Coyotes and Tomcats

8k kills with sauron laser, 2400 with rocket pods.

Yup.

Looks like they are trying to make ESF's the flying BFRs they used to be. Counter air, ground vehicles, and infantry in a single loadout while the only true counter is another ESF. Basically the only way to bring down a good ESF pilot is a better ESF pilot.

Meanwhile the non-AA secondaries are way stronger than the noseguns and basically another primary. For some reason this games "fighter" with pods or hornets you can kill an MBT in seconds yet can't do the same against aircraft with AA secondaries.

Maybe it is time to add a true AA aircraft to the game, like a high speed interceptor that kills aircraft with the same quickness that a Lib kills an MBT and gives aircraft about the same chance to fight back and escape (which is to say none).

3 seconds ... that's roughly the time it takes to kill an esf with the nosegun.
The only issue is, that usually this is only possible when you sneak up on a lolpodder.


Honestly, the only issue i see with coyotes is that they (like any secondary) reload while you don't have them active.
Imo they should be a more or less once per fight burst dps spike, that you only use when you are certain that you will land at least some of the shots and not a way to circumvent nosegun reloads.

But since that isn't the case and fuelpods still are very lackluster by comparison, it kinda would be stupid not to use them.

Fuel pods are absolutely incredible in dogfights. An ESF without boost just can't change directions fast enough to avoid most fire. The better I get with maneuvering, the more I appreciate them, especially the quick recharge variety. If you're able to 1 or 2 clip an enemy ESF, they don't matter so much. But with my aiming, fights typically take longer than 2 clips, and I need that extra boost to stay alive. The other time they make a big difference is when fighting multiple threats. I've killed much better pilots than myself only because they were running LOLpods and eventually started slowing down to the point I could start to hit them. If you can fly, they're really the only way to go. That's the conclusion I'm at anyway.

Don't get me wrong, i like fuel pods and for most of my time flying in this game they were basically my goto option.
But after a while you will realise that you no longer gain that much from them.

To explain, almost all the manouvers (except some crazy ones i usually only did to show off) you can do without fuelpods.
Sure it takes a hell of a lot more practise and you need to be painfully aware of your fuel status, but over time you will cut down on the time it takes you to do your reverse manouver or your u turn and even backwards flying gets somewhat possible (albeit a lot less reliable and slower).

In most situations you at best gain a bit more leway and speed during your manouver.
Now speed is nice, but at the same time a double edged sword.

Speed in a hoverfight can quickly screw you over if you aren't very carefull.
One moment of carelessness and you stop fighting your opponent aqnd instead fight against your esf that desperatly tries to push you back into flight mode^^

And then there is the aiming issue, sure you can shake your opponents aim with the additional speed from a prolonged burst better, but then again you are more than likley going to cause yourself issues with that too.

Simply said, for a beginner fuelpods are a godsent, but once your average hit ratio per clip starts to rise above average (including lolpodders who have their nosegun just for show), that same speed will work against you.

And it's simply not worth the versatility you gain from the other options.

I think we're on the same page. I'd much rather carry LOLpods or Hornets instead of them, but if there's too much enemy air they're just a necessity for me. But yeah, I'm looking forward to the day when I don't need them. Well, possibly the day. Don't know if this game will keep me interested for the thousands of hours it'll take to catch up with the better pilots, and their charming personalities. Not you, but some others are just so cheerful....

As a mediocore ESF pilot myself, I lose to ESF pilots better than me, and I beat ESF pilots worse than me. It really doesn't matter if they use Coyote, it doesn't even usually matter who shoots first. If I face an ESF at my skill level, then Coyotes can matter... but the odds of me running into someone at my skill level are very, very low: the learning/skill curve is very, very long.

Coyotes are *the* anti-ESF Wing Mount. Using them means giving up AV, AI, extra Afterburner, and (hahaha) anti-Lib/Gal missiles. Coyote *should* provide a meaningful boost in ESF-vs-ESF... at least to somebody.

lol. I totally doubted Wrel would make the Coyotes solid A2A when they were nerfing A2AM. Wrel seemed to be catering to Skynights, so it seemed out of place for him to buff Coyotes (Skyknights hate Coyotes and non-Nosegun anti-ESF). But Demigan suggested it could happen, and I was shocked to see it happen... until Wrel followed up with his nerf to Coyotes. Then my shock went away and it was exactly the cater to skyknight buff I had expected.

Wrel even added a change to motivate pilots to use Engineers and stop doing bail assault. Why, so ESF pilots can't pad their KDR? Who cares. Maybe if DBG finally gave stats for Killing Vehicles... like actual wars do... it would help address the "issue": count ESFs killed, not players killed.

