You want epic air battles and good balance vs. ground units? ESF effectiveness should follow this hierarchy: Best at taking out other aircraft Decent at damaging and, in groups, destroying ground vehicles Terrible at killing infantry Liberators should be: Best at taking out ground vehicles Decent at killing infantry Terrible at destroying other aircraft It's not difficult. Just fix it.
So basicly make ESFs unable to go anywhere near infantry? And remove rockets, zepher and the close range nose weapons for ESFs.
Liberators should be better at destroying other aircraft than they currently are, not worse. Fighters currently win against Liberators pretty much by default unless the pilot is an imbecilic limphook, and there is just no good reason for it. If you fit a Liberator with a dedicated anti-aircraft gun you still don't stand a chance against a fighter, and nobody in their right mind wants to ride the crummy back seat. A single fighter shouldn't have an easy time with a Liberator at all. The current state of balance where if you're in a fighter you can start attacking a Liberator and unless there is an enemy fighter right there to bail him out he dies for sure is just garbage. Hard counters destroy skill based gaming and replace it with spreadsheet wars. Screw that.
