[Vehicle] Why Tomcats are amazing!!!

I won't quote the whole 2 posts because it's all nonsense. For instance, you say at best the Saron can kill an ESF in 3 clips. But any of the 6 default or rotary nose guns can kill an ESF in one magazine. So first up your math is way off.

And second your math is largely irrelevant. Another example, nose guns vs infantry. Nose guns kill infantry very quickly, a little faster than a rifle. The difficulty is not the damage but getting close enough to infantry to hit (leaving the ESF very vulnerable) and then hitting such a small target. Which is quite difficult to do. Far easier to use rocket pods or the AI guns.

I was more interested in this post. PREY must have been a scary force in the air at one point to still have this reputation. I do remember flying a TR alt on waterson once, was in a LUXE squad of 8+ mossies. Then a mostly PREY reaver ball crested the ascent and wiped us out before I could even get a count of how many reavers there were.

But since the server merge I've mostly seen single PREY reavers. I can probably count on one hand the times I've seen more than that, and none of those occasions have been in the last 3 months or so.

This is the truth.

What we saw is reality.

A very fun fight was had without the locks, which then turned into a very boring fight that lasted about 1/8 as long.

As we saw in the first fight, the scythe pilot actually seemed better. He was fighting another ESF and the poster attacked him while he was engaged and he still managed to nearly win.

If this video isnt enough to convince you how bad a2a missiles are, then you couldnt care less about game balance or being competitive. You only care about collecting certs. Sad.

Let me explain to you about flares. They stop one missile from hitting you every 45 secs.

Let me explain something to you about fire suppression. It heals the same amount of damage as a lock-on. But it also works against EVERYTHING.

Stealth gives you 1 ONE second longer lock time. ONE SECOND will not help you much in reality. With stealth you have to constantly land to repair too, which will get you killed a lot.

Neither of these options will save you from an equally skilled opponent who is using lock-ons.

Flares has ZERO advantage over Fire suppression in a 1v1 fight with a lock user.

Flares have ZERO effect on anything in the game except for locks.

Fire suppression repairs damage from EVERYTHING.

I think someone posted a suggestion, like, 2 days ago, about making lock-ons "status effect" weapons, that would inflict status penalties such as slow, take more damage, that kind of stuff, in exchange for making a lot less damage; this would have helped reduce their gank potential and lower the complaints of "OMG NO SKILL EZ WEAPON YOU NOOB".

But I guess interesting ideas don't live that long on Forumside.

There are lots of times when people just try to run away that you get to chase after them. Not really fun, but it happens a lot.

You CAN dodge fire without losing speed simply by holding down ascend, (which makes you fly faster anyway) and simply rolling your ESF. You dont have to pitch at all. Just hold ascend and roll around and you will dodge a lot of incoming fire from the rear.

When you get someone on your tail the last thing you want to do is hit analog throttle and try to reverse. That makes you a very slow moving target. What you want to do is dive for the ground. Ab toward it in fact. You go faster when you dive. Then when you are getting close to the ground start pitching hard to come around, and HALFWAY through your banking turn you hit the analog throttle.

By reversing in this way you avoid the wallowing slow analog throttle turn that just makes you a huge target.

I usually 1clip anyone who just hits analog throttle as soon as i shoot them. While they are slowly flipping around i just bang em in the belly.

Its only hard to use effectively if the other pilot is better than you. If you are equally skilled the pilot with the locks will win every time.

If you are one of the better pilots on your server you will win every time with locks against an opponent who isnt running them.

You wont have fun, your opponent wont have fun, but you will win.

It's not about bad ground farmers, I can deal with them, they die easy. It's about top players farming/ganking infantry, people that know far too well how to avoid G2A lockons(which are a dam joke right now) and bursters.

Also, no, truces are not a myth, seen myself scythes and mossies flying next to each other without firing a single shot between them. Don't get me wrong there's NC pilots too that have them with other factions.

