What's with all the annihilators? Tons of them out there

Effort is subjective. I can just as easily claim that rocket pods and tanks require little effort.

Well then lets compare rocket pods. Rocket pods are dumbfired and require some degree of aiming. To use rocket pods, you will also be required to maneuver your ESF for positioning. For annihilators, you stand on roof, point in general direction and click. How is this subjective? Annihilators are by far the unskilled and effortless weapon when compared to any weapon that actually needs to be aimed.

Rocketpods are spammed. If you had 1 rocket only maybe I would agree. Give my S1 400m/s velocity and I'll shoot that at ESF's instead.

I call bs...I see pilots doing just fine every time I play. The still flare missiles and have no problems not getting hit by flying around really fast and moving around objects that break lock. Others wait until you fire and then hide behind stuff to guide them into rocks, buildings, other planes or even the ground by dropping into a canyon. Sounds like alot of pilots want to go to the most heavily populated areas to get the biggest bang for their rocket pods. Good luck because that also caries the biggest risk.

On the radar thing...INF was told pull maxes even if they dont want too...shoe is on the other foot now.

I say it again...just deal with it like inf did and if the numbers are there to prove it is unfair then SOE will nerfbat the numbers the other way eventually. I just dont know how soon since there are quite a few posts saying that this week has been one of the best weeks of fighting since launch.

To kill and ESF with an Annihilator you would have to get three or more shots on him. To do that takes much more skill than just aiming at a spot on the ground. Not to mention that there is nothing to be done once the rocketpods have been shot. We can burst out of the way...we cant drop flares to get away. one flare can break 100 rockets and lockons all at once. Staying moving and flying in and around mountains, buildings and things like that make it even harder to lock on. It resets each time you put something between you and the launcher. Just fly low and move around things and you will notice alot less lockon I bet. Now being high in the air in the wide open sky is a bad thing.

You ignore how the Annihilator can fire outside of render range in addition to it not costing resources unlike an ESF. An ESF can maneuver around obstacles if there are any but like I said, ESFs require much more effort than the point in general direction and click launchers. Rocket pods also requires the target to be constantly tracked unlike the fire & forget launcher. As for flying low, its not viable in most situations. Competent tanks or any other high caliber dumb fire weapon will instantly gib you.

Then how are all the pilots I see doing it? Are all the most badass pilots on Mattherson or something? The only thing I see missing nowadays is hover podding in populated bases without biodomes on them. Hover podding is gone but I see good pilots all day long and I see them repeatedly flying over the areas im in...they just dont sit still anymore.

The render range....it is much easier to see planes in the sky than it is for planes to see people on the ground from a plane...thats the way it is. The plane is big...people are small and on the ground with alot to break up their outline making them hard to see so it is somewhat grounded in reality..even though everyone hates that word )

Edit: to say that maybe a cloaking device for the aircraft could be added but it would have to be limited since there are already SOOOO many other get out of jail cards for aircraft already.

That's two different factors. Differences in render range and the ability to see planes in the sky / infantry on the ground. Supporting the latter factor is an unnecessary ESF IRNV and heat vision range nerf. Given the differences in sizes and how much easier it was to spot the ESF already, it wasn't needed. FYI good pilots should have been constantly on the move even before the introduction of annihilator spam.

Infantry = single arm
Vehicles = single arm

Combined arms = vehicles AND infantry.

Infantry cannot fight vehicles and infantry at the same time.

It's because before Annihilators, infantry and tank balance required knowledge and premeditated action. You know, what I mean... get behind the tank, fire a shot from behind cover at the rear-armor, reload, shoot another shot from a different position, reload while evading, squeeze out one last shot. This is called being a man in a suit, fighting a got'damned tank.

I take out all sorts of prowlers and vanguards with my vanilla rocket launcher, well exceeding the kills gathered by my derpy squad-mates who have no idea how to use their equipment.

The main problem is the moment something shots at you outside YOUR render distance, you dont see any tracer of it. Why is that a problem? With tracer you can trace something back sound neat doesnt it.

If a bunch of HA's shoots the lock-ons on long range the possiblity that noone sees those missiles is like 90% so noone can do something about it so much for combines arms. Even if they can do something about it, and 10 HA's with lockons get killed , you cant say the threat is over. When you ddint overrun the place already they will just respawn and do it again.

If a Skyguard dies, he is gone may have CD and has only unlimited ammo near a sunderer(with the right upgrade) or Ammotower. Not the HA, can sit in the middle of nowwhere and spams his lock ons all day.

If the MAX dies its the same with the Skyguard, its dead. And needs to be near a Terminal to come back again. Until his ressources or the cooldown keeps him from spawning.
He still has infinite Ammo but doesnt use Lockons and i see the tracers of it after that one patch that lets the MAX render at time.
The AA-Turret, has infinite Ammo tied to its heat generation but is rendered at the same range like a normal vehicle.

Now to the downside of those mentioned.

Skyguard, cant defend himself against ground targets.
AA-MAX, loses its efficent against infantrie
AA-Turret, is helpless against ground targets.

HA? No idea, with the Annihilator he can lock on, ground vehicles, Air vehicles and can shoot Infantrie with his LMG....
HA doesnt have any downside. He doent need to care about Ammo, he doesnt care about ressources, he doesnt care about another infantrie.

Doesnt sounds balanced for me. Engineer and Light Assault can only destroy vehicles with ressource based weaponry.
HA can destroy anything at any time with a Lolhilator.

So what should we do about it? If a Weapon is good against multiply targets it should come at a cost.

Solution 1:
The Annihilator should perform far worse then he does right now. Either slower missles or bad tracking so you easier shake it of. And much shorter range.
A multiweapon should ALWAYS perform less then any specialsed weaponry.
Best thing... look at the weapons for vehicles. AP-Weapon, HE-Weapon, HEAT-Weapon.

For ESF it should be the same, but SOE didnt saw that problem and gave us a multipurpose Weapon without thinking it through like the Annihilator.

Bringing the AA-HA-Launcher to the tracking and speed level the Annhilator has now, but with a 10% more damage and the same range of the Annihilato.

The same for the AT-HA-Launcher but to that i cant say what would be good to balance it out. So therefore some mainly tankdriver should add something.

Solution 2: The Annihilator gets ressource based ammo for its multipurpose capablititys but THAT would be harder and far worse then above mentioned.

Ya, but those same derpy-squad mates would of massacred people in a tank

High skill to kill vs. low skill to use

THAT is balance problems

I see some really good pilots still flying around being an absolute menace and raking up the kills, When I do kill one of them I get some crazy XP bonus because they have been lolpodding so many people.. Then you see the ones that need to L2P and not hover over a hotzone and wonder why they get destroyed. The skies are still full of AIR its just more fun now that we get to see some of that AIR come down in a burning wreck.

they do less damage hence why they have a longer range.

I can agree with that. I always said air was fine and they just needed to fix broken missiles. I knew eventually everyone would have missiles and would be more willing to pull them over a one dimensional dual burster.

I just dont think air is broken...I still see plenty of pilots killing and flaring and flying away amd coming back and doing it again.

Solution one sounds like the old way too much....I dont like it
Solution two...sounds like a good idea. I wouldnt mind having the old crappy rockets for free(after you buy the launchers of course) and the new and improved ones for resources.