Now that I finally have 1000 certs, I have no clue about whether I should buy the max flak cannon for the other arm or the skyguard. From what I remember the max's flak has a lower bullet velocity but whenever I am shooting stuff in someone else's gunship skyguards were hardly ever a problem, and it was always that one flak max camping on top of their spawn room that really screwed us over.
Flak cannon, skyguards are a waste of nanites. AA is a pretty crappy job and you become useless when the air leaves unless you can switch your loadouts. Also, libs eat skyguards for breakfast. You'll be able to kill ESFs, but if you think for 1 second you are safe against a lib, you are terribly wrong. Flak cannon all the way.
Basically, the burster MAX is better if you want AA for defending a base, and the skyguard is better for supporting an offensive push. To elaborate a bit, the advantage of the burster MAX is that it can always be pulled safely from the spawn room, while you can't do the same with a lightning, and the MAX can hide indoors when it starts taking damage, which a skyguard can't do. Also, when the air threat is gone, a burster MAX can swap to an AI loadout. The skyguard, on the other hand, is a more powerful weapon, and since it's on a lightning, it can keep up with an armor column, or it can go roaming in search of overextended ESFs. Overall, I'd get the second burster, first. It's more useful in my experience to have a reactive AA option than a proactive one, and the burster MAX is the reactive choice.
Burster arm for the MAX, while having less range than the Lightning Skyguard, is also more versatile. You may find yourself in bases where it is unsafe to pull vehicles (especially true if you're not TR), so Skyguard will not always be an option. I also think that overall Burster will be cheaper cert wise. The Burster will need the one arm and possibly extended magazine for both arms, but the Skyguard will need all the upgrades fitting for a vehicle (scopes, reload speed or magazine size, ammo capacity).
I would like to add an advantage to the skyguard: High mobility and the ability to get behind enemy lines. You can see burster MAX's at Sunderers, spawnrooms and the occasional skilled squad/platoon that drops in the middle of nowhere to provide an AA nest. But in the end the burster MAX is almost always near a terminal or in predictable places, thus avoidable. The Skyguard on the other hand can travel behind enemy lines. I often use a stealth high-speed lightning to get far behind enemy lines, and ambush aircraft as they come back to repair/resupply. There's a high risk of accidentally running into Harassers, MBT's, Battle Sunderers or simply getting ganked by an air-group you pissed off or a random Lib, but it's a fun strategy. The Skyguard is also extremely suited for getting on places where the Burster MAX simply can't, and changing position to surprise aircraft in their next run. Think standing on top of Broken Arch road, or moving away from the base in the direction most aircraft flee to after their attack run. With luck they are damaged and fall prey when they think they just survived their attack.
get the flak MAX arm with SC (it's good for every character you'll ever make on any server or faction) and put the 1000 certs into the extended magazine for both arms. every player should probably do this.
you can do so much more with a sunderer that's built for armor and G2G battle. if air is a problem in that setup either change where you're fighting with it or have one of the gunners change to Burster MAX so he can hop out and deter air at the very least. 1 walker and 1 bulldog is too weak on the ground. 2 walkers is too weak on the ground to go alone, but strong as the center of an AA nest with an ammo sunderer, medics, MAXes, etc. a sort of niche loadout that you might pull once in a while for outift ops, but not practical enough to tell newbs that it's good to get. ranger is just kindof bad. sorry. it needs a little more damage, probably. it should be equal DPS to a MAX and it isn't.
I'd advise you to hold on to the certs until you have 2k ... you'll know better by that moment what you wanna buy!
I'll second dual walkers on a sundy with a deployment shield. It's niche as Obstruction said, but can be very powerful in the right circumstances. Pulled one on Esamir yesterday when one of the smaller outposts without AA turrets was getting dominated by air - reversed it back into the base and put it flush with a building. Me and the other gunner took out two galaxies, a couple of libs, countless Sycthes and deterred many more. It was hilarious watching the first few ESF lining up casually to do a bombing run thinking it was a helpless Sundy before we opened up at the same time turning them into a fireball in seconds It stopped the base being taken for about half an hour despite them having air superiority until a foot zerg arrived. I would only use it as a defender where you can get it into your base without line of fire from enemy ground vehicles though.
Me and my bro pretty much constantly run a dual walker ammo sundy when we are tanking, we park it in a decent spot and return for ammo or when a ******** enemy turns up with hornets / a lib, works wonders as they are so hell bent on revenge they dont notice the dual walkers until its too late. Even galaxies dont like it. Its a good tactic we find.
Buy MAX 2nd burster or harasser's Walker (good AA weapon for only 150 nanite) As the OP say, skyguard is bad at AA because : you can't hide it it's expensive (compared to HA and harasser) it's not versatile it lose against a liberator and can't run to cover (HA, MAX and harasser still can't win face to face, but they can run to cover, at least) If you want AA with a tank, use AP cannon.
Dual walker is great on any deployed AMS, ground threats are dealt with by the waves of infantry spawning at it and pretty much everything else around. AA is usually a duty no one takes but always wishes was available whenever air happens to attack.In such cases not only will you always have willing gunners and the most resilient AA option in the game, you will also have it passively,no personal action required. Ranger is not so bad dmg wise as people make it out to be and it REALLY shines vs libs, since when fired at the center mass of a lib the explosions completely blind the gunner. It has similar effect to ESFs as well, but by the time the blinding effect would matter the ESF will either be long gone or long dead. I would very much advise any new player against certing into a battle bus, since it requires good situational awareness, great feeling for the flow of the battle and at the very least one good gunner. Even then it is only really effective either in numbers or as a support vehicle. IF I had to choose from skyguard or 2nd burster arm only, I would only get the 2nd arm if I was buying for SC. A skyguard, while notoriously ineffective on it own, is incredible when supporting armored columns or adding to the AA of a heavily sieged base. It is very fragile, but on the other hand it is the highest DPS a single person on the ground can trow at anything flying.It is also semi effective vs tanks and infantry and extremely effective vs light armor. If you only need some AA because 1 or 2 ESFs are ruining your small fight, a heavy with a lock-on or a MAX with a single burster and an AI gun are gonna do just fine.
