[Suggestion] AA/Flak should be stronger and shorter ranged

It is common for aircraft to attack ground targets from max render range. AA needs to equal that range. AA is nerfed automatically at long range simply due to cone of fire and difficulty in calculating lead distance. Nobody gets massacred at long range by AA.

The issue of skyguards being generally ineffective solo is a problem in my opinion, but it's a hard problem to solve as having multiple AA can be very powerful.

It's already super short range if you actually hope to do any meaningful damage. If the enemy aircarft is outside 100m I don't even bother shooting it, since all that would do is just scare it away.

Where did I say that it requires teamwork? It requires teamwork to be effective at killing. That goes for literally everything in this game. The difference between AA and air is that air is working with an entire extra dimension. A single lightning with AP can easily deter a crewed MBT if he's properly positioned. So can an HA with a rocket launcher. If you add more people, or reduce the distance you turn deterrence into killing power. Air is no different, even if it has more ability to choose its engagement range.

See here's the thing about deterrence; it DOES something. It's ridiculous to think it doesn't. Real war isn't measured in kills, it's measured in territory. Deterrence is securing territory. If you've deterred air, it is effectively not participating in the fight; you have secured a friendly airspace (that friendly air can safely occupy). If an aircraft comes into view, and you shoot it until it runs away without it getting to fire, who did more damage? If it were a tank, it'd probably at least be able to return a few shots, but the nature of air makes this unlikely in an air vs AA fight. Even if it does get shots off, you honestly cannot do much of anything in one salvo or less. Maybe you can get some infantry kills, but unless you happen to be coordinating with ground forces that NEED those infantry killed so they can move forward, those kills are probably almost worthless.

And yes, pretty much all vehicles can escape a 1v1, provided their enemy is not faster than they are. Air has an inherent advantage because it can fly, so if you cannot retaliate whatsoever, it WILL win. It doesn't matter how much weaker you make an ESF, so long as it can deal damage to a ground unit that cannot retaliate, it will ALWAYS win the engagement. This isn't a balance problem, it's a logic statement.

One piece of AA can fight off a single aircraft. One SG can deter multiple ESF's, assuming they aren't both attacking at the same time, in which case it can deter one at a time. One walker can deter an ESF, though it will generally be able to get a salvo off first. Again, the problem you're describing isn't a balance issue between AA and air, but between AA and everything else.

A BASR headshot is pretty common, not incredibly difficult to pull off. Getting 3 people to work together isn't common, but it's SUPER easy to pull off. If you can get 3 HA's with AA lock ons in a good spot, you can instagib pretty much EVERY ESF that enters the AO. Lock ons do not need much skill to use. Yes, an ESF CAN escape 3 lock ons, but don't you think it'd be kind of ******** if it ALWAYS couldn't? That means 3 people could easily rack up thousands of resource points in dead ESF's without spending pretty much any themselves. And a suicide is still a kill.

They don't really have to coordinate, so much as they all need to be attacking the same target. It should not be too difficult to get 3 people to switch load outs and to focus fire on the nearest enemy aircraft. Sure, it's uncommon, but only because of the nature of the zergling.

That is a failure on the part of the defenders. If they cluster up in the same spot, they're asking to be destroyed. Positioning is important. If you pull three HA's with rockets out of a spawn that is being watched by tanks, they're going to get ******. Redeploy and position yourself somewhere they aren't trying to pin down. AND YES! 3 pieces of AA is pretty much full AA saturation! Do you know how ridiculous that is, compared to literally EVERYTHING else in the game? 3 pieces of AA pretty much can shut out all air, unless air specifically focuses on taking that AA out. Even then, the air needs to have both more numbers and more coordination than the AA, or it's just not going to happen.

I'm not suggesting it should be forced. If the average player knew what the rest of his team was doing and knew what he could do to be most effective, you wouldn't have to force him to do it. The thing is, this is a team game. If you don't do balance as if everyone was playing as a team, balance is going to be absolutely ****** when anyone figures out how OP teamwork is.

That's actually a really good idea. I had not considered secondary firing modes for any of the weapons in this game. You are right, AV is better at killing infantry than AI is against vehicles, so people tend towards AV. Giving AI weapons a little extra something, without disturbing their current damage models could make them more viable and fun to use.

