As new upcoming changes are with Ground to Air balance. Being a liberator / mossie pilot myself. Seeing alot of heated discussion about especially AA MAX vs ESF. Let's discuss this upcoming change, perhaps even swap opinions. And maybe even trade Hints and Tips about how to deal with a problem. Quick list on the what changes were discussing about: Flak: - Minor damage increase - Projectile speed increase A30 Walker: - Buffed Damage - Faster Projectile Rocket Pods: - Decrease to the inner explosion radius: 3m to 1.5m. This is the center of the rocket explosion where the maximum damage occurs, so this will not affect direct hits. Effectively this makes the damage falloff at the center of the rocket pod explosion start closer to the center. Flak Armor: - Increase maximum explosion resistance for certed Flak armor from 25% to 50%. This makes Flak armor a more viable choice over Nanoweave for soldiers being attacked with explosives. -------------------------------------------- OP's Opinion on the situation: Personally, I see this as a much needed factor. I personally MAINLY fly a beefed up Liberator. (heavily certed into) Aswell as starting to get more and more unlocks to the mosquito (ESF). But also have a AA MAX to deal with the ESF spam situation you usually find from time to time. I personally have a disgust against the rocketpods, and heavily dislike them, even thou I fly a ESF myself. but i use my ESF mainly as a Hard Anti-Air counter. A30 Walker, definatly needs the buff its getting, currently, its nothing but a tomato shooter and we all know it. heck, even tomatoes would prolly do more damage, and fly faster. When it comes to the Delicate balance between FLAK and AIR. I personally see this changes as a positive thing. Currently, from my own PERSONAL experience. pardon me for using the word Personal quite often, but i just like to make it clear this is how the game is Viewed from me, aswell as being influenced by friends and outfit members who i play PS2 with. I do not see the FLAK beeing a major issue towards all air. However, it SHOULD be a issue towards ESF. But again, FLAK is fairly easy to avoid, as long as you keep your altitude high or distance far. As flak has a limited range, aswell as large spread over large distances. with my Liberator, flak isn't really a major problem, and I easily avoid it, while still maintaining a presence, with the help of my good friend Altitude and Distance. However, with my ESF, flak prevents me from getting close and entering a enemie base. in other words the flak AA is a deterrent towards ESF. wich I personally think is exactly what Flak should be. But even if the ESF are quite cheese towards flak, they are still avoidable. There are two ways, that I use commonly to avoid serius flak damage. That is Keeping my Distance, or fly Low. Heavily depending on the terrain and locations of the AA. But flying low is the quickest way to get ridd of FLAK guns shooting at you. be it burster MAX, skyguards or turrets. As you are to quickly break the line of sight with help of terrain. Keeping distance, is basicly beeing carefull not getting into AA-protected areas, and if you happen to get to close, you quickly gotta gain a distance from it. Here is what I personally think the ROLE of a ESF is: They are not ment to strike bases, or be a all rounder vehicle, that can deal with any and all situations. They are Skirmishers, and Air-superiority fighters. A2G ESF arent ment to take out Protected bases / areas, they are mainly ment to skirmish convoys or outer areas, distrupting enemie movements aswell as harassing unprotected areas. A2A ESF is where ESF are actually at. A2G is the Liberators main job. and the Liberator can handle flak quite well. But they do not handle A2A fighters. heck, even fighters with rocket pods are actually a bigger danger. But the ESF is there to knock out pesky Bombers. and Pesky bombers usually keep a high altitude, unless they do straifing runs. Pesky bombers that keep high altitude are usually out of FLAK range, so even if there is alot of enemie AA on the ground, They wont be able to take you out. Pesky bombers doing straifing runs, are usually weakened by the flak and AA. wich should be easy pickings for a ESF that is awake. But even if the Bombers are closer to the ground, and has protection from AA teammates, still dosn't mean their unreachable. You can still keep a high altitude, and fire at them, as they wont render away like ground targets as they are much higher up. So in all honesty from my side, I do not see a problem with general FLAK buff as a ESF, well at least a A2A focus ESF like me. MAX bursters imo are actually fine as they are, at least when it comes to bullet projectile speed. SkyGuards are quite weaksauce imo, and a rare sight to see. Non-flak AA guns like the A30 walker, is not even AA at current state, so itll be exciting to see the changes on them. G2A Lockon missiles, I'm not to overly sure, as a ESF I hardly have a issue with them. And I find escaping from it quite easily, if i get locked by G2A I just fly low, and terrain quickly deals with the rocket, and if im in a situtation terrain cant help me, I always got flares and speed. And usually you can quickly get out of any more G2A missiles lockons if you bail out quick enough. On my liberator, they might become a major issue depending how much extra range they gain. Burster MAX gains more protection against explosives, I don't see to much of a issue here, unless your a rocket pod ESF, but a Liberator Zepher, even dalton, can quickly deal with em (if the gunner is descent shot), also taken in account that were not beeing spammed flak at aswell. But again, AA MAX are very vournarable against people on the ground. So if youre in a squad, youre teammates on the ground are dealing with the AA maxes. If you happen to be lonewolfing or have a team that isnt really a team. well then you shouldn't bother trying to take out AA maxes even, and just keep yourself out of line of sight from them, untill someone deals with them. however, if there is alot of AA in a area, well then maybe take the hint of dropping your Aircraft for a moment, and start going in by ground to start dealing with em. If they are alot of AA; that means they usually quite unprotected against ground / armor. Unless its a huge ZERG, but in huge ZERGS youre pretty much a idiot trying to face one single-handedly or even bother going against them, unless you have your own ZERG behind your back. If its not a ZERG and their still hard to deal with, their usually organized, beeing a outfit or something, then again, you shouldnt go against something you cant handle by yourself, and find somewhere else to go or get your own platoon / squad up and going, or perhaps even try get the your own ZERG towards the direction of your problem. But thats my humble opinion of this whole situation, many will disagree. But this is at least how I see ESF. Currently, ESF are way to much allrounders and can pretty much deal with any situation singlehandedly, unless the enemie has 2+ AAmaxes working togheter covering the area. But as far as I'm seeing what vehicles dominate in the game most, its definatly the ESF, and i always see ESF everywhere in the frontlines. Tanks are much rarer to find and they happen to come and go, sometimes they come in massive column, wich usually is the teams ZERG movement. But ESF are always lingering around constantly.
