Coyotes and Tomcats

This change is just pathetic. Before yada yada yada, just look at the numbers.

ESF, assume no fire supression: 3,000 hit points.

Coyote, pre-patch, assume 100% accuracy: 100 damage x 6 per salve = 5 salvos. With fire time, lining up the shots, plus the 4.5 second reload, you're talking at least a 40 second time to kill.

But at least these can be dumbfired and do decent damage against ground. The Tomcat is even more sad. "it wasn't nerfed, it was re-purposed". What, to kill a Lib in 5 hits? Even after spending the 2,000+ certs to extend the range, assuming the Lib isn't running stealth and fire supression, you're still talking about dodging his 3 guns for more than half a minute.

Now both these weapons are very easy to counter, Tomcats, just get close, they can't hold a lock, Coyotes, stay back and they won't hit you. Add fire supression and they literally have to shoot you for close to a minute, and will probably run out of ammo. If they couple these with the nose gun? Well if we could use a nose gun we wouldn't be running around with these **** missiles. AND THEY GOT NERFED!!!

Nose gun, pick any one of them: Kills in one clip in 2-3 seconds. Realistically a good pilot might have 30% accuracy and require 2 reloads at 2.5 seconds, now we're talking 12-15 seconds against another skilled pilot, 2-6 against a noob.

Bottom line is these skyknights complaining about these weapons are just *******. Between not being able to yaw with the mouse and the built in mouse accelerator, flying is just a pain in the *** in this game. Couple that with zero options to even scratch another ESF but a nosegun, and no wonder there aren't more players flying (and spending that money) in this game. Pilots are so bored they circle the map or camp warpgates just to find some air targets. Well if they didn't completely hold new players back there would be plenty of fun to be had in the air. I'm not even asking for these supplementary weapons to be balanced against noseguns, but at least let 2 or 3 noobs running them have a fighting chance with weapons that are strictly designed to take out aircraft.

I've got about 500 hours in this game and tried out the biggest TR units on Connery, and it's like pulling teeth to get anyone to fly. This isn't how you balance a game, and definitely not how you improve the playing experience for the average customer.

Rant over, let the get good comments commence.

Umm... as a mediocre pilot when you include coyote damage with the nosegun its amazing. I will dump an entire coyote rack into you, switch to rotary empty all 3 barrels into your craft and then switch back to a just finished coyote and ensure you die.

Coyotes are a supplementary weapon, your primary weapon is and always will be your nosegun. Keep using it dogfight with it only to get better. You will die a hundred or so times likely till you can get competitive. Then you reach that level, then pull out your coyotes and its game over for pilots that solely rely on their wingmounts to stay alive.

You're forgetting about that little matter called Resistances.

I assume Coyotes are part of that newly-listed A2A Missiles damage resistance type so they resist by 10% now. That means, in respect to an ESF, each missile does 90, a salvo does 540, and five slavos does 2700 damage. That leaves you to make up just 300 difference, which isn't much at all. Even with your Coyotes - if you could land 30 and not die, you should be able to land 3 more.

Well the base damage was just reduced to 75, plus they made them dodgable once they have a lock, plus you're talking about another reload and firing sequence which is 3x longer than the time to kill of the nose gun. I just don't see an excuse for the nerf, that was the single weapon that let new pilots at least accomplish some damage against those who have been flying for years.

Dedicated AA is not allowed to compete with lolpod hover spammers. They needed to be nerfed so that when I'm farming with my lolpods (always, that's the only true purpose of ESF, why you think they nerfed AI nose guns? Was cutting into lolpod spam) I shouldn't have to worry about AA ESF (or any AA for that matter AA is strictly deterrence) actually being able to kill me.

I'm supposed to lolpod 4 or 5 targets then rearm. If any AA comes along I bug out for friendly skies or the WG. Dedicated AA ESF totally screwed over my total dominance of air to ground. Nothing should be able to kill me if I'm smart and fast! Ever!

DBG is just fixing that since they broke coyotes by making them useable.

Made me laugh reading that.

When you look at the info you can absolutely draw that conclusion, and i've spoken to many who share it.

Perhaps the so called 'balance god king from youtube' isnt all he's cracked up to be eh?

Coyotes still have a wide arc in order to hit, however how they made it so it was "dodgable" is a bit sketchy. For instance, I don't remember the auto locking ever missing a stationary target in VR.

Coyotes are a horrible idea in the first place.

There should be no reward for lack of ability to aim.

They are still kinda dumb, and i have yet to dodge any.

Imagine an infantry gun where you just had to shoot NEAR your target and get 100% hits. Even when they arent on your screen.

Coyotes should be more like A2A missiles were so that you have to keep the reticle on them in order to land shots. At least that way there is SOME element of aiming.

Currently you can just keep flying all crazy launching coyotes every time they are up and win. Its a bad mechanic. I own them, i have used them, i know how they work.

You're crazy. Unless you're within 100m the velocity is so bad is almost impossible to hit anything but a stationary target or one that won't change trajectory for atleast 1 second. After that you're just guessing where your target will be and hoping for the best. Velocity on coyote is 150ms. Which means it takes at least a full second to connect with a target 150m away (more depending on how acceleration works). If youre still getting hit at that range by a coyote you aren't "dodging" at all.