Oh no, teamplay is super worth it. If you think that is all there is, you are wrong. Teamplay is incredibly powerful in this game, at any level, so long as the team actually knows what its doing. The problem is that it's not worth it, because there isn't really a reward to doing well as a team in this game. So you captured the base with only 30% pop? Great, you've earned another base to capture! Congrats!

Zergs run supreme because 1. the teamplay elements require someone take leadership and 2. nobody takes leadership because it is hard, there's little personal reward, and the game itself does not encourage it. My outfit has done ludicrous things to zergs with galaxies and sunderers. We've ****** up zergs by doing coordinated strikes against their spawn points, pretty much insta-stopping a zerg. There is a ****ton you can do with a team, even a small one, if you're creative. That they are so effective against numbers like that is an indication that coordination is lacking in a general sense. If the zerg coordinated even a little bit, it would be far less easy to take advantage of.

And these are good ideas.

Depends on the circumstances, for me. Is air ******* with my teammates on the ground? **** em, I'll shoot them no matter how far away they are. Is air trying to **** with the ground, but mostly just farming, or wandering? I let those ones get nice and close.

Farming infantry with a nosegun is worth my time, or anyone who can equip a clearscope or shoot lock-on users with it. Besides that, we need more interplay between unit types, not less.
ESF should focus more on the A2A game, but that's not synonymous to "1v1 ESF dogfights". It's "hunt down all aircraft". Besides that ESF shouldn't become one-trick ponies in their effectiveness. They should have just as much options to attack ground as air.

Ah, you were speaking of just AA turrets. Even then all AA moves at a snails pace (if it moves at all) compared to aircraft. That's why AA needs to have good range to deal with them, since an aircraft could be doing attacks at any time anywhere. Dodging and use of maneuvers should be key for aircraft to stay safe from all AA. That's why AA turrets also should have the range. In fact, AA turrets especially should have the range, since they can't avoid incoming fire even from long-range.

Because you are an aircraft, and any aircraft has the potential to be raining down death at any point in time. Better let them know there's AA there and that they should stay away, and better shoot the things where you have an actual chance of getting a result (IE a kill).

First of all, why would an infantry player be at a base with no fight?
Second of all, even if infantry is at a base with no fight, why wouldn't he be worried about ESF flying towards him? That infantry player is unlikely to be killed by a tank or infantry, so the only real threat would be an ESF that's looking for easy kills, IE a lone infantryman at a base without a fight seems a solid target of opportunity. It wouldn't be the first ESF that looks for kills behind enemy lines.

That would actually make the gameplay worse, as common aircraft wouldn't factor into fights anymore.
A better solution is to make AA more widespread, and to give almost everything weapons and abilities to counter aircraft. Dedicated options for lethal attacks, side-options for non-lethal attacks that help the vehicle stay alive when attacked.

Yes! And those who do want to support ground or simply kill stuff on the ground can use fighter-bomber style tactics to swoop in, deal some damage and get out. There's a risk involved, as tunnel-visioning on a target could very well lead to your face filled with AA fire because you didn't try to dodge, but it would balance each other out.

I like most of your post, but this one stands out for me. The reason we don't have a high-alpha strike type aircraft is because they wreck small fights. If AA is everywhere, air needs to be tougher or faster, so it can actually engage the enemy despite AA cover. If it has less time it can be engaged, it needs stronger weapons (or better tools for teamwork), so that it can actually do enough damage in that one pass to affect the battlefield. It can't really be made faster because of netcode issues, so it has to be made tougher and/or stronger. The problem with that is that any time there is NOT a lot of AA, aircraft will dominate; 1 aircraft can reasonably ignore or attack 1 AA and the aircraft just has a much higher skill ceiling than AA will ever have. This was the case closer to release, after AA got its first big (but needed) nerf. While a high-alpha strike type fighter could be limited by having a very small ammo pool, this would still allow 3-4 ESF's to basically alpha strike an equal amount of AA and win over multiple engagements, without needing any additional support.

Like I keep trying to say, the current balance is mostly in the right place. There is a reason things work the way they do currently, and most of the changes people propose don't fully consider how different skill levels and levels of coordination change the balance of things immensely. Obviously the devs can not do much to balance out skill in a game like this, but they can do things to encourage a higher coordination ceiling and floor. When more players start communicating and coordinating, the skill of the average player will rise, and the ****tier players will play more effectively than currently, because they support/have support of other players.

