[Suggestion] A2A ESF vs flack and G2A locks

Why are air to air pilots still suffering for the sins of the A2G farmers?

I suggest that flak be changed so that it only detonates in the presence of A2G weapons.

A2G weapons being;

Rocket pods.

AI noseguns.

Wyrm.

Hornets.

So that ESF running A2A noseguns, coyotes and A2A missiles would only be affected by direct hits from flak sources.

Also give A2A ESF which arent flying with any A2G weapons the ability to equip ammo based flares which dont work against coyotes or A2A missiles.

OR, since mana AV turrets were made to be auto spotted, how about we make heavies with G2A launchers auto spot. The reason for mana av turrets to auto spot is that they were invisible to tanks and this was unfair. The same is true of G2A lockers.

When im flying A2A which is 95% of the time, i have no chance of finding and killing G2A heavies. Even with A2G weapons this is a nearly impossible task.

Stop making ALL pilots pay for what A2G pilots have wrought.

Thank you.

Well I hate to just discredit the whole idea in one fell swoop, but nothing stops A2A noseguns or Coyotes from being used on ground targets.

By your suggestion any ESFs running these would be practically invincible against AA while still sporting an A2A loadout.

Also the mana AV turrets we made to be auto-spotted because unlike everything else infantry-portable they have very long range and no warning or indication prior to impact. Lock-ons tell the target they're being locked and the missile appears on the map.

So, if we want to defend our allies, we can't use flak.
And if the enemy gets bright, and uses their A2A weapons onto the ground, we have the most ineffective weapon known to mankind against it: A flak that can't detonate.

Not to mention: the bloody range.

A2A ESFs can already run Flares.
They're not ammo, but infinite, but it would be nice if Flares in general weren't infinite.

Auto-Spot on Heavies with G2A: Ah yes, So Heavies can be massacured by the AI which has an ~1 second TTK on the HA if they were spotted.
You know the trick of using Thermals to instantly find & end any HA that had LOS, that is what Your auto-spot is.

If you were given the ability to find any HA who just began the locking-process, You be able to essentially massacre any infantry that attempted to fire 1 of 3 lock-on shots.
Add in using Composite-Armor or Flares, and You're basically immune & any HA is Free-kills.
Not to mention, if it's just them having it equipped, you have now permanently spotted Heavies:
Past maxes, your only real Concern.. Is unable to hide, when It has the shortest-time-to-live when the ESF finds them.

Your ESF is never able to be identified before it engages, to what weapons it has.
And you wanted to give ESFs, an easier farming time with these auto-detection of threats..
So we can try in vain to shoot something with flak, get nothing, While It uses A2A weapons to shred the ground..

You ever try to kill ground targets with a2a noseguns or coyotes?

As a matter of fact i dont care if you exclude coyotes from the benefits i have suggested.

If you go and try to farm ground targets with a2a nosegun you are going to get shot down by tanks, small arms, dumbfires, basis, walkers, and flak which isnt hard to get direct hits at the 150 to 200 meters range they have.

Maybe you two should go try to do some a2g.

There is a reason there are no a2g or a2a esf at any large battles.

If you think air shouldnt have ANY role in the combined arms game, please go make your own thread titled, Air has no role, please keep it that way, i promise i wont post there.

Doing so may not be the most effective way of killing enemies or destroying vehicles, but it's entirely doable and if it made the user almost entirely immune to nearly every kind of AA it'd be very well worth the lethality reduction.

If an ESF is downed by a tank cannon or dumbfire the pilot was either hovering low to the ground like and idiot or just got unlucky. If an ESF is destroyed from small arms fire the pilot was an idiot. Slightly less so from Basilisks. Walkers are about the only decent form of AA and under your suggestion would be the only AA worth using. Ya' know, more than already anyway.

An Aspis turret without flak detonation would literally the one of the worse weapons in the game, period. Direct hits deal so little damage infantry can stand in front of the turret and drop a mine. At any kind of range the hilarious inaccuracy and pathetic velocity would make it almost impossible to hit even a mostly stationary ESF.

I would, but that would make me a hypocrite. SMG infils and all that! Perhaps you should go try to do some G2A.

