Skyguard Vs Liberator...

Skyguard Certs and cost. 350 Nanites to spawn and Atleast 1000certs.
Liberator Certs and cost. 350 Nanites to spawn and 1000Certs.

Time to kill Skyguard > Liberator - About 20 seconds.
Time to kill Liberator > Skyguard - 3 seconds.

Balanced !?. NOT. Skyguard is more or less useless agaisnt infantry due to bulletspread (flak) which
is understandable, and is a free-meal for any tank - it sole purpose is to kill Air-unit.
Yet, even with enhanced TOP-armor, an ESF with Hornets or Liberator will kill it in 3 seconds.

I'm not asking for Skyguards to kill ESF's or Liberators in 3 seconds, i'm asking for INCREASED survivability
against the units which its suppose to kill. A Liberator killing a Skyguard in half the time it takes for the skyguard
to reload its weapon is ridiculous.

The skyguard just needs a tighter cof at best i reckon.

I'll agree that it's pretty frustrating to get ganked by a well piloted Lib.

But LIb's got nerfed pretty hard and are very fragile compared to how hearty they used to be.

Next time a Lib tries to pull the old 1 two punch on you ( Anti-tank nose gun + one shot from it's belly gun ) do this: Flak away as much as you can and on it's approach when it's getting ready to turn it's nose up for the belly kill shot, jump out of your lightning and fire off a Deci. Of course this means hoping into your lightning as a heavy, which most people don't do.

I've pissed off quite a few pilots that way. See if you get them close to about half health the deci finishes them off instantly.

Most people simply run away instead of trying to come up with a counter.

Okay, where to start...

Skyguard is as effective against infantry as it ought to be, in the sense that it can effectively repel LAs/HAs at close ranges. Anything more would be ridiculous.

That flak cannon also does a surprising amount of damage to armour, under sustained fire. In TvT situations, it actually allows you to be very maneuverable when compared to other AV units (except the Magrider, of course). The important thing to remember is that the appearance of weakness can be a very powerful tactical tool. It allows you to make better use of your support (which you ought to have, as a dedicated AA unit).

An attacking Liberator needs to be practically within sniffing distance of your Skyguard, having gotten there practically unnoticed, past all of your support (you ARE running Skyguards supported, right?) in order to get that Tankbuster working. This is extremely dangerous territory for any Liberator, so it warrants a concession in damage potency.

People like to forget how enormously anti air scales, in terms of numbers of units in an area. One Skyguard is going to be enough to push a Liberator away from an area for a moment, so long as the driver is aware of their surroundings. Two Skyguards is enough to make a hex a no-fly zone, so long as the air isn't choked with aircraft. Two of them hitting a single Liberator will chew it up and spit it out very rapidly, particularly if it is caught unawares.

The difficulty with AA in anything larger than a small fight is the fact that coordination is challenging at best. Whereas a fully manned Liberator has rather intuitive communication, most AA units tend to see a speck in the distance, panic and try to drop a clip into it at stupid distances. This is flat-out counterproductive. What would REALLY increase the potency of AA units would be a more logical mentality. Shoot as late as possible, stay as hidden as possible, focus on targets already under fire, etc. The Skyguard doesn't need any buffs, if used by smart combatants in the correct environments.

Tl;dr - Libs are high skill-high reward when attacking with TB. AA scales massively, so stop lone-wolfing. If you are getting shot up by armour, stop lone-wolfing. Playing smarter and being more aware is what the Skyguard and all anti air needs, not buffs.

and non of them are really a valid balance concern.... certs are just a one time delay wall and should never be used for balance, and currently nanite cost is pretty much useless due to the resource system and ability for anyone to be able to pull anything.

OOPS or not, he still has some valid concerns about the skygaurd vs air relationship, and its down right wonky. I want to see the flack mechanic removed from the skygaurd completely and make it more like a slower velocity, slower RPM higher damage walker (heavy walker maybe? could likely stay at 400-500m/s) something a lot harder to hit alert ESFs with but much better at hitting heavy hovering craft like libs and gals and podders making runs (low damage to tanks, but more threatening at range due to accuracy) less flack means it doesn't stack as well and means more skill required to score hits on ESFs.

While the original post is a bit off kilter, there IS a problem with the Liberator. It's supposed to be a gunship, a heavy bomber, but once upgrade has nearly the manoeuvrability of a stock ESF... which it shouldn't have.

The Liberator shouldn't be able to do half the turns and rolls and steep dives and recovers it can do, it's a heavy bomber... it should behave like one.

The problem with the Skyguard is that it is the best AA by being the shiniest of a pile of turds. It is too dedicated, too weak, and scales too badly. People wonder why there is so much AA everywhere, it is because so much AA is needed to counter air.

