AIRCRAFT: The small fight killers and large fight nonfactors. Let's fix it.

Libs are considered primary targets because of the Zephyr and Dalton for most lockons. I don't believe it is purely just because they are vulnerable due to just lockon time, but the other issue is the lack of 'maneuverability', IE they linger in the open more than the ESFs do. The Afterburner, even without the fuelpods, tend to help the better ESF pilots get out of most troubles by not staying in easy LOS of both flak gunners and lockon weapons, however, for the liberator to be 'effective', it has to have the belly 'above' the target more than putting it sideways. While you can fire the gun, with the proper ballistic to make it so the dalton is no longer the easy 'OHK' on ESFs, it also makes hitting ground targets a little less 'point and click' firing.

The Liberator in and of itself is just 'slow' and a big target that vehicle stealth doesn't really buy it much support in this regard, where as for the ESFs with the 'faster' and better maneuverability, stealth can buy ESFs a little more breathing room in their pass more so than a Liberator or a Galaxy against ground units.

Now against air... Stealth would probably make it a little easier for the liberator to be an Anti-Air Libs, allowing it to react better against ESFs, as the ESFs have to pick either lockon range or lockon acquiring, giving the Lib pilot a chance to readjust his lib to allow the shreader gunner to F the ESF. That is the ONLY place I see where Stealth would help is to **** the enemy Air A2A Lockons more than the ground ones.

Actually, what this system needs is the allowance to do modular loadouts. For both Air and Ground Vehicles. The cost being they need to do it at bases with a specialized terminal or bring back 'decomp' or recycle current vehicle towards another vehicle. The vehicle systems are great for the roles, but what hurts at times is that Infantry who have access to a terminal, be it in a base or at a Sunderer can be operational with no cost.

While I have no problem with the Infantry part (Which a lot of vehicle people do have issues with how easily Infantry can have weapons to do so against them), the hard part for any vehicle is once you pick a role for it, you are stuck with it. In some cases, it is the 'worst' setup by either mistake or just the situation changed to make it not worthwhile.

IMO aircraft reduce the size of the game. Small scale stuff, be it vehicles or personnel, gets picked off by them and large scale battles are usually contained by aircraft on the perimeters. I know people bang on about a multi arms game, but aircraft have become scavengers, preventing people from going into the wilderness, which in a game that's meant to be huge is a bit sad.

Sometimes less is more, and I know it's been said before but I reckon a continent where aircraft can't attack the ground would be a popular destination. Something like Esamir with closed off infantry areas.

Such a destination would not be popular to those who like flying. They exist you know?

I do agree that aircraft have become scavengers ;(... some points exist about making aircraft a bit more tough/survivable/more dmg, but significantly less ammunition to prevent *scavenging* and instead, going TO the big fights, dropping payload there, and then resupplying.

Bump for airstrikes.

I would like a ground attack + speed boost combination secondary item. It should make an esf faster than a normal nosegun + fuel tank loadout without turning it into an air to air dominator. Have it also remove my nosegun or something. Part of me just wants to go fast.

Your ideas won't work in InfantrySide 2.

Dunno if anyone stated this already, sorry if someone did.
As I see it, the problem is quite dumb. You have to hover/fly low/fly slow to be effective asset to the ground forces, i.e. kill ****.
SOE have to drop the whole hover to kill ground philosophy, instead they should look for high-to-med precision airstrike weapons with tiny magazines and huge damage. Its range should not be well outside of lockons, but the esf and lib shouldnt slow down drastically to land hits neither they should hover just above the ground.
Imagine ESF Flying at roughly 500 meters, shooting two dalton-damage-wise rockets and fly away. After you shot both rockets simultaneously, they do not immediately ignite their jet engines, but fall for about 200 meters to the ground then ignite and fly to the target. This way you automatically remove hover podding, AV ESFs can now contribute to large fights while not dying instantly.
The same mechanic should apply to liberator.

I think the OP and KAHR-alpha hit the issue on the head in the first two posts. ESFs, and aircraft in general jump from one extreme to the other: they are ether brutally effective against ground, or helpless. I can log on one day and watch my squad get butchered at the hands of a few skilled ESF pilots in a low-pop fight and then log on the next day and watch said pilots get swatted out of the sky during a meat-grinder battle at indar excavation.They have no precise role, and yet are extremely available.


I would like to second some of the ideas being presented in this thread: mainly the redesign of ESF's with "Iron bomb" like weapons being the primary air-to-ground option. Being able to deliver more damage more precisely at speed than they can currently, but at the trade off of having to bug out immediately afterwards sounds quite balanced. Or, perhaps they could buff rocket pod's damage against vehicles, but nerf their AoE and their ammo per-mag. (Making them more dedicated anti-vehicle, and less all purpose and/or HE spam weapon).


Ether way, OP has a good post, a valid issue and some good arguments have come out of this thread. Keep it up people. Let's see if we can have a sane discussion for once...

For Liberators: A2G lock on launcher, with dumb fire capability. Damage somewhere similar to a single prowler shot, but with much lower velocity if dumb fired. Makes smoke a more highly considered option for ground vehicles, adds no additional A2A ability.

Or couple it with a target painting device for ground troops, such that a target hit with a dart (or near one like an infil dart) can be locked on to relatively quickly at long range (750m), but targets not hit by a dart cannot be locked on to past 250m.

I agree, this came needs more lock on weapons. Why can't I just click the button and get kills without worrying about this irritating aiming mechanic.

Skillfull lockons