ESF A2AM are worthless.

Well i have all my characters right in my sig, so you can go and look and see that i have used them.

I don't ever talk about something before i try it.

I have probly at least a few hundered vehicle kills with them.

So i know exactly how easy they are to use and to win with.

When someone like me uses a2a missiles its just silly.

I roll up and i dont even bother with my nosegun. I just lock lock lock. Kill 3 enemy ESF without any real aiming and i go get some more missiles.

Its not hard at all. And the real problem with the locks is that you are as good after 1 hour as you are after 1 million hours. They are boring to use. You are basically just sitting there waiting for the computer to finish aiming for you.

Following an ESF with the lock reticle which is 3 times larger than said esf at max lock range is not difficult at all even for a pilot without much flying experience.

And i'd be ok with it all if they just made it like it used to be.

A long time ago now, before they 'fixed' the a2a missiles they were easily dodged. They had a crappy turning radius. If you flew right at the lock they would miss every time.

That was perfect because it still allowed newer players to get some hits in, but it was counterable with skill and situational awareness.

It was good for killing people who tried to run away which is what A2A missiles should be for. It was at times an alpha strike, if the person snuck up on you and you couldnt locate them in time to dodge the missile.

Flares are to confuse heat-seeking missiles.

However the fact that a Striker user has to maintain a lock and guide his missiles in all the way without breaking lock, means it's a radar guided weapon platform. NOT heat seeking.

Flares should NOT work at all against the Striker, it's not a heat-seeking fire and forget weapon system.

You say he used A2AM to get to br30, but that page shows he used the needler predominantly (5 to 1). He's using A2AM as a supplement to increase his DPS, which is what most lock on users do.

A2AM were designed to help new pilots into the game and it's terrible in that respect. Most of you are trying to critique A2AM after learning how to use the nose gun, but that's not the opinion we need. OPs post is when a new pilot tries to learn A2A first with a lock on. As it turns out, it's easier to just learn with the nose gun.

Therefore, the only real use for A2A lock ons is for already experienced pilots to supplement their DPS.

You are wrong. A2A missiles are a primary a2a weapon at this point.

I can run the banshee and a2a missiles and just own pilots with a2a missiles.

There are only a couple of pilots who are good enough that i have a hard time killing them with a2a missiles if i dont get the jump on them, but if i do, its lights out.

Kill all the air with my a2a missiles and then farm the ground with banshee.

Not balanced.

We just need the old a2a missile mechanics back. They should be something like a cone attack. Dunno if any of you ever played daoc but they had some aoe spells that had a cone shape to them. Anything within the frontal cone of say 60 degrees will get hit and if you move out of the cone you dont.

Anyone who says a2a missiles are balanced is just trying to protect their op toy.

they are terrible, sometimes i still see pilots use them, and i only get hit by them if i allow it. i have found that allowing an enemy pilot to get a lock allows you to exit brawl range and dive in, the missile does low damage and you get a 90% chance of killing them in one dive.

they should give them an arming distance so they can only be used like old A2A which was to hide on a hill or obstacle, pop out and fire some missiles.

probably giving them 4 salvos at a low ROF at lower total damage, faster lock, and much longer range. this way it favors static missile launching, while also forcing the static player to take much higher risk, and allowing other AA/Air to deter/kill.

Can you actually PROVE this with video or screenshots?

B/c I think you're the one operating on old data here. L5 upgrade only adds 50m which is nothing. And there is no ****ing way in hell the base range is over 400m. Meanwhile it's pretty easy to hit a lot of targets at beyond 500m with the noseguns.

What a minute... didn't it actually used to be 700 something??

Back in January this thread would be full of pilots complaining about tomcats, they mostly quit by now, if SOE didnt care for them they dont care for the ones that are left.

Its funny that sense their big esf update planetside started losing players, and they didnt really care, this use to be full of people complaining if they didnt listen back then they wont listen now that people are used to high reward low skill weapons.

My best guess its that they want to make it casual for Playstation players, who are used to aim assist and easy kills, its just too bad that skill is no longer important but i get it, they want the big $$$ the casual PS4 players will bring

I don't get the casual players need noob tubes argument. Even if i only have half an hour to play i still want to win or lose based on my skill and not based on the gear i bought.

