Why is there no hard counter to Air atm?

I wonder how many people complaining about AA have ever flown in combat areas with any significant AA presence whatsoever.

"No counter against air" yet every AA has a faster TTK against ESF than any other vehicle other than the flash.

yeah, sure, in a small fight hex with zero AA air can seem a bit OP

this game isn't balanced around 12v12's though so get over it.

Air actually has relatively high TTKs compared to when you pit their weapons against ground units.

As I've shown, a Skyguard takes over 19 seconds to kill a Liberator, while that Liberator can kill the Skyguard in under 6 seconds. And that's not a 2/3 Liberator either... just a 1/3 Liberator.

A Skyguard can kill an ESF in 32 shots or 4 seconds. But an ESF can kill a Skyguard using Hornets in two hits to the rear (or 3 from the top) assuming that it's one of those 150% damage type multipliers, meaning that TTK is 0-4 seconds as well.

I mean if a Lightning gets attacked in the rear by an AP MBT like the Vanguard, it's at least 2 hits to kill or also a 4 second TTK.

So Skyguard versus ESF, 4 second TTK.
Vanguard versus Lightning, 4 second TTK.
ESF Versus Lightning, 0-4 second TTK.
Skyguard versus Liberator, 19 second TTK.
Liberator versus Lightning, 0-6 second TTK.

Air does have an unfair TTK advantage. The ESF is actually in a very balanced position... other air units like the Galaxy and Liberator need to be drastically weakened so that they have a much shorter TTK against them as well.

While on the topic of things we'd like to see for the skyguard, how about a new secondary turret option. Just mount coyotes on as a secondary turret option. Sure they'd do next to nothing, but at least it is another option for folks and you are doing it cheap by using premade assets.

Originally the Liberator Dalton was meant to be a 105mm cannon, as it's called by its filename in the game files. This would have made it closer to the Lightning Python cannons in terms of damage.

But along the way someone foolish switched two numbers and changed it to a 150mm cannon, like the Vanguard's.

Except that the Liberator Dalton has a much higher raw DPS than the Titan AP cannon (800 versus 518.75) and also much more adjusted (for damage type) DPS than the Titan AP cannon against tanks (1,200 versus 596.5625) because the Liberator cannons do 150% damage to tanks compared to the 113-115% multiplier for tank AP cannon. And that the Liberator can somehow reload in 2.5 seconds when it takes a Vanguard 4 seconds to do the same thing!

Pretty much they need to take the Dalton and just give it to the Vanguard. Then the Vanguard would have more DPS than an AP Prowler (1,200 versus 821.429 adjusted DPS).

Yea, that's how broken the Liberator Dalton is. More DPS than even what the Prowler has!

It is also pretty damn difficult to hit something with this thing.

Especially from higher altitude, it is really hard to hit with the Dalton.

I'm really not a Lib expert, but I personally find the Shredder much more effective than the Dalton.

It's also not easy to hit with tank cannon.

The Liberator Dalton cannon has an average accuracy of 45.1-47%.

The Vanguard AP cannon has an average accuracy of 44.7%.

Liberators get an easy, turbulence free, bird's eye view of the battlefield. Vanguards have to deal with bumpy terrain and partially covered/concealed targets. Plus Liberators can choose to come as close with or far away from the target that they wish... a Vanguard does not have that luxury.

If you have a bird's eye view of the battelfield, then this means that most likely also a huge amount of the battelfield will shoot at you. I also get pretty annoyed by Libs often, but it is really not that simple to play them as you make it out to be.

With a tank you much easier can take cover behind some rock or similar and just play some peek-a-boo for example. With a Lib you often have half the battlefield shooting at you at once. And when you go too high, then ESF easily can get you, since your AA gun can only take out one ESF at a time.

Really we should just have a "No Air Day" and as many people on the forums and get your outfits to run G2A lock ons on HA as possible, always try to have 3-4 skyguards out and about, run walkers on all sunderers, and bursters a plenty. No platoon for the whole day or so runs any less than 2-4 bursters and 1-2 skyguards and lets see how "overpowered" air feel after that.

Every base assault has min of 4 walkers constantly manned, or has the bursters out and active.

It would be hell day for all air.

The problem is that Libs can be ran solo and have an obscene DPS, and their armor is too high for a single skyguard to reliable down.

The thing is that is area-denial not a counter, a counter would be something that genuinely killed Air if it got the drop.