Air is working with an extra dimension, the fault here is that people assume this also makes it automatically more difficult.
There's advantages and disadvantages to being able to work in a 3D plane. An advantage is that you can ignore all 3D obstacles! While the ground-based vehicles might seem to move on a more 2D plane, their actions are much more defined by every 3D object. Hills, mountains, rocks, debris, buildings and other obstacles all have an effect on how vehicles can react to it. Some is cover, some gives advantageous positions, others are avoided like the plague due to the high risk it forms, the entire makeup of 3D objects around several bases is required to path your way to it. Situational awareness of what's happening on the ground and avoid getting in a bad position or use it to your advantage.

Aircraft have a far more linear experience because they can work in a 3D plane. Most big obstacles can be avoided or used as cover, small obstacles can be ignored in their entirety. Situational awareness is dumbed down to where enemies are and far less knowledge necessary about pathing your way there and using terrain to your advantage.
The skill floor to learn to use the basics of aircraft is higher than anything else, but you get a ton of advantages in return.

And you mentioned something about 1 ESF deserving to survive if only a single AA was targeting them, which would mean that ESF would only be destroyable through teamwork.

It's a game, not a real war.
This means that an aircraft that's deterred is still in play. It will simply move to a territory that isn't protected by enough AA to keep him from being effective.
Deterrence weapons are also detrimental to the game. A system where an entire unit type (out of 3 unit types!) is either useless due to enough AA being around or almost uncontested when there's not enough AA around is terrible for both sides. The aircraft users are prevented from participating in a fight, which means they can't have fun there and move somewhere where they can have fun. The AA players are either effective and deter air, then have to watch empty skies until they are destroyed/killed and leave their AA weapons behind, or they aren't powerful enough to even scare off air and will fall victim to a ground or even air unit and die.

Since most vehicles will attack with their front facing their opponent, all vehicles will be slower when trying to get away or they show their weaker armor and receive increased damage while running away.
That is why ground vehicles, with the exception of the Harasser and Flash, have no option to escape other vehicles in normal combat.

Actually it is a balance problem. You already mention it: Ground units cannot retaliate. What if every vehicle could retaliate? What if "retaliation" could also mean "making the aircraft power lower until you can survive it's attacks"? For instance if all ESF were forced to do more fighter-bomber tactics rather than hovering around and using weapons to blow stuff up. Now you give every ground vehicle new weapon/ability slots. These weapons/abilities could make it harder for an ESF to do a strafing run, for instance by creating a very large smoke cloud and removing any spots on the vehicle would allow the vehicle to avoid getting hit in the first place. Secondary weapons made available that have a light AA function would also do wonders, especially if it combined light damage, tough accuracy unless the aircraft is strafing the vehicle directly and a small debuff to maneuverability to any aircraft it hits. This allows vehicles to fight back against aircraft, they are unlikely to be deterred since the weapons aren't powerful but they are more likely to miss their shots or even crash if they are hit by these weapons.
That's just one way you can change the system. You add counterplay options, ways for vehicles (and infantry) to equip non-primary weapons meant to help protect the vehicle against aircraft without it needing be a lethal or deterrence option. You can also add primary weapons that are extremely lethal, but don't have any deterrence function (aside from "oh damn I'm heavily hit let's go get some repairs").

It is a balance issue between AA and everything else, but also between AA and aircraft. Deterrence is nowhere near an effective method in this game. If the end result is "it now killed things somewhere else" your netto gain is basically "it took him a bit more time to get those kills". That's not a good gameplay solution in a game where everything is a dead-on killer option.

Besides that I rarely get a BASR shot to my head and I main LA which is supposed to be the most favored target, my point was that BASR's have limitations. Theoretically BASR's can out-TTK any weapon at any range, well except for shotguns but then it's "just" a fire-rate problem. Point is that BASR's are theoretically the most powerful all-round weapons in the game, capable of headshotting at any range and winning any battle. But does that happen? No it doesn't. That's because the difficulty to pull it off consistently is massive.

In a good spot, there you have it! Lock-ons don't have a good spot. A good covered spot means that the cover will block your locks and increase the chance of the lock-on immediately drilling itself into the same cover you are using to protect yourself. Also forget about putting 3 lock-on users close to each other, if the aircraft is at a good attack altitude (read: not that high) it's highly likely that one HA will accidentally break the lock of one of the others.
"So move out of cover" you say? Yeah! Stand right in the open where every tank, infantry and the very aircraft you are targeting can stomp on you!
Lock-ons solo are somewhat useable, although not exactly useful for doing more than scaring off aircraft for a short time. Doing a one-salvo-kill on an ESF by using 3 or more lock-ons? That requires you to place 3+ HA on different positions with a good unobstructed view of the target even if it tries to avoid the shots and 3 safe enough positions to stand still and lock on to your enemy without any random player or the tiniest twig accidentally resetting your COF. Oh and it also means that you have to coordinate that all HA's start locking at the same time or it will already have a high chance of failing, all other factors not counted. And even then an ESF could dive to the ground and have all 3 missiles suicide, or use the ample cover most places offer to break the lock of at least one lock-on user.

