[Suggestion] Give the Skyguard Passive EXP Income

So it's pretty much taken for granted that Skyguards aren't supposed to kill aircraft. It's dumb, but whatever.

This essentially means that taking potshots at aircraft simply isn't that rewarding. Sure there are those little "Air Damage Assist" ticks, but that's hardly anything.

The solution to this is to just give Skyguards EXP just for existing, in order to make up for the fact that Skyguards aren't actually that useful. Sort of how hanging around a capture point gives EXP for doing nothing, encouraging players to actually defend instead of running off to camp the spawn room.

Let's take the Dalton in its unexpected A2A role. On average the Dalton kills 10.69 aircraft every hour. If we assume all those are ESFs (400 EXP per kill along with 100 EXP per pilot), that comes out to 5,325 EXP per hour of A2A usage.

The Skyguard on the other hand gets only 5.67 aicraft kills per hour, or (assuming pilot and ESF kills) about 2,833 EXP per hour.

This means that there's a possible difference of 2,512 EXP per hour between the Dalton and the Skyguard in A2A roles (not to mention that the Dalton is reaping in EXP from AV work as well). This comes out to 42 EXP per minute.

So simply give Skyguards 42 EXP a minute (or 21 EXP per 30 seconds) simply for bothering to sit there. It's still much less EXP than most other vehicles or even infantry could rake in, so it's not asking for too much.

Just recognizing that the Skyguard is essentially a mound of boring junk.

A noble thought, for sure.. I can only imagine the outrage of players who then want to earn XP for standing next to the warpgate..
Passive XP and all... it would be nice, but I doubt they will go for it.

The Skyguard is due a rework...

as it is now, it "deters" something that might just get "deterred" and go somewhere else, leaving you sitting around with a useless vehicle.


and as a mobile AA platform it cant be buffed without killing the air gameplay.


personally, i think the Skyguard should be similar to the vulcan but with lower AP capabilities, and then get a Deploy mode to gain Flak explosions.


as a result you can buff the AA capabilities of the Deploy mode balanced around the fact its a stationary platform now. (with a long deploy/undeploy timer) and buff the AI-AV effect up to the point where a driver wont feel completely useless if no air is present at the moment. (which is to say, it shouldn't be a good AI-AV platform, just bearable.)

Just increase the magazine size from 70 to 100.

That would make it generally useful.

Make it able to switch between flak and bullets. Like a gauss compact s changed between bullets and grenade launcher. When shooting bullets it's performance would be that of 2 kobalts. 200 damage, 1100 ROF. If that ROF is not technically possible then do the tankbuster thing.

attach it to Harasser

That doesn't seem to be enough to deter people from using it. If something truly sucks, almost nobody uses it. And I know people aren't being forced to use the Skyguard because they could use a burster max to deter air instead, which means they could change their loadout when air isn't around.

I would agree that it is boring, but something about it seems to be rewarding enough that people will still pull it quite often.

Overall a fair argument the only problem i have with it is its not the best comparison as Dolton Lib thats going to get any A2A success is a 2 man operation a skyguard is 1 and that should be taken into account

Only give the Air Defense xp ticks if you're on front line, or enemy territory.

If the region you're in cannot be attacked (has lock icon) then no air defense XP. Get closer.

I'd even go farther and require you to be in a hex with allied and enemy units in it as well as on front line, but just requiring front line positioning should be plenty.

It's still low SPM... you will NEED to get Air Detterence ticks, and hopefully some assists and maybe even kills to boost it to a more reasonable (but still more than likely lower than most activities other than watching an empty spawn door) SPM.

Seeing as this is NOT a request to turn AA into some god forsaken instagibber of anyone who dares pull an aircraft within a kilometer of any combat zone, and instead merely tries to reward players for providing a highly valuable service I am absolutely in support of this.

I think it should be exclusive to the Skyguard as it's the only dedicated vehicle to the task (HA's and MAX can swap kits) One could argue for Dual-Walker sundy's, but really it's the Skyguard that needs love (sundy prolly has repair/ammo for certs and just picks up gunners when needed to chase air off)

Giving skyguard drivers passive EXP is not a good solution. There are way too many exploits that can be used to get free experience. My suggestion is to significantly increase the air deterrence experience gained by repeatedly hitting air targets.

I'd say both.

If you require them to be on the frontlines, it's hardly exploitable.

The PRESENCE of a skyguard deters air and makes it hard to get more air deter XP because the air stops coming around.

