Official Phoenix Launcher Thread

i die more with the phoenix i going to use shrike instead its better

only in VR area

Love the reload animation.

Feels like it needs 350m range imo. We need to wait and see how vehicles react to this first though, I imagine they will all start sitting exactly 305m away from bases and keep spamming instant kill explosions into them blindly. That's an issue with base design though, not launchers.

It's hard to steer initially, but you pick it up pretty quick.

The hit detection seems to be a little off, I've put the center point through an infantry's head in VR and missed them completely multiple times. I've also flown under vehicles like magriders and sunderers when I definitely should have hit them.

Can't one shot an infantry. Seems reasonable enough to me, seems to still two shot MAXes, and that's really all I care about as far as that goes. Shouldn't have ever had any launcher be one hit kill against squishies to begin with, at least in my opinion(with the exception of blowing up engineer turrets, as that's detonating a vehicle). Might have a larger splash radius than other launchers though? I only had a near miss once, shaved half a MAX's health off.

The initial speed and lack of control is a little too disconcerting, please fix it as it creates a huge area around the launcher where it is more or less a worse dumbfire launcher. Again, it can't one hit kill infantry so why balance around preventing it from hitting infantry?

That's all I've got for now.

I bought it thinking it would be awesome, very disappointed.

- The range is way to short, I can only just hit tanks that are shelling a base from a hill directly overlooking it, I couldn't hit them with the shrike but an annihilator would be better then this weapon for this instance
- The missile disappears why? Once the range is exceeded why doesn't the missile just keep traveling in a straight line (with drop) so I can't hit that tank that was literally covering my entire screen one second ago.
- The speed is way too slow, targets move way out of the way before my missile gets there
- bugs - The missile clips through the wings of scythes but can hit the body, thats great considering the wings are 90% of this aircraft

So, my enterprising squad and I took our newly acquired Phoenixes out to test against some TR on Connery.

tl;dr: bloodbath. Hilarity. I am coming up with Phoenix drinking games now.

No Sunderer seems safe. At a long enough distance, we were arcing it over rocks - we destroyed multiple Sunderers that were behind cover (but at a low angle of deflection) where we could just curve the missile into the Sundy.

Taking out tanks is more challenging and requires 'leading' the target, but given that there's no lock-on warning, it's hard to know the missile is coming for you. You can't simply aim it directly at a moving object and fire, arcing it into the object, but you can lead the target to where it's going to be in 2-3 seconds, fire it and then guide it into the target.

I giggled like a schoolgirl when I started killing burster MAXes with it from behind cover. It also 1-shots infantry it seems like - that might be a little overpowered for the guidance (tiring of killing Sunderers, I decided to start picking off the engineers and snipers).

The only criticisms I have are this:

1: Range is very limited. Not nearly as far as lock-ons or dumbfires. That makes it more situational, but seems like the only balancing point. I have some suggestions (below) for this.

2: Missile despawns. While it's debatable whether or not it should, I think that this mechanic should be the same across all missiles. Lock-ons do not despawn when lock is broken, and seem to explode when their timer runs out. One or the other should probably happen here - either just make it explode (the splash damage isn't large, anyway) or make it continue on as a dumbfire.

3: Damage against infantry might need a little work. While I found it hilarious to counter-snipe snipers with my rocket launcher, I probably shouldn't be able to.

4: Damage against air vehicles might need a little work. I hit an ESF twice, and it seemed to do less damage than the Shrike, rather than more. Hitting a Mosquito or a Scythe is incredibly challenging and should be rewarded.


I do have a suggestion - not just for ESRL, but for all rocket launchers (including the TR and VS):

Different ammunition types by certification. Cluster munitions for anti-infantry, armor-piercing for anti-tank, air-burst for anti-air. Make them able to be detonated by simply clicking again. Give the Vanu and Terran Republic benefits revolving around the same; I should have to have some kind of penalty somewhere - this thing doesn't seem to have a downside except range, and that can be overcome pretty quickly. I would rather have to specify the type of ammo I'm carrying in order to be effective against a single target type so that I can't just kill everything with a squad of these.

I just tried it in VR, it seems to just dumbfire for me, the camera doesn't follow the projectile. Tried it with 12 rockets and logged out of VR and logged back in, same thing.

Yeah, considering how hard it is to control comparatively and how limited the range is, the damage is pretty sad, and certainly nowhere near where we were made to believe it would be. Even overlooking the fact that it's terribly buggy and just randomly dumbfires with no tv-guided control half the time you fire it right now though, I'm betting most other complaints about it/how clunky it is for most people to use would be a lot less severe if it did anywhere near the "heavy payload" damage to make it worth using. As it is, though, it's almost useless as an anti-vehicle weapon right now.

LMFAO, this thread is now the redirect from the official feedback thread, I wonder which mod plays NC.

Seems the Deci is still the best choice

I had been healed. Problem is I was ADSing another person so I was more or less static. But anyways there were 3 or 4 good NC players using the phoenix and killing our own infantry.

Same guy who wrote that the Jackhammer has extended fire capabilities.

So is anyone else a little disappointed?

It's slow speed, short range, poor turning circle all mean its much easier to hit infantry with then vehicles, almost impossible to hit aircraft unless you get a little lucky with a low BR enemy.

I was using it from vanu archives and crossroads watchtower, I found that killing infantry was super easy and I would say 70-80% of my rockets had a kill.
Against tanks the missiles are far too slow to get to the target before he moves, the turning circle is too slow to follow him.

I think that if the velocity and range were increased (velocity a lot) it might be useful against vehicles but for now it will just be another source of forum butt hurt and eventually get nerfed to be useless against infantry as well.

Anyone had better luck then me?

EDIT: also, 3 rockets to take down an ESF??
SOE proves their word is worth nothing yet again..

Only dumbfire for me and no rocket camera. Sh/t is a broken implementation.

I actually have it, bought it with 1000 certs (which took me almost 2 weeks to get that much...) I used it for around 2 hours, and I only got 1 mosy kill . R.I.P my 1000 certs.

wait, so our sh*tty Lancer got a special anti infantry nerf, and now they start using the phoenix as AI? SOE, y u do this to us

Max Range is to low by about 100 or 50 meters.
DPS is pretty low due to the reloading not happening until missile impact or de spawn.

Also you should be able to prematurely detonate the missile if you miss.
A range finder in the Visor would be nice and so would a fuell bar.

The best way for the phoenix to be "literally" the worst implemented weapon ever was if it wasn't called the phoenix, but rather "the worst implemented weapon ever."

Lancer is pheonix 5.0, just start grouping and stop going solo and you'll see.

The new launchers are all supposed to be anti-vehicle only, I would much rather it be effective against vehicles instead of infantry.
It just seems like they didn't think it through, they probably thought slow speed = infantry can run away easier!
Instead its slow speed = easier to follow and hit infantry even if they move in random directions.

Higby: We don't want NC to fire these things from behind cover and shoot at infantry.
NC: Stay in spawn room/behind cover and one shot infantry.

:|

Why do they one shot infantry? Why do they do any more than 25% damage? I've seen several situations now where mass rocket fire has pushed infantry/armour back. Im supprised when its not rainging small super fast blue flashes everywhere.