I'll Finally Admit it: AA is out of control.

MAX Flak armor on an AA MAX is beast. I laugh when an ESF tries to pod me as I add one more kill to my streak. If they're smart they just run, but I'm still doing my job either way.

I basically own every AA gun (I don't own the tank mounted Burster, the ranger,) mostly as a gimmicky joke.
- I have trialed the top guns, and just don't care for them.

I can say the following about the current AA:

Grounder: Planes tend to flee prior to them coming under any real threat or even me firing, even when they clearly have high level vehicle stealth specifically for countering my lockon launcher.
- Useless in forested areas, where planes are not that useful for attacking ground targets anyhow. Who knew.
- 3 hits to kill.

Striker (Untested/bought) Probably responsible for enemy planes paranoia with my grounder.

MG's: Suprisingly good at warding off ESF.
- Hard to use, but half of all infantry have it. There is no excuse to not at least TRY to do AA against ESF.

Skyguard: Very fun, and short range. Better against liberators and galaxies, however, any ESF that stops moving dies too.
- Best for ambushing and guardring against air.
- One on one fights feel like a duel, due to difficulty of landing shots on moving, small targets.
-- Feels most fair and fun.

Bursters: Boring, long range. Basically allows me to control aircraft that moved into engagement distance with.
- Single burster feels helpless to aircraft... Dual bursters are laughably overdone.
- There really is no fun in doing this. Using lock on rockets feels more fair... At least I have to be good at hiding.

Ranger: Not worth using alone... On a sundy, it is likely a good idea: A burster max with a three man support team is considered optimal already, a dual rangers battlebus is that, but with 8K health and 50%+ damage resist.
- Basically a burster, but sundy mounted.
- Can be used on MBT, but it has the issues of bursters, with the weaknesses of MBT rear armor.

Walker: Basically a HA MG, or the vulcan... But weak and high magazine.
- Its range is half that of the ESF average engagement range.
- It seems fairly ok... Just that ESF can stay totally out of its range.

Vulcan: Silly, IF the enemies fly low enough to be hit by it, they die in half a magazine.
- It actually is a reasonable deterrent against enemy ESF attacking rear armor.
- Kills vanguards from rear armor in two seconds.

Everything else: You can get kills with pistols, carbines, and assault rifles....
- I mean, I have gotten kills with an assault rifle on ESF.
- 100 bullets to kill. Get shooting.



AA against ESF is highly inconsistent, which is very unfair to the pilot.
It makes it hard to make good judgement calls when attacking enemy units:
Either difficult to ID at 500M AA guns should be brought in line in their power level, so ESF pilots can at least make a judgement call when they come under AA fire, or more work should be put into making AA weapons power more in line with support team size, cost, and the size of the target shooting its AA guns.

AA MAX players have been around long enough to know exactly where to hit fliers buzzing around. And seeing as without a dedicated AA something or other results in ESFs freefarming anything on the ground, I have no sympathy for OP.

The ease? You mean avoiding other ESF's, Tank Busters, rocket launchers, Sky Guards, base turrets, MBT's, Rangers and Walkers ? Ya, beside almost everything in the game that can deal with air you are exactly right...complete ease.

But a mobile infantry unit with access to repairs and resurrections, all the while hiding behind a spawn room shield while dominating the air for an entire hex and surrounding hexes is balanced to you? Got it.

A fallacious argument to say the least. I'm too tired to spell it out for you but if you've got a spawn room locked down by ESFs generally it's a win for the ESF side.

I donno if I would buff aircraft or nerf AA right now. I think, if anything, having the AA's location pop up on the map as it fires, and briefly after, would allow ground forces to move in to counter the AA a bit better.

An invalid argument to say the least. AA Maxes don't just sit and hide behind the shields when they are trapped, they abuse this game mechanic on their own willingly.

was typing from experience. 3x lolpods mosquitoes lock room down, one/two maxes inside can't get a good angle without getting rocketpodded, and two-3 players on the ground's enough to ensure a straightforwards hex capture.

I guess that changes when engagements get larger but that's to be expected ..

How about we make rocket pods replace the afterburner, basically sacrificing speed and maneuverability for increased damage, and then we can talk about toning down AA.

AA is fine

Wait for the super busters.

78% of your total kills are from a mossie or lib. I'm sure this is purely an objective balance topic and has absolutely no personal bias, as in tailor make the game to my playstyle contained within it whatsoever.

Instagibin MBT in basicly a second: "Its fine, use teamwork and AA."
Flak can kill my ESF: "Everybody should be able to counter everything."
You guys in the sky with the silk scarfs are funny people.

Today i pulled my Gal (full Composite Armor, Bulldogs, top walker, rear basilisk) i was jsut messing around with a few outfit mates, so we had just enough to man every gun. we found a single sundy with 1 ranger. i thought we could just outright kill it, like we did with the sundys, prowlers, Vannys and lightnings before.

eh.. nope a single burster max jumped out and killed us... a gal with full composite and a perfectly timed firesprs (which doesn't mean all that much as it looks bugged that it only replenishs a few pixels of your health instead of the 30% it did before) we just died... we didn't even put the sundy on fire... it still had about 50% health... GG that were 350 Air ressources and 1k or 2k certs (about 15%-20% of my total certs) and a 5man team on teamspeak against 2/3 guys in a sundy who had a burster with them....

Yes, Teamwork counters air...

Great Idea

Bullets seem to be as well, 100 rounds (one SAW clip) at 30m or so didn't show any damage to a mossy on the kill screen when I got cornered on the ground and was out of rockets. He just hovered there until I was done before shooting back. I got damage points, so my aim wasn't completely off. Nanites, I tell you..

Composite armor takes ESF's innate resistance to bullets, and almost totally eliminates bullet damage, mind you.

It would take like... 350 bullets? to kill a composite armor ESF.

Hmm, I think AA needs a buff to tone down Air zergs a bit. N/C today pulled off the biggest Air Zerg on Connery I have seen today as we were capping their tech plant. Nobody came to defend it for quite a while... then the sky went dark and the radar red. I think all the NC where in the air.

I'm not sure the battle should have ever worked in your favor. Gals are huge targets and are difficult to maneuver to maintain constant high accuracy firing from 4 gunners.

If you guys were in 1 dalton/tankbuster lib, you'd stand a better chance. better yet, 2 libs and a supporting esf (though higher overall resources). Gals are for transporting infantry and the guns mainly help support infantry before and after the drop. It seems dificult to rain bulldogs accurately upon a burster while you're dodging burster fire.

I'm surprised you got the sundy down so low. Good work I guess.

While I agree MAX units don't need a buff that they're about to get soon with their MAX upgrades, I don't agree that AA needs to be toned down. Air superiority does not need to return to this game. Air, just like MBT's, should play support roles to infantry. We've lost enough players due to air superiority that was during the first 2 months, plus the whole HE & Magrider bs that was there, many of those players never came back to this game.