Ground AA is boring and unrewarding

i only go G2A if it's cheap, that is, if i can pull a heavy assault with lock-on launcher or if there is a phalanx aspis turret around. their main advantage is they dont cost any resources and usually get the job done

on the other hand, a skyguard or burster max is a waste of resource most times, in my opinion. you invest a full 350/450 nanites just to be able to scare away enemy aircraft, and after they've left there's nothing to do for you anymore. meanwhile, you expose yourself to enemy ground units who are able to deal with you very efficiently since you have AA weaponry. imo, it's a very bad risk-reward ratio that makes me never pull a skyguard/burster max


that said, the most fun and most satisfying AA still is a tank with AP cannon: extremely difficult to kill aircraft with, but when it happens it's the best feeling in the game!

I got about 150 certs in 1 hour in one fight with Skyguard last night. Amazing cert gain compared to other things? Probably not. Did I get kills? Several. Did I have fun? Yes. Did I feel rewarded? In terms of fun, cert gain and the fact that if I wasn't there we'd have been stomped, yes I felt very rewarded. Do not compare your choices and preferences in the game to other people's. It just makes you look a bit ignorant.

There's also a difference between air that's deathly afraid to enter the fight in the first place. And that's closer to the meaning of a deterrent than air that has to run off after attacking ground units.

It's one thing to deter farming... it's another thing to deter aircraft altogether. AA should deter aircraft, not just aircraft farming.

That would be like a law against murder that really only prevented mass murders... but singular murders were unaffected. We would probably say that the law is not a good deterrent to murder (only mass murder).

A combined arms game precisely involves aircraft not entering a fight with AA in it (or risking immediate death). The solution to AA in a combined arms environment is to destroy the AA with a weapon systems that has strengths against AA... which are tanks or infantry.

How PS2 should work is that pilots spot an AA signature. They transmit the location of the AA to friendly ground forces, and some ground forces are tasked with hunting down that AA so air can operate in the area. That's making the best use out of the strengths and weaknesses of multiple types of units, which is what combined arms is.

AA being extremely harmful to aircraft promotes combined arms, because it forces aircraft to rely on ground units.

By definition a threat that becomes known only after that threat is exercised cannot be part of a deterrent.

It would be like if the US tried to invade the Solomon Islands and as US troops enter the Solomonian capital, the Solomonians launch a bunch of nuclear missiles at the US. We cannot say that the Solomonian nuclear arsenal deterred the US from invading because the US simply didn't know that the missiles were there.

Again, the difference is between deterring aircraft in general or deterring aircraft farming. Most would say that AA should do the former, though in PS2 it only function for the latter. That's the main problem.

As you note, that example is only of bad pilots who stick around far too long. It means nothing with respect to the strength of a Skyguard... after all a poor pilot can be brought down by a Beamer if they simply refuse to use common sense and leave.

But if you match a Skyguard and an ESF who are equally skilled (beyond a certain minimal threshold), then the Skyguard is extremely unlikely to kill the ESF.

A very simple reason. Air can not be subtle. The best it can do to hide is duck behind a mountain relative to some other location (though not other locations at the same time) or fly so high that its contribution to the main fight below is minimal.

But then the interplay between the elements is impacted and that is what we atre attempting to foster. Back at the end of Beta, a whole squad of DB MAXes could struggle and be effortlessly floored by a single ESF, all the while killing or scaring nothing. I wish that were hyperbole, but I've seen more than one video to the fact. Imagine the cheering across squad chat when a single ESF finally goes up in smoke, one person gets experience, and the rest get bupkis (no vehicle destruction assist XP back then); and, if the player was unlucky, the pilot bailed and no one got pilot death experience. There was simply no interplay possible because one side was too powerful without having to be numerous and could deny not only effort but success. (There was also no incremental damage experience. Post-Beta was so very much an all-for-nothing game that it was almost a crime.)

The real power of AA as it currently exists is in its psychological motivation. Even if the pilot knows that AA is around, whether or not he can survive a maneuvwer is the real thrill of the act. He knows he is powerful but there is also a dangerous element nearby. Does he play it perfectly safe and only stay within a competency range that might be called a "foregone conclusion" or does he stick his neck out, use his craft to the best of its ability, and hope he gets away alive with something having been earned. That's actually the primary reason AA works in the first place - if the pilot knew there was no contest and he would die if he so much as showed up rendering in the distance, he might never come. And, if he never came, there would be nothing for AA to do. Interplay is important as it builds a fun and challenging experience.

Then, this becomes a discussion of whether or not AA should deter aircraft as a whole.

