[Suggestion] Two steps to drastically improve liberators (and galaxies)

1. Rework the XP distribution

What does this mean?
Right now, pilots in multi-personnel vehicles aren't appropriately rewarded for their efforts at all. Not only are they the ones investing their certs to upgrade the aircraft, they also gain the least from it. A typical night ends with the pilot making 20-25% of the XP/certs the gunner made at best. The pilot absolutely needs to benefit from assists, killing sprees, headshot bonuses, etc.pp. as well.

There are a two ways this could be fixed:
-Introduce a fixed distribution that gives 50/50 or 33/33/33 if a tail gunner is on board as well, or just split the XP evenly between the gunner that made the XP and the pilot, meaning 50/50 pilot/bellygun and 50/50 pilot/tailgun. If you wish to introduce a similar system for Galaxies, simply don't give any XP to people that are not in a pilot or gun slot, they are merely passengers.
-Use the system mentioned above, but make it optional. Have it be a selectable option in the vehicle dropdown menu. Something like "Default individual XP" or "Evenly split XP". I can guarantee you people will want to split the XP, all the gunners I've asked so far would be more than okay with giving some of their XP to the pilot, who's just as important as the gunner in making the vehicle a success. It's a team effort SOE.


2. Introduce a belly camera or bird's eye perspective

I can't tell you how annoying it is to be unable to look down. As a pilot, all you ever see is the sky in front of you. That is, if you are doing your job as a hovering gunship to give your gunner the best chances of actually killing things. If you fly your liberator like you would an ESF you'll probably not end up getting much done nor will you stay alive for long.
This probably applies to galaxies as well, who would surely appreciate the ability to see where exactly they drop off their troops.

Either let us rotate the camera all the way up so that we get a bird's eye perspective, or introduce a cool little belly camera. You could work it into the actual cockpit or just make it a selectable view by pressing 2 or whatever you wish.

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I'll go ahead and be bold enough to claim that these two changes would make a plethora of people very happy, especially #1.
Thanks for reading the post.

I'd admit that 90% of the work for the liberator is done by the pilot - we have to find good positions and keep ourselves alive whilst providing easy candy for gunners to shoot at. Some better XP rewards would be nice! Right now the gunner's XP far outstretches the pilot when they get the easiest job!

Anything to improve the galaxy is a +like in my book.

Well I wouldn't want the XP to be heavily skewed in the other direction either. Neither the gunner nor the pilot should feel unrewarded for doing a fine job.

As a Lib pilot i wholeheartedly agree with Jawa. Shared ex is a must, considering its the pilots that ussualy spend all the certs yet their the ones getting the least back. Disregarding the tail gunner that is, with the system as is i never run with a tail gunner is i just feel bad for him. he's much better of flying in a fighter or driving a tank then sitting in the tail position.

I do have an additional suggestion however, make it so all gunnery positions on libs/galaxys and tanks have a indicator for what direction the vehicle is pointing in.

This is especially important for libs, as 99.5% of the time you have no visual indicator on what direction your pointing the gun in compared to the lib. You have to look around and hope you see a engine exhaust or landing gear. Because of the utterly lack of ground feedback as a pilot all i have to rely on is feedback from my gunner, and him being disoriented really dosn't help.

I agree that the pilot should get more xp for what he does. I mean the gunner can be anyone if the pilot is good.

I am not sure about the look down camera. No pilot or every pilot ingame should have the possibility to look around. Especially for ESF pilots in a dogfight seeing someone is winning a fight.

The liberator is actually too durable for my taste. It gets away 90% of time to safety of friendly flak. If you have more than one liberatir of a faction in one spot it gets extremely difficult for anyone to get rid of them. I would not buff them more or it gets too much.

Also even now a good liberator pilots find their target and the lib is a really good farm tool. But equally share the credits for a vehicke of any kind would be a good thing!

as long as a vehicle has a turret, it should have shared XP and Certs

Cameras or at least an indication of where the gun is pointing, whether you are on the pilot's seat or on the gunner's, would be great.

More XP is, of course, natural. They're putting way too much emphasis on the glory of the kill.

Ya

Xp distribution = yes. This is needed.

But that's it. Libs are currently the best/easiest way to farm certs, for both pilot and gunner. Libs do not need a buff in any other way. Part of being a good Lib pilot is talking with your crew to line up shots and bombing runs.

As a Lib pilot I'd naturally love to have an equal share of the spoils. I know that gunning can take some skill but no less than piloting.

The ability to see what my gunner sees would be gravy, but not essential.

What could be useful would be a spotter camera for the tailgunner showing approximately what the main gunner can see. Separate from the standard 'q' system it could mark a priority with a special color/symbol that all the other people in the Liberator can see, with icons like the waypoint or something. Would give the tailgunner something to so.

As for the sharing, as long as the proportions are similar regardless if you have 2 or 3 crewmembers I'm fine with it. If you make it 50/50 for an undermanned Lib, then nobody will want to have a tailgunner.

I support better XP for the pilots

But, as much as I would want a top down/belly view for the liberator, I know I can't. To fly a liberator currently you need to be communicating with your gunner to operate at 100%, if they added a way for the pilot to see ground forces without hampering the gunner's ability to shell targets, it would only make it easier than it already is to pilot/gun a liberator.

Maybe the cockpit target linked nose cannon for the liberator that I heard about in beta though...that could be cool

After having sunk over 1500 certs into my lib, $7 for a suitable weapon, I'm done with the game, in turn, done spending any money until SoE can make it worth MY while to pilot the thing.

I'm fine without getting those spoils. I mean, I spent quite some time piloting a BF3 chopper, and got used to getting no rewards. I prefer to rejoice in watching my gunner making kills. Not saying I'm against EXP sharing, just pointing out my personal opinion.

As for Belly Cam - yes.
Especially - yes to a Belly Cam that doesn't take up the entire screen.

Love how most of the time we lib pilots only get to watch the sky and horizon. Id love to be able to see the destruction my gunner is causing through a cockpit only "camera" monitor. even better if you actually had to look around slightly in the cockpit to actually see the view. as this would greatly increase immersion while not making it to easy to fly the aircraft.

My wish for Christmas is that pilots be rewarded with nice XP by Santa for doing a good job

Personally, I feel all personnel in any vehicle should at least get the gunner kill bump when a kill is made by anyone in the vehicle.

Multi-seat vehicles are the very definition of team effort, all members should get a share.

Was going to come in here and scream about how infantry farming lib's don't need "improving", but this is not about buffs and I agree with the OP.

A belly camera would be awesome! And the exp share would also encourage lib pilots to use libs even more.

I'm not too worried about the experience difference. I go out with the Zepher instead of the Dalton so my nose gun is drastically faster at taking out vehicles than the #2 seat. In this way I get a lot of Sunderer kills if not other tanks. I may not be as high up the scoreboard as my gunner, but I know I'm making a difference.

Also, if you want a look at the ground you can tilt yourself sideways a bit and look out the side window. It doesn't always work while still giving the gunner a good view, but it's something. Otherwise I guess I'm lucky to be on VOIP with my gunners so I get a good idea of what's on the ground anyway.

Maybe if the alternate view could be rotated if the middle-mouse button is down?