[Suggestion] Aerial Bombers

I have an extra International Beta Key if someone were to give me a North American Beta Key

What???

AOD doesn't really do ESF attacks. Our main focus is Galaxy drops on targets and Armor zergs. The majority of us (Excluding our spec ops squad) almost never pull any ESF's. Gals, Valks, and the occasional Lib are our deal.

I dunno. I've seen at least three AOD Mosquito swarms. The most recent one was over J908 when what appeared to be 2-3 squads worth of AOD Mosquitoes flew over and... did stuff. It wasn't terribly effective because I'm not sure what that Mosquito swarm was trying to do (it left most Sunderers intact).

Sadly at that time I was in an AP Lightning and not my Skyguard. Did manage to down two of them, which would have been impressive had they been operated by anyone who wasn't AOD.

You don't fly before, you don't fly alot now, maybe later on you decide that you fly alot. None of this matters until you came out with an argument that defies all conventional logic. If you want to make radical arguments, get ready to provide proof otherwise, don't make them.

Sure you have. Making assumptions about air combat without any experience in air? I'd call that a bias.

You're just crying crocodile tears. The tone of this conversation didn't change until Sherlock came along.

Those are just assumptions. Air getting kills does not equate to air dominating big battles. Anyone who has flow an ESF knows better to approach a big battle, even in a group. It's also a fallacy to assume all fights in Server Smash are big fights, because there's video logs of the map having 24vs24 and 48vs48s. Also, why limit just to server smash? There's live servers on every day.

If air dominates big battles all the time like you're implying, it wouldn't be hard to find youtube videos of ESFs farming away at a 13:1 KD in 96+ fights.

Fine. Whatever. You win. I was wrong. You bullied yourself to victory. Hope you're proud of yourself.

The reason why Server Smashes make for interesting observation is that you're going to get the biggest fights (not so many random ghost caps) and also the most coordinated fights (many players closely cooperating). You don't have your usual lone wolves messing things up, because it is a bit selective about who gets to play.

You also have the ultimate distillation of the PS2 meta... how to capture or defend points in the most efficient manner possible. This means everything is about speed... ground forces redeploy and air forces are almost all ESFs.

If you want to see what air can do when they are the best organized and prepared, then look at SS gameplay. If you want to look at how air normally operates (a bunch of clueless lone wolves) then the live servers offer a better picture of that.

Since the discussion that you and Iridar was having about organized air mobs, the best place to see those is on the SS servers and not the live servers. Which is why I offered those stats.

They aren't exactly vulnerable. The ESF can take entire clips at point-blank range, and it's not as if it's easy to hit an aircraft that can be out of your effective Small-Arms range within literally 2 seconds. Just as an example: The Pump Action Shotgun, capable of one-clipping a MAX when equipped with extended magazines, cannot one-clip an ESF but puts it just within a burning state. Add in that most ESF carry fire suppression and you've got a flying MAX that can be out of your range within 2 seconds and has a super-heal button. Last time I checked MAX's survived quite a bit of punishment even without being able to fly.
Also, the Valkyrie has gotten updates and is now almost impervious to small arms.
I'm trying it out in the VR room right now with the mighty Gauss SAW
MAX: takes around 50 bullets to down (bodyshots no headshots)
ESF: Takes around 60 bullets to down
Harasser: takes around 110 bullets to down (One clip puts it in burning)
Valkyrie: takes around 170 bullets to down

That's not what I said, I said that there are a ton of ways that infantry and tanks have options to destroy each other, but most classes don't even have the option to take AA (and calling small-arms effective AA is like calling a Repeater a sniper because one bullet can hit and damage someone at long range), for tanks the AA options are also limited and always make you extremely vulnerable to everything else, and more often than not the very thing you try to destroy has much better weapons to destroy you.
This is because AA sucks, it has skill-lowering factors like Lock-On and Flak that don't even need to be there as strongly, but due to those skill-lowering factors the power needs to be curbed to prevent aircraft not being able to escape when they are attacked.

So to recap:
Low amount of dedicated AA available on any class or vehicle,
Dedicated AA has it's power curbed due to skill-lowering factors,
Dedicated AA makes you highly vulnerable to everything else.

I didn't say they were great options, I said they had some form of AV, which is better than no AA. Even Harassers are killed sometimes by a Medic for instance due to tactics involving a drive inside a base.

You never used a Skyguard did you? I'm a great Skyguard user if Dasanfall is to be believed, but there simply are limits to what it can do against a Liberator with a good pilot. And the Liberator will simply win the engagement. The only reason he wouldn't do either the engagement or win it is because there's more AA in the form of flak or aircraft nearby, and he is at risk of being killed by them rather than the Skyguard they already blew up. Unfortunately despite the constant air-barrage they were giving us at the time, I was the only AA unit within several Hexes, although for a short time another Skyguard was there but he died when I took a different position and the Lib attacked while I couldn't help protect him.

