Flax / Lock-on vs ESF REAL Suggestion

Currently, G2A lock-ons won't lock if the aircraft is 350+ above them. However, flak can still detonate around them beyond 500. Here is a suggestion to give aircraft a playing field away from G2A, but, does not nerf those on the ground:

Increase the ceiling to 1,500. Anything above 750, and flak no longer damages the aircraft. That gives aircraft a safe playing field of 750 up to the ceiling for all of their dog fighting enjoyment. However, if they dip below 750, then they become fair game to ground forces.

If ground forces are worried about anti infantry / armor weapons on aircraft, keep in mind that "thermal" optics only have a range of 500. You can hit them before they can see you with those optics.

Another suggestion is to not make aircraft or vehicles render beyond 750. That way if A2G aircraft are flying low, and A2A dog fighters are flying high, the A2A won't see the lower flying aircraft and interfere with their ground runs. Nor will anti armor aircraft be able to fly above the safe 750 mark and see ground forces in order to hit them with impunity.

If 1,500 is too high for whatever reason, then make the ceiling 1,200. That's still a playing field of 450.

Problem with increasing the flight ceiling is A2G aircraft suddenly have a save zone they can hover in or near to avoid AA, as well as galaxies and valks just overing around for squad spawns and drops onto a point.

As for rendering, aircraft with poor latency/lagswitches due to their high speed can enter an area totally unrendered and attack or position oneself without any kind of risk or retaliation.

You're gonna lock off Galaxies, Valkyries, and Liberators from that Bubble where nothing on the ground can touch them right?

As otherwise, you just generated not only where these aircraft can bob in & out of, becoming immortal, but they can also stay there, and endlessly harass the ground indirectly.

Not to mention, Being unable to even touch an Enemy Aircraft while it aligns itself for a perfect attack from a Safe-zone right above you, means they can escape instantly to this safe-bubble, find their next target while immortal, and strafe that.
If they fail, Their speed capable of leaving the hex is now just pointed up..

Not to mention, if a Liberator grows a brain, and sits near this air shield..
And pops down, nukes a few tanks & infantry, goes up a few meters, becoming invulnerable.
Assuming their weapons can't fire down while in this barrier.

IE you just suggested Aircraft have a map-wide Spawn-shield, where they can plot & reach any location on the map, retreat to at will, at all times, Making anything not killed near instantly able to retreat into a Perfect-invulnerability from the ground...

Heaven forbid an Aircraft doesn't do a Floating-turret, and instead dives in from their God zone, and curves back into it.
To reload, to repair, to Sight every single AA platform or victim..
Or to travel, Completely immune to any means of being stopped or intercepted past Enemy air.

Enemy Galaxies? you can bet, they're parking in that zone.
Completely immune to every thing.
Liberators? They're flying there, in-between their attack runs.

So no, Them having A2G weapons with a God-Eye range of only 500-meters doesn't help, if we begin firing..
As they have a Pocket where they are invulnerable, and they go 200-300 meters per second..
We have Flak; We aren't killing them before they enter that pocket inside a second, where they are now immune.
They however kill inside a second.

Worse than Any spawn-shield in existence.. As it allows travel everywhere in an instant, see everything, and kill at will.
As this is an Aircraft with high damage weapons, fast speed, Boosters, and the best healing systems.

We dont need to be further removed from the game.

We need a role, besides flak pinata.

Flak is too abundant. even flying hundreds of meters above the ground with a2a loadout we get flakked constantly.

And we know that lots of people actually do fly during the air anomalies.

But sh!tters in skyguards and ranger equipped vehicles rush to flak us even then.

Let air attack the ground again, ill be there in my a2a esf to deter them along with a bunch of other pilots who dont fly most of the time because of the flak fest that never ends.

No. If they stay above 750, they can't be hit by flak, but neither can they see ground targets if the rendering is limited. If they drop below 750, open up on them.

You did not pay attention to the OP where I stated that rendering would be limited. The Lib would have to drop below that hard line of 750 in order to even see armor, which then becomes problematic for them if they use thermals because they only have a range of 500. That is a 250 cushion for armor to open up on them before they are even seen.

So make safe fall 500 or below for Galaxies and Valkyries. That forces them to go 250 below the hard line in order to drop infantry. That gives G2A a 250 cushion, not to mention you can always send up air support to shoot the other aircraft. Imagine that! Using air, armor and infantry...wow!

