T2 Striker - Confirmed coyote mechanics

So an analysis on the old striker and the upcoming.
Current requires far longer than other launchers to deliver payload, and require a constant line of sight or payload is wasted. But in return delivers more damage. This is seen as useless since you won't even get a full payload out in one out of a hundred locks with it. ESFs simply gets out of sight far too often for that, you often can't even get a lock with the standard launchers. I suppose its only strength would be effective against fearless libs and galaxies.

New Strikers using the coyotes would mean:
Short or no warning for the receiving target, but less damage or burst, and you have to be closer to the target. Since Coyotes function as dumbfires that auto-track when they get close enough this would mean that the effective range of the upcoming Striker would be a lot lower than a standard lock-on launcher. But the boon is that it doesn't give the target any warning. If damage will be high or low is up to balancing, and cannot be predicted.

In the upcoming Valkyrie you could finally put a heavy in the air, this would mean that you could for the first time ever utilize the current Striker's strength by simply getting up in the air and getting a clear view of your target, and it would have a lot harder time to escape the full payload.
Combined with the Valkyrie, we would finally be able to use the Striker effectively.
However, if the Striker changes comes before or with the Valkyrie patch, then it will instead be a short-range quick launcher. I cannot see how this would be effective combined with the Valkyrie unless the damage is high and you can use it as an Air-to-Ground launcher against tanks. Otherwise the new Striker will be terrible with the Valkyrie.

What's so OP about that? I can do the same with a Phoenix. I doubt it's loiter time was THAT long, come on you exaggerate.

Shooting through terrain? Sounds like an obvious bug, couldn't have been intended.

I suppose a lot of it would depend on the rocket's velocity and how much drop it has, but using actual Coyotes I can usually get them to hit from about 500m out against an ESF sitting on the ground to simulate a tank.

Obviously it would be a lot less reliable/shorter ranged against actual ESFs though, since those move so fast and you'd have to lead them by a lot to get it to lock.

Though if it turns out that the new Striker can't lock on to tanks at all (ie it's just dumbfire against tanks, and its coyote-lock only works on aircraft) then yeah it'd be pretty short ranged.

Well, against an aware target the Coyotes have an effective range of 50m or so. Depending on the payload damage I would say that they will probably be effective at chasing away podders. But I can't imagine them being effective at AA duty unless they have absurd velocity.

I hope this will be done either through an attachment unlock or can be toggled, being an annihilator is still a useful feature for the striker, glad to see its getting some love.

I sincerely doubt they would be so kind. They'll redesign it from the ground. It's a great suggestion though.

It meant that there was no way to evade the lock outside of a few (and rare) situations. Which is a problem for a weapon that hits harder than a descimator.
And no, he's not exaggerating.
The terrain ignoring thing was a bug, but the fix ... was almost worse.

By "spin around" I mean tighter than 90 degree turns. Which is impossible to do with a Phoenix. In fact because the Phoenix handles like a Galaxy (except much less maneuverable and without the ability to hover) it is essentially impossible to hit things that are hugging cover unless you have a great height advantage. The old Striker, on the other hand, would chase your vehicle even if you rolled back behind tight cover.

The "shooting through terrain" issue wasn't a bug, but more was the Devs being incredibly lazy about programming lock-on missiles. If memory serves both the Annihilator and the Striker shared this characteristic. Why they decided on this instead of the tracking system that the other lock-on launchers used we have no idea. But the result was that once the Striker achieved lock, using terrain to break the lock or block the missiles was impossible.

Hmm, yeah I'm thinking this can go one of two ways.

1: If it can still lock on to tanks after the change, it will lose a lot of AA ability but gain a lot of AT and the ability to shoot infantry/turrets. Because basically even if you overshoot the tank or it moves by a couple feet, the lock will adjust course and get you on target most of the time.

2: If it can't lock on to tanks, then it will lose both AT and AA capability and TR players might find themselves wishing they never asked for this.

I don't think it can be useless aside from if the damage is so undertuned it can't do anything. At worst it will be good against lolpodding and act as a mini lasher(dumbfire mini rocket spam).