Even in a heavy AA area a clever and good pilot can usually make successful attack runs (and by successful I mean both surviving it and getting some kills from them).

not really, because the battlefield is already occupied with managing a ****ton of stuff that fires at them already on the ground plane. You think AV mana-ed, vulcan-harassed tanks have time to notice and gib a lib that appears out of nowhere (thanks, convenient mountain ridges right next to bases) on sight with AP rounds? And if it's a tight, heavily infantry biased fight, nobody can afford dozen dudes to stare in the sky with lockons or whatever, completely ignoring their direct surroundings. That's asking for a surprise pump action to the face and getting overrun.

In every battle at most a few guys pay attention to air at any given moment. A few guys rarely can deal enough dmg for it to matter.

To all you liberator guys arguing "when flying your farmmobile over an entire goddamn zerg, you sometimes get shot down by the sheer volume of fire" Oh really?

Sometimes you get away. Consider what the lifetime of any MBT, Lightning, Sunderer or Harasser is if it somehow ended up in the middle of an enemy zerg. 0.5 seconds? 1 second? No harasser that turbo-catapults itself into the middle of the enemy zerg by accident will get out. Even cloaked flashes don't do as well as Liberators. Liberators SURVIVE entire zergs more often than not.

Barely anyone bothers firing G2A at liberators because the things only tickle it. This is the reason why barely any Liberators run Flares - Turbo is just much more useful, in case you end up over a zerg by accident.

AA needs to be so dangerous that Libs who end up over zergs (i.e. in direct view of many AA elements) are toast. That the only way to survive as a lib is to be careful, and use range + initiative, kill stuff on the outskirts, flanking. Being clever. You know, how real aircraft do it.

Because real aircraft are made of tin foil and plastic, because of weight constraints. Flying = not a lot of weight, you know. Which is why any serious gun turns any aircraft into confetti faster than a Volkswagen Beetle. That thing is made of sheet metal, not aluminum and glue. And the Beetle doesn't drop out of the skies like a rock the second its engines or hydraulics are shot. Aircraft are vulnerable and delicate. Aircraft don't tank. A "robust" aircraft is one that has a good chance of making it home after being scratched from 500m away by a guy with an AK-47.

Just to illustrate: Imagine the crew of the liberator were actual entities like on the rumble seat of the valk. Imagine the skyguard shooting point blank at the cockpit of a lib that's trying to tank bust it. Instead of using 2 full magazines to kill the liberator, after <1 second all crew is dead.

I'd be fine with that as long as the only counter to armor is other armor.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic (70% you are) but in either case: If the "Only counter to X is X", then, by definition, X is OP. Remember this.

