[Suggestion] Give Engineers an AA Turret

Make a version of the drake turret for the engineer, with the metal shell replaced by the glowing nanite shields or whatever.

No flak, low damage, high accuracy, very high projectile speed, slow heat mechanic: meant as a deterrent in low numbers, legit threat in large numbers.

It can aim straight upwards, but cannot aim low to the ground, so you can't just mow down infantry with it as well, and it does fairly low damage to ground vehicles.

Can only be placed on flat or mostly-flat terrain.

Deployment radius of around 10 meters so an entire hex isn't jam-packed with a platoon's worth of these things.

Small opening in the back of the turret means user dies if shot from behind, be it from above, below or at level.

I just ran with a platoon last night that decided to lockdown all air from the VS on Connery. A few dozen people with lockons, engies, and bursters, as well as a few sundies with walkers made it so NO air could come out of the warpgate. None. The only reason air wasn't dying more than it was (and it was dying alot), was because most of it wouldn't venture beyond the shield.

How effective was this? TR went from 25% territory control to over 50% in under 45 minutes.

What stopped us from continuing? VS stopped pulling air and they got bored and decided to redeploy to do a flash run for kicks and giggles. The measure killed all the fights on the continent.

If one group can lockdown all air from leaving a warpgate. And their faction does NOT have a population advantage. Then I think our current AA sources is fine.

The problem you all have is you will not do certain teambased actions because of some restrictive sense of 'honor'. But yet.. you complain about how air has free reign. Its actually possible with some coordination between outfits to lock down another faction's air 24/7 by letting active units rotate in and out on AA duty.

But you all consider it griefing or some other BS crap. Get out of your shells. Get out of your boxes and you'll see that the tools in the game currently work and work well.

The problem lies with the power of air compared to ground, in absence of air skyguard is almost useless, not so for aircraft they can fly around and find something. it takes more people to take down 1 air user which makes getting people to pull AA that much harder, the supposed nanite counter to air doesn't work well against ESFs.

if you want players to pull more AA then AA ether needs a lethality buff or skyguard needs a secondary weapon for flexibility so people won't abandon their AA duty while they wait for air to decide to attack the hex they are in.

air has too much going for it and AA has too little. a counter is supposed to be effective by firepower or manpower, unless you have a group of friends you can't hope for enough AA to keep air away, meanwhile air can go where ever it pleases whenever an area is not favorable to them and it can effectively counter ground units without having to rely on 2:1 manpower ratio with specialized weapons to kill what it counters.

If a skyguard goes up against an ESF head to head, as in the ESF attack runs the skyguard thinking it's another lightning config the ESF should have a high chance of death. the 'esf counters tanks so skyguard AA should die' is silly, air kills tanks quickly by trying to use our rear armor weakness.

buffing skyguard AA damage would make pilots require more skill to deal with skyguards since unthought out attacks would be dangerous.

air is being treated like it's special, if they allow infantry to lock vehicles out of battles and allow air to lock vehicles out of battles then infantry and vehicles should be able to lock air out of battles just as effectively as infantry and air can do to ground vehicles.

overabundance of a counter unit is a self correcting problem one way or another. but the devs seem to ignore that when it comes to airside.

yes please, more buildable stuff for engi.

I'd also like to see "flying tank" Liberator having less firepower, armor, and weaker composite upgrade than MBT, since Lib got higher speed, and much more maneuverability and can fly excessively good for a tank.

Current balance, where everything can be outright murdered but air should be gently deterred unless you have 20+ peoples throwing all time and efforts at AA, doesn't work that well.

No. It's just boring as ****. So nobody wants to do it until the elephant in the room gets too big

Dunno, saw 48 people have a good time.

But you brought up something. Is the act of firing at aircraft boring, or is the act of waiting for them?

I'd imagine its the latter. And that's because aircraft numbers are so low compared to other forms of threats. I think all forms of AA should be revamped to no longer be AA. Then improve damage values versus aircraft across the board.

There everyone can deal with air, and no more boring AA duty.

I think they could solve that by letting the Walker aim downwards. It has decent damage against armor, but currently it's limited by it's terrible firing angles. You'd be less effective against armor then with an AP turret, but that's the trade-off for having a reliable ESF deterrent. Maybe a small buff vs at least light armor(Lightnings specifically).

Ranger... Well, makes it a ******* ***** to aim. Guess it's got that, at least specifically for anti-Liberator duty.

All of the most hated weapons in this game are always the most situational. Even AP cannons can be used for AI(And frankly are better since they reload faster).

If we made AA weapons less situational, we make people more inclined to use them(Since they aren't **** anywhere else). Then, people would have no excuse to being farmed by aircraft.

But then again, if that did happen, it would likely result in the nigh-extinction of aircraft across all of Araxius. In it's current state, AA is already quite strong when massed. This is balanced by having AA be very situational and ineffective against anything else. If players had a reason to run large quantities of AA constantly, I don't see how a pilot could even get near even a small sized fight ever again. Though I guess that's what the peasants on the ground have always dreamed of...

If G2A was as strong as A2G, there wouldn't be so much threads about "balance" between air and everything else being out of whack.

If the weapons require a bit of skill or limited in range. It wouldn't be that bad.