How about we don't start introducing a safe zone at all? Only infantry has a relatively safe zone inside Biolabs and have to move from mini safe-zone to mini safe-zone (buildings) inbetween to get their fighting done without being blown to bits. Giving aircraft any safe zone at all, in this case even with the intention of dedicating them to A2A pilots, is a slap into the face for all the ground units that do not get any safe zone at all and are already on the bad end of the stick in any A2G engagement. An aircraft that isn't prepared for G2A can always always get out of the way and survive, a vehicle or infantry that isn't prepared for an A2G engagement cannot escape and is as good as dead unless allies bail them out. Even if you do have G2A equipped you aren't even sure if you win the engagement.

I would rather go about rebalancing A2G, G2A and A2A so that people can actually enjoy it, rather than give preferential treatment to aircraft (again!). Aircraft already have received enough preferential treatment over the years. better fire suppression, only deterrents against them from the ground, auto-granted afterburners that don't take a spot, ability to carry 2 weapons for one pilot, levels of nanite auto-repair when piloting as engineer, almost every airborne weapon being a straight upgrade of it's ground counterpart just to name a few.

Or, make it so high that it would not matter for ground forces. Expand the ceiling to 1500, and make the safe zone anything above 1000, which won't render anyway, either way. Ground can't see air at that range, and air can't target ground. However, air can now safely dog fight within that 1000-1500 range.

Nothing is that simple. Two conditions need to be met for the air game to thrive. 1) Air needs to be included in the meta. 2) Air combat needs to be approachable. Your solution gives air a place to play, which is cool, but it doesn't really solve anything.

So enemy aircraft enters safe-zone.
Flies to where-ever, invulnerable to anything but an A2A pilot.

Enemy Liberators, Galaxies, and Valks, if they can reach this safe zone, they can duck in & out of it.
They also can be invisible, traveling above , and not be possible to be aware of, while they skirt it.
It would be akin to Having the things be cloaked; As now we can't even know there's Air within a KM, which can boost down in a second.
Or boost up into it: Without ever leaving their hex.
Hide a Repair Galaxy up there, and air is now infinitely capable of strikes from A immortal safe-zone.

Unless Allied ESFs grace friendlies, and find this cluster.

Flak is used en-masse, as it doesn't work unless it is.
It is the same price or more, of the lightest aircraft. It is fully dedicated to the role.

Your A2A ESF can do entire hexes in a second.
If you being hit by Flak; Have some allies nail it down; Don't stand still, or simply ponder where exactly that flak is.
As any enemy flak, is a fragile expensive vehicle or a 450 nanite max-unit, all it takes is an Light-Assault to kill it for you, if you don't kill it yourself.

If Ground is expected to rely on Pilots to kill Pilots, let alone Flak to be this 'deterrent'
You pilot better learn to ask for Ground-forces to take-out dedicated Anti-Air batteries perhaps eh?
After all, Why is air expecting to counter Anti-Air with Air, but Land is expected to need an Entire ESF Pilot to even combat any Aircraft.


You are a single pilot.
A2A ESFs are rare, are not reliable for land-units, and are well known to do truces.
You don't expect an Allied tank to kill an Anti-Air unit, While must we rely on an Pilot to save us from being farmed?
A2G ESFs are more common on the front-lines, where allies actually are, compared to A2A...
And those ESFs are rarely near allied lines, let alone the A2A.. As demonstrated by the "I'm a Mossie attacking NC Reavers, in the middle of an VS A2G farm"

Rely on A2A ESF?
First have Air actually care what their allies are doing, rather than be the Solution to every problem past caps.

Air Events:
Every single Aircraft is free.
Every single Aircraft has A2G weaponry, every single one of them past the Galaxy & Valk can solo engage Main-battle-tanks.
The Valk has brutal Anti-Infantry weapons, and is a sponge.
The Galaxy can ram tanks to death, and is faster than them.
Liberator when solo-operated has nearly the main-gun of an MBT: 2-man, it has double the firepower. 3-Man it has also Anti-air guns.
ESF: Has equal firepower & weapon system counts as a 450 Main-Battle-tank, a Sunderer , the two largest ground-vehicles.

During these Events.
Every single Enemy Aircraft is free, and are casually used to attack everyone on the ground without regard
Why people spawn Liberators & A2G craft during Air-Events, Which only care about aircraft (other events aren't that specific)...
Should raise the logic behind why People are firing Flak into these Free-cluster balls of En-massed 0-nanite-cost Enemy aircraft.

The last thing to be mentioned, Should be when Every single Aircraft is free
As every single tank isn't, during this event: And you can ram the enemy MBT to death with your aircraft for 0 nanites.
You can use A2G for free.
All Nanite considerations are gone for that event, for Aircraft.

