[Guide] The Liberator - 10 reasons for why it is a poor design

If we look at all the vehicles in the game, the Liberator is quite special, and I'll try to explain why its uniqueness makes it a poorly designed vehicle, and why it may cause new players to stop playing the game. Sure, most outfits can run heavy AA squads, but for the new player, the Lib must be incredibly frustrating.


1. New players have no counter
New players in the game do not have any decent AA weapons. They do not have a dual burster, they do not have a skyguard. They can try a stock ESF, but air-combat in PS2 is one of the hardest things to do well. Their best bet is probably a suicidal Galaxy or Lib. AA turrets may scare them off for a bit, but being stationary targets, they're easily beat by a decent Lib pilot.


2. Liberator vs. Infantry:
The Liberator is the only vehicle in the game (with exception of Galaxy) which cannot be effectively hurt by a single infantry player. If we look at the MBTs, Sunderers, ESFs, etc, they can all be hurt by a single player. Most infantry players have access to C4 or tank mines, which allows them to take out any ground vehicle. ESFs are fragile enough to be hurt by lock-ons and bursters. Even normal gunfire hurts ESFs to some degree, even if its not much, at least you can always shoot back.

The Liberator on the other hand has enough armour to withstand a single person doing AA. Autorepair and fire suppression will make that an easy task. This makes the Liberator a frustrating enemy to meet in small fights.


3. The Liberator against vehicles:
The Liberator is the only vehicle which can take on any other vehicle and still win. MBTs can be beaten by Sunderers, Lightnings, tank mines, C4, ESFs, Libs, etc. Same for all other vehicles. However, the closest vehicle opponents to a Liberator would be ESFs or Skyguards. Neither of which are particularly effective. A single burster will currently not defeat a well certed Lib. MBTs only hope of defeating a Lib is to hit it multiple times with its main cannon. Which can be pretty difficult to do. Secondary guns like Walkers or Rangers are pretty much pointless to shoot at a Lib with unless you get a whole lot of them doing so.

The Liberator on the other hand, can take on anything. Tank buster + dalton/shredder can beat any vehicle. More often than not, your MBT will blow up before you have a chance to react due to the tank buster's crazy DPS.


4. The Liberator against a squad:
An argument is often that a 2 or 3-man Liberator should not be beaten by a single player. Which is an argument that does not hold up for any other vehicle. A 2-3 manned Harasser, Sunderer, MBT, etc. will all be beatable by a single person. Even if you run a full Liberator-hunter squad with 5 lockdown bursters, engineers, medics, etc, a lot of the Libs will still be able to shell you from distance (either by flying sideways or by simply dodging behind terrain at distance). Sure, they'll be kept out of the area, but they'll still not die consistently. Any other vehicle would.


5. The Liberator is the only vehicle in the game with high speed, high mitigation and high damage.
In comparison:
MBT: Generally slow, high dps, high mitigation.
Lightning: Fast, medium dps, medium mitigation.
Sunderer: Slow, medium dps, high mitigation.
Harasser: Very Fast, medium dps, low mitigaiton.
ESFs: Very Fast, high dps, low mitigation.

Lib: Fast, Extreme dps, High mitigation.


6. The Liberator can damage you without you being able to do damage to it.
One of the main gripes in the game is being killed by AV mana turrets that you cannot see. The Liberator can do the same to a multitude of vehicles and infantry by simply flying high. I'm sure you all have died to a high-flying Lib that just shells you outside lock-on range and outside effective flak range.


7. The Liberator mechanics are made for farming:
The Liberator is arguably most effective when able to stay over a zerg vs zerg infantry battle. It can simply farm infantry. One of the main annoyances in the game is dying to "random things". Strangely enough, the latest weapon designed for the Liberator actually has a firespread that really is just random. Makes you wonder.


8. The Liberator is exceptionally good at spawncamping.
People hate being locked in spawns. They could surely just redeploy to somewhere else, but new players will not be doing that. They're noobs after all. Since Libs are flying, they can spawncamp several more bases that would be ineffective to spawncamp using ground vehicles. In addition, it has weaponry that is very effective against infantry.


9. It is the only vehicle where the high dps weapon is manned by another player
All the other vehicles require the person in charge of the main weapon to also do other things. In ESFs you need to pilot. In MBTs, you need to drive. In Libs, anyone can jump into the main belly gun and dominate as long as the pilot is decent. Being a Lib gunner is generally easy, just learn to compensate a bit, and then it is just point and shoot.


