[Suggestion] The Issues With PS2s Airgame

Im going to create this post, because ultimately i believe the Devs, having likely put minimal hours into air play themselves, fundamentally misunderstand air and air balance in PS2.

The Context
Some context, im by no means a skyknight, but for the month running up to outfit wars (OW), and for the duration of OW, i was hosting 1-2 dedicated air squads for my outfit and anyone else who wanted to join. Undstanding that air is a big part of competitive play while knowing we had no regular pilots at all in our outfit, i knew it was something we needed to work on. During that time i clocked plenty enough hours to understand Air to Air (A2A) and the general state of air itself.
Fast forward a little, and Ground to Air (G2A) lockons have been buffed quite significantly, assumedly to both make them more consistent in terms of their effect, but also to help rebalance Air VS Ground. This was a poor call, while changing the mechanic was probably a helpful thing to do, the damage that a lockon puts out is now too high. But thats not what this post is about, though the G2A lockon changes do highlight a point im going to go on to make.

The situation
Heres the deal, the premium anti air should be an A2A fighter (ESF), all G2A should be filling the role of deterrence, a concept that has been conveyed and largely achieved by the devs for years with some hiccups here or there. The issue here is twofold, ESF piloting, especially dogfighting is notoriously difficult to get into, additionally at any given time, you can and will likely run into a highly experiences A2A fighter player, a Skyknight. These players have clocked hundreds of hours and, odds are, youll be dead before you figure out which direction they came from. This makes getting into playing air, let alone clocking the hours to be good at it, a near impossible for the majority of players, who simply dont have the patience to deal with all of this. The changes to lockons only makes it harder to newer pilots to find their wings, while barely punishing experienced pilots to the same degree. Ultimately, any buffs to G2A will only steepen the learning curve for new pilots which is the opposite of what you want in reality.

Lets cut to the chase: (from here on out, ill be focusing on ESF play)
TLDR : ESF piloting is difficult, the most regular opponents are absolute machines, and buffing G2A only makes these issues more pronounced.

Solution : Make it easier for a player to get into ESF piloting, especially A2A

How? Multiple things, from tweaks to controls, to improving UI to potentially rebalancing a range of A2A weapons

Controls : Allow full control over mouse acceleration when airborne without the current soft-cap. Bind and prompt the use of "Throttle Analogue", a tool used by many pilots that it currently tucked away in your keybinds empty. These two things alone would help soften the harshness of ESF controls

UI : Allies with engagement radar equipped (all air, and lightnings with it equipped) within the 600m also show on engagement radar. Warpgate has a soft-waypoint on it at all times. Spotting enemy aircraft, while in aircraft needs to be functional over a larger range. The warpgate marker helps with reorientation after having pulled some aerial manoeuvres while the allied indicators allows you to know where "friendly air" is as well as encouraging some form of teamplay between individuals. The increased spotting range for Air, by Air and of Air solves some of the communication issues that come about with a 360o area of operations, currently, even for squad mates, a spot does nothing unless youre flying in formation, which isnt a thing.
Balance : Ultimately gank-meta needs to be hit. (high alpha nose gun, max stealth, external fuel tanks) in experienced hands, you simply have no time to respond which is frustrating for anyone on the receiving end. How do you do this? Im less certain, but heres my 2c. Reduce the benefit of steath on engagement radars to 300m instead of 200m, lessen the alpha damage on these nose guns. Personally on the nose guns, id like to see reload and magazine size removed entirely and the DPS reduced so as to leave the overall DPM untouched. Youd do slightly less damage per second, but you wouldnt need to reload to interrupt this damage. This reduces nose gun alpha while also removing one of a whole host of things a new pilots needs to track, ammo.

Im unsure if this will ever reach a devs eyes, but i figure id give it one last shot and see what happens. Thanks for your time.
Strove o7

1: making the best counter itself is never a good idea. A2A being the best counter to aircraft will never work, and is one of the prime reasons A2G is so much crap as ground cant defend itself.