It would be akin if MBTs could teleport for an hour, and had 0 nanite cost.
As those things fly at 300m\s , and are 300-450 nanites of free Aircraft...

What's wrong with that? The game already suffers from attackers spawn points being too easy to kill & defenders having it too easy. It wouldn't even be invulnerable like infantrys lovely spawn cubes, still susceptible to allied aircraft.

If your response is "well i don't wanna use anything other than infantry to stop attackers" well it shows where you intentions truly lies eh.

Because an indestructible spawnpoint directly above the capture point in a base is overpowered. Cut out all the ******** of most base designs and consistently land exactly where it would be most important.

An no, even if ESFs actually bothered to attack the galaxy and even if there were no other ESFs to defend it, the several minutes worth of essentially free drop pods would still be too large of an advantage. Past a certain point the faction with the galaxy wouldn't even need it anymore anyway. Of course, there is nothing stopping the galaxy pilot from just pulling another...

And then to top it off there will always be ESFs and libs and such just dipping down for free easy kills then hovering back up a bit to be virtually immune, then dipping back down...

Firstly, you're essentially saying "play my playstyle or you're bad/wrong." Everyone should be able to solve any problem with the right loadout regardless of which aspect they want to use.

Secondly, the majority of ground-based AA is mounted on a vehicle or MAX. Infantry get all of nothing beyond the stupidly ineffective lock-on launchers which couldn't even kill a galaxy even if they could hit it. This false dichotomy is just getting lazy.

I miss something? since when we're galaxys and valks indestructible? You're arguing from a false point here.

And there's nothing stopping the allied air-force from shooting it down again right? Or do you just think you shouldn't have not have 1 of the supposed 3 arms of this game?

ESF and libs aren't immortal either. More lies. They'd still have to contend with rival ESF and libs as well, just as much as these "immortal" galaxys.

Surprise surprise! it was "infantry should be able to deal with everything" all along.

Trash.

Speaking of false points, you're exaggerating the argument and not contesting it. Galaxies are floating sacks of HP in the form of gunships which can easily repair themselves and other aircraft mid-flight. They already ignore all but the most intensive focus-fired AA, they're the closest thing to indestructible this game has past the environment.

Meanwhile I didn't even mention Valks because they're the exact opposite. One belly-gun which struggles to be used against air with less armour, less health, exposed crew, and no air-to-air support functionality. It's almost as if you were completely fabricating a straw man.

If you pick a fight with another player and lose, do you just concede all possibility of victory or do you attack them again?

More exacerbations of my argument, what a surprise. ESFs and especially libs can be nearly impossible for the ground to kill before they simply retreat. When it can be done from literally anywhere in a few seconds at the absolute longest they have zero excuse for virtually any death to ground forces. And again, you're saying only air should kill air.

Interesting that you get "infantry need universal capabilities" but not vehicles. I wonder why.

Fite me m9.

First of, the only way a galaxy can repair itself is with FS, NAR or Engineer Passive, two of those which do not work if under fire. The Field repair doesn't heal itself, and you'd need 2 galaxys to do that, in which case, it's at minimum 2v1. Where's your partner solo boy?

Second, the default gun for liberators is already very very good v Galaxys AND we literally just got a new gun for ESFs that is good vs Large aircraft. Just because you're too stupid to use the tools at your disposal doesn't make them "Indestructible".

No, you did say this:

That includes valks as well you stupid idiot. They can squad spawn just like galaxys. I don't expect ground trash like you to know the capabilities of aircraft though.

What's this got to do with you making up ****e like indestructible galaxys? You're the one admitting defeat because you're too stupid to figure out how to use a liberator or ESF.

You mean the vehicles that can already exclude aircraft from fights with flak? Yeah they really need even more help with aircraft right.

Okay, where does the Battle where the enemy has Aircraft, at a disadvantage, for not having vehicles?
ESFs let alone Liberators, can clear out enemy Heavy-armor, spawn-points, let alone infantry without even needing to coordinate.
When does this air-power, need land?
As if, this Pocket of Sky is immune to everything on the ground, making the ground Reliant entirely on Allied-Air to deal with Enemies in, near, or dropping from this Pocket of sky..
Air dictates the engagement below this pocket, Air dictates the engagement in this pocket..
And having vehicles but no air means death, while air but no vehicles, is perfectly fine with this Pocket of airspace that ground can't touch.

IE, if air can casually reach a height where the ground can do nothing, where they can reach to avoid all retaliation past enemy air..
You just basically made the top of the entire map, a more effective version of how air avoids death.
By giving them, quite literally at all times, the perfect terrain barrier against every single way the ground has to engage them.

