[Vehicle] Is there a ESF unspoken code about tanks shooting them?

Greetings all!

I have been working on my prowler directives for the past few months and in that time I have got a lot of tells from all Factions telling me not to shoot ESFs or any aircraft. (Mostly the pilots)
Is there like a unspoken honor code??

I don't wanna be a jurk if there is such a code but it looks like the game is build for tanks and aircraft to fight.

I don't shoot at air when
-it is a lib, unless you know you can kill it.
-too many friendly air.
-as a gunner, unless the driver does or the air is attacking you.
-near a cloaked sunderer or any sunderer that is hidden.

I do shoot at air when
-they are in hover or attacking my friendlies.
-under 50m or repairing/re-arming.

Take care all!

Shoot them.

You should not on the other hand shoot at infantry. It is indeed an unspoken rule of honor. You'll bring much shame on yourself if you shoot infantry so don't do that.

No.

You should OHK an ESF with an AP round.

If friendlies are telling you not to shoot (at least with top mounted gun), many pilots run CounterIntelligence implant which will give away your location to enemy air and ground forces.

Although, if you kill and piss off a pilot, some will relentlessly hunt you down with Hornets.

yep shoot them, they always act like there is some bushido honour or crap like that, but in truth skyknights are just the worst.
those same skyknights who tell you not to shoot their precious ESFs are the same ***** who will chase a new pilot to the ends of the earth for an easy gank.

We shoot aircraft from our Magrider ALLLLL the time. I knocked down two in a row less than a week ago with the main gun (we usually don't run an airgun Mag). Don't care at all about any unspoken arrangements or anything - if we can get a TR or NC kill, we're going to swing for the fence every time.

LOL shoot at anything and everything, all of the time, for chrissakes ...

not shooting at air? the heck do i have a skyguard for?
not shooting planetmans from air? what do i have dumbfiremissiles for?

it´s war ... and we are not shooting innocent people but enemy soldiers ...
the only code of honor here is to not willfully kill your allies or switch faction just to kill the player that killed you playing said faction ...

simple enough ..

Air deserves whacking most of all modes of play. Have at them.

It is the sign of a bunch of powerhungry people who are suddenly faced with not being as invincible as they think they are.

In any game you get an elitist group that will pretend to be the best of the best. Most games that means sniping, one shot one kill (even though it's more skillful to be able to kill someone with repeated headshots while they try to avoid it). If you then use tactics to get close and blow them away with a shotgun they'll complain that you were "dishonorable" because you defeated them. They'll say that you have to fight in the exact same way they do, because that is the way they are good at and will defeat you.

In this case it's the ESF flybois who have found a method that takes long to learn and uses an inverted skillcurve, which makes it nigh impossible to join the air-game as a new player unless you find a mentor and have days to spare in the VR or similar to train up. If you then come in and break them apart with a skill shot of your tank guns, which quite literally requires them to come down to your level or for you to limit your range of angles by propping up against a rock, they'll complain about how your higher skill shots are somehow dishonorable because they failed and failed hard.

My advice: Shoot them any chance you get. Then find a way to increase the chances of shooting them. Most of these "honorable" flybois are whiny ***** that will happily murder anything weaker than them (which with the ineffective G2A and high-powered air-weapons is almost everything) and then complain when they get taken down a notch.

If my character is not gone,i remember having on my HA two lock on rocketlaunchers. I never had pms about not using them,but i know they are piss off'ed.

If the enemy tells you to not attacking them from your tank,you do not care,continue shooting because they are the enemy. If the friendlyes tell you to not attacking,maybe they plan to use somekind of strategy,no idea.

Never, ever fell sorry for the sniffles. Never!!! They are to busy sniffing their own fecal fumes in that pilot seat. It effects their thinking. They start believing that their gods. LOL

Also, it's always nice when a Outfit has a die hard "Ramrod", ramming them out of the sky. They can use that "towel of honor" of theirs to wipe away the tears as far as I'm concerned. Stinking bush pilots always camping the spawns. .l..

o7

Honor code......when it comes to pilots

They are the most dishonourable, sweaty try-hards in this game. Take em out whenever you can.

The sound of a Banshee Mossie or a Skillstang Reaver is all I need to pull my dual burster Max.

Interesting, never really had that issue before. The main thing to remember is not to shoot aircraft you don't think you can kill. A2G is extremely powerful, so shooting your default dumbfire in the general direction of the aircraft without really knowing what you are doing is a great way to piss off the a2g and get obliterated by them because you choose to reveal your position. This is something I learned the hard way as a noob, back when I would play with squads. I was clustered with my squad and some friendlies, and shot a default rocket at a random esf for no real reason. The rocket actually flew pretty close to the esf, but still missed. He veered around and deleted our friendly cluster in under a second. I got a friendly reminder not to shoot at esfs by my squad lead after that.

As a general rule, I would only shoot air with the AP cannons or the decimator. Anything else with require more than one shot to kill on a full health target, which isn't really viable in most scenarios, because it will simply alert your target, and provoke a response from them. Keep in mind an alert pilot can be extremely hard to hit even for experienced players. Do not risk putting yourself in such situation, especially if you know you won't win. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, which will come with experience.

