[Guide] About AA buff suggestions

We were purely talking about pinpoint accuracy guns where the actual velocity does make a difference how good you will be abled to hit, not how much damage you will deal because of resistances.

Why would the Dalton not perform better then the Skyguard? It is attached to the same Air vehicle, that can keep pace, follow and actively hunt other liberators, something the skyguard is and will never be able to do. The skyguard is locked to the ground and at best can only passively attack air vehicles as they make themselves available to be shot, where as other Air vehicles can actively attack other air vehicles. And in my opinion, I think that is exactly how it should be. The best vehicle to counter a liberator is another Liberator or an ESF, because that helps support the Air game.

If you compare the Dalton to other ground based AV weapons, I think you will see it is no where near the threat people make it out to be, scoring at best on par with them. For all the crying people do about the liberator killing ground vehicles, it doesn't even show up as one of the to 25 reasons for a ground vehicles death on ANY ground vehicle, same is true about the Tank buster.

Dalton Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 13.01

Vulcan-H Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 22.18
Enforcer-H Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 22.56
Saron HRB - Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 20.63

AP Lightening Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 13.18

AP MBT TR - Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 13.2
AP MBT NC - Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 10.73
AP MBT VS - Avg Vehicle Kills / Hour = 12.08

Try to shoot a moving target over long range with a slug shotgun and with a sniper rifle.
You have to lead a lot less with the sniper rifle, because the velocity is a lot faster.
A faster velocity means, the bullet hit the target faster.
That means there is less time for the target to make a sudden movement that would result in the shot going anywhere but on the target.

You can not possible try pin point accurace with a gun that is not pin point accurate, can you?
I simply used the Titan AP/Prowler AP because of the video I posted, you probably should watch it before you comment.
The video explains high accuracy large calibre canons for AA, Prowler and Vanguard get closer to that kind of canon than anything else to the game.
High accuracy is the point there, that's why I mentioned it only being efficient against large aircraft groups.

It does not matter how many rounds per minute your gun can fire, it depends on how many bullets it can hit.
If the bullets get too close to each other, they only cover a small area, which any pilot can get around by taking a quick turn.
The bigger the covered area, the smaller the chance of the pilot being abled to make that turn.
You can not hit a target that does not roughly fly where you think it will fly.
You will have to make that guess due to projectile traveling time.
The smaller the CoF, the better you have to guess.

Can you use your own brain or do I have to explain everything I wrote exactly instead of you thinking yourself a bit to make connections?

I can do that, but do you want to read a five page essay?

No?

Then please read my text twice if you don't understand it the first time and can't make the connections.


No intent to offend.

My opinion is that leave the anti air and air how they are. Just put at least 1 anti air gun per base. they are decent at keeping air at bay but half the facilities do not have them

I really dislike the tank buster I have been killed in a vanguard by int in approximately 3 seconds but it is rarely used so it can be left alone for now.

A Skyguard is about as effective in AV as a A2G ESF is against A2A ESF's.....

considering equal skill of course.

The only issue is that there's a LOT of low skilled pilots which allows high skilled dogfighters to defend themselves with naught but a nosegun, when any pilot of equal skill with any of the 3 A2A advantages would smoke the piss outta him.

I've killed poor tankers in lightnings or MBT's even with a Skyguard. It's entirely possible.

They're more common in newer base designs I've noticed..

Indar just needs YET ANOTHER complete overhaul.

Esamir could use updating. Amerish less so. Hossin bases are great, people just hate that they can't tank there.

But is it not possible to argue that muzzle velocity has an impact on how much resistance they have? The Liberator is a monster no matter how you look at it - Walker, Ranger, or Skyguard - but the Skyguard's low velocity was intended to make hitting smaller, more nimble craft, especially at a distance, much harder. Even with its cone of fire, with a relatively static target, even at a distance, it's possible to land many good shots using with an SG.
In other words, adjust its ability to land hits and its damage profile has reason to be scrutinized.

Being abled to do something with a tool does not make it an efficient tool.

Some people being efficient with the Dalton against aircrafts does not say everyone is good at it.
It is efficient for those few people, but not for everyone else.

Efficiency is about the large picture, not a small part of it.
Efficiency is determined by the averange player using the tool, the averange player is less efficient with the Dalton against aircrafts than he is with a Skyguard.
People hit aircrafts well with a Skyguards, they may not at all hit them with a Dalton.
That means they are inefficient with the Dalton.
Transmitting that to the overall picture of very few people being efficient with the Dalton A2A, it makes the Dalton inefficient A2A.

I never said that.

I now see where the issue, we just have a difference of opinion

I would love to test both options (Mine and your configurations), but I honestly would be inclined to take lower CoF (More accuracy) over greater velocity (Faster bullet speed). Bullet speed is useless against a target if half my loaded cartridge of bullets is missing despite my careful aim and compensation for ESF flight movement.

Honestly, I would.

But... if the CoF was shrunk down significantly and it needs to take more velocity reduction as a trade off, well, then I probably would agree with you. Bullets that snail along in the air are useful to no one.

In my mind, if the CoF was smaller instead, you could be looking at a "higher skill ceiling" weapon because you have to aim; and aim well. Understanding typical ESF manoeuvres to predict there movements, and if you master you will be reasonably rewarded.

