We need more pilots

I would admit that this is all based on only my own experience. A simple dog fight and the subsequent chase or flee will take me many hex away from the base I was trying to help. It is hard to get invested in the success or failure of an assault when it is so easy to get diverted far away.

This is probably the way planetside 2 is meant to be played, by using force multipliers as and when necessary. However, my experience as a new pilot is that it is difficult to maintain enough nanites to stay in the air. Ditching an ESF is a luxury that is hard to afford when learning to fly.

My own experience is that flying feel like a completely different game where the concerns of the ground forces feel distant and far away. Perhaps it is different when playing a competitive setting such as server smash where the air force are given objectives where they need to accomplish, but in live play it is just too easy to view the whole map as a death match arena.

Very true. Even after a year of flying and with a 4-man group we couldn't keep enough air presence to even be a nuisance to the other faction which was zerging air. That, along with what you pointed out, is why I proposed much cheaper air, all while keeping the same A2A lethality but sacrificing most A2G ability. I think it's a fair trade, and in combination with an easier to use nose gun would keep the skys much more populated.

You need to group up with pilots who share similar interests. Without air cover you just can't last long doing A2G. You don't need to be part of anything competitive to make a difference in this game, just look at the objectives and have your small air squad turn the tide of one battle then another. When enemy air is suppressed I like to run Scout Radar and really help out the fight below. It's incredible seeing a random mess of infantry all of a sudden fall in line and push where they need to go once the whole battle lights up on their mini-map. That's also a great way to pick off veteran players who often work the flanks and would otherwise wreak havoc. It's all about finding your niche, finding similar players, and grouping up to get things done. None of which require a server smash.

You were perhaps remembering another day that burt was air zerging, they do it more now that Don doesn't fly anymore and the sunX doesn't log on until later. We killed chosunspyman and shineofthesun that day too, before and after burt came to fight us. Chosunspyman once "jokingly" told me he was the best TR pilot on the server(now), and Don also singles him out to kill first. So there were decent enough pilot on at least.

There are many thing to consider then just make air cheaper or any new air. What is stopping a platoon of air roaming the map obliterating everything, then the only thing stopping them is another air zerg and this turns into Warthunder(I do like the idea, but its not the planetside I love). Or go the other way, make air cheap and everyone can fly but weak then you get the opposite, why pull air at all if you cannot effect ground. Redeploy exist so that sucks for attackers coming in air transports. Whats stopping me from using your cheap NSF as a taxi for my C4 LA if ESF are that cheap and useless. 150nanites for 2C4, MBT cost 450, the esf need to be cheaper than 300, assuming I don't miss with my C4, net profit for me and my side. Some people are already using a ESF currently as a vendetta tool against tankers via amentioned solo C4(abiet a very small minority of player, they exists), or what is keeping these "cheaper" esf from just ramming the old and more expensive esf, if someone is discontent with the A2G farmer(do you remove collision damage then?). (I've also been TK by people you fly with while leading, I can empathize their frustration going against an airsquad). Making a fast and cheap transport will exacerbate the these small "problems" that doesn't really "exist" currently.

I think the core of the problem is not lack of reources but leadership. DBG to need to give the player a better system then just the ingame outfit, see (1*). Maybe a faction wide bulletin board for faction that an outfit or certain player can post on to host events or training, limited with high BR and even cert cost and timer to limit trolling. Just something persistant for people to communicate inside the game without actually resorting to the forum and reddit, discord, or being in an exlusive outfit.

As for the spawn room camping, thats because they lack good leadership, again. Any amount of forces spent to lockdown an already defeated spawnroom could be use for another front. Having spent some time with FPSK, they have shown me what competent leadership can do. Holy **** are they mobile and although they do keep a small group of armour, most of the squad is infantry and valks with beacons and sundey as needed. That one thursday night where we did airsupport solely for their platoon was magical, the funnest I've ever been and my nanites and skill was stretched thinner then it ever was because we were responding to ~2 minute cap timer on both NC and TR fronts for a good duration of the pre-alert and during.

Maybe its because of the required service that all korean have but all of the korean leader, VTG, skcalz, are more organized then many of the outfit I've run with. I really recommend you join one of their nightly op for youself to see what I mean. As infantry or in one of their mechanized squad. Just ask VTG1ne for an invite, comms and order are both english and korean.

