C'mon, I can't be the only one who thinks this is a good idea. NC: Flakpanzer-like vehicle, except with one big auto-cannon, fires large, heavy, high-velocity fragmentation rounds that explode into a forward burst of shrapnel (Something like how modern Air-to-Air warheads works TR: No "Modern" equivalent, but I'm thinking just lots of miniguns, fill the sky with lead. VS: Here I've kinda hit a problem. The VS tank has no turret, and as a result, no elevation. Honestly, not sure WHAT could be done here besides some form of imprecise airburst mortar thing?
Honestly there isn't really a need for more AA. As frustrating as it can be as a lone wolf trying to run lockons or driving a sky guard AA scales exponentially. One skyguard= deter all but foolish esf pilots, can be killed by a skilled and determined lib Two skyguard= death to esfs save the most skillful at running, death to a lib Three skyguard= area is a complete no fly for esfs, libs only in numbers but expect severe casualties, galaxies are a one way trip For each skyguard=3 AA heavies=1.5 buster maxes Not to mention smallarms, walkers, and basilisks Adding anything more potent than what we have will completely shut air down regardless of numbers.
Which is kind of the point, AA is a specialized animal, and dedicating 3 people to AA duty is a quarter of a squad, and they cover a limited area. Heavier AA should enforce total no-fly zones by themselves, requiring a ground-based attack to bring down. This would allow armor collumns to be relatively safe to Air raids, and defend Sunderers from the depredations of Libs and ESFs without needing undue amounts of manpower.
AA for heavies is not a specialized duty. 3 AA es lockons that can be dumbfired does not drastically hamper their ability to continue fighting. Air shows up? Lock and fire. The air either leaves or explodes. Go right back to the fight. They don't have to just sit as AA hoping for an esf to show up. This is just for a 12v12 style fight. 3 heavies in a larger fight is even less taxing. 48v48 now those 3 guys on either side are now 12: area is locked down. Or if you want to keep more men COMPLETELY focusing on infantryside have 3 guys pull maxes or skyguards, same result. Armor columns are the absolute hardest thing to engage already as air as every default secondary slot is more than capable of engaging. 4 stock mbts with gunners and a stock sundered with gunners are more than enough to ruin any aircrafts day. That's without a skyguard or 2 mixed in. Having one vehicle becoming a air-space denial weapon would be extremely game breaking unless the maximum engagement range was 100m. As I said anything more powerful than what we currently have would be terrible for ALL aircraft because it scales exponentially, once you hit critical mass no amount of air power regardless of load out can engage. That would be like changing maxes to where 4 of them on a point would stop all attempts at the point no matter how many rockets/grenades/c4/bullets/expletives you brought in. It's not feasible balance wise. Tl;dr 3 guys get drawn from a ground fight will make you immune to air already
Everything scales with numbers. 1 raven is a pain, 5 ravens obliterate everything. 1 AV mana is a pain, 5AV manas obliterate everything. 1 lancer is a pain, 5 lancers obliterate everything. What exactly is different between setting up an AV shop, creating a no-mans land for ground mech and creating an AA zone? Why air is supposedly entitled to being able to fly everywhere? Skyguards are probably the worst vehicles in the game, given their profit/investment ratio. If i meet a harasser or any tank in a skyguard i am done and out of 350n. Air meets a skyguard, chances are they get repair xp for their "sacrifice" Lol. 12v12 can be farmed by air all day long. Give them 2 trees and a tower and you will never get a lock on their ***, not to mention that in a tight combat you don't have time to look up in the sky for 5 seconds because yourr kidneys get pumped with lead before long. It's not an intense battle if 12 guys can be on a fulltime AA duty. Infantry is at the bottom of the totem pole and doesn't have time to look in the sky if there are dozens of immediate threats around. Also, people are in it for the farm and meatgrinding is more profitable than that sweet 20xp of air deterrence. And all that before you even start looking at the terrain on Amerish or Hossin where air can easily get within 50m without being seen because mountains and huge trees everywhere. They don't play the same game as the rest of peasantry.
The difference with the scaling is that unless the esf is flying extremely low to the ground everything and I mean EVERYTHING can shoot at it, often from multiple hexes at the same time. The same does not apply to infantry or vehicles except in rare circumstances. The equivalent would be fighting in an open field with only a crate for cover duck but 3 guys from 3 different directions are shooting at you and may or may not be rendering. Yes, air farming 12v12 is problematic I do agree but air is also shut out of large battles where other vehicles or classes are not. The unfortunate truth in this case however is that you cannot balance air around 12v12 infantry battles otherwise 24v24+ means game over for anything off the ground, no ground attacks no sneaky valkyrie no gal drop reinforcements, nothing. Air used to be severely overpowered now it is more just and annoyance to ground unless they have NO aa at all. Yeah it sucks that you can't infantry only 12v12 without potential for outside interference (save biolabs) but that's planetside. Your battle is not a match taking place in a vacuum. This isn't cod or battlefield. You don't just get to shutdown a third of the game without putting a little more effort in than spawning one tank. As an edit I did not say that 12 need to be dedicated aa, 12 locking toting heavies makes the hex immune to air. OR you could pull just 3 sky guards and get the same effect.
I wasn't refering to Heavy Assaults, I meant "Heavier" as in MBTs are heavier than Skyguards. Except in extreme cases or simply having your own ESFs, anti-aircraft weaponry is a "Deterent", one that only scares aircraft rather than being an effectively way to kill them, as they can run away, repair, repeat, endlessly. And then one C4 fairy, or worse, someone in a ground combat vehicle, even a flash, shows up. You're dead, do not pass go, do not recollect your 350. A Tank-sized AA vehicle with a top-mounted Halberd, or other non-AA weapon could fight off harassers, gun down C-4 Fairies, and require actual effort to dislodge as opposed to trivial effort, and potentially have the firepower to really put down a plane before they can run away.
