[Vehicle] ESF secondary weapons

It's no secret, apart form the galaxy transporting infantry, Server Smash has two units taking part, Infantry and ESFs.
So why is this? Simple, the ESF gains much less bringing two specialized weapon systems than any other vehicle, that's because it has two weapons assigned to one operator.
The question then becomes why, and that's what i'd like to know, I've played since beta, and I've never had anyone be able to tell me why. To me it seems blatantly imbalanced, why should one unit be able to effectively deal with ANY unit in the game? Unless believe the ESF should just be a stronger unit.
Really the only way i see fixing this problem is forcing pilots to choose either an A2G or A2A loadout, not allowing them to mix weapons designated for differing targets.
The best example of this done right I've seen is funnily Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, a strategy game. It simply has the most powerful A2A unit specialized to A2A, forcing players to make something for A2G for that engagement. Of course while they put out A2G units the enemy will get ahead on A2A and eventually gain air dominance.
The worst example of this problem I've seen is BF3, where the air superiority unit the jet was given weapons to engage anything, while retaining perfect A2A power, it resulted in players going 80/2 every round and meant whatever team didn't have a pilot taking up the fight in the air would lose.
In the end the current balance with ESFs doubling as capable A2G and the best A2A makes for a very boring to watch SS unless you just want infantry and ESF vs ESF fighting.
(Please remember to be constructive with replies, we need actual discussion on this topic, not the name calling and flaming that both sides are equally guilty of.)

Because BF.

Funny story that would also fit the heavy as well which is fine.

So the TLR of this post is you died to an ESF and are now mad that one person can't take on a person in a vehicle. Pull your own Esf. OR dumbfire.

Far from it really, i don't see how you managed to take my post as me being mad.
Regardless, unless you want to actually discuss it, instead of just writing this of as "Some vehicle guy got mad", don't bother posting.

Pull my own ESF or dumbfire:
Dumbfire isn't even meant to counter them, and pulling another ESF is the exact problem i'm addressing. An entirely capable A2G unit is the dedicated A2A platform as well. The way i see it, you just solidified my argument with that reply.

lol, dumbfires are not the counter to ESFs, you're much better off taking a lock on or faction RL, and even those still require the ESF to be pretty still for a decent amount of time.

You are not even making sense. A dumbfire pretty much insta-gibs an esf.

No I didn't.
You actually managed to make you look more like a mad person.
Dumbfires pretty much insta-gib an esf. You can one-clip an esf with less than the default mag size.
In other words, LEARN2PLAY!

Thats a good question, Why should infantry be able to deal with every single unit in this game simultaneously?

As it stands now, an ESF with a mixed loadout is weaker against A2A ESFs, and less effective at A2G attacks. If I pull a banshee and hornets, I can take out anything on the ground(provided it isn't protected by flak), and if I pull a rotary and coyotes I can take out ESFs(well, not me I'm not good enough yet, but theoretically speaking I would have the advantage against A2G ESFs).

The best A2A loadouts really aren't good enough against ground targets to mention. Obviously you can kill infantry with coyotes or a rotary because they are squishy, but those weapons really aren't effective enough to make it worth changing their balance. Someone who pulls an A2A loadout is really only going to engage the ground if there are no ESFs around anyway.

Does it even matter that they can have 2x weapons? ESF have extremely weak armor and are countered by almost everything.


How to kill an ESF:

-Small arms fire (I finished off a valkyrie yesterday with my medic's assault rifle...)
-Dumb-fire Rockets (yes, this one takes skill and/or a foolish ESF pilot)
-Lock-on Rockets
-Tank Shells (many will one-shot an ESF or make them burn)
-Bursters/dual bursters
-Base Flak cannons
-2x types of AA weapons available for most vehicles (even the default basilisk is an effective deterrent)
-Skyguard
-Other ESF
-Liberators (odd, but true)


It's frustrating that people still complain about ESF, when I feel like I can single-handedly deny a large amount of ESF from entering a HEX with a simple MAX unit or lock-on rocket launcher. I won't kill the smart ones, but they will be forced to leave.

Oh, and an ESF that chooses a secondary weapon over 'External Afterburner Fuel Tanks', is giving up a lot of survivability. I rarely take a secondary unless the situation is very favorable.

Because of Heavy Assault class - it can deal with every unit in the game.

MAXes also can deal with every unit in the game, more or less. It's really nothing special. And it's not that a fully A2A optimized ESF pilot wouldn't have advantages in a fight with an ESF pilot going for both A2A and A2G.

NOTE: I'm no Server Smash expert, but here are my impressions.

I think your initial question is very good. But I think you're conclusions are bad.

You really should be asking: why aren't OTHER units being used (or being used more)?

Server Smash is Infantry based. Organized, full communication, spamming broken tactics. Teams don't mess around with slow travel time or prolonged sieges, they fast track directly to the base and overwhelm it. And the best ways to do this is to just put Infantry directly on the points and take/hold the base. In this world of hyper-fast-and-mobile-Infantry, ESFs fit because they are good at (open base design) AI, especially when there is not AA around. And ESFs are also very mobile and have great survivability.

So the answer you should be getting at is that Server Smash breaks the game with Fast & Skilled & Organized & Certed Up & Focused-On-A-Narrow-Objective (not farming, etc.) Infantry, and this invalidates roles for most other units.

If ESF were nerfed into uselessness in a Server Smash, then either one other unit would emerge to fill its role, or it would just be even more Infantry dominated. That doesn't in any way really address improving the status of other units in Server Smash.

A major problem with wanting to embrace Server Smash as an indicator of how to change the game, is that Server Smash does not reflect the Standard Game gameplay in PS2. Standard Game gameplay is much slower, almost totally unorganized, has terrible communication, and has mixed levels of Certed Up players, and people are not focused on any specific Objective. Other Vehicles do well in this type of environment, to the extent that it can be argued that Vehicles often dominate the Standard Game.

It is pretty special. I think a huge amount of complaints about HA, MAXes, and Vehicles in general would vanish if every class had some way to contribute to AI, AA, and AV. Currently every vehicle has access to AI/AA/AV loadouts, but only MAX and HA have the same breadth of options. Giving each class a class-flavored AA/AI/AV tool or weapon would help out the game tremendously.

Oh my word. If you allow me to give up my nose gun to equip Tomcats AND afterburner tanks?!?
MAYBE I'D ACTUALLY FLY AN ESF AGAIN
BRUH YOU CAN
WE CAN DO LIKE
We can just put all the weapons on the primary and DAT SPECIALIZATION DOE
They may be too versatile. But they're not too strong, so, mandating specialization is an easy way to start discerning what needs to be made stronger and what does not.

I love the idea of just moving all the weapons on an ESF to the main gun position and making afterburner tanks just part of the ESF maybe with options on how the afterburner tanks function like to function according to type of air frame you are using with the options to mix and match.

In other words, Server Smash is RedeploySide on steroids, and much less the continent wide, combined arms war PS 2 is said to be?

Not really... Tanks also can deal with both if you have the right set up. Even a Harrasser could do it to a degree if you change seats.

No, it would just make classes less original. An engineer just can't carry an additional AA rocket launcher, since he already has his backpack for repairing and ammo, etc. Same goes for medics or LA. They just cant carry an additional launcher, since they already have other tools for other stuff, which makes perfect sense.

Because Heavy Assault is so EZ MODE that the vast majority of players abuse it and put more time into the class than every other class combined.

And because unlike what SOE claims, they actually do nerf based on popular opinion, and HA nerf discussions mean that half the people on the forums start crying and shout them into submission.