For example, in MechWarrior Living Legends. AC2s and AC5s were fast firing autocannons. Basically nickel and dimed you to death through DPS. They had a slight damage bonus vs air. But because they didn't flak out, you had to lead and hit those shots. If you missed 80% of the shots, the weapon only did 20% of its normal DPS modfied by the bonus.

LBX auto cannons were like the Airhammer. Shot gun like cannons. These did Incrediable damage against aircraft. But they also had very short range effectively due to the spread and damage drop off.

Both weapon systems were WAY more fun to use than any AA based weapon in PS2. They were effective against tanks and battlemechs so you weren't gimped when fighting non-air. And they took skill or short range to use against air, so air was still able to operate. You just didn't take your aircraft close to something with an LBX20.

They got stupid when they put LBX on aircraft.. remember when the airhammer wrecked Mossies and Scythes? Yeah.. that happened. Let's not do that again.

For example, I would turn the Skyguard into a 36 shot viper. Less damage and smaller splash than a viper per shot obviously. High velocity and keep its elevation limit. That would be a cool and fun weapon to use.

Only AA I'd leave alone is bursters (short range already), and base turrets (static defenses). But I would make it so bursters can't shoot out of spawn shields. Some bases allow them weird angles to adjacent bases which makes them nearly impossible to avoid without simply leaving the area. They're not getting the kill, and the ESF isn't doing anything either. That's fun for no one.

you could probably give them 50m effective range back (to approx 400m, yes, just out of render/thermals) if their projectiles are blocked from the spawn. i don't think anyone has ever had a problem playing against MAX units that use normal cover and support.

That's a good point. Personally I will invest a lot of my ANT time building AA turrets, and possibly upgrading them (I think devs also mentioned an auto-fire upgrade but I might be wrong).
Personally I also hate A2G farmers but the problem is always the same: ESF dominate small and medium fights where players have almost no chance to retaliate, while they're awful in big battles where flak and rockets come from every angle.

You don't need a big battle to get 2 people in AA turrets or in an AA sundie ... 2 people using flak is enough to not only deter but usually even kill some of them ... so hmm they dominate battles with less than what ... 3 enemies?

Seriously you don't need many people to make a hex an absolute death zone for esfs.

People love to complain ... but for some reason most of them don't consider the enemy esf enough of a threat to do anything about it.

And if you hate lolpodders so much then maybe ... just maybe stop shooting down the a2a esf that fight them ... just saying ... it's always the enemy lolpodders that are hated ... the ones on your side are somehow worth saving.


And if we realy get automated AA then thats it for esf ... not just lolpodders but also the ones that hunt down liberators ... i quess it's time to cert the dalton.

AA turrets have no staying power a couple of skilled ESFs can destroy them easily, if you pull lockons ether the missles crash into terrain or the ESF uses LPPA, airhammer or banshee and shreds you.

being A2G and A2A doesn't matter if you are not an ally ground players will destroy you because ether way you are a threat to friendly forces.

I don't get why you think that AA turrets are easy to kill ... they take more hits than even a skyguard to kill, all while having none of the issues of it ... like the limited clip size.

The only way to reliably kill an AA turret as esf is by hitting it while it hits someone else or in some rare cases (depending on the base design) by abusing a blind spot ... which thanks to flak splash only means that you get hit less, while hitting it ... not that you are save.
And that works only if only one AA turret is active.

3 people with swarm launchers and any esf either runs or is toast ... usually both ... all while the esf has to quess where the locks are coming from.

Sure you die ... if you are an absolute ******* and stay with the lockon launcher next to your sundie or spawn room ... a place where the pilot expects you to be ... or if you are dumb enough to stay in the same spot after launching your lockon missile(s).

For whatever reason you seem to be completly ignorant when it comes to the limitations of esfs and make em up to be some godlike i win button ... but then again i would have to ask why the hell you don't fly yourself.

Maybe some kind of deployable shield bubble would be better. Which protects against air attack, but not ground level stuff. That would balance things out for infantry vs rocket spam. That way you can plant an AA Max under one, but he will still be vulnerable to enemy infantry and ground vehicles.

early footage of the construction system had automated AA turrets, they seemed crazy OP

I really only wanted a AT Spitfire, i had dreams of luring enemy vehicles into chasing me in my Harasser and having a AT Spitfire ambush waiting.

wow ... i hope it was some sort of cruel joke from the devs ...
It's bad enough that we will have most likley a much higher density of bases which means even more overlapping AA turrets on the map ... if they realy are automated then that's another clear case that the devs don't want air in their combined arms game.

I wish i could be optimistic here ... but as the past years show ... air is the ugly stepchild in this game that keeps getting abused ... and somehow still comes back for more.

The problem is when you choose your loadout you are never 100% sure of the kind of enemy you will fight. 90% of players play anti infantry because they have no other choice (I.e infiltrators) but also because infantry is much more rewarding from the kdr point of view. Most of players is kdr-driven and destroying aircraft from the ground is a HUGE effort compared with killing another planetman.
And Anti-aircraft weapons are not popular because they lack flexibility: if no flying objects are around then you basically handicapped yourself. Ever tried the Skyguard against other tanks of even against footsoldiers?
Without mentioning that many do not even try to fire aircraft with lock-on launchers: the fight is so unfair it's not even worth... for what? 1 more kill of a vehicle that will be back in the sky in less than 1 minute? 5 minutes killing infantry give more satisfaction and more kills than 5 minutes desperately trying to kill a flying thing that can basically oneshot you.