I often see this line toted as if there wasn't constantly air over every large battle. How many times does one see an ESF from the third faction not able to contest the points? Literally all against one yet there they are.

Hilariously enough, you're once again the only one pushing for domain-based segregation. You want air to be left alone and not be attacked by ground forces in this combined arms game, I'm simply stating why the suggestions are vulnerable to exploitation.

Furthermore, Ariel Anomalies exist to give aircraft an exclusive event which benefits them exclusively regardless of player participation, Mr. "air has no role."

Ya' know, if being an overpowered force-multiplier wasn't their purpose already. I suppose by your logic tanks, harassers, and ground vehicle, MAXes, and any non-engineer or non-medic infantry have no purpose either, in this game about killing people, right?

Hey Silkensmooth, lets make this FAIR right?

If you dont equip an A2G weapon, then you become virtually invulnerable to G2A.
If I dont equip A2A on my ESF. I should be virtually invulnerable yo A2A. After all why should I be bothered by an A2A pilot if I cant protect myself. I cant even make use of combined arms by using friendly G2A to bail me out.
If I dont equip G2A, I should be nigh invulnerable to A2G. Why should my fight be bothered by something I'm not equipped against, right? Its only fair if A2A ESF get this...

I will say it's a fairly novel idea, having a weapon deal damage based on your target's loadout. However, you should probably try to play a little g2a with a open and honest mindset. What you suggested is not a well thought out idea.

I have used G2A its very boring but extremely easy. Perhaps you should try flying in this game, and you will see that you cant go anywhere without constant flak. Invisible locks etc.

My main point is that the g2a is too strong because of ground pounders, which prevents all pilots from participating.

Taken from your own words, here are the options:

A: G2A is boring and easy. So we make it harder (say as hard as infantry combat) and less boring. This can be done by removing the deterrent factor for starters. (hey this is what I often propose!).
B:G2A is too strong because of ground pounders. So we reduce ground-pounder strength and G2A goes with it. You aren't interested in A2G right? Because you constantly ask for A2A aircraft to benefit from your adaptations the most?

But you invent option C! Let's just nerf the hell out of G2A (no more than 500m range like the already useless AA turrets) and make A2A ESF untouchable by making flak not detonate unless it scores a direct hit.

You are exactly right, g2a is incredibly boring. Say you pull a skygaurd. You are waiting for an esf to show up so you can finally be useful. Guess what, that esf has a2a equipped, and now you had better hope that it doesn't decide to shoot you, because I can pretty much guarantee that the esf will be able to flat out kill any skygaurd. I have not tested out the esf a2a nosegun, but even if it's half as good as the default it will win.

I will probably never get into the air game. I have tried flying at one point and found the controls pretty, hmmmm, wonky. What my desired purpose in asking you to try some more g2a was to more fully think suggestions through and how it could have different ramifications across the game.

There are many people in this game that just love to fly, and I feel this is the greatest Arial combat game ever. The controls may feel wonky when you start, but imho, are perfect for vtol models. Most of the experienced esf pilots have done their share of ground pounding, to Aurax their craft, and with rare exceptions, just don't anymore. I've aurax'd all 3 esf's on Connery and Emerald.

I don't want to kill a new BR2 player with lol pods. I don't want to kill a beginning pilot, harrasser, whatever...and kinda feel bad when I do. My thing lately is to try and get horn kills with my esf, fly real close and honk...if they crash, it's a kill...lol. Over a hundred so far as Vanu on Emerald.

I often go to enemy warpgate and give new ESF pilots something to shoot at, showing maneuvers, how they can maneuver, etc. I won't shoot any of them down, don't even shoot back usually, and sometimes joust with 6 or more. Last week had a TR player that was working on his attack runs, and I let him attack me repeatedly, without shooting at him, so he could practice w/o losing his esf. Often I get asked "Why aren't you shootng back?". My answer is that "I'm helping you to get better", and that's fun for me.

Exactly this.

I do the same thing, if i see a new pilot, or even an older pilot who is having problems or not improving i take time to ask if they need help.

