Ground troops and armor, taking out AA is good for your health!

I know some people on the ground seem to hate air, but we can work together. You keep us safe, and we'll keep you safe. You know who sees the C4 fairy climbing a mountain/building to take out your tank before anyone else? Me. Who sees the sneaky infiltrators shooting people as they leave the spawn? Me. Who has a clear shot at the heavy peaking and firing rockets at you, or the engineer at the AV turret, or the max crash headed to the capture point? This guy(I'm pointing at myself).

It's frustrating when I can't help from the air because of AA, but it's even more frustrating when no one on the ground is going after the obvious AA when they could be doing our team a favor by getting rid of it. Speaking from a strictly team-focused, "eff the other team" perspective, CAS is really effective for helping the ground to take and defend bases.

/agreed.

Ground and Air are not separate things but different limbs of the same body.

When I'm on the ground, prioritizing anti-armor and anti-infantry is of course my primary concern, as they're my direct counter. But I do keep our flyboys in mind and do what I can to keep the skies friendlier for them.

And no, enemy pilots, I am not going to leave you alone during a 1v1 dogfight on the off-chance that it's an "honorable duel". Part of my job is protecting my teammates, and most of the rest of it is neutralizing the enemy.

EDIT: Also, folks like Corp above should help us out by calling out problematic AA over /region. Anti-air units stay off the front line as a matter of course, and us ground-pounders aren't always aware that they're being pests.

Honestly if half the HA's in the game took the AA lock on it would be a no fly zone for most aircraft around any reasonable infantry push.

But see what your suggesting is Combined Arms.


We can't have that in Infantryside 2.

As a Burster MAX who often sits in Spawn for long periods of time to increase SPM while avoiding needless deaths .... I think Burster MAXes hiding in Spawn are the biggest problem and there's nothing that Ground forces can really do about us unless 2 Archer engies manage to sneak up on us and double headshot us with perfect timing.... ...which will only work once before we redeploy to the other nearby base and either hop in a Phalanx AA that those 2 engies can't insta-kill ... or we just go SPM grind a different fight entirely.

I can't imagine any way of fixing this other than changing how Spawn-Shields work entirely: IE: when a character passes through a Spawn shield or their gun barrels is in proximity to it, they get 5 seconds of diminishing resistance, along with 5 seconds of weapons-lock, as if the Shield "coats" them entirely like a viscous fluid when they poke through it .... BECAUSE NANITES

This is another major Design issue that needs a solution. ...like for isntance: giving LA's a tagging device that flags AA targets for the entire Hex to see kind of like commanders placing smoke (but unlike smoke, the indicator moves & show up to every player with line of sight to the outside of their FOV just like "Engagement Radar".)

The problem there lies with the chat system. I can't use region say while I'm in that area because of the AA, so I have to use yell chat. Another thing is, AA tends to be spread out in different areas. If there is a nest or a lone skyguard I'll usually call it out in yell, but a more intuitive system would be so helpful for that. With this thread I'm really just referring to obvious AA that isn't being made a priority by people on the ground. I see it being ignored way too often for whatever reason, and it's a bit troubling because I feel like I could help those people too. For instance, vulcan harrassers are such a pain for armor and sunderers, but I can easily take them out with just an ESF nosegun if I can get in there.

I'm definitely no fan of spawn room bursters, but they actually aren't as big of a threat as a skyguard or a bunch of AA sundies. They are stuck only being able to shoot what they can see, which helps if the spawn room is being camped but not much else.

I'm actually surprised that people don't focus more on AA as ground then they do. When I played MWLL, if the enemy team focused on AA, the ground forces moved forward and overwhelmed them. In fact a great tactic at early-mid match was to rush with air to trick the enemy into using AA and rush them with ground based forces after pulling back and selling the air assets.

An AA MAX for example is a pushover to a heavy, most MAXes with bursters will run from 2-3 infantry. Running AA MAXes aren't AAing.

Though what I'd really like to see is AA not be allowed out of spawn rooms. They don't let rockets out (unless you glitch them), so why burster fire?

i plinkz at dem flyflys wif muh Archy

yay i iz helpin! :3

With the advent of the archer also AA maxes shouldn't be as tricky to deal with. What a number of people forget in this game is you don't always need to KILL the target to make them ineffective.

If you make a lib, an ESF, a tank, a max, whatever RUN AWAY he isn't attacking you. Area denial can be a major part of the game. I do it often as a pounder max, if I can get some engy ammo love I'll shell a doorway the entire time during a cap, why? Because it denies the area.

For AA maxes and such, you gotta deny the area. Snipers can make life for HAs with AA lock ons hard, engies and maxes and tanks and such can deny it for just about everything, spam those doorways and roofs, shoot at them, make them not want to do the AA for fear of pain.

Get some galaxies with bulldogs and bomb the everliving crap out of their AA, 2-4 galaxies at once (with the rest of a push) with just gunners are insanely hard to take out of the sky before they run away and can do a ton of damage.

