[Suggestion] this game would be objectively more fun for a majority players if A2G ESF's were toned down.

so that his buddies with their A2A loadouts can kill you? ESF's don't travel alone anymore.

libs aren't as all powerful as they once were.

lol

skyguards are at the bottom of the food chain. everything kills them, even single libs. pulling a skyguard with AV around is bringing a knife to a gun fight.

ESF's are chain pulled. MBT's come in waves due to travel time. you can't just "kill those ESF's" they are never not present at all times around every fight.

so that you can become tank popcorn? k.

in my experience the lock on time is long enough for ESF's to kill their target and comfortably retreat.

pretty much the only reliable option. too bad its more boring and unrewarding than anything in this game.

almost as much fun as watching paint dry.

because there are never much of anything else for long in big battles?

clearly you've never used the mags primary. it has such pitiful DPS that the mag requires an AV gunner to be effective.


a FPC/walker combo is much worse off than a hornet/nosegun combo

Well then that's a problem with the mag, isn't it? Vanguards and Prowlers work just fine 1/2.

I don't know which big battles you've been at, but there are usually tanks all over the place.

I used to have a lot of problems with them... But so many things have gotten changed over the years....
Skyguard functionally...DID NOT EVEN WORK at release. Resources flow was too slow for newby pilots to attempt to counter A2G'ers or pull a Burster max several times in a row. And Cert gain was too slow for newbs to afford another Burster or Tomcats either. Hawk eventually became an option when it was knocked down to 250certs. ...But now it requires as much finesse as sniping or more b/c the missile will often shoot a good 10ft wide in the direction the aricraft is moving right into the dirt instead. And let's not forget the biggest issue of all.... Base design used to be so porous that there was no where you could ever stand without being hit by 10m AOE's like Zephyr / lolpod nukes / HE rounds. Even the Dalton used to be a highly effective A.I. cannon.

This game for the longest time, literally required no skill whatsoever to play A2G. It only required luck or scout radar. Infact scout radar used to highlight deep-cloaked infiltrators (standing still). and Thermal on ESF's might still have too low of a Skill-Floor and ideally IMO should ONLY be able to highlight MAX suits & other "vehicles". But speaking of MAXes.... the Banshee nerf was probably the last real outstanding issue with A2G b/c it tore a MAX apart in less than a second from decent range. And now that's over with.

But yes... There has been a lot of changes to somewhat normalize skill indexes of "Sky Knights". I've been flying a lot more myself ever since and even invested certs into it. It's actually an interesting meta now. I really wish the Devs would fix alerts so that TR doesn't have a permanent discount on all its Air... but other than that, I finally find it engaging and on the cusp of being balanced'ish

1. Are you saying you should be able to easily win an outnumbered fight? If he can bring friends, so can you. And guess what? You get one more A2A ESF than they do.
2. When did we start talking about libs? This thread is about ESFs. A skyguard's not something you're generally going to go head to head with in an ESF.
3. Sunderers don't, they're always there--and he said Sunderers, not MBTs. If there's an armor group, there are Sunderers.
4. Ever heard of mobility? Besides, you don't have to be on the frontlines to fight aircraft.
5. In your experience, you've never flown an ESF against lockons. Unless it's running Stealth--which only increases the lockon time by 1 second at max rank--or you're sitting in the open yelling "Shoot Me!", you'll get that shot off. He might evade it, but then again that's a skilled counter.
Approximate strafing time an ESF spends within lockon range: (500m for NS Annihilator; lockon time is 4 seconds w/max Vehicle Stealth)
Assuming the player commences fire at, say, 300m, fires both Hornets, and turns immediately upon impact:
We will assume the Hornets fire simultaneously for ease of calculations.
-Mosquito's speed going in will be 220 km/h. Going out will be 320 km/h.
-The Hornet travels at 125 m/s.

The Mosquito will initially approach for 200m within lockon range. 3.3 seconds
The Mosquito will then fire the Hornets, which will travel for 1.6 seconds. Mosquito approaches another 100m.
Distance out is 300m at 320 km/h. 3.4 seconds.

Total time per pass is 8.3 seconds while within a lockon's range. This means you will have the chance to fire TWO lockons--sufficient to kill the Mosquito if both hit. The strafing run will take even longer with anti-infantry weapons as their range is shorter, requiring the Mosquito to get closer before commencing fire.

Meanwhile, the Mosquito has to go crazy trying to dodge your lockons; all you have to do is step into cover, which if you're not in the middle of running across a field should be close by.

and how long do they last typically.

