Anti Air partisans - A global invitation

I don't know man, your fighting a 3v1. Does 1 infantry expect to simply walk up to 3 MANA AI turrents and win? Does a lightning expect to simply drive up to 3 MANA AV turrets and win? Does 1 ESF expect to simply fly up to 3 Lock-ons and win? I think all the answers is no because your fighting a 3v1 against a counter made for you.

For AA to "deter" aircraft if needs the lethality to be increased of the Aircraft HP's to be reduced.

The only deterrence is the ability to kill in an equal (or better) time frame

If Skyguards could kill a lib in the same time as a lib can kill a Skyguard then it might be fair (maybe increase the damage at close range by about 300% dropping down to what it currently is over 100m).

Until then the "skygods" will continue to farm happily.

Afaik, the game currently doesn't have the mechanics.
Specifically: enemy aircraft are damaged by flak -exploding- around them, not by the direct damage.
For explosive damage, such as from rockets,tank shells, grenades, or in this case, a seperate flak type, I know no indication the code for damage drop-off over range exists.
Hence, I think it would be easier to create a 'skyguard' with the firepower of 2-3 rangers. This means direct hits are needed ( easier at close range) , higher velocity (less leading, but again, direct hits needed), and damage drop-off already exists.
I would also consider it only logical that something like a skyguard would be highly effective vs infantry.
It also clears the argument of 'skilless' AA.

hey mate, I appreciate your struggle. Game is now full of couch theorists like

etc... who like to analyze things by stats only and by their experience "from the other side". Some of them have tried flying and after killing noobs they decided what is OP or not. Some of them are also lyers: "just rush tomcat esf, you'll easily demolish him, I know, trust me, I do this on daily basis". It's the same people who will tell professionals of different jobs how to do their job just after watching them for 10 minutes or reading about a job in a magazine. But god forbid they ever create anything themselves.

You gave them an offer, but wow - they can't have 3 minutes of their time to create a new char to try it out. Instead they're gonna spend 10 minutes writing 1 reply.

It's just sad, mate. Everyone can criticize but no one can bother to try .

The thing that a lot of people don't understand about AA and air is that when you're flying, everyone is looking at you. There's no cover in the air. You have to fly extremely close to the ground to have any semblance of cover, but that's risky, you can easily crash. Air has to be better than one AA unit for this reason alone. That's why it's not fair to set up these hypothetical scenarios where one lib decimates a single skyguard. That's what's supposed to happen, because in the real world, there's multiple skyguards, walker sundies, AP MBTs, and countless heavies with G2A lockons, lancers, and dumbfires just waiting for the opportunity to shoot at air. Being anywhere close to a large fight will get you destroyed, that's why "oh, one skyguard can't 1v1 a lib! UP!" is a poor argument.

Like what was said here(abbreviated for space)! From the vantage point of ground based AA, everything has a potential to block your shot, even the inevitable Noob L.i. who flies right in front of you while you've been emptying your mags at the aircraft... Not to mention, most Libs and Gals love to only attack areas with buildings... giving plenty of cover for them... cuz THERE IS A BUILDING in the way. NOW, also factor in the fact that yes, you do have the derps firing their non ap guns at aircraft, big aircraft only take damage from flack or explosive projectiles... same as tanks & sundies (+C4 & ATMs). If you have a pre-existing heart condition, I would suggest against pulling a max with duel bursts, unless you like tempting death! EVERYONE can kill the max... not to mention, I first start the flacking process by screaming repeatedly for ammo... which rarely gets there before I'm either MBT cannoned, or lib'd to bits.

All the good pilots I've flacked the @#$% out of, all understand that the only way to not get hit is to keep their distance, and shoot from far away, other wise..., *quote from Full metal jacket, with a PS2 twist* (helicopter blade wash sound) "How could you kill noobs, and casuals?!?" "EASY! JUST DON'T LEAD THEM AS MUCH!"... even then, you fire most of your ammo just to kill 1 aircraft. If there is a lib, I try to flack the belly if there is a gunner, if not, I try to flack the nose, to cloud their vision so I can avoid as much fire as possible.

