[Suggestion] Instead of making thermal pointless, why not make weapon payload impacts ESF's flight performance?

I hated A2G farming as much as the next guy. But the current tweak pretty much rendered the thermal optics completely pointless. I'm one of those weirdo OCD guys who just can't stand of having pointless weapons and equipment being featured in a game. And let's be honest, good pilots really don't need thermal optics to completely dominate the troops on the ground with virtual impunity. Sooner or later the balancing effect of the thermal optic nerf will be gone as pilots grow accustomed to use their real eye sights again.

One of my business client is a retired Navy pilot and I remembered that he once mentioned to me that the aircraft's handling changes dramatically depend on it's mounted payload. That while flying an F-18 jet fully loaded with combat ordinance almost felt like a sitting duck. For this same reason fighter pilots are often instructed to jettison their auxiliary fuel tanks before engaging in air to air combat maneuvers. As both the extra weight and extra air resistance considerably impacts the plane's flight characteristics in very negative ways.

That alone can be a perfectly adequate balancing mechanic against A2G farmers. ESFs should take considerable performance and handling hit when mounting rocket and missile pods, slower turn, acceleration, shorter afterburner duration, etc.

ESFs mounting air to ground rocket pods and maybe anti-infantry nose guns should suffer the most negative impacts. While air to air missiles and maybe rotary cannons should have less prominent but still noticeable impacts. Not only would this make mounting A2G ordinance a more difficult choice between risk and reward, thus curbing the A2G spam. This would also put newbie pilots who's not interested/ready to purchase ESF weapons to fight veterans in their carted up and decked out ESFs on a more even footing.

This would limit ESFs to a more aerial superiority role with the occasional tank busting missions while leaving the main A2G attack roles for Liberators. Which's how I've always felt the air game should've been.

Conclusion: Yeah, you will still be able to lolpod spam the ground, but you better make sure that you have enough time and opening to get away with your gimped agility and speed.

Last night VS ghost capped a base and I was the first to spawn there to contest it. I saw 3 Scythes - each one hovering in front of a spawn room exit. Killed one with a single rocket (well, I say killed.......I hit him and he just dropped out of the sky, crashed and burned. Got the credit though). Then a Reaver turned up and I got another Scythe he had just damaged. Final Scythe fell to a couple more Reavers (I got the spot bonus). I also got a couple of air deterrence credits duirng the whole event.

OK.............so, on this occasion VS planning good but execution weak. Leaving that aside, I really don't have a problem using A2G effectively against esfs and if you're a sensible infantryman I cannot see an obvious need to penalise esfs any more than the recent removal of their farming tool.

I bet that was a fast aurax ey?
Every time i see your name your telling us how you owned aircraft with a G2A launcher.

Check the all time AA launcher stats, you must be high up there, if not no1 for aircraft kills with a lockon launcher.

air based thermal optics did need a nerf they reached out to 500m for infantry detection where as vehicles on the ground only had 150m the only thing they shouldn't have done was nerf ground vehicle optics, if you are within 150m of an enemy vehicle you are a threat to said vehicle since almost all classes can carry C4.

now at least if air wants to attack infantry they actually have to look carefully and fire at 500m instead of having easy mode see all infantry and bomb away. air thermal were way more effective then ground vehicle thermals.

any serious tanker used zoom optics for their main weapon, maybe thermals for their secondary for self defense.

1. It was 300 meters, if you are going to discredit something, remembering the actual stats of the previous change is kinda important and it doesn't make you look like an igit.
2. Therms on air is better than ground therms, this is no surprise because your engagement distance is farther.
3. It's easy to preemptively plan for an airstrike, you have sound, visuals, spotting, being in communication "was there a scythe here recently? Yes? Got it, I'll cling to cover".

I like the suggestion, but this would imply devs fixing the vehicle physics engine. Hydraulic tanks, gal lifting tanks physics, collision etc.
Just a heads up, tanks flipping, hydraulic tanks, and etc have been in the game for ages. Devs penalize you taking a vehicle where they don't intend you take a vehicle, they nerfed this over several patches just as a hotfix so that infantry can enjoy. Trying to compromise another nerf would more likely incorporate both nerfs at once imo.

BUT!
That doesn't mean I think the suggestion is bad, it's just I don't think the devs would put in the effort. It's a great suggestion.

Regardless of what's going on with this particular individual...
G2A launchers get kills all the time. Get good

Lol..............I just feel the need to put up a counter argument to what seem to be (atm) the frequent demands for better AA when, even as an AA user I'm pretty comfortable with how things are now.

I'd love to be a MLG auraxing things and topping out high performer lists. The sad truth is that I don't play often enough and the reason I get good results is because I choose my targets (the damaged and the foolish for preference). Hit 10 random targets and get 2 kills = 20% success but choose 2 targets carefully and kill them both = 100% success.

The example I quoted was a case in point - foolish flyers..........ofc there is the occasional battle where aircraft are in huge numbers and if you've got the stamina and patience to bang off loads of rockets then you're bound to get someone sooner or later.

The main problem is that Reavers and Mosquitos were originally designed for different roles in PS1... the Reaver being a heavy attack aircraft and the Mosquito acting as a light scout craft. There was also the Wasp, a long-ranged interceptor.