A Galaxy , or plural, Over a base:
Do they need a sunderer? No.
Are they punished for it? No.
Are they solely air, for vehicles: Yes.
That entire base's fate is now dictated solely by Pilots.
The enemy force, having no vehicles, has no negative.
The allied force having no air, Has only negatives.

With this notion that Air needs a line where they can't be touched by ground..
You basically just enabled Air to even more effectively ensure survival, to anything but Pilots.
Whom are the one thing not having issues Killing other Pilots: Are the Pilots.


If Flak can not function, at enemy air, You just made that Galaxy Invulnerable, unless an Allied Pilot graces the base.
Which means, Unlike Tanks; That ESF is required by the ground.
That ESF has no motive however, to even care about allied land units; As there is nothing it actually needs them for.
This is a one-sided relationship; Land Needs ESF, ESF needs no one.

If one single flak gun makes you run..
Perhaps you might want to not solo a dedicated anti-air battery with a light aircraft.

Not to mention.
When the ground is attacked by Air: Allied Air isn't there.
Air attacks first; And has quick TTKs.
Allied Air have no motive to actually be useful, and on AA duty, they typically are Attacking away from allied fronts.

When was the last time you saw an Actual Allied A2A ESF, when enemy air was attacking?
And it actually fired on the enemy aircraft, as a key requirement.

More often than not, Land does not get graced by allied pilots.
They're usually too busy 7 hexes into the enemy lattice.

Any battles where there is already Flak users, both MAXes and Ground vehicles alike? Like christ it takes a monumentally bad flak user to be killed aircraft and we should not be balancing around this level of stupid. CAI already did that and they lost player numbers cus of it and have been walking back on those decisions since.

You can overwhelm a Flak user with more aircrafts, but that applies to every damn thing in this game. You can overwhelm MAXes with infantry, Tanks with harassers and on and on. It is not something unique to Aircraft only.

ANYONE CAN PULL AIRCRAFT. EVEN YOU. YOU ARE NOT BARRED FROM USING THE TERMINAL.

I don't often try to solo AA when in an aircraft. Normally they have to be shown to be poor skilled or way out of position before even attempting it.

It is not airs fault you cannot be bothered to pull it. It is your own.

When I was in the ****-pit shooting at the ground pounder.
I actually play everything in this game, unlike you.

Having an mass of flak, is what half these threads are created about nullifying..
You want Flak, a deterrent weapon, to be disabled for aircraft past a certain height.
These are height able to cross an entire hex in under a second.

We are apparently balancing dedicated 300-450 nanite Anti-air weapons, to be deterrents against Lone pilots.
It takes a colossal idiot to die to Flak.

Anyone can fly: Okay.
When it's required to pull aircraft, to do anything, I ask:
Your pilot, Can pull a tank, if he wants to kill an MBT, I bet that'll get old fast.

Since, guess what.
We aren't standing infinitely a terminal.
Vehicles do not easily travel across entire hexes in seconds, We have travel time.
A 450 MBT, is not able to near instantly reach an engagement , nor can we swap weapons in the field.
An AA Equipped MBT is fodder for any other tank.
An non-AA tank however, has no ability to react nor control, Nor even Disengage from Air.
Air can always disengage. Land can not do so.

It is not the ground's fault, You are going near dedicated anti-air units, and complaining about being shot at.
"You can pull your own MBT, Why are you an ESF: You can pull your own."
This is the same type of logic as your statement.
We are all not here to enjoy flying an ESF, Why exactly are expected to Fly?
Pilots are not expected to pull tanks, nor infantry, to handle any situation: You can fly, pick your target, and not give a damn.

I do not fly often.
And I do not others They need to fly, to have the ability to engage an enemy.
I happily kill ESFs with An Archer.
I will kill the enemy sunderer by foot, by air, by tank.
I will use anything: However, it is absurd, to expect everyone to be near a terminal, have their ESF certed, have nanites, and be willing to Duel some A2G ESF at all times.

It is not Our Fault, You picked an Aircraft.
It is however, also not our fault, That an A2G aircraft flying at 300m\s found us, without an AA gun.
As we can't swap in the field, and using AA against anything, is crap.
Actually drive a tank, See how far you get, when a liberator is nearby, or when an enemy MBT is nearby when you have flak.
We can't hit one-button & return to the warpgate: We have to engage that threat.
We have no choice.

Do you drop out of your cockpit, to knife tool every infantryman that graces your presence? No.
Why do you expect every player, to Become a Pilot at a moment's notice.
We aren't playing "The Air Gods", and waiting to be graced with Air combat.

