[Suggestion] Make G2A as strong as A2G

Rapid-fire cannons that two shot ESFs, here we go.

A rocket launcher that doesn't need several reloads to scratch the painting of aircrafts

It could be worse. The rest of the gaming industry lets aircraft fly by “Braille” bouncing off every building as its flying along.

At least DBG’s junk blows up when they hit the ground.

o7

Back when OracleOfDeath was alive there was this interesting tab that showed the top deaths of different vehicles.

Sitting above the dedicated G2A weapons were suicides and friendly fire (IE ramming a friendly). Now suicides could be a fluke due to pilots dumping their craft and letting it crash before it was destroyed, but friendly fire cannot. G2A was so laughably bad that if you picked a G2A weapon your enemy is more likely to crash into an ally than die by your fire. Aircraft durability increased since then due to the improvement of fire suppression on aircraft, the addition of auto-repair as engineer and the nerfing of some G2A weapons like the AA turrets.


A 2-shot is a bit excessive, but a 3-shot kill with a 60 to 120 ROF could be good. As could a range of other auto-canons. Imagine the current auto-canons adapted to G2A: Saron, Enforcer or Viper with a special mention for the Gatekeeper which could be used as a type of micro-missile autocanon system. The magazine size, velocity, shell drop (if any) shell size and damage could all be modified to make each of these into one or two distinct G2A weapon systems. Bonus is that such weapons dont need to be as useless against ground units. They could be excellent skillful anti-infantry weapons that dont rely on AOE to kill for example.

More ideas would be laser-guided missiles to try and hit an aircraft in flight manually rather than with "aim close and click" lock-ons.
Maintain-lock missiles that lock faster but have narrower lock angle and can be locked even when the missile is in-flight.
New flak weapon types and warheads that can be added to such weapons. Like a coyote-lock that takes over if you get the projectile close to the target, a projectile that detonates and sprays a shotgun pattern of shrapnel forwards which gives an additional reward for aiming at the center, shells that only activate their flak detonation range when they are much farther out. Flak projectiles that only detonate when the distance to the target increases allowing you to increase damage potential by landing shots closer or even adding a chunk of direct damage+flak damage.

This allows for a much larger range of G2A weapons with different usages and skill level requirements.

The thing that makes me giggle is how lazy pilots are becoming.

In various well made vids you're seeing skilled pilots just sit there and get lol shot by anything but AA.

AP, AV engy, C4, C4 ESF, Dumbfire, etc. So safe do they feel to just sit there and ching ching ching kills.

So bad is it you get tells like this when you can't shoot for sh*t in your prowler >

Well he is following the rules, you clearly broke them so he has all the right in the world to report you. Ground vehicles are not supposed to be able to fight back so this obviously goes against the spirit of the game and we can only hope tank shells get the same treatment as everything else and will just bounce off if you do manage to hit a aircraft with it.

Honestly surprised its not been 'fixed' yet with how everything else is... the above is heavy sarcasm in case anyone is wondering.

Combined Arms cooperation amongst players that accept outcomes.

Perhaps have a AA rocket that causes the air craft to loose control for a second or two. A mobility kill where it is out of control so at low alt it might crash. So even if the damage stays the same getting hit will make fly boys want to leave.

But thats the problem, I dont want another deterrent weapon, I want a weapon that makes the pilots feel as helpless as I do in a tank when a Liberator parks its fat rear above me or a ESF with Hornets.

Sure its not always certain death but that is only because a bunch of friendlies started shooting at them, without them I would be a free kill and have no way of fighting back... why is that not a thing for aircraft?

I mean honestly the frustration of a tanker being slowly shot to pieces by *insert aircraft here* simply because they cant aim up should have a equivalent for aircraft to balance things out. If A2G is allowed to be that one sided then there is no reason G2A cant be too, Skyguard should lock the aircrafts weapons so they cant fire and then turn their speed down to 10mph... then perhaps lower the Skyguard damage a little just so they have to suffer a few seconds longer.. I mean, give their allies a chance to help them!

His idea actually has merit applied to other weapons.

Imagine if all flak adds a stacking concussion effect to aircraft. Its not as powerful as deactivating it but it will do: any aircraft under fire will be severely hampered in doing the standard "point to a horizon that doesn't take me over the AA and I'm safe" maneuver, especially when they are caught in a nosedive.

I would even think that you need to seperate the debuffs into two distinct weapons: one slows the target down and adds a fuzzy vision, which means more hits and easier hits from the ground, and the other reduces the maneuverability. Wether they are hovering or in a dive the sudden reduction of maneuverability can easily kill them as they either crash or can't get into an escape trajectory fast enough. It means that if you come under fire as aircraft you have to try and escape immediately before the debuff stacks become too great and they can kill you, which they might anyway.
Sounds a lot like how you have to react immediately to aircraft doesn't it? Yes it gives more chances to the aircraft to escape since you usually cant get into cover or help in time to save you if one attacks, but its strong enough.

G2A is as strong as A2G, in the specific case of skyguard against hornet ESF the battle result are mostly 50/50 if both player are at the same skill.

Yep, the most specialized G2A weapon in the game is more or less on even ground with the swiss army knife ESF, seems balanced?
Kinda suspect you are mainly a pilot or have gotten so used to the inequality that you dont think its odd that this is how the balance is and has been for years and years.

Anything on the ground more or less has to use special weapons just to get the privilege to fire up into the sky but at the same time all those weapons are by design made into wet noodles and are only supposed to scare away aircraft rather than kill them, only if the aircraft stays in the area are they supposed to die.

