounds on target before they get close, it's just liberators that get to face tank AA fire, and then out DPS you. against infantry they are not as good as weapons with blast radius, but i would place the skyguard squarely above weapons like the basilisk for AI capabilities, i use it for mowing down infantry plenty and often hunt down snipers, you just have to be much more careful than other tank cannons and i would highly recommend proximity radar.

keep on the move and don't ever let liberators know where you are before you are putting rounds in their face. if they line up for a tank buster run, charge at them and get underneath them because the belly gun is not nearly as deadly as the tank buster.

If you use the Lightning for other things you can trial the Skyguard and get a feel for it but its not really "deadly against air" so dont expect that.

Skyguard as a weapon doesnt really gain much from certing into it aside from extra ammo so if your Lightning already has good upgrades your trial run with the Skyguard will be pretty much what you get if you buy it only less runs back and forth to get ammo. Zoom is imo useless and most other optics for it are more of a QoL/preference thing and reload speed doesnt much, only use you get from it is against Liberators and Galaxies as ESFs are long looooong gone before reloading becomes an issue... = Trial Skyguard without certs is almost = bought Skyguard with certs in terms of effectiveness, the main thing is the certs on your Lightning.

The Skyguard playstyle is also kinda special compared to most things in PS2, you dont really want to pull one at a base thats surrounded by air, a MAX is probably going to last you longer in that scenario. You pull a Skyguard to either provide cover for friendly vehicles or you roam around looking for aircraft mostly on your own, driving around the map and being a pain for the enemy air.

The low TTK against everything means you wont really get much kills unless you lead very well and also happens to be a psychic able to see into the future, so you can lead where the ESF is going to be going in ~2 seconds. The kills you get will mostly be pilots that for some reason or another doesnt react to you shooting at them for 3-4 seconds or those that already are taking fire/damaged.

All bad things aside, there are few things that makes me smile as much in PS2 as when I foul up some pilots day with the Skyguard because even if you dont kill a lot you are indeed a royal pain in the rear for them.

You might need to clarify this. Do you mean terrible game design? Because terrorism is one of the many words I would not use to describe the Skyguard/Lightning.

I think I saw more pilots complaining about FPS loss than Skyguard users being sad. I could be wrong, and its hard to tell emotion from white text on a screen.

For solving FPS problems through balance, the best way would be to decrease skyguard ammo, ROF, and mag size while buffing damage per shot and the COF bloom/recoil. Theoretically you encounter less frame rate drops (less explosion fx) and Skyguard balance is left unchanged minus a few small QOL buffs in the COF department.

same, buffing the skyguard at this point is just lunacy learn how to fire the damn gun before you complain its UP,


turning your graphics up to medium so you can see the tracers is the only difference between people who complain about the skyguard and those who dominate with it

tracers only work up to mid range. for the more difficult long range shots you have to rely on guess work and/or experience to figure out how far and where you should lead.

personally i think the skyguard is mostly fine and the only thing i want changed in the air vs. ground game is the tank buster, because any major changes to skyguard itself are likely to ruin any ESF gameplay. the ESF vs. skyguard game right now is incredibly beautifully balanced (not counting the FPS issues from the visual effects, i would be perfectly fine if the pilots were given an option to turn off the flak visual effects entirely), most ESF run or die but a very skilled ESF pilot or a pack of 2 or 3 that are coordinated can effectively kill or drive off my lightning, so the skyguard is a solid counter to ESF without outright butchering them.

I bought it anyway because frankly I love nothing more than being a right pain in the back-passage for air that would otherwise happily float around ganking us groundies all day.

(*Sighs nostalgically for the good old days of PS1 burster-MAXing.*)

I gotta say I wasn't disappointed. True enough one does have to lead but then that is just common sense, it eats up ESF's, and unsettles libs and galaxies nicely, even got one or two kills on those.

In a way I'm sure the burster MAX would also be quite fun and a worthy purchase but I settled on the mobility of a AA vehicle.

Good purchase if you like the AA role. You're not going to be like the British type 45 destroyer clearing out whole areas of sky at the press of a button but you'll have fun. Or at least I did.

Wait, people are still running around with "graphic quality" set to "low" ?
I hope you don't play TR, but If you do:
PUT IT ON MEDIUM OR ABOVE NOW !!!

This is an order!
I hate people who aren't able to see cloaked infiltrator, they run pass you and shoot me in the back all the damn time.

Skyguard
D-
Kills: 65
V. Kills: 68 94%
Deaths: 28
KDR: 2.321
Accuracy: 20.367% D*
KPH: 5.200 D*
VKPH: 5.400 D-



Some people just have their goals set very low I suppose.
I mean if people think its good enough as it is with stats like these then yeah, wont bother to try and say otherwise.