One of my pipe dreams for it was that it would replace whatever you had in your utility slot with a lockdown-esque ability that greatly increases flak damage, ROF, accuracy, and reloads are pretty much negligible. The downsides are:
-No FS or Smoke
-slow deploy and undeploy times (this isn't a iwin ability)
-is completely still when in use
-has a deploy radius of x
-would probably get a modifier that would make it weak to ground based AP and HEAT shells (force some combined arms).
-cannot be repaired by repair gun while occupied and ability is in use (repair sunderers could still repair it).
-"marked for death," (best way I could describe it) which means its spot length and auto-spot radius are much higher than a normal vehicle (stealth minimizes both by a bit, but not as much as on a regular Lightning)

The platform would go from mediocre to insane with this ability. 2 Skyguards in a hex would be able to clear said hex in a minute. Air would be required to rely on ground to take out these units. Luckily, the xp rewards for a ground unit taking out a deployed Skyguard would be much higher than the usual Skyguard, plus inevitable menace bonuses. This would force combined arms, air and ground coordination, and make Skyguards less bad. The Skyguard in this incarnation would be hard to spam, as the deploy radius would be large enough to guarantee no more than a few at most per hex. Unsure of what to do with Walker and Ranger, as those are also both dedicated AA weapons. Bursters can remain deterrents since they can be interchanged like the G2A launcher can.

If you are immobile against a lib you are dead if you are immobile against an ESF you'll likely end up dead. when fighting aircraft you want to ideally be on a flatish plain and moving while firing and during reload look ahead to preplan your direction changes to avoid collisions.

Even if skyguards had a lockdown ability i still wouldn't use it. there's a reason people don't use MAX lockdown because it's an "i want a coffin and i want to be in it now" ability.

and prowler lockdown is too situational to be useful. 9/10 i'll pull fire suppression since i so rarely find a nice spot and the chance to shell assorted enemy armor(seriously i pull it specifically to destroy well defended sundies from afar to out DPS the repair rate)

Magburn and Vanguard Shield are all useful in more then their intended role, this is what lockdown lacks (which i think could be fixed)

If i could tweak prowler lockdown i would make it so you can use a less powerful effect as a "battle frenzy" temp buff while still being able to deploy whenever as long as "battle frenzy" mode isn't on cooldown.

lockdown uses a different key then "use ability" so it *could* work.

The point some of you are missing is that while a Liberator is designed to kill all targets, the Skyguard is designed to
only kill Air, it is the primary AA-platform and everything else is a hazard. A unit specialized into a certain area needs
to have the upper hand.

And while some of you might want to play the 3/3 Vs 1/1 card, you have to remember that it only takes 1 pilot to fly
a Liberator and handle the main gun. Change the Toparmor to 50% all resists, and increase its price to 500Cert,
make it something you'd only want to invest into if you intend on being a dedicated Skyguard, but also make it worth the cert.

Don't you start giving people dangerous ideas D: Rebellion amongst peasants is most forbidden.

The guy below just got you pinned....

For my answer to this...

It's only because you were being an incompetent skyguard, as long as you don't let them tankbust your tiny tiny lightning -back side, you won't get 1 clipped. And if you minimally look around, you'll see them coming at you first, and you can get them down at that time.

But this has been talked about so much by people so much more informed than you that I won't bother anymore over here.

The idea is that you would use this with support and that no air unit would dare come close to you when locked down. Even a Lib would get shredded before they could approach from pretty much any angle. Add two more of these plus other units and you got yourself a no fly zone. Granted, the Lightning is fragile-ish like a MAX, but you would use this ability while decently far away from enemy infantry and things that OHK you would be less plentiful. Your main counter would be tanks, but that is somewhat resembling what the actual food chain is as far as what kills what.

Hi meeka

Give skyguards the ability to lockdown for increased rof and reload ;D
^Which is crazy and believeably balanced imo...


However on G2A balance atm

Everything in the air save A2A missiles can effectively kill ground targets. (because most targets cant fire back)
Here is grounds AA choices
Skyguard- has a ttk on it less than everything its designed to kill.
Ranger- Does this do anything lol???
Walker- Tickle enemy aircraft and if you're lucky he mistakes you for another esf and crashes into a cactus...
AA phalanx turret- Stationary platform target for all
bursters- The go to "Im hiding in my spawn room neener neener pew pew weapon"
G2A lock-ons- Easily countered with flares and if fought against properly leads to the death of the operator

Thats our AA. Good to know its only semi effective against air and completely useless once they leave leaving your vehicles as sitting ducks for any kind of AV...