A2A missiles in their current state are usually outperformed by the rotaries at their intended roll, which does seem odd.

I'd suggest making them deal more damage, at the cost that you can't have a rotary as well and they'd perhaps only get 4-6 missiles.

I argue that A2A weapons are just as "easy" to use as rotaries. The reason all these ESF Elitists bemoan them is because they're mistaken about the skills required to use them.

In fact, any ESF weapon requires extensive skill in aiming or maneuvering your aircraft. When the game came out, pilots were still learning, so they attributed rotaries to being "hard to learn." However, since A2A weapons require much of the same skillset, these same pilots easily picked them up and assumed that they were easy for everyone else when they were later released.

So basically, because A2A weapons came out later, you had already developed the skills to use them. Had they come out at the same time, I would argue that the discussions surrounding them would be much less negative towards A2A weapons and this stigma of being "easy-mode" would probably not be as strong.

Also, the DPS on A2A as it currently stands is pitiful. Which is a shame because apparently forumside wants rotaries to be jack of all trades, master of ALL. Whereas the specialized A2A weapon gets shafted as a result. I hope SOE rectifies this.

You go straight to "you're wrong", but you don't address my post.

People who know how to aim with the nose gun can easily use the a2a missiles. That's obvious.

People who are just learning the nose gun are better off trying to learn with the nose gun than attempting to use the lock ons. The lock on mechanics are so touchy, you can spend hours not even getting off a single shot, couple that with the fact that newbies are still learning how to maneuver and the skies are full of MLG pros who know how to dodge. Meanwhile, if you just spray in the general direction with the nose gun, you can at least do some damage at the target and help out. This makes the A2A lock ons "useless" in its intended role.

The problem is you think your opinion carries the most weight. It doesn't. A2A lock ons aren't for you. A2A lock ons are for the new pilots who are trying to enter the air game. Stats have shown low involvement in ESFs by the playerbase. It's very obvious that the problem is the ludicrous skill ceiling. A2A lock ons are supposed to lower the skill ceiling. That's the entire point.

However, A2A lock ons are too UP to fill that role. To add to the problem, pilots who already know how to use the nose gun are using the A2A lock ons to increase their DPS, which makes it even harder for new pilots.

The easiest way would be to have lock ons replace the nose gun. That way it can be properly buffed into a low skill, mid-damage weapon. The nose gun can still retain it's high skill, high-damage role.

I agree in that the lock-on range (not for heat-seekers) should be extended, even if you make the missile fire slower or do less damage. By the time I'm in lock on range, the enemy can easily fly off the side of my screen or I could have easily used my nose gun (not that I'd hit anything with it).

You mean the airhammer?

I wasn't seeing the same range on Amerish that I'm seeing in the V.R. room. Is this just bad "reference perspective"? Or does it seem like you literally have to be exposed to a massive reprisal to even get in range for a lock with the Extended Range A2AM? Just generally, the distance I can lock on and stay locked with the Hawk launcher seems farther than the Tomcats in a real battle. And I'm consistently hitting stuff with Flak far beyond that range so lockons are never my idea of a good solution for A.A.

I think what some people are forgetting is that even if it was 400m, that's a terrible reference point for TWO VEHICLES that could be moving in completely different directions at ridiculous speeds. An ESF can shift directions and close a gap of 200m or create a bigger gap in less time than it takes for the lockon to even occur. Everytime I've tried to sneak up on someone to open with a lock, it would have just been a lot faster to empty a full vortek clip on them instead and deal way more damage without having to worry about that first Flare coming out.

I don't spend all day doing this because: A) It doesn't seem effective. B) It just makes an already virulent community even more pissy. But the entire point of these things seems to contradict itself just like the Railjack (which is only popular b/c it "looks cooler" than the LongShot but is a massive downgrade to it in every possible way). Are the people who insist they're effective, only using quick-lockon Certing? I don't see anyone actually listing their loadouts which seems to me, like it would make a HUGE difference here....

I don't think you do. If you actually listened to the opinion of the console players, you'd see they're even madder and keep painting SOE as totally dragging their a**es on getting the PS4 version out. A lot of them complain about other tech hurdels too citing that the design team doesn't care about them, only the PC masterrace.