But from the vantage point of a tail or belly gunner, yes... Latency can make the event suck. Every movement (at least from here in Alaska) seems instant, so when you're about to just hose some poor Reaver behind the lib, OOOPS, now he's way off to (direction)... and me flying... yeah... I got only 1 kill, cuz I landed on someone while planning on parking my mosquito and running, cuz I was a danger to myself. XD

the saddest is that it's not even a discussion, it's an full-on agenda. any thread that even mentions air in passing sees the same spam by the same haters. it's sort of a FOX NEWS approach to community feedback. repeat the 'talking points' often enough and they become "common knowledge" because most people are too intimidated to challenge them.

the real truth of the stats is that 12-13 VKPH is extremely low for the kind of libs they're complaining about. 40-60 is more accurate, with easily 25% of that being air kills because libs are constantly under assault by incoming aircraft. the remainder is attempting to stem the tide of sunderer spam, and defend friendlies from flanking MBTs and lightnings. the last little bit is just locating and then swiftly punishing skyguards for existing.

it's not even a case of talented lib teams bringing the stats up to a "ridiculous 13 VKPH." it's a case of hundreds of extremely incompetent libs dragging the real numbers down. we're talking about less than 20 or 30 people in the entire game. the ones with 15,000 or more career kills just on their main characters. and we all play on several servers, and we mostly all know each other.

i had a giggle when some guy talked about his 92 hours in the air. i'm talking about people with over 150 days learning fight by fight how to be feared. "get on my level" doesn't even begin to describe the gap between these teams and the people on these forums trying to force their groundsplanations on everyone.

I'd actually love to see more of a variety of AA weapons, like maybe a quad G40-F ranger for the Lightning, or a small machine gun that would fire split rounds with a length of copper wire between them for infantry (represented by just a normal projectile) *was an actual weapon used in WW2, but was a mounted weapon. Copper wire when glowing hot would simply just slice parts off like a hot knife through butter.* since most derps I've seen running around as a L.I. or H.A. shooting their main weapon at libs and MBTs... >.<

*Grunt grunts* "Ugg, ugg! Him say,'Yoo only look at barrel from victim side, never from trigger side. Victim man always blame trigger man, but never see what trigger man have to deal with when deel with victim man.'"

AAAAnd due to me being ridiculously tired from work, did not catch the second part, after you had the epiphany.

Welcome to the 21. century, where people graduate from university at the age of 20, then get straight into lead positions as "young experts", making decisions based off of school book knowledge, talking down on experienced long-term employes and eventually ruin a company.

Likewise on forumside people rarely play or never even touch certain aspects of the game and yet feel entitled to call themselves experts because you have that stat sheet there and they're currently going over stochastics in school, producing the same, albeit less dramatic results.

Trust me when I say that we will see some of those folks in politics in maybe 30 years from now, cutting subsidies for the poor, weak and the old and enforcing new laws that produce more chaos than order all based off of statistical data. But I digress.

Not entirely true, I love the G-40 Ranger for the Sundie, because if you are good enough, you can just smoke up the turret or nose to the point where they have no clue what is going on! I've only barely survived encounters with Libs as a max, because I try to just smoke the hell out of the turret (if gunner available) or nose/pilot (if gunner unavailable, or can't get within angle to shoot me) so they just can't get a good clean shot at me. Being a major P.I.T.A. can be a deterrence as well... Not as effective, but it is still an option... >.<

Non-pilots will never have an understanding of the relationship between air and ground. These threads will never achieve anything but inspire ridiculous amounts of hyperbole. Just don't poke the bear, and hope to god the devs know what they are doing.

i will fly when i can play more than 15 fps

I must partially resent your remark! You ever been a burster max and fall off of a tower's aircraft platform... it's generally the same result. XD
But yes, aside from the occasional "OH C.F.S.!" moment, I only have a vague clue, from my brief but brutal encounter with flying. >.<

Prove it.

Prove to me, and everyone else in this thread, that people pull skyguard lightnings with the intention of killing infantry and tanks, rather than pulling skyguard lightnings to kill aircraft.

I do understand how it is to be a gunner, quite well, on the other hand though, the flying part is what kills me the most... It's like playing Kerbal space program, and you don't have a clue what the "A.S.A.S." does, so you don't bother... resulting in numerous and brutal arguments with gravity and the ground. My only issue with flying, is WHY ISN'T THE STABILIZER CONTROL LINKED WITH THE MOUSE?!? It'd be like having someone who's operated only a car, operate an old timer bulldozer, the kind with 2 levers right next to each other. Then have him do that on the edge of a cliff. The poor +person who doesn't know who their father is (+definition of the word I'd be using to call them, due to their misfortune), would more than likely forget that in order to steer away from the cliff edge, they'd have to pull one all the way towards them, shifting the track into reverse, thus turning it away from the cliff. Flying in this game, is the only time I find flying to be legitimately frustrating!