HOW IS THIS OK? AIRCRAFT EVERYWHERE. NOT SKYGUARD EVERYWHERE BECAUSE THEY CAN'T KILL AIRCRAFT. LIBERATOR IS THE LEADING KILLER OF SKYGUARD. WHY? BECAUSE SKYGUARD CAN'T KILL AIRCRAFT. HOW MANY PILOTS DESERVE 9 KDR? NONE OF THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE ENTILDED WHINEY LITTLE CHILDREN. LOOK AT STATTS AND LOGICALLY EXPLAIN HOW IT'S NOT BROKEN YOU CAN'T. WHY IS IT OKAY THAT PILOTS HAVE HORRIBLE EYES AND THEY FLY 20 FT ABOVE A SKYGUARD? BECAUSE A SKYGUARD CAN'T KILL AN AIRCRAFT 20 FT ABOVE THEM UNLESS IT'S AN ESF AND THEY HAVE 1800 CERTS PUT INTO RELOAD. IF YOU FLY 20FT ABOVE A SKYGUARD YOU SHOULD BE DEAD IN 5 SECONDS. WHY IS IT EASIER TO KILL A LIB WITH AN AP TANK PENDING THAT YOU HAVE AN ANGLE? HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE A SUPPORT GUNS AURAXIUMED ON A LIB, AND HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE A SKYGUARD AURAXIUMED? GIVE SKYGUARD ANYTHING ELSE OTHER THAN WHAT IT ALREADY HAS. ANYTHING. WHY DID PILOTS COMPLAIN THAT FLACK HAS TOO MUCH REACH, AND SKYGUARD WAS NERFED, OR DID THAT NOT HAPPEN? WHY IS IT 3 YEARS INTO THE GAME AND THIS IS STILL AN ISSUE? WHY DO AIRCRAFT DISAPPEAR INTO THE SKY? DOES LIGHT STOP WORKING AT SOME POINT? WHY DOES A SKYGUARD HAVE TO LEAD AN AIRCRAFT 600M AT LONG RANGE JUST TO TICKLE IT. WHY CANT A SKYGUARD KILL A SMOKING LIB WITHOUT RELOADING? WHY IS IT NEAR IMPOSSIBLE FOR A HIGHLY SKILLED SKYGUARD DRIVER TO KILL A SKILLED LIB CREW. STICK TWO MORE PEOPLE IN MY SKYGUARD IF IT HAS TO DO WITH THE NUMBER OF TEARS CRIED BY PILOTS. WHY DID THE SKYGUARD IN PLANET SIDE 1 HAVE TWO OCCUPANTS AND IT RARELY CAME UNDER FIRE BY AIRCRAFT? WHY ARE MOST FLAK MAXES OPERATING INSIDE THE SPAWN ROOM AND TYPICALLY NOT KILLING AIR, BUT SCARING IT OFF SO IT CAN GO AND TAKE EASY KILLS FROM NEW PLAYERS WHO DON'T HAVE SKYGUARD? IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FIX AI WEAPONS DBREAK THAN MAKE THEM COMMON POOL. I WOULD AGREE THAT ESFS ARE BALANCED BUT THE LIB IS NOT. THIS ENTITLEMENT HAS GOT TO STOP. WHY ARE SKYGUARDS CONSTANTLY ON THEIR OWN WHEN IT COMES TO FENDING OFF AIR? WHY DOES A FEW AIRCRAFT COMPLETELY WRECK ARMOR COLUMS BECAUSE I'M NOT LOGGED IN TO SIT BACK IN THE SKYGUARD AND PROTECT THE EMPIRE? I ONLY KILL AIR THAT IS OBVIOUSLY WAY OVER EXTENDED, OR I HAVE TO DRIVE 3 GRIDS INTO ENEMY TERRITORY ALONE TO CATCH AIRCRAFT WHO ARE OFF GUARD OR ALREADY DAMAGED? UNTIL A LIB SPOTS ME WITH ANY OF THE 3 BELLY GUNS AND I'M DEAD MEAT 999% OF THE TIME. A PILOT IS GONNA SAY IT'S BECAUSE I SUCK. I'M NOT THE ONE HIDING IN A TREE OR BEHIND A CLOAK OR 700M UP IN THE SKY. HOW IS THIS OK?

NOW I'M THAT I'VE SAID WHATS ON MY MIND I'M GOING TO READ THROUGH THIS ENTIRE THREAD AND TRY MY BEST TO HOLD MY FOOD DOWN WHEN I COME ACROSS ARGUMENTS EXPLAING THAT NOTHING IS BROKEN.

If you are on the ground you always easily can seek cover behind hills, rocks, facilities, etc. This makes fighting there much more relaxed, because you easily can just focus on one or two targets at a time and have the rest out of line of sight. Not to mention how relaxed it is as a gunner. To me, gunning in a Magrider is a cake walk and probably one of the easiest way to get certs. And of course you also want to keep an eye on the sky which you have plenty of time for mostly. If not then you simply play too hectic.

Now if you are in the air, you very often have line of sight with half the battlefield if not the whole. This is much more stressfull than on the ground. Sure you could perhaps do some flanking to quickly attack from the back or whatever, but that's also where often a strategically well placed Skyguard comes into play, or some ESF suddenly appears.

the problem with anything that can kill air "if it gets the drop" is it would render air utterly useless.

If air is unable to escape any given piece of AA, then Air is nothing but a death trap and cert pinata.

Air can engage just about everybody, but everybody can engage air (strictly LoS speaking)

It's why Esamir is just **** for pilots and air has nothing to do but fly in Tomcat death swarms hunting any idiot that strays into enemy territory and support already won fights where all AA has been neutralized in a 2km radius.

And a couple (like maybe 3) dedicated AA units who coordinate and allow air to get close before opening fire can guarantee death for every unwitting pilot who strays too close ignorant of the danger. And that was way back when when air was more OP (when lolpods earned their name) and AA more regarded as UP.

A counter is something that will win in a 1v1 situation. The air running away before it dies doesn't mean anything.

So air should have no escape?

Gotcha.