Are ESF's Fighters or Helicopters?

I would take the reverse bug..ehm manouver and hover away from ESF's and make Valkyrie more like helicopter "gunship" role.

Fighter... I'm pretty sure it can't fire rocket pods while hovering in mid air and v-thrusting left and right.

I believe we need a proper interceptor that cannot VTOL outside of landing and take-off and is based around high-speed runs instead of hoverfarming. Imagine the possibilities.

The "fire everything and then rearm" idea looks interesting, but I'm afraid that 8 Hornets could be a bit OP... that would be something like 16000 damage per salvo.

The PPA would not really be any more effective then the others in a strafe run. The thing that makes the PPA effective is the ESFs ability to hover and move slowly. On fast runs you would be about on par with the effectiveness of both the other empire AI weapons. Or at least from my personal experience. It takes several orbs to kill an infantry with full health. And unless they aren't moving you can't really do that with it when I do full speed passes.

Actually, Scr1n, I gotta take Takara's side here. Don't get me wrong; the elitist/entitled/arrogant attitude some pilots have bothers me, too. But there was a time when I was known as a pilot in this game, and I hated it when people assumed that I was one of the Skyknights. I was just trying to help out my guys on the ground by chasing off the baddies trying to farm them.

Anyway, Takara is doing something that's all too rare on these forums: politely disagreeing. I respect that. I hope you do too.

Good points as usual, but I have to disagree with you about "terrible at all others" part.

One of the most common complaints about the Skyguard and Ranger I've seen on these forums is that once their intended targets are gone (because they bugged out or died), there's not really much left to do. Sure, you can take pot shots at infantry, but between the cone of fire, the huge tracers, and the tiny DPS, it feels like the gunner is being more of a distraction than a real threat.

This isn't fun for the gunner, which is kinda sad considering the whole point of a video game is to have fun.

Same goes for AP MBTs. Yes, the stared purpose of AP turrets is to destroy enemy ground vehicles, but if AP turrets couldn't OHK infantry, it would be sort of ridiculous.

I'm okay with vehicles being able to be a jack of all trades, as long as the specialist loadouts of those vehicles outclass them in their intended role, and as long as that's possible for ALL classes of vehicle (i.e. light/heavy aircraft and light/heavy ground vehicles).

I dunno. I mean there's also fun to be had in being part of a tight formation under orders from a good SL. When I Skyguard, the vast majority of the time I sit and do nothing. I'm just having fun covering my squad and other friendly units in the area. The fun comes from being disciplined and helping out your team... not running off and getting your AA tank killed by the nearest MBT.

Maybe then there should just be two different types of AA vehicles for the two different types of fun. The "generalist" AA vehicle would be the current Skyguard with an anti-personnel buff; it will be okay against aircraft and okay against infantry but stellar at neither. The "specialist" AA would be for people who can have fun doing nothing for long periods of time and would absolutely slaughter aircraft but be harmless to infantry (say a SAM system).

I think though we have a difference in relativity here... even if AP shells could OHK infantry as they do today I would still consider them terrible for anti-personnel work.

I think realistically each Hornet would do less damage.

The Hornet rockets are probably only 85mm rockets (they fit almost perfectly into an 85mm Halberd) so really they should only do about the same damage as Halberds (not to mention a bit less due to propulsion and guidance). Maybe 800-900 damage per hit (compared to the Halberd's 1,000 per hit). Their damage type should probably be similar to the Halberd if it isn't already.

That and I think ESFs only carry 4 Hornets at a time? So the most they would do would be 3,200 to 3,600 damage pre-resist. This is probably enough to kill a Lightning (depending on where it hits) but most MBTs would survive heavily damaged.

Here...let's use some of the logic people used against harassers. Let's turn it around on ESFs.

A one man vehicle shouldn't have that much of an impact on the battlefield.

They are too fast and nimble for the the weapon platforms they carry.

They can get away from danger, repair and back into the fray too fast.

Blah, blah, etc, etc....

Solutions...

Remove them from the game or...(my preferred)

Nerf them into the ground like they did the harasser a year and half ago or...

Buff the harasser back to the pre-nerf levels so it can harasser an ESF with little issues, like the ESF can now to a harasser.