Some have the finesse to fly aircraft with lethal precision, but not too good at quickly "betting" on where a pilot will have a collision with a projectile. The reverse can be true as well, some only are good at traversing the 2D battlefield, but good at bringing those who utilize the 3'rd dimension, down to their level *CFT- Controlled Flight into Terrain. Should be KCFIT: Kinda-Controlled Flight Into Terrain XD

I'm not certain your poaition in this argument is helped by referencing such an ancient video.
According to the date when it was posted, that was before the Flak rebalancing, back when Air really was a nightmare to face for any number of Ground AA units. Another video from that time has a dozen MAXes on a Biolab pad trying their hardest to deal with one Liberator and a single volley of rocket pods from a different angle decimates the whole group.

I'm offering you to pilot But it's your choice though. The offer stays on the table.

No offence mate, but there's different experiences. Having someone do additions a decilion amount of time for 2 years won't make them better at mathematics than someone who studies mathematics for 2 years and learn other opperations (multiplications, divisions).

In the same way, you having more experience to crash in the cliff outside the warpgate doesn't really make you any more qualified.

BUT You're welcome to prove me wrong and hop in my lib!

As of current, the time here is 12:33pm, I require about 6-7 hours of studying the blue-prints of the universe, printed on the coverings of my eyes. About when would be the best time to catch you? *I'm actually finding it fairly difficult to find decent anybodies to run with on any of my characters. >.<

Yeah! Let's ignore game data, let's ignore statistics and facts. Why would we need them when we can give a completely subjective opinion?
In my opinion, human beings cannot go to the moon.
If you want to prove me wrong YOU specifically should go to the moon.
Statistics of the Appollo program have no bearing on this discussion (/sticks fingers in ear nanana nuhu. Humans can't go to the moon!)

Actually,
I do seem to find libs running whatever; typically it is tankbuster, then shredder, dalton or zephyr depending; zephyr seems popular on miller, but I'm mostly infantry soo.. I notice those easier; bulldog or walker on the back if it's 3 dudes.
NAR presumes you get away for the NAR to work. I thought you stated the life-expectancy of a "hot" lib to be a few seconds?
IMO: NAR, stealth and composite have a role for a lib.
If the lib is gonna get wasted anyway flying, why not make it live a few seconds longer?

Going from 35 to 45% flak damage resistance increases HP vs flak by 18.2%. That is more than fire suppresion.
A skyguard goes from needing 128 hits to 152. At 100% accuracy, at 480 rpm, that is an extra 3 seconds alive, or an extra 3 seconds to break LoS and hopefully get to repairing.
In addition, the starting lib has -20% vs vanguard AP shell. Max composite gives 30% dmg resistance.
Vanguard AP shell goes from dealing 2075*1.2=2490 /shot,
to 2075*0.9= 1868. 622 health on the lib saved.

There are also flares: vs co-ordinated ground, if it is on say.. indar, you can take several lockons. 3 heavies lockon and launching a volley will give you something to notice. -> Pop a flare.. even the ones that haven't launched yet have a broken lock and need 5s to start locking on again. (I find lockons to be one of the most effective means vs libs; libs are less able to abuse cover like an ESF, they are slower so you have more time to lock-on, they are easy to use in groups (kind-off.. terrain dependant); and libs are quite durable vs flak. Also AA maxes are the first zephyr/dalton target. 3 heavies are more difficult to destroy for a lib imo.

If NAR is so common, isn't that in contradiciton with the idea that libs are somehow extremely vulnerable things? If you're gonna die very quickly, it doesn't make a lot of sense to invest into something that will only benefit you if you escape without being on fire after all.

Similarly, I do see lightnings with smoke. They are rarer, but they have it upgraded, they basically become near-immune to lockons. (smoke shot 1. Break LoS on shot 2. Smoke shot 3. Repeat)

I completely agree that a static 200m engagement between lib and lightning doesn't happen.
But that was your exact premise. I merely pointed out that the lib still has a very significant chance to win at such range, as you can presumably imagine on your own, the lightning's odds won't exactly rise at 150 or 100m. See the first approach, no use of composite, no use of fire suppresion on the lightning.
And again, that is without the belly weapon, vs an "AA" piece.

I am aware the Zephyr & liberator were nerfed. However, I felt this type of presentation was right at your level.

