Anti-air sucks and the devs will never do anything about it

There should be bots that fly planes close to AA to feed them.

Actually, average uncut Skyguard video would literally have a Skyguard get 1 kill every 6 and half minutes. (see stats.dasanfall.com)

I get almost thrice as many when I use it. But I also attack nearly any enemy I see with it.

Well that's also not factoring in crashes or how many aircraft are there.

DA Stats don't actually record air kills at all... so I'm not sure exactly how your figures are relevant.

The "1 air kill every 10 minutes" comes from the Oracle of Death, which does independently track air kills. This is more relevant, because it lets you know how many aircraft a Skyguard manages to kill (instead of all kills, which includes infantry, ground vehicles, and multiple crew in an aircraft).

Skyguards get about 6 air kills per hour (at best), which essentially turns into 1 aircraft killed every 10 minutes. They may happen upon a Flash or run over some infantry in the meantime, but in terms of air kills, 1 every 6 minutes is simply not within the long-term ability of the average Skyguarder.

Why is everyone thinking I meant victimside?

Here's what I said again: "Even if shots go farther than render range, damage is calculated clientside. So if the enemy doesn't render your PC doesn't know it's there and can't apply damage."

"If the enemy doesn't render". Enemy is the one you are attacking.

If the HA renders at 300m but shoots a target (enemy) that renders to him, like an ESF or tank, then he can hit it. Because it's clientside hit detection. As in the attacker's PC determines if it's a hit or not (a hit on your enemy). As in if the enemy doesn't render on the attacker's PC then the attacker's PC can't hit the enemy because the PC doesn't even know the enemy there. If the enemy does render then the attacker can hit the enemy, regardless of the victim (enemy) rendering the attacker or not.

Because of this.....

G2A frequently hits you when you can't see it.

I can only speak from personal experience here (never considered asking other pilots this when i played) but the whole getting hit from outside render range is usually meant the wrong way around.


It rarley happens (only in one case which i ll get at later) that you get hit out of the blue from outside the render range BUT you can take it as almost guaranteed that you will take continious fire even after leaving the area where your opponent would ever have rendered for you.

Simply put, you are already running and still get hit for a much longer time than you could have fought back or that a new pilot would expect.
This is probably the main reason why it feels like you are taking a ton of damage from max render range (when in truth you are still clearly visible and in range of your enemy, but just cannot ever hope to see him at those distances)


Now the strange outliner (at least while i was still playing regularly) are base turrets.
They basically behave like a downgraded skyguard ... meaning they have in theory an unlimited range (render distance +lag compensation) but their accuracy is garbage (which partially gets compensated trough the flak mechanic).

Usually when i got hit out of the blue it's from a guy in a base turret.

For some reason they seem to only seem to render from a tiny bit further than infantry does.

Now the innitial damage at max range is not something that will kill an esf outright ... it's the lack of information in those situations that gets you killed.

Simply put, without knowing the origin (or having the experience to expect such things) reacting to this surprise flak can be very difficult.
That said, if you were at full health it's not extremly likley that you ll die because of it (at least not if you have some map awareness)



The same lack of information honestly is what makes g2a lockons feel so irritating.
You hear the beeping, but you have no ui information about where it actually is going to come from ... something that is surprisingly infuriating. (funnily enough, the awareness implant does jack all in those cases)

Now thankfully most lockon users are lazy or pull the lockon as a reactionary tool once they got shelled.
Meaning, 9 out of 10 times the guy is standing right next to the sunderer or is hugging the spawn room ...

Which is why i find threads complaining about lockons crashing into cover at launch so hilarious.
The ones that actually manage to connect shots regularly and can pose a thread to experienced pilots are the guys that position themselfs beforehand and are moving inbetween shots.


So my recommendation ... take those posts as what they realy are/should be.
Not complaints about the damage per se, but the utter lack of information that you need to react to it.

Awareness is especially useful for G2A lock-ons. Plenty of times those guys are on a mountain somewhere outside the fight. When I know it's only a single missile I'll try to figure out where he is, if I can't I'll let him shoot me, then boost in an rotary the guy. Just pop fire suppression and it doesn't even matter if he hits you a second time. I feel bad for most lock on users, they're just weak and have a crap mechanic.

When you say "render range" do you mean the dynamic render range within the maximum range where you can observe targets, or beyond the maximum render range where you will never have a target exist on your client? Either way, we do have instances of engagement-sensitive dynamic rendering so within the maximum rendering range the game will attempt to force certain things that would deal damage to you rendered. We could tune that system, if need be.