I invite them to duel on koltyr to help them improve their aim.

Despite what everyone who doesnt fly seems to think, shooting down people who dont fight back isnt very fun at all.

We want good exciting fights that get the blood flowing and the adrenaline pumping.

We want a healthy, robust air force for all three sides.

Most of the kills i have with rocket pods are vs lib crews who do the land and repair thing, or vs tanks back when pods were a viable option.

Can you describe how the controls are wonky?

You have pitch up and pitch down, which you should bind to keys.

You have roll which i think most pilots use the mouse for.

You have forward throttle and brakes.

You have yaw left and yaw right.

You have ascend and descend.

What do you suggest would make for better controls?

You can rebind all of the keys so if you dont like where they are thats easily fixed.

I changed mine to;

R forward throttle.

T pitch down.

E pitch up.

D yaw left.

G yaw right.

F brakes.

H ascend.

Right mouse button Descend.

S analog throttle.

Y change camera view.

How about controls you can find in 90% of the other games? Or consistency in the controlschemes?

Infantry movement is controlled by keyboard and direction is controlled by mouse.
Ground vehicle movement is controlled by keyboard and direction is controlled by mouse.
Aircraft movement is controlled mostly by keyboard, except roll which is mouse. The direction is half controlled by mouse and half by keyboard. Because reasons.

This is in no way a clear system, nor a logical system. Thr fact that you have to rebind keys just to be capable of using the A2A combat system is even more ludicrous.

Two options for a good system:
All movement is controlled by keyboard, direction is controlled by mouse. This is used in a great many games and allows for a more intuitive control and use of the plane.

Second option is a full keyboard control. This means it feels you control the aircraft more indirectly as if you really are flying it but is a bit harder to learn than mouse-aim. The GTA series and Just Cause use such systems.

Compare the above options to the haphazard hybrid system offered by PS2...

Edit: I actually just realized what PS2's system reminds me off. In old games like Unreal Gold and Quake, the old games where mouse control wasnt always fully available yet, you could do everything by keyboard. The way you have to look up and sideways simultaneously using a controlscheme that hasnt been optimized for it and the clunky speeds it had are very close mirrors to the horrors that the PS2 flight system represents. Unless if its the purpose of the game, the controls should never hinder the player, and rebinding should be a matter of preference instead of necessity.

if you want nerf of G2A weaponary i concider the A2G weaponary nerf then too. Remove Banshee, Mustang, Light PPA, CAS, Spur, Hellfire/Breaker/DualPhoton rockets from the game and i never ever gonna play AA max + i'll immidiatly swap airlock launcher to decimator on all heavy loadouts

Doesn't sound fun for you don't you? How you gonna farm pesky ground peasants then? So **** flying scum, you are not welcome here.

Try reading what i said before you post, that might help. comprehension for the win.

I am sure that there is some magical combination that if I tried I could make the control scheme work. What you have setup seems quite frankly even more wonky to me then the default. But then again it has been ages since I have even looked at the keybindings...

I still dont understand whats 'wonky' about it. Like the controls for anything they are a bit clumsy until you get used to them.

You have put me on ignore have you?

If you haven't, the wonky bit is how the controls are divided.

Normally the mouse does all the directional movement of the aircraft (or infantry and tank for that matter), while the keyboard is for controlling it's maneuvers like speed and rolling. Alternatively the mouse is disconnected from steering altogether and is used purely for looking around, while WASD+numpad controls are used to control all aspects of the aircraft.

But PS2 has a wonky system. The mouse does half of the directional movement which means that instead of a fully 2D directional direction change(up, down, left, right and any diagonal movement) you are suddenly stuck with 1D movement (up, down). You've cut away all gradiants of direction you could use on a mouse. You can basically remove the mouse entirely and use keyboard inputs at that point... and looky here that's what the keybinds you proposed do! But this still means that proper control is out of the question as roll is still on the mouse and turning left or right with the keyboard is extremely slow compared to up/down with the mouse or rebound keys. Uniquely the mouse is also doing half of what is normally keyboard (roll). And the keyboard has to take the role of mouse, but that doesn't give you the gradiants you want!