New Lock On Is Great From An ESF Stand Point.

This is Chingles thing. He has almost no comprehension that video games and reality are different things, and that what makes war effective and what makes non-mil-sim games fun are two different things.

This is my problem with it and what I don't understand. Why does everyone get a striker clone, but the TR's EMPIRE SPECIFIC LAUNCHER, just lost everything that made it unique. The NS variant is superior, and all factions get it, that's not cool. Why don't all factions get a Phoenix? Or a lancer? This patch literally gave everyone Vulcans and strikers.... Will the next patch give us all NS raven maxes and Phoenix launchers? Or how about NS lancers and prox mines.

Because let's be real, dbg doesn't give a **** about faction uniqueness.

As far as the F-4 went, it was the missile technology at the time which really hampered it. The idea of the phantom was far ahead of what they were able to make then. Missile technology has advanced leaps and bounds since then. Modern day air battles have finally caught up to where the U.S. was attempting to do back then. Now I'm not saying I agree with the whole no gun thing, just that you aren't taking a few very important things into account. Hell missiles have have all but completely replaced cannons in naval warfare. Destroyers and cruisers all use them and battleships are extinct and not used anywhere anymore.

As for the humvee it was never intended to be a combat vehicle, it was forced into the role and had to be adapted to it. This was largely due to logistics, yeah bradleys and abrahms are nice, but they can't go everywhere a humvee can and require lots of fuel and maintance compared to a humvee which can be switch around to do whatever is needed in a very short time. Not to mention the cost was cheaper. They aren't widely used because a "civilian designed it".

So... you're saying AA missiles should never actually hit aircraft? What would be the point then?

Really this is how they should make lock-on A2AMs and SAMs in PS2:

Semi-Active Radar Homing (Tomcats)
These missiles are extremely long-range and less prone to countermeasures, but the firing aircraft or launch platform must maintain a constant lock. Missiles are "dumb" in the sense that they don't have guidance equipment on board, and instead rely on the larger and better radar mounted on the firing aircraft or launch platform. In PS2, this should mean that Tomcats get extended range (500m or so) and have greater immunity to Decoy Flares. A new countermeasure, Chaff, is effective against these improved Tomcats.

Active Radar Homing (Coyotes)
These missiles are medium-range (300-400m) but can find targets on their own. Initially launched "blind", they will travel in a straight line until they come within radar range of their target. They then lock on to the target themselves using on-board radar. They also do not give a lock on warning until they have actually locked on to an aircraft. In PS2, a separate version of Coyotes should be added which are less spammable (maybe only 2 missiles per salvo), but slightly faster, have a larger lock-on radius, and do more damage per hit. Fairly immune to Decoy Flares, but Chaff works against them.

Infrared Imaging Passive Homing (Old Tomcats)
These missiles are relatively short-ranged (200m) due to heat and processing issues, but at the same time are the easiest to use. Simply fire them in the general direction of the enemy aircraft and they will lock on themselves. After that point input from the firing aircraft or launch platform is no longer required. IR missiles, however, can be most easily dodged. If target aircraft can move out of the forward arc of the missile, then the missile will lose track and be neutralized. Decoy Flares also work well against IR missiles (but Chaff is less effective). In PS2, essentially the old "Fire and Forget" Tomcats, made a bit slower.

Essentially these above three types of missiles:



Line-of-Sight Beam Riding (Hornets)
These missiles are also short-ranged (150m), mostly because at longer ranges they lose accuracy. Guidance is done by painting the target aircraft with laser beams and having the missile stay inside that beam. The main issue however is range; the further away the target is, the weaker the laser beam gets and the more "wobbly" the missile becomes. The advantages of this system is that it gives little to no warning to the target craft and has a high velocity missile. In PS2, this should essentially be an "air Hornet" which is faster but has a HE warhead designed for use against aircraft, not armour.



