[Vehicle] Accuracy of Skyguard AA cannon.

I never said it was my argument, I'm simply questioning the playerbases ability to use a weapon to it's fullest extent.
Some examples would be: ESF suicide rate, the amount of times an ESF dies to suicide would indicate that depression or the ground is one of the most effective ESF killers in the game.
NC weapons are great however have the lowest KPM scores on the default weaponry, however everyone claims this is a skill issue, so I will regard it as such for the sake of this example.
The directive weapons have a far higher KPM than the defaults but they are only unlocked by users that have auraxed 5 other weapons of that same class, meaning they would already have experience with over 5k other kills and situations

Also if I remember correctly, ESFs had 3k HP, with a -60 vulnerability to flak, doing the math here
60 * 1.6 (-60 vuln) = 96 per shot
3000 / 96 = 31.25 or 32 shots to kill
RPM of 480, 8 rounds a second, = 4 seconds to kill with an easy to hit weapon, that's kinda how flak is, a midair AoE.

Now if everything in the game was cut and dry and everything was a perfect shot, we would not have nearly as many heavies, lights or engies as we do now, it would be mostly be infils trading with each other. Same with ESFs, I will not say that piloting is the easiest thing in the world, in fact it is the most difficult thing to get into in this game (also a lot of the pilots are asshats but thats another topic), so it would stand to reason that many people do not know how to properly LEAD an ESF as well as fly and shoot with it. To the untrained, leading in this game is one of the most difficult things to do, projectile velocities are at it's slowest in the darksouls of FPS, so in many scenarios you have to compensate distance, speed, reading the next move of the pilot, acceleration of the aircraft; a lot of variables is hard for a new player to digest, but a newer player will almost always pull a skyguard over an ESF to kill an ESF, it's logic.

I was not trying to gloat, I was simply trying to point out that the system is hard, the skyguard is a hard piece to master if you don't know how an ESF moves and if many people don't know how an ESF moves then they will not land those shots easily.

I also do not think the skyguard needs a buff in the antiair aspect, in my opinion it does well, but yes there could be something it could suppress better on the ground, namely I'd pick infantry.

A skyguard is indeed a support vehicle, the idea is that you almost can never 1v1 another AV vehicle and win, even default sundis will beat you, but suppressing infantry is not out of the question since the skyguard has to maintain a weakness. maybe it could have it's damage model changed to 250 before 100m and 100 after 300m so that it can be a 4 shot kill to infantry up close.

Well that's the DPS nature of all G2A weapons, which is based on "deterrent" which uses guaranteed damage to scare off aircraft with the threat of "you stick around and you'll die".
The obvious solution would be to change them from deterrent with guaranteed damage to a skillful weapon. This way G2A users can get the kills they want and need to enjoy the G2A game and the aircraft aren't instantly thrown out of a fight when enough G2A appears.

And that's exactly the kind of gameplay I'm trying to promote, up to a point. An ESF vs a Liberator isn't a done deal, even if the ESF has already received damage. So the ESF will stick around and keep attacking targets. The same could be applied to G2A weapons if these weapons aren't deterrents anymore. Aircraft that stick around and take a risk to gain something, but the success of failure of sticking around isn't guaranteed.

This is the exact problem we already have the moment multiple people pick G2A. The DPS "limitations" that G2A has to prevent aircraft from being killed outright are easily crossed by simply having multiple people pull G2A weapons. So again the obvious solution: Make sure G2A weapons aren't deterrents anymore.

Aye spawnrooms are still OP! But at least such rooms often have moderately limited sight lines, meaning you often cannot lock down entire hexes from such positions alone.

But 2 SG's creating no-fly zones for an entire hex is seen all the time? Seriously?

I agree, it is rare that a full squad of ESFs go for ground-pounding work. But you claimed 2 SG's shut down an entire hex, and that really goes against my experiences. They CERTAINLY aren't doing it 100% of the time, that's for sure. I'm routinely engaged by enemy aircraft within 100m from large friendly zergs while on the flank. And you know what I have to rely on to keep me safe in such situations? At least 8/10 times it isn't friendly AA, but rather friendly tanks taking pot-shots at the aircraft engaging me. If I'm lucky (AND the pilot is greedy) they might save me, or I might get to cover in time. But my friendly AA certainly doesn't create no-fly zones when I'm around. Sure, they might protect you if you are right within the zerg, and directly in the firing lines, but that's not how experienced tankers operate generally.

The thing is, my experience seemingly goes against your experience, as I'm often assaulted by enemy air within 100m of a large friendly zerg. I don't see the no-fly zones for an entire hex you are talking that they impose upon the enemy aircraft.

