The Tale of the Striker. A short story.

Granted, it's not a striker, but recently I've seen rockets from my Crow weave through rows of trees on Amerish to successfully hit their target. Homing missiles have definitely developed a limited ability to navigate around terrain.

As someone who actually uses the Striker...

90% of the time, if a target gets behind anything whatsoever, the rockets don't hit the target. I've had things dart behind ammo towers for a quarter of a second, only to have all of those rockets explode on the tower. You'll be lucky if you get two hits out of five, which really doesn't do anything at all.

What would be the point of having a lock-on if you could simply afterburner away from it. That's silly. BF3 has that sort of system, and a single pilot can go 100-1.

Center mass of your vehicle has to be largely unobstructed and, while locking, anything in the way will break a lock (forcing you to try wait another 2 seconds trying to lock-on). I've have the very end of tree branches and exposed wires on towers deny my ability to lock-on. You can't log on if you just see a tip or back of a vehicle.

It takes an exceedingly long time to get a lock and fire five rockets. An ESF should have more than enough time to move away. That is, of course, assuming the pilot isn't just lolpodding with hover and thinking they should be invincible.

Flares break lock-ons; they don't cause rockets to disappear. The rockets will continue on a straight path.

Nope. And, frankly, in close battles I run the Decimator.

My main issue with the Striker right now is its (apparently bugged) tracking capability that often ignores flares or hits vehicles after they've gone behind cover. It makes it difficult to discuss balance because at the moment the Striker is more effective than it should be. Higby did mention they're working on it so hopefully that'l be resolved soon.

I can understand how people on both sides are unhappy with the weapon though: from the VS and NC perspective it's the return of the pre-nerf Annihilator- now with extra damage, from the TR perspective it's just another lockon weapon which means it has a low skill ceiling and is generally boring to use.

I fly a lot and with some skill (Millerites can attest). I have been away from the game for about a month due to internet/relocation issues, since before the Striker was released. I returned to the game about two weeks ago.

There is definitely something wrong with lock-on tracking. Using terrain to break locks is almost guaranteed not to work (I have darted through the canyons at max afterburner speed, swiveled through Tech Plants, rounded rock formations, none of which broke locks).

The problem is that the Striker is so popular with TR. Any TR should try one of the other factions and see the difference between flying against TR and non-TR. I also agree with a post above: I've seen more mozzies with radar than reavers. For non-TR, flares are a must due to this lock-on bug.

Well, I'm on the receiving end of it. I'm where it finally ends up.

90% of the time the rockets hit even if I'm behind anything.

I'd like to see an ESF's A2G capabilites and the current G2A nerfed instead of G2A taking over everything. And I'm a strong advocate against any form of lock-ons.

I've been locked-on from behind hills, walls, whatever. And it's not that they are on the same side of the hill as I am..

I would call exceedingly an exaggeration.

As I'm the receiving end of the missile I can tell you that sometimes the missile hits even if you've flared and behind cover or moving irregularly.

You're right. Every TR BR1-100 doesn't have a Striker. What a foolish statement of me to make. Most of them do. As a previous TR pilot I can tell you that the amount of lock-ons you get on you is exceedingly higher when playing as VS/NC.

as someone who plays all 3 factions (NC more than TR more than VS) I have both experience using and being targeted by the Striker

I have noticed some weird things in the last week or so which may explain some of the experiences others are reporting.

Last night while playing TR I locked a Reaver - after firing the first shot he hit flares however my lock wasn't lost and I continued to fire - the first missile went dumb and missed but the other 4 all chased him and hit - I have never seen the striker do this before but last night it happened twice.

While flying my Reaver I have noticed, same as other people, that the Striker missiles seem to be "avoiding" terrain - you can put a hill between you and the launcher and still you will be hit by most the missiles (if not all). I also saw this yesterday when I was getting hits on targets who had put terrain between the missiles and them.

Now both of these issues have come up in the last week where Miller has been lagging quite badly - I wouldn't be overly surprised to find out both are caused by server lag.

also on a side note since some people have been debating it - yes I run flares on all 3 of my ESF's however I have only needed rank 1 on my TR character - both VS and NC have out right required lvl 4 (and even then I still get battered) - the TR do use more lock-on's now than either the other 2 factions.

I've had a lock on bug before while using the striker I believe. Big guess but I think it happens when your lock on turns into a spinning rectangle after already firing rockets when you lose LOS. I haven't had rockets clip terrain but they go to the original lock on spot then follow the path of the aircraft I believe so they don't collide with anything. Otherwise the striker would be a piece of trash since it takes over a second to fire all its rockets and can't be used in dumb fire mode and can't target maxes or turrets. So my guess is you used flares after losing LOS while the striker was still firing.

My accuracy and kill/min is greater with the ml-7 and my aim isn't even that great overall.