2: deterrence doesnt work. Its design is based on the weapon not functioning enough to kill. If it works then the aircraft cannot function near it and have no fun, if it doesnt work the aircraft can have fun at the cost of ground units not being able to protect itself. Additionally deterrence can scale too easily if you pull more.
Deterrence. Does. Not. Work.
It needs to be replaced by skillful G2A weapons. A simple example would be to change the Skyguard: heavily reduce its COF to make it more accurate, reduce its flak detection range from the +/-5m range to say 0.5 to 1m, the lastly boost the damage per shot. That severely reduces the effective range on moving targets but also rewards good skillful G2A players with actual kills. As a bonus it would have some more utility against Harassers and infantry giving it a role when aircraft arent around.
Lock-ons can be altered to have a smaller lock-on angle and require maintain lock, but have faster lock times and the ability to re-lock or change target if a lock is lost, or even fire and lock on afterwards.
Additionally you can have a laser-guided G2A missile, or a dumbfired flak/coyote missile as skillful G2A weapons on both infantry and vehicles.

3: for aircraft full costumization should be possible. The first thing most people notice is how ridiculous the controls are. Normally you control the nose of your plane with either the full keyboard or fully with the mouse, PS2 decided that for some reason it would be good to do half the mouse and half the keyboard.
Just having the option to pick your controlscheme should be mandatory, if only so players can more easily transfer skills from other aircraft games into PS2.
They actually had discussed having normal flight controls but "decided to wait and see how this goes". Well it went from bad to worse as entry into the airgame became increasingly difficult due to the steep learning curve and limited pulls you have available. Even skyknights know this, as they specifically train new pilots in VR or in secluded area's for hours.

The engagement radar was supposed to help newbies learn the game, so they made it take up a slot early on. Skyknights ofcourse had "better" idea's and suggested it not take a slot at all. The result: skyknights picked up stealth which made engagement radar fail at its function of teaching newbies the game and at the same time any newby would be instantly recognizeable as they dont equip stealth, making it easy for skyknights to track down and kill anyone trying to learn the airgame and increasing entry even more.
The solution: put engagement radar in the same slot as stealth frame so you cant have the best of both worlds while kicking newby butt.

Your suggestion about removing magazines would wreck the nosegun choices. Why pick a nosegun currently designed around having a deep magazine if that high-DPS nosegun now never needs to reload? You could perhaps do something with COF and COF growth instead.

1. How difficult A2A is the reason A2G is as uncontested as it is. Air deterrence has been the standard for G2A for ten years. Im not saying to remove G2A options, just that, outside of the recent buff to lockons, it does its job just fine. If there were more A2A pilots, there would be less A2G pilots as youd either be directly contested, need backup, or have to bring hybrid loadouts so that you can defend yourself from air.

2. Im certainly not against tweaking G2A options in the ways youve stated, my concern with this post is less about ground vs air or vice versa but rather making air itself more accessible to more players. Personally i dont think the skyguard needs much of a tweak, if at all, its already a massive presence in the AA game but i digress, as i say, not against some tweaks. Deterrence has been the MO largely because air is a force multiplier like any other, lockons and the likes are effectively free and should be THAT powerful. Currently lockons will often 2 shot an ESF which is pretty wild when you consider how many locks you could receive at a standard fight.

3. Choosing controls, yeah sure, agreed, thats another method of easing the difficulty. I dont think making radar a slot again really helps the issue, it still ends up being a bit of a bait option for non skyknights. The skyknights would likely still run it often enough for the lockon effects and would still not show up on radar even if people did spec into it. Id rather see more utility added to the free radar as i suggested above. Knowing where allies are on your radar could really help shape air fights into team fights rather than being solo skyknight territory. If my suggestion for improved air to air spotting were put in, stealth could impact that without much issue.

The nose gun point is true, i was more spitballing there, first thought was a heat mechanic instead? Still removes reload times but allows for a difference in total "capacity". For the most part the magazine sizes are almost an afterthought when i think about the 3 main nosegun options, instead looking at them by range, the 0-100m effective high alpha, the 0-200m effective middle of the road, and the longer range option with no damage falloff. Velocities could also be tweaked to suit these identities. But yeah, your point is a decent one, i dont think CoF would be a good call though, getting decent with nose guns already takes time to be even half effective. DPM vs Velocity+Range imo is the trade-off, how exactly you do that is up for debate.

I dont really get why most suggestions around balancing air(aka, killing it) always seem to end up with: "Well, AIR should be the ones doing it!"

Air is doing everything, its the premium infantry, ground vehicle and air vehicle farming vehicles.



The only scenario where it is ok for air to be the counter to air is if we equalize that through the game, making ground vehicles the counter to ground vehicles etc and any weapon meant to interact with another type/group gets the same treatment as G2A.

