Met the infamous Air zerg tonight.

Personally I think it should only take 1 aa rocket to bring an ESF down to critical "on fire" health.

What about an Engineer certable Phalanx CIWS to counter rockets and other missile type munitions. Not looking at a large protection area, but large enough that it cannot be hit by splash damage. Maybe different levels for increased target tracking. This is not to shoot down aircraft, but to protect an area from larger-than-bullets munitions.

Obviously there would have to be some sort of downside/restrictions, like a cool down period or max number of munition targets tracked aa one time.

Just my suggestion since many complaints aren't as much about the ESF's themselves, but the lack of protection from there munitions.

For all the people saying "bring your own ESF" --

There is NO other unit in the game where the counter is to bring more of that same unit.

"A few reavers for those that could fly'em."

Well that's a problem because there's too much air to ground, and there should be more air to air.

bullet speed
armor
damage increase

pick any combination or all of them and apply them to AA

This!

skip to 16:00

"Learn to play gumbas"

Please do learn to play, bye kiddos!

They managed to cap the base? How? Air can't cap. Oh, wait, you mean they nuked it to the stone age and then the tanks rolled in and then they dropped the troops from the galaxy to finish the job? Sounds a lot more than an just air zerg. OP didn't specify where, but it had AA turrets and from the sound of it, seems to be the crown or crossroads or any tower, as opposed to a tech plant or an amp station.

Assuming that the OP's count is correct (saw no sunderers mentioned, be surprised if there weren't) and that the only armor they had was that sky gaurd, I'm not surprised of the outcome.

The best airforce in the world can't win a land battle, that is fact especially in a game like this, you need boots on the ground. I've had so many moments where I, or a squad of mine utterly decimate an outpost in the air but no one is willing to hop out and cap the point, we end up flying in circles until someone finally decides to wander by and cap it for us. and it seems like they brought a ground force, both with galaxy drops and tanks rolling in, no mention of how many on foot.

that is a balanced combined arms force...actually I'm pretty sure that they ran into an outfit or -the zerg- as in the main army force that rampages through the continent. And there is no indication that their zerg was nearby. Those who fly are not always the competent ones, especially if only 2-3 took to the skies against 12 mossies and 3-4 liberators (if it were equal numbers, well then, they had their own zerg which they aren't mentioning) .

So the enemy had air superiority, if not dominance after quickly dispatching the 2-3 suicidal reavers which is critical in warfare, giving them a considerable advantage. However, could've been countered by staying in the structures that required guarding, if there was truly time to set up an elaborate defense, why sit up top of the tower to get blasted stay inside, in parts of the towers where ESF's would have to hover so low you can peg 'em with a dumb fire rocket with ease.

Also there seemed to have been a lack of tanks, which, believe it or not, may have helped the defense. What I am understanding from the scenario is that they were all gunning for air, hoped the AT mines would hold off the ground and then the tanks pushed through with minimal resistance (combined with galaxy drops and the inevitable hotdropping from instant action) they capped the point. Having more tanks around (as I've seen from those hilariously protracted fights at the crown with the TR) actually makes it easier because it gives ESF a target that takes more hits to kill, thus they have to sit around longer, thus they get damaged more. If the only target they were infantry and the tower turrets? Of course they are just going to zoom in and out of range, farming what they can.


Defending is never easy, but this wasn't a loss to air zerg, this was loss to air superiority, with tanks and ground troops and galaxy drops, THat sounds like an awesomely balanced assault to me.

Meh all they need to do is split up the rocket pods into anti armor and HE make the anti armor rocket pod good @ killing tanks and ground vehicles. And make the HE ones good against infantry.

This kills 3 birds with 1 stone:
A) prevents rocket pods from being used against aircraft
B) forces pilots to choose their poison infantry or armor slaughter
C) brings esf's back down to somewhat saner power levels

And for those who whine I spent money on those just give them both types of rocket pod but force them to choose 1 or the other.
also slow at rockets down just a touch so they take a bit more aim time to line up properly for the kill.

and give all burster shells a small explosion radius (about .5m should be good) increase and a tiny bit more damage and tighten the cone of fire on the skyguard a smidge and it should bring things back into balance 1 skyguard doesn't counter more than 1 esf. etc.

all things feel like they need right now is small bumps in the right direction and the balance should be better.

What this really does is take rocket pods from good vs everything to good vs armor or infantry.

Libs are fine as is imho they always were death from above and there's no real need to change that.

I really like that idea. Make it so that the air cant go straight to spawn camping like what has been happening lately.

Yeah, I have no problem with rocket pods. Aircraft should be powerful. However, ESFs are too tanky. Anti air is not supposed to just scare it away, it's supposed to be a threat, and it definitely isn't right now.

2-3 burster maxes can repel a lot of air.

5 or more burster maxes will deny all enemy air.

That isn't to say rest of the ground anti-air doesn't need a buff.

Be that as it may, why would you have the options of choosing a dogfighting airframe and A2A missiles on ESF's if they're not MEANT to counter each other? That's right, genius, A2A means air-to-air, means ESF's are meant to counter ESF's as well as other aircraft. This was developed in Beta, so I don't really understand why it's such a mystery how this system works.

I agree, base turrets are very feeble in their current state.

You can also choose anti-vehicle armaments for your tank, but that doesn't mean tanks are the counter to tanks (they have many counters, and they also cost double what the ESFs cost).

You literally have no argument, and are selectively presenting facts about the game to support a contrived viewpoint. Weak.