Sounds good. I just hope they can balance it. Hopefully it will have very limited AI abilities and a 300m range cap.

It was also the case for the annihilator, but at the time the Striker would establish the lock after 2.25 sec, and 3 sec for the annihilator... and the striker did twice the damage.

Probably why people didn't notice it as much for the annihilator.

Are you joking about using the word "range and Phoenix in the same sentence? it has a range of 295m and between flight time and reload it has absolutely horrible DPS.

So, regarding the last sentence... You mean to say that the Striker change should come AFTER the Valkyrie is released?

I'm going to be the elephant in this room.

The phoenix is boring as hell. I don't care if it's effective, I'd much rather be down in the enemy base brawling toe to toe than sitting on a hill. I'd much rather be racing through the enemy vehicle zerg on foot shooting magriders and prowlers in the rear with a Decimator than sitting on a hill being a scrub. I love the lancer, it's fun, and can do both rolls effectively. I even... sort of... love like the Striker. Even in it's current state it's a better brawling rocket launcher than the phoenix, and standing still for 3 seconds to release 5 rockets into the rear of a magrider is very satisfying, even if it's got that frustratingly long lock time.

Yes, I'm whining, I'm crying, I'm QQing, but... I DO NOT WANT A FACTION WEAPON THAT ENCOURAGES MY FACTION TO SIT IN THE HILLS AND SNIPE WITH ROCKET LAUNCHERS! It doesn't only make you, VS and TR, mad at our st players that don't have the balls to brawl toe-to-toe, it rustles MY jimmies when I'm down in the trenches (ALONE) with AV nades and decimator rockets, dishing out as much damage in 10 seconds as the phoenix does in a whole damn minute. All I want is a faction weapon that doesn't encourage my faction to only sit in the hills and snipe, which is exactly what the Phoenix (and to a lesser extent, the current Striker) does.

This is a great change, don't get me wrong. I'm going to love it on my TR alt, I just can't help feeling shafted where NC seems to get the long range weapons versus the short brawling ones (TR), or adaptive ones (VS). (Long range is NOT a faction trait! Just like shotguns aren't!) While typing this I'm thinking of both our ESRLs and MBT ESAV & ESAI weapons (The Canister is ABSOLUTELY terrible, don't even bring that travesty up, and MAXes are a different topic altogether.) By all of this, I mean, the Vanguard is a brawling tank but the best thing you can have as a brawling secondary is the Halberd, what were the weapon techs at Auraxis Firearms thinking?!

I'm fine with the Phoenix as is, I just want an NC decimator! Something that's the polar opposite of the Phoenix, so people wont be encouraged to play NC as the hill sniping faction, because we aren't! (Assuming the launcher had a very "free" explosion animation and sound effect ) Anyway, sorry for my long winded QQ session, and I hope you realize where I'm coming from. (And thanks for reading this long!)

GG,
Demo

I'm not really trying to argue towards anything, I'm merely noting that the Striker would actually become useful for the first time since its nerfs with the Valkyrie, but chances are it will be changed at the same time as the Valkyrie is released. The new Striker would squander that opportunity.

Phoenix, long range? What are you even talking about?

Let's compare ranges.

Lancer: Vehicle render distance (~800m, assuming the server isn't getting overloaded and cutting it)

Striker: 300m ground/400m air

Phoenix: 200-290m depending on how much you turn, and assuming your target doesn't reverse (seriously, I've had rockets clunk out when the counter only read 200m).

Which one of these is the "long range weapon" again?

I was going to bring that up in my post, that the phoenix has garbage range for the type of hill camping weapon it is. But that would be invalid to my argument.

Well, if it does turn out it can still lock on to tanks after the change it could potentially be useful for raining rockets from above.

As far as I know the rockets won't inherit your momentum, and shooting down from above you don't have to worry as much about drop. So just aim right at the tanks and most of the time the heat-seeking should do the rest.

But yes, two current Strikers in a Valkyrie is potentially terrifying if they can keep both of them pointed at you. It can chase you to maintain the lock, and two Strikers is enough to gib an ESF in one volley.

I doubt you can get both strikers to lock one target, but them in the air is a scary thought.