I suggest you try it out yourself. Buy that Skyguard, it's the strongest ground AA available, and then try to go to town with it in any setting, so don't just pick it in a Zergfest, try to defend bases against aircraft with it. Just as a suggestion: pull it in the next base and drive up to the base you want to protect, otherwise you are too easily destroyed by tanks and infantry attacking the base, and aircraft will spot you sooner.

I rarely use the skyguard, simply because there is usually no need to, but here you go - those are mine.

Skyguard
A*
Kills: 121
V. Kills: 124 97%
Deaths: 70
KDR: 1.729
Accuracy: 31.442% B+
KPH: 12.700 B*
VKPH: 13 A*

And for convenience yours:
Skyguard
A*
Kills: 980
V. Kills: 614 159%
Deaths: 249
KDR: 3.936
Accuracy: 30.624% B+
KPH: 18.900 A*
VKPH: 11.800 A

Surprisingly similar...
In short, you got a ton more time in your skyguard, have a higher KDR and KPH and kill a lot more infantery with it.
I got a miniscule better accuracy and a slightly better VKPH. And I actually killed more vehicles than people.... damned bailassaults

I still stick to my point - how somebody with your experience in that weapon system can have trouble with a sololib that didn't get the drop on you is beyond me.

Good comparison. But here's the crux: The environment gave a few small handles for the Lib to use. It was on Indar near Broken Arch road and Tawrich depot. The low mountains there and even the towers+wall defending Tawrich Depot can give additional cover for the Lib on his approach.

I would see him approach over the Broken Arch and fire shots at him. He weaves around, meaning the Leading-spot moves unpredictable enough that you'll still miss a lot of flak shots. Shooting later is not an option, as then your reload will coincide with the Liberator cresting the low cover around you and having an almost free Tankbuster in you. So you fire while he's still far away and a lot of your flak will miss anyway...
Which is part of why they survive, it takes about 2 magazines to kill them now? Not sure anymore. Anyway, this guy had Fire suppression, meaning I would need the full extend of those two magazines to actually kill him. Since my damage was reduced due to the range and the leading spot moving erratically, he will now dive on top of my Skyguard while I still need more than a whole magazine to actually kill him.
I have shot while he was far on the approach, and are reloaded and have tried to position myself to make it hard for him to shoot me, he crests the hill and I drive as fast as I can right towards him while firing, meaning he suddenly has to dip far lower to fire his entire magazine. He doesn't bite, shoots most of his Tankbuster in me and levels off while I am still trying to blow him up. Now level and still about 100m up in the air he switches seats and fires his Dalton once, Game over, 1/3rd health left on Lib.

Fortunately for me, Lightnings were costing 175 resources due to continent locking. So I tried multiple positions to beat him, in the end having to be satisfied with the fact that whenever I found a position where he couldn't kill me, such as by moving as close as possible to the cover he was going to pop out over before he knew I had moved there, then he would simply fly away. Later on he got a gunner for him and even that tactic would fail, simply because he would hover right over me and let the Dalton rip me apart with about the same results: me dead and him around 1/3rd health left.

So I completely changed gears, and went on the offensive, rather than trying to take out ESF that tried standard passes through the Broken Arch right towards me, the worst thing an ESF can do and one of the few ways to get a good chance of a kill, I went around. Spawning at Tawrich I would climb the mountain at Regent Rock and move to Crossroads from there, or position myself above Broken Arch. Alternatively I could move passed Tawrich Tower or whatever it's called again and get to Regent Rock from there, sometimes I even went all the way to Zurvan Pump and moved to Crossroads from the Crown side.

Did it work? Not exactly. While I could pick off the occasional damaged aircraft, I only killed that Lib about 3 times while he killed me about 9 times or more... when he accidentally misjudged some rocks and hit it, throwing off his aim and ending with him on the ground with a lot of health lost, and once when a Reaver had damaged him heavily before being picked off by the Scythe Swarm, and once when he came around to Zurvan Pump damaged and misjudged his speed when landing for emergency repairs after I had a few hits in.

So what are we left with? Basic math: The time required to unload enough flak to kill a Liberator is high and can be increased by maneuvers and certs in armor, fire supression or even NAR, but the Skyguard cannot decrease the TTK with skill. In the meantime Liberator's time to kill you is incredibly low and can be lowered with skill as well...
The Liberator has a higher skill-floor, but the increase of power with the skill-ceiling is also incredible. A skilled Liberator can crush the strongest AA in the game any time they want due to this difference in skill-floor, skill-ceiling and power accumulation for increase in skill-ceiling.

Which is why all AA needs to get a skill-curve as well. None of this half-***** flak and lock-ons, but weapons based more on Walkers (but with more power-gain for being skillful rather than getting on-par with Skyguards), needing at least some measure of skill to wield against aircraft rather than "aim in general direction and fire".

With 100% accuracy, more than 1.5 belts to kill a stock Liberator, a little under 20 seconds (not counting shell travel time).