Anti-Radiation/Laser Homing
Hate ESFs who fire missiles at you? Wish you could pick off that pesky SAM? Well with anti-radiation or laser missiles, it's no longer a difficult chore! Against aircraft or launch platforms using SARH or Laser Guided missiles, the anti-radiation/laser missile provides a fairly risk-free way to counter them. As the longest-range missile out of the bunch (600m), it can be launched from a significant distance away. The missile will travel and search for any aircraft or launch platform that is actively using SARH or Laser Guided missiles in a 180 degree forward arc. When it detects these, it will home in on the offending target without alerting the target. Not an invincible weapon, however. Can't be used against missiles that do the guidance autonomously (active homing and IR). Can be temporarily fooled by Decoy Flares (IRL it's Chaff, but Decoy Flares needed more utility ). And if the target turns off the radar (ie an ESF switching to the nose gun or a ground vehicle exited), then this missile is fairly useless.



Adding more effective missiles would improve PS2 in a few ways:
1) Increased counterplay. With both Decoy Flares and Chaff countermeasures, as well as different types of missiles, pilots need to be more on their game.

2) Increased teamplay. Flying in an air wing has never been more important! Since a single aircraft may only carry one type of missile and one type of countermeasure, flying in a group means that all aircraft in the group can take advantage of every countermeasure. And since each missile has unique advantages and disadvantages, wingmen (and women) can help make up for the deficiencies.

3) Increased tactical play. With the introduction of longer-ranged missiles as the dominant A2A and G2A weapon in PS2, flying out in the middle of the open sky is just asking to be shot down. Pilots now have to fly with a tactical plan in mind, making use of cover (hopefully other environmental cover like clouds and the sun will be added).

4) Increased A2A focus. While ESFs can still carry out ground-attack runs, they will now be significantly more vulnerable to A2A ESFs equipped with long-range and deadly missiles. Whereas before the A2G ESF might still defend itself with the nosegun, relying on noseguns to engage a missile-carrying ESF would be next to suicide. This creates distinct roles between a G2A ESF and an A2A ESF.

Some of the more modern passive missiles (which would be completely unbalanced in this game) actually have thermal cameras. They go after the thing that looks like a jet, so flares would be mostly useless against them. Also missiles these days are much more maneuverable than aircraft as they don't have to worry about killing the pilot to g-forces. Oh and for those that don't know; most AA missiles detonate on proximity, they don't need to hit directly.

Then there are rumors that a new type of "passive radar" is being developed that uses cosmic background radiation (the stuff that is everywhere and is what the static you see on a TV) to look for "holes" in its source. If it ever gets produced it will render stealth technology completely obsolete.

As missiles become more advanced and more expensive (which isn't bad since the aircraft itself is way way more costly to lose), so does the counter measures to use them. There may come a time where missiles are rendered ineffective and I really do not wish to see us get caught with our pants down again and have to yet again.. dust off those old training manuals. Doesn't mean I think it will happen in the near future, or at all. But I like to be ready for such things.

The places you are talking about are places likely that oversized jeep cannot go either. In the deserts and cities of Iraq however.. there was absolutely no excuse for using unarmored or lightly armored 'jeeps'. It wasn't the results of logistics (US has the best logistics in the world), it was the result of pisspoor leadership.

Just a little info, the amount of maintenance a humvee requires is ridiculous. I know because I maintained several of them. They're pieces of crap that start needing replacement parts after a few hundred miles. They're good utility vehicles, I loved using them to put my set ups where I needed them. But I would never want to use that in a combat situation.

There's alot more to this then just how we used the vehicle, but I don't wish to derail the thread further with politics. So I'll end it here.

Point one, we were speaking of ESF AA deterrence systems, not MBT AV deterrence systems. While your idea is cute, it had nothing to do with the point at hand. Also, tanks are not ESF's so any balancing around the idea that "Anything ESF's can do, tanks should be able to do" is silly. That's like thinking an M1 should be able to move as fast as an F22. Let's be reasonable. Tanks need some tweaking, but you are just suggesting those silly ideas out of spite. Cut that out.