I didn't mean it literally, it was intended as a stab at the reliability of anecdotal evidence in general.

I don't disagree here.

It happens, it's not like how it works is exactly intuitive so no biggie I just wanted to inform you, as the idea itself was fine, but in practice it wouldn't work, and I didn't want you to think I shot down your suggestion for no apparent reason.

I'm not sure that would work properly due to the way directional armor is implemented in this game. In order to be able to qualify for hitting the "side armor" of a Liberator, you would almost have to be at the same elevation as the Liberator itself, meaning it will only really be relevant for aircraft in by far the most situations. Furthermore, I don't think it would work well with how Flak is implemented, as none of the damage dealt by Flak against enemy targets (barring EXTREMELY close range) is done via direct hits, but solely via indirect hits. And I don't know whether the code for indirect hits is capable of taking directional armor into account. I won't rule it though though, just giving my 2 cents.

Directional armor is already used on all aircraft, it's just that with the exception of the Valkyrie they all have the same damage resistances on all sides like a Harasser.
I think it could work though. A Liberator that's trying to strafe you angles his armor so it's facing you more directly that most MBT's would during a fight. Also consider that the bottom of a tank has the same armor as the back, and you'll rarely get that much damage even when there's height differences so I think you'll get a ton of front and side hits while you are at it. In fact a Liberator that does a strafing run first gets hit in the front as it angles towards you, then as it flies passed it'll start climbing and you'll be hitting his rear armor instead of his belly (unless he lets his bellygunner get you and just levels out above you while using space to gain height). Any vehicle nearby shooting at the Lib during the strafing run is likely to score front or side hits as well.
Also doesn't the Valkyrie have stronger bottom armor vs small-arms and flak detonations? That would prove that flak deals directional damage.

Not sure if it

Not sure if it got changed, but a fewyears ago people discovered that the directional armor per se does not exist.


Simply put, the game ignores points of impact ... completly and instead uses the origin and the targets orientation to determinate directional hits.

c4 and grenades are the exception, but only since the revamp of the vehicle grenade.

This was the main reason why a c4 dropped inbetween 2 tanks ended up beeing so goddamn more effective.
The game basically calculated the origin of the explosion as lower as the pivot point of the tanks and therefore counted it as bottom armor hit for both of them.


If dbg didn't continue changing the way directional armor works, then it only takes the origin of the hit into account.


In regards to the liberator flyby, as long as the lib starts it's approach from the backside of the tank all the incoming hits will count as hits to the back armor.
(even the ones that actually land ontop of it)

Only once the liberator enters the cone above the tank, shots will count at top armor hits and so on.



This is why it works for the valk ...
Beeing shot form the ground means that it's the bottom armor that counts anyways.
And since the valk needs to belly-face it's opponent anyways (to give it's gunner a clear shot) it ends up working for most a2a situations.

Simply put, the valk was designed to function with the bottom armor resistance in mind.



This is the same for ground based attacks too.
Wrel i think made a video about it with a heavy launcher and explained it in much greater detail.




Tl;Dr.:
Where you hit doesn't matter, only your position in relation to your targets orientation does.

Thankfully most spawnroom doors are easy enough to keep from line of sight. I just really hate the bad ones. I made a thread on here complaining about them and got nothing but "get good" comments. So I've made it my mission to spend a couple hours a week as a spawnroom burster max to piss people off and possible get the hate train rolling. I think they need to impose a 100m max range out of them, no locks from within, and a 6 second wait after a shot was taken before you can re-enter. And make rockets cost nanites. If those things weren't spammed they could make them actually effective and fun to shoot and try to avoid. but nope, moar missiles..... sigh...

It's Connery. This server ******* sucks. There are either massive gank squads that bail once they take any amount of damage or there are solo players that'll team kill you for running in a group. There's rarely anything in between. But yeah, that's the way it is. If there's more than a single source of flak, the swarms usually just bug off and look for easy kills. The better pilots run solo or in pairs and they'll absolutely dive in through flak to kill and enemy A2G plane if there's enough cover to run and protect thier precious k/d, but for the most part those guys stick to the outskirts and try to jump with stealth and a rotary while you're out of ammo or repairing. It's all just really lame here.

Directional armor does exist, it just has a different way of working that you expected. For me it works exactly as I would define it.

Directional armor was created so that the game would need as little as possible hitboxes. The directional armor system does exactly that. There's only 1 hitbox required, rather than the 6 you would need for top, 2x side, front, back and bottom (and another 4 for the independently turning turret or it would be impossible to hit it!!! Alternatively the turret could function as a seperate 7th hitbox and have one armor value). That's why it's directional and not a full hitbox system: It doesn't matter where you hit it, only what direction you hit it from. I actually have no idea how else you could interpret a "directional armor system" in PS2's constant struggle for computer resources while rendering more than the 64 players you see in other games.