So no, it's not easy, and definitely not super easy to coordinate multiple lock ons.

Again, theoretically. But practically? It doesn't happen.

There's so many different ways lock-ons could be used so that it actually requires more skill and allows for different firing methods than "stand around while having your reticule in the neighbourhood of your target and pray than <pick one from the list> doesn't go wrong".
I mean, you could start by removing the whole fire-and-forget mechanic. You could continue by tightening up the cone where you get a lock so that an aircraft can actually dodge your reticule and stop the locking. You could allow missiles to lock even after they've been fired so that you can avoid the incredible DPS sucking lock-on time etc etc.

Actually it is difficult. Not firing at the same time can already mess it up. From fire suppression to simply having more chance to accidentally/purposefully have the missile ram the scenery or even breaking the lock by getting out of sight.

I know how ridiculous it is, that's why I'm advocating the complete removal of the current AA system based on deterrence, which is exactly the reason why AA scales that badly and reaches full saturation so fast, and replace it with a different system.

I'm just covering the bases to avoid misunderstanding, I'm not suggesting that you want forced teamwork, there's just many people who come up with bright idea's like "and make it squad/platoon/outfit only, that would encourage teamwork!" and never realize how bad it actually is.

I'll reply to the rest later.

And I accidentally backed out of my long *** reply

I'll get back to it, but I'll summarize my thoughts that adding or changing anything requires changes of other things as well. Ultimately, different coordination levels are the largest obstacle to finding true balance. Until the average player starts thinking beyond himself, teams will always find new ways to abuse the old mechanics. If you change those around, there will simply be new ways to abuse the new mechanics.

Fix the coordination issues first, and when we are actually seeing these things used as intended and in coordinated groups, we will finally be able to see what the real balance is. You don't have to force teamwork, but if a squad lead can put down a general order saying, 'we need AA here!' A random player should be able to see that order and choose to fulfill it. That player should also have some information about the battle around him to know if that's the most worthwhile decision for him.

What we need, as said above, is a more deep and interactive AA instead of flak. Something that does more damage, but shoots slower, something that would pretty easily kill any ESF that hovers within its range, but is more difficult to use against people who are flying/dodging.
For some reason a higher velocity bulldog that does a tad less damage and has 2 barrels comes to mind.
Maybe a laser that has slower sensitivity while firing and has a short charge time?
Maybe a short of fast firing railgun?

I believe that G2A launchers are in a good place, 1 rocket is enough to make me leave the area, 2 makes me leave and never come back. 3 at once is an insta-kill. Especcially if we had a stronger AA against low fliers, then anyone low enough to use cover effectively and reliably would die to AA, and anyone higher would not be able to find cover from A2G locks reliably.

Yes! Hurrah for people who dare change their view based on arguments!

I guess we'll have a difference in opinion here then. I still think that teamplay in PS2 isn't worth it compared to simply bumrushing with more guys than the other team.

Besides personal reward, I think that there's little overall reward as well.
I think that most games that have good teamwork are based on multiple tiers of teamwork. You have the overall macro teamwork, where one or more leaders decide what is going to happen and their squad/platoon/army will execute it. Then there's the mid-level teamwork where individual players of a team (or some randoms) will band together and execute separate tasks to gain an advantage over the enemy. And last there's the micro teamwork which is basically offering the ability to work together. If everyone only has carbines and there's no differentiation there's little teamwork to be had other than "get more carbines facing your enemy". If you add things that help you and your teammates you are more encouraged to use them. Infil scan equipment is the only real shining example here. It's useful in any scenario, it gives an advantage to every single friendly player nearby and it's only flaw is that there are few good ways to counter it, especially darts that often don't show up and are incredibly tough to destroy without EMP's. Because teamwork isn't just about how your team works together, it's how your enemy can react to it. If your enemy can't do anything against your tactics other than do the exact same tactics you run up against a wall of stale tactics, where the one group that can execute those tactics the best will always win. A good system would allow multiple viable counter tactics, and counter tactics to the counter tactics. Everything in a game is build around two people: The user and the one it's used on, both should enjoy the system you created even if you lost (I think there's a great extra credits episode about this).

