Reasonable changes to AA

So, first off, I will not be going too far into detail regarding the relationship between AA and air. If you are interested in seeing or participating inthat debate, read one of the other threads. To sum up, the true source of ineffectiveness for AA is:

1. Inability to coordinate between air and ground forces. This is a whole other can of worms, as this is something that game is lacking in a general sense.

2. Lack of versatility for AA. It IS effective at keeping air out of an airspace, but misses out on kills because it lacks mobility. It is effective at nothing when there is no air around, to the point of being removed from the battle.

If AA is buffed against air, all that will do is remove viable targets for AA, further reducing it in effectiveness in a general sense. To solve this problem, AA needs to be improved vs infantry and light vehicles.

Light vehicles can easily be fixed to allow flak to damage it; allow flak to burst on harassers/flashes, maybe all ground vehicles. You can adjust the resistances so flak is still a poor choice vs heavy armor, but allowing flak to burst on harassers and flashes makes putting comp armor in that slot a viable option.

How to improve against infantry? Select fire. Flak autobursts on vehicles by default, but the burst distance can be set in increments of 100m, down to 10m in the 100-10m range. Change resistances as necessary, flak armor mostly negates.

Get rid of turret constraints for walker and ranger, let them point down. How to stop them from being OP against infantry? Can shield resistance to weapons be adjusted? Make walker low damage and shield piercing, or low shield damage and keep current damage to actual health. Give ranger the same select fire options.

Any objections?

I get in my Skyguard with the intent to reduce every pilot in sight to flaming wreckage.

I do not get in my Skyguard wanting to mow down infantry. If that's the case, then there are better options out there.

Honestly it's fine to me if there's a lack of air targets because I killed them all. At least I have the satisfaction that I have removed a threat to my faction on that continent. That is very different from how it is now, that either I completely fail to prevent aircraft from attacking my ground buddies, or that I damage them and cause them to slip away.

Essentially, AA deserves major lethality buffs because it lacks mobility. In A2A you have options to keep up with your target, so high DPS isn't as important. But AA needs significantly higher DPS because the window of engagement is so much shorter.

This idiot things the key to fixing AA, is making it better at farming infantry.

Obviously not, but if the air clears the airspace, what then? What if no air comes for a long time? You can't easily redeploy a skyguard.

If you buff AA lethality there becomes no reason to pull air in the first place. There is already plenty of AA, when people decide it's worth pulling. If you cause aircraft to run, it's not doing anything productive until it repairs and reengages. This take longer than a ground vehicle because of challenges inherent to being an aircraft. If you make it so that AA can reasonably kill air in every 1v1, even if the ESF tries to escape, then that ESF dies every time it enters A2G combat. It wouldn't be worth pulling.

But please, let's continue this discussion on the other thread. Read through it first, please.

AA is almost 100% ineffective at KILLING infantry. AA cannot and never has been viable for killing infantry. Make AA as viable at killing infantry as AV is at killing infantry. Bam, problem solved.

Do you even realize how short a lifespan Skyguards and Bursters have on the battlefield? Literally EVERYTHING can kill them!

Dude this is one time where I'm fully in agreement with Chingles. You clearly need less time in the cockpit.

Lolwut? Bro, you LITERALLY don't even skyguard, get out of here. If they have a short lifespan, it's because they redeploy out of boredom.

And, once again, only 1/6 of my time in game is spent in the cockpit. I'm fine.

This may explain part of the reason AA is so ineffective against infantry.



Making the shots converge on target could be an easy one to fix. It would certainly give Burster Maxes a bit more of a chance against C4 faeries.

Would rather AA be effective against air , since its actually not , unless we talking 4-8 sources against a single esf . 4-8 won't even kill a lib

AA MAX is a little too weak vs infantry, IMO. You can practically 1v1 a burster MAX as any class and win by outmaneuvering him.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...g-that-doesnt-fear-its-counter.239488/page-25

Nobody pulls AA because they want to kill infantry. My god, you are just DUMB!

yes i'm aware of that thread , my point still stands

Obviously not. However, when air leaves the vicinity, what then does AA do? The primary problem with AA isn't that it's not effective against aircraft. It's that there's nothing for it to do when there are no aircraft. Obviously your focus stays air, but when there isn't any air, you don't have to switch vehicles/loadouts to be effective. That way, when air comes back, you're already ready.

4-8 sources of AA is WAY more than enough. This point has been argued to death. I will not argue it here. If you have a point you want to make, one that hasn't already been refuted, post on that thread.

See your wrong here

it SOUNDS like alot , but in practice it isn't. Not everyone is going to notice X particular aircraft , only X amount of those will be able to engage said aircraft , only X amount of whats left is going to be able to apply damage so said aircraft ( ha's firing into terrain/tree branch over lock on/friendlies just in the way ) that is unless you plan to assault a column with a single aircraft at mid/low altitude in a open field

You can spot with Q-spot and Engagement Radar on Skyguard. Burster Maxes can swivel pretty quickly. Lock On Launchers have a wide field of view. G30/G40 are also great to mix it up. It takes 6 hornets to take out a Skyguard and 4+ well aimed Hornets to a Max. You are definitely underestimating the challenge to Aircraft.

It depends entirely on positioning and terrain, yes. You're still overestimating the difficulty of targeting air in most environments. It's not hard to protect the bulk of your forces while moving with them. It's also not difficult to find terrain that gives you a clear view of the airspace over friendly ground vehicles. Yes, you can evade lock ons. This isn't easy, nor is it always possible. Besides, if you couldn't evade, you could basically get insta-gibbed any time 3 people got together to pull lock ons.

Again, if you've got an argument to make about the effectiveness of AA, do it over there. There's already plenty of material for you to go over there.

Seems a vehicle option for primary AA weapon with secondary AI mini-gun for protection is what you're looking for.

engagement radar on a skygurad is not useful , lock on launcher do not have a wide field of view ( seriously have you ever use one ? )
It only takes 1 harasser to kill a skyguard ( i mean this is a combined arm game , air should not be different ) and there is no reason that there is only 1 esf in the area throw in 3 esf and a lib and most of the AA is either eaten or does to little dmg

Annihilator Lock On does 60% damage to an ESF alone. 3 Slow Swarm missiles does about the same. Dual Burster Max TTK is about 4 seconds against a hovering ESF. Skyguard and AA Turrets have good TTK too.