Connery's newest fail favorite "A2AM"

So, this is the replacement for the threads about AA-MAXes?

TO, the game doesnt develop around your preferences. If you think you are good and/or skillful and its just the beastly game ruining your day with noobish/lame/skillless tricks then ... you are just not good anymore.

Adapt or cry.

Or, you were just bad to begin with.

IF the supposed nerf to a2am goes through, i.e. they're too slow to effectively hit ESF and are only good for libs/gals...can't wait to see all the scrub pilots here crying about their crutch taken away from them. The forum server will probably crash that day.

Yay lets ruin the game with fun degrading and skillless weapons because it contains the maximum amount of win. Seriously if you just want to WIN then go beat up children in a playground. I play the game to have fun ( oh my God, what a novel concept! ). Go to any dogfight and you'll see some jerks sitting on the sidelines just locking on to people and firing missles non stop. I can't imagine how that is fun for them, but hey people still play solitaire so who knows. On the other end though you just get into a good dogfight and are traiding blows with rotaries and someone steals the fun.

I guess if it is something only the stupid would object too, would you object to thermally guided smart bombs that can kill anything in a 20 meter radius? They do afterall contain the maximum amount of win. Oh right, whats that, fun, no you can't have any of it.

I will cry tears of pure joy, while listening to the click click click of my empty rotary as I watch the burning husks of hostile ESFs falling towards the ground.

seriously though I used to use lockons, but when I joined PREY they had a rule that lockons were not allowed. Took me a day or two to get used to the rotary and how to properly dogfight but I haven't looked back. Dogfighting is so much more rewarding and fun with the nose gun, and not to mention when in close you can often kill much quicker with the rotary than with lockons.

On another note, I'd be relatively happy if the upgraded afterburner cert tree made it possible to reliably outrun the current missles.

Maybe you should try a good 1vs1 game?

But yea, rocketpodding infantryfarmers are the pure fun too. There are so many "other ends" to consider.

Tragically CoD has jumbled "skill" "winning" and "fun" in the minds of gamers these days. They can't understand how sitting in a corner waiting for someone to run in front of them for an easy kill isn't all of the above. Unfortunately this cancerous mindset has found it's way into every shooter on the market these days; long story short that is why a2am exist as they do in PS2.

I wish I had a solution to this plague...tragically I do not. All I can offer is the comfort that every player who condones the use of a2am is terrible- all you have to do is look at their stats to confirm this.

That's already happening, a few names I recognized already equipped A2AM and the funny part is when you max out lock on timer it gives pilots practically no warning before the rocket is already fired at you.

Kind of funny if you ask me.

No worries, you guys would get me when I had no idea you were set up close to the base. I always had fun setting up a beacon and C4ing you guys after that though...

I see many PREY people using A2AM so don't act like you are on a high road of not using them. And why even use them when your rotary is a whole different kind of imbalanced with 3 clips being able to drop a Full Health Liberator. Oh the tears will be so sweet once all rotaries are normalized.

With the hex it was beautiful, they would throw platoons upon platoons of armor and air at us. But when you have 48 Strikers/flakMAXes/ and Annihilators (waaayyyy back in the old days) concentrated on one base there's not much they can do.

Still feels like you are missing the point of my post. You pop flares to evade first lock. Then you shove your rotary up their tailpipe. Beat them at the hover duel and dont you often win in one on one engagements with them? I See them b eing a problem in groups, hence why i suggested that the A2Am can interfere with eachother. Two pilots trying to lock onto the same ship causing problems with eachothers systems.

One on one was never even an argument here. The issue comes in when there are two or more A2AM users only one of them has to engage you while the rest simply hover outside the dogfight and spam missiles. With the nature of the tracking of the missiles they are near impossible to outmaneuver anymore removing skill based counters. You either attempt to LOS and evade if possible or simply you die. Even if they made an interference mechanic the main issue is the ease of locking followed with smart missiles that follow your exact path. Until they are put back on an intercepting behavior or at least make people hold lock while missiles is in flight I doubt any improvement will come.