Correct, ground forces should move in to destroy the AA in order for allied air to become effective. However, air should be able to make small hit and run passes, even in the presence of AA. Air should be less effective with enemy ground AA, not ineffective.

True, but the degree to which AA is harmful to air should also be considered. Like I said before: Air should be less effective with enemy ground AA, not ineffective.

Untrue, I'd liken it more to a kid harassing a neighbor, the neighbor bringing out a dog, the kid attempting to harass the neighbor, but the dog attacks the belligerent kid, making the kid more cautious when harassing the neighbor.

Again, why should AA deter aircraft in general, instead of just preventing farming?

I don't see why being unable to kill a decent enemy pilot with ground AA is a problem. If you're forcing the enemy air to fly away, it's effective.

Eh, I get my enjoyment out of my skyguard by knowing that i'm denying undeserving farmers kills. Also, team contribution > KDR.

I dunno, skyguard is lulzy as all hell because it is equally powerful vs infantry and light armor, I've had many epic duels vs other lightnings with it

A max with dual Bursters should vaporize ESF as fast as ESF with a banshee vaporize infantry.
It is called a hard counter, and when you run into one, you should die without chance of escape, no matter your skill level.

I refuse to pull a burster max..
Pulling a burster max means the ESF won, it made me waste > half my resources, just so it could fly away and farm elsewhere...

If SOE would sell a consumable laser painter item that instantly OHK vehicles and costs 25SC.. I would buy 100.
Just point your crosshair at the vehicle you want destroyed, click mouse 1, and its nanites dissolve in soup.
Some times vehicles annoy me, and I would gladly pay to vaporize them instantly.

How long until you sell me orbital strike? I would like to destroy all vehicles in a hex too, I'll pay $1 each for those.

Well then, there you go! YOU HAD FUN! That's what it's all about.. wasn't it great to see all those pilots squirm away ??
Play for fun, don't play for xp or certs.. those come automatically , don't care about score per minute and the other crapola stats..
Contribute to your team/faction and you have a lot of fun in this game.

However, there is no real way to program 'air deterrence' for a lock-on, that deters enemy air when they turn tail...
it works only if you hit air.. like in Skyguard, or AA turret.. tons of points, without ever having to kill the enemy air..

No, it was boring. The lock-on is boring to use, and I didn't kill anything.

I do not care about contribution to team/faction since it became obvious majority of players do not care about territory at all and this game is mostly for farming kills/ screwing around.

I would rather get 50 kills and lose a base, than get 0 kills and defend it.

But regardless of kills/territory/team playeryness, the weapon being simply not fun to use is probably the main problem. It requires very little on the part of the user, and so even when you do get an occasional kill it doesn't mean much.

make FLAK turret for Harasser cheaper

Really? G2A Lockons are a crutch?

Find me a Heavy Assault who can consistently dumbfire moving ESFs at 300 meters out of the sky, and then we can call G2A Lockons a crutch.

Pilots don't get to decide whether or not an infantry tool being used against them is a crutch.

This is Planetside, there is only 1 rule: Use it and abuse it.

You guys are nuts. Running a Skyguard is easily one of the most cert-rewarding things you can do in this game.

No, they both meet the definition. Also, making them deathly afraid to enter will never ever happen, and is stupid to even contemplate.

Last member double xp weekend on emerald.

Step 1. You and your usual lib gunner acticvate xp boosts.
Step 2. Find the first alert you see (which was hossin, I think).
Step 3. Pull double walker armored sunderer with green forest camo.
Step 4. Find moderately high hill near a biolab VS are attacking.
Step 5. Proceed to farm the living **** out of the Vanu.
Step 6. Realize you have made an ungodly amount of certs after two restocks of ammo and many lib and scythe tears.

Yep. I'm fine with AA as it is thank you.

Air can be subtle... it's just that most pilots choose not to and fly out in the open for everyone to see.

That would be like tanks complaining about being out in the middle of a field... when there's perfectly good cover close by.

I'm glad that my Skyguard exists solely to provide an enjoyable experience for pilots. I guess I had it wrong the entire time... I'm just an NPC doing things to make the game more fun for real player-pilot characters.

Sure... I would think it would be a fairly short discussion though. The role of simply deterring another vehicle from farming is much too small a role, and is even more depressing than simply pretending that the Skyguard is a deterrent to air in general.

Ideal: The Skyguard is the hard counter to air and destroys it mercilessly
As described in PS2: The Skyguard is not supposed to kill air, just deter it
As really in PS2: The Skyguard is not supposed to deter air, just prevent it from farming

Why is this a problem? Because the point of the Skyguard is to protect friendly ground forces. If my Skyguard is attached to a Vanguard column, then it's my job to make sure that aircraft do not engage or harm the Vanguards.