Here are your AA options:

MAX: NEVER use just one Burster because its **** on its own, buy the second one and you will shred aircraft to bits without additional help. Liberators can get away if they retreat quickly however.

Skyguard: This weapon is incredibly potent with a friend, on its own it can only really be effective against ESF as Liberators will see you as free certs(unless you position smart by having cover close-by). I'm also pretty sure this weapon was designed as a squad weapon not a solo stomping weapon.

Air-Lock rocket launchers: This are pretty damn useless in my opinion, they work only as a deterrent. However i dont think they need a buff because if they could one-shot or nearly one-shot an ESF they would be OP.

Lightning AP: Yes, this does work, in fact I've killed more ESF with my AP Lightning than my Skyguard Lightning because ESF see any non-Skyguard Lightning and think its an easy kill. Liberators and Galaxies are also easy shots once you learn the velocity and drop of the AP Lightning.

EDIT: Another thing to keep in mind, since the AP Lightning doesnt have much of a vertical look, try to angle yourself on a hill or some kind of slope.

Walkers/Rangers: I wouldn't consider these an option if you're spawning something to go AA, you're better off using one of the above options. These are good ESF deterrents though and I'd advise you always have one on your Deployment Sunderer setup.


Overall I do think the Liberator aircraft is too fast, because it's an extremely powerful gun platform yet it can back out of a fight very quickly, also flying a Liberator upside should be a death sentence seriously. There is also a lack of free AA power which really bothers me, I've played long enough to have all the AA purchased but the fact that new players have essentially zero AA power makes aircraft have alot more power, imagine if they gave the Air-Lock Launcher to all players, life would be alot harder for pilots. AA doesn't need a buff, the access TO AA needs a buff.

The range at which they appear to me. Max range isn't so important if they don't show up there anyway. I've had enemy ESFs appear out of thin air right on the other side of the Bio Lab. The biggest render problems I have are with air/air though, not really G2A/Air. Racer ESFs with afterburners can be on top of another fighter in an instant. And with the dps of the rotary combined with ping and reaction time, there's almost nothing you can do against a good shot by the time you hear their engines. Your only chance to not get ganked is flying in circles at the ceiling. Air/Air render ranges need to be extended and made a priority over everything else.

Only applies to infantry AA, unfortunately for infantry AA the Bursters (who happen to have a longer render-range) have a terrible COF and can't really hit you as much as a Skyguard at range and the lock-ons have a maximum range of 100m. Even at half cruising speed it takes 4 seconds to cross it, barely enough for a lock-on to actually lock-on. At cruising speed (200km/h) you are passed the "they don't render to me but I render to them while they can still hit me" area.

Ground vehicles are visible at much larger ranges, and passed 600m it's already no real use trying to fire at ESF no matter what kind of weapon you are holding. So the whole "your enemy can hit you long after he doesn't render for you" is complete bullcrap.

Why are you still not expecting to be hit after running? That's weird. It's like wondering why your shotgun doesn't have more range after using it for several hundred hours and still trying to hit your opponent at long-range with it.
That aside, no you can't be hit for a "much longer time than you could have fought back". Also why should an aircraft even have that weird expectation that he's safe after flying a bit? Well experience should tell you "it takes barely any time to get out of effective range" but for some reason only the top aircraft players complain about it, I wonder why... *cough cough subjective bias*

In theory a shotgun has unlimited range as well. In theory a shotgun can hit a Harasser at render range. Does that make the shotgun a long-range weapon? No ofcourse not!

Here's a nice conundrum: If it didn't render and hit you out of the blue, how did you know what was shooting you? It could be an AA turret, it could also have been a MAX at closer range or a Skyguard from longer range (since a Skyguard at closer range would hit more than the others). You most certainly didn't die to whatever hit you, since even in extreme CQC a G2A weapon doesn't stand a chance to kill you in time before you can get away. So the only answer here could have been "I went and checked"

Now I have experienced the problems with turrets not rendering. You see an empty spot where the turret is supposed to be... But the second someone enters the turret it starts to render again. So it's kind of hard to believe that you experience the opposite where used turrets are the big bad problem.