I will still think its bs to need 4-5 seconds of 100% accuracy to take down the fastest vehicle in the game :/

willterry puts zero effort into his posts. i don't think he even bothered to read the thread up until that point.

You know, I see people spraying wildly into the sky from time to time, and I never considered they might just not see the tracers. I read posts of people saying they can't hit anything, and while my experience in one is relatively minimal (I like AA Harassers better, I think I have ~25 Skyguard kills across 3 characters), I find that I'm able to get long strings of hits playing one (accuracy is ~34, 34.5, and 35.4 from least used to most used, avg on DA is ~27%, and that only counts people who qualify for the board!), with my usual issue being too much lead, because the proj. velocity on the Ranger is significantly less.

Sure, a Skyguard can't sit in the open and face-tank Libs. But you can move, utilize cover, and wait until they get close (ie, ambush), and drive one off by yourself. A pair of medium skill Skyguards will completely deter air in small scale fights, and adding just one lock-on will net you a decent amount of kills/assists. IMO, that seems pretty balanced.

The Skyguard fills its role and much much more. It's already one the easiest weapons to use in the whole game, and also the one with the greatest effective reach. If something that flies is within render distance of your skyguard, you can and will damage it seriously. The spread and rof also means it's actually easy to hit things far away even if you aim like a moron.

Seriously, everything about the Skyguard already screams that it's way too effective from far away. The flak explosions have no damage fall-off, precisely because it's splash. Also because it's splash, you don't even have to hit aircraft, just shoot in their general direction and that's good enough.

The only thing the skyguard needs is a hard cap on range. Let flak automatically explode at 400m. Then aircraft wouldn't be denied 100% of the big fights like they are now. The skyguard would still be a roflstomplolbbqhardcounter against groundpounders, hence protecting infantry efficiently, but you would need to bring your own air force to counter the odd liberator playing dalton roulette from the flight ceiling killing a tank once in a blue moon. The horror, I know.

I don't think I even have stats for the SKyguard because people keep on bailing on me (accept your fate darnit) :|

you can wait in strategic places and let them come in for a farm before you strike, but that is generally not as good for your team.

i laugh at all of these aircraft jockeys who claim the skyguard is "too easy" and that you can hit aircraft out at render range without any effort. imagine that your gun of choice had around a 2 to 3 SECOND delay before the shot connected. even with the extra 16 meters of size added onto the aircraft you still have to lead at least 40 to 50 meters ahead of the target for any hope of a shot connecting if the aircraft is moving at all. how many of your weapons do you have to have proper lead with to hit a GALAXY, because at range i have to lead a full aircraft length ahead to hit one.

skyguards CANNOT use weapon zoom for aiming (i still use it for target identification) because lead is usually so extreme that your target would always be off screen, there are no optics that are effective for firing the skyguard at flying targets.

you pick up a skyguard and make a video of your crap shots murdering everything out at render range. go ahead and do it at close range if you want, the lead there is sometimes so extreme that i have to keep my targets off screen and use my minimap to aim my shots.

no one is going to pity "pilots" who sit and hover too much and then get murdered by someone who could point their gun.

To be fair the Skyguard is easy and you can get hits out at render range, the tricky part is being able to keep hitting them with that 2-3 second delay and their semi-random movement and do that without fail for as long as they dont break LOS... then hope enough shots actually hit to make a difference.

Again, this is mainly against ESFs. Liberators and Galaxies are easy enough to read and lead where they are going and large enough that a lot of shots actually do hit them at long range.

ESFs are just so fast and wonky moving that at long range you just shoot at them to mess with them but even at close range the ESF is fast enough that you just dont get enough time to put shots into them before they are either too far away or break LOS. Unless they face tank the flak for a few seconds before flying off, then you have a decent chance to kill it but thats kinda like saying its easy to kill a MAX with only a carbine.. it just has to stand there for a bit, not run away for repairs and idealy not fire back at you.

i do generally agree with you and galaxies are easy enough to kill, but liberators generally require a full second clip to kill unless they are very close and rarely die, because they can use that extra time to either come up and kill you or run for cover... and then come to kill you.

i love the skyguard and think it is in a good spot balance wise, but i get annoyed when ignorant people claim it takes no skill to use.

That's utter bollocks. Anyone who's ever tried to use a skyguard against render range moving targets would know that instantly.

That's perfectly acceptable if aircraft are no longer able to damage anything on the ground from further than 200 metres away.