In the end, it should tell people everything. When someone gets killed and they are butt hurt. The first thing they pull is an ESF to hunt the "offending" party down. Why is that? Didn't think an ESF is all that according to our boys with wings.

Yes. Very much yes.

Really? I switched to AP because even with a pre-nerf HEAT Prowler, I was getting a lot more infantry kills with direct hits than I was with splash damage.

I wasn't actually 100% serious.

While I WOULD enjoy that change and would be willing to hand over 75% of my ESFs hitpoints for it, I suspect I would be a member of a tiny minority that would like that.
The result would be that any groundforce without aircover can take incredible casualties to just a single skilled pilot. I mean I could blow up 4 MBTS in about 10 seconds on a good run if this change was made. Any force WITH aircover would be virtually unassailable, except if you manage to outsmart the FLAK and manage to somehow take it down - or get some of your groundpounders to do it for you.

Also there are the issues I already talked about that would simply lead to the ESF not being able to actually make use of its new burst damage.

And the Colonel and I run into each other quite often, which is why my response was a bit snippy - we both basically want a more realistic power level for those sorry excuse we have for vehicles. He dislikes the Idea of powerful aircraft though, while I would prefer an all around deadly vehicle game.
If you're interested, he made quite the thread about possible improved G2A weaponry, that one always resurfaces every couple of months.

@ the OP: I have always thought of PS2's air vehicles as being basically a few generations evolved from the current US Marines' V-22 Osprey; a VTOL tilt-rotor light cargo craft. Engine nacelles rotate to vertical for takeoff/decent/hover then rotate forward to transition to normal propeller driven flight. Pretty slick aircraft IMO.

Shocked no one put this in here. Reavers/Skeeters are effectively a reference to the Command & Conquer's GDI Orca (and likely even other SCI-FI futuristic version of Heli's, GI Joe Skyhawk anyone?)



Which is the evolution of the V-22 Program. However as pointed out these ESF are quite powerful in their current role. The main issue with being the effective counters to an ESF via ground fire have limited effectiveness; and only reaching kill effectiveness when ground numbers hit go high enough. In small fights ESFs completely dominate the fight once it shows up, even in vehicle groups a single ESF pilot can deal plenty of damage before a Skyguard chases it off. Currently what is needed is better options for Mobile AA, but that isn't going to cover it for the short term.

For now taking the Skyguard's CoF and tightening it up will improve its accuracy over range and also give it slightly better defense verses infantry as it won't miss those small targets as much. (Currently it is pretty good at dealing with Enforcer, Halberd, and Saron Harassers, if its a Vulcan Harasser best to get out and toss some mines and pray) The other is to improve projectile speed cutting down on lead time on far targets and improving hit chance on faster and more agile close targets.

In the long term we could get another Flak gun that works like the M2 Linebacker from Battlefield 2, and maybe another that works like the LAV-AD from BF3/4. There are plenty of options to pick from. But at the same time Air might need a slight buff in the damage department if these options do come about.

I think I was just looking at relative damage. If we compare the in-game Hornets to the in-game Halberd, then the Hornets should do less damage than an 85mm Halberd. It's just unlikely that a tinier missile with less space on board will do more damage than a bigger missile.

On the other hand though you can start comparing the Halberd to IRL equivalents, like the TOW-2A (probably not the top-attack TOW-2B). I think the TOW-2A is easily capable of OHKing MBTs with a rear hit, a likely OHK from the sides, but probably not a OHK from the front. In that sense a Halberd should do significantly more than the 1,000 damage it currently does, and naturally the Hornets would be buffed to meet that. Though of course at the same time all it would take would be a single 40mm flak hit to disable aircraft.

I'm actually ok with either system... so long as there is logical consistency between weapon systems. If Halberds are weak, then Hornets should be weaker. But if Halberds are stronger, then naturally Hornets would also be allowed to be stronger (though again, probably not as strong).

lol LPPA sucks for fast runs.

I use Plasma Pods for that attack run style, they actually work.

LPPA is only good for longer range bombardment.... maybe doing peek-a-boo using a mountain peak. And Coyotes for personal defense of course.

AH and Banshee on other hand are deisnged for fast attack runs.