So all the AI noseguns, missiles etc etc that aircraft have will get like a minimum 3 second TTK against infantry. Any AV weapons like Hornets, Dalton etc etc against tanks would be 30 seconds minimum TTK(have to factor in that aircraft are much faster than ground vehicles so the only way a tank would escape is by finding cover, so the TTK has to allow that).

If things were balanced this way then fine, aircraft could be the counter to aircraft but its not and aircraft absolutely hardcounters ground vehicles to the point where they cant even fight back unless they use specific weapons which gim-p them in their 'intended' role of controlling the ground area.



Another kinda acceptable compromise would be to put all ESF weapons in the same slot similar to how the Lightning works. Want to fight aircraft then they have some fancy noseguns or A2A missiles to use and if they want to blow up tanks then they simply have to use weapons good for that at the cost of being sub-par A2A fighters... like the Lightning has to make a choice between the Skyguard and ground weapons.

The really crazy thing is that pilots are so entitled and pampered that even though the ESF would still be getting the better deal compared to the Lightning since a Lolpod only ESF has a decent chance of running from another ESF or even fighting it with the weapon, they would still claim that this would absolutely ruin the vehicle and they would never ever play the game again... even though as I said, that is still better options than what the Lightning gets.

Kinda missing the point.

A2A is the premium AA in that its the best way to actually kill an air target, you concede this yourself saying that ESFs can disengage from almost any target. All ground assets do to experience pilots is make them duck behind a hill and repair briefly albiet AA should always have the threat of being able to kill to be effective at this. Im not suggesting that air v air should be the ONLY option, simply acknowledging that its the most FINAL option and should be made easier to achieve without spending 100+hours to be able to fight a skyknight.

If A2A was more accessible, then cheap lol-podders would have a more difficult time doing their job. Im not sat here saying air has a hard time in general, im saying that its a largely uncontested field of combat because its so hard to get into because of the combination of the steep learning curve, lack of useful intel, gank-meta offering little chance for response, and the experience and certification gap between new and experienced pilots.

My suggestions, which are largely to get the ball rolling, are not there to make air more powerful, actually if you read and understood it, it would help level the A2A playing field making it easier to new pilots to get into it, and harder for skyknights to dominate the skies. More competition in the A2A game makes playing A2G more dangerous without proper support from either A2A or G2A.

The Air vs Ground balance discussion is somewhat besides the point and should come after A2A has been made more accessible to players.

You are also missing the point, A2A should not be the most final option against air since that makes air the end-all-be-all solution to everything vehicle related.

Ground vehicle = good vs infantry and ground vehicles, 100% unable or weak at fighting aircraft
Air vehicle = amazing vs infantry and ground vehicles, best option against other aircraft

If you dont see the problem here I regret to inform you that you have contracted Pilotitis, the only confirmed drawback of being a pilot.

Sorry if you think im missing the point, certainly no need to get aggressive here though.


Let me try and clarify the point i am trying to make, as well as what im not:

I have not suggested anywhere that air should be stronger, A2G or A2A. If anything ive only suggested a nerf to some nose guns and utility tools, including the effect of stealth of engagement radar, which would benefit the skyguards radar too.
I have not suggested that air should be the only options vs air.
I have not suggested that skyguards or bursters get nerfed.
I have briefly noted that the lockon changes have made them very strong as a free AA choice which IMO given the accessibility makes them a little over tuned.
I have said that A2A is the premium AA, a sentiment based on how a pilot can bug-out and avoid a skyguard (making AA a deterrent), but not bug-out to avoid an enemy fighter to the same degree (making competent A2A a premium). This isnt a statement of intention, simply a recognition of reality
I have advocated the levelling of the playing field when it comes to Air, The primary goal of this post is not a discussion of ground and air, but of making air less daunting and less punishing to get into, by providing UI and control options along with lessening the advantage that skyknights have over new pilots.
I have stated that achieving the above, would hinder A2G dominance much more effectively and in a far more interactive way, than buffing AA which at a certain point removes air entirely from the game.

As a whole, my focus here is on making Air more accessible to new players, not making air stronger, or AA weaker.

I hope that clears up this misunderstanding

I underlined two things in your quote, the fact that you think that A2G is uncontested but that G2A deterrence somehow still does it's job is remarkable to say the least.

The reason A2G is uncontested is that G2A deterrence does not work in a game outside a MilSim. It's entire concept fails at the very start.