I once tried to flank around a base to attack the two or three Skyguards the enemies had further within it, to stop them from smacking our own Air away. The path was covered in a gate shield we had not yet knocked down from the front so I had to break apart from our main forces and our backup forces and drive my AP Lightning the long way around. I could not encourage anyone else in the platoon to provide backup; they were too wrapped up at the gate.

I drove through one nearby enemy base, a second nearby enemy base, cut around the periphery of a third and a fourth enemy base that weren't adjacent the the one I wanted to get to, ended up stuck in a ditch for a while, then rejoined the road behind the target base just in time to find that we had captured it. There was no shorter distance route that I could have navigated and the journey just to get about fifty meters from where I started took maybe ten minutes. I was also in time to die to a enemy Fury Flash (getting out of that ditch had been painful).

Hossin sucks. If you guys ever have AA problems on Hossin, you're on your own.

You could've left that at Hossin sucks =p the bases are so wonky sometimes that it is like "wat how..I don't even"

I don't think AA on Hossin is even a problem for air, there is so much for us to hide behind. I'd almost say it's the best map for farming the ground, but I usually have to spend most of the time fighting off enemy air.

As someone who Skyguards a lot, I wouldn't really mind if enemy ground vehicles came hunting for me more often... so long as AA is buffed to dangerously lethal levels against air. I've long been a proponent of a balanced game with respect to AA:



AA should easily destroy any aircraft, aircraft should be able to feast on MBTs and other ground vehicles with impunity, and of course AA ought to be defenseless against ground units.

So some manually placed mini-map indicator of "here be AA" would be a good addition. Kind of like the smoke signals that appear on the map. Probably placeable with "Q" spotting as well as through the regular map.

It would also be nice if you could see the locations of friendly AA automatically. In that way friendly ESFs and aircraft might figure out where to lead enemy aircraft into the waiting (much more lethal) maws of waiting Skyguards (like me). Far too often I see a flaming friendly Liberator flying away from my Skyguard as it's being tailed by a few ESFs.

Or more commonly I'm at the mercy of a Vulcan Harasser because my MBT escort left me.

AA is in a weird spot right now, where it quickly removes all but tanky libs and gals from big battles. I'm convinced that AA is so weak because there is so much of it, but removing some AA and giving it a buff to compensate would have a reverse effect. Big battles may be doable, but air could be easier denied in small battles. Maybe that would be for the better, since Planetside 2 is supposed to be a game about large battles? I understand where you are coming from with your frustration. I think the reason they added XP bonuses for attacking air with ground weapons was to make up for it just being a deterrent, but that's probably not worth it to someone who has been playing for a long time.

Fair point. Perhaps a limited-duration designator that marks the target instead? Maybe put it in the Leadership cert line.

I'm always on the look out for skyguards or walker sunderers because they're basically free certs, especially when I'm in my harasser.

Harassers seem to be made specifically to hunt down AA scum who wait in the back thinking the front lines something a ways away.

I like this attitude.. almost the same for me on the ground with a tank.. however, I often, far too often, see friendly air taking shots at the ground.. wondering what they are shooting at.. since nothing shows up on the minimap.. as if they don't want to hit "Q".. as if they don't want me to help.. as if they want to hawk that kill for themselves..

"Q" it up fly-boys.. !! If you don't put on the map, I can't see it, if it's not on the map, it doesn't exist.. if it's not on the minimap, I can't help... ..

Often I drive to where our air is shooting at the ground.. to see if I can help.. and, voila.. there are a plenty of enemy vehicles there.. that nobody bothered to "Q".. Spot bonuses are easy XP/certs.. I earn plenty of those every time I play.. I can not understand how many pilots don't bother.. is it the extra key stroke? There must be a reason why air is not "spotting" .

Pretty much this.

One Skyguard will make a decent Libcrew or ESF pilot chuckle.
Two gives them a little pause and they have to watch what they are doing, ESF pilot needs to be REALLY good to face them.
Three denies the area unless you bring a squadload.
More than 5 is instant death to any air within 400m.


Personally I'd like to see the Skyguard changed a bit (and probably bursters as well). Right now they are ineffective solo. But powerful in groups. This is because their low damage and moderate dps and ease of use. Its just easy to use a Skyguard, so its in a 'nerfed' state.

Decrease RoF
Lower velocity
Increase Damage to compensate

The idea is to make it harder, but more rewarding to use. Increase its skill to use and increase its lethality.

This way if the zerg pulls dozens of them a decent ESF or Lib pilot can avoid fire. But to avoid fire is to not delivery ordinance, and being deterred. Hence a deterrent. But a skilled Skyguard driver that sets up an ambush will get a kill against an unsuspecting aircraft.

Pilots get a means to operate somewhat in a theater with many AA.
Skyguards get the satisfaction of kills... if skilled enough.
Newbies lose, but newbies simply need to learn to be vets and then not lose.

Once suggested that friendly Skyguards show up on all friendly minimaps, with a 200 meter green circle around the skyguard.. so that friendly air can see it as such. This would also help friendly air to see in which direction to retreat, in case of trouble.. just come flying right above my skyguard.. I'll keep your 'six' clean..
and change the color of the circle to your squad color, if you joined a squad..