I think the solution here is simple, SOE needs to make missile tracking less awesome across the board and make flares ammo based rather than just cooldown. Remove or shorten the timer on how long your immune to locks and give the pilot multiple flares to use with in shorter time periods but at the cost of having to go reload them once they are out. So makes skilled pilots harder to hit with lockons (as I assume their use of flares will be more "tactical" and give them edge to stay longer in a fight) but people who are poor pilots will still be knocked down as flares won't stop a skilled pilots main gun and they will likely use up their flares much quicker.

Sorry, Troll failure imminent. Liar liar pants on fire. No one in Prey uses lockons, your attempts at slander only go to show how lacking in character you are, which may explain why your name comes up as someone who is universally disliked amongst all actually good pilots across all factions.

Yours truly, Colt .45 & the PREY gang

PS your tears bring me sweet sweet joy.

<3

You are seeing things again. Better get back to your meds.

Uh....no? I do not support A2AM though I am using them for now. My point was that if this type of game play is ok.. then infantry should get to enjoy the fun too. I am using them now because I was getting tired of all the lockons being used against me recently. What have I learned so far? Stealth frame with rotary and lockons is pretty much instant death for newer pilots and gives them no chance to win a one on one with me. Only the really good pilots have a chance and even they have to run or die if i use those in a furball.

Things will get even uglier if I sway enough of my faction to all use em. I will NOT be upset if they remove them or fix them to not be so cheesy.

Tried different stuff, but im giving up. This is now my noob-solution to this whole a2air missile situation:

1) gave up trying to be usefull to my team in a overall, general sense. Would just get tracked and shoot down by a2a hovering outside battles when i tried to take out tanks and stuff.

2) got the banshee, some ammo and extra magazine-size (not finished certing yet, but will get there). Equipped afterburner.

3) Only do one thing: Fly in low and fast, target helpless infantery and murder them over and over. Boost away when in trouble. Works better than with rocketpods.

3a) i dont target tanks/lightnings etc. Waste off time with banshee.
3b) i dont engange in dogfights. Just flare+boost back home and start over if i survive.

In sum i kind of feel bad cause is seems so herp-derp noobmode. Also its kind of useless even though i get plenty infantrykills. Anyway...waiting for esf-update

No one in PREY is using lock-on A2A missiles.

I don't even own them myself. I don't mind A2A users in small scale or even numbered combat so much. It becomes a huge issue when you're outnumbered. Then its ZERG's advantage completely. Even worse when its a large group of skilled pilots.

I would love to see more skill based ways to deal with locks like;

1. indicator for each individual locking missile, and type of missile locking " Locking (stryker)" Locking "(tomcat)"
2. once lock is reached and missile launched, a color coded LOCK message, red for close 200m , yellow medium 200-300m, green for 400m+
3. max g's an anti air missile can sustain, so you can try to out maneuver incoming missiles. ie turning into the missile and diving
4. Chaff in addition to flares, to increase the chance of a dodge when maneuvering. but not guaranteeing a miss, just slowing the missile's turn radius.
5. Add in missiles that have lost a lock-on, finding other esf's and re-locking on, even potentially allies, until the missile's fuel is spent.

So while you are maneuvering to lose a missile or trying to do so, the lock-on using pilot can line another shot, or close to gun range. a2a will still work, but a skilled defense can defeat them or lessen their effectiveness.

Just like with good maneuvering you can defeat an enemy's attempt to shoot you down with a rotary gun, unless of course his/her aim and esf handling is superior to yours in that situation, then he/she shoots you down.


Yoyo Noritake

PS: Shout Out to all Waterson pilots

Yay A2M(No I never used them)
Anything to keep the rocketpodding Esf's at bay is good in my book.
You brought this on yourselves pilots
1. Bursters have been made ineffective and the skyguard is still garbage
2. Ineffective bursters have essentially moved everyone to the remaining effective AA which is A2AM and G2A.