1.[There are only 3 real group that fly, beside the new pilots: the skyknight/A2G aka solo pilots, the outfit that sometimes fly or specialize in it, and the rarely open squad of air. So to get any real flight experience they are shoehorned into either flying alone, ask an outfitmate who might have some connections, or get lucky and see if anyone is "leading" air tonight. All are bad options and when they try to fly alone, they get mauled by the mentioned groups and never touch an ESF again. Someone DBG side problably pushed to make flak less effective this patch and watching the data to scale it back up accordingly, at least I hope it was intentional, so they are looking to help out new pilots because veteran pilots weren't the one really dying to flak before.

I think people just lack leadership more then they lack skill or an objective; a good leader solves alleviates both. What the airgame really lack is a system that put people that are willing to teach with peopel that are willing to learn. Would you be willing to fly more often if I offer you a spot in my squad rather then just flying alone after practicing in vr?]

A good leader does make the air game much more enjoyable. I once spend 2 hours flying in Wortho's air squad on Briggs and the feeling is very different with him calling out objectives and the squad try to wreck all the vehicles in that area. Having concrete, doable objectives made the flying more focus and fun.

I would be happy to fly in your squad, if you don't mind a noob pilot. I am always open to learning something new in Planetside 2. I am afraid I do not have a high level alt on Connery though and my play time probably does not match yours.

Numbers will always be an advantage, what this does is allow the disadvantaged to keep fighting when they'd otherwise be suppressed to the warpgate, like I was after I couldn't pull any more ESF and I got 3v1ed outside the warpgate then logged off and spent money on another game. Yes, an air zerg could still roam the map, but the difference is that the pilots being ganged up on could keep flying. Right now it's a situation where if you can't beat-em you join'em, or instead of adding to the cancer you quit the game (most likely) or completely stop spending money on it like in my case. I think Cymric should meet you guys, because there's no way he'll stick with flying in the game on this server if he doesn't, and that should say something about the broken balance of things, and why I'm so adamant about fixing things. Ramming is a problem, and my solution would be to keep collision but drop ESF damage from a ram down to 1/100th of what it is. Rams with that thing have always been a troll maneuver and I can't think of a single pilot or tanker who would argue against removing damage from them. C-4 fairies have always been broken when dropped out of the air, don't blame a cheaper ESF for them, especially when fairy spam out of a Valk is much more dangerous.

Their effectiveness has never been in question. I don't know why you keep proposing I group up with these guys. I want to see that level of teamwork spread to the other factions, not build on top of the problem by joining them or you.

Connery VS is the easiest way to get in to flying in this game, you should absolutely give flying a real chance. Just PLEASE, learn how to fly, and then fly against the air zergs once you're good enough. The reason air is so dead on this server is that everyone who feels like grouping up has all gone VS, and they've basically had a monopoly on teamwork for the past year. I was even flying with Hosoka the other night on TR and would basically instantly die to VS air a hex out of the warpgate. So, I logged off, bought a liter of beer, bought some new DLC for Arma 3 and went to fly there. More of my money lost to other games that should be going to Planetside.

This is odd, TR usually have the numbers during Asia prime time on Connery. I have both TR and VS alt on Connery, probably will spec one of them into ESF and give it a try.

Just flew for an hour and was thoroughly reminded of why the air game is so ******. When flying, the only true threat is enemy vet pilots. And to learn flying, according to all the advise I had read is to use external fuel tank and do hover duels with other pilots. So... the result is predictable. Fly for some contested base, find an enemy ESF, get wreck by it unless an ally was nearby to help. Fight for objective? No idea what that is, too busy trying to survive doing death match against another pilot. Did killed a few valks though, it is almost sad how easy they are to destroy.

After dying a few times I got back into the hang of it and with the help of membership boost was able to stay constantly in the air, but the experience is just terrible.

The problem is that ESFs are too expensive to skill into. Your repair/stealth needs to be certed very high. Your frame needs to be upgraded to be competitive, Your nosegun benefits a lot from reload/ammo count depending on role on top of having to unlock it in the first place.