Also you reversed the targets in my explanation. I was talking about the tanks hitting the Liberator, you are talking about the Liberator hitting the tank.
But even then what I said still stands and is in fact proven by the Lib hitting the tank, because you made one little mistake in how directional armor works. The origin alone doesn't matter, the origin compared to the way the target is facing matters (which you do state in the Tl;Dr). If the origin is in front of the tank, you hit the front. If your origin is below the tank, you hit the bottom. If the tank is standing on it's nose you can hit the top (or bottom). Because it's the origin in relation to the facing of the object.
So the Liberator that points it's nose towards you, you are going to hit it dead-center in the front armor even if he's diving from almost 90 degrees above you because the Liberator is using the same directional armor system already.

Doesn't flak ignore directional armor

Most aircraft do not have directional armour, the Valk excepted.

Ground vehicles that do have directional armour do not cause flak to detonate. And all ground vehicles except the Flash completely are immune to flak explosions.

And the Flash does not have directional armour.

So the only way to test it is with the Valk... but in the vast majority of cases flak doesn't interact with directional armour.

I would honestly be really interested to see how it plays out, but I definitely agree that it could work with the non-Flak weapons. Regarding the scenario, I more often experience that they fly towards me (allowing frontal shots as you said), but then they don't immediately start flying away, but rather they try to stay on top of me, which wouldn't really change anything. Even IF I was able to hit due to using hills or other terrain features (requires massively out-playing the pilot, as only an idiot lets himself be hit by a tank he/she is actively engaging by angling up on a cliff) I would only hit the (strongest) bottom armor. I assume the Libs strongest armor would be the bottom of course, anything else would be weird.

I'm unsure tbh, I just thought it was like any other splash impact, like for instance C4 hitting vehicles ignoring the directional armor. But hey, if the directional armor is already implemented (and works for Flak) then I'm wrong and everything is gravy
Does the Dalton indirect hits on armor also take directional armor into account? Mostly courious.

Great idea Thankfully I don't spend much time near spawn-rooms myself, as any fight taking place there, is usually not a fight I want to participate in as it is usually already decided, and there is only the "farm" left. Such fights are not for me, as I prefer the fights that aren't yet decided, and where I can possibly have a positive impact. A good method to find me is to look for the fights where my faction has ~35-45% population and the enemy faction has 55-65% population. Of course, depending on time of day such requirements can be lessened, but that is my general thought process. I also prefer to generally hunt vehicles, and they generally aren't found in spawn-rooms, which gives me more incentive to avoid them. Being a tanker, spawn rooms is also a whasps-nest of C4-faeries, and keeping ones distance is generally a good idea.

My 2 cents is to just not allow people to shoot out through the shield. All bases should also have an SCU-type-thing to disable it. If you want to shoot, you have to go outside, where the enemy can shoot back. If the enemy camps your spawn, they are likely taking out the SCU simultaneously. Any time a faction is camped in the spawn-room, they are 9/10 times better off simply redeploying to the next base in line, or another fight altogether, to put pressure on the map elsewhere. Spawn-rooms could also use some additional cover right outside them, which would also prevent the MAX'es and others from standing outside taking potshots, and diving inside once they take fire. At least it would be more difficult, and it would help the defenders "come back" without resorting to spawn-room-warrior tactics.

I don't think dumbfire rockets should cost nanites, but that would be hard to implement correctly, as some lock-ons can also be dumbfired. Just something to consider.

Sounds boring, I'll give you that. But then again, being dive-bombed over and over within 100m of a huge friendly force, while people constantly come on the forums claiming 2 pieces of "insert-random-AA-unit" creates no-fly zones for entire hexes (sometimes they even claim multiple hexes), and never mentioning any conditions (implying it is always like that in every situation) is quite annoying. Which is also why I jumped at you for claiming it, without any conditions. Then, when I asked, you started bringing the conditions.

I'd marry support that.

Increase ACC then Decrease DPS by 2x.... The skyguard is just comic, we are fighting in another solar system with a WW1 AA weapon...

I have the Skyguard since the day it came out. I'm not the best player in the world, but I have been around without breaks since beta, unlocked almost everything with my Lightining and it's my most used vehicle, so I believe I have a little experience. Good pilots will always laugh the best Skyguard. The damage dealt by the Skyguard even at close quarter is insufficient to destroy an ESF.
Last week I found a Scythe hovering completely immobile just 10 mts above a Sunderer, with the front completely pointing the ground. He was waiting for someone to respawn so he could farm infantry with lolpods.