I still content that when a co-ordinated "liberator package" encounters a "co-ordinated ground" package, ground loses,
due to the simple fact that every liberator brings A2G, and, with some luck, can escape the area, repair and come back;
where-as a lot of ground has no AA at all. (any non-heavy infantry; only AA maxes, plus vortexes arguably; most tanks bring AV loadouts, etc. In addition "AA is a deterrent" puts quite some advantages in the air's camp:
-Air is more mobile (dictates the time of engagement, and place);
-Air has more firepower (see: dalton vs vanguard AP; tankbuster)
-Air is more durable (see how long a tank lasts engaging 3 prowlers.. again, lock-ons deal similar damage to liberators as too mbt's.)

(ground advantage is basically engineers repairing and medics reviving. However, the more of those you have, the less you have heavies with lockons.. or maxes, or..)

The fact that co-ordinated flying is rare because flying is awkward is a seperate issue; flying shouldn't be awkward (give me mouseyaw, dammit!); but aircraft are still OP.
Why shouldn't it be possible to excel at AA?

Why thank you for your on-topic post and constructive criticism.
You're aware that the lack of (statistical) facts used in policy making is a major issue right?
War on drugs? How much it costs vs the achieved results? How about the F35 program, military spending,..
I was against going into Iraq, I didn't believe Saddam had "chemical weapons ready to launch in 45 minutes", because of the lie with the sattelite photo of the tanks from the last war. Few years later, ding-dong! Mostly old stocks of "obsolete" weaponry, with no long range delivery vehicle.
Here are some "fun" laws: the police suspect you of a crime, and confiscate your belonings. You now only need to prove your not a criminal to get your stuff back, hopefully. You don't get charged for anything, you don't go to court, unless you sue with a lawyer. GL paying for that lawyer now that your stuff is confiscated.
Earlier today I read a garbage truck driver got 30 days of jailtime for starting to early. People called 911 because their sleep was disturbed to complain. Sure, I don't like waking up from the garbage truck at 5 AM, but it isn't an "emergency". Sue all those ******** for mis-using the emergency line!
People lying about the Iraq war didn't go to jail; the person that shot John Greer is free, but you started working early? Jailtime!!

Could it be that plenty of companies get ruined because
-management grows completely out of touch
-massive use of consultants with no bond to the company?
-ridiculous laws and regulations? I know one story of a factory. Architecture plans approved, constructed etc. -> Lawsuit by local: the chimney "polluted" his view. (rest of plant obscured by tree's between house & plant; chimney is higher)-> Judge decision: the chimney must be moved, to the other side of the factory. This is of course a redesign of the plant layout. Nevermind that the local's ground could be purchased cheaper because.. it was close to an industrial area.
In my area: ye olde farmer. Few teens-twenties are making lots of noise, running into people etc.
Old retired farmer goes down, confronts them. He gets pushed, one pulls a knife, 2 stabs to the chest, dead.
Lawsuit.. "oh, they're really nice kids etc". -> Sentence: 2 years imprisonment, for the knifer. However, the lawsuit had taken longer. -> Left the courthouse free, with recompensation for spending longer in jail. Went to live in the same area, where the children of the dead farmer were still living.

Another example, also in my area. Years back now.
The wife of the dean of a university dies, car crash. Investigation: brakes sabotaged, fire accelerants in the car. Hmm.. a little strange isn't it? Turns out, our dean had bought some.. fire accelerants. And had been working on his wife's car himself.
Confesses. Dean is known as a "womanizer", cheated on her, etc. Many people testified as such, including before the court.
No worries because.. the cases legal psychiatrist ("working for the state") is a .. professor at the university. Zero conflict of interest of course. Dean and our friendly neighbourhood psychiatrist are both living in the area and go to the same Lodge, same political party etc.
His findings: the wife was a manhunter, cheating on him etc. She also depressed the dude, verbal/psychological abuse (hard to disprove eh?), and had threatened with a divorce.
End verdict of the court: sabotaging the brakes and putting fire accelerant in the car was an act of self-defense, as he was being driven to suicide. Dean leaves the courthouse a free man, remains dean. Marries a younger & good looking female.

And I would somehow screw over the legal system? You give me far too much credit, reality already beats fiction.

GL getting "strainght into lead positions". Lead of what? The planning of a small team for laying pipelines or something? Sure. But you will receive objectives (and you better deliver), you're bound to standards and regulations.. you don't suddenly invent a new type of pipeline. I'm an electronics-ICT engineer by education; although I work with databases now it isn't as a "tech engineer" . However: sure I've gotten the supervision of (part of) some projects. But, the "manoevring space" is pretty small. Most of the time, the "right" choice is pretty crystal clear, and if not, your boss has to approve it anyway. You make it sound as if I went straight to the directors board, reporting to the CEO.
And uh.. I wish more people would make decisions based on facts.