My only issue is once flares become upgraded on aircraft how effective is it going to be? At this point are you using it because you still have AA + dumbfire for ground targets?
On an ESF you'll need four heavies to kill it, one to make him use flares and the other three to actually kill him once the effect ends. Without flares, just three. Unless it had it's damage increased, two hits only takes them down to burning. They will have flown off to repair and be right back again in 15 seconds long before you can reload and lock on again.
Still worthwhile for ground, but also good for AA when used in conjunction. Flares won't always be up, and you can often force flares without actually firing by just waiting for your RL to "lock" without actually firing the rocket. The pilots can't tell if a rocket is flying at them, only that a rocket is locked on. Most will typically flare right at the sign of a steady lock, so you can use that to bait flares without actually firing your rocket. Most pilots won't take the risk; I've never seen a pilot wait for more than 3-4 seconds before popping flares. Then you just wait for him to come around again. If he's smart he'll wait out his flare timer. But that still puts him down for 25s, and in the mean time you've got a pretty accurate rocket launcher. Also, don't underestimate the dumb-fire AA capability of it. Once you get the trajectory and speed down, you can fire that thing off at nearby aircraft without a lock, and then flares don't do **** to stop it.
That's true, but they have nerfed flare cooldown from beta. They added an extra 10 seconds come live IIRC.
I've been using the AA rocket launcher my last few trial uses, and it moves a good 25-30% faster at least than the base launcher. It also has a much flatter arc trajectory, it does less damage to vehicles, but it is also much easier to hit with them, ymmv.