That effect should be rewarded.

The reward is the benefit of capturing the target hex easier. You can get the capture experience on top of the additional air deterrence exp. There is no point in sticking around in a skyguard if there is no air. Additional reward does nothing to support the gameplay.

It's one of the lowest SPM activities and yet one of the greatest importance.

It's under-rewarded. By a large margin.

I'm a pilot btw... more skyguards would be a bad thing for me, but I recognize problems for what they are... and lack of AA is the leading cause for ground getting farmed.

Why don't people play AA? It's unrewarding.

Increasing Air Deter point values would absolutely help. But skyguards could use additional motivation.

They could create limits to require you to be close to the front line and in hexes with enemy activity to get the ticks.

If farming certs is ones intent, they'd always be better off using a repair sundy than collecting small xp ticks every minute

The only point I am willing to concede on is possibly creating a "convoy bonus" that his shared among all vehicles within a certain radius if a kill is secured by one of the vehicles. I really do not see the benefit of rewarding passive gameplay.

Yes, air is much rarer than ground vehicles, mainly because anti-air is so oppressive. There are no weapons on any air vehicles capable of successfully taking out a MAX in one go or a skyguard in one go except in very rare circumstances or in a situation where you put yourself in extreme danger. None of the liberator guns can handle it (Dalton is too hard to hit a small target, Zephyr doesn't do enough damage to MAXes, Duster is just plain inaccurate, and the Shredder is just plain bad). ESFs are weak enough that they will succumb to AA fire before eliminating their target. It really only takes 2 anti-air vehicles or a couple AA MAXes to completely negate all air power (the exception is the galaxy).

For AA to get a significant 'reward' for existing, the AA mechanics will need to be completely redone.

Do we play the same game?

AA is powerful, but it hardly prevents me from getting in, getting a kill or 2, and getting out to repair and return 30 seconds later.

Hornets and AI noseguns are great against MAXes as well, and Hornets with Rotary can kill a skyguard from the rear in <4 seconds

Granted, you need to catch a Skyguard by surprise from behind to get away with that, but it happens.

I dunno, I fly more than anything else and while AA creates no-fly zones, there's usually operable room in a combat area outside their LoS killzones.

It would be good if the sky-guard was more accurate in around 15-50m so it would work better against infantry. If it was more like the Gatling turrets on a tank for ground stuff but how it is now for air then it would be less stuck in it's niche.

you need to treat infantry in a Skyguard like aircraft when you are shooting at them aim slightly ahead of them and they'll run into your flak and if they try to run towards you, you can kill them easier.

I've killed hundreds of infantry just defending myself from C4 and HAs. i'd be surprised if my total air kills as a Skyguard are more then 5% of my total Skyguard kills.

I say give Skyguards support XP whenever a friendly kills a vehicle or enemy player within a set distance of the skyguard, provided that said skyguard isn't just sitting on it's **** for free xp (as in it is moving around and watching the sky)

Give it a bigger XP bonus if the hex the skyguard is in a capturable hex or is adjacent to a capturable hex. this gives it greater flexibility with other vehicles. people don't just pull form the first hex to the front line sometimes you have to pull from 2-3 bases away from the enemy border.

skyguard play in general needs higher XP rewards, more xp = less friendlies dying because of aircraft, less friendlies dying to aircraft means less deaths of the skyguard.

Lightnings could use engagement radar.

It's more the fact the guy could be standing still around 20m away and only 1/4 of the bullets will hit.
I'll get on VR and do some proper testing a bit later and come back and post my results.

my idea would be some combination of:
- personal AA radar that ignores air stealth
- lib nerf against skyguards, increased time to kill, decreased time to die or whatever
- tightened CoF so it's at least somewhat usable against harassers and infantry just so there is some non-bottom-of-th-barrel utility once the air flies away.

It's ridiculous how craptastic skyguards are. Any harasser hero is going to eat you alive even within allied ranks because your average peasant sitting in a tank has a severe case of tunnel vision (ignores minimap, doesn't look around) and is deaf (ignores empire specific sounds). Nobody is going to help you even though you protect their sorry ***** from being farmed by air. To add insult to injury, liberators dunk on you like there is no tomorrow and there is nothing you can do about it. It laughable how easily "AA" folds to A.
I started driving skyguards as a stalker infil because there is next to no benefit being an engineer. It just feeds enemy liberators, harassers and tanks even more xp and kdr.