Something ANYTHING needs to be done to make Air less powerful vs infantry

As the game is currently air vehicles and ESFs in particular have no reason to fear anything short of 50 man zergs as far as infantry are concerned. The current ground to air launchers are laughably weak unless used in mass. I'm sure the vets who do nothing but farm lowbies from the comfort of their untouchable sky fortresses will complain but something must be done to put the fear of god back into pilots. So here are a few possible fixes that could leave air-power still strong vs infantry but not make them free kills.

1) Any surface to air missile that strikes an aircraft causes an "EMP" effect on it. This would cause a 1 second loss of all control of the aircraft while it's computer resets (the aircraft will continue to drift in whatever direction it was going) this is to punish ESFs that get too cocky while dive bombing.

2) Make the lock on time shorter but make missiles less agile. Allow pilots to show just how talented they are by actually letting them dodge a missile or two but make them have to respond quicker to lock ons.

3) Aircraft cannot be repaired past 60% HP anywhere but a launch pad. This is rather self explanatory aircraft are just too complicated and precise to be patched up anywhere you may be able to get her flying again but it won't be pretty. Auto repair is still fine because its slow and ensures that after taking fire an aircraft is unable to fight for at least some time.

get a couple of your outfit mates and pull AA. watch the aircraft disappear...

One AA MAX can shut down ESF's in the entire area. If you're being farmed repeatedly by ESF's in this game, you're bad.

Balto, put that away, no one wants to see it, sheesh...

Anti Air

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Lock-ons don't need any buffs. They have strength in numbers, and require 0 skill and risk to use.

Aircrafts aren't OP, they are just annoying. The whole problem right now(and this will probably never change), is that they are either too good, or too bad. They are too good if you let them be, but too bad if you have a couple burster maxes.

The part about only repairing on a repair pad is ridiculous. Not just because you are trying to apply real life principles to an arcade sci-fi shooter, but also because the high amounts of AA in the game would force everyone to use nanite auto repair in your proposed scenario. Flying to an air pad after every pass is unrealistic and would kill the fun of playing air. And with tanks being able to shoot most air pads, and enemy infiltrators hacking AA turrets in what would seem like safe areas, doing so would not only be inconvenient, but also too dangerous.

Battlefield 2142 had something like this with their emplaced AA turrets.



The thing though was the the EMP missiles were fairly low-damaging... it was mostly to "stun" the enemy aircraft so that your cannons could finish it off. It was fairly balanced, especially in a game where two infantry SAMs could kill an enemy aircraft!

I think this would be a decent addition to PS2... provided that the weapon is balanced so it doesn't do very much damage to the aircraft itself. I introduced the idea a while back with a Sunderer Electronic Warfare vehicle:

I think there would have to be a good balance struck here. For starters, it might invalidate IR Flares because pilots could simply dodge missiles.

In other "arcade" flight combat games (I'm thinking H.A.W.X. and the like), dodging missiles is fairly easy to the point where it's kind of laughable. But it works in H.A.W.X. because everyone is an aircraft so no one feels the frustration of being a SAM battery operator who watches aircraft dodge every single missile.

In PS2 this might be better made by creating different types of SAMs. Perhaps faster-locking, short-ranged ones like you described alongside the traditional missiles, and throw in slower-locking, long-ranged ones like these:



Pilots would then have to react dynamically to different missile threats (probably indicated by different lock tones). Some they could evade. Others they would have to Flare away. And still others mean that they would need to seek cover and leave the area.

Slower rearming/repairing times would help the game. It means that aircraft need to be more picky about their targets rather than spamming shots at everything. The Liberator ammunition nerf was part of it, though I think it ought to be more severe than that.

This would also have the secondary effect of creating large vulnerable airfields, where rearming and repairing aircraft could be blown up helplessly on the ground (which is honestly the best way to fight aircraft). In turn this means that pilots would have to rely on teamwork eek as they would need ground-based AA or friendly aircraft to secure the area around the airfield.

Pretty sure that if 10 of those 50 players were firing bullets at the aircraft it would have to relocate.

Small fights (3-4 infantry) are where aircraft dominate. If one shows up, just relocate.

Good. You're talking about free units that aren't specialized in AA, can be revived, have no spawn restrictions, can be transported, can use mobile spawns, can change their loadouts after spawning, AND are the best anti-infantry infantry. I'm sure you want your years of training in lockon mastery to pay off effectively while solo against people who spend resources, but I don't think you understand how cancer that would be for anyone but you.

Patch Notes 7/26/2015:
Concussion Grenades
-Nanite cost changed to 0
-Carrying capacity increased to 5 (9 with grenade bandolier)
-Damage increased to 450 vs. infantry
-MAX suit resistance adjusted so concs deal 48% damage on hit
-Concs now have a "coyote" effect against infantry. If the grenade is thrown within 20m of enemy infantry, it will automatically lock on to the nearest target.
-Concs now explode on impact.
-Concs can now be refilled at ammo packs.
-Non-MAX players who die from a concussion grenade, or while under its effects, will be unrevivable and lose 350 nanites.
-We believe concs are too difficult and not rewarding enough to land. These changes should fix those issues.