Well I mean, allowing an mbt to be converted to an anti-air platform, probably won't contribute to the AA problem. You'll probably just get the same number of people as before. The issue is nerfing AA as a whole. I say just make the MBT have an AA platform that's weak, and bring it into the game with every AA system nerfed hard. Maybe the MBT one can be either use double walkers, or cannons.
The difference is that there's no cover in the sky, so AA in one spot can easily cover a full hex, while AV can really only cover one approach and only between certain bases. I'll agree that skyguards are too limited, but I'd rather see them become more versatile than better against aircraft. If vehicle loadout switching is never going to be a thing, and variable resource pricing based on weapons won't be a thing either, then the only option to make skyguards more useful when the aircraft are gone is to make them better against armor. Personally, I think the game needs more skill-based AA. The only time AA is fun is when you're doing things like dumbfiring ESFs or shooting them down with your Titan AP, because a) you earned the kill, and b) you always get a kill when you get a hit. These things are too hard to do against skilled/aware/distant pilots, but the devs could easily design an AA cannon which takes, say, 3 shots to kill an ESF and has the velocity to hit reliably, provided you can lead well. Such a cannon could also be moderately effective against vehicles, doing low damage but with great range and accuracy.
On the other hand mech can only approach through defined routes, limited hard by the terrain that facilitates brutal ambushes and outside of harassers and maybe magspiders it cannot press turbo to escape. Also LoS works both ways so if skyguards sees you, chances are you see him and you did so first. Also hossin and amerish are so chock full of cover for air it's not funny. Also air is the formation that has all the initiative everybody else is reactive, if you commit to a lousy fight having all the cards, it's on you. Also TTK against air is not that brutal given its lack of weak spots, in a realistic scenario and with realistic accuracy you dump skyguard mag for 10 seconds and nothing because point blank melts generally don't happen. Once you get past ESFs TTK is even more pathetic, dat 30sec plinking against a lib >_< i can agree with that. Skill based AA would be nice. Skyguard is utter shiat because it's "easy" to use due to flak range (though the amount of leading is ridiculous given its 400m/s according to the internet while a ******* gatekeeper sports 500m/s against dog slow targets) but in order to curb it effectiveness it is made so inaccurate it's bad even against a broad side of a barn and everything on the ground by extension. Possible skill ceiling is really low, you can know all the evasive maneuvers airjocks do yet your fire will be evaded and there is not much you can do about it. As for its secondary utility, to this day i don't understand why it's not made actually viable against harassers which would make it not as painful to pull. Meh AA + ghetto AV support/AI suppression would be pretty tolerable.
Maybe it would be simpler to simply give MBTs a version of Skyguard. One that is extra deadly against aircraft, but total nanites against anything else. Imho it would be pretty balanced since they lose their main cannon, but they arent totally defenseless if they have a second gunner. Unless of course they're running with a basilisk as a secondary.
I'd give all three MBTs an NS set of weapons. a main AA tank gun for hitting low flying heavy aircraft (libs and gals, mounted on the top turret section on a magrider) such as hovering over a tower base. damaging enough to stop them lingering and deadly enough that they can't be facetanked like skyguard. pair it with a kobalt secondary (driver controlled) converts MBT to an AA MBT 1/1 good against heavy air, can defend AP tanks from infantry but sucky vs other tanks and still vulnerable to ESFs.
Vanguard is already best AA because of projectile velocity and damage! Slap a walker on it and you have the beast mode AA tank.
I would rather steer away from all skill-reducing mechanics such as flak. NC: Fires a Viper-style canon without bullet drop. Shells are relatively slow but are incredibly powerful against aircraft. The slowness means this is a Liberator/Galaxy killer rather than an ESF killer, and gives them the oppertunity for evasive action. TR: Something akin to a Walker or accurate Tank-Buster for aircraft, sure! Similar to the NC, make the bullets relatively slow so ESF are tough targets and it's more a liberator/Galaxy killer. VS: Just give it a high elevation, shouldn't be a problem but might look weird. Perhaps allow it to fire a more accurate and fast plasma beam at the cost of DPS compared to the NC/VS version. Other versions could include: Fire a self-detonated flak weapon. When detonated the shell will release an incredible amount of flak pellets in all directions, or in a shotgun pattern forwards if that's your fancy with maybe the ability to switch between these fire modes with X or B. Add a distance meter to show the closest aircraft compared to the shell while in flight. You can fire multiple shells at a time and will detonate them one at a time in order of what was fired first. The large amount of flak pellets per shell can potentially rip aircraft apart, but requires a ton of skill to get good hits on enemy aircraft due to the slow velocity of the original shell. Vehicle EMP: Fires tiny EMP bombs, deal low damage but each hit temporarily reduces the aircraft's agility and sucks away afterburner fuel and stacks with each other. Basically kills aircraft through immobilization if the aircraft doesn't turn to the sky and flee in time, but any aircraft that does manage to look to an empty part of sky and starts flying will be able to escape no matter how many bombs hit. Camera-guided shell: Fire a shell that flies like a normal shell with high velocity, can be steered a little bit for better accuracy. You get several shots per magazine but similar to a Phoenix missile are bound by the off-time during shell flight for DPS. Could cause a lot of trouble since you'll travel large distances fast and then have to reload your screen to your vehicle 600m back from where the shell exploded. Probably more idea's out there.