The reason A2A missiles suck is that this is a secret recruiting program......


During Korea, the Navy kill ratio was 12 to 1.

We shot down 12 of their jets for every one of ours.

During Vietnam, that ratio fell to 3 to 1. Our pilots become dependant upon missiles.

RECRUITING PROGRAM FOR TOPGUN.

I kill people all the time with a2a missiles. Not at all difficult to do.

I was as good with a2a missiles after 5 mins as i am now. 100% accuracy on non flared missiles.

Ive been trying to figure out some way to get better but im already landing every shot every time.

A2A missiles were always around. Thing is they used to be countered by skill. Just like you can dodge a nosegun with skill.

A2A missiles require very little skill to use. After 40 days flying time i still have room for improvement with my nosegun. I have a reason to keep using it. I mastered A2A missiles as soon as i bought them because i could already aim a nosegun.

If someone runs from my nosegun and they are good at evading, there is a good chance they can get away. If i'm running a2a missiles they arent going anywhere.

I can use a banshee and run a2a missiles and kill all but the very best pilots with ease.

If you can get 5% accuracy with a nosegun, you can get 100% accuracy with a2a missiles, especially now that most people run Fire Suppression.

And before you say that you should run flares noob!!! think about it. Flares stop one A2A missile. Thats it. You arent going to live in any kind of a group fight long enough to flare twice against a2a missile users.

Fire suppression will repair about the same amount as an a2a missile does.

Flares only work against locks.

Fire Suppression repairs damage from EVERYTHING.

So the only time flares is better than fire suppression is when there are multiple locks on you. And if you have multiple ESF locking you, that 5 secs isnt going to save you anyway.

3 missiles to kill an ESF is too few.

I can kill all but the best pilots in a duel using nothing but a2a misiles.

Last night some guy killed me with locks and i was talking to him about it. He was saying that there was no way i could kill him with just a2a missiles. So he ran flares and stealth and a nosegun and i killed him and took 5% damage.

If you think A2A missiles arent primaries come to pts and duel me. Ill use nothing but a2a missiles. You can run flares stealth, whatever you want.

As to your assertion that you can just spray with a nosegun and hit targets that you wouldn't be able to hit with a2a missile. Well umm 100% accuracy with a2a missiles says otherwise.

If you stay near max range and you want to add on a dogfight you can land every shot from 400 range. If you cant aim at a hovering target long enough to launch a lock on then you dont belong in a balance discussion.

You dont balance based around noobs because no one is a noob forever. Making the game so that a 5 year old can play it reduces the depth challenge and replay value.

The problem with A2A missiles is that they remove half of the equation of flying.

There is aiming, and there is dodging. With a2a missiles there is no dodging 99% of the time.

Not much of a cone with the AH you have to be pretty accurate,but sorta. Take that cone maybe give it a bit more spread 60 degrees would probly be good. Then you fire the a2a missile at your enemy and if he can get out of that 60 degree cone before the missile gets there he doesnt get hit.

And while your opponent would only have to fly out of the cone he would be making evasive maneuvers that would open him up to your nosegun.

So you prove my point by saying you're an experienced pilot, and A2A missiles are "easy-mode" in your opinion? Now what about new pilots, still learning to aim and maneuver? I bet they'll tell a different story. You also completely failed to address their terrible DPS and seem to be under the assumption they require no aiming proficiency. This is just false. There's really no room for argument there, but let me illustrate how performance differs on these weapons.

The tomcat has a lockon time, travel time, and reload time between shots. It takes 3 missiles to down a target, taking roughly 17 seconds to finish an opponent minimum.

The coyote is slightly better, taking 4 volleys to finish an ESF and only taking 12-13 seconds minimum to kill an opponent.

The nosegun? It can take 3-4 seconds to down an ESF.

Also take note that the downtime between shots on the tomcat/coyote is 4 seconds vanilla. This basically means a good pilot may take that first hit from their opponent and then just lay into them when they're reloading, kill them, and still have over half their health left. A coyote user may get a second volley off, but they're still screwed assuming equal skill in aiming/moving.

And just to be clear, my point in this post is that Noseguns are still the go-to weapon for A2A based on TTK alone. Assuming equal skill and a fair fight, there's really just no competing.