Forumside Air Discussion in a nutshell.

That's because the people that b*tch and whine about Libs have no idea and how many thousands of deaths, humiliations suffered at the hands of air predators and (just about everything else), and the sheer determination it has taken us (me and my crew at least), despite all this, to continue.

Now we finally get a bit of love (really to me the tail gun arcs/shared XP was about it) and here they come with the tears. Even the most skilled Libs can be dealt with, just takes a little teamwork.

Easier to come here and complain though I guess.

I feel WAY MORE helpless when tanks are surrounding a spawn room/base than I do when Lib or two are overhead.

Well, it's a lot like it is for infantry, actually. If you pull a MAX by yourself, sometimes you'll do really well, and that's because you have the right kind of support already available at the base. You have the correct niche weapon for the engagement, and you can rack up a ton of kills for little effort. Other times you die way too quickly, and don't get revived. If you have a squad or platoon with you, you can theoretically make good use of the MAX every time you pull it, because you can guarantee the right kind of support.

Now, air is a little different, because it is highly mobile and the best equipped to escape from engagements from the ground. If a battle isn't good for air, air can easily go elsewhere. It's not until you coordinate with the ground forces, asking them to set up AA nests, and to destroy enemy AA materials that you can actually guarantee yourself some place in that battle. Otherwise, you are entirely at the mercy of random field conditions as to whether you can even be anywhere near a location or not.

First, no, it doesn't take coordination to farm in a Liberator. But take 2-3 random pubbies, and toss them towards high danger areas? Like, swarming with ESF's, 48v48's, AA Nests, and suddenly you actually really need coordination. Plus, an ESF is just going to laugh at an uncoordinated Liberator, and them tear it to pieces.

Also, that's why I don't understand why people aren't hating on ESF's. 3 People in Rotary+Rocketpod ESF's are going to do a way better job then a single, 3 man Liberator.

"There's a Dalton liberator north of the tower that is heading south. His name is yoloswagnotherms. Open fire!" This is how my outfit coordinates fire on a single target.

A single lib has more health than the reavers individually (3 reavers go into a dangerzone, less than 3 return. What now?) and is a better weapons platform for attacking the ground. The pilot doesn't have to be facing and moving towards its target and can tank a little more damage before having to retreat. Both are excellent platforms, but for different reasons.

3 ESF's would be superior for several reasons, actually.

First, the ability to actively engage enemy air would be a major boon. Even a full A2A ESF can get it's face stomped in by another ESF if the enemy is good enough. And remember, there are 3 of them.

Second, firepower. 3 Rocketpod ESF's have a vastly higher DPS then almost any of the Liberator weapons, even belly gun+Tail Gun combined. Plus, 3 Noseguns on an enemy Liberator/ESF will kill it extremely quickly.

Third, speed. ESF's have fast acceleration and high top speeds. They can get away from an AA Nest far more effectively then a single Liberator, which is being focus fired can.

Fourth, Positioning. When fighting a single 3/3 Liberator, there is only one target to worry about. But when there are 3 ESF's, you can't engage one without leaving yourself vulnerable to the other 2. So the only option is to either become super MLG good, or bring 3 of your own ESF's.


Overall, the ESF is really a better platform then the Liberator for pretty much anything but sitting over a well overpoped base and shelling with the Zephyr or Shredder.

Seriously now ? A BIT of Love ? It takes 3 x 150mm AP shells from the Vanguard to bring down a certed Liberator friend, that's not a BIT of love, that's MADNESS.

Well then, let's consider your options:
If you're new or cheap, spawn HA and start shooting rockets at them! At the very least watching them run off smoking is cathartic. Often though you wont be the only one doing this and dumbfires in bulk can easily get the job done!

If you have some certs invested, C4! Select delivery option of choice, and potentially instagib them. Or AV mines. Or AV mines and a AV grenade. Or AV mines/C4 an the aforementioned rockets!

Pull an AV MAX! Most AV maxes can actually put a lot of creep damage on tanks that novice tankers wont notice until it's too late, especially with dumbfires as support involved.

Use liberator support and destroy them with absolutely no threat of significant retaliation! oh wait...

Not to troll anyone.... I do agree with the whole "3 man Team is always > 1 man ESF". The problem people have is that things like this video shouldn't even be possible.



Suggestion > Remove the pilots ability to hop seats. OR! remove the ability for the bomber seat to one shot an ESF under any circumstances. 2 shots is fine. You should never be able to one shot your supposed primary counter, period.

Aw cmon man, you can't even get out the door most of the time to do that FFS!

That looks good on paper though, thank you kindly!

Almost all the pilots he killed were pretty bad. You should basically never EVER be flying straight at an enemy Liberator, ESPECIALLY when they roll over and point their belly at you. It's pretty easy to kill a Lib if you either stay far away with the default nose gun and dodge their Dalton rounds, or get in really close but stay away from the belly gun and use the huge DPS of a rotary.

This is the most legitimate anti-Lib argument in this entire discussion. Libs can currently use a combination of manuevers/loadouts to fly FASTER then any ESF. That should absolutely not be possible. A lot of Lib crews on Miller know how to take maximum advantage of this, and will easily escape from virtually any threat.

The firepower and health of Liberators really isn't the problem.

Again,... My point is that it is OP that it is possible solo in this way. It basically takes the whole argument about 3>1 and turns it on it's head. This same tactic is used (by me, often) against ground targets to greater effect and with ease. I only die to ESFs when I hang out in the same spot for a long time or if I have already taken a bunch of damage from the ground and haven't made it to my repair point yet. I'll admit though, a couple of times, not the majority of times, I have accidentally flew into a squadron of enemy ESFs while looking at my map. This is not the norm, however.

I'm not good enough (yet) to do what the video did to ESFs. This is the only game I have ever played where a tactic so obviously OP has lasted for so long. Even Drop Podding on Sundies has been nerfed to oblivion, which is when I started solo blasting them in a LIB. My philosophy --- It will never get nerfed until enough people do it so it's disruptive. Hopefully more of the Lib players will start doing this and maybe others will realize how easy it is to fly a lib with Hover. THEN it will get the nerf it deserves.

I often wonder if the problem with air isn't the air itself, but rather that many ground players just aren't used to air being so prominent in a game like this, so they're not accustomed to trying to counter it. Either way I always rely on cooperation to take on air. Since I play in an outfit I can usually get a small group of 3-4 players running anti-air duty. With a bit of cover and cooperation, even the most well armed lib/galaxy will fall to an organized squad of Skyguards, Burster Maxes, or Heavies with air-lock-ons.

That's assuming the ESF's are in an unorganized mob.

In a 3 v 3 (as in 3 Libs vs 3 ESFs), if the ESF's are coordinated, they'll attack the same lib. Because of their maneuverability and speed, they'll come at a good angle. Thats one dead Lib pretty much off the bat.

If the Libs are coordinated, they will move in unison to engage the ESFs. Its now a 2v3. As long as the ESF's don't make any mistakes, they have a good chance at winning.

What you say is true if the ESF's aren't coordinated.

The issue I have with these discussions is its ALWAYS a complaint against a Lib crew. These guys are usually in Teamspeak, or squad chat, or even proximity. But I never ever hear about people who are coordinated in the air, or ground having issues with Libs. In fact my static squad will use a Galaxy to hunt down solo Libs. Especially if we think the Lib will be an issue after dropping on a point.

Problem isn't the Liberator. The problem is uncoordination fails against coordination. For some reason people think they should be able to solo a team of players (2-3 people in voice comms with each other).

Well I would come at you from another angle. Myself and my friend are very much part time players, maybe 3 hours per week.

However we are able to stay alive in our Lib most of that time. ESF's are actually no threat at all unless there are two of them and both are good pilots.

Yes, new liberator pilots are easy to shoot down ie those who do not know how to use the primary for A2A.

But yeah, I feel pretty much immune in a Liberator.

If you dig far enough, there is a post here in Gameplay about that exact situation, I Nanite you not.

Nice, can we hear realistic example, please? You know, where your outfit with 25 or less ppl on desperately fights for control point, located outside, lib or two arrive and now you need to pull ppl from fight, send them to terminal/sunderer to grab AA sticks and waste time, scaring away flying tanks, while enemies infantry roflstomping your weakened position, and when libs lazily fly away, you get back to G2G, slowly get CC back, then repaired libs come back. Yea, you can send 5 ppl to get ESFs but its not combined arms if you absolutely need aircrafts to win small fight. 4-5 MBTs can't do same, if they get too close, infantry take them out fast and without much chance to retreat for repair.

Nah, that doesn't really happen to us. When we are beaten at a base, we leave, and go find a way to counter their advance, or maybe go to another lane. If a lib lazily flies overhead then someone will generally just pull bursters from spawn, or more likely, use the basilisks on our sunderer. If two or more aircraft fly overhead, we might pull a burster or two, in addition to whatever other AA we have available. There are situations in which the air is overwhelming, and the necessity of AA becomes clear early on, and there are those where a couple aircraft come in to do some farming, in which case you pull a burster MAX and move on with your day. So long as you have a similar number of troops to the enemy, you should have a relatively even advantage as to what tools you can use to win. Sure, that liberator is going to come back and repair, but he's probably not going to be able to kill your AA assets either. Until the AA is negated, he has a limited lifespan in that area.

But I may have misunderstood what you were trying to say.

By the Title "Forumside Air Discussion in a nutshell."
I was expecting "OMG Nerf Striker" or "OMG Nerf G2A Lock-On".. it's kinda what I expect from ESF Pilots wanting to be "One many armys" and wanting 100/1 KD

Flying away from damage sources when you get below half health is not coordination. Nor is it coordination when the gunners shoot anything looking up at the sky before they have a chance to launch their missile or fire more than 3 flak rounds, because things looking up at the sky are usually not moving much and are the easiest things to hit.

Aircraft need to be far more vulnerable against anti air AND be unable to effectively attack anti air without extreme risk to themselves, emphasis on extreme. Aircraft should have to rely on ground forces to take out anti air threats, or rather, should have to coordinate with ground forces to make the bad mens with weapons specifically designed to swat aircraft out of the sky stop swatting them out of the sky. People want to chant 'combined arms' like it's some sort of code for 'airplanes kill everything with no counter', but balance concerns trump that nonsense. Infantry dies to AI weapons, tanks die to AV weapons, and aircraft need to start dying to AA weapons. Not run off, blasted out of the sky. This absurd notion that aircraft are somehow precious and shouldn't have any weaknesses needs to ****.