[Suggestion] Make ESFs immune to small arms

There are so many SOURCES (notice I said sources, not types) of AA that exist with every vehicle save for the Flash can equip an AA weapon, Heavy Assaults and Lights Assaults have air locks, Liberators can 1-shot ESFs with the "totally-not-OP" Dalton, and battle Galaxies now have Hyenas for their top gun.

I think its high time you throw ESFs a bone and make us immune to small Arms; it doesn't stop all the other sources, but now it would not be a death trap flying over a base and having a squad take down your 350-nanite aircraft with handguns! ESFs are made of metal after all, so why are they vulnerable to hand guns? If nothing else make something like Composite Armor max rank make us immune atleast!

Um. just my 2c;

ESF are Auraxium's helicopters. They are powerful in skilled hands, but incredibly fragile. 2 well placed bullets from a real life hand pistol (either the tail rotor or the pilot's cabin) will ground one.

I have taken down 2 or 3 in 1v1's as an engineer (I DO run archer tho) with a rock to hide around. I must say the AP turret does an admirable job agasint one without rockets; but I don't think they need any more help. It's more about the skill of the pilot, TBH. oh, and Fire Suppression.


Skilled pilots in ESF's are scary. I don't think they need to be buffed.

This is not real-life, if it was ESFs would not be able to fly backwards, nor would Magriders Exist! I think Valkyries are closer to what helicopters are, very mobile in close quarters AND they even have the rotating front gun.

I don't think that they need immunity. The reason that ESF's have small arms vulnerability is because of their agility, they have the ability to enter and exit the battle extremely quickly not to mention outmaneuver rockets and other incoming projectiles. If they didn't have small arms vulnerability then it would be very difficult for infantry in most cases to put any damage on them at all.

I think the main problem is that some people treat the ESF as a gunship (Liberator, Valkyrie) instead of a fighter. The ESF's role is to get in and out quickly (two things it does very well) because of its paper armour. Like many people will note, the ESF has quite a high skill ceiling and is not very friendly to new players but in the hands of experienced players is extremely dangerous.

Some people kit their ESFs out to be stable hovering platforms and equip primary and secondary weapons that do a lot of damage to infantry, even with splash damage, and with vehicle stealth enough to make anti-air missiles take a considerable amount of time to achieve a lock, during which time a skilled pilot can easily dodge behind terrain or otherwise kill the anti-air going after them.

Skilled ESF pilots are already a terror if they put their minds to culling masses of infantry. Making them immune to retalitory gunfire would mean that they could operate with abject impunity.

You would have to remove vehicle stealth interaction with lockons or make stealth immune ammo for lockons for that to even remotely be fair. Maxes as well are vulnerable to small arms cuz.. Rambo needs to be able to kill them with the crossbow.....think there was ascene in rambo where he shoots a heli with a bow and blows it up.... the devs must like rambo

Aluminium is a metal. I can penetrate it with a rather weak .22LR round easily. A handgun round would go straight through.

Most aircraft are fairly lightly armoured, at least compared to anything on the ground. Namely because to be light enough to fly, you can't afford heavy armour.

Yes, because we totally need ESFs to be able to farm infantry with even more impunity.

No. We're not doing that.

Shortcircuiting the various arguments down to a simple one: If you gave this to ESFs, you'd have to give it to Valks. If you gave it to Valks, everyone would lose their damn minds, even though I've never been shot down by anything less than an archer or a max gun.

There is also an inherent psychological need for planetmans to shoot at whizzing flying things that hurt them. If you take it away, they will go on another nerf streak against aircraft.

Learn to master Terrain, learn to be comfortable under 5m at 200kph, and you'll be fine.

You can have small arms immunity but in return you have to take triple damage(3x) to the engines if directly hit with flak weapons (like the 2x multiplier head shot for infantry).

GOOOOOD!!! Are all forum pilots stupid as hell?

The idea with composite armor making immune against handguns is not even that bad.

I always found composite armor pretty useless compared to stealth on esf and valkyrie.

Yes give ESFs immunity to small arms, but to balance this give ground troops immunity to A2G weapons.

Sounds fair to me.

How does a bullet know when it's hitting an ESF?

sounds BS to me .. this way you just further isolate the planes of battle from each other ... all that is needed are dmgnerfs for weapons outside their intended role not full immunity ..

Damage type resistance.

The skyguard knows when the nearby object is an aircraft.

my 450 nanite MAX which is made of thicker metal than your zippy 300KPH jet is also taken down but several bullets,
can i get small arms immunity too?

also if i'm playing TR i love to drop half of an ESFs health off with striker and then try to finish them off with MCG,
MCG is pretty darn effective at killing A2G farming ESFs

Well obviously somebody doesn't understand sarcasm

No.

That is the only discussion this idea justifies.