So higby want's Air to stay overpowered

Not at all, I agree that players shouldn't have to invest in so many certs to be effective against aircraft. I think the damage is pretty spot on how a single burster will scare them away, but players shouldn't be limited to a single burster from the beginning - they should be able to kill aircraft (especially hoverspammers with rocketpods). The skyguard definitely needs to be buffed, right now it's fairly useless. But besides that, it's pretty good, it's just that there are very few people even pulling it. Two single burster MAXs are OK for dealing with air, but two dual bursters will melt it. I agree that it doesn't fix the problem entirely because of the cert grind for AA yet everyone gets air to start, but it is 1000 for rocketpods too.

Oh yeah. Eventually, I'll invest into AA. Eventually. When I have everything else pretty much maxed.

But right now, by certing into things that actually improve my efficiency, I will gain certs faster, and become "better" in the long term.

If they unlock them. People tend to think a while before spending 1k certs on something.

If anything, everyone will look at the stats, the forum, and how AA guns perform in game when they're nearby and figure out why nearly nobody uses them.
Then they'll spend those 1000 cert points to p!mp their ESF.

Only the few people who are oblivious to what the game looks like will try the Skyguard. Then they'll probably complain very loudly that it doesn't work as the description suggests it should, making even more players not spend 1000 certs on it.

I dunno if its been said because this page is 6 pages long.

But it was stated in a recent interview that there are plans to give Infantry more tools to deal with air.

I don't really find air OP though so I don't care either way.

They need to fix the issue with bailing/suicide pilots very soon, because I agree that it feels unrewarding shooting down aircraft. The only satisfaction is that they might have a vehicle timer. Once they do it will be great fun to hit them with a few rounds of flak and get credit for a whole kill as they freak out and crash

actually, a 4th generation stinger can easily get down a FA-18.

all aircraft in PS2 are jets.
they are VTOL jet

Which as I described before will only make infantry OP against air.

Sigh.

Because some pilots are smart and fly high until they are in the target area, then drop down let out rockets from 400 meters and then fly back above AA range.

What I would do in that situation is shoot them when they drop to shoot.

BUFF AA!!! NERF A2G Rockets!!!

Skyguards Suck!

While the Skyguard and base turrets remain useless...

The "More ways for infantry to deal with planes" should include:

-A deployable A30 Walker for the Engy, just like the current heavy machine gun is in fact the .50 cal anti-infantry upgrade turret vehicles use (forgot the name).
-An A30 Walker that works so Sundies and tanks buy it for passengers to shot planes with.
-Base turrets that could tank a whole rocket pod salvo and then kill the ESF before it reloads if it wants to hover right next to one.

Not much creativity, but it could all get added quickly. Then the Skyguard could be on par with the base turret in terms of TTK.

This should then be tested on some closed test server to see if planes are able to do SEAD missions when they cooperate, but lone wolf pilots have a really hard time. Once it works that way, it should get implemented.

None of you guys play as a team, its obvious to me... Our squad regularly pulls AA and gets in Phalanx turrets during defence and they destroy PLENTY of air. Our pilots lure enemy fighters over the AA cover, and finish them off when they retreat from the flak. If you think as a single troop that you should have half a chance versus a player spending 300 resource you are deluding yourself.

Learn to play air and get missles, sort the problem out yourself. The problem that most in this thread are afflicted with is that they see a problem (air - rocketpods) but they don't want to do anything personally about it, they just hope their empire picks up the slack. Some folk might say "But I'm dedicated ground troop". Well that's fine, but if there is not enough AA ESFs, that's partly because of your stubbornness to pull / learn Air and deal direct with the problem you have identified... It's these class dedicated players who are more than likely sitting on 750 aerospace, while the dedicated pilots they really need the help from are drained out...

I've said it about 30 times, and I will continue to say it:

WHY DOES AA NEED TO "WORK AS A TEAM" WHILE ESF'S CAN SOLO AT, AI, AND AA?

