Whats the role for Hornets?

They are burst weapons. They trade DPS for alpha strike dmg. You can deliver your payload quicker than rocketpods can, at the cost of dps.

They do need their velocity buffed even further, however. Velocity is their biggest downfall because of the short range they have. Racer Airframe should not be out running high explosive missiles.

Awesome idea

Hmmm, that might be slightly OP. I think they just need to move faster.

Advantages:

1. Ammo capacity: You can carry enough missiles to take out an armored tank platoon from above.

2. Anti Max capability: If you try to attack a flak 5 max, rocket pods wont do any good. On the other side 1 or 2 hornet hits combined with a bit nosegun fire will easily kill him.

3. Easier to hit moving targets from distance: If a lightning, harasser or even heavy tanks keep driving around to avoid your fire, you have to get much closer with rocket pods to hit them reliable. With hornets you can still bombard them pretty much with 100% accuracy from like 300-400m distance.

4. Slightly better to combine with nosegun: Since you can fire both hornets almost instantly, you can keep firing your nosegun (on libs, gals, tanks, even esfs), while rocket pods take way longer to empty their mag.

5. Better for ambushing hovering esfs: If you meet a hovering or straight forward flying esf, 2 hornet hits put them in heavy smoking almost burning state.

6. High damage on libs/gals IF you know how to use them. Hornets require way more skill to be efficient than rocket pods.

7. You can switch hornets into a "dumbfire" mode: Simply fire them, then switch your optics mode (thermal, zoom). Missile won't follow your crosshair anymore, but will get a small projectile drop, so you'll have to aim a bit higher. If you switch back to your original optics mode, missile will follow your aim again. Useful when attacking skyguards, burster maxes or aa phalanxes and you receive flak fire and have to flee.

8. Gunship fighting style: If you take the southeastern indar canyons, you can hover over a rock formation for a short time and pump your hornets in the back of a tank from some distance. Once i kinda decimated a whole NC tank formation on my own trying to overwhelm feldspar from the stronghold.

9. fun

This probably needs to new thread to get the devs attention, but hornets have the wrong reticle. Right now hornets have the big square reticle from rocket pods. Which is fine for rocket pods, they spam an area that just about spans that box, but for hornets I need to be a lot more precise. Needs a real reticle.