In PS2 all the aircraft got smashed up into multirole aircraft capable of doing anything... and we still do not have light aircraft that specialise. One could even argue that the ground-attack Liberator can perform well against other aircraft, and the monstrous Galaxy can engage a variety of targets despite being the equivalent of a transport plane.

Differentiating between aircraft, both in terms of frames and loadouts, would help PS2 in the sense that aircraft would have to work together to accomplish goals.

The average user of any G2A launcher can at most get 1.42 air kills in a 24 hour period... that's not too impressive.

In terms of threats to ESFs, the best G2A launcher can only claim 0.72% of all ESF kills... less than a single percent.

It seems to me that performance that poor means that there is indeed a problem with G2A launchers.

Make afterburner only available to ESF using external fuel tanks. Nothing else is needed in terms of maneuverability and agility. If you want to play helicopter ground spam you lose your escape mechanic.

Huh, this actually would add a lot to the game. Basically you'd have to make strafing runs because if you stopped to hover you couldn't afterburner away as soon as you started taking damage. A2A would have to choose between wing mounts or afterburner too, they could buff wing mounts.

G2A would be better effective vs ESF with no escape mechanic as well.

Afterburner is the reason A2G is so broken!

Consider for example the differences between an air superiority F-16 and a ground attack A-10

Maximum speed
F-16: 1,500 km/h
A-10: 700 km/h
The F-16 is roughly twice as fast as the A-10.

Flight ceiling
F-16: 15,240 m
A-10: 13,700 m
The F-16 can go roughly 11% higher than the A-10.

Rate of climb
F-16: 254 m/s
A-10: 30 m/s
The F-16 can climb over 8 times as fast as an A-10.

Imagine if that was the case in PS2... where ESFs with ground attack loadouts were half as fast as other ESFs, couldn't fly as high, and were terrible in gaining altitude. Pretty much they'd stand no chance against an ESF kitted out for air superiority... which makes sense, considering how well a Skyguard Lightning would do against an AP Lightning.

If they lumped in the sluggish response times with thermals that only worked as well as the ground based vehicle counterparts did, then it would help to get ESFs back into dumb-fire range.

I'm not asking for them to go through the troubles to completely fix the vehicular physics here, though that would certainly be great. All I'm asking is to simply decrease the agility and acceleration based on the ESF's load out. Which should be fairly easy to do, ESFs already get their flight characteristics modified once critically damaged after all.

Ah, that makes more sense.

Yeah, and A2G ESFs get tank buster nose cannons and double zephyr wing mounts. Cause you know, the A10 can't fly high or fast but it absolutely wrecks anything on the ground. I would almost be inclined to say the liberator is just a multi crewed A10 anyway. It handles much worse, accelerates much worse (without afterburner anyway) but is a much sturdier vehicle. Which you neglected to mention about the A10, it is much better armored than an f16.

Recognising that game playability and real life only cross over a little bit, isn't it also true that the A10 (aptly named) Warthog doesn't have the performance of a fighter jet but it carries shedloads more AG ordnance and is much more heavily armoured against ground fire?

A slower anti infantry esf (even more armoured for balance) is still a farmer's dream with thermals and without thermals it is just another kick in the nartz for esf pilots.

Where does the Valk sit in this discussion (IDK because I don't fly)? They're slower and better armoured and they've got something like Pelter rocket pods don't they?

F16/A10 translating to ESF/Valk seems to be a better way to go if we want to toss the flyboys a bone and give them back some ground attack clout.

Thermal optic(pre nerf) was arguably the best optics for Magriders. Unlike Prowlers, Magriders rarely fight at lockdown Prowler range (unless to outsnipe prowlers, deployed vehicles, or vehicles in the open). The ideal range for a Magrider doesn't require zoom. Zoom is a valid option, but the ability to easily see enemy infantry outweighed the ability to see your shot placement.

I would think that the ability to carry 48-96 ~80mm rockets would be more than enough for an A-10 equivalent ESF. The A-10 when equipped with 70mm Hydra rockets, for example, can only fit 76. While ESFs can carry 40-60 laser-guided Hornets, it can only carry 6 Maverick missiles. Some ESFs already come equipped with 30mm weapon like the A-10 (albeit a shotgun). The armament of ESFs is already quite enough.

A-10 armour is often overstated... only able to withstand 23mm hits to the lower cockpit area. If you think about it, ESFs are already far more durable than an A-10... I can hit one with a 75mm Lightning cannon and it doesn't die! If anything PS2 aircraft need to be significantly brought down a notch (the AC-130, on which the Liberator is based, is not that heavily armoured either, the U variant able to withstand 37mm hits in some areas while the new J variant only stops 7.62mm LMG rounds in some areas).



I think that just halving the speed and greatly decreasing the rate of climb of ground attack ESFs should be reasonable without any other changes.

As explained above, not really no. The current ESF carries more weapons than an A-10 does, and has enhanced durability to boot. Plus it's tons cheaper.

The Valk is essentially a transport helicopter. In the most reasonable case, it should lose the nose weapon and gain some LMGs/HMGs on each side. There should be the option to turn it into a cheap gunship, but it ought to lose transport capabilities.