[Suggestion] Upgraded Lightning AA Systems

Yea... seriously. Pilots kinda dig their own grave with this one.

"Oh, the Skyguard isn't lethal simply because it doesn't have the same engagement window as aircraft do!"

Well then you have two choices to balance the Skyguard:

1) Enlarge the engagement window for Skyguards so that they have the same engagement window as air units. Let them shoot through terrain. Or let them clip through the air. SAM missiles that autolock on anything flying would also solve this problem.

2) Improve practical Skyguard damage output so that even though it has a shorter engagement window it can dish out the same amount of damage. Say aircraft have an engagement window of 20 seconds and do 200 DPS (random numbers). This means aircraft are capable of dealing 4,000 damage per engagement. Then all you have to do is balance Skyguards around their shorter engagement window. If Skyguards have an engagement window of only 5 seconds and would still have to do 4,000 damage, then Skyguard DPS ought to be around 800 DPS (again, random numbers).

It's not rocket science, really.

Walkguard. Is to walker what skyguard is to ranger.

That would be interesting...

If you compare a Skyguard and a Ranger...

RoF- Skyguard 480RPM, Ranger 330RPM
Damage- Skyguard 60, Ranger 50
Velocity- Skyguard 400m/s, Ranger 325m/s
CoF- Skyguard- 1.25, Ranger 1.5

So the Skyguard is 45% faster firing, 20% more damaging, 23% faster flying, and 17% more accurate than the Ranger. If we applied these same numbers to the Walkguard...

RoF- 870RPM
Damage- 156
Velocity- 1,230m/s
CoF- 0.54

In other words it would kill an 35% resist, 3,000HP ESF in 30 shots or about 2 seconds. Which is a pretty good improvement over the 4 second TTK of a Skyguard!

Do you guys hate me?
ESFs are my favorite part of the game for the flying controls alone, and already I spend 3/4 of my esf career waiting for nanites
Are you trying to make ESF useless or something?

We're just trying to make AA not useless.

I mean I could say that Skyguarding is my favorite part of the game... why should my favorite part of the game be useless because you want to play your favorite part of the game?

Given your sig this is so ironically funny you have no idea.

Also, what the Cringe Colonel said - your favorite thing to do takes priority over what others like to do, because why?

I fly quite a lot myself, and usually my biggest number of losses come from other aircraft, randomly crashing or bursters. Skyguards are rarely more than an annoyance.

The walkguard would melt hovering ESF. While skyguarrd is better against mo ing targets, unlesss you got really good aim with walkguard.

well esf flying require alot more skill than aiming a gun you know
and the skygaurd does a really good job of keeping esfs off the air
I don't know where you saying the AA in this game is useless

Because the kills it generates is fairly low.

Aircraft Kills Per Hour
Liberator Dalton Cannon- 12.70-13.82
ESF Rotary Cannon- 7.35-7.67
Phalanx AA Turret- 7.21-7.35
Skyguard- 5.59-5.94
Liberator Walker- 4.55-5.10
Liberator Shredder- 3.81-4.61
Galaxy Top Walker- 3.34-3.75
MAX Bursters- 2.49-3.27

At the very least AA should be performing equally to A2A weapons... and certainly better than a dedicated A2G weapon like the Dalton!

yeah, but it is easier to get kills with AA than A2A

I think the facts show that it literally is not. Even people who have ~49% accuracy with a Skyguard cannot match the VKPH/AKPH of someone who has a ~48% accuracy with the Vortex Rotary.

In terms of accuracy, the "best" Skyguard player is actually more accurate than the "best" Reaver pilot, yet only gets 14 VKPH compared to 42 VKPH for the ESF.

Going by VKPH, the "best" Skyguard player almost gets to 20 VKPH whereas the Reaver gets to almost 43 VKPH.

The problem is that Skyguards cannot kill their targets quickly enough, while ESFs have a far easier time because they can keep up with their targets. That's why ESFs have it so easy... mobility is actually an option for them.

AA needs to be made far more lethal to aircraft to make up for the fact that it can't chase aircraft down. If aircraft enter the engagement envelope of AA, it needs to die instead of happily making an escape and moving to farm elsewhere.

Titan-150 AP = best AA

So your idea is lightnings should have the same killing power as a esf?