I know you never said that.
That is why I introduced the angle to this topic.
The Skyguard can do good damage when it hits - when it hits - and that is how it is balanced. The cone of fire was increased to alleviate pilots who felt that flak-based weaponry, after the major buff, were far too accurate. The SG was also managed around dealing with targets that are either slower or further out than the sort of targets Bursters are expected to engage (the main thing it is compared against, usually). That does not mean there aren't instances of target overlap, that I readily admit, but the intention was there. The rotation speed between the SG turret and the Burster and secondaries mountings are also things to consider.

Increasing their speed is going to cause problems of ideal target range overlap and cause the SG to encroach on other flak-based weapons, in my opinion, and may even push it into a realm where adjusting its damage may be considered desireable.

Granted, I think adjusting the cone of fire is going to do this as well, to a certain degree.

Lets just focus on this for a second. There are two options for making AA more powerful. Increase its effectiveness at long range (makes it a better deterrent and may guarantee some kills that were previously improbable) or to increase its effectiveness at short ranges (aircraft melt within a certain area). While the first option seems the most annoying, imagine how bad it would be if you lost your aircraft every time you got close to a base because AA was given a straight up TTK advantage at closer ranges. A2G would be very hard (if not suicide) and any low flying would be dangerous at best.

Long range AA better serves the deterrent role (which personally I hate but whatever) and would thus be the better of the two options if your interests and biases are with aircraft.

Flak you actually WANT a CoF because it increases the chance to hit aircraft which are moving at high speed and doing maneuvers.

A velocity buff would be the biggest hit-rate buff for flak weaponry.

Walker, the only ground based non-flak AA, has a velocity of 1000mps already, and a relatively tight CoF. You can tell how hard it is to use already against ESF's due to ESF size, speed, and evasiveness.

Bursters, SG, and Ranger should all get a velocity buff and normalized IMO. This would make the flak experience going from 1 to the next more consistent. Maybe not, but it's a thought.

Maybe Bursters and Ranger should be slower with SG having higher velocity.

More than ANYTHING though, I want to see AA players being rewarded more SPM for what they currently do.

I want to see how actually HAVING people want to play AA because it's decent for score affects the air/ground balance. I bet it'd change a LOT.

This crossed my mind when making my last post (Where I favour accuracy promoting shorter distance engagements).

But if you go for deterrent over long range, doesn't this further perpetuate the issue of Skyguards in one base driving enemy ESF's absolutely nuts when they are busy trying to tackle enemies at a base 2-3 bases away? (Assuming LoS is forgiving, which generally it can be with a bit of Skyguard ground manoeuvring)

Wide-range peppering of bullets in all directions.

On the flip side, this game isn't SUPPOSED to be individual battles in each base, so overlap across this continuous scrawling map is preferential?

Still, bet it annoys the ferk outta them.

Y'know what... a convincing point, I may have to reconsider my position.

It'd get to a point where Air would just not be worth it anymore really.
I'm sure a LOT of ground players would jump at that oppotunity, but overall I believe it's bad for balance.

Extend the ranges a LITTLE bit perhaps, but not by much.

They could reduce resistances to Walker perhaps, since it's a more high skill weapon than the flak based weapons... but then what of the Skyguard which is supposed to be (and is currently) the premiere "per player" AA option.

I dunno, I kinda think the Walkers SHOULD be better at taking out heavier Air. This would give an option to provide a lil more threat to Libs and Gals. Not a whole lot better though. A single dual walker sundy kicks in some serious damage pretty quickly honestly.

Perhaps the Skyguard could use an "AP" ammo that turned it into a "super walker" with 1.2 to 1.5x the effectiveness/power of a single Walker.

You'd still want Flak for ESF's

I've done a lot of flying AND AA... though not NEARLY as much AA as recently. Not because AA got weaker (I don't believe it has, and has actually been buffed) but more because I'm solo so often these days, and solo AA is the pits, while solo ESF is pretty easy to pick engagements and just fly with other randies.

I used to lead some AA operations, and we used to piss off VS and NC pilots on Jaeger. We'd use a top Walker galaxy parked on the ground (often on a cliff) as bait, with 3-4 dual bursters, a lockon or 3, and myself as the Gal pilot as an engineer for ammo and Reps... and manning the top gun when no reps needed. We had open comms and would hold fire until enemy air got close enough to begin attack runs on us, then we'd all open up at once and they couldn't even turn away before blowing up in smoky ruins.

This was back when there was a LOT more air too, and it was about 3-4x as deadly as it is now. (before any lolpods or Dalotn nerfs)

This is an issue of people learning to predict the actions of enemy pilots and how they will fly when attacking a Lib, and the use of learning your partner's paterns and knowing when and where to turn or shoot to optimize the angle of the shot.

Replace it with any other unit or weapon and you have a recipe for disaster. Imagine if the only counter to tanks was more tanks. The game would eventually devolve into who brought the most tanks to a fight because otherwise they would be hard to beat without using a tank.

The air game is dying not because of AA, it is dying because the community is toxic as **** if you don't use noseguns+AB. The flight mechanics are wonky at best, it is a shame the RM has lasted so long, and there are too many cert walls for the platform. At this point I am sure that the air game is gonna revolve around galaxies and farming people with A2G. Nerfing AA to **** is only gonna make people pull AA, because that is the only option usable by them in the first place.

Uhm, isn't that already the case?

It is more annoying, but less effective. Kinda like mini-sentries vs. Level 3 sentries in TF2. The minis are far more annoying but overall less effective for most normal uses. yet, more people complain about minis than Level 3s because the minis are more annoying.

A close range buff would likely come in RPM or damage, and either of those would decrease the TTK on aircraft and make them much easier to outright destroy.