Obviously though no Skyguards get 100% accuracy, and both you and Haquim show that 30% accuracy is already pretty good. The average accuracy is 27.7%, and the most accurate Skyguarder in all of PS2 only has a 48.8% accuracy.

Please don't bash our entire outfit based on a few bad people. We are an open outfit, so we get both the good and the bad. We have our good players who excel at the game, we have our players where we don't know what the heck goes through their minds. We let anyone in, and our outfit is based on having fun and community, not being the best at the game. If you're looking for a skill-based outfit, don't look at AOD!

Good, next time don't make claims if you don't want to back it up with proof.

If you want to fixate only on SS, go ahead. However, the way you apply the stats is not correct, because correlation does not equate causation. Just because air had a 13:1 KD ratio to ground and there were large battles around, does not imply air had a 13:1 KD ratio in large battles. There's quite a lot of map shots in that video that shows mid/small battles being held. I haven't seen any footage of air dominating in the large battles in that video either.

Also, I have a problem with exclusively using SS as evidence. What's the point of balancing towards server smash? Can we now balance tanks such that they can't approach a 96vs96 fight unless they have 20+ vehicles in an organized platoon during a server smash?

The liberator is basically the bomber, if you like aoe use the zefer.

Though, if realy want a bigger bomber for the lowest effort ever they could just re-use the galaxy, remove troop carrying and deployment capabilities, and have mor guns or a few big bombing guns or bomb deployment thingys.

Because as everyone knows, balance in a game based on 100v100 fights is totally dependent on how many types of vehicle are available.

That said, making a bomber that actually behaves and feels like a bomber without being OP would be a horribly hard thing to do, which is actually the reason most games with vehicles don't have full-fledged heavy bombers that drop actual bombs outside of hard-to-obtain killstreaks.

Perhaps it could be used as an anti-zerg/spawncamp tool. If your faction on a continent is being heavily spawn camped in a large outpost or facility, the game grants you a single heavy bomber for that continent, to be flown by outfits, or maybe it would grant you a bomber fleet with a lead aircraft flown by outfits and the other bombers being flown by pubbies.

i see that this devolved to the typical hate campaign against aircraft. in response to the OP: this sort of craft would not stand a chance in the air game we have in PS2 unless it had extreme airspeed, like 350+ kph with good acceleration. there's no point in adding any new air vehicles, the time needed would be much better spent overhauling the valkyrie into something that matches the other aircraft in speed, physical handling, and weapons stabilization. as it is, the Valk is a perfect example of how a different flight model and basically defenseless aircraft works in PS2's incredibly hostile G2A and A2A environment.

The weakness would actually be beneficial. ESF's would be needed to cover the bomber, and it would prevent the bomber itself from being an OP godmonster. Either a small, weak beast or a slightly downrated health galaxy would be ideal, so either a large target with medium health or a smaller target with low health. That would put it about even with the ground fire. Half the time the vehicle would find it's target, half the time the target would get it. Also add in an altitude limit when it has the bombs (AKA loaded down) and make it cost a lot of nanites (AKA 550ish) to prevent people from just pulling constant bomber runs. That would make it a serious investment, with maybe stronger bottoms to compensate for ground fire (But still weak, I was thinking about .5-.75 of a clip of a skyguard to kill it on the bottom, and very weak top armor to make ESF air cover mandatory. It would also force people to work together, as a single bomber with no cover wouldn't work very well.

The old Planetside 1 liberators were not gunships. They were bombers and dropped bombs on enemies whether it was anti tank of anti infantry. The problem was they were weaker back then and the bombs could only be dropped in straight and level flight with some minor variation.

ESFs don't cover anything except their own score per hour. it's not fun even when you do try to be more of a team player and cover a weaker friend. believe me, that's why good lib crews do their own air to air. they have to, they learn to, because no one else does it and the only reliable way to stay up for any length of time is to get good at self defense up there. the thing about it is that it's actually fun to do, even when you lose.

the point is no one is going to fly a piece of trash like you're describing, especially if the results for that many nanites are "half the time you get the target" and "killed by less than half a clip of skyguard." you can't just slap together some random idea of rock/paper/scissors in a system this complex. it works to some degree for RTS games, but in those games the individual units don't have to find it fun in order to exist. in PS2 it has to be fun, or at least effective enough get a certain threshold of score towards progression to even be considered.

i mean, that is essentially the fuss about AA all over these forums is it not? that it's not fun enough (air just leaves because it's not fun for them either) and not rewarding enough (doesn't get consistent kills or passive support xp.) so what you're suggesting is a newbmobile that will be an even bigger waste of time and nanites than pulling a stock lib. just look at the reaction to the Valkyrie, and that's not even that bad of a vehicle, really. it's just an example of poor execution of what was initially a really good concept. in fact, i think almost everything that's wrong with the Valk can be solved with changes to numbers in the vehicle physics and weapons handling files, so it's actually really close to being useful/good if they would only make the adjustments.