Liberator REALLY OP now

All the liberators flying around and I didn't notice any additional threat from them. Other than the one that took my jetting LA out with a dalton from across the hex. I did notice they are more fun to fly now for those of us who don't live in them. If only my 2nd tail gunner bothered to shoot in the direction of the Scythes, it would have been glorious.

Its useless in big battles? I had several runs of 60k+ XP L2P. Seriously, learn to use it properly. Fly with support, learn to disengage, get comfortable with the Lib airframes and what they are good for. The machine, is amazing, but no one wants to put the time in it. I dont understand why...

Well, buffing the Lib just makes it that much harder to do anything when the pops are low.

Lock-on's, flak or a sole skyguard can do little in that situation.

It gives the "solo" Lib farmer that much more time to hang over a target.

Eh, I don't know where this game is going as I am thoroughly confused at this point.

The devs do not seem to have a grasp on what the game needs to be... which leads me to believe that the focus is elsewhere and they are just treading water with these patches/updates.

Very disappointing.

Lib isn't OP you are UP.

If your so spawn camped that you can't live a second outside the spawn I'm sure a lib is not the only thing farming you.

It's not a tank.

It's special, because it ain't fragile and the pilot is protected against 23 mm rounds, but at 11,3 tons empty it's as heavy as a city bus, or 1/6 of a Challenger II. It's simply impossible to make heavy armor fly, if it was, we'd have hovertanks.

Those 23 mm rounds penetrate 25 mm of vertical steel from 400 meters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZSU-23#Ammunition

An AP round fired by an Abrams in Gulf War I blows through about 670 mm of steel point blank...:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M829_(munition)#M829A1

...so even if the A-10 had 10x the armor needed to stop a 23 mm round, it would still have an entry wound and an exit wound when hit by a late 1980's sabot, with everything in between either drilled right through or devastated by burning shards of uranium and other spalling/debris.

P.S. Flying without a wing isn't special among military planes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision

I think the big problem is that libs, in the hands of the skilled, were big problems before the update. And this is true. Tenj from Connery TR would sometimes ask if I wanted to gun. The dude is a mad pilot, I've seen no better pilot than this guy. Literally, I'd fly for an hour in the same lib with this guy because he knew what he was doing and just did... not... die. So while it was a blast, I think these changes only make what were frustrating encounters with libs before only more so now with these updates.

I'm sick of the mentality of pilots and tanks. Of course you're supposed to stay away from large infantry battles. There's way more infantry than you. If 3 people pull AA you should be running for the hills. Currently there's not enough counter and there's too many Libs being pulled. Spending a few resources and buying 1 gun shouldn't make you a bane to 5+ players targeting you specifically.

Here's a smaller scale example for you: 3v3 battle. Ground units pull a burster max, an engineer, and a AA rocket launcher Heavy Assault. 350 ground resources, 1x 1000 cert ($7) burster gun, 1x 750 cert ($5.00) AA launcher, A few certs here and there, say 800 for the engineer's ammo pack cert and another 800 for his repair tool versus the liberator's 350 air resources, 1000 cert ($7.00) Dalton bottom gun and Lets say rank 3 composite armor (like 300 certs?), and lets say the liberator is only 2 people 1 for gunning and 1 for driving. Guess who wins this scenario EVERY TIME? That's right, the Liberator wins every time versus a larger crew who has input more certs toward AA than the liberator ever needed toward A2G.

To be fair (devil's advocate here a bit), a MAX can often take a tank round from a prowler to the face without dying. Also a MAX suit can take a Decimator (bazooka) to the face and still run around no problem. So i mean...you can't really say "well this vehicle has to be realistic, but this one doesn't" ...it's just not how video games can work. I mean, an ESF can take a prowler round without dying. That's a HEAT round right in the cockpit without even being set on fire.

So, as I was saying...maybe it's best to just appreciate the game for what it is and worry more about *game* balance than "what should happen in real life".

It isn't just this buff or that buff, it's the fact that in one patch, liberators got 10+ buffs/enhancements (when you add up all the resists, new weapons, armor improvements, etc) and the incentive for even trying to take them down got largely removed (assist EXP).

I've been around long enough to have all the AA tools (Dual burster MAX, a good Skyguard, HA lockon AA), and since a LOT of other players don't seem to, I end up being the guy trying to stop liberators from the ground a high percentage of my playtime. And I can tell you that, if I cared at all about my score/hour, or needing more certs, I wouldn't bother. Any decent lib I target (and I know most of Connery's VS lib pilots by name) will take a couple MAX clips, or a couple Skyguard clips, or a rocket or two, get 3-5 kills in the meantime, and go repair or duck behind terrain and regen. Repeat ad nauseum, while I get 26exp every couple runs (cause they're often smart enough to go for me first so I have to get repairs or wait to regen), and they get 300-500+. And this is assuming I'm in my own base, near a building of some kind. Heaven forfend I fight anywhere else, like between bases or at an enemy base. That's just guaranteed death for me, guaranteed EXP for them.

