A dedicated pilot - the current Air situation

I have to say that as a dedicated pilot and infantryman, I find that:
a) As any class of infantry, shooting at an ESF and getting maybe 2 or 3 hit markers will scare them off 90 percent of the time.
b) As a Terran Mosquito, I seem to get picked out of the air almost immediately by A2A weaponry

I think the point the op was trying to make is that he would tail you close enough to prevent escape. The failed logic in this case however is that if he is so close there is nothing preventing the enemy ESF from turning around and changing the situation from a chase into a dogfight.

Honestly I typically down enemy air before they have much of a chance to react. I get a free bead on them with my first missle, can quite easily tail air and if they make the mistake of trying to get behind me from head on my chaingun makes short work of them. I have a mosquito, haven't even unlocked the rotary yet because it felt unnecessary.

Overall I'm just not sure. There aren't enough dedicated ground AA players yet, and most people flying are new to it and don't have much experience. Considering than I'm an air jockey (BF 2142 and BF3) I might also have an experience/knowledge advantage over the average pilot.

If infantry have the nerve to shoot at me when I am not under other enemy fire I will just gun their ***** down with the stock machine gun. It's not too difficult with a little practice really. I once went on a 20+ killing spree doing nothing other than gunning infantry down. To be honest I am surprised I don't see more people doing this.

I agree many do not react, but one day you will encounter some skilled pilots that will show you a few things you have never seen.

A fully crewed galaxy can make for a nasty gunship IMHO.

Wut? That's the point of flares, to break locks.

The great thing about going up against other ESF that have A2A is that you immediately know they can't dogfight. So long as you break that first lock they should give you enough time to maneuver behind them, or at the very least bug-out.

As for ground AA, I can't speak much for Skyguards because I really can't recall running into one (which I guess speaks loudly about it), but the Burster MAXes are fine as is. Two Burster MAXes will tear apart an ESF.

Incorrect. If you use a flare to break a lock before missile is launched, then you have succeeded in only delaying your pursuer. And those with A2A missiles, can dogfight, thats why i have the air superiority gun to back me up. The idea is to spend as little time as possible using my A2A and to grind my enemy down to nothing and force him to run. Once hes done so, I'll finish him off with a missile or two. Also, theres a 14 second cooldown on the flares, whereas they only break locks for five seconds after deployment, it gives me time to acquire and launch a missile, reload lock and fire another missile before those flares can be deployed again within one second.

But thats how I do it. Im evil. I force you to deploy your flares first, then I fire a missile. This way Im not sacrificing a missile to them, and I have a greater margin for error.

Edit: The point being that its foolish to break a lock when a missile hasn't been deployed. As you don't have to go through a reload, acquisition and launch phase altogether if you have your lock broken pre-launch. always ALWAYS try to dupe your target into launching his precious countermeasures before you commit to launching a missile.

Breaking a lock doesn't necessarily refer to whether at missile was launched or not and using a flare after a missile is fired is a very good way to give pilots time to try to engage their pursuers.

At the moment a pilot realizes they are being locked by a tail they may not have a method other than flare to escape the hit but at that point anything is possible depending on the skill of the two pilots.

Although most pilots may fall into panic and flee to their doom a smart pilot will always engage their pursuers.

Meh, I just feel its more intelligent to force a flare then fire a missile if im chasing, or force a missile then fire a flare if im being chased.

The lock on screen and sounds change if you have a missile chasing. Someone attuned to this will wait no doubt however noobs will fall for this often.

There is probably nothing I can say to convince you what is and isn't possible while being tailed with a2a, but you may one day encounter someone that flips your a2a world upside down. I will say I do not often see pilots that know exactly what to do when they have a2a locked on them and as a result it leads to a lot of easy kills, but people will learn over time.

The main issue is this actually: All ground based AA weapons cost 1000 certs which means no one has them and secondly if you're going for a ground based AA role prepare to get no certs per hour.

Resources are pretty much irrelevant when the only thing an AA MAX can do is shoot aircraft.
You pull a 250 resource aircraft and can fly about killing anything and everything, you pull an AA MAX and you have to hide next to an engineer for the next 20 mins watching the sky, just hoping you can scare someone into flying into a tree.

lol nah the AA is fine, nobody should ever be able to kill air. AA was put in game to help with air denial thats all. lol all the AA user just dont know how to shoot down the skilled hovering rocket turrets.


lol i just ignore them now, i dont even bother to shoot at them, i just go into a building and shoot infantry while they try to hover and spam the window with rockets

If you played bad company 2, the AT4 fixed all anti-air concerns and wasn't OP or noobish

It does not keep them aircraft away. The pilot pops a flare then comes over and rocketpods you and your family back to Jesus' Bar Mitzvah.

Even if you hit an aircraft with a rocket the pilot has lots of time to fly over and sky punch you before you can load and lock on again.

I agree as a dedicated pilot myself on Waterson. A2A missiles are way to easy to use. I will admit that I use them often as my opener then switch to guns, or when I have a Reaver that is out running me. But it's way too easy to lock-on, and those missiles' travel arch/paths are way too good.

Either they need to tone down the reticule/window you can acquire lock-on, and/or make the missles trajectory slower and less nimble. As much as I use the A2A myself, I would rather not have to use them just to keep up with the Joneses.

Actually a pilot has to find you first. Its not as if locking onto a pilot will magically reveal your location. They have to fly close enough for you to render which is much shorter than vehicles and rely on scout radar and night vision. Even then in big battles its almost impossible to figure which person is the one firing off the rockets.

I have been able to simply outrun a lock-on missile with a mossy. The first thing I do when I see that lock is hit afterburners, hug the deck, and fly as far away as I can until the lock warning fades, then return to the combat zone.

Also I agree that alot of dumbfire AA is underpowered. I can simply hover around any given base for a very long time without much issue. Take a little fire? No problem, hit afterburners and pull an emmelman for a little altitude, then zip away behind a hill and repair. The biggest threat to my mossy is other aircraft, if I see an enemy aircraft in the area I will engage it as my top priority, and if I lose them, can't kill them, or they hit me, I'll usually bug out quick.