Pilots tend to think "Why you no have dedicated AA nub?"
While the rest of us actually log on to play the game instead of sit in a skyguard waiting for someone to come by... Meanwhile your friends are having a blast over there in life or death fights with MBTs and infantry laughing hysterically being all excited and Im just sitting here watching the skies for airplanes I cant even kill... "Ooh look an esf pew pew air to air damage 5xp Woooot!"
Or maybe the occasional scrub pilot that flys in and gets blown up because all he's got is the nosegun. And within 5 minutes your spinning around in your desk chair waiting for something to happen, and what do you know you get popped by a lib who says you should be watching the sky forever... Which I would say is better than watching paint dry, but this is planetside and the sky outside tends to be nicer than that.

Honestly, outside of laughable guns the second most crucial thing is that AA is boring as ****. Had a friend who tried being a dedicated skyguard driver in support of my tank. I would get these awesome kills while hes watching the sky, over and over again. He no longer uses the skyguard. He didnt aurax it, it just got boring. You know whats not boring? Having an effective weapon. Talk to any lib pilot. "touch my TB and Ill cut you" kinda mentality and tbh if you try to touch anything involving the skyknights their feathers get all flustered. What? Nubs cant have weapons effective against my beautiful piece of machinery I spent 7 quadrillion certs in my sky fortress of doom how can your 1000 cert AA weapon be effective against me?

Examples See:
Lock-on threads (omfg lockons are OP because they kill me with my fire sup...)
G2A threads
The thread with how to kill an MBT in 4s

Well lets just say this then, C4 should no longer kill my tanks instantly because thats only like 600 certs and Ive spent 6000 certs on my tank and I've got 2 people so OP.

You argue that ITS NOT OP BECAUSE I KNOW MORE THAN YOU!

Well gratz, maybe they know something you don't. Drive 10 days in a mbt. Or a lightning. or any ground vehicle and see how quickly you die to these guys.

Meanwhile the ttk on these vehicles is low enough that its simple as hell to kill them.

When I pull my mossie its usually a A2G loadout with max stealth its really not that hard to get behind enemy vehicles and lay my payload into them and then skedaddle.

So yeah I'll just leave this here
-drives away on stealth prowler-

Wat. You'd have better luck trying to run those buggers over than hitting them with the Skyguard part of your Skyguard. Or did you forget about the COF this thing has?

People also forget how enormously aircrafts scale as well.

And that one bit about one Skyguard being enough to force a Liberator to retreat is blatantly false. I'd suggest checking your facts.

XXX

You know what? I want a Shredder turret on my Skyguard; adjust resist values against not aircraft targets if needed. And some good AA lockon in the second slot (ESF have to weapon systems in one system, right?), if this vehicle is supposed to be AA only.

• They added loud engine sounds to the Lib, you should be able to hear it coming to tank-bust.
• Personally, I think Top Armour should halve the damage of all air-based weapons against the Skyguard from every direction, with a penalty of -5% to armour against all other weapons (to dissuade other load-outs using it). Its present form is not very useful.
• Stealth is probably the best defence option, if you relocate regularly, you should be able to ambush aircraft effectively, and it makes it harder for them to line up on your rear armour out of LoS.
• Personally, I think that the Skyguard should have a second fire mode either accessed through numbers or mouse-wheel (like ESF weapons), or by pressing "b" to change fire mode. This would give a fire mode with half the RoF, but lower CoF (from 1.25 down to 0.70), and increased velocity from 400 m/s to 500 m/s.

4 skyguards working together are pretty awesome !!!

And 4 Liberators working together will kill them with Alpha-strikes... what's your point ?.

So are 4 Liberators working together. 4 Liberators working together can probably kill 4 Skyguards working together. Anything working together is awesome, just that for some reason air isn't required to do it.

I almost never pull skyguard to fight air, becuase double burster MAX almost always seems a better option.
MAX is slower, but its more mobile so you can hide from enemy fire behind rocks, trees or inside the building, while still being able to shoot enemy air. Finding good cover for skyguard is at least troublesome.
Lighting has more armor, but when its blown to pieces - you lose 350 resources, while MAX can be just ressurected as long as there is a medic nearby.
Now lets assume you did a good job at deterrence and enemy air leaves the area. Not a problem for MAX - just change your weapon and be usefull to your faction again. When using skyguard you can either relax and watch empty sky or dump your AA tank and waste 350 resources.

Im pretty sure its because they believe they are supposed to be playing this game in the singular sense and get this... not as a team.
Works cited:
Every A2A missile thread.

And that is one of the main problems atm is the flexability of the ground is 0.

A good idea for that I think is to have garages (like in a tower or certain bases) that allow you to switch loadouts, camo schemes etc.

Which would allow the volume of AA to go up and could help resolve the issue, and maybe balance it. (which it honestly could)