Second paragraph, same concept. Cute, funny, but downright nonsensical.

Listen, I don't know why you are so upset/angry, nor do I care. Just because you are more or less ******** in your tank has nothing to do with the discussion of the relationship of AA and aircraft. That is unless you think your main canon is a dedicated AA gun?

Grow up, I believe tanks need some tweaking too, same as ESFs, but at least I don't go around spouting incoherent vomit to try and stroke my ******. Buffs and nerfs in different areas are needed for both, so stop getting so excited.

Oh yes. I included a line in there about "infrared imaging" to allude to the thermal camera idea. That's why the missiles don't have to come in from behind or anything... they're essentially all-aspect.

As for being able to "dodge" a missile... I think IRL it's possible with a combination of ECM/CM and maneuvering, but I agree that it's fairly unlikely to happen. That was just thrown in there as a "fun" mechanic, to balance out the ease of use of IR F&F missiles. I'd imagine those missiles would behave like "arcade" flight games (HAWX comes to mind).

Supposedly that's how the Serbs shot down an F-117 over Kosovo a few years back. It makes sense, and it's also anti-radiation proof. I think it would work well as an acquisition radar, though I don't know if it's precise enough to also work as a combat/engagement radar. Though once you know roughly where a stealth aircraft is, it's not so hard to use higher-power radar to get a lock.

Funny thing is on Planetside I've never seen a single cell phone. Maybe we have satellites? I dunno.

You guys are all out of your minds. I'm out. Friendly bump to improve visibility to Mods so they can lock the ridiculousness.

lol I was pretty much out once the comparisons to real life weaponry and vehicles took over. Not something worth talking about in an arcade shooter set in a fictional universe.

Not much else worth talking about.

"Buff this because NANITES!"
"No, nerf it because NANITES!"
"No, buff!"
"No nerf!"

At least when you talk about real things there's actually a right and wrong involved... all other discussion is pretty worthless.

Escept that this is a forum for you know discussing a game.

You should head over to the United States Veterans forums if you want to discuss "real" things.

How many hours of flying do you have in PS2?

Not true at all. Game design philosophy is more relevant to the discussion than real life comparisons ever could be.

Yeeaaaeah..... no. That would fix nothing and only return us to the days of tanks farming base fights destroying any fun to be had for inf at all.

Adding coax would help tanks with infantry a lot actually.

I didn't say it'd fix all the problems, I said it's just all I'd change for Tank/Inf balance.

I already said what needs to be done to make tanks more relevant and fun to play.

Bombarding bases isn't even all that fun. You're second "fix" isn't fun for infantry OR even tanks! It makes them effective cert & KDR farmers, but that's about it.

Except whatever game design PS2 has is a total failure. As explained before, in competitive play tanks only account for 0.22% of kills. Real life is much better balanced, which is why in this case real life is a model that should be followed.

The problem isn't strictly speaking tank/infantry balance. The problem is that there really isn't a reason to pull a tank because tanks have a negligible impact on base captures. That's the main problem.

Base captures and defenses shouldn't be possible without tanks on both sides. That's the simple, most basic rule that would give tanks a real role in the game. There are multiple ways to do it, but giving tanks a coaxial weapon is not one of them. A tank with a coax is not going to be necessary to the defense or assault of a base, no more than a MBT with a Kobalt on top already would be.

Game design philosophy. It is something that exists separately from any video game, including PS2.

I guess if real life is more balanced, they should get rid of respawns in PS2. If you die once, you're out of the game forever. If you're "lucky," you'll only have some limbs blown off, or suffer some other debilitating injury. That's the way real life works.

Or maybe if you accidentally kill a teammate, you could be placed on trial and possibly sentenced to do time in video game prison.