Also one problem with A2G is that an A2A loadout is well able to do A2G combat against infantry or damaged vehicles.
Another problem is who is holding the air superiority. It doesn't matter if there's 10.000 A2A pilots, if one side currently has air superiority over a base they will have uncontested A2G capabilities. Which is again why G2A needs to be capable and lethal and not a deterrence.

If you don't fly in straight lines and use your brain for a second the amount of lock-ons is very low. In fact getting a lock-on warning is grounds to kill the lock-on. Especially since 95% of the lock-ons are easily locatable: "Find the nearest hostile spawnpoint". By limiting exposure to the spawnpoint or actively attacking people at the spawnpoint you can limit the amount of lock-on attacks you get. Only if you think that flying at 150m above the ground in a straight line without using cover for your approach is an A-OK strategy will you truly have problems. I personally usually just kill the lock-on users a couple of times until they give up and it gives me free reign to smash the rest to pieces.
Unfortunately for the air-game they have been conditioned that if they meet resistance, they can simply find a fight without it. They haven't learned to avoid G2A or how to do A2G strikes properly. This is why so many ESF's will hover and fire their guns: They have so little to fear from G2A that if they do get attacked in that position they can easily survive and escape, while hovering makes it easier to just rain death on their prey.

And again the Skyguard needs changes as this "massive presence" is "barely 1 at any fight, if you find one at all". In the meantime the amount of AV and AI weapons in any medium fight is pretty much "10+ at minimum". Because this "oh noes we face X G2A weapons now woe is me!" bullcrap got old the second time it was said and was never true. Deterrence does not work. It never worked. It is not a useable concept in the game. It has been a core reason why A2G has been a major discontent to many players. In fact if the game hadn't shipped with aircraft I would bet a lot of money that the game would have had a healthier playerbase right now.

Also only lock-ons are effectively free. There's no "and the like". Skyguards are just as expensive as ESF's but have 1 less weapon, are an invitation for any AV wielder to come and kill you as you are severely hampered in ground combat and you still can't truly kill aircraft. In fact a Galaxy is practically guaranteed to deliver it's cargo and has enough health to waltz away if it's not abandoned and a Lib is well able to absolutely maul the Skyguard to death in a contest that's laughable considering that the Liberator sports two main weapons capable of out-DPSing almost everything on the ground and is well able to out-DPS the Skyguard with most loadouts it could choose.
Just to make that point even more clear: When we could still check those stats, every single deterrence weapon capable of hitting ground units killed more vehicles than aircraft, despite being seen as some of the worst ground units available. That's how bad these weapons are.

The radar slot not helping the issue? It forces players to choose between visibility and ability to see. You still have engagement radar auto-granted so players actually start with it and use it for it's intended purpose and anyone more experienced can trend away from it by picking something else.

Also the proliferation of stealth only started after Engagement radar was introduced. Before Engagement radar there were few players using it, and after it's become pretty much mandatory. By making it take a slot this completely changes that dynamic as not picking either can give you an advantage without hamstringing you due to not everyone having engagement radar and stealth simultaneously anymore, which is the best choice to pick over any other combination with engagement radar.
Adding utility is OK, but is less important than taking the veteran's toy for locating newbies and curbstomping them away. Entry into the airgame is more important than improving the ability to coordinate with allies, which is a more advanced part of a game since newbies will almost always be occupied with solo play before engaging with group activities.

Ive gotten into the habit of not taking the time to explain myself fully, sorry.

1 : On the first point, im mostly referring to air to air contest. Ground based AA can push a pilot out of a hex, air based AA can pursue and kill a pilot.

Ultimately the issue of G2A strength is always going to be a somewhat difficult thing to balance because 1 pilot at a 1-12 fight is going to be a much bigger issue than 1 pilot at a 48+ fight because the infantry AA, along with the players willing to pull dedicated AA increases. Make it too strong and no one gets to play air, make it too weak and theres more lol podding going on than actual infantry play. I do think your concept of making AA stronger but more skillful to use has strong merit. This isnt really the main point of the thread, though i welcome the discussion.

2 : Sure, point taken, potential kneejerk reaction to the changed AA locks, having two heavies look up and swat you out the sky fairly effortlessly at any larger fight doesnt feel good for anyone though given that the AA lock is the default free launcher given to all players. Ill concede the lockon point for the time being, i probably just need to get some more time in the cockpit against them to get a better feel for it, believe it or not i am mostly an infantry/tank player...