Coyote is pretty much a straight up hover duel weapon or for chasing down enemies that are flying in a relatively straight line (barrel rolls don't change your direction so you're still easy to hit with coyote) The range is so bad I don't use them outside of 150m unless the enemy doesn't know I'm there (and therefore won't change direction). Yes they can hit enemies directly underneath you or behind you if the target is within 20m of you. Flying straight at coyote is a terrible idea but it's where a lot of hover duels end up.

The coyote is no where near as strong as you make it out to be. But it is a DEDICATED AA weapon. So going against air it should in theory come out on top. But, lolpods need there koolaid so it will get nerfed into being like all other AA. You'll need more than 1 to be able to bag an ESF.

Well played.

Not really the same thing. That gun just has explosive damage on it. The bullets dont heat seak and hit directly.

Also you have to aim the lasher in the direction of your enemy.

Thats all i want for coyotes. A circle the size of a2a missile circle and enemy plane has to stay in the circle. Its still much easier to hit with than a nosegun, but it takes at least a bit of aiming as one would expect in a fps.

And it's avoidable, there are ways to dodge it, same as the lasher, and like the lasher, both have their places to be used, however, the coyotes were nerfed for what reason? They did not seem dominant in the air meta, they took away tanks, allowed pilots to specialize against aircraft, in fact I would say that the only reason they were nerfed is they punished certain builds "skilled" pilots used as a means of repelling A2A.
In fact if you ONLY used coyotes, you had less DPS than even the kestral locust and antres, even the AI noseguns outdpsd you, who exactly determines that the yotoes were too effective in what they were doing? Am I to believe that if they were nerfed, 3 people with ESFs should not beat 1 skilled pilot while said 3 were using builds to counter evasive maneuvers? Thats like nerfing AI for being AI like PPA..... of right, PPA and LIGHT PPA were nerfed.

Forgot we were dealing with leetist babies that don't want things to counter them. My bad. (not you btw, sidenote)

I truly believe you have never used coyote rockets. They don't home in in anything. They are very similar to PS1 lashers.

Imagine if you will a 40m wide sphere projectile moving at 150m/s that only collides with enemy air craft. THAT IS A COYOTE ROCKET. The only difference is the 40m sphere isn't rendered. Instead the coyote flies into any enemy air within 20m of it.

That's it. The coyote doesn't home in on anything. It hits targets within 20m of it. That's a huge difference.

Outlandish claim like that hurt your case more than help it.

Most A2A ESFs are running fire suppression, so they have 3,750HP. Divide that by the 75 damage each Coyote deals and that's 50 hits to kill, more than stock ammo. With 6 per salvo and a 4.5 second reload speed that's 8.33 salvos over 37.5 seconds. And that's assuming 100% accuracy and no time given for aiming or maneuvering, so realistically you're talking a minute, especially if you're "flying all crazy". If an enemy can't drop the other fighter within a whole minute with his nosegun, he deserves to loose against a Coyote spammer.

I can't imagine you've flown with or against this weapon if you're actually being serious.

Coyotes are going to get adjusted. Longer reload times are incoming. And they are going to tweak the tracking so that they are actually evadable.

If you think coyotes are OK, then i think you havent had to fight against them. Even after the patch they allow poor pilots to hang with very good pilots, and very good pilots just destroy everything.

I'm pretty sure the devs increased AB% so that it would be possible to evade the coyotes. I have tried waiting for my opponent to fire his coyotes and then reverse out of the way, but still getting hit by all of them every time.

Dunno why my sig wasnt working, but you can check me out, nothing to hide, i have plenty of time fighting with and against coyotes.

Absolutely boring weapon to use, as it requires no skill and there is no room to improve as the weapon does all the work for you, and frustrating weapon to fight against because the damage is unavoidable.

Need to be more evadeable, then they would be fine, or have a reload timer that makes them similar to the refire time of a2a missiles which i think are currently in a very good place.

These secondary weapons shouldnt be used as primaries. Currently you can use them as primaries and thats not how its supposed to work.

Maybe im just bad and need to get gud. If anyone has any advice on how to dodge the yotes id love to hear it.

I die faster than my nanites regenerate. Thats all you need to know when it comes to why I don't fly. Don't make it even harder.

You get outside of 100m and then just change directions and they won't hit you. Then you fly towards friendlies and hope for a friendly to save your ***.

What I hear is "I can't beat an AA ESF with my non AA ESF". Well, yeah, that's kind of the ducking point. AA ESF gives up pretty much all A2G to hunt enemy air.

But that's not how pilots want it. They want to be able to ground pound and be on even footing vs enemy air. DBG seems to want that too. So pretty soon coyotes will have less dps than the nose gun and they will be completely useless, again.

Might as well just go back to having stealth void their lock on and be done with it. Broken is better than useless. Or since everyone is all about how skilless they are give them 500m/s and tripple their direct damage but remove all lock on. Make them AA lolpods. Except that they will be even better at front loading damage against slow/stationary targets and make stealth ambush tactics that much more effective. Which I'm sure we can't have either.

Just remove them and refund certs/DBC.

In all honestly I'm going to agree on this. For the Skyknights it seems that they want the only AA on an ESF to be the nose gun, forcing any Pure AA weapons loadouts to be swung or nurfed here and there.

Perhaps what they should have done is Shift Flares to the secondary weapon slot instead of the utility slot. Doing this would then give these knights their counter to lockons while still having it a Nose gun only fight, while reducing the effectiveness of lolpods since they would have to choose between being able to rocket you to death or having the ability to break the 10 lockons coming for their *** because they stuck around.