No place for ESF?

Funny, when playing burster I don't expect to kill any ESF period unless he's particularly stupid. Even so, if I have vision of it, I can hit it (assuming it's flying in a straight line). A ESF who responds instantly will still lose 20-30% of his health and will most likely be forced to go repair or risk losing the next dogfight he runs into.

Yet, the ESF revamp is focusing on A2A. Speaks volumes to me about what the role of the ESF is being pushed towards.

While ESF has a ground capability, that doesn't define its role. Anyone with half a brain would be able to deduce that the Liberator is the preferred ground pounder. If you want your combined force to be effective in a large battle, to me the logical role would be for friendly ESF to keep enemy ESF off the Liberators and/or attack enemy Liberators and let the Liberators focus their fire on the ground.

Of course you can come back in a day or two and post another waaaah my ESF can't participate in large battles waaaah thread - but I've just given you a role for ESF in large battles. I've seen it done by TR on Briggs a number of times with brutal efficiency. You want to rid the ground of AA MAX? Shredder does it in about 2 seconds, no questions asked.

When it's not escorting Liberators in large battles, it's free to lolpod opportunistic targets as always.

Let them remove air from main battles & bases & most of the map.
Logical step would be an increase in the amount of AV since no air no AA needed.
Now tanks are just as useless.
Now we have the cod mosh pit so many have dreamed for!

..and no Liberators?

LOL. If you're being chased away by AA MAX in a spawn room that have a limited view of the sky, next opportunity you get, spawn in that room and scan the surroundings from within so that next time you'll be able to put yourself in the other 60%+ of the sky that you can't see from within the spawn room.

Sorry, that part of the sky is currently contested by that burster max that just spawned in that base over there, two hexes away.

I'll be ok with that the day tanks lose splash damage on their main cannon. They're actually adding in some "swarm" missles and then supposedly adding in some kind of heavier A2G rocket. Just remember, tanks require have no skill barrier to entry, piloting does (unless you're at 1000m on Esamir in which you're only going to die if you bail). I have only blown up a tank twice because it flipped over and both were from going off a cliff (forwards not backwards, in which you can survive the fall). When I started piloting I rarely could survive more than one minute without crashing.

Also, "opportunistic targets" aren't there as often as you make out. Unless you're running with radar, finding the lone guy running around in the middle of a field isn't exactly easy since it requires you to point towards the ground and take your eyes off flying.

Really and you fly???
Ive not been able to leave the warp-gate because there was a small squad just standing on a high rock whit a couple MAXes and strikers just killing tanks and all air without any one able to stop them.
They just killed every ting within 500 m in 1 or 2 sec.

Why can one player whit lock-on be able to stop hole group of ESFs in a 1000m+ radius.
Whit a weapon you can almost not dodge and cost no resource at all.

Rocket pods where way OP.
Im a dedicated pilot and i was taking on groups of tanks if there was coffer enough.
So tank where really not whining.
I agree whit the buff to the tanks.
It was mainly infantry whining about tanks and air vehicle.
And i think the pods are good now vs tanks still a bit OP vs infantry.
Id like to see that pilots have to use the nose gun vs infantry.
That would be fair i think.
But now its not even possible to get in range of a fight.

If you want to be effective as a tanker, you need to be running AP or AT rounds on your tank since the armor buff which have little to no splash. If you're going to kill infantry with them you essentially have to hit them with the shell. If you run HE, the radius on which the explosion damages infantry has also been reduced and unlike ESF, tanks rarely have the luxury of significant height on infantry in which an AOE splash can be achieved. You usually have to rely on hitting a wall near them, not the ground in their immediate area.

..and tanks have a lot more threats and counters and have much less agility to escape a hairy situation. To say there's no skill barrier to entry - I haven't flown since Beta, I can pull an ESF if I wanted to. There's no requirement other than resources of which I always have 750. A bad pilot and a bad tanker both have a low life expectancy and little impact if any on a battle.

Doesn't mean I couldn't rambo a solid 5 kills with a tank in a stock lightning. Couldn't do that with a stock ESF unless I was hacking.

Are you saying you have no skill?

Yes because using a nose gun turns invincibility on which negates AA as well as dumbfire rockets.

Last time I checked a beeping sound can't kill an ESF. Real pilots flare in the last second, lolpod then afterburn the second lock on, so they take NO damage.

If you're terrible flying like it seems you are then you will take damage and it doens't matter if the squads have the Striker or any of the other locks ons (grounder or annihilator), you can't take that damage anyways and those missiles follow the ESF better than the striker. So your problem is:
-Your lack of skill to avoid getting damaged.
-Lock ons in general.

Air must have threats to face or else it will be hopeless to play this game. And lock ons are on every game and every pilot has to deal with them (notice all the sounds at 1:05) :

The real problem is most pilots are like this one:

Also dual bursters are useles at range (contrary to popular belief) unless you are going in straight line in which case you deserve to lose your plane.

You already have the most advantages anything on this game can have, damage and high mobility. Learning to fly can be a steep path but when mastered you will find out why every single person with the most score per minute pilots an ESF.

BFFs are the best

So how many times did you crash you tank while driving???
A tank can hide bihind the smallest hill.
Sure like every one you cant stick your head in to deep in enemy territory but most ESF cant kill you in one run.
Tanks/ ESF
1.You can outgun most turrets. / Takes 2 ESF to take on turrets.
2.direct infantry one hit kill. / Takes 6 rockets 3 4 rotery
3.you cant crash (accept to desktop)/ crashing is really eazy
4.front hits will take most infantry 1 vs 1 7 hits have to refil ammo +-1 min / Max takes you out under 2 sec infantry one rochet hit or 2 lock on. range 500 m
Sure tank do take a lot of skill. but they cant support the front-line better than the ESF ATM.
Mainly because the lock-on buff GU8.

That BFF could be called planetside friends just swap stinger to striker and below radar cover dodging.

edit.

remove please.

I've had tanks and sunderes flip and explode on the smallest of bumps or slide sideways down an innocuous hill, flip and kabloom. Tanks also get killed by falling debris. Tanks are limited in the terrain they can traverse and/or climb which is why the SE Indar Warpgate is seen as a disadvantage. Though they are better now, tanks were often killed by invisible tank mines. But this isn't about tanks versus ESF but your insistence that ESF have no place in PS2. Clearly they do. Just don't expect to fly solo in a large battle and lolpod your brains out much like a tank couldn't roll into the middle of a base and expect to last more than a few seconds.

Combined arms doesn't mean a large battle where an ESF shows up means that air, armor and infantry combine to form the holy trinity. It's about a balanced force. 1, 2, 3 or even 6 ESF will never constitute a balanced force in a large battle.