He didn't see me coming, I was like 20 mts away, I fired. He had all the time to turn, use afterburners, fire suppresion, and disappear behind a hill. And this is supposed to be the best G2A weapon of the game. On the other hand A2G weapons are DEADLY. Why? This has zero justifications.

Check for instance this guy reached a KDR of 50.00 just using the nerfed version of the Airhammer. Either everyone in Planetside 2 is bad at the anti air game, or something is wrong here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/5ain05/when_you_pull_an_a2g_esf/

What probably happened is while this guys farmed infantry like crops no one managed to take him down. This is the status of G2A.

And Wrel changes to ESF just made it worse. He changed Coyote Missiles because he said "he wanted to give players more reasons to stay away from Stealth and use instead Composite Armor" but in the same patch he gave everyone Engagement Radar by default basically turning Stealth in the best possible option for aircraft. I maxed Engagement Radar on my Lightining and it's depressing: at least 90% of pilots runs full Stealth, becoming basically impossible to see for ground troops.

The air game is still a mess. Some vehicles are too good, some are too flexible, and G2A is frustrating and unrewarding. The Valkyrie still has no purpose because it has poor weapons and it's designed to be a transport vehicle in a game where no one needs to be transported anywhere (Redeploy FTW!). Recent changes to Squad Logistics were just ********, they didn't make it any better. Liberator is a flying battle tank with Afterburners, the strongest weapons in the game and still Stealth.

Air-ground is still the worst thing of this game and after more than 4 years I lost any trust devs will ever make it better.

I like the idea of the max damage buff.

I also keep hearing from some peeps that they use skyguards to 1v1 other lightnings with success. I might just cert one out next to see what it can do.

The skyguard is the same as real estate...Location, location, location.
I pop mossies and reavers every time I pull one (multiple kills). You don't start out with one...you pull one as a counter to a large enemy air fleet, when your platoon is begging for anti air. You sneak it up to where ever they are pounding you from the air and you...HOLD fire!...let them creep in till you can see their cockpit...then unload...pop goes the ESF.
You are opening fire too soon and saying "Hey, don't fly over here...or if you do, make sure you spot me for the dalton lib over head"

Same tactic for Gals and Libs...hold fire till you see the whites of their eyes...if that lib sees you first I hope you have cover nearby and racer chassis (also run top armor I hope). I get Libs smoking in one clip..they usually bail after that. I usually never get the Gal kill, but I get the assist every time.

I wouldn't pull it to go anti-armor, but in a pinch you can shoot while moving, and circle the enemy lightning while lighting it up. You can fight off pesky harassers quite effectively too.

The discussion we had was that you can run it very effectively in 3rd person since you're not calculating for shell drop the same way.

Hmm, I'll have to try that.

The only problem i have with this, is when you get two skilled G2A players, which happens quite often with Lock-On launcher and AA MAX'es. I can agree with more capability with the Skyguard because I rarely see those used in pairs despite that's part of their design. However most AA is simply too good when used in two's or higher, at least against ESF's because they are glass ornaments compared to the Liberator(Galaxies and Valkyries don't count because they're essentially flying certs).

Actually I know that run, he was doing AH to counter some igits at warpgate, he basically farmed 1 VS sundi that wanted to interfere with a TR and NC fight on top of a mountain with no cover what so ever within one hex of the warpgate. He literally had best case scenario with AH. The saddest part was none of them tried to counter him sufficiently. They all stayed out of the sundi as snipers or one g2a heavy, without pulling vehicles.

Now even if you were the god of lightnings, the lord of the paper tank, it would not mean anything if you didn't know the movements of your opponents. Now I fly esfs daily, auraxed the reaver, looking to aurax the scythe and mossy, barely ever play lightnings but soon as I pull a skyguard I get kills. I know exactly how the pilot thinks, moves, engages his opponent, how fast my bullets go, when is the right time to shoot so I hit him at his worst time to get out etc. Putting all these things into account I manage to keep ESFs out of a hex or dead.

I will not lie, AA for ground is worse than going up in an ESF and killing them yourself. You can chase them down and ensure they die, however no aspect of the game should completely lock another out. It would be stupid if one skyguard kept 50 esfs out or one lib against 50 lightnings, one for one however the skyguard is adept at killing aircraft, libs do take more to kill sure but an esf can do the same with tactics and a double walker bus can make libs cry.

Lastly: skyguards are not the best AAin the game, infact nothing is the best anything or at least should not be, if you've been playing since beta you should know how the game tries to be balanced by now.

Max damage while altering resistance values of course.
And you can kill other vehicles with sustained fire but it still takes a ****ton.