If by fine you mean a sub 15 VK/D, then yes, it is fine. But for people that are not amateurs, it's not fine.

Although, if ESFs didn't exist, I would be effectively unstoppable unless outnumbered 3-1

This is a **** argument. As soon as you have to stop doing what you enjoy and do something you don't enjoy so you're able to go back to doing something you do enjoy, the game stops being a game and starts being a job.

not when terrain/etc lets the ESF skip the commute and only stick around to shoot

not if the ESF has an ability button mapped

you mean, he has to press ability button, point nose down, kill you, or run behind that same mountain/etc

Do us a favor and show us then. But you can't and don't want to fly.

If you stopped hiding in your Mag maybe you'd wake up to the reality - the air game isn't pretty, tanking just is far far easier.

And do find some decent people to run with - I know my own Skyguard and VS MAX helps out on Emerald. You claim that air forces you to run something different but yet you've hardly pulled and gotten kills with your Bursters in all this time of playing?!

i always win outnumbered fights. i worked hard to get where i am on the FPC leaderbaord, which makes it all the more frustrating that all your hard work is essentially nulified by something that doesn't need to exist and is only harmful to this game overall.

the only thing the skyguard can do well is deter. the problem is the skyguard attracts attention from pretty much everything. ground targets can see its extremely long tracers so even with stealth its a sitting duck. the skyguard is bad at what its supposed to do, kill ESF's. any competent pilot can avoid them, even i can avoid them, and i have less than 50 hours in a sycthe.

and they're much easier to kill than ESF's as a tank. tanks hard counter sunides. nothing hard counters air except other air.

any competent tanker can tell you harrasers are pretty easy to kill.

1 second is 40 meters. idealy i'd like to see A2G toned down and AA toned down as well. removing A2G from the fights with only farmers to complain and skynights to enjoy their personal fighting game without having to worry about lockons.

this only possible if no cover is available to the ESF (it always is)

IMO all Air not just ESF's could do with an overhaul ..

Remove ESF ground attack weapons , Focus them on A2A
Tweak a Libs weapons to be less effective versus infantry and air but more effective versus armour
Buff the Val's defenses and weapons and focus them on an Anti- infantry slant
Tone down A Gal's A2G but slightly increase it's A2A ( For protecting itself )

Then when we may finally have a " combined " air game , we could look at removing G2A lockons totally ...


Ofc never going to happen but can wish

pilots have 2 ground threats to deal with. im talking about the air to ground relationship. and i've seen more tankers abandon tanks for aircraft precisely because flying is easier.

I call ******** on that last claim.

when the libs were buffed to the point of near invicibillity about 8 months ago, a lot of tankers stopped tanking as their favorite thing to do had just become useless in a single patch. they've since fixed that stupid mistake and dedicated tankers are still too few.

In an ESF battle, you can still beat other pilots without afterburners/coyotes/lock-ons by being moderately better.

In an MBT battle, you have to massively outplay the other player to an extreme degree if they have an AV secondary and you don't.

Having a secondary that is useless against infantry and vehicles is giving up at least half of your power. Giving up afterburners in favor of Hornets doesn't cripple your A2A capabilities, but instead gives you AV and AI capabilities that rival Anchored AP Prowlers...

The only thing I would change about ESFs is the spammability of their secondary weapons. They are supposed to be supplements to the noseguns, not main damage dealers (looking at you Coyotes).

Reduce ammo capacity and double/triple/etc reload times for secondary weapons, and in return you can step up their lethality. I would be perfectly fine with two Hornets doing over 50% damage to an MBT or a full rocket salvo blanketing an area in heavy splash damage if the ESF that fired them can't use them again for 20 seconds.

I thought like the OP until I decided to focus on my ESF for my second character.... A2G farming is very difficult to pull off. against a competent force, you'll get killed within a minute or 2 or will be forced to repair every pass..

Jst try it, its quite difficult.

Given the existence of the liberator I don't understand why SINGLE ESFs have to possess the A2G firepower they do.
It's a one man vehicle, that's also really mobile and fast.

You can compare them to the Harasser-MBT situation.
Only the ESF is one player, Harasser is two.
ESF gets two weapons, harasser gets one.

Also, with the advantage of two weapons for a single seat, why are they (at least the A2G weapons - excluding the LPPA) both more versatile than what ground gets, in addition to in almost all cases being better/stronger weapons?

I also love it when flyers downplay the advantage of -flying-.


Sheesh.
We may have some disagreements Fleech. Nice to see this isn't one of them.