So when are you addig anti-air to game?

I see your point. I don't fully agree with it but I see you point. Like I've said in previous posts here I believe that this problem will go away once organized teamplay comes into the game. Remember the game has just launched.

On the point of that it should be more rewarding to play AA. I can to an extent agree with that though I have a hard time finding a way to make it happen other than buffing the AA to which I don't agree.

A possible solution could be to increase the time it takes to repair an ESF - this would mean they're out of combat for longer if AA does heavily damage them.

Don't buff it then, give flak users a small amount of XP per hit on an aircraft. It will actually give the players who tickle the flyboys away some incentive to keep at it. Randoms going solo will have incentive to pull AA for the same reason they pull an AMS, Medic, or Engi in a purely supporting role. With more AA fielding naturally air-power will not only be deterred more readily but enjoy a more "interesting" flying experience.

Render issues for MAXs should be solved completely and the SG will still need tweaking, but this should be a fairly easy solution that does not change any power levels. Additionally I would recommend both the G2A and A2A missiles should be changed to be faster and much less agile so they can be dodged and are more of a deterrent to the hovering idiots then the fast, hit and run aircraft.

Anyone on the receiving end of my dual AA burst max will testify that max AA doesn't need to be buffed. What needs a buff is probably the skyguard, and infantry rocket speed needs to be much faster.

Also, add an infantry rocket similar to BC2's AT4.

Why is everyone trying to buff the burster max, it does respectable damage to esf's and air can only see it out to 200 meters at which point the burster max can tear an esf apart. We should be looking at the skyguard and the base turrets, these suck beyond belief. They have low health, low damage, and bad accuracy. This is the problem 1/2 of the AA options don't function in a viable manner.

It still takes 8 seconds for a Dual Burster to kill an ESF at that range, if every round hits.

That's hardly tearing an ESF apart. That's a ton of time to react and afterburn away. Far more time than anything else in this game gets to react, given the escape mechanism available to a plane.

Deterring is not tearing apart. I think this is partly why there is so much disagreement about AA vs Air. It is what it is, a deterrent. But some people seem to want to make it out to be so much more than that. Maybe trying too hard to keep the current status quo?

Time will tell. There will be balance passes soon and the dev's will have the data that will help them to decide what, if anything, needs changing in the AA vs Air equation.

They will do what they will do, no matter what we say on the forums.

Wrong, have you even tried AA? Most of the people (pilots) defending ESFs in their current state have not even trialed, much less spent certs/smedbux on AA. Its understandable to want to keep your overpowered toy, but how about you show us some proof of this burstermax ownage you are talking about?

I doubt you could, because it doesnt happen unless a stupid ESF floats in front of those 5-6 bursters. I was just in a group tonight with 6-8 burstermax and we could only make everything run away unless it was stupid and flew right over us. Did it for about an hour and combined kills for all of us was probably 10.

Ive seen plenty youtube vids of ESFs going on 20+ killsprees, but where are all the uncut vids of AAs doing what you are claiming?

For the people repeating that this game is about teamplay and AA is fine etc.

You focus on saying if one Burster MAX is not enough, bring a second. If one Skyguard isn't enoug bring a second. Why don't you have to bring a second ESF then?
If it's about teamplay, why can 1 Rocket pod barrage take out a MAX/Skyguard but not the other way around?

The current version of Air to ground is the excact opposite of Teamplay. You need 1 person with rocketpods to be effective. You need 2-3 people in AA to be effective (but still not get the kills).

The impression I'm getting is that some people want to sit in AA turrets and Skyguards all day and rack up tons of kills with no effort, risk or skill involved.

I've seen a version of Planetside 2 with stronger G2A. It was called the Beta.
The skies were empty and armor ran unopposed. People could sit in tanks all day and farm infantry with impunity and any ESF that dared fly was killed in seconds by someone just sitting there holding their mouse button down.

Do you honestly think that if AA was stronger that a Burster MAX or Skyguard or anything else on the ground would become safer? No way. Because what happens immediately is that they become targets for the increased number of tanks running around. When the tankers don't have to keep one eye on the sky anymore, they can focus on everything else on the ground.

That would mean two bursters would kill an ESF in less than a second. that seems AMAZING considering I have shot them damn near point blank and they can easily get away with 50%+ hp every time.

A max that goes with dual bursters is 100% dedicated to anti air. So vs a small cheap fighter it should do pretty well. But if that fighter unloads one salvo of rockets the max is dead.

Well-played air is given too many tools and is far too overpowered right now. Super cannons firing from 5 miles up where nothing can hit them 1-shotting everyone on the ground... ESF's that always get away with a full rocket run because unless there is MASS anti air then they can just fly 1/16 of an inch off the ground at 300 mph and get away, galaxies that ALWAYS at least make it to the drop as long as there are not about 15 guns focused on them.....

MBT's are taking **** from every angle on the ground, taking it from every air unit, yet somehow that is ok, but air taking flack from TWO possible classes on the ground, one with a timer and using resources, is also ok. The game is simply too disorganized for air to be as strong as it is.

Because a MAX is tiny compared to aircraft, is hard to spot and can hide in rocks or in a building. Lightnings, unless they are firing, are fairly hard to spot from the air at a glance and can also use ground cover to hide. Aircraft are easy to spot and have no place to hide in the sky.

Because using a Skyguard or AA MAX requires you only to point your crosshairs at the sky and hold your mouse button down. Aircraft require quite a bit more skill to use effectively.

Because aircraft costs a lot in aerospace resources and certs, while dual Burster MAXs and Skyguard Lightnings are relatively less expensive.