Real life wars are so fun, I don't even know why I'm playing a video game. Clearly I should enlist in the military and enjoy the wonderful "balance" it brings to the table.

Oh come on. Even I understand the need to make allowances for "fun" at the expense of reason and logic. I'll just quote myself from this very thread, only a few posts above this one:

See, game mechanics. Design philosophy. Throw in an easy to use missile but have it be easily counterable, even if that's not how it works IRL. I'm a fair person. I understand how some IRL things might be unfair, so I adjust to what is tolerable to form the proper balance between gameplay and logic.

On the other hand though PS2 as it exists is fundamentally broken. There is simply no role for tanks. Most everything is far too infantry-heavy or favours extremely fast not-really-glass cannons (Harassers and aircraft, namely). This is a flaw in the game design philosophy, and is why PS2 must be fundamentally rebalanced. Whatever game design philosophy the game claims to have is quite broken. AA doesn't kill. Most vehicles besides ESFs and Sunderers are pointless. These are all game design philosophy problems that desperately need to be addressed before PS2 can be called "balanced".

It's called "drawing a parallel". With it I can show you that your idea would cause even more imbalance to the game by the favoritism of aircraft, who get some of the highest DPS weapons, can carry two of these with the best reloads when you switch weapons, most DPS, auto-granted abilities that never go away (and are now automatically maxed out if you equip them), get double the healing per fire suppression etc etc.

Ofcourse a tank isn't an ESF, but that doesn't mean ESF should be showered with special abilities much better than the tanks! ESF already have a ton of special abilities that set them apart from tanks, and your idea would mess with the already completely messed up AA game. The best AA lock-ons score more vehicle kills than aircraft kills, your auto-granted flare would make this even worse.
So try to see it from a balance standpoint, see how the ESF already has too many special abilities and has seen favoritism for too long (ever seen how OP the launch rocketpods were? They were said to be "balanced" for a long time by the same pilots who defend all this kind of crap right now).

Exactly! So why is the ESF allowed to have nonsensical upgrades, if we could just build a good AA system vs a good aircraft system rather than granting the ESF 6 or more advantages that no ground vehicle gets, or at best gets only one of those abilities?

Well, I often am wielding a SKyguard, which apparently to it's description is a dedicated AA gun. But I'm glad you are frank and say it's not an actual dedicated AA gun, I was wondering why ESF could escape unless they decided to hang around too long.

More serious, do you really think that non-AA tanks have nothing to do with ESF? We are talking about a vehicle that can equip Hornets, which can cash out about 150% the damage of a Vanguard AP after all resistances etc are calculated, not to mention can fire it's AA+AI canon for some extra DPS during the reload. We are talking about an aircraft that has Rocketpods that outshine any HE canon on the ground. We are talking about aircrafrt whose nosecanon can kill other aircraft faster than any dedicated AA on the ground, while also being able to kill infantry better than any AA on the ground.
To say that tanks are separate from aircraft is beyond ridiculous. Just the fact that flanking with tanks is often instant-death the moment you don't equip an AV secondary with a gunner, and it's also instant-death the moment an aircraft spots you and you are without AA top-gun (even with AA top-gun you don't stand much chance), is a fact that should tell you the system is warped. We have the most lone-wolf vehicle in the game (ESF) that gets better firepower and multifunctionality in just about everything, even it's AI rocketpods are strong against vehicles, where every single other AI weapon has a truckload of trouble dealing with vehicles.

Since you came up with the subject, apparently you are spouting incoherent vomit and try to stroke your stars, I hope you can find it though.
There is absolutely no need to nerf the current AA lock-ons with auto-granted flares. There is a need to change the entire lock-on mechanic, sure, but to simply add another auto-granted ability to the already impressive list of ESF advantages and make sure AA lock-ons score even less aircraft kills, despite AA lock-ons already killing more ground vehicles than they do air, is beyond ridiculous.
As someone said to me once, grow up.