I have seen some weird stuff with it like the missiles just changing flight path instantly by 90 degrees once but mostly it isn't a miracle weapon that gives you new powers that other empires don't have.

huh, interesting. knew the striker was BS, didn't know there was no-clip-type bugs going on with it.
would explain why
1 - my flares have stopped working against strikers unless i pop them before any missiles are fired, and at least that usually does interrupt the lock-on process but once they're up, i've been getting popped by all 5. which sets my reaver on fire. which is awesome, it's practically a OHK lock-on weapon, which just sounds all kinds of good for the game doesn't it?
2 - yesterday I found that flying over a mountain range didn't stop the missiles from finding me. yeah, it was a little reckless, but i saw a sundy under some trees and paused over a ridge-line to figure out which end was facing me, front or back, before i went in with pods. you'd think that being 300m away and ducking down behind cover as soon as things are fired at you would be enough, but POP POP POP POP POP good thing you've got plenty of time to re-think things now that you're on the ground repairing that stupid jet of yours.

Even when they're working right, flaring only drops the first missile. It's awesome.

The only counter-play is to not play at all. It can't be that fun for TR. NC's got a fun ESRL, and honestly... I kinda like the VS one too, it's a little strange but effective without dominating. but.. the Striker? What a stupid weapon system.

Long and the short of it, it sounds like *NOBODY* likes the striker. TR's saying it's meh and boring and nothing special and everyone else is pretty terrified of it. Sounds like TR wouldn't care if it's changed and everyone else would be happy.

TR Here.

I can say that the Striker is definitely going through a balancing act since it's inception. It's first iteration had it's missiles immediately following the plotted trajectory of the ESF that it was locked on to. This meant that all an ESF had to do was fly up in the air then directly at the ground and the missiles would simply suicide into the ground. You could almost hear the ESF pilot's LOL'ing over the internet when they did this.

The second iteration had the missiles following a straight trajectory from the launcher for a short while before flying directly at the ESF. This had an added benefit, in that you could fire the Striker like a Javelin, by getting a lock, and then aiming the launching to the side or above the target before firing, thus allowing you to hit top or rear armour, thus making it overly awesome against tanks.

The current iteration simply flies directly at the ESF. It's missiles now seem to have an uncanny ability to MOE fly over mountains when fired at enemy air. My belief is that this shouldn't happen. My guess is that the latency math that works out where the missile is relative to the ESF that it's fired at needs to be tweaked, so that the missile's position at the time of the ESF flying behind cover can be more relied on to better determine if lock has been lost or not.

With all three iterations, lock on could be cancelled with flares.

If the soldier managed to unload another 5 rockets even after you've tried to break LOS then mashed ABs and egressed back to friendly skies...

You did it wrong.

In other news, **** lockons.

So whose opinion do we take? The guy who actually fires the rockets and see how many of them hit, or the guy who says "OMG WOWZRS I JST GOT HIT WTH LIKE A BAJILLION ROCKETS!?!?!"

Either you're greatly misinformed, straight-up lying, or are bad.

That's a negative Ghost Rider. There is a small window in which you can fire rockets a previous locked-on target after he dips behind cover, but most of the time these rockets miss anyway. If there is nearly anything obstructing your vision to the center mass of a target, you won't get a lock. I've had my attempts to lock fail because people stepped in front of me, there was a wire in the way, or some leaves at the end of a branch.

You cannot possibly know what angle they have on you because there's no kill-cam. You cannot lock-on from behind obstructions such as hills and walls.

It takes 5-6 seconds to mag dump on a non-stealthed vehicle from start of lock-on to last rocket sent down range . That's an eternity when you're more-or-less stationary and exposed to your target (which, being a vehicle, has more pew pew than you and you can't dumbfire).

Bad luck on the angle. Flares don't make things disappear.

Well, yeah. Duh. As a TR I can say that I die more to camera-guided missiles and instantaneous lasers without drop than I would as a VS or NC. It's called asymmetrical balance.

I don't know. That's not up for us to decide. But you sure like to exaggerate and paint me up like some clown. I'm not quite sure that's going to work out for you. I could start comparing the skill cap of a good ESF pilot and a good Lock-o.. But I'm not going to.

Either you're greatly misinformed, straight-up lying, or are bad.

That's a negative Ghost Rider. There's seems to be quite a large angle of where you actually can lock on from, regardless of blocking objects or terrain. Why do I say that? Because it has happened that someone has got a lock just as I went behind cover, or the lock alert was bleeping as I past objects/terrain.

Everything is relative. I find your statement to be an exaggeration altough I don't have any problem with the lock-on time at all. I'm just against lock-ons in general.

Bad luck on the angle. I'm glad you have such insight into PS2 development that you can safely say that without a doubt.

The NC's and VS's ESRL's doesn't have both A2A and A2G capabilites. If found it amusing how a TR would call that asymmetrical balance.

You let the guy lock on you two times? Were you flying in circles above him? Dude...

Striker is indeed rather OP. I know from experience it can clip through terrain, or navigate extremely well. Where as I'm not sure about flares only getting rid of one missile, I've often still been locked onto solidly after dumping flares and 9/10 times, it's been a Striker.

I used to run with Radar all the time.
Now I only dare pull it when I know I'm fighting NC, or at night when there's barely any population at all
There's no strategy. All that used to work doesn't work anymore. Terrain does nothing.

no.

This is a bit suspicious from someone who has a TR avatar

The rockets have noclipn and they fly through buildings,mountains trees unaffected...

Planetside 2! Log into it!

Who's most qualified to talk about a striker? Someone who's used extensively and still uses it everyday, or someone who doesn't even have one?