A dedicated pilot - the current Air situation

I've been flying in pretty much every game I can. I am BR 19 - I play casually, but I was alpha squad and did purchase that deal so I managed to unlock all (except A2A) missiles for my Scythe.

Right, background done. I just wanted to give a clear and concise opinion, coupled with facts on my game playing experience thus far. Here goes:

A2G Rockets, or Rocketpods:
Not the problem - see below before you take my head off or agree with me.


Air-to-Air missiles:
Problem. I'm sorry but if I get on another ESF or liberator, and you cannot have your friends shoot me down, you're dead. Please drop all the elitist BS about dodging around canyons, knowing how missiles work and flares. I have been playing combined-arms flight games every since BF1942 and every possible one since then. You cannot dodge these missiles. You will not be able to put something in their path because I am good pilot. I will have increase energy on you to insure you cannot lose them in trees and I will be at a good range to ensure they connect within 5 seconds in so. Assuming even a pilot of equal skill as I, who can pop flares and do a U turn near immediately and luckily (because it will be luck that determines this part) get a visual on where I am, to turn it into a gun battle (by immediately boosting it towards me), I still have the initial advantage as I have launched a missile and I'm now on guns. I'm one "cycle" ahead of you on the missile exchange.

tldr: Missiles are too simple to use at the moment. Air to Air missiles that is. They will do as many u-turns as is necessary to follow you. This is not a joke - I have dodged a missile using high-G maneuvers and I've had it PASS me (fly right infront me), twice, and it still connected the third time.


Anti-Air situation from the ground:
Problems. I have also unlocked dual-burster max. I cannot destroy any ESF that is hovering above me before it can boost away. I will bring them to approximately 40% if they're a good pilot (immediate afterburner, straightline, nose down thrust up bug out).

The risk of being able to hover and nail the ground from 20 feet up should be immense, and not just because of the assault/heavy dumbfire missiles.
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(a) I think you need approximately a 20% damage increase on direct fire ground based anti-air bursters (skyguard, max, etc). This 20% is a mix of damage increase or maybe larger flak explosion trigger - because it is incredibly hard to pretty much hit anyone above a 100 meters or so as long as they're maneuvering.

(b) Rockets are fine as long as you critically punish the risk of just hovering there.

(c) Air to Air missiles. I don't know what to tell you - perhaps, like almost any other game with "balanced" air to air, you need to reduce their turn radius and limit - like standard missiles, their field of re-acquired lockon. This will make sure that if someone spend the effort and time to dodge it with a well timed turn, it doesn't magically continue to pull Ueys, S-turns, Figure 8s and etc. Basically a limit on Field of View and a Limit on turn angle.

Thanks for listening.

I should clarify for point (b). The analogy is similar to that of a tank running up on some infantry. It's a feast unless you run into one or two that have anti-vehicle, then it's a huge risk to just sit in the middle of them and blast away.

You see people, this is a well put together complaint. This is how it's done. Not "omg I can't shoot anything, fix plox" that I see everywhere else.

Nerhesi, I agree with you completely on every point. If they were to implement these fixes, especially the missile one, A2A combat will be a lot funner. Because when I see that "LOCK ON" in my HUD it immediately equates to me bailing out and jet packing to the ground hopefully to safety.

You see people, this is a well put together complaint. This is how it's done. Not "omg I can't shoot anything, fix plox" that I see everywhere else.

Nerhesi, I agree with you completely on every point. If they were to implement these fixes, especially the missile one, A2A combat will be a lot funner. Because when I see that "LOCK ON" in my HUD it immediately equates to me bailing out and jet packing to the ground hopefully to safety.

I assume by your picture that you are a Vanu scythe pilot like I am. I have found that if I do nothing but tight turns the entire time a missle is locked onto me, I can avoid it indefinitely unless I get unlucky.

I don't know if that was a factor of being in the most maneuverable fighter in the game or not, but I have verified it works.

The downside of this, of course, is that you don't leave an area. If the original pilot who fired the first fires a second or switches to guns, then your problem simply changes forms.

I have sometimes used terrain to avoid locked missles, but usually via a quick turn-descend-upthrust maneuver that perhaps works 30% of the time.

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Maxes with AA: I agree that in a one on one fight between a max without sufficient cover versus a fighter with rocket pods (or an AA max versus a liberator with zepher or dalton) the planes win. I say that your 40% assessment is accurate. Consider though the relative cost of the units. Fighters cost 250 resources and Maxes cost 100. So that *seems* to be about right. Ground AA units in small groups can lock down a large swatch of area from fighters if they work together and are decent. Throw in a couple of HA AA users and most uncoordinated fighter attacks are doomed. If you try to equate the point values with, say, 3 AA maxes, and fighters drop in droves. I find the bigger point of AA is to scare aircraft off more than kill them.

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Skyguard AA:

When I use a skyguard, it's SUPER hard to track a moving fighter beyond 500 meters if he is doing any sort of evasive maneuver. Other than that, it seems to have a decent ability to scare of AA. I don't often get kills with the skyguard, but I often get assists; aircraft usually finish off the stricken aircraft. For the cost of the skyguard versus that of a fighter, it seems either their damage is a bit low, or their projectile speed is too slow, or their spread is a bit too large. My personal opinion is that the projectile speed is too slow and they don't travel quite far enough. From what I've seen of how things work, the projectile speed increase would increase its range (when the liberator zephyr cannon got a projectile speed increase, its range increased too, indicating that shot distance is more based on shot life and not shot distance directly).

