I fly Liberators quite a bit, and after countless hours of experience, here is some data that might answer some questions: PERFORMANCE SLOT Racer Airframe: Top speed = 253 kph @ 15 degrees nose down Afterburner speed = 277 kph @ 15 degrees nose down *Best for outrunning enemy Liberators with High-G or PB airframes, as well as Valkyries. You can even outrun amateur enemy ESFs that don't use Racer and have something other than fuel pods on their wings. Also very useful for getting out of areas with a lot of anti-aircraft fire. High-G Airframe: Top speed = 213 kph @ 15 degrees nose down Afterburner speed = 255 kph @ 15 degrees nose down *Best for doing steep dives, shredding a target with the Tankbuster, and then pulling up quickly, letting your belly gunner finish off the target. Also really good for flying through trees on Hossin, or mountains on Amerish. This is the most agile airframe. Precision Bomber Airframe: Top speed = 206 kph @ 15 degrees nose down Afterburner speed = 252 kph @ 15 degrees nose down *Best for doing quick stops so that your belly gunner has a smoother platform from which to hit enemy armor. Makes turning, rolling and stopping much easier. This allows you and your gunners to stay on top of armor that might be trying to zig zag. DEFENSE SLOT Nanite Auto Repair System: Repairs 6% damage every 5 seconds after not being hit for 12 seconds. Engineers can get a similar but weaker version of this with Aircraft Synergy rank 2. No, they do not stack. This allows other classes to fly the Liberator without the need to land and repair as an Engineer. Composite Armor: Adds 10% vehicle health to your Liberator, making it have a total health pool of 5,500. This allows you to take a few more hits before being destroyed. Vehicle Stealth: Max rank prevents you from being auto detected on the mini map, and increases the lock-on time of enemy rockets/missiles that are targeting you by 1 second. Stealth is useful for sneaking up on enemy armor and destroying them from behind, or popping over terrain to shoot at infantry. However, a Liberator is LOUD while in flight, and seasoned players will hear you coming. UTILITY SLOT Decoy Flares: Disrupts active lock-ons and prevents new lock-ons from targeting you for 5 seconds. Can be used every 25 seconds at max rank. Very useful when fighting enemy ESFs with Tomcats/Photons. Ejection System: Allows you to safely bail out if it is inevitable that your Liberator is about to be destroyed. Alternatively, get as low as possible and jump out with a maxed Safe Fall Implant equipped. Fire Suppression System: Instantly extinguishes a fire if your Liberator is low on health, and it repairs 12% over 5 seconds. Can be used every 45 seconds. Very useful for getting that extra "staying power" in a close fight, or for doing an emergency landing/repair. Seconds count! LF-100 AFTERBURNER This allows you to have a short speed boost. You can improve its use rate in Liberator certifications. The default is a 40 second cool down. Max rank drops this to a 20 second cool down. NOSE GUNS Vektor: This is the default nose gun. It is good at shooting enemy aircraft that are in front of you and trying to flee. It has a long range. Tankbuster: This is a close range, high damage, anti armor weapon. Dive on the target, empty your magazine into it, and then pull up so your belly gunner can finish the job if needs be. Spur: This weapon is unique in that the pilot can look around with it while flying straight. This allows you to hit things off to the sides, above, or below your normal line-of-sight. It is GREAT for sniping infantry, and beating the snot out of MAXes. BELLY GUNS Shredder: This is an all-around weapon that is easy for beginners to use. It is good at tracking moving armor targets, and hitting aircraft near you. The higher your elevation above a target, the less damage the Shredder does. It is difficult to hit infantry with this weapon unless you are fairly low to the ground. Zephyr: This is a six shot cannon that is equally good at destroying armor and infantry. It has some splash damage, so it can effectively hit multiple ground targets at once. Angled shots, or shots on moving targets, can be difficult to land. Dalton: This is the heaviest hitting weapon in the game. It is a single shot cannon that does a massive amount of damage, ***IF*** your gunner can hit the target. It also makes a really cool and thunderous sound when fired! Like the Zephyr, angled shots, or shots on moving targets, can be difficult to land. Duster: This is an anti infantry weapon that basically drops small, cluster bombs over an area. If there is a ton of infantry that you need to wipe out, this is your weapon of choice. However, it is not very effective against armor or aircraft. TAIL GUNS Drake: This is the default gun that is okay for general use. However, other weapons are better at dealing with certain situations. Hyena: This is a missile system that will auto lock onto aircraft, if the missiles get close enough. This weapon can seriously roast an ESF that gets too close. However, it is best used at close to medium range. The farther away a target is, the easier it is for them to dodge the missiles. Walker: This is chain gun that fires high speed projectiles that are good at chipping away at enemy aircraft, even at long range. It can also double down as extra firepower on armor and infantry. Bulldog: This is an anti infantry weapon. It can be fired from long range and has no damage drop off. Combined with the Duster, infantry does not stand a chance! **********************************************************************Personal loadout:I prefer to use the Racer Airframe, Stealth, and Fire Suppression. My nose gun choice is the Spur. I use all of the belly guns, as the situation dictates. I like the Walker over the Hyenas, on the tail.