Skyguards "massive presence" was more in reference to the impact they can have on a hex rather than the number of them you see pulled, a miscommunication on my part. I have wondered if a way to allow lightnings to switch their gun would help bring some interest into lightnings and skyguards especially. Not sure how youd do it, but sinking the nanites into a skyguard knowing full-well that the air has good odds of just leaving when you do isnt a feel-good moment, maybe that solves your AV invitation issue too? Again, as i said, im not against tweaking G2A, id just be hesitant to do anything too drastic when its likely going to be felt by newbie pilots far more than skyknights, which only heightens the problems im trying to discuss here in the first place.

"And the likes" meant more the combination of lockons from heavies, rocklets, AA turrets, basilisks, mastheads, or even in the case of ESFs, just small-arms damage

3 : Sure, the radar-in-slot for free, yeah, fair enough, i had assumed a paid option which would have just been cert bait in the current air meta. I assume we are talking in the Defence slot where it would be competing with Stealth and Composite? I worry that, for veteran pilots at least, they would just stick to stealth given that most skyknights tend to rely on gank-meta. They would likely end up doing the same as they do now, flying at high altitudes, nose down in 3rd person, its not hard to find a target, radar or no radar and new players with the free radar would still fall pray to the false sense of security that radar provides. If the goal is nerfing the curb-stomp / gank meta, simply knocking the range stealthed targets show up at to 300m instead of 200m, allows a response time before a gank gets into the ideal 0-100m sweet spot. Perhaps moving radar to Defense slot while also knocking stealth to 300 might be the solution?

My point about seeing allied air or radar-lightnings on your radar is less about direct coordination with allies and more about knowing where you have air control and support. If you have someone on your tail and can evade reasonably well, knowing where friendly pilots or skygaurds are gives you an area of operations in which you can find some safety and confidence even if youre running solo.

Thanks for the input btw.

It isnt "always" going to be somewhat difficult to balance 1 pilot in any fight. You assume the status quo where deterrence exists and aircraft have this ridiculously massive advantage over anything the moment no one carries dedicated G2A.
which already points to the solution: make sure there is always some form of dedicated (and undedicated but still effective) G2A, make sure said G2A isnt a deterrent and make sure aircraft firepower has limits. One way to do that: make skillful G2A choices. A hovering ESF wouldnt happen anymore as it would get killed quickly, forcing speedy and short attack runs that limit the ease and firepower.

Basically you describe exactly why the current system doesnt work: it cant even be balanced around the fight sizes. In the meantime dealing with their counter regardless of the fight size is par for the course for infantry and tanks.

Dont get me wrong the fire-and-forget lock-ons are a dumb concept in PS2. Either it takes too many shots to kill aircraft and they can do a solid run or they kill too fast. On top of that the time it takes and how fragile the lock is makes it virtually never used away from the spawnroom where you have more control over if people will run in front of you and less chance of being ambushed while waiting for that lock.

Simple idea's can already change that. Maintain-lock weapons, laser-guided missiles, flak warhead rockets and missiles and coyote style missiles. Each has uses and skill levels that would let aircraft operate but also be punished by a skillful hit.

Skyguards arent that dangerous if you take them into account. Similar to lock-ons you can limit your exposure by flying low or excessively high and diving down, or you can try approaching from a different direction because the sky is big and aircraft are fast so its not really feasible to scan the sky fully in a timely manner while simultaneously being aware of aircraft that might come from a nearby piece of cover. Even funnier is just approaching a fight from the rear. You'll often find any skyguards parked their because they cant stand up to ground units and you'll have an easy time slamming some rockets in their rear. Even lolpods, supposedly AI weapons, are well capable of beating them in that scenario.

Rocklets are short-ranged and slow moving, AA turrets have known positions and are often not used (besides being nerfed), basilisks arent used a lot and arent effective its like saying "oh my god my tank was attacked by a basilisk!" Except you have an easier time avoiding it. Mastheads have a low damage output and can again be survived if not killed and small-arms is one of those sad arguments that doesnt hold up in any real scenario. Just because something can damage you doesnt make it dangerous. Its like a Harasser complaining about a pistol Stalker being able to damage it.

Yes doing both is better.

I have suggested in other threads to give Engagement Radar an activatable ability which sends a puls and spots all aircraft in a certain distance. This would bump up its usefulness as you can tactically circumvent stealth but only when you use it at the right moments.

Allright I hadnt thought of that.

Stealth was always the meta slot for ESFs, with NAR only being used by bail assaults.

