[Suggestion] FREE AA FOR EVERYBODY

Until my 40th rank character i met only 5 situations out of 100 where somebody except only me has a lock-on or small arms fire. All 95 others are completly hopeless situations when a 98+ squad gets annihilated by a single mugskito.

Why its happening? Ill explain to you.
The launcher doesnt pay for itself, so theres no point in buying it
1 kill/2 assists = 1 cert
you'll need 650 kills of air scumbags (impossible to get even a single one)
Now i even think why i bough it... it was an obvilious cert waste.

Pls make all AA lock-ons avable from the beginning and include tutorial for it in the main training course.

If someone is againist this idea he seems to be that one airscum.

First off, I'm a type of "airscum" that likes to hover behind cover near a base and let my scout radar work its magic, and I can confidently say that there is TOO MUCH to worry about. I have to worry about small arms, flak MAXs, Lightnings, LA Rocklets, homing missiles, other aircraft, etc.

Second, I have the Hawk AA launcher for my HA class, and it works wonders. Most of the time, I'm using it in tandem with other AA weapons blazing away like mad, and even when I'm not, it seems to scare off enemy ESFs instantly. It's especially handy for supporting friendly ESFs locked in dogfights with enemy ESFs. It's the king of kill assists and air deterrence.

So take a chill pill and keep making my air radar role impossible, groundscum.

While I have an issue semi with 'free' anti-air, since it'll likely be bloody useless, or make an infantry zerg a hell incarnate possibly.

I disagree with that there is too much to worry about.
No infantry weapon beyond an Archer, or Dumbfire rocket can actually deal enough damage to an ESF before it can kill off the number of people required to deal such damage.
All of it, can also be endured and dodged.
The lock-ons? Shoved into the ground, nullified by flares, blocked-mid-lock, exposed all the while to the target.
I like my swarm launcher; But it doesn't roll in kills, or certs to actually pay for the utility: I can't dumbfire, I need to fire each rocket, and pray for all of them to hit, to have a hope in hell.
Otherwise, I need a dozen more people, to mystically have hit the aircraft without the damage being repaired prior to firing.

An Anti-air launcher, shouldn't be regulated to 'assisting' in killing aircraft.
It should straight up be murdering them, given it is designed to kill them.

Aircraft don't have weapons rendered near useless if capable of even firing when targeting different types of targets.
Any weapon will work.


For the original point I was making:
Infantry worry about: Snipers, grenades, C-4, Maxes (when they aren't rocket magnets), Cloaked Flashes, Armed Flashes, Ants of all kinds, Any aircraft, Land mines and infantry; Not including that every single weapon can damage directly or indirectly an infantry man.
And they can't take half of the anti-armor weapons, for even a single shot.

Tanks \ Vehicles worry about: Archers (Rarely, but still), C-4, Maxes, Any Aircraft, Armed Flashes, Any Ant, Tank Mines, Engie Turrets, Other Vehicles, Tanks.

ESF worry about: Other Aircraft, Lucky-Shots from Tanks, Luck Dumbfires, Trees, Clusters of spread-out Flak, Clusters of spread-out Lock-ons, being too Drunk while flying.


Liberators worry about: Liberators, Trees, Clusters of spread of Skyguards, Lots of ESF's, Suicidal Galaxies.

Galaxies worry about: ESF's that can fly, Liberators, Trees, Landing.

Valks worry about: Not having enough Bullets or Engineers.

IE if an Light Assault manages to float in range for rocklets, congrats to that light assault.

--- But yeah, I can't really see free anti-aircraft weapons being a practical thing.
I do wish they'd be actually worth their cert costs, without needing to be amassed to excess, and still need luck.

up

I have the G2A lock-ons for my HAs in each faction and they are effective when used sensibly i.e. when you target damaged or distracted pilots or ones who are persistently attacking the same location. I had six aircraft destroyed including four pilot kills (one a multi kill), plus some assists yesterday (over the course of the whole day, not in one battle).

Takes quite a few rockets and patience and it is only worth it and effective if they are making repeated attack runs. But that happens sometimes. And yes.................mine was the only launcher I saw in action. the other AA was Bursters and vehicle top guns (plus friendly air ofc).

Default Max suit comes with a Burster for one arm. Default vehicle top gun is the dual role basilisk and there are AA turrets on many of the bases. So there is a fair bit of free AA stuff around and I think it is reasonable that you have to buy a G2A lock-on with certs myself. The most popular launchers I've seen on EU servers seem to be the TR Striker and the NS Swarm.

Wow, your effectiveness against air - that kills usually dozends to hundreds grounder per day - is incredibly "high"


No offence against you, but thats usually completely ineffective against overhelming air.

This game is made to favour the pilots w/o any kind of chance to survive as a grounder unless you get the right weapon equipped or with enough cover nearby - while pilots can always survive.

They got weapons for EVERYTHING in a ONE MAN VEHICLE (would love EFFECTIVE weapons against everything in a Lightning with the ability to drive away from any threat in no time) while grounders need to equip special weapons to even deter the air threats (and they are helpless against air if they don't equip these weapons)

I feel like he is right...i mean the most farmed people are indeed the low leveled ones...

I mean what should a newcomer do against air with his standart launcher? It would need llts of time to train that.

Some time ago the AA Turrets were good... But the nerf did destroy the whole principe about having low ranks killing air.

And there are ESF.... I do not start with them...ok just a little bit..