"Engineers can get a similar but weaker version of this with Aircraft Synergy rank 2." Good reminder, somehow I forgot this exists. About the tail gun, I'm curious if people are able to use the walker for anti-air effectively if the pilot flies steadily away from ESFs. So far gunning for other Libs with it it's impossible to compensate for two moving air vehicles plus bullet velocity, however fast, to actually deter ESFs from pursuing you. It is fun to use unlike the hyenas, and I'd rather have a full lib than a 2-crew one but understandably they are boring to use as they don't benefit from much skill so not many want to wait around in the tail gun seat with it. Also, there's a bug affecting the Libs which I won't mention since people will exploit it - fixing the servers is more of a priority, and might indirectly fix this too. If this keeps happening I'd like to report it so they are aware and hopefully fix it. Suggestions on how to make the devs aware of it without making it know elsewhere? Finding a crew for the Lib is kind of challenging, same as with a battle Valk. Players should realize how powerful a manned Lib & Valk can be, and how often the opportunity for these air vehicles to contribute to the battle comes up. Most of us are decent pilots and won't obliterate your K/D if you put up with learning to fire some of these guns, to use the mic, know when to bail (safe fall implant!). Noob advice: Most low BR casuals, even when instructed over chat or voice neglect to use the appropriate gun for the target: main gun F2 for main damage, F3 for anti-air if so equipped! You can move seats if it's empty or request seat change with the Function keys at top of your keyboard. Many players also neglect the direct spawn and safe eject of Valk: U key to redeploy, top left of map view you can see if someone in your squad has one up - if the Valk is within some range (don't know why it doesn't always work or why the recent nerf for this) you can select it and spawn in directly just like a galaxy or sundy. Gun or repair the Valk if you request a destination, and switch between the gun/back seats as necessary to deal damage and keep the Valk alive. It is disheartening to dump in thousands upon thousands of certs for these super fun and effective air vehicles only to sit at spawn or fly empty cause nobody in the squad requests and makes use of Valks & Libs. No surprise a certain VS squad I've had the most fun with made extensive use of the Valk. Also to Valk pilots: steady the air vehicle for those times you want a gunner to land shots, constant sudden movement isn't always necessary if you know your battlefield and will not make me want to gun for you.
I've been having fun as a solo lib. Even in crowded fights I can pull a suicide Lib and get that annoying magrider off the cliff. Sure it's an even trade of nanites, but helps my team out. Spur is FUN against infantry, but in large fights you will be focused down. Small fights and you ruin them lol. Best for middle sized ones. I've never had good luck with the duster, way too sporadic
I wanted to remind you that now you can put it the plant "Safe Fall" half the time you launch, you can save yourself, obviously not at higher heights provided for the system description. However excellent thread, many useful tips for those wishing to start.
On the nose guns, you can now aim the gun and while flying straight with all nose guns. I wish the Lib had windows like a Huey's so you can see below you. I like this thread. I've been putting certs into my lib after getting ESF aurax trim.
