[Suggestion] How Flak Works IRL(Why [I think] its broken in PS2)

When flying in planetside 2 i assume most people hate the skyguard, But thats what it was put in the game for. To give the ground troops a chance Vs the Guys in the Air with rocket pods. I'm not a perfect pilot, (by many standards) But i can still hold my own in most situations.... Unless a skyguard is sitting on the ground. The way flak works in the real world is a bullet (usually 20-35mm) is filled with an explosive charge, And explodes at a certain distance from the point it was fired from. Obviously this isn't the case with the skyguard when i'm being killed by one from 350m away and can't even see the guy doing it. The fact that it does have a ridiculous damage to aircraft (completely fine), but no apparent explosion range is a little befuddling. Personally I think the damage should either remain the same or be buffed a little (25-40 damage tops), but the range of its effectiveness should be capped at around 250 Meters. This way the pilot has a chance to get away into the mountains before being absolutely shredded (Esamir is the continent that comes to mind). And the speed of its projectiles should be slightly nerfed too, To match a more realistic speed of high explosive projectile. (The reasoning behind this is that all HE [high-explosive] projectiles must have a slower velocity to prevent to much strain on the projectile and detonating it in the barrel of the weapon shooting it.) Ergo nerfing the bullet velocity is going to create a more realistic experience for the players (both on the ground and in the air). This factor would also make for a healthier gaming community overall because when playing other games (FPS obviously) the differential between play-style isn't as massive. The skyguard isn't overpowered Vs aircraft, It just has a slightly warped functionality. I think that the if the skyguard did receive the suggested changes the game might become a little more enjoyable for the Pilots and a little less easy for the Skyguard users, But overall i think the game would be a little more balanced.

The Proximity Fuze was actually invented way back in WWII. Use was limited at the time as it was considered such a valuable secret that it was on the same level as the atomic bomb project, but they became fairly common after the war.

I think skyguard should have a vulcan type gun. Something thats decent against everything instead of so specialized against air.

Skyguard is like lock ons, not really fun for either side.

Also since the walker buff, a ridiculous buff imo, the skyguard is kind of redundant.

I personally think turrets are worse.

The cost no resources, give next to no xp when killed and are back online after a few secs of repairing which just gives the enemy turreting you xp.

At the crown for example, on the north side you can control the air from Allatum to J908 to Galaxy to Paisades all with one turret.

I did just that last night, 23,900 xp in 34 mins with 9 kills. Woulda had more kills but a lot of people bail.

G2A locks are ridiculous too. No matter what you do you cant shake them. Ive flown down behind a cliff whipped around and watched the g2a missile arch aroiund the cliff and nail me.

And the ridiculous damage 42%.

All of these weapons should have a range of about 300 meters.

ESF cant reliably attack anything at ranges over 300 meters. Rocket pods travel quite slowly and trying to hit distant targets with hornets requires hovering for longer than is practical when enemy planes are in the area.

Libs are the only vehicle that can attack from ranges greater than 300 meters and they should be killing the tank zerg anyway. At over 300 meters a lib cant see infantry on the ground to kill them.

Of course we have to be careful not to overpower air vs the ground. I'd like to see some nerfs to ESF A2G abilities in exchange for the nerfs to G2A range.

Maybe lower the range of ESF thermals to half of what it is now. I think thermals are the biggest problem with A2G being overpowered.

If im sitting still next to a tree under the branches with my green camo on, i should be able to hide from enemy air and not look like a little light in the dark.

Maybe turn rocket pods into high altitude bombs. Something like they need to fall at least 300 meters before they arm. Be nice if you could put a ground target down that would denote the general area within which the bombs would explode. Since the bombs would be random, they should do quite a bit of damage. Or have cool effects which would allow for larger radius of effect.

Could have bombs that paint every enemy with 50 meters causing them to be spotted on mini map for 1 min. Or we could have napalm type bombs where we could create walls of fire to prevent passage through an area.

Obviously right now a2g is making a lot of infantry and tankers unhappy and g2a is making a lot of pilots unhappy, especailly those of us who dont often pound the ground.

A change in the paradigm is needed.

I think though the trend is now to move away from proximity fuses and instead go towards the old base-set fuse (funny how technology works this way). "Modern" flak works like this:



So you have each shell being individually set right before it's fired to pre-detonate at a specific distance. In that sense the OP has it right... that's how flak currently works.

But on the other hand modern flak can only work like that because these shells move at really fast speeds. You're probably looking at 1,000 m/s to 1,500 m/s with an effective range of at least 4,000m. That's where the OP is dead wrong... if anything to be "realistic" PS2 flak shells need to move faster than the snailish pace of 400 m/s that it travels now... it's currently only operating at 30-50% of its "realistic" speed.

I don't know where the OP got this information:

Because that's not how modern explosives work at all. The 120mm M830A1 HEAT round is capable of traveling at 1,400 m/s. This isn't a whole lot slower than the non-explosive M829A2 round which goes about 1,600 m/s... KE rounds just generally travel faster because they need to (velocity helps kinetic energy after all). I mean maybe theoretically if you pushed the rounds to absurd speeds... but really nothing that anyone has to worry about yet.

If you want to be "realistic", then a single flak hit will probably "take down" an aircraft... aircraft simply aren't that heavily armored and can't quite withstand damage:



Your aircraft shouldn't be able to leave without getting absolutely shredded... if you fly into the effective range of a modern AA cannon, chances are you're not getting out if they land a shot on you.

That's if we were being "realistic" of course.

well if it makes you feel better ground players hate fighting you too...