No place for ESF?

I dont remember the last time i was killed by a LIB. Really sad. Specially for people who invested time, money and certs into it.

It's not about killing, it's about scaring them a way, even 2 AA maxes can push them away easily. A organized squad/plaoton just means any libs that come close have to fly away quick resulting in no effectiveness in the battlefield, if they don't they get wasted in no time even with a few of them with ESF support. As despite libs having good armor with 2 + AA maxes and other AA with good players that health goes down very quickly.

The ground rules and any air ruling the ground means the ground forces are just doing a poor job, because the amount of strong AA we have means that ruling the air is easily done with any half decent organization against even the strongest air force.

Exactly.

WOW
Assuming some one is a noob pilot is so dumb.
the treat is clearly not about flying skill.
It is more that a noob weapon can keep good pilots away from the front-line so easy that it seems a bit unfair to me.
Some times you can use terrain to avoid this but a lot of times this is not the case.
I use to be able to support Liberators and ally forces in to battle.
Working around the front-line.
Seems to get harder and harder.
A fully upgraded ESF has to wait 25 sec to get back in to action after he got locked and flared and has 7 sec to do something in a position of 1000m that has 1 player whit lock on.
Is this fair to you???
A weapon you can just buy 700sc vs Esf haveing to put practice and 2000 cert just to be able to spend 7 sec and than having to wait 25 sec.
HMM

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.

Only bad burster MAX cant lead there target.
It is really not hard at all.
Its not like you have to be on target like the walker or anyting.
As long as you in the direction a ESF is flying.

The problem with balance air vs ground is that it is always stack one way or the other.

Now it is fair for the advantage to be stacked in favor of ground because air has the power to pick its fights.

If a burster Max wants your *** you have to go to him first, the other way round you can pick and choose.

The problem is the numbers you expose yourself to and the threat you represent, if ESFs weren't the ground pounders they are infantry wouldn't **** bricks and pull all the AA they can muster.

I go up in a mossie every so often, with a banshee and pods, I focus on infantry in small fights and I get plenty of kills.
What is sad is that when I run across a A2A ESF, I just ram him.

But if you want a balance suggestion, then you bring AA damage down.
but you increase the effectiveness of all small arms vs air, removing liberator small arms immunity.
you then make AA weapons a reliable way of hitting air, while the real deterrent should be if you hover close to the ground you will get shot to pieces by small arms.
This will lead to less people pulling AA weapons, instead prefering to just use what they have to hand, this makes it safer for air to just fly around and operate normally.
Meanwhile ground forces can still deal with air.

I agre Ground to Air can often be ridiculous, but my biggest problem is being constantly outmanoeuvred by other ESFs. Damn reavers are too slow!

how exactly does ONE launcher do this? are they all turning and running at the first ping of lock-on? why not fly in, tank the first hit then burn out, or flare) now ONE esf is dettered (not killed) while 2 or more can **** something freely? ONE LAUNCHER IS NOT THAT POWERFUL

Hey guys,

I wonder why you keep saying that esf shouldn't be a2g. There's multiple weapons for esf specifically designed to engage ground forces so I think the devs don't agree with you.

I agree whit you for some part.
The thing is i really don't oned all AA to be nerft.
If you spawn a skyguard it should be really good as it is now.
And Base turrets should be a good diffidence as well.
It is the the how easy it is to spawn AA MAX whit unlimited ammo and Lock-on missiles.
If all launchers cost resources as well and Max would be a bit more expensive it would be fine whit me.
Now you can switch really fast to a heavy assault and at least get rid of a ESF whit no cost.

As long as people feel they need to pull AA to deal with air they will and in numbers, Maxes costing more resources won't change that.

More soft counters. Less hard, hard counters.

Well a normal launcher set you back 50% Striker 72%.
And the thing is you don't know how many are locking you so i don't think your tactic will be a really good one to be honest.

that's called having eyes, have one of the other ESFS watch for launches, if it's a lot, flare, if it's one, tank it and have one of the others strike the launcher with pods.... you're saying ONE player with an aa launcher can lock down an entire battlefield against multiple ESFs.... that's laughable

If the continent is half empty, the biggest group roaming around is squadsized and you´re lucky that not everyone of them is AA capable you can still do nicely.
However, most of the times I´m happy if I can get a kill before a horde of ESF´s jumps me, because Lib´s are the only thing left they can still decently counter. If it isn´t ESF´s it´s the myriad of AA capable units. Nearly everything can hit and dmg Libs, worst is with Render Distance and long range Lock-on´s/Flakk you are forced to fly at altitudes where MBT´s and the likes can easily hit you with main guns if they aren´t badies. If you accidently fly close or god forbid over an AA camp --that did not render until it was too late-- you´re done for. Libs can´t escape as well and fast as ESF´s and they´re huge targets for everyone.
I used to fly my Lib quite abit, hence why I have 5k+ certs in it, but lately I don´t bother much. You either stay way behind your own lines and hope that mby a lonely lamb got seperated from the herd, or you join the Zerg and hover above a lost spawn to kill the ******* who still run out.

That is assuming the rockets will render at all... You don't fly do you.

Read dude
Im saying that ONE heavy can make it hard for ONE ESF.
Finding ONE heavy in a aria of 1000m can be hard.
While you have just 7 sec to do so.
Than you have to wait for in my case 25 sec

it all depends on your situation at that moment in time, the terrain, the potential threat.

Point is a savvy pilot will come out on top 80% of the time.

People still complain about pods? 200+ hours of gameplay and I die to pods about as often as I do to a MAX using its melee attack on me, which is nearly never. Left for several months and now pods don't even hurt you, I used to fear ESFs but now I can safely ignore them unless I'm in a tank. I fly from time to time and find the better turret angles to be annoying, ESFs feel overly fragile to fly and as a Burster MAX I can clear a whole base of aircraft single handedly and often get multiple kills on ESFs if the pilots aren't incredibly skilled, I imagine that once I get extended magazines for both Burster arms I'll completely dominate a whole Swarm of aircraft. Things feel a bit silly at the moment but in an ESF I can still farm infantry with the main rotary and nothing equipped as a secondary other than extra fuel tanks.

Skirting 2 AA Maxes, tanking the damage as you make attack runs, isn't all that difficult. With 2 maxes, you have a good 15-20 seconds do what you need to and get out. Thats plenty of time to make a run. Then repair and repeat.. When there are more than two though, they can pretty much keep a Lib from being effective.. And I fail to see a problem with that.. The ground guys should be able to defend themselves (ie.. keep aircraft away from them). Aircraft are 1000x more mobile than ground units, so they don't have the option of running away. So the only way of keeping aircraft away is to make is so they don't want to be there. And the only way to accomplish that, is if you die and lose your aircraft if you don't leave the area. AA has to be effective at killing or its not a deterrent. Deterrent doesn't mean.. oh I'll leave right after this rocket pass... Deterrent means, G T F O now or die. Find somewhere less defended to vulch, because the players in that area clearly don't want you around.