But we already have high-alpha strike type aircraft, Hornets for instance shoots around 150% of a Vanguard AP shot with one salvo, and with the current reload speeds you can quickly decimate any unprotected vehicle with that power. I didn't say we needed fighter-bomber tactics that were supa-dupa powerful, they could have similar power ranges as the current ESF weapons, but could have advantages in reload speeds or other things. Although considering you have a higher difficulty in hitting your target and that target gets alternatives to make it even harder I would think there isn't a problem with making their alpha damage higher than the high-powered point&click weapons ESF have now.

You can make air tougher or faster, or you can change the system so that AA has less accuracy. There's two sides to everything, and you can make changes to both sides for balance. My suggestion has been for a long time to reduce the amount of flak and lock-ons that make it easier to hit enemies, and rely more on aim+positioning skill versus dodging skill to hit aircraft. This gives aircraft a use for their agility when faced with AA, rather than having only the option to run.
Additionally aircraft don't have to be made tougher or faster, they can be made more maneuverable and agile. My suggestion is an omniversal afterburner. The ability to do a reverse maneuver while going 200KM/H forwards would be invaluable, not to mention the ability to instantly slow down or move straight backwards, launch yourself higher or lower or do hairpin turns by using afterburner fuel would make the amount of maneuvers an aircraft can pull off against AA or other aircraft incredibly high.

Aircraft a higher skill ceiling than AA will ever have?
OK, try to hit an aircraft flying around 800 to 1000m distance from you with any weapon. Tough? Hard? Nearly impossible? That's because the skill required to hit increases with distance, even with flak. On the ESF end distance is also important, the farther you are the easier it is to dodge. At 900m distance all you need is a slight deviation every x seconds to make any perfect shot go awry, meaning it's more a lottery for the AA source to hit you than actual skill.
But with changes to the AA system we can change the distances at which dodging is still useful while also increasing the distance where it's not a lottery for the AA system to hit a target. We already see how an AP shot can miss it's target if the aircraft deviates microscopic amounts, so there has to be a middle ground somewhere where aircraft have enough speed and agility in CQC and long range to dodge shots by confounding the aim of his opponent but not making it impossible for a higher-skilled AA player to still hit the target.

I don't think that the current balance is in the right place.
You already mention that the devs can encourage a higher coordination ceiling and a lower floor (I hope you meant a lower skill floor required to start using coordination). But they can do the same with the skill regardless:


As mentioned in the video, the ratio of skill to power shouldn't be linear, but it should be curved. The lower skill you have, the more power you get for each bit of extra skill you gain. The higher a skill you have the less power you get for each bit of skill you gain. The thing here is that it requires a skill floor and skill ceiling where you can actually have a difference between the players, and preferably that your opponent has a way to combat your skill.

Here's the video I mentioned in my previous post about counterplay:


Not only do you have to have a curved skill to power ratio, you need to make sure that every weapon is fun and useful for both players.
As seen in the video, the sniper might have the time of his life, but if his opponents have no way to see how or where they were killed, let alone fight back against the sniper, then you have 1 happy sniper and half a dozen unhappy opponents, all customers that stay or leave based on the amount of fun they are having... I can hear a ton of people screaming "Gid gud scrubs!" but that's very bad for your customer base, and soon you'll have games where there's only snipers or simply deserted servers and a game shutdown, and those snipers won't even be able to play the game they enjoyed.
When faced with flak (and lock-ons) aircraft have a similar problem. Unless you were already moving in to cause some damage you'd better bug out immediately. There's basically 3 options: Run, try to blow them up assuming you were already attacking or die in a ball of flame. That's why flak needs changing to give aircraft more ways to deal with it. I keep suggesting reducing or removing flak weapon's ability to hit regardless of what your opponent does (at normal combat ranges) and giving the aircraft a chance to dodge and still attack something if they can manage to dodge the opponents aim.
If done properly, there's not even a reason why 3 alpha-strike ESF shouldn't be able to blow up 3 opposing AA sources. Granted it would probably take at least one run per AA source, and each time they run the risk of having one of their own getting shot down and then not having enough power to blow up one of the AA sources... That sounds like a fun and fair system to me. Risk versus reward, aim+positioning skill versus movement+attack vector skill. And yes, aim skill can be extremely more difficult to pull off than the movement skill, so there's also a point where aiming skill moves up the same curve of movement skill...

