Totally fed up of the little damage the Trac-5 S was doing for my engineer, I jumped on my heavy yesterday. We were totally over-run by air to ground...etc. Of course, I selected "the grounder" for the ground to air missiles. Only to discover it seems to have been NERFED beyond all belief. What was done to the "lock-on"??!! Sure, they lock on, but only when they're right over you, launching their missiles on you. To late, you're dead. Is anyone else fed up of spending SC/certs on items, just to have them nerfed to the point of uselessness?? First the Trac-5 S on my engineer, now a rocket launcher on my heavy.
Not sure what the Trac-5 S is, but if it has under-barrel attachments than it's fine. Nothing was done to lockons recently, aside from the rockets "leading" their target
Pilots have several ways to break your lock- flares produce an anti-lock field, the plane can fly out of range, if an ESF noses down and afterburns it can fool your rocket into flying into the ground. Plus, they finally changed lockons so that they can no longer pursue ESFs through obstcles (like mountains). They didn't nerf lockons, so much as they gave pilots skill-based counters to them. This is as it should be, since it takes very little skill to keep your mouse over a vehicle then fire and forget a rocket. I'd only agree to buffing lockons (or nerfing flares) if they all had the same lockon mechanic as striker or A2AM missiles: mantain-lock. Recently, I've been experimenting with using dumbfires/vehicle turrets (not flak) to shoot down air, and it actually feels like a rewarding endeavor, as they do quite a bit of damage, rely on operator skill, and oneshot ESFs (on the rare occasions when you hit them.) Although they (and vehicle cannons) need a damage buff against galaxies and liberators.
This and the biggest change to rocket launchers was done back in PU2. So it depends on the last time the OP used a rocket launcher.
Trac-5 S is a variant of the Trac-5 and Trac-5 Burst weapons that Light Assault and Engineers have (They have by default the Trac-5). It has Underbarrel attachments as well as barrels and ammo and sights; as well as select fire modes for Full Auto, Semi Auto and Burst. All TR weapons have a whole lot of jitter to them when you fire them. It's insane, if anything unrealistic. I have both the Grounder and the Skep for both air and ground targets. The lock-on time is actually quite long (something I'm not too fond of at all).
If you're overrun by enemy air, you pull an ESF. That's the counter. Grounders fundamentally can never counter air, due to how vehicles/air/infantry need to be balanced with one another. G2A lock-ons (like Grounders) will act as a time-limit, but seldom will you get a kill unless the pilot doesn't obey that time limit. Essentially, the only rational way to design the game is where infantry's usefulness is predominantly indoors (which is why more bases should be indoor-only, and MAXes should get balanced) so that vehicles (including air) can have a clear role outdoors (because if infantry could beat vehicles outdoors, there'd be no purpose to vehicles obviously.)
I see what you did there. But the Grounder is an Anti-Air rocket launcher. The SKEP is the Anti-Vehicle launcher.
Yep. Instead of going around mountains the missiles will fly straight into the mountain, long before the esf even gets behind it. The missiles don't even fire from the rocket, but from a meter off to the side, often killing friendlies. That is not how it should be. It relies more on pilot error.
Yes MajiinBuu, it's total crap. Right from the very end of the launcher, the missile veers off to where the target will be when it strikes. Problem being, it's hitting buildings, fellow players, before it gets there. In real life, a lock on launches at and follows the target no matter where it turns. That's the way it should be.
I use my A2G all the time... it's fine FFS. Try flying and dealing with unending locks anytime you try to do anything, not to mention all the bursters, turrets, and skyguards.
Yes GaBeRock, I saw all of what you mentioned when I first purchased the grounder. Used it for several weeks before switching back to my engineer. When I jumped back on my heavy yesterday, it was all to obvious that the range at which it locks on to a target was greatly decreased. And now the BS where it leads the target, that needs to be changed. I've taken fellow players out because the missile veered to where the target is going to be, instead of locking on, trailing and following like it should be.
I'd accept the missile following the plane, rather than predicting its movement, but only if missiles got mantained lock. Fire and forget is a ridiculous mechanic. As for pilot error, if the plane is in close range, then you have a decent chance of hitting them. If the pilot is not in close range, they aren't a threat, so why should you be entitled to kill them when you're not even rendering on their screen? The single biggest problem with vehicle/infantry balance is that for optimization reasons infantry obviously can't render at the same distance as vehicles. If a weapon is high reward (high chance to kill a vehicle) then it should also be high risk (when using it, a high chance to be killed by that vehicle.) As it stands, ground launchers have both low reward (low ability to kill airplanes, even if you hit) and low risk (massively outranges airplanes) and no one is happy with that. Thus, I use OHKOs because they are high reward (nearly instakill ESFs) and high risk (very difficult to land a shot on ESFs). As for libs and galaxies, I've been having considerable success hitting them (although not killing them (usually)) because they can't dodge as well. Since a single rocket is enough to make a lib run away, and net me ~80xp without bonuses, I feel justified in saying they're fun to use, and not entirely without redeeming factors.
I'll beg to differ, Fangry. When I first purchased the grounder it ruled. Got a many of kills with it. Got back on my heavy yesterday, the thing is now a piece of junk. Air was already on top of me before the lock-on started flashing. Use to love it for fending off air attacks. Now, ya fire it whenever. If you wait for the lock-on green to flash, you're already dead.
Gotta get'em in the middle of the crosshair for the lock-on to actually lock onto a target. It IS annoying, but totally doable. I keep my head cleared and I crouch and aim for a Galaxy or a Liberator and it usually always hits, but the leading sometimes makes the rocket hit a rockface or something else.
That's the way it was, tons of people cried about it, and it was changed to what you see now. Honestly I'm fine with it; lock-ons were OP given how stupid easy they were to use and effective they were. You had your chance to farm it up back in the Striker glory days and for those few months where every lock-on was an unavoidable cert farm. That time has past. Time to rethink how you counter air. I've been using my skyguard a lot more. Burster MAX is awesome. Base turrets work well. I still use my Annihilator a lot. Great at scaring off air and keeping them at bay. Rarely lands a kill. Get quite a few assists which does add up to real XP and certs. Deal with it.
Wouldn't it be fair though if Striker had that advantage of better pathfinding over Annihilator, given that Annihilator has other advantages that make the current Striker a pointless weapon?
AA lock-ons have a lock range of 450 meters, which is enough to get locks on aircraft without you always being in render range. The only "buff" they really need right now is for the missile to go straight for at least 10 meters before it starts tracking its target, instead of leaving the barrel at impossible angles to hit the rock two feet to your right.
Lock ons weren't great before the nerfs in my experience. Most of the time i used it they pop smoke and fly away, others just flew away and didn't hit anything. I still use it to mainly scare away pilots. I have no real intentions of shooting down a plane unless i was shooting at a librator or i felt i might as well take the shot. All i want to do is shoo them away for a bit. Plus if you score a hit theres some generous xp on offer. I sometimes get lucky and bag a plane or 2 but otherwise no. Recently they've gotten a lot worse. When you fire them the projectile explodes on your feet as it tries to adjust target trajectory to make sure it hits. Now i find myself either hitting myself, other people everytime i launch a rocket. Its embarrassing and needs to be sorted that perhaps it flys out of the launcher a bit before doing its work. Not fool proof but i expect the rocket to be smart enough to not kill its own master.
