[Suggestion] Diversify AA

Actually

Marx debunked esf's years ago!

You're going to tell me the Ranger is Superior to the Walker? Good luck explaining that.

If we turned the Skyguard into a ground Shredder (complete with damage type). It would be a net buff. You'd actually be doing more damage. Sure its harder to hit, but that's the price of extra but consistent damage.

167 damage per hit within 100m vs the 146 (or 96 on near misses) of the current skyguard. Combine that with a faster firing rate and the TTK drops from 2s to 1.28s. Well the Skyguard TTK is actually much longer than 2s due to indirect hits being most of the damage dealt. So its really around 3s.

Assuming all rounds are hitting. Which they aren't at a CoF of 1.25

yeah, i've taken to using a walker harasser as my AA vehicle now...
faster than a lightning, cheaper too and deals just as much damage, plus the bullets go where i'm aiming!
i hate flak's ridiculous cone of fire and velocity!

Part of the problem is the skill ceiling limit on pilots. It's not so bad for ESFs and Valks because they are agile --> read; have good acceleration letting them dodge stuff. So harder to use higher reward AA guns works with them because a skilled ESF or Valk pilot can theoretically outfly a gunner.

Libs and Gals, however, have really BAD accel plus a large hitbox. So no matter how skilled the pilot is -- they can't really outfly hypothetical high skill / high reward guns. That skill ceiling inherent on big aircraft is a large part of why G2A is designed (and as unrewarding) as it is.

AA? this game has AA? You are joking, sir.

Umm how would that change for them now?

With flak, I can hit a Galaxy pr Lib even without Line of Sight to it.

Also the damage resistance to the type of damage that I'm suggesting for the Skyguard mitigates your concern. As they have higher resistances than ESFs. Besides.. Galaxies are tanky as hell. Libs have better acceleration then you give them credit.. they do have access to afterburners.

We are talking about skyguard right? I don't care that the ranger is made to be a weaksauce turd, a half of what the already mediocre skyguard is.
You speak of taking the skyguards' AoE away, and keeping its nominal stats in the same ballpark. I am saying that it is not going to work because of the slim silhouettes of 2 ESFs.

'harder to hit' and 'extra consistent damage' don't really correlate too well in practice. Why should we believe it would be a net improvement? What if the real world accuracy penalty is not offset by the nominal extra damage?

Maybe in VR in perfect conditions. The "within 100m" lasts about 1 second if it happens at all. If that within 100m were business as usual, the skyguards wouldn't have 28% acc with their generous AoE on.
In the real world the effective accuracy of walkers on ground platforms spans from 20% on MBTs, 25% on sunderers up to 32-35% on harassers (which are best suited to pursue without being afraid of overextending as much). All that is with a 1000m/s weapon having a small CoF, where the gunner is fully dedicated to the job. Care to guess how the lightning, which requires splitting attention between navigation, general awareness and combat, would fare? And that's before you cut the 1000m/s velocity in half and worsen the CoF to make it what the "improved" AoE-less skyguard is apparently supposed to be.

A buff? I'll believe it when I see it.

An anecdote: Just yesterday I had a 1/2 walker vanguard for ***** and giggles. A hovering scythe facetanked the walker long enough to dump 4 rounds of hornets on me from the front, shield and what not(maybe 5?). He won.

You realize the Skyguard is a supped up Ranger right?

We're talking about making it either supped up Walker or something similar to a Shredder.

I know what the skyguard is. And ranger sucks donkey nuts not because there is something inherently wrong with AA flak. Everything can be made **** with low enough numbers and big enough spread. If 400m/s is laughable then 325m/s is a disaster and then there is a laughable DPS on top of that.

There is nothing inherently superior in the walker design compared to an AoE weapon. It's all in the souped up numbers not seen everywhere else. The walker needs a ridiculous velocity and a tight CoF to be roughly on par with a 2.5x slower, **** tier CoF skyguard.
For example - would a ranger with the muzzle velocity 1000m/s and walker's CoF be an utter ****? I don't think so. It would never miss, which probably would yield better results than the nominal_DPS * 0.2-0.3 the walker enjoys.

I like how you never answered what about walker or shredder makes it better against scythes blessing you with a generous 2px wide profile and a big cutout in the middle or against stick mosquitoes.

Currently the ease of use for flak (let me quote you, "With flak, I can hit a Galaxy pr Lib even without Line of Sight to it" is tempered by the low DPS. Flak is pretty high DPS vs ESFs/Valks --> but that is balanced out by ESF's/Valks speed and agility coupled with flak's low muzzle velocity.

With guns that have higher skill reqs/ceiling yet higher damage, ESFs/Valks would be more about skill vs skill. It's totally a good idea. However -- that doesn't address Gals or Libs. Gals and Libs are tanky because they can't 'dodge fire.' And no -- I libs absolutely do NOT have better accel than I am giving them credit for. And yes they have access to afterburner --> but DBG is not going to balancing a vehicle around one of several different slot options as it is extremely poor game design to the point of bordering on imbecilic.

And that's why I said that the AA hasn't been changed because Libs and Gals can't dodge a reasonable percentage of shots. If they were changed to allow them to do that then AA could be changed to be more deadly (or Gals/Libs having way less health/armor, or both) without making them unuseable.

A segregation in AA types.
"Light" AA that is designed to kill ESF, but has low damage values against Liberators and Galaxies.
"Heavy" AA that is designed to kill Liberators and Galaxies, but has slower muzzle velocities so ESF can easily dodge it and Libs&Gals have the option to dodge as well.

I'd go along with most of what's being suggested - including HP reductions for Libs and Gals - if we can get smaller hit boxes and speed/vertical AB. Libs about MBT sized and Gals about like Sundies. but fast, with access to RM.

Shredder on lightning? You people realize shredder has more DPS than vulcan right? People are going to cry.

Anyway, we want walkguard as alternative to skyguard.

I think that is causing more issues than solving. Already the ESF is in a class of its own and it shouldn't be. No other vehicle is like that.

I actually don't see a problem with that. For 200 nanites less, you can get a Vulcan if TR. For 100 nanites more you can get a longer range version with a high DPS main cannon. Besides you can limit the angle so its not a devastating close range weapon.

And the other guy is calling it UP, and you're calling it OP.

UP + OP = Balanced

Unless its given walker style firing angles then its going to replace python ap. But sure ivalways wanted a shredder on my lightning. It was my favorite weapon before people out of the blue started to call it op and screamed for the nerf.

It could be worse. People could have suggested an upwards-facing Dalton on a Lightning chassis designed for AA. Now that would unbalanced.

Don't worry, it's basically been suggested, and I was flabbergasted.

Dalton on lightning umm there already is this option it's called vanguard

I said a Dalton that looks straight up. Thankfully, Vanguards cannot do that, or any MBT for that matter.

Are you referring to you deliberately changing my idea's and using examples with Daltons and AP guns, then suddenly twisting that around and claiming that a direct dalton equivalent should be put in the game?
Because if you are, screw you for lying and discrediting again.