Most people I talk to in-game don't bother to cert them as they prioritize unlocking infantry guns first.

Group up!!!! That's the entire point of this thread. If you were just flying this is still Asia time, so that's much harder to do. I started this other thread about starting a Discord for pilots, I just don't think anyone cares anymore at this point. There needs to be an easier way to send your whole friends list the same message. Like "anyone want to fly?" Units won't help you this time of day. All chat is worthless. It's difficult for sure. There atleast needs to be a "faction chat" tab, how there isn't one is comical.

As far as playing the objective, that's exactly what you were doing. Sure, you weren't killing guys on the point, but you kept the enemy air from killing guys on the point. That's absolutely contributing.

My playtime varies around 8pm-1am PST, although I have seen outfits apparently from briggs playing on conner(zeta and pal?). You don't need to be decked out, having just the default nose gun and afterburner means you can do A2A duty, having hornets or rocket pods means you can join in the general air strike. As for playstyle, I generally take requests from command chat or we fight where you can make a difference and have been dipping my toe into leading again when I have spare time.

Thats true for the most part, we fight veteran solo and other small squad all the time. The good thing about playing in a group is that the vet generally will not focus you outright because you have other veteran pilots in the group fighting them and they know not to ignore the other vet, so even if you can land a few shot you be helping out. People say thats just a gank squad but thats real combat experience, I tell new pilots to focus on dodge when they are cornered, their wingman can peel for them, focus on surviving; they can learn to aim shoot when they are not the primary target, slowly but surely its many times better then VR or 2nd hand videos.

We got people like lordkrelas with warranted worries about how air would interact with ground, then you have to change the whole system, the dev do not have enough time or resources to do this. Even then people will still disagree.

I think the easier side to solve for this problem is leadership, at least I think its more important to solve any of the other problem air has given the limited resources we have. And my bulletin board idea won't just benefit air; schedule open armour ops and infantry training or other fun events; the idea is to have a faction talking with its members in a persistant way ingame.

You also saw what cyro posted, like I was saying before "discounting faction loyalty, there are few pilots who have account on all three faction and even fewer are willing to do what you want". If you're adamant, I'll help you out, but I'll ask what happens next when your plan do work, you're just shifting what VS has to NC and TR. It just crumbles when we leave. Don is not the problem, not having someone like don on all three faction is.

It excels at almost nothing. It is better now principally because they nerfed the lib and improved its weapons at the same time, which has unsettled the CAS Niche. Its still half the capacity and the same speed as a Gal, and has to turn sidelong to match or exceed a Gal who is going in straight cruise. The Rumble seats are un-stabilized, and made principally useful via Hover Airframe, which makes it even slower and less viable vs. other aircraft (Hence why Hover is Heresy). The largely hyper niche characteristics of rumble seats means that if they remove rumble seat repair, it'll lose its purpose entirely.

This would be counter-productive, as that in turn would strengthen the arguments that some in the Valk community have put forward repeatedly and been spreading - that you should remove two of the rumble seats and replace them with Door Guns. If rumble seats have only niche usage for one faction, the case becomes to either remove them entirely and give a major buff to its performance stats, or give it door guns. Either of these things would probably not be things you'd find favorable.

As to FPSK - I appreciate their new-found enthusiasm for it, but most of what I see is flooding the airspace taxi drops. One or two of them are fairly decent. Air presence is not necessarily a prohibition on drops - it depends on what that presence is doing. If its a group of ESFs doing rocket runs, you can slip in among them purely by their own target fixation.



As an aside, anything you did with Baka in a Valk doesn't count. It used to, but no longer does.

As constructive criticism you need to emphasise evasive maneuvers that will eventually lead to evasive/shooting maneuvers. I can't begin to tell you how many Scythes I've gone up against solo that have zero clue what to do in a 1v1. They'll either bail as soon as they start getting shot or just flail around without ever firing a shot in the hope that help might happen across them. No other faction has this problem even close to the extent as VS. It really is a double edged sword allowing new pilots to rely on evading and using lock-ons.