That said, if you're doing your directive, I'm guessing you have some experience. If pilots are telling you not to shoot them down, you can tell them not to lol pod your friendlies. Really, air is one of the most broken aspects of the game. If someone seriously has the audacity to tell you not to shoot at air (especially a pilot), I would start shooting only air and focusing him in particular until he runs out of nanites. Remember its a sandbox, and you have every right to shoot at non-friendlies, especially if they are a threat to your or your team. Sometimes pilots will train near their warpgate, it's usually where experienced pilots come to teach others. Not many of those, but they do exist. You can still shoot them if you want, it's up to you, although be careful if they come for revenge. A lot of esf pilots are full of themselves and dislike dying to lower beings. It's not uncommon for them to focus and send ragetells if you shoot them down. I recall an a2g pounder I decimated (I main infantry); he followed me around killing me or any vehicle I spawned with his banshee and hornet missiles, and would send a mocking tell each time. Did so for a week straight, and each time I managed to shoot him down he would get even more angry and move in even more erratic patterns. Might seem a bit extreme, but he's definitely not an outlier. I can't count how many death threats and insults and revenge I got for shooting down esfs - that had chosen to engage me/my friendlies first!

[TELL] [----------]: die of cancer Pro - here's a tell I got from a pilot a few days ago after I bailed out and decimated him in midair, while him and a bunch of other pilots were mercilessly shooting my squads galaxy on the way to a drop, along with anyone that bailed to escape. Sounds mighty honorable. And I can send you a link to a discord channel with many more. Not saying they're all like this, but I would generally shoot first/ask later with this kind of stuff. Chances are if you run their names through the player viewer and look at their killboard/top weapons, it won't be pretty. In fact I would challenge you to find me one pilot who has no kills or only esf kills. I can bet you'll be done your directive long before.

Of all the playerbase, pilots are perhaps the least honorable and most annoying people in the game. I know a lot of people who literally play esf 24/7, simply preying on the weak ground targets. If they even think there will be a bit of resistance, they drop a citadel shield and continue farming from within. Not to mention, they will hunt down any enemy esf weaker than them thats just trying to learn how to fly or using it as transport. In general, these people are quite toxic and spend their days leveraging the unbalanced flaws of the game to their benefit, while retreating at the first sign of danger. In fact, one of them shared once that each time his esf is about to die, he climbs up, bails and logs out to avoid death. Not to mention the massive kdr they rack up by being invincible flying farming machines.

Simply put, no one asides from the devs are in a position to talk about honor or code of conduct or whatever - especially not pilots.

But yeah, don't worry about them, auto-ignore tells if it's easier for you to focus. Shooting down esfs is basically doing god's work, you're definitely saving your friendlies and yourself a lot of pain when you do. The ground rules you laid out are logical and are pretty much the basis for picking out engagements with air. You seem to have experience, you know what you are doing. Keep shooting esfs, and good luck on your prowler directive!

Check this video at 2:15 for a good idea. Also you can use your mines to the same effect as well, if you need to adjust the angle so your turret can hit aircraft.

Thanks guys. I didn't really think there was such thing but when your told the same thing over 10 times, almost word for word, (in my experience) you should ask around just incase!
(Sorry for the late response)

Take care all!

Generally it depends on your situation. If you're trying to flank around some enemy armour don't, as everyone will hear (and maybe see) your shells flying around. If you're in a squad/with friendlys then it's probably pretty safe to do so.

If the pilots themselves are messanging you saying "uwu don't kill meeeee" then they are just salty and you should relish it.

I can't say I've ever come across anyone who has told me not to shoot down air targets with my tank. I have received tells from pilots because I've shot them down, however. Usually asking me how I managed to shoot them down or something similar.

I've had skyknights being complete A2G a-holes having free reign in the skies. Yet as soon as I've shot them down as an AA MAX, they send me a tell calling me a coward.

The fact that you've shot down those air targets is a huge plus to you. It's not easy taking down pilots. Sure some get shot down easily because they're pretty awful, but to manage to take down exceptionally good pilots and have them message you... that's a huge win for you. Keep doing it!

I turn my tells off, got tired of listening to idiots. It’s your game shoot at what you want with the exception of friendlies on your side if you can prevent it, but if they get in your way, whoops!

Yeah... Do not listen to your faction, Jib, or any one else telling you not to shoot at an enemy. If you can kill it, you better, because it will kill you, ESPECIALLY infantry. It takes nothing for a Drifter to float over you with some C4 or for you to run into a Heavy Assault Trap and get Decimators to your rear, in some cases BOTH! Wreck them. Wreck them all. In most cases where you see people in the feed saying to to shoot something, they are padding, with fake "Skirmishes" a cover to Araxium weapons with ease.

This is an exploit... If you cannot take out your target with A.A. being as powerful as it is, you need to die. Kill them without cheating, but still kill them.

ESF pilots are some of the saltiest players in PS2. I've had dozens of them come back over and over and over trying to kill me after I get a good kill from the ground. Makes me laugh even harder when they bring 2-3 buddies to help then act like they did it all by themselves and tell me how "Owned" my one, solo harasser got by 3 ESFs and a Lib.