10. The Liberator indirectly reduces the quality of the game
I believe the 9 reasons above are enough for new players to get sufficiently frustrated by the game to stop playing. This in turn reduces income at SOE, which in turn will limit (or reduce) the amount of resources that SOE put into PS2. This in turn means less new content, and worse overall game quality. Which in turn causes a bad spiral as less content and worse quality means even less players. It may be a bit overdramatic, but a poorly enough designed vehicle can kill a game like this. (BFRs anyone?).

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There you go, 10 reasons for why the Liberator is a poor design.

B-But it carries 3 people!

When the fourth gunner enters my Gal it goes super-saiyan (well NC shatter camo at least).

If your tryin to take out a lib by yourself, you probably need to find another game. Unless you can fly a ESF good !!

So what your saying is a Gunship is good at being a Gunship.......

I'm saying it doesn't follow the basic design principles of any of the other vehicles in the game. Nor does it enhance the game in a way which makes new players wish to join. Thus it is hurting the game, more than anything.

It doesn't need a nerf, it needs a redesign and rethink of what is the intended purpose of the vehicle.

I actually find it pretty easy to take down even a decent crewed lib with my mossy. In fact I enjoy hunting them down and actively seek out libs more than anything else when I am in my mossy.

Look at it this way. IF the lib was taken out of the game would it affect the over all quality/experience of the game?

Before you answer think about what would happen if this game had no MBT's or Gal's

Liberators are actually pretty easy to kill, I'm not sure what you're complaining about.

Just make them cost 800 aero resources to spawn. Problem solved.

@GhostAvatar - Sure, but you're also a veteran with 84 days played according to your sig using what I assume is a heavily certed mossie. I'm sure you've also died in your mossie to a low BR grunt firing rockets or using an AA turret. The much larger HP pool of the Lib makes that much less likely to happen for Libs.

I agree with your reasons, but how exactly is this a guide?

I don't think the game would suffer without the Lib being present. It is not the only counter to any of the other vehicles, and as such, is not a 100% necessary vehicle in the game.

As for MBTs, they are a natural predator of Sunderers. They could however, have removed the HE rounds. HEAT would have been a sufficient force-multiplier to make them dangerous enough against infantry. HE is just for farming infantry anyways, because if you were worried about meeting vehicles, you would run AV or HEAT.

Gals should be used as troop transports for redeploys. Granted, some run them as Battle Gals (me included) as they are as good as invulnerable with the proper cert setups. However, their DPS output is limited as the Bulldogs are not very effective against tanks. The Gal being able to provide some form of overwatch for an infantry based squad on the ground does make some sense though, considering its role as a troop transport. However, being a very big target, it can be hit by pretty much anything, including dumb fire rockets.

It is a guide to why the Liberator is a poorly designed vehicle, no? (Sure, calling it a guide is a stretch, Ill give you that)

I have to agree-- it seems to me that liberators are the only vehicle/unit in the game that actually ruins battles more than it adds to them. They have a very limited role outside of spawn-camping and other lame uses, especially since the fighters can cover the ground (and spawn rooms) so well already.

I know i was using the MBT's an GAl as examples of vehicles that are necessary for the game.

Liberators seem to be getting a lot of attention after the newest update.

Overall I think the liberator is an awesome platform, but some of the recent buffs should have not been added.

Also I feel like the lib in its past state was perfectly fine, an MBT with a single person in it can be a farming machine, throw a secondary gunner in it and its even more effective.

A liberator with just a pilot is overall weak, yes you can tank bust, but not every situation applies to the tank buster. Throw a gunner in there and now its very strong. This requires coordination, that only one vehicle requires, which is the harasser.

Highly coordinated vehicles should be extremely effective.

Not the only one, Harasser's gun is also manned by another player, and I believe it's part of the reason why Harasser was overpowered when it was. I'm pretty sure it would still be OP if anyone actually bothered to use the harasser after its "massive nerfs".

But this thread is about libs, and I agree 100% percent with your analysis, it's thorough and accurate.
However, there is one good thing about the lib update - it helped us identify wusses among us.
Lib piloting and lib gunning I consider below something a man would do. It's cheap and dishonorable. So with this new lib update we now know who is who among us.

You forgot the 11th reason:

Because people refuse to own their experience, and would rather blame the game than figure out how to survive in the game.

Yeh, you're right about the Harasser. Completely forgot about it (overnerfed so it doesn't get used as much anymore). Edit-timer has expired though so I can't fix it. But thanks for reminding me