Like I've been saying, getting more people to fly on the other factions. The Skyknights are thankfully all but extinct, so that teamwork stigma you keep referencing is honestly mostly gone. I do disagree that every faction needs a Don however. He got off on trolling pilots and making the air game so miserable for the other factions that the server lost players and money. My end goal and what this community needs is basically the exact opposite of what he brought, an eventual competitive air scene with a focus on teamwork. I can't emphasise enough that I don't want to see a shift of power. Of course I'd love whatever help I could get, I'm just worried about conflicting philosophies and goals. Is that Discord his channel? It's already used and established but I honestly don't want anything to do with him.

I think the valk is finally in a good place. Strikers aside, it can't compete against an ESF, but it can certainly fight back enough to prolong its life long enough for friendly air to help, or to get within range of friendly AA. So the Valk isn't really the heart of the problem at this point, it's lack of friendly AA and lack of friendly air. The skys need to be as populated with aircraft as the ground is with armor if we're ever going to see balance. If the ESF can't be tailored to be the cheap air option I've suggested, then we need a cheap and easy to use NS A2A fighter. Maybe just a half price ESF with the aim assist nosegun I've proposed and no defense/utility/airframe slots?.... Of course that gun would only assist when it came to air targets, and would have to be a low enough dps to fit its cheaper price. Except the gun, all the resources are in game. Or maybe scrap the nosegun and have Coyotes be the only option on the vehicle. That way it couldn't chase down ESF with fuel pods and wouldn't be that much of a threat to anything but ESF and other 1/2 off aircraft. That might be the ticket.

I mean as for learning to fight, practicing aiming or dodging alone first is way better then a video or vr. They can learn to do both after getting use to both, babysteps I think, retention is also higher. I don't really notice since I don't fly as often on other factions but what you describe happen with both TR and NC pilots(even the "good" ones bails to preserve their KDA); again I don't fly against VS as much so I don't know how often this happens.

As for the discord, its mine and I use it for all the games I play, not just planetside. Its more of a hub for me and friends really. Feel free to leave a note or sticky for your discord if you want, I don't mind. My goal is to have fun with people, if heads really butt, can always split and make a new server, its discord not TS, everything is free, just bring friends.

Tonight was a picture perfect example of why we need cheaper ESF. My platoon was getting hit by air so we built a half *** mossy squad. Of course only 3 of us were on coms, only 2 others really knew ho to fly, and half of the guys brought A2G loadouts, but we had a decent air battle the first go. Once the Reavers cleared out our ranks and you brought overwhelming numbers with missiles that completely depleted our nanites and that was it for air. That could have continued and been a great evening if we weren't grounded after that second encounter. You definitely helped ensure that didn't happen with Coyotes, like they were needed, which exemplifies my point of you actually not desiring good air battles. I noticed how you logged off not too long after that. Was the lack of enemy air what it was? I'm honestly curious, because as one of the key pilots on the overwhelming side you were critical in stopping any further dog fights that evening. Something to think about.

Burt was resorting to rams for the last fight, look at the other thread for video. I don't have a problem with cheaper air, its the ground folks that do and since I play every bit of planetside, I can see why devs are cautious to making air cheaper. Also with membership, its a 5 minute wait, with resource boostes, its a 3.5 minute wait for an ESF so you can say if you really really want to fly, just support DBG more. They will not make anything cheaper because it would remove one of the major benefit of membership over the AVG player, not to mention cut into of their booste income. I know its a ****** practice to balance your game with a wall like that but PS2 is F2P afterall. Don't say better balance will bring in more player, its theoretical(could be good, could be worst), this game is 5 years old and sadly probably on its last leg, they will not cut their revenue stream to experiment.

and it was 1:30Am, usually 2am is the limit for me, and I was yelling orders and stuff so I was disturbing other members of the house, logged off after my last death. You guys had enough to pull prowlers for yaegers before I logged, so I don't know.