Not on Miller at least. Especially early on I was one of the few who used it. In fact it was so little in use that I managed to kill, not just have him do that bail&dissassemble trick, Daddy a dozen times as he wasn't prepared for a stealth attack.

Its not an issue with a game, it's a lack of countermeasures, as so called pilot (with anti-infantry primary) - you can quickly find another base to piss-off more infantry men, before they will get AA-Max or Skyguard.
Now let's take a look at those brave but mostly useless AA-Max and Skyguards - almost defenseless against any ground unit (and don't forget about Liberators). Why should we use dedicated Anti-Air unit to scare away a pilot, without getting any kills, then being bored.

Man, for a thread i started about making air play, especially ESF vs ESF play, more accessible to new pilots, this thread got derailed hard...

I like that concept too actually, a counter radar ping so to speak. Figuring out slots and hotkey use becomes something to consider but im down with the concept.

Not much else to say to your post. The skyguard has great impact against less experienced pilots, which was the angle ive been going at this thread, for sure skyknights will just flank you anyway etc.
The ETC set of weapons was more in reference to a range of them being used at the same time in larger fights, absent dedicated AA the sheer volume of these weapons still makes A2G a chore, which is should be to an extent

At least with maxes you can switch loadouts and can likely at larger fights find some use for the spent nanites elsewhere. Kinda why ive been pondering the idea of allowing lightnings an ability to switch turrets. Could be a timer of no movement or firing or something, but it would allow lightnings a new identity of the versatile vehicle since its out manoeuvred by harassers and out gunned by MBTs? Just musing here, id also like to see some of the valk weapons adapted to the corsair and lightning depending on appropriateness. Again, potential musings of a madman here.

I think the big thing that bothers me with air is by the time I get hit or realize it, I’m dead.

In the original PS at least base turrets auto shot stuff and eventually engineers were able to put down auto flak turrets, the flak turrets didn’t do much like flak seldom does, but at least you knew aircraft was approaching.

Good evening I want to make a proposal to put the yaw system from left to right on the mouse on PC Because I think I'm not the only one struggling with the keys I know that on console you can do it thanks to the Canon keys but on PC I did not manage to find the settings unfortunately

The solution they found to that to an extent was to make Liberators louder so you can hear them on approach. They could do the same for ESFs too which would probably help with signalling

I am not really a pilot, but I know how to fly well enough to wonder what if you just made it so stealth deactivates the engagement/scout radars? Then wouldn't you get the best of both worlds with new pilots having better target acquisition and sky knights with stealth having to look around a bit more? Also wouldn't stealth disabling scout radars would make the pilots farming infantry easier to track and more vulnerable? Would that help at all?

For those who don't know the default auto detection ranges are:
All Aircraft - 230 meters
All Ground Vehicles - 100 meters *Exception: Flash - 55 meters
Also Stealth reduces the Auto Detect Ranges by: 25% per upgrade

Also technically speaking any active radar could be counter detected making any vehicle stealth a mute point, but that's real world vs videogame logic.

i said in another thread i´d rather ESFs have level 1 vehicle stealth as default than having perma passiv engagement radar ..
engagement radar should also be a defensive slotoption .. and if sky knights/ air to air combateers want to have the full intel capability with scout and engagement radar they should have to drop vehicle stealth imho ..
if they want to have stealth they need to drop engagement radar

fundamentaly disagree with this, when cannons and missiles are in use they definetivily should be deadly against aircraft, were Flak and machineguns should severly threaten them ...
if you want more air to air combat aircontrols need to be far more accessible ... right now for the average player it´s hard as crap to get into ... to me it´s even wristpaininducing which no other game with air or spacecraft caused to me ...

yepp yaw control to be able being put on the mouse
better controlability using controller and joysticks
many many more sensitivitysettings for yawing pitching rotating etc.

adding strafe/bankingmovement keys as well ...

I am of the firm opinion that if aircraft can on demand come and dunk on any ground vehicle and be close to impossible to escape from then at least the most premium/specialized G2A weapon which is the Skyguard should be able to do the same and dunk any aircraft that gets into its effective range without giving them the option of running away.

I do not care if that would "not be fair/fun for pilots" because pilots dont give a **** if its fair or fun for any ground vehicle or infantry that they farm by the dozens by simply flying above them, making it a one sided fight until they win or some outside interference chases them away.

Fair should be fair and unfair should be unfair, not some weird double standard where only pilots can pull the "Its unfair/unfun!" card.