Lock on missiles cannot attack aircraft at ranges where aircraft can pick off infantry. This is unbalanced.
Lock-on is awfully short. However, one should not expect aircraft to not have superior munitions compared to infantry.
They need to make it so you can upgrade range or lock on time with certs like they did with the AA missiles for the ESF
Imo lock-on range is fine as is. Infantry's long range AA option is the Burster MAX, which is perfectly capable of at least driving off threatening aircraft at any range where they'd be a threat.
Maybe one doesn't want to spend the rest of his life inside MAX armor just to drive away couple of ESF
Use Striker ... against air it has infinite lock on range, other shoulder held missiles have lockon ranges of infantry render range. With 0 second lock on time. Faster missile velocity then all other heatseeker missiles. Did I mention its the only shoulder held heat seeker. Magazine fed. Does 3 times more damage then the dumb fire lancer at long distance. Just aim towards the enemy and fire You will never go for a skyguard or burster max.
Have you ever actually tried using a lancer to takeout ESFs, you have better luck using dumb fire, or 4th faction to TR so you get instant lockon missiles as Striker
why yes, yes i have its actually fairly easy when you consider the lack of drop and INSANE velocity, most of the time you wont even have to lead the target if its close enough, just aim and fire, after 2 shots its burning but it'll usually have taken the tiny bit of damage needed to kill it outright. they also deal pretty awesome damage to libs, and hitting a lib is easypeasy, even at max range
Do what I do, hide indoors and wait for someone to spend nanites on a Skyguard or Ranger harasser or both. Oh, wait, I got those backwards.
STriker aside, lock-on range is much further than infantry render distance, and about the same as AA turrets, around 450m....Infantry render is about 300m. An esf renders at around 750m, so if you are infantry, there's a sweet spot for distance. And to target or shoot infantry outside of vehicle, an ESF or any air vehicle has to be in range of that lock-on. There's about a 50% advantge in lock-on versus infantry render distance, and the missiles follow much further. If you get a lock, the pilot doesn't have any indication where the lock is coming from missile's away, if they're mini-map aware, and pretty good idea where fired from, but no longer have thermals to help them hunt you down. An ESF dreads those red orbs approaching from the ground, but before this update, a LIB just laughed....not sure if belly armor change will affect this.
For the record, I dislike that flak now obliterates instead of deters. I'd much prefer it if people pulled esf's to deal with esf's, and similar with ground vehicles, a far fetched notion, I know. I get that it takes quite an investment to get vehicles to a stage of them being combat effective, but for me, thats a big part of what made this game fun. I'm not saying infantry should be defenceless, but the game now just seems very watered down and generic in its approach.
I agree with this post. Between the Air Hammer, Banshee, Light PPA. the infantry need something to fight back with. And do to the lock on nerfs, AND damage nerfs. Aircraft are now becoming night untouchable by anything save a dedicated AA MAX. Even AA base defenses got the nerf hammer to their accuracy. And sky-gaurds got the same treatment. quit doing this. they'vegot Flak armor. That's good enough. Stop punishing players for using flak cannons.