The free Engagement Radar would help new players... except most experienced ESF pilots ran Stealth anyway. Stealth was already the best, not it's just even better. I've run Stealth + Fire Suppression forever now.

I don't get why they make it (1) so powerful, (2) so hard for most players to use effectively, and (3) a handful of players to be almost untouchable in them.

This is a *terrible* design for anything in a shared space, massively multiplayer, PvP game. Let alone for a *whole* Unit in a combined arms game:

Guys, the best pilot in the game has let us all know that Coyotes and Tomcats are "utterly broken and OP", this conversation has been solved for a while now.

1. 
   

Jawarisin

adamts01 said: ↑

“This epitomises the problem with skyknights in this game. A2A missiles are bad weapons, we can all agree on that. I however believe all bad weapons should be buffed to a usable state. I'm not arguing they should hold a candle to a skill based weapon, just that they should be usable. Even if they're a crutch to get more people flying, that would be a huge improvement. Anyone that can't agree to that is either completely elitist or afraid they'll lose their edge after they've mastered the current meta.”

Lock on weapons are currently/have always been, Utterly broken and overpowered. Tomcats used to be the worst, but since they got nerfed, and coyotes buffed, coyotes are the new drastically overpowered weapon.

I was actually pointing out that you were so terrible you actually thought an overpowered weapon needed a buff.

• 

Big problem with all vehicles is the repair component of fire suppression. I would eliminate the repair component and just stop the burn from destroying the vehicle. If you want repair take the nanite armor, getting back half a life is significant enough to where i find it more useful than flares in multi-combat situations. There is really no need to pick up any other utility.

This is true. For the best pilots (who are only doing AA anyway because they treat PS2 like some kind of disgusting flying minigame with ground hazards) a fuel tank of some sort will confer the largest advantage for this very reason. Having more afterburner fuel than your enemy allows you to pull off more reverse maneuvers and quick repositions in order to gain or maintain the upper hand. Let's face it, nobody 1 or 2-mags anyone unless their target is a totally new pilot or is hovering and aiming at the ground. The people on these forums who talk about 3 second TTKs are ridiculous. They are lying to appear good. They DO NOT do this in 1v1 hover duels because if you've entered a hover duel it means you've already recognized each other as primary targets and your engagement timer has started. You've probably even exchanged shots already. The reason people talk about theoretical kill times, reloads, and milliseconds as if they mattered is because they see other people doing it and are like "oh, oh yeah totally, 1 or 2-mag kills are standard for me, all my dogfights are over in at most 6 seconds... that's how elite the other TOP pilots and I are, haha, yeah..." Break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat lie.

So when you say your fights take longer than 2 clips worth this is the way it is for everyone. It depends more on your target than on you. Eranorz is the best TR pilot on Emerald (in my opinion) and he takes like 20 seconds to kill me and goes through a few magazines. The only people he truly scrubs are the scrubs who sit still and take the shots.

So... about Coyotes...
Yeah, they are designed to be a supplementary weapon with a primarily A2A function. They are not a weapon replacement. They are designed to throw supplementary damage behind your nose gun between reloads. Equipping Coyotes gives up afterburner fuel which is invaluable in highly skilled dogfights. I agree that Coyotes help less talented pilots close the air-to-air gap. I think that's a good thing. Persistent skill gaps and super high skill ceilings are very bad for the long-term health of a game if all players must interact with each other.

With that in mind, I think the nerf was done because they don't want Coyotes to become the standard choice. You can see in the same patch:
oHigh-Capacity fuel tanks from 200% capacity increase to 220% capacity increase
It seems to me they want people to start using fuel tanks more frequently and to get used to relying on their nose gun. All loadouts should really just be based on taste or strategy and not a standard setup. We can see in this game that many weapons have simply become the standard, which is a bit unfortunate. I can't say I've ever been killed by one of the DMRs. So, Coyotes are not suddenly useless, they are still good, but they have their role and should be used within that role (which is squadron flight and not necessarily trying to 1v1 or be some kind of all-arounder badass who kills everything on the ground or in the air.)

At what point did Coyote ever come close to becoming the "standard choice"?


source: http://ps2oraclestats.com/


source: http://ps2oraclestats.com/

hahaha didnt laught so hard for a long time nice troll post

Coyotes with bad aim will fail to kill an ESF with poor nosgun aim before the nosegun kills them, every time. Coyotes and Tomcats are simply not viable A2A weapons: The only reason I use coyotes is parting damage knowing i'm going to die, and as a light a2g dump on the back of lightnings and to scatter infantry.

Tomcats are underpowered hugely in almost all respects, the damage is laughable- a HA lock on launcher is more effective and it's shoulder fired.