These Air Veterans farm the noobs from the sky...the noobs can't learn or adapt a certain playstyle....they live too short in the air and VR doesn't give the experience to slain those Skyvets

LOL - a single burster does nothing to air.

Even with my twin Burster Max with fully certed kinetic armour - I still can still get one clipped by rotory equipped ESFs before I can get them down to half health. Going up against a Lib or a Gal even with a dual burster Max is just a joke.

The problem with AA units is that they sacrifice too much to perform that role. An AA max is almost totally ineffective against infantry or vehicles. If you pull AA and air simply buggers off (as they invariably do) - you are left hanging with little to do but redeploy and sacrifice the nanites.

An ESF on the other hand can pack both a Rotory and LOLpods and can be effective against all ground and air units - all for the same price (or cheaper in the case of a Max) as a dedicated AA unit.

IMO - AA maxes need new AA options (e.g. dual walkers) that are more accurate and deadly at close range but which dont have burst, or they need to be given something akin to skyguards which also have some effectiveness against infantry and vehicles.

Another option for AA maxes would be a shoulder mounted tertiary weapon which would allow them to stay effective in a fight once air buggers off.

I don't play much and I only pull an HA when there is air to shoot at. So I don't have millions of kills or anything like that.

But, for example. I just finished a session - one RL shot and one esf down/pilot dead. He flew into the ground after I hit him. It could just be RNG but I do find that esfs on very low strafing runs seem easier to get. Does the rocket hit make the aircraft lose control or deflect it or something? Or maybe just blind the pilot for a second or two?

Agreed. concentrations of AA are usually what does the job and just sayin' there is nothing to stop anyone grabbing some kind of AA. RLs and top guns definitely better though.

Despite this ridiculous overstatement, you make some great points. I primarily fly and I agree that a launcher with AA capability should be default, though I don't think it should be the current launcher, it should be something which you have to somewhat aim, kind of like the Striker.

AA needs to be unlocked by default, but with some sort of penalty so 90% of the battle isn't running around with them. You can either have free rockets than suck, or you have powerful rockets that cost something. If they're not going to cost nanites then they need another drawback, like 3/4 movement speed while you have a rocket in your inventory. And let everyone choose to replace their equipment with one but no flight and no stealth and don't let ammo packs refill them. If we don't get some sort of restrictions on them then we're stuck with crappy spammable missiles.

I'm going to tell you right now: The R3 Swarm is worthless. You need to swap out.

I'm serious. It may be ok against ESFs that are high flyers. But as Valk, I can easily reduce their hit rate down to 5% by going to <4m, which causes the hyper-active guidance package to pilot them straight into the ground.

The best launcher is the Annihilator - against any ESF you'll have to pick your shots.For big game targets, you'll want the new NSX Masamune, it's very proficient against galaxies.

TBH, the best Anti-air platform right now is a deploy shield sundy with either double rangers or a ranger and a basilisk. Skyguard follows closely after that, if you've got the skills for it.

The key is to not shoot at everything in range. Draw them in, let them start a run, then ambush them.

Haha greedy planetmen your complaining about overpowered air just got IR nerfed and already you want more

I think the lockon time should only take 0.01 sec to lockon and have its speed, damage, range doubled. This way every High Skill lockon player can one shot kill any ESF at 700m.

Umm... "98+ squad"?!! Where do I go to join?

Seriously, though. The main issue with giving all new characters a free G2A lock-on launcher (ASP-30 Grounder, Hawk GD-68, Nemesis VSH-9) is that flying aircraft becomes nearly impossible in most situations, due to most players playing HA, and the resulting prevalence of skill-less AA. If you want to do something about aircraft, just pull one yourself, or take cover, or use flak, etc. etc. The reason that everyone DOESN'T get a free G2A launcher is that it would destroy the air game. My suggestion, personally, would be to just make the G2A lock-on launchers each cost 325 certs, same as other "early-unlock-suggestion" weapons. They each already cost 650 certs, which is less than the cost for most weapons in the game.

The problem is Aircraft should have never been designed this way. ESF should go on fire with 1 single rocket, they should have very powerfull A2G weapons but THEY SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ALLOWED TO HOVER. Just fly full speed, drop 2 rockets then afterburner away for another run.

Dumbfire launchers (stock and decimator) ALREADY either set ESFs on fire, or destroy them outright. With the G2A lock-on launchers, your rocket launcher becomes a DETERRENT, not a killer. Giving these launchers dumbfire destructive capabilities against aircraft makes dumbfires basically just lock-ons, without the lock-on capability. It makes it so that aircraft are guaranteed to be destroyed by un-dodgeable lock-on instakill rockets wherever they go. As I said before, this destroys the air game. If you are constantly farmed by aircraft, the logic is the same as if you constantly get farmed by shotguns or light assaults with rocklet rifles in trees (0_0). Learn to deal with these threats, instead of screaming OWWW-PEEEEEE.

Now, I need to get back to farming Raven MAXes with my Lancer heavy assault. I should be safe from the Hacksaws in this mountain. LOLpods should take care of them, anyways, before being dalton'ed.

I much prefer flck armour for fighing air.
Sure the nosecannon still rips you but it does with kinet, flak on the other hand is very good against rocketpods as its mainly splash with those unless youre standing still.

If youre NC get the shield, and laugh at the nosegun.

i wish they would seriously get rid of lock ons of every kind, they are seriously stupid.

Buff A2G.

IF YOU ARE AGAINST THIS IDEA YOU ARE GROUND SCUM!