As someone who spends a large amount of time in a Skyguard I don't think it really needs a buff in the damage department. However it could use moderate increase in projectile velocity. This would extend its practical engagement range. Which is actually quite short if you want to kill an ESF instead of just driving it off.

Basically the Skyguard is a killing weapon at closer ranges and a suppression weapon at longer ranges. An increase in projectile velocity would change some of the suppression area into more killing area.

Libs and Gals are another matter.

A Lib is a 2-3 person weapons platform that is designed to take out tanks. A good lib has a slight advantage over a good skyguard if the skyguad driver uses terrain and cover well. The skyguard won't kill the lib but the lib will kill the skyguard if the skyguard makes a mistake or if the local terrain is unfavorable.

So in an ideal situation for the skyguard a lib will effectively suppress the skyguard or kill it. If things are less than idea for the skyguard then the lib will just kill it. I don't see anything wrong with this. If you have 2-3 skyguards then the lib will die every time.

As a skyguard I am much more afraid of the CAS30 Tank Buster and the AP30 Shredder than any other lib weapons as they are the best for ambushing a tank up close and the hardest to dodge at range. An A2G ESF is not scary unless there are at least two of them working as a team. Even then it usually takes three of them to make me not bother pulling another skyguard.

Gals aren't really much of a threat to skyguards as their bulldogs leave them helpless against ESFs and require the gal to fly low and their Drakes just aren't that dangerous to tanks most of the time. Of course a skyguard isn't much of a threat to a gal either because the gal just has so much HP. Unless there are several skyguards of course.

Gals are great for getting Air Deterrence ribbons though as they are the only aircraft you can reliably hit out to render distance due to their massive size and comparatively low speed.

But if you want to buff the skyguard I am not going to complain. More certs for me.

I feel I should add:

If a lib is dumb then it poses very little threat and the skyguard has a reasonable chance of killing it or getting some assist XP if there is other AA or friendly ESFs in the area. Most libs are dumb. Good libs are rare, and they are scary as hell. Terrain conditions are rarely ever favorable for the skyguard in a fight with a good lib so a good lib almost always wins.

Well both are 1 person 350 nanite vehicles, so yes.

Why wouldn't they be?

an amazing alternative , 50/10 do want

becuase it harder to hit anything with an esf than with a skyguard
In a lightning you just aiming a crosshair
in a ESF you need to fly the damn thing and get the entire ship to point at something

Sounds like you´ve never used a Skyguard before.

I am going to have to agree with Archiadus here. A skyguard has just as much or more raw killing power against an ESF as an ESF has against a skyguard. The difference is the range and required angle of attack.

If an ESF is dumb and just hovers at any range shooting at a skyguard that has seen the ESF before the ESF starts shooting the ESF will die. Even if the ESF isn't spotted until they start shooting it will still probably die. If the ESF pops out from behind a mountain and plays peek-a-boo games then neither it nor the skyguard are likely to die.

Of course the ESF can attack from an unexpected direction and use surprise. In this case the skyguard still has an advantage but the ESF can get a kill if the skyguard is already damaged or otherwise distracted. Honestly skyguard vs ESF fights are rare as any good ESF pilot will go and find an easier target as they know that a skyguard will beat them almost all the time all other things being equal.

The biggest threats to a skyguard, in order based on my experience, are:

1. AV Harassers, doubly so if they have fully upgraded vehicle stealth.
2. MBTs.
3. Lightnings with AP or HEAT weapons.
4. Battle sundies.
5. C4 fairies. (Sometimes these guys bail from ESFs. When they do they are number 2 on the list.)
6. Smart heavies that get close with launchers/C4.
7. ESF teams. (These are actually just as dangerous as an MBT, but they rank low because they are rare.)
8. A good lib. (By far the most deadly thing on the list, but you almost never see them.)

The real role of a skyguard is to drive off or kill aircraft that are making attack runs against friendly ground forces. Here the skyguard's killing vs suppression potential is almost entirely dictated by range and how quickly the angle and speed the aircraft is flying at relative to the skyguard change during their attack run. The limiting factors that determine kill vs suppression are the skyguard's projectile velocity and magazine size, assuming that player skill is equal between the ESF and the skyguard.