Yeah try not to forget that most of those rocket pod kills are against tanks back when they worked well vs tanks, and i also use them against libs that like to jump out and repair.

For example i have 15429 kills with scythe, 13031 vehicle kills, and 1453 roadkills. That leaves a thousand kills unaccounted for, most of which are likely vs enemy engineers repairing or light assaults who bailed out of an airplane.

Not saying that i have never farmed infantry, but most of the time if i do put rocket pods on its because some lamer is locking me from invisibility range while im trying to dogfight.

Also a lot of those extra kills are with the nosegun vs infantry. People bailing, lib engis repairing and getting targetted, etc.

I just realized that a lot of those roadkills are probably from colliding with enemy ESF which probably count as vehicle kills.

The endless cycle of air balance:

Skyknight: The skies are empty, the air game needs to be more accessible so we have more people flying.
<Devs make it more accessible by buff supplementary AA weapons to make air gameplay less about twitchy aiming ability>
< More people start to fly>
Skyknight: I'm dying to noobs, I should be able to win against a lesser skilled pilot no matter what.
<Devs nerf supplementary weapons AA weapons>
<People stop flying because they don't like losing a vehicle with basically no chance to fight back>
Skyknight: The skies are empty....

You are wrong. All you have to do is fly toward your enemy and fire coyotes when close. Keep circling and firing. At close range you cant possible miss. I dont see how someone who cant aim is going to win against another person who cant aim but has a weapon that aims itself.

Tomcats are for use against libs, and gals, and were so OP for so long that most of the good pilots quit long ago.

HA locks are currently broken. 42% damage from an invisible guy on the ground is too much.

Why use a derogatory term for people who like to fly vs other pilots? Skyknights. Sounds like people who use that term are mad that they cant fly.

Its no different than when ALL infantry cried about SHOTGUNS or HE tank rounds, or ZOE or underbarrel grenade launchers or any other thing that makes the game less fun.

A2A missiles and coyotes make the air game less fun for the majority of pilots. They may be good for new players who dont know how to fly, but once they learn to fly and aim, they too begin to dislike EZ mode self aiming weapons.

Why don't we make sniper rifles that lock? Doesnt matter how you strafe or run crazy, doesnt matter if you run behind obstacles, those locking sniper rifles will headshot you every time.

Thats what locks are like for ESF pilots, except in an ESF everyone in the entire game can see you.

They're the ones who wanted to be called that in the first place.

I've given up on a2a. I can't seem to get my curser over the right 10 pixels while the enemy is dodging and weaving faster than any other target in the game. Plus coyotes and tomats are so lackluster. They add a tiny bit of supplemental damage and require you to mostly nose gun anyway. Takes me probaly 25+ seconds to kill any other aircraft, using supplemental AA secondary or not. Also on my server for every 1 scythe or reaver it feels like there are 5 mossies to compete with.

I've gone straight a2g the last week or so and couldn't be happier. I treat my esf like a disposable phone now. Use it a few times for harassment then throw it away. I run in frag 3 or 4 infantry with the AI nose gun maybe hornet a MAX or tank. Then bug out and repair or come from another angle and do it again. I close range support friendly tank/sunderer columns between bases. IF an enemy ESF shows up I just stick close to friendly units and make myself as hard to hit as I can while the g2a units wreck them. It also makes it hard on enemy
G2A to take me down because friendly ground units tear them up.

The times that I'm caught by air without any support I just bug out for the closest friendly areas and bail. It is SOOOO much better. I can kill infantry in fractions of a second and nothing but dedicated AA vehicles keep my hornets from sending them back to respawn.

Dual Burster is still the king if I need to drive off enemy air. Occasionally I kill them if they get greedy.

I'm just done with a2a. Just not very fulfilling. Fly around maybe get 1 or 2 ESF or a Lib in 3 or 4 minutes IF I don't run into a mossy gank squad...

A2G the harvest is plentiful. Bagged 4 prowlers in as many minutes the other night and typically get about 3-5 infantry per strafing run. Yeah..What was that A2A game? No thanks, not anymore.

Try lowering your sensitivity. I like the mouse very low for critical aiming and i use the pitch keys for large movements. If you are see-sawing when someone ascends and descends sensitivity is probly too high.

Also you can try mirroring their movements. Or try to get low to force them to aim down at you to get them out of hover. You can do this by rushing at them while doing as much damage as you can and as soon as you pass you dive down. They will turn and expect you to be at the same altitude but you arent there. You get a few free shots in and then they are pointing down and lose their hover. Then you can reverse as they go plummeting by and shoot them in the butt. At least theoretically.