That being said: I get blasted to bits by skyguards all the time. Sometimes in groups, but sometimes solo. So perhaps my ability to kill with a skyguard is more based on my own skills with the skyguard and not the weapon's deficiencies. I do think still that the zoom is somewhat useless on the skyguard as at long distance, you have to lead your target so much you can't zoom and still see it.

Agreed with everything. I'm pretty tired of being shot down by A2A missiles. I don't mind good pilots that stick on me and kill me with guns but EZmode A2A needs an adjustment.

It's already bad enough with the ludicrous acquisition timer that you need to cert down along with all the other ESF enhancements you'll need. Getting shot down by A2A within a couple minutes because 9/10 enemy fighters are carrying them right now makes it pretty difficult to be a dedicated pilot.

That's wrong. The point of AA is to kill air. Air being scared of AA is a product of its ability to kill them. How can it scare them at all if they know it can't kill them?

finally a pilot that sees a big part of the problem..

someone else suggested that a great solution would be, if you hit an ESF head on with flak, it should die in 1-2 seconds, because you expose the thin parts and the cockpit to the bad bad flak...

that would solve alot of the issues...

also, i think they should make flak hits, give like 1-2 xp per hit, so it would compare at least a bit to the amount of xp that dedicated air pilots rake in... this would make more people use AA...

He's saying that AA doesn't kill fast and isn't accurate enough so it merely scares them instead.

Dunno how people do it but when I fly anything... ESF or lib i get 2 shot without even being warned about a lock.

protip: missiles run out of fuel and explode.

I have mixed feelings about the current air situation. As a dedicated AA ESF, I feel that its currently too easy to take down enemy aircraft. I haven't unlocked rocket pods yet but I have seen the devastation that they can wreak. There are multiple ways of going about to address the current situation:

Increase reload times on rocket salvos (both A2G and A2A)
Reduced lock on FoV for A2A missles
Increased lock on times for A2A
Buffed Ground AA


What I DON'T want is for a return to the Super Omega AA situation in the beta where the skies were completely clear.


Hopefully people will stop freaking out over ohmagawdESFopnurf!! and start making some simple, rational suggestions to fixing this problem.

EDIT: ps battlerank 19 pilot.

Be sure you want a good middle ground. Cause in BF2 and on, missiles are impossibly easy to avoid. Airpower in that game is way more powerful than it is here, that said, if im going to take a nerf on my missiles tracking capability, then I want a damage boost for a two hit kill with them.

Only noobs run from ESF using A2A rockets. Pilots that actually know what they are doing will fly toward their enemies and attempt to tail them. Overall A2A are very effective for other ESF take downs, but you can not escape this through defensive means rather offensive means.

As far as lock on rockets from infantry go a pilot can easily take cover behind objects to block the lock on assuming they are keeping themselves aware of nearby areas to block los. Infantry lock on rockets do not ensure death nor should they. Their job is to keep aircraft away from them.

Why would you expect to kill aircraft without them having a chance to escape? If you want to kill them make some friends and burst them down before they have a chance to react.

I'm coming from the ground side of the equation; I have poured quite a bit of my time in taking down aircraft. I'm now ready to give my thoughts from a level headed perspective (as much as possible considering I am not a dedicated pilot and have had only moderate experience flying).

Personally, I think the dual burster max is very effective against aircraft. If anything I think it should get a very slight nerf...perhaps on recoil. Sure one max cannot take down one aircraft very easily if the pilot is adequate, but based on the costs and practicality it shouldn't be able to. Besides, in small groups the bursters are very effective at taking down multiple aircraft.

The skyguard is too weak IMO. It doesn't make sense that a mounted cannon (skyguard) has so much more recoil than a non mounted (burster). It also should be firing a much larger round than the burster, but it doesn't seem to do much more damage (if any). I tend to agree that the projectile speed is too slow. Although that is a bit harder to tell. Reduce recoil slightly, increase projectile speed slightly, and/or increase damage very slightly. I would even be inclined to spend some certs on some skyguard improvements (hint hint). Please no knee jerk reactions here...it is actually not that far off.

As far as air to ground lock missiles. I tend to think this works pretty well. I would say roughly 2/3 of my rockets land and it takes 3 hits from them to down a mosquito or reaver. I have only managed to land 2 rockets on 1 target in one pass...so they must get damaged by something else for this to be effective in killing (which is good).

Edit: As far as rocket pods go...no I don't think they are the problem just that defending them is a bit too hard with the weakness of the skyguard.

At the moment, im seeing a lot of pilots sacrifice their flares to break locks. i'd like to take the time to thank them for it, it gives me 14 whole seconds of open season acquisition time on you.

Agreed. Burster MAXs have far more on field effectiveness than a Skygaurd ever does, if anything the skygaurds only real threat to aircraft in general is that you can put it anywhere in the combat zone in seconds. Its a good mobile deterrent and one clip drums an ESF to about quarter HP, but thats if you can land every single hit.

Fight em like a wasp, fly at em and circle them, watch as the n00bs turret and attempt to hold a lock on them as you work them with the machine gun.

I think A2A missiles are fine if you have flares that's one missile gone. If your booster fuel is full that is a second missile gone. For claiming to be such a good pilot it is incredibly easy to lead those missiles into mountains, cannons, walls, random **** throughout the game and my personal favorite liberators and galaxies.

Skyguards and lightnings in general are good for beefing up vehicle fleets. They are highly vulnerable to ground based attacks which suggest group play. The point I am making is that skyguards work well in groups but try to play them solo and I guarantee you will be disappointed. Dont except to achieve anything unless you are grouped with other skyguards and faction tanks.