Nice post but totally uselss .. since im talking about effectice anti-air .. Lib ***** vehicle in 3 seconds .. Lib ***** AA phalanx in 5 seconds .. and again what ***** a Lib in 3-5 seconds ?
Might not be able to kill them easily but you can run them off with a ground lock on. Haven't seen one yet that ignores lock ons
This thread just reminded me how incredibly pitiful the Skyguard is. Liberators and Galaxies just seem to laugh it off unless they're being pounded by 3+ simultaneously. It's bad enough that it sucks at its own role, but it can't even double as anything else. You can't even kill infantry with it unless you're right on top of them. Just a complete waste of time, really.
I see Libs and Gals blowing up or crashing over large battles all the time. Concentrated AA is clearly a reasonable counter against aircraft. I'm sure 1v1 is a different story but that seems to be a different argument. I don't drive tanks or fly aircraft myself but it seems as if the individual combat hierarchy is Esf trumps Lib, Lib trumps tank, tank trumps infantryman. I don't see any tankers complaining about one shotting infantrymen like me who have no chance vs a tank and might not even be in range to return what little fire they can offer.
And that's enough specialized tanks, that if were AV or AI, could kill hundreds more things with the sheer number of them. ESF trumps AA tank, infantry, tank, and has a chance at killing a Liberator. Liberator bests everything - Good enough Liberator Pilot, can solo multiple ESFs without a gunner.. Tanks have to worry about tons of AV options; Tank mines, AV maxes, Archers, Rocket Launchers, AV weaponry on Harassers, Flashes, lightning tanks, C-4, Rocklets and other tanks. Tanks generally can't evade or disengage from most if not all of these threats without taking severe damage, and straight up explode if they go in too deep or encounter too many AV sources. Aircraft can engage twice that number of AV sources as AA sources - Units specialized against aircraft.. and win against them. A single infantryman can actually destroy a tank, without god-like reflexes or luck. Called tank mines, Archers, and Rocket Launchers. Or C-4 & Rocklet rifles. Tanks would have an issue with AI weapons driving away infantry, rather than killing. Same with Infantry, and their AV weaponry not actually being capable of dealing enough damage to land vehicles. Notice how it's 4-5 Rockets to kill a Tank, with the tanks needing cover as well from such weaponry... That's one Heavy's rocket supply - And with skill, can actually achieve the kill. AA, you have either a Lock-on (which has a direct counter, and is generally bull for the pilot) Or be a Burster Max (which is usually dead to anything on the battlefield). Outside of that, you have AA top-guns, which are better on Sunderers than the Dedicated AA tank. Now put AP on that Tank, and it can kill another tank - Of equal class, it's 50-50. Against Equal-resource costing or Class of Aircraft... and it dies faster than the non-specialized smallest aircraft. At present, you fly, you get the advantages of the sky, the disadvantage of being easily seen, but the whole Can-get-any-angle with High DPS weaponry, better repairs, and the glorious safe-place of the Sky-limit. And the whole "Skill based AA" or "Effective AA" being AP Vanguards using hills to hit damaged or stationary aircraft. The only thing in this game, that can be stationary & reap kills within meters of dedicated counters...aircraft.
Actually, SkyGuard is a ridiculous thing. 40mm four-way anti-aircraft gun with the practical absence of a projectile falling and its flight speed of 200m / s, while not causing almost no damage. Funny hearse. PS. A light tank can even be eliminated without any problems from the G20 Vulcan-H or Proton II PPA-H, but fails to deal normal damage to the Harasser. It's not funny. There's definitely not a 4mm gun?
There's also an issue where trying to fine-tune your aim with small movements of the mouse doesn't even hardly move the aircraft at all, and then if you move it faster, suddenly you're constantly overshooting your target. Then there's that annoying auto-drop feature of ESFs that makes using them like a helicopter a pointless pain in the *** with constantly having to tap the spacebar to bounce it back up. There's many things wrong with the controls for air and since BETA they have ignored us. It's ridiculous. All of my flight sim friends agree the flight controls on PS2 are complete ***.
personaly i never considered esf's to be like helicopters/gunships but like a fighter (like it says in empire specific FIGHTER) or like something of a light bomber maybe add or change a performanceslot option (i think it was hover stability airframe?) but other than stupid hover and reverse-manuever-meta you are supposed to be always moving in a esf were the lib takes the actual gunshiprole imo
God you people don't know what the hell you're talking about when it comes to air. When you're in an ESF everything can destroy you, everything tries and usually succeeds, ESF weapons have been nerfed to near uselessness against anything we Might have a chance to destroy, thermal has been nerfed so there's no way to pick out enemy infantry on the ground even with our ANTI-INFANTRY weapons. Any MBT will one shot us and lightnings too, there's Skyguards EVERYWHERE with near unlimited range to harrass you miles away before you get in the fight to miles away when you try to leave, there are burster MAXes near every sunderer that you can't even see before they're lighting you up, AA turrets on every sunderer, AA turrets on every tower our tanks don't bother to deal with because they aren't targeting them, a bazillion infantry lockons and oh yeah, light assaults have AA too now, did I forget anything? I don't even bother with Libs anymore since they're so god damn ineffective, sure they may take some damage, but you are literally spending 90% of your time landing and repairing, bellyguns seem like they're more effective against ESFs than enemy tanks. The job of Aircraft is specifically to take out the huge zergs of tanks that everyone runs, but they've been completely nerfed to uselessness in that role. The main job of aircraft these days: Take out other aircraft, yeah it's that lame.
Let me guess... You often approach large fights without using cover and expect to be fine? I mean yeah air is fundamentally overpowered and all, but you still gotta do it right.