You're missing the entire point of my post. With no cheap option in the air, we were done after those 2 waves and that was that.The icing on the cake was "that was a good fight" at the end of the second video. That was probably the first and last time half those guys flew, they went down like VR dummies, and the only two Scythes that died crashed in to each other, which goes to show just how incapable your targets were. "good fight"? Really? So when infantry-only Demigan says "good example of the ESF A2A game", he couldn't be more wrong. I've honestly never seen that many players faction vs faction since TR or NC had Indar and all the noobs jumped in ESF to get to the first battles and ran in to dedicated VS pilots. That's a good example of what it could be if the air was populated. After a year of playing, I can count fights like that on a single hand. He's so worried about ESF farming ground if they were cheaper, but even if you weren't being seriously threatened, like how you weren't with those Mossys, you wouldn't be able to farm the way you normally do. He doesn't see it, and I'm not sure you do, but it would be of huge benefit for air and ground alike if ESF without wing-mounts were 1/2 off. Of course that's not all that needs to happen, but it does need to happen or the skys will keep looking like they did an hour before that little skirmish and the rest of the night afterwards. One side securing clear dominance after the first battle or two then easily maintaining it for the rest of the night, farming the ground completely unopposed. This isn't the way it should be.

First, read that part after your name in my reply to Hisoka. But skill ceiling, I just don't agree. If there's an unlimited ceiling, like you mentioned, that means there's limitless potential, which a few will skyrocket towards, and we're basically back to square 1.

Remember when a faction had full power 1/2 cost air thanks to Indar? That faction didn't immediately win, and the sky didn't fall, because it just had to be countered from the ground. That's a perfect example of how 1/2 off air for a single faction didn't break the game. That said, the Indar bonus was cancer and I'm glad it's gone. But imagine if all 3 sides had 1/2 off air at the same time with my easier to use nosegun. Everyone gets to fly, everyone lands hits, everyone is learning, and air is consistently countered by air, so no more need for spawnroom bursters. Say one faction does have the advantage, if they switch to ground farming loadouts, they'll lose the next air fight. It would all balance out perfectly, and it's the only way we'll ever see air balance.

Hover fighting is basically fighting similar to how you would in a helicopter in any other game, with the difference that ESF are much more twitchy than helos in any other game, and I'm sure your afterburners would only add to that problem. the real trick here is keeping the plane in that mode, which we both agree should be made easier with a button. So, basically, you're upset that there isn't plane style fighting, and we have helicopter fighting, just realize that. So you want maneuvers that planes can pull off in a helicopter game, alright, I'm down with that, and I fully believe that would be solved with better physics, as the controls are basically the same as my plane controls in Arma, with the addition of descend/ascend.

I'm completely fine with other aircraft having an A2A loadout, but I'm also fine wit ESF being the top dog. It doesn't really matter to me, as long as ESF are made easier to use, which is what I've always argued for. But currently, if your'e in an A2G aircraft, you're still just as dependent on someone else as you ever were. The only way you'll change that is to water down every weapon and make every aircraft a jack of all trades, which has been your argument against ESF all along. I don't see this shift of ESF being the dominant A2A aircraft as that much different that what we've always had, just that the inferior Lib is even more so, but it's not like it was ever competitive against ESF before this.

That's the key problem that I'm trying to address, one side always beats the other and then air is dead, usually for an hour or more, or with nothing more than a few Reavers looking for a stray ESF to jump. What if the ground was like that? Infantry or armor? One side always wins pretty quickly then they roam completely unopposed? It would suck, just as it sucks in the air. Since there's no cheap option in the sky, its set up for a single faction to have overwhelming dominance after the first few fights, and that's what we see day in and day out.

Hold on, I thought we were having a nice and civilized conversation about this, but now you are throwing things like "infantry only" against it?
I have about 15% of my total playtime in the Lightning and Vanguard, considering that Colonel "Tanks need to destroy everything" Chingles himself had calculated he did about 30% of his total playtime in vehicles and he's dedicated to them, I'm by no means an infantry-only player. Also I learned to fly and auraxed two nosegun during Daddy's reign of "if it won't get me caught I'll use it". Since then the air-game hasn't really improved so I think I can safely say that I have experience in the airgame.