Lol, you're really looking into my ESF score? That must be painfull for a pilot, almost feel sorry. What can I say, I love farming infantry, even though, if we were to look stricktly at numbers, you seem to have more infantry kills then I have overall air kills. Thing is, I also don't cry cause I was shot down by tomcats or coyotes.

I looked into your ESF stats because I was wondering why you care about this discussion. Almost all your ESF kills are breaker rockets, you're a A2G farmer. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is an A2A discussion. It shouldn't concern you and you know very little about that game.

Well, first, allow me to decide for myself what concerns me and what doesn't.
Seeing as most times I run tomcats it's to group up with others and deny enemy air superiority over friendly forces/bases instead of going behind enemy lines and oneclipping unsuspecting noobs, since you've seen my stats you'll also have noticed that it doesn't take much to be a better pilot then me. Mind you, I can usually hold my own against anything bigger then an ESF, it's those things are too small to reliably land hits on.
Long story short, I like tomcats where they are now, useless against anything but air units. And in the air they give noobs like myself a fighting chance. So yea I'd say that A2A discussions concern me more then they do you.

You have 86 tomcat kills. I have that many knife kills and I'm not even sure what button I have that bound to. I'm going to stick with no, you have no stake in this discussion and no idea what you're talking about.

Well then, guess I must apologise to your highness. I'll remember to ask your permission and blessing next time I think about joining a discussion that affects me.

http://stats.dasanfall.com/ps2/player/RobesDF

5 times as many rocket pod/banshee kills as air 2 air nosegun.

references skill.

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he jumped him both times. does it matter?

I agree with you. Maybe I should have been more complete but I ramble on too much as it is.
Yes, most fights end up with chases, and they end badly for the one being chased in most of the battles unless they turn into a hoverfight or reverse maneuver. I use the rolling technique occasionally, but it only works if you are heading to the safety of a warpgate or have backup that might engage your enemy in the meantime, otherwise it's just something to prolong the inevitable crash towards the earth in burning wreckage.
You are right that I should use the afterburn to the ground more, I rarely use it. It still opens you up for a good attack but it does give you a bit more fighting chance... especially if you can turn it into a hoverfight...
I wouldn't mind that much if the reverse maneuver and hoverfighting, however buggy they are, remain in the game. As long as chases can become much more than just avoiding the inevitable, when flying passed at high speed dealing damage could become a counter to hoverfighting, upon which the reverse maneuver can be used, which could give the high speed chaser can easily escape during the reverse maneuver to return shortly after. For this you would also need a system where you can turn 180 degrees quickly after going high-speed.
Maybe speed can become a factor? The higher speed you have, the higher your damage output? That would give a marked advantage to that. But I would prefer the different maneuvers each to have an advantage and disadvantage that both can be exploited. Have people switch tactics on the fly to jockey for an advantage. Now it's so static: the people who know hoverfighting and reverse maneuvers use that. sometimes switching between the two. The chasers end up with one losing health, hoping he gets some aid from someone or that he can reach the safety of a friendly swarm or warpgate.

Considering there's 50x more ground targets for Rockets/Banshee that's not exactly surprising......

Not to mention bailers, "kill stealing", etc that's prevelant in the A2A game which would lower kill count.

I can get 7 kills in a minute with a Banshee easy.

A single dogfight can last over a minute easily....

It depends on your definition of "better".

If you define "better" as "crazy 1337 sk1ll reverse maneuver nosegun-only 4<3" then yes, the skyknight in question is "better".

From the point of effort required for effectiveness though, the Tomcat/Coyote pilot is better in the form of choosing a loadout that does not require 10000 hours of flying to be mediocre.


And of course Silkensmooth the Forumside Skyknight is trying to take over the thread with his "A2AM is evil" preaches. What a surprise. Not.

In so far as I got my wires crossed with damage-per-second vs. total-damage yea. My math was wrong. I'll try to triple check that tonight. edit: