Galaxy OP in small engagements

That was not meant to be condescending and I apologize if it came across like that.

All the same, your description is pretty much letting yourself be an easy target. There's even a time and place for that in this game, but it's not doing AA duty.

If we're talking BattleTech.. the options in PS2 got it beat lol. They use the same weapons against air they use against ground. Course.. flaking weapons wouldn't work against such heavily armored targets.. gotta brute force it.

Galaxy HP is ridiculously high even in large battles

Ill lock down burster and empty multiple clips just to watch it fly away and heal

Even multiple max suits dont really cut it

Only a liberator or a speedy double AA sundie with alot of open space and no enemy tanks around can take it down viably

Theyve been a real pain recently especially with multiples

In battletech we have streaks and all sorts of effective AA really... at least imo...

The biggest problem with Galaxies is that while you can coordinate efforts to take one down in a large battle, it is nigh impossible to stop a coordinated multi-Galaxy drop... or a lone Gal that has a decoy Gal running in front of it.

What if you're 10 hexes away from 0909 or on an adjacent mapsheet?

One of the reasons AC/UAC/LBX/RAC 2's are so useful is because of their sick range compared to other weapons. That and Clan Large Pulse Lasers.. but those are OP at everything.

I've always been a fan of LRMs. Getting kills with some Macross Missile Massacre is always satisfying.

Burster MAXes.... Or anything which is AA is very effective at creating safe airspace for your own team and to deter all enemy air units.
Had that experience myself when a Vanu air zerg hit a base I was defending and everyone was running under their Daltons getting farmed... Also the Spawnroom had no teleporter (Well done DBG) and was immediately camped.
But at least 3 people pulled Burster MAXes and started firing at them... Oh boy, 3 of them actually crashed into each other out of panic. The others fled or were killed.

That's so freaking true. That's the reason why aircraft dominates small fights and it's instead seen as "ok" in the big ones.
And part of the problem is you need A LOT of AA to make sure the fight is not screwed. You don't jet get rid of 1 ESF bombing your mates using 1 lockon launcher, you need two in the best case. I often read on this forum that aircraft is countered by lockon launchers, but that's just bul****: when the Airhammer is farming your team you're gonna do nothing with a rocket launcher.
At the same time why spawning a Skyguard? In order to deter aircraft (deter <> destroy) you basically become vulnerable to most of ground forces. Who the hell would ever want this? Most of players do not bother with the skyguard because it's not rewarding: taking cover and fire planetmans feels much more fun than playing the scarecrow for aircraft.

In my opinion the whole A2G game is completely wrong. The Liberator should be the bomber: it should be tanky, powerful but also very slow. And it should always require at least 1 pilot and 1 gunner. What we have instead is Liberators are tank, powerful, but they can also equip Afterburners and seat swap cooldown is such the pilot can alternatively drive and gun.
At the same time ESF, which should be fast fighters, can hover like helicopters and they can carry effective A2A weapons together with brutal A2G. This is completely idiotic because in many bases there is no cover against aircraft and many classes have no way to retailate. Being instakilled by something you have zero defense against harms this game more than devs think. ESF should have never ever been allowed to hover, they should fly full speed all the time and fire their rockets while they dive against the target. Letting ESF being able to hover over spawn rooms while they fire lolpods and use their Airhammer / LPPA / Banshee against infantry is imho the worst gameplay decision devs made in these 3 years. Hovering should be the Valkyrie job, PERIOD.

Last but not least the Valkyrie has been marketed as a fast insertion vehicle but it took 18 months to convince devs we needed the safe drop by default. Still there is not one single reason to prefer the Valkyrie to a Galaxy, in particular because the Valkyrie is not faster at all, it cannot have Afterburners (seriously, a fast assault aircraft without afterburners?!) the turret angle is locked (WHY!?!?!?) and most of weapons are extremely lacking.

Let me ask this question. In a 6v6 scenario such as this.. What's stopping the defenders from redeploying one base back and bringing 1-2 Skyguards?

This is why I think bases under attack should drop spawn room capability. Defenders get so fixated at using it that they'll do so to their own detriment. I see this stuff all the time from enemy and allies alike. I mean seriously 2 Skyguards won't just chase away the Gal, but probably kill it. And pulling from a base back means the grounded defenders would have to expose themselves to deal with the Lightnings.

However, defenders would rather spawn in, die, spawn in, die, and repeat until the base flips or the attackers get bored and they take it back. There's nothing wrong with A2G (other than air being largely useless outside the Gal), but tactics used by randoms for defense.. or rather the lack of them.

Ive tried 3 burster maxes before on one gal and the thing still had more than enough time to stop drop and fly away

Sitting at the ceiling ill empty multiple clips alone before the gal even decides to move. Cant viably deter at that range even

I saw a cool tactic last night, two armour rep gals flying side by side bombarding the tower we were defending, they were getting pelted by rockets, burster maxes and falcon/raven maxes (they took out anti air turrets first on each pass) and got a good 30seconds to a minute or so each time before flying off to repair and come back. 3-4 heavies and atleast 5 maxes and they ddnt seem iverly concerned about being shot down they just hovered.

Maybe the filthy freeburths should stop making such sh**** weapons lol

Pull a Gal from the warpgate and ram its ***.

Exactly. And the argument that it should be OP, because 6 people may be in it, is absurd.

It has more HP than a Sunderer which might have 12 people in it!

A Skyguard? There's no guarantee you can even survive the trip from the base to the fight. Let alone make a difference against air.

Players rarely use the Skyguard because simply it's not fun to use. You invest 350 certs to become a deterrent for aircraft. Moreover it's well known one Skyguard can only scare aircraft but getting rid of liberators and galaxy takes a lot of effort.
With the Skyguard then you give up offensive capabilities against any other vehicle of the game. Being a tank vulnerable to other tanks and being almost unable to kill infantry with a tank makes it incredibly frustrating.

QUOTED FOR TRUTH!

If you can't survive one base back to the edge of the fight. Then the fights done lost anyway. I've never heard of 6 attackers being capable of that.

Hyperbole. Way to intentionally miss the point. This isn't just about 6 attackers anyway, wtf are you playing at?

Having to leave a good fight to go pull a Skyguard which can get ***** by any 2 idiots in a buggy or Flash is not fun. And even if you make it back, there's very little chance you'll even get rewarded with air kills. Which is the entire problem with AA in this game.

In fact just saying that you should have to leave a fight to go pull equipment from another base is PROOF that something is highly unbalanced!