Yes, bad lib pilots don't know when to disengage, and they can be brought down. Even that, however, requires a team of people (which is fine). But a decent lib pilot, PRE-patch, was an unstoppable-from-the-ground EXP farming machine, and now it's that much worse because the newer guys with AA lockon or dumbfire only, and who care about getting certs, will be that much less likely to even try to help.

There have been for a while some ace Lib pilots and crews that can take tanks/Skyguards out using nap or the earth flying, they are plain scary, and I have absolutely no idea how to counter them (ESF I guess, but they are generally a good enough shot to take them out pretty easily).

They just don't miss, anything, ever.

And in Game balance, Liberators are absurd. Try to fight at a base with a liberator hovering over it....ya know, a small scale fight of maybe 6v6 or something. Like Saerro...try to actually defend or attack it if a libby is in the area.

Ok, now actually try to shoot it down.......you will fire one round and die. your buddy will fire one round and die.....you will respawn..you fire another2 rounds and die.....he flies off and repairs. Comes back and repeats this process.......

Ive had bases where 3-4 HAs are darting in and out of cover to try and shoot down liberators. Ive even had dual burster maxes along with us and all that ever happens is we die, he flies off, he repairs, he comes back.


And shooting one with an ESF, idk what guns to use on it. I used the stock nose gun and 50 rounds later when he killed me he wasnt even down 20%...

All this before the thing was buffed.....now its an invulnerable farming machine of ********.


The only defense you libby guys come up with is oh it dies when it enters an area and is hit by 50 different AA guns......its as if you Libby drivers expect to NOT die EVER...as if ur vehicles should just be allowed to endlessly hover up there farming till time indefinite with no fear of anything. Ive tried just about every AA weapon in this game, to include TITAN AP. Dual bursters, ive got the Hawk. Those Phalanx turrets dont even do it.

Now the things take 4 TITAN AP rounds to kill? Lol, no Vanguard is going to be alive that long. It took like 112 burster rounds in the VR, I can only imagine how many rounds it takes now...to bad I guess VR is down for the moment.

With the new armor buffs and tailgun buffs there is very little now you can actually do to take those guys out.

And the speed of the round traveling through the tank sucks everything with it and out hte little hole, killing crew, blowing up ammo...cuz I mean, stick ur head out ur car window at 60MPH....now do it going over 2000mph....anything not nailed down is going to fly right along with the shell...and 4 men+40 rounds of ammo dont fit through a little 2 inch sized hole....

An aircraft that takes 4 150mm AP rounds to kill is OP. Sorry.

I just rocketlaunched a few libs out of the sky about an hour ago. I do not see what the issue is.

Good for you you killed some bad pilots.

I thought the Liberator was a bomber? At least back in PS1 it was. As a bomber it should be devastating when dropping bombs BUT (and a big but) it has far to much versatility.

My Rules to make it a true bomber:
* It should be slow and built strong. Cant out run anything but can take a beating. Just like in the real world, if a bomber comes into contact with fighters (IE: Reavers, Mossies, etc) it may take a bit but its going down.
* WTF with a bomber hovering? Really? Ummm... No.
* The Lib should have to be completely level to bomb, you know cuz its a bomber?
* You can only bomb at a certain height. You cant come in super low and bomb away. Stupid.
* If my tank that is.. You know a tank, takes 4-5 splash damage to kill infantry (you know cuz I havve been told this is the future and we have personal shields) then your Lib should take the same.

Love the game but there are some dumb issue with game play itself.... Like the 3" blade that takes 75% of my health but man can I resist that tank round!!!!

The "good pilots" do not waste their time farming infantry unless the infantry is too stupid to fight back. Its so easy to get a rocketlauncher and/or burster max.

This is how you fight a Liberator ...

Now seriously, the Liberator, even prior to this change was hard to deal with in small scale combat. Battle Gals kinda replaced Liberators in the AI suppression role for midscale battles. A place the Liberator now firmly took back since the patch.

The issue for Libs are still large battles, though the fact that people are now faced with the choice of Composite or NAR .... most will probably now go with Composite if they seriously want to run into higher populated areas. Removing the option that those Libs will stay until the (large) ammo supply runs dry.

Now the only "concern" I have is skill. Yes, Lib Gunner is "hard" but Dalton and Zepher shells are big. No, this is no joke, Tank shells used to be similar big to Dalton or Zepher ... but got nerfed in a reduction in size, especially AP. Add in the stupid "dummy" shell flying out of the barrel converging with an invisible shell coming out your camera and doing it from the Tank side actually has become hard, because the feedback is wrong.

Here, this was me Vanguard AAing casually in a single life. I'm no longer able to do this because of the changes. The shell size actually does make a larger difference than most would think ...

Once you get a crew that has done hundreds of hours together and they really got good, well Libs were, even prior to the changes pretty strong. Granted you need some form of aptitude for this, but given enough time and some guidance everybody can actually learn to do this.

Libs should have a "counter" and yes they do have them in the from of larger AA or multiple ESFs at once. But are those counters feasible to field in a smaller environment? Mostly not, atleast right now.