Liberators are fine: AA is the problem

Lock ons are broken right now.

I have very little love for air mostly due to the fact I am a proponent of strong armor gameplay and even before this patch the current air game let them crap all over armor just like infantry do BUT I still support this buff, only because it'll hopefully make them seriously take a look at how piss poor the armor game is and buff that **** too.

I agree as I stated in the rest of my post. I suggest that we should have a MBT Variant that is specifically geared at hunting Liberators. Personally I think a weapon very similar to an AP round fits that bill. Hitting Aircraft with an AP round takes a significant amount of skill and personally I love the idea, for a few reasons.

#1 an AA variant of a MBT, since it will be specialized and relatively ineffective against other armor & infantry, means we can buff it in areas that would make it OP if it was fighting against ground targets, such as reinforcing the TOP armor or making it immune to small rockets (rocket pods & coyotes)
#2 An AP round type weapon requires skill to use, which as you suggest should be something that is rewarded.
#3 We can put a different cannon on the MBT so that it has higher elevation and faster rotation.
#4 Since the MBT can hold two players and it costs similar resources to a liberator we can give it a bit more fire power.
- For instance, we could tie the Main gun & secondary gun so that they must work as a team, If the MBT has a secondary gunner, then that player can use the secondary gun which if held on the target will give the main gunner a flight trajectory box, which if he aims at the leading box his chance of hitting will be much greater especially at range.

The other nice thing about creating this sort of weapons platform is that it will not necessarily be as good at hitting ESF, since they are so fast and Agile.

I agree. I really think they should remove the rear weakness. And I think the top armor could use a buff and if a MBT or Skyguard chooses to put reinforced top armor, then they should be rewarded with a much more significant protection and near immunity to rocket pods, coyotes, zephyr rounds and bulldogs.

If you look above I am also a strong advocate for an ANTI-AIR variant of the MBT as well as giving the skyguard a secondary Anti-infantry weapon and a weapon system that is more like a fast firing AP round rather then flak, which rewards skill.

I think it's an interesting idea, and while I think it might be a bit niche (not to mention making the Skyguard slightly less useful), it's worth considering.

Not to mention that there are a number of SPAAGs that use MBT chassis. The Japanese Type 87 uses a Type 74 MBT hull, and the German Gepard is housed in a Leopard I hull. So some countries have turned their older MBTs into SPAAGs.

From a design perspective the old 88mm Flak 41s of WWII come to mind. High-velocity heavy shells that would pack more of a punch than a Skyguard, but shoot at a much slower rate. Maybe it would do better at extreme long ranges against Galaxies and Liberators, where the Skyguard would be better for closer-in targets or small ESFs (though at long range the Skyguard is pretty poor at hitting ESFs too).

Again, my main concern would be that it might edge out the Skyguard as an AA tank, and already the niche for an AA tank is pretty small (why pulling a Skyguard is often a non-refundable one-way ticket to boredom). With the way that some ESFs fly, it may not actually be that difficult to hit them with the newer AA cannon.

Alternatively, you could just combine this idea with the current Skyguard turret. Have the Skyguard carry two weapons, mounted coaxially. The usual 40mm flak cannons on one side, and maybe a 75mm-100mm cannon on the other. Add a passive top armor bonus to the Skyguard, and there you go.

I also posted an idea for a MBT option for AA that is faction specific and powerful but more skill based than the skyguard and more expensive. Alternatively I'd say skyguard should have full depression, allowing it to be a relatively useful AI weapon as well with absolutely no AV capability, but also lower/refund 500 certs (IE it costs 500, any one who spent 500 gets it refunded).

While the AA for MBT is slow firing and exclusively useful for AA, they still have a secondary that allows them to fulfill another role, so making the gun specifically useful for AA ( It could still instagib infantry, just be very difficult to do) would work out fine I feel.

Also yeah, tankbuster needs a good hard look. Cert price is fine, but a buddy of mine recalls it used to fire in bursts, not the entire magazine in a f*uckhueg burst of death. A precision but controlled weapon with that kind of power wouldn't be terrible for either end if it was limited by bursts.


Engineer deployed AA turrets:
Do about as much damage as a single burster arm, but heat so no reload. No cover (Shield), but a wider range of vertical fire and perhaps 360 rotation? We have AI and AV. Bugged me they never had AA.


No shield makes it harder to spot from an aircraft, and of course engineers can re-deploy them wherever. Yes, you are still a squishie, but when you have 20 squishies getting their free AA turret and setting up an array, you will give them something to worry about.

I just spent 10 min in a spawn room being zerged by Liberators and we had 4 Maxes inside. The other 3 where standing in doorways with anti infantry weapons trying to get KILLZ instead of popping at least one buster and helping me shoot the AIR . Thats the place AA is at at the moment its better to stand doing nothing and maybe get 1-2 infantry kills then pulling AA and trying to fight off the Libertards ..... Pathetic !!!