I was thinking of something that shoots faster. Or at least goes through his clip faster.
Current Skyguards, Bursters and Asapis turrets (I thought those were the AA one's) all have large clips and it takes a while before they need to reload. This means that they are dangerous and damaging for extended periods of time, even if it does take half a clip to kill a target.
I think a better system would be to have AA work in bursts. You fire a burst of dangerous, damaging shells at your enemy. Your enemy is either an easy target and hovers or a hard target and flies about. Either way you hit or you miss, with enough hits you could potentially destroy the aircraft! But it's unlikely.
Now the aircraft has at least two options: Flee or keep attacking. Even if he was hit and damaged he might want to continue attacking, and he can! He could start a reevaluation of the situation during the reload of the AA, then either attack or flee in that space of time. If he decides to attack he assumes he can stay relatively safe from the AA by putting more effort into dodging, or by moving somewhat farther away from the AA and attack something there and make sure the distance makes up for his lower skill in dodging, because positioning would suddenly also important for aircraft adding more depth to the game!

Actually a very very good alternative. The AA is powerful, can fire extended volleys (with a big enough magazine) but each individual shot can be dodged by the aircraft rather than "damn there's a stream of death coming my way now I have to be dodging constantly".

I think that every vehicle should have different turret speeds anyway. This ultra-fast turning velocity doesn't really help in creating good tactics and methods. With different turret speeds you can differentiate the amount of power each vehicle has. MBT's with slow turrets would suddenly be much more vulnerable to Lightnings that try to circle around them and keep out of their reticule. Aircraft could also have options to fly very close to AA sources because what they lack on speed to dodge a shell they make up in speed to dodge the reticule. This, once again, adds to the amount of skill required for AA to hit aircraft and also adds more alternatives for aircraft to fight.

How would it fire? How fast would the shots go? Would this incorporate the idea of slower turrets? How big is the magazine?

I don't think you've ever been on the lock-on user side much. Yes when you do get hit I believe you that lock-ons are effective, but if you knew the amount of crap you have to wade through to get them working well without getting your face stomped in...

With this I was thinking it would follow your first point, has 2 barrels, does a lot of damage at once, but has a reload time, charges up for a short time too, so it would be harder to hit fast moving targets.

Another alternative would be it has 1 barrel but 3 quick (maybe 3 shots in 2.5-3 seconds) shots before it has to reload, meaning any hovering ESF would be dead if it gets hit by all 3, but dodging the last 1 or 2 would be relatively easy if you choose to leave. If not you're probably dead.

Pretty high velocity rounds, but the charge up time prevents it from being too effective against quick moving targets.

If it moved a little slower, that would allow us to add even more bullet velocity which could actually be really good. It would allow gunners to actually feel like they have a chance to hit quick moving targets, but it wouldn't be too strong since they can't turn quickly.

I'd say the mag definitely has to be pretty small for the amount of damage it does, the only thing i'm worried about is how this will interact with larger vehicles, it might be too easy to hit them with such a fast bullet velocity, so it might need to have a quick damage drop off, and maybe a magazine of 6 that can fire in bursts of 3 to be a threat.

I really like the bulldog alternative I had in mind still.

Actually you're right i've never once used an A2G launcher in this game or a G2G launcher for that matter I don't see how it can be too difficult though, and I can't see the changes you proposed making it any easier, just more deep and enjoyable.

The point isn't that lock-ons are difficult, they absolutely aren't. They are the lowest of the lowest skill weapons in the game. The problem stems from all the problems that plague lock-ons causing them to ram the environment despite your best efforts or not even fire at all. Coordinating them is also a massive pain because of the way they work.
My idea's would hopefully solve most if not all of them. No more waiting while your missile locks, but the ability to fire it in advance and surprise your enemy when the lock takes hold, especially in those in-your-face scenario's where an aircraft is almost on top of you this is a godsend, because it's a pain to have to wait for a lock when they are almost on top of you, or you have to dumbfire with the risk of a miss and the sub-par damage compared to actual dumbfires making the reward for a hit abysmal. On the aircraft side they can actually do something that fits aircraft. Rather than "run away or kill them" aircraft can now actually dodge the lock through maneuverability and stay in the fight.