PTS Patch notes 7/26/2015:
Infantry
-Shields no longer regenerate. Players can resupply in a spawn room at a "Shield Supply Terminal" to regain their shields.
-Removed combat medic Regeneration Field ability.
-Removed Advanced Shield Capacitor suit slot.
-Medkits now restore shields and health simultaneously.
-We believe players are being too reckless about taking damage, and that medkits are underperforming compared to the alternatives. Disabling shields from regenerating in the field is a change we're trying out. Please leave your feedback in this thread.

Good lord, that sounds pretty awful. This is a grenade that probably should just be removed from the game, not buffed.

You are saying that a vehicle showed up and ruined your day...
The balance does not come in a 1 v 1 scenario.. if a vehicle causes your infantry trouble.. pull a vehicle yourself.

I.E.: Pull a Skyguard, or an AA MAX or your own ESF and then you can fight back.

Rocket launchers are not meant to OHK air, they are meant to help you deter it, while your squad pulls a vehicle to deal with the threat. Your rocket launchers are not there to "punish cocky pilots while dive bombing.." You want to "punish" players for being good at what they do...? That's pretty one-sided, don't you think?
Why should air not be able to repair once they get beyond 60%? Any vehicle can get repaired.. just like any infantry can get revived... otherwise.. let's do the same for infantry: once you are at 60% health, no revive, no med kit ?? Where will this end?

There is no need to buff any ground to air.... there are plenty of items that you can pull to fight back.

Also, if your infantry unit forgot to bring their own air cover.... well, you can't blame your free rockets for that one.
It's a joint arms game, if the rest of your team forgot to join you.. you are no your own, and that is no reason to buff/nerf anything.

To be fair, pulling a Skyguard isn't really going to help very much against anything that's not an ESF or Valkyrie.

Partially correct, depending on the experience of the player.. but, still.. in the OP argument he made it sound as if there was nothing they could do.. and their rockets need a buff.. because.. air needs to be punished..

Pull 2 Skyguard.. heck, pull 5.. add a few AA MAX units to that.. and the skies will be clear for a long, long time..

This is how it used to be and we (pilots) loved it. Be careful what you ask for though, there's a reason pilots have reputations. If you make G2A missiles dodge-able most of us will never need flares again...

ESF's have needed their A2G nerfed for a long time. It totally puts the liberator to shame and is why you almost never see it during Server Smash because the ESF can "do it all" for cheaper and costs less man-power.

Theres plenty of AA in the game, you just have to pull it. Heck if ESFs are your problem make people SHOOT AT THEM, bullets hurt them and getting 10+ people unloading at them is not a negligible amount of damage.

Need more? Save up for the AA lock on (or actually Striker is working very well on TR), phoenix does ok and hits like a truck too if you get good at directing it.

Need more? Buy the second burster arm for your max suit, dual burster maxes make a rough time for air.

Need more? Save for skyguard on the lightning, most air don't want to dance with that around mixed with other AA.

More? get the walker or flak for both sundy guns, now you have a SCARY aa platform.


Air is only a problem if you let it be.

1) first they need to give back lock-ons their old intelligence, then they need to create tiered AA missiles in target acquisition speed, damage and range. give aircraft active defense slot items for these like flares. each one only works against one type of missile, doing so will give both aircraft and AA operators some metagame and would require some flexibility for both of them.

Then they would need to do a pass over existing AA and make it more lethal in smaller numbers, i don't know if the engine supports it but there is a way to make smaller groups of AA more lethal without affecting them in larger groups. when one AA hits aircraft it applies a hidden 'focus fire' vulnerability (stacks) to that aircraft causing it to take extra damage from other players using AA. (duration of each stack based on AA type)

e.g if two skyguards are firing on a liberator at the same time they are both applying their focus fire' detriment and causing each other to do more damage to the liberator.

This can be used to make smaller groups of AA do more damage but making the 'focus fire' vulerabiltiy limited in how high it can stack and making it break if too many are firing on that same target. A pain for the server to track but it makes small groups of AA more lethal.

That's not true. Try taking out a skyguard by yourself in an ESF, which is something a 2-man lib crew can do. You'd need more than 2 ESFs to do that, or maybe 2 with great coordination and hornets. Probably doesn't matter all that much though, since a skyguard near the battle can be taken out by ground pretty easily(theoretically speaking), and one away from the battle can just be avoided.

And really the only ones who can get in and out while still having some sort of decent impact during heavy AA are tanky libs.

Could be about time they add the player models into the pilot seats and make it possible to shoot the pilot, perhaps limit it to weapons with basically a sniper's bullet velocity or some such.
Some vehicle based locked on rockets might be amusing, easy or obvious downsides would be no dumbfiring so sitting ducks against ground enemies, if you like make the rocket trails brighter than our vs plasma rockets to really get people's attention.