It costs SC to buy the HA AA. Not a problem for me, possibly a problem for others. If you're fortunate enough to be hanging around with two or three other rich folk, then air stops becoming such a big issue (that said: being rocket podded to death is my least favourite way of dying; it's no coincidence that the BR30+ folk are mainly flyboys on ez--farm mode).

The major problem with AA right now is twofold.

First problem - Skyguard DPS is terrible. You can unload, and hit with, an entire clip on an ESF and barely take it down. Liberators require 3 reloads minimum to reasonably kill. The chances of you actually pouring that much fire into a Lib without it either ignoring you and flying away, or blasting a crater where you were, are nonexistent.

Second problem - in many, many bases, ground AA cannot reach to the flight ceiling. You can, as you put it, hold your crosshairs on the target and press the mouse button to your heart's content. Nothing happens except your ammo counter diminishing. I'm sure someone is going to come along and brilliantly proclaim that the answer is to bring in ESFs to take them out, but in practice that doesn't work - they already have air superiority at that point, and your inbound aircraft will get vaporized in short order.

Dual burster Maxes are fine, G2A missiles are fine, except for the above range issue.

Lib owns all.

my duel buster max hardly scars Libs

I dual burst max, sometimes its fun, sometimes its depressing. I think of myself more as 'air deterrent' than 'anti air'. It takes a full clip from both guns to take out a light air ship, every hit needs to land so they gotta be sitting still or coming at you directly, if you fail you need to reload and that ship is outta there to be repaired. A rocket volley from such ship can do half a max's HP by comparison.
Gunships seem to hover so high in the air they are out of range of my burst guns, but can still rain death from above.

The other day i was doing my AA thing when a gunship arrived to rain death, it destroyed our sunderer and over a dozen people before flying off counting its cert points, all the while i unloaded 4 clips from each arm into it. It was easy to hit as it did not even attempt to move, it was low to the ground and hovered eating very bullet until the sunderer was dead, it flew off with half health to get repaired in seconds. I am its counter, i am its anti, do you know what counters a AA max? Any weapon from any class of infantry at any range.
You may recognize those as they are a common enemy.

The range also seems diminished for max AA, maybe they should get dual AA rockets instead of flaks? Or just increased clip size. But for the love of god at least let flak cannons break skin, they still project hot metal at lethal speeds, they should be DECENT against fleshy targets.

Sometimes i dont get any kills or assists, because after all i only DETER air, i dont usually KILL it, airships can turn around the second they start taking fire, if its a gunship it could annihilate me if it wanted too, so while i may be useful to the team keeping air away, i am not receiving ANY certs/exp for ships that i 'chase away' while gunships just rake score up all day and only die if they REALLY push there luck, and then they can bail out and run away. Who cares about the cooldown when you got 3 people in one? They just take turns buying them so all three of them are constantly in a gunship.

I do counter the hell out of galaxy's though, and can kill a lone Flash pretty quickly with AA max, so thats a plus.

Either you are being sarcastic, or just trolling.

It takes 3 AA HA rockets to kill an ESF. 2 Leaves it at a sliver of health. If you increase this any further, ESF will be useless. Especially in a few weeks when everyone has a lock on rocket launcher. I remember in Planetside 1, I hated playing against the TR because their rockets locked on. I'd never fly, ever against them. Skyguard needs its accuracy increased. Burster MAX is fine. They tear ESF apart so easy its not even funny.

You guys need to stop looking at it as : "I shot the ESF, it should die." This game isn't meant to be a call of duty "zomg i shot it it should die" mentality. Its a team game. A massive team game. Think about it this way. How many people are seeing that ESF in the sky you are wanting to kill? How many of them don't have AA for them yet? Think about what happens when everyone has AA, theres ESF in the air and EVERYONE decides to shoot it at the exact same time? It dies. The reason it takes a bit more to kill them at the moment is because not everyone has AA.

Give it a bit for unlocks. And no, the HA AA rocket is not useless. 3 shots. I counted. that means if 3 people shoot it at the same time it should die. And yes thats fine. HA AA has no cooldown on pulling it. ESF have a 15-18 minute timer if they're not certed, which means they have to spend 2000ish certs to reduce it to 5 minute cooldowns.

Its balanced.

Just before the server shut down (miller) I had an light fighter hovering about 100 meters away. I'm dual buster max. He was able to put his full payload into me and get away with about half HP. I didn't miss a single shot.

BROKEN!

Aircraft can just run over a base kill as many infantry as they want and unless they are stupid escape EVERY single time!!! There is nofaer of death (reset cool down) for aircraft in this game unless you get unlucky.

BROKEN!

Even if they are stupid enough to get killed, they will have been alive so long they can just insta pull another and start the whole low skill XP idiot farm again

BROKEN!

SOE for the love of god fix aircraft so low skill, abusers of your unblanced stupidity actually have to play the game and not just farm XP. Imean, the time you do fix it these low skill players will all be BR 50+ so what difference will it make?

No one said "zomg i shot it it should die"!?!? But you know if you hover in front of something that is sacrificing everything just to dmg that one type of unit it should die.

UNBALANCED

G2A rockets are easy to dodge, unless you are stupid.

You said "that means if 3 people shoot it at the same time it should die" so why should 3 people have to be exculsivly used and coordinated to take down one person on an endless farm?

Or your just a bad pilot. I have watched a scythe in open sky dodge ALL 5 of my locked rockets! Im not saying they are wothless, some pilots are just really bad, but, if your in anyways usful you can excape, re-arm and be back killing those people in less than a minute.