It's not that simple. Tanks don't trump infantry, unless certed and equipped to do so. Air doesn't trump tanks, unless it is certed and equipped to do so, and etc. This game is about specializing in certain skills, not a rock paper scissor balance. Air that specializes in A2G lack A2A capabilities and are easily taken out with a fire and forget. Sure it might seem a bit OP that rocket pods are effective against vehicles and infantry, but as you said it takes skill to be a good pilot so you don't see as many A2G ESFs as say Battle Tanks or Lightnings.

Uh, NO.
While I could understand that argument for Secondary vehicle and MAX weapons, the Skyguard IS a dedicated Anti-air platform.

Should a Skyguard ruin a pilots day?
YES.
You should need a major skill advantage or, preferably, coordination with other air units to take one out.
Why?
Because it is a weapon specifically dedicated to killing aircraft!
If you're good with it, you can damage Infantry, but you're probably better off just running them over.
Not to mention you are pretty much dead if you encounter anything more then an unarmed enemy Flash on the road, as the Lightning doesn't HAVE the secondary weapon slot of an ESF to take on other ground vehicles...

That depends...
Does your "Anti-air" Mosquito have a gun that is ONLY useful against other aircraft in addition to it's AA Missiles?
Are you a pure dog-fighter, screwed in the off chance you find yourself over an Amp Station with every AA Turret trained on you?

Indeed, from the sounds of it Man Portable AA is in the right spot, it can damage Aircraft enough to scare them off.
Since Infantry can hide fairly effectively from Air with a bit of cover and have a rendering advantage, this seems fair.

It's when we start compairing AA Phalanx Turrets and Skyguards to the Super Effective Rocketpods that we start having trouble...

Yeah, I'm not that bothered by air dominance myself... but that's because I normally WALK everywhere in this game...
I'm hesitant to pull a vehicle if it is almost instantly going to be nuked, which happens a LOT when the enemy owns the skys.

You lost all credibilty when you talked about phalanx turret lol... They get blown in 2 sec by rocket spam .
The argument of needing team to kill solo aircraft is also flawed. AA can only kill Air, AA should **** Air, and it should take AIR combined team effort to kill an AA plateform.

There is no reason an aircraft that are better speed / maneuvrability should do better than a ******* tank, so the argument of costing 300 resources (great you have a pool just for aircraft) is moot.

I'm pretty sure the stats speak for themself and the dev have them, not sure why this isn't fixed as it's gonna drive ppl out FAST.

My feelings on vehicles as a whole can be simply stated as they are overrated.

The resource cost, timer, and cert cost bloat the value of these tools more than they are worth making them imbalanced in the grand scheme of things.

The over all health of all vehicles (in this specific case air) is really unfortunate. This eliminates tactical elements in favor of just hunting easy pray. They hover around bases and don't really have to excel at flying. While playing an AA max I couldn't get a scythe down below half health before they lazily flew away. This is why I see it as imbalanced. When the hard counter doesn't do much more than cause turbulence that is an issue. A pilots benefit should be high levels of mobility not just the ability to sit there and tank their direct counter.If you don't immediately hit the bricks while taking fire you should be done for.

Do I blame pilots though? Absolutely not. The system is flawed. The current parameters cause for it to be inconvenient to spec into your chosen profession if it happens to be vehicles. So why wouldn't you defend it?

Potential solution: eliminate the timer on vehicles and instead change it to lower the resource cost this way people who use vehicles can spend more time actively doing what they love with out being given an obscene advantage then lower the ttk vehicles by their direct counter parts (any class that has to specialize in destroying one thing while sacrificing something else) there by restoring the need and desire to specialize into certain things.

Base turrets need to be equally devastating to aircraft as ground turrets are to tanks. As it stands it doesn't matter if you are good at leading your target those turrets are so inaccurate you're lucky to land a few hits on aircraft that doesn't fly right into your face.

Stationary turrets should be the most accurate thing in the game, no excuse. Move those flak cannons to the center of the turret, side by side. Keep the alternating fire, and fix the damn accuracy so it shoots where you aim. Air can dodge, roll, and speed away, so for the brief time they are in range you should be able to hammer them if you have the skill to do so.

If they fire from 400 Meters and flip around you won't be able to hit them.

Air is crazy OP, like playing a different game than the rest of us. We play Planetside 2, flyboys play Reaverside 2. Different game completely. One is for the hardcore, the other is for 4 and older.