"very difficult"? If you don't want to look for that G2A source all you have to do is either dive to the ground or just turn the opposite way the hitmarkers come from and go there. Problem solved!
Also since G2A sources, with maybe the exception of a Skyguard, are extremely easy to predict it shouldn't be that hard to react to it. If it really was a turret all you have to do is "what base nearby has turrets? Which direction did the hitmarker come from? Found the base I am being hit from, problem solved".
Or if it's infantry all you have to do is "where are the spawnrooms? What direction did the hitmarker come from? Found the base and position I'm being hit from, problem solved".
In those rare cases where it's not coming from a base you only have to scour the tops of high places for an AA nest, who usually form on the same places so any experienced pilot should have no problem finding them.

You could just tank one shot, watch your radar and hunt down the culprit. "tank one shot" could also be "dive to the ground as the shot is fired to have said missile insta-kill itself".
Or, since G2A lock-ons are 95% of the time clustered around the nearest spawn, just move there and shoot the fornicator in the face.

Luckily most users pull the lock-on as a reactionary tool once they are shelled because the weapon sucks balls. Have you ever noticed that every single G2A lock-on scores more kills on ground vehicles than on aircraft? Yeah, G2A weapons are so bad against aircraft that it's easier to kill vehicles with it.

Nope, experienced players just hope for the best.
The problem is that a lock-on exposes you big time to everything and everyone. The best solution would be to stick to cover. But since no matter where or how you aim the missile will exit the barrel in an interception trajectory to your target it doesn't matter how or where you aim it'll hit that tree that's in the way.
Which means the only "solution" that "experienced" players can use is "get out in the open where you are 100% completely exposed but there's nothing for your missile to hit upon exiting the barrel, and hope you can survive long enough to fire even one missile, and if you do fire that missile hope your target isn't smart enough to just dive to the ground and have the missile suicide anyway".
See, as much as people like to think that lock-ons require no skill at all, they require more skill than an ESF nosegun in A2G work to fire off without getting yourself killed in the process.

I am taking those posts for what they really are/should be.

And you've proven you know absolutely nothing of the game! Hurrah!

A dual burster MAX has a DPS of 410 and terrible COF's: 1,25 COF and 0,2 bloom per shot.
A Skyguard has a DPS of 400 and a COF of 1,25 without bloom, making it more accurate. The Skyguard also has slightly better chance of chasing the opponent for more shots on target. This means that if the MAX can supposedly shred aircraft to bits the Skyguard should be able to do so as well, and better due to it's higher accuracy (not many MAX's ever stop to settle their COF between shots, which would incidentally put the MAX DPS lower than the Skyguard).

Lightning AP? Sure you can deal damage, but you can't OHK aircraft so like any A2G weapon you are relegated to picking off damaged targets. Due to the incredibly low amount of aircraft this weapon actually kills, no it's not an A2G weapon in the least.

Based on your other post it seems you're just going off ranting at everyone that doesn't think the same as you. My post was all opinionated(should be pretty obvious considering i gave no actual stats), yet you go off on a tangent. The AP Lightning while OBVIOUSLY not a better choice than ACTUAL AA weapons, it is CAPABLE of killing aircraft, and no it cant one shot ESF, but it nearly does, and a few shots from ANY weapon will finish it off(unless the pilot reacts in time with fire suppression which of course does happen sometimes but not all the time). You seem to talk from a heavily experienced pilot's perspective, but i wouldn't even say half or three quarters of pilots are experienced, not all ESF pilots are a mile away launching rockets or using rotaries, many of them are flying quickly towards their target with a very predictable movement so you can knock them down. You can talk stats all you want but in my experience I find the MAX AA better than the Skyguard because it's excellent for deterring(if not killing) enemy aircraft that is plaguing a facility. The overall point i should've made was that most AA is a deterrent, however against ESF you have a good chance of killing them if you time your strike right and learn how to track aircraft well. If the enemy is already aware of your AA presence then they will likely be ready to fall back(because you're deterring them). Any all other aircraft that isn't an ESF can't AND SHOULDN'T be able to be taken down solo.

I am sorry but this made me laugh ... demigan being an experienced pilot

But this again shows how readily people jump to their own conclusions.

When you realize that he was talking about engaging experienced pilots rather than from an experienced pilot perspective I hope you realize what kind of mistake you made

Note the word "seem", that is similar to "guessing" hes an experienced pilot. An assumption would be something more along the lines of " You are clearly an experienced pilot by the way you talk."

Yeah, don't even bother with small fights anymore, one flyboy and it's ruined.

gg no re.

Air will forever be OP, because it's full of cheaters. At least on Miller, it's like every second ESF pilot uses aimbots.