If all that means is a Liberator can't hover over the column and kill all the Vanguards in one fly-by, then that means squat. Because what will happen is that the Liberator will come in, TB a Vanguard to death, swoop out, repair, and repeat until the entire column is in ruins (and yes I've seen this happen before). The problem is that the Skyguard is simply too weak to present much of a threat to the Liberator, and even if the Liberator can't farm the column it can still wipe it out.

Or you know the Liberator will just knock out the Skyguard first or something. Because what does a Liberator care about a Skyguard?

Again, that defeats the purpose of AA in general, which is to provide a protective umbrella to friendly ground forces. If AA can easily penetrate the AA umbrella and still strike ground forces, then the AA has failed.

You're confusing two separate incidents and combining them as one. In the first place, we must ask why the kid is harassing the neighbor. And the answer to that is because the kid does not know the neighbor has the dog. This is the first instance, and it shows how foreknowledge is necessary for a deterrent to work. In this case there was no such knowledge, so deterrence failed.

In the second case the kid does know that there is a dog, so the kid is discouraged from harassing the neighbor at all. If the kid still chooses to harass the neighbor, that might be because he thinks he can escape the dog, the dog wasn't very big, he thinks the dog isn't there anymore, etc. These are all problems with deterrence, because if the kid continues to harass the neighbor then deterrence has failed again.

Again, for deterrence to work the knowledge of the threat must be known before the aggressor makes a decision and the threat must be serious enough so the aggressor chooses not to act in the first place.

Sigh. I mean we both know what happens in these situations. Aircraft comes in, strafes target, takes some damage, flies away. Aircraft parks behind a hill, pilots gets out and repairs, pilot gets back in, proceeds to strafe target again. Repeat ad nauseam, because the lack of effective AA is really making me sick.

It really doesn't matter about farming or not... if the enemy aircraft is engaging the ground targets that I'm supposed to protect because I can't utterly destroy that aircraft, then AA is broken. Unless I can kill that aircraft and remove it from the battlefield, then that aircraft is still a threat to ground forces and is likely to come back.

One is deterring aircraft... the other is deterring farming. The first allows protection to friendly ground forces... the second allows ground forces to be picked off in smaller groups.

One describes good, effective AA... the other describes poorly performing AA that offers little value to the combined arms environment.

Again, you're wrong. I really don't think that sunderer cares that an ESF has come in, launched rockets and had to run away again. I think that sunderer would care if there's an ESF hovering, being ignored and unloading multiple magazines.

They are deterred. They become reasonably ineffective without massive teamwork or overwhelming numbers, neither of which are relevant to the discussion. Those ground forces can now move up in force. If AA wasn't there, they would be dead.

My Skyguard performs just fine and definitely offers value to the decent fights it gets involved in.

Decimator. AP tank guns. You just have to take up the challenge and use them for AA.

Overall the weapons aren't the problem its the people playing the game.

I play on Emerald.

I see air that needs taken care of? I grab bursters.
Don't bother with lockons unless you have a group that will do with you.
You know, like the Vanu do?

If there are too many and you are catching flak from tanks etc?
Then air isn't your problem you are prolly outnumbered.

If you think pilots find your presence enjoyable, I have swamp land on Hossin to sell you.

You skipped commenting on my entire paragraph on how hellish combatting Air was back in the days of post-Beta because Air was incredibly strong and durable, to the point of destroying everything and anything it could put its crosshairs on, and G2A AA was laughable. That's not just how bad it was for G2A AA but also for everything else on the ground. A Liberator would show up and you don't have friendly Air? You'd all be as good as dead before it finished rendering (the cannons could aim up really far back then). A single enemy ESF could have been enough to unwind an entire platoon running without its own Air support. Having lived through those conditions, and acknowledging that flying already means it is often very difficult to determine when where and what will start shooting at you next, and how far out you remain vulnerable to the said fire, I will not have them live through the same kind of nightmare as being absolutely denied the ability to do anything. Rather, I will not deny them the right to be bold, skilled, and succeed, the same way a Ground Vehicle can do just the same thing and reap great reward against even its own counters. I will not have you destroy a delicate balance that actually allows some people on both sides of the equation, rather than only people on one side of it, to enjoy have enjoyable encounters doing what they like to do.

This is a game before it is a war and I commonly tell people that they should stop doing things that they do not enjoy doing.

If you want a more proactive, definitive role in doing anti-Air work, go grab an ESF and get really skilled at dogfighting. The killstreak videos by pilots are proof enough of how definitive aerial engagements can be.