And I didn't say I was worried about air farming ground when aircraft were cheaper. I specifically said that making them cheaper would only make it easier for pilots to supress the newbs. Newbs would have faster access to ESF, get their butts kicked quicker and decide that it's not their thing. In the meantime any pro pilot would never run out of resources, similar to how Harassers rarely run out or resources. So there's no more preventing them from using ESF's for a while by somehow killing them in quick succession.
So cheaper ESF, even (or especially) cheaper A2A ESF, should never be the only solution. As long as the current air-game exists with all it's quirks no ESF buffs can truly be made without empowering the pro pilots more.
Would it destroy the game? No. As you point out, giving one team cheaper aircraft never destroyed the game either. But was it good for the game? No it wasn't. Even in a best-case scenario all that happened was that the pro pilots had an easier time staying in the air, in a bad-case scenario the team with the air-reduction would have a ton more ground-pounders that the ground units had no real answer too since day 1 of the game.

Also I think you are vastly underestimating the power of a nosegun ESF vs ground units. It's fully possible for an ESF with a nosegun to farm ground, in fact just today I killed two HA's with lock-ons because they were interfering with my pumpkin hunt using my nosegun. If I can do that, what can a Skyknight do with it? As much as they claim to be duel-only, there's more (or more than enough) KD hunters among them than there's pure honobru duelists who "keep the sky clean of A2G". In fact, as G2A player I more often see a skyknight kill a A2G player and then start doing A2G himself until another aircraft comes along than I see them move on and look for more aircraft unless they are in the direct vicinity.

And yes, skillceiling doesn't mean anything. You can be infinitely skilled with the Skyguard, but it means absolutely nothing. You could give yourself an aimbot and have your leading be pinpoint accurate, you'll still get the same amount of damage as someone who scores about a 6 out of 10 in the Skyguard skillcurve, simply because either the (lack of) skill required of the pilot to dodge makes any skill you put in worthless, or because the skill required to hit the aircraft when it's closer is almost non-existant. And even if one does hit and the other doesn't the result is almost always the same: The aircraft gets away.
And by making a wider array of aircraft maneuvers available and making them intuitive and easy to use, you reduce the power difference between aircraft. Previously you would say that the power difference between an average player and a pro based on skill would be a 2 vs an 8. With the change the average player would easily come out at a 6 vs an 8, assuming the "pro aircraft player" isn't living on a one-trick-pony and can adapt to the change to keep his old power.
Just because the skill ceiling would essentially become infinit doesn't make someone who reaches near infinite OP. Just to drive the point home: You can be aimbot-accurate shooting dumbfire rockets at enemies 700m away, but in the average combat scenario that won't matter as the tank will either be able to kill you faster, get in a range where he can dodge anything you fire no matter what you do or just reach cover before he's in danger of dying to reset the engagement. So that aimbot-accuracy puts you on about the same power as someone who can only hit enemies within 150m distance, simply because reaching higher for the skillceiling becomes redundant.

What you are asking of the air-game is that every single average player reaches pro-levels of skill. They might be able to get more hits, but we already know where that leads: Gank squads. When Coyote's were effective enough to be used in that capacity they were (and sometimes still are) used in groups who would push out enough DPS to kill the opposing side before he could do serious hurt. This is basically the exact thing that G2A does to overcome aircraft but unlike G2A these aircraft have the ability to actually chase the enemy and determine the place to fight.
So no, the solution of making everyone learn pro-levels of skill just to participate well in the air-game won't work. The only real solution is to make it possible for the average player to join the air-game. This isn't done with easier-to-use noseguns, we already have secondary mounts that were meant for this exact purpose and they never even came close to solving it. This is done by redesigning the air-game, making normal air-maneuvers possible and powerful so that the average player can play.

ESF are nothing like helo's in other games. Not in hover mode, and especially not in full flight mode. Helo's in other games require you to manipulate the aircraft which in turn causes movement, in PS2 you manipulate the movement which turns the aircraft. And ofcourse the physics involved are different between helo's and PS2's aircraft that more or less hang in the air instead of being part of some kind of physics system.