Thats not exactly how A2G weapons work though being some of if not the deadliest weapons in the entire game, against everything, sacrificing very little or nothing to use them.

I mean I would be really happy with just getting a G2A version of something like the Liberators AP30 Shredder belly gun, it would be quite a big upgrade over a Skyguard... ~66.6% higher RPM, 50% higher velocity, ~33.3% faster reload and ~19% faster TTK. Wouldnt have the Flak detonation range ofc but 50% higher velocity and much tighter bullet spread would make up for it.

Sadly that can never happen because it would instantly break any ground vehicle balance, the new and only meta would be Lightnings with Shredders since they chew through even MBTs rather quickly even at long range and the very superior velocity would make it trivial to use against ground vehicles... just goes to show how stupid aircraft are imo when you cant even attempt to take one of their weapons and put it on a ground vehicle without completely breaking any balance the game has.

The surface to air launchers for the Heavy Assault could use a buff. The fact the pilots don't run flares tells you how scared they are of these.

The 950 damage instead of 1000 ensures that a bone stock ESF survives 3 hits instead of dying from them, so an extra 50 damage right there would actually change something. Better lock on range and faster projectile velocity would also be good. Best approach would be to implement a series of small buffs to the launchers over multiple updates. When pilots start running flares you can know the job is done.

ESF's die in 3 lock-ons tho. Fire suppression lets them live 3 if the rockets are staggered enough.

The Skyguard was in a good place before the CAI nerfed it to the ground.

Ever since then it's just been pathetic. It used to be capable of one-clipping an incautious liberator, but now even with several seconds of the lib staying parked in one place not doing anything, they still have plenty of time to just fly out of range. The worst a Skyguard can do to a Lib now is spook them a little.

And then once said Lib has repaired and gets a lock on your location, they just nosegun you into scrap or let their Dalton gunner take you to pieces.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Flak, rockets, rocklets, and all other types of AA have been sidelined into "help out your skyknights a little every now and then" rather than being actual threats to aircraft.

It's frustrating.

G2A game is frustrating.

Dedicated G2A weapons only tickle air, yet AV weapons can OHK? Totally makes sense.

Lock-on times for launchers is ridiculously long. IMO stealth should decrease the distance to the lock-on, not the lock-on time. An aircraft can be hovering mere feet from your launcher, yet it still takes seconds to lock?

Also, why can aircraft cert into a line that decreases lockon time, yet there is no counter available to launchers. Perhaps launchers should have a lockon computer upgrade that can be certed into.

Pilots eject at the last minute, so even if you get the kill on the aircraft, you rarely get the kill on the pilot (and things like bounties etc are only paid out if you get the kill on the pilot). Perhaps the ability to eject should be disabled once the aircraft is on fire.

Collision detection needs to be re-worked on aircraft - especially when it comes to ground collisions. It's ridiculous that aircraft can skim off the ground gaining road kills on infantry and maxes - yet take little (if any) damage. This is part of the wider road kill problem that has existed forever.

But its a massively unfair comparison right?

The Skyguard has no chance of escaping should the battle goes well-->the ESF does.
The Skyguard cannot truly ambush the ESF and deal additional damage-->the ESF can, and significantly if he manages to get in from behind.
The Skyguard is reactive and cannot dictate when and where the fight takes place (ignoring edge-cases)-->the ESF can.
Any use of cover for the Skyguard simply increases the chance the ESF can break LOS when it needs to bail-->The ESF can use cover to approach or hide behind.

That 50/50 only really counts against semi-skilled A2G ESF. Unfortunately the ESF have had it so easy with being able to pick fights with little to no G2A weapons that practically no one knows how to use them properly. I've decimated vehicle columns with supposedly AI rocketpods by simply targeting vehicles that went for repairs or attacking vehicles already engaged because the added DPS severely limits their option to escape in time, assuming they don't die from the barrage.
The only reason I could reliably aurax the Skyguard was because pilots are so damn predictable. Able to attack from 360 degrees but 90% will take the same direction to attack from and the same escape route. Just hanging around in their escape path and catching damaged aircraft to finish them off was my style.

But that is a massive undertaking. You need to be ready which prevents you from doing anything else, get everyone on the same target at the same time, not block each others vision, be away from cover as that easily breaks LOS, hope the risk of being exposed isnt punished...

Basically the only way to do it properly is just outside a spawnroom. Frankly I've never even seen a video of it working or even players attempting it during gameplay.

I think flares also need to be nerfed a bit.

Currently when an ESF pops flares, not only does it break the lock of any tracking missiles, but it makes the ESF immune to further lockons for 8 seconds (even if the ESF is nowhere near where it popped the flare).


Flares should of course break lock of any missiles currently tracking and should perhaps re-set a lockon attempt, however they should not prevent new locks initiated after the flare was popped.

The issue with air is that they are just too good at everything. They have counters to most of the weapons that can harm them, whilst at the same time being able to carry multiple weapons that can retaliate against anything attacking them. They also have huge mobility, being able to disengage and move to safety in a split second and can repair on the fly.

They don't have to compromise engaging with other targets in the way that a SkyGuard lightning or duel Burster Max does. A max can only equip kinetic or ordnance armour (there is no composite option), yet ESF AI weapons deal both types of damage - so you are screwed no matter which option you go for.

The ESF however has a composite armour option allowing it to defend against both direct and indirect damage simultaneously.

I went toe to toe against a Mustang AH Reaver yesterday with a duel Burster Max with fully certed ordnance armour - we both opened fire at the same time, yet he one clipped me from full health barely taking 50% damage himself. That simply should not be possible.