When is it required to pull an aircraft in this game? The only thing aircraft have is those alerts. You can safely ignore anything to do vehicles, both ground and air alike and still get around the map just fine thanks to redeploy.

Putting this supposed ceiling for aircraft so galaxys could actually provide a spawn point over a base would be the second time EVER that an aircraft was required for anything.

You can press U and be spawning into an aircraft or any vehicle in under 20 seconds. Since the spawn in vehicle on map, it has never been faster to get into a vehicle.

Boy Non-AA MBTs have been shooting aircrafts with their mainguns since the games inception. There are plenty of montages around for you to see of that.

You cannot fly at a flak nest, a Ranger harasser/Sunderer/Ant and expect to win. You have to "give a damn" as you put otherwise you will die.

That's incredibly obvious. There's only 1 reason for you to fly in this game anyway, and those silly alerts don't even do anything lol.

Expecting players to use tools at their disposal is not absurd.

http://stats.dasanfall.com/ps2/player/LayZboy

Yeah what would I know about driving a tank. I've obviously never done that before. I only sit in my ESF all day.
I have both been the MBT with no AA shooting his main cannon at libs, been the lib tankbusting those MBTs & been the skyguard shooting those libs.

I want you to post your character tho. Show me all the things you do. Go on. Bet you won't.

Free aircraft alert.
Yes I know air doesn't have a thing to be constantly doing, Neither do normal vehicles.

Having Galaxies literally off in their own world, affecting the ground without any counterplay Past other air..
Literally devalues anything on the ground.
As unless Air comes in, or Air power is bested up there, Air has just literally made any sunderer useless, any tank useless..
And any defense on the ground, unable to even intercept this, or stop it.
All the enemy needs, is to keep Air power, nothing else matters.


Like, Do you know what a sunderer is?
Do you know how useless that is, when a Galaxy is sitting untouchable?
Now imagine your Galaxy, as LITERALLY untouchable by ground..
Now that base is dictated by Air: As only air can actually do anything.

That function only works outside of contested hexes.
That function also means you just suicide the entire vehicle.
Land can not afford to dump 450 nanites every time an ESF or Liberator is seen on the horizon.
Infantry also would have to literally use this respawn period.. in which the air is either gone, killed them, or moved on.
Add in, the only time this delay isn't there: Is when you aren't even on the map to begin with.

Do you remember what it takes for the MBT main-gun to hit an aircraft?
An angled hill, an aircraft being static or an straight line path.
This is as 'practical' as running over infantry in an ESF is, as opposed to using your gun.
Terrain, and the enemy air have to literally cooperate for that shot to even be done, if you have the talent to even apply it.

The Tank can not aim the gun straight up by itself.. It uses a hill.

Not every player is an ESF pilot.
A2A is far from A2G combat As well, as an Uncerted ESF is easily fodder.
Recall the skill-curve; Which means, Unless that ground operator is an ace pilot, He's likely dead easily to the ESF.
Let alone the Liberator.

I don't bother.
As all it does, is a "Lets pick apart the person, not the argument"
That is all it devolves into it: Attacking the person.
Which is a waste of my time, as I rather not defend my character, to defend an argument of "Pistol is not a reliable Anti-air gun" level of debate.

You just called the MBT's main cannon, anti-air.
You should know better, apparently.

Oh the points have all moved up into the air now have they? How the **** does it devalue anything on the ground when you can't even capture anything without dropping ground troops. It's like you're completely ignoring that you still have to drop infantry to capture said base.

It's decided by the SQUAD that's dropping onto the base, not some galaxy up in the sky. If the droppers are dog****e they won't be capturing the base when they keep getting cleared off now will they.

The sunderer will still be used by people not in the squad. Unless you claiming that everyone is in squads now in which case ha ha ha ha ha you're even more out-of-touch than you think.

You could quite literally hunt them in your ESF, they won't be able to escape unless they have far more skill than you. You can also run into other ground-pounding ESFs

Terrain, then thing that's EVERYWHERE but you can't use, cus your bad.

Not every player is a MBT pilot
G2G is far different from Infantry combat aswell, as an uncerted lightning is easily fodder.
Recall the skill-curve; which means, Unless that infantry player is an ace tanker, he's likely dead easily to the lightning.
Let Alone the MBT

See what a ****e argument you just made.
A more skilled player will kill you yes. This applies to everything in this game. It's not only applied to ESF.

Called it. Hide your character like you hide in zergs, bad player.
Inexperienced zerglings like you shouldn't talk about balance, especially in areas you refuse to try.