ESF being only useful with an A2A loadout... Not true unless you go into hover combat. Today I had a battle against a non-hovercombat pilot. We twisted, turned, did loop-de-loops while keeping eachother in our crosshairs. Since neither of us used afterburner because no one was doing the RM we weren't in any disadvantage by having our secondaries be weapons. I had rocketpods, he had Coyote's which he used almost exclusively in the end when he realized he was incapable of hitting me properly with a nosegun. It ended in a draw.
So the only reason why the A2A loadout has no secondaries, is because it's dependend on the afterburn fuel used in the RM maneuver.
Additionally, an ESF being top-dog is like making the Harasser top-dog in the ground game (and giving the pilot access to the weapons and adding a second weapon on top). "screw MBT's, Sunderers, Lightnings. The cheap and fast unit that's designed to kill tanks should simply be the best". But that's not good gameplay, it means that everyone will use this particular vehicle and the rest of the vehicle game is devoid because once again, the Harasser can do it all. And in the case of the ESF, it can pull all of it off...

Sorry this is so long, I'm picking up your bad habits it seems....

In some ways, yes I need some extra information. Yet the basics are still the same: To be able to enjoy the air-game in it's current form you have to be semi-pro already, which is something you cannot ask the average player to do. Making cheaper aircraft or promoting things like a coyote-style nosegun won't change this. Although the attempt to add a newbtube type weapon to learn the air-game better is absolutely a good idea if the actual process you are learning wasn't so incredibly slated against new players.

Yes I did mention that increasing the deathpenalty would be bad. And that with decreasing the deathpenalty for losing would mean people have more room to experiment and such. But the problem with the air-game is that experimentation is discouraged regardless of resource cost. You could effectively make ESF's costless whenever they fail to kill anything before they succeed, all it will do is speed up the process of making people decide not to join the air-game anymore. At best you get more A2G farmers who try to keep low from enemy A2A players.
If we introduced a new flight mechanic where players have the option to survive a fight through escape, you don't need cheaper ESF in the first place to remedy this. You can offer players the option to get out alive just like a newb can get to cover or simply drive like mad to try and get out of danger in a tank without needing to be supa-dupa pro or something. Bonus is that you don't require players to be semi-pro to start getting into the air-game and that the average player is able to enjoy it, meaning more aircraft in the air.

Ask yourself: Why do I think an A2G loadout ESF is so unfair that it can't be allowed to benefit from the same cheapness I want to give an A2A ESF?
Power. And most importantly: The difference in power. Not the power between an A2A ESF vs an A2G ESF, but the difference between the A2G vs G2A, or the lack thereoff. With the exception of the currently insanely buffed dune-buggy, most vehicles are incapable of effectively countering air even if they equip a dedicated "counter". Any vehicle or infantry without it is truly completely defenseless. This is what makes A2G ESF so powerful: Not just that they have incredibly powerful weapons to nuke ground with, but the fact that 95% of the ground simply does not have the weapons to counter it as it would be debilitating against other units and even if they did they can usually just scare air away.
And just because you can't farm as hard with a nosegun as you can with a super-weapon like the LOLpod, doesn't mean it's not farming.

You know that the Harasser seems to be going the same way as the ESF? Just like the ESF, it's vastly superior in speed and maneuverability which allows it to escape most combat situations. It's getting more free goodies like afterburner and it randomly gets buffed rather than nerfed. Only difference is that the Harasser needs a second gunner and that all the weapons are inferior to what other vehicles have... And it still beats the pants off of them.

I would prefer it to overpower the vehicle temporarily with a ton of abilities, if it then means that the devs will start rectifying the problem. The ESF is already a top-notch farmvehicle since the game launched and despite numerous nerfs to the direct firepower (which still meant the weapons outmatched their ground counterparts, just imagine the insane power they started with!) the ESF is still OP. So why not take that OPness to the extreme so people will finally see it for how it is and change the system entirely?
Even if you did make it OP with these new abilities, the fact that the average player would be able to join the air-game would make things a lot more enjoyable all around. Aircraft would have less time to be solo-farming and more time engaged by one to however many aircraft, combat would be far wider as aircraft have the ability to attempt escape effectively, causing players to chase eachother across vast distances while they try to get into a position to attack/escape/retaliate, sapping their time and possibly attracting more aircraft...

I hope you realize the irony of this statement when compared to any ground unit getting beat down on by an aircraft?

The ESF can pull stuff off with a nosegun just fine. It might not be able to kill vehicles easily and would need to pick off burning one's, but when engaging infantry or other aircraft it is strong enough, no wingmounts required. Mostly ofcourse because the ESF besides his nosegun always has his incredible speed and maneuverability.