IMO second burster should be 250. Seriously why is it 1k certs?

Its not the point . The point is that standing there with anti infantry weapons and getting 1-2 infantry kills is more rewarding then trying to fend off Libertards for 5-10 min in AA. You wont kill the Liberator and you will probably get killed yourself and those 35 Exp ticks for air dmg are just pathetic.

Then let's bring in a skill based AA gun.

An immobile deployable heavy flak unit.

-slow tracking speed
-slow ROF
-large proximity fuse
-longest range
-soft target
-big, like sunderer big

The only thing that arose from the Liberator changes was that AA developed depending on how it overperformed/underperformed against ESFs and not the Liberator. And we are surprised that we are ill prepared with dealing with new threats we didn't bother considering in the past? Thus, for infantry, nobody thought of giving them a high damage-low velocity G2A rocket launcher because everyone was too busy blindly whining against lock ons.

That said, the Skyguard does pretty fine against the Liberator. It is just that people need to learn to start teaming up rather than going at it alone all the time. Solo play is what should be tackled that is increasingly frustrating people, not perceived imbalance.

That sort of flak would be worthless against air craft that fly in groups of one and can stop still in mid air and fly off in any random direction.

If it stops in midair, then you don't lead target and it's easier to hit the target. What are you talking about?

If it stops in mid air and doesn't move then that sort of flak would be very good but relying on that as a strategy is poor. Normally they would just move unpredictably and safely fire back at your fixed position which isn't a strong strategy.

I consider myself as little over average pilot but I also see lot of hacking in ESF and LIB flying.
Super agile ESF, Lib not losing altitude even on 90 degree angle toward ground.
Not to mention our Pros dalton compilation with very choppy aiming crying aimbot aloud.
Myself I use banshee a lot cos i have problem to hit infantry sized target.
Half a year almost every pro kill infantry with nose gun, suddenly it stop and now they are lolpoding. But with accuracy so high that one must wonder if it is profitable to waste rocket on infantry and rather kill them with nosegun.

Buffing AA will kill last not Pro ESF and will lead to total supremacy of lib and PRO ESF

This ^

Cheaper skyguard (Refund certs for those who paid 1k) will help get more AA out there. An MBT with a AA specific turret will give us a powerful counter to libs which normally counter tanks. Engineer dropped AA turrets will give people a free and always available alternative (At least, once unlocked).

Because maxes can be pulled at any equipment terminal, they can be revived & repaired and at AMS's and the guns can be quickly hot swapped out.

Increasing infantry based AA is not the answer, because it scales to easily, that is why there is next to no air in larger fits. Infantry has plenty of AA options and making what they have more powerful or more easy to acquire will become an even worse balance issue then it is now.

What this game needs is something like an AA- MBT that can effectively counter Liberators and increased utility for the Skyguard, which would make it more popular on the battle field. These vehicles will then become the primary threat to Air and as such Air will need to target these vehicles first.

If we are going to preach this dead horse of an argument, why does your Liberator deserve to have a better chance of surviving than my Prowler or Sunderer? The Prowler costs 150 more resources than a Liberator, The Sunderer crews 9 more people than a Liberator, what gives you the right to assume that you should be oh so much tougher than we are, just because you have wings?

this would be hell for ESF. I really hope they never add AA MANA turrets

anyways what do yall think about having rocket pods do a little more damage to liberators. I dont know if the recent liberator patch affected rocket pod vs liberator damage as i haven't wanted to play because of all the reported bugs and exploiters.

I kind of gave up on Skyguards some time ago. Firstly I *HATE* the cone of fire and turret shake/drift during sustained fire, but also the velocity on them is pretty measly compared to the 750m/s of the walker or the 600m/s of the Lancer ANTI-VEHICLE beam, and the lightning hull is really quite soft versus liberators.

If you want ground based AA with some staying power/survivability and damage output, I personally recommend a Sunderer with max rank fire suppression and 1 (preferably two*) walkers on it. I run ammo resupply since I tend to put my Sunderer in a rear guard position but you could also put blockade armour on it too. The trick then is to jump in to the driver seat during a reload to mash the fire suppression key after you've taken some damage then hop back onto the Walker turret.

*I'd use double Walker but firstly, that assumes that someone else will jump into the sundy and gun for you and secondly having a Bassilisk on the other turret gives me some protection from vehicles and troops that try to jump me.

If you're using an ESF against a liberator, I actually recommend staying at long range and plinking away at it with bullets, you may not do a ton of damage due to damage fall off but you'll put the fear of death into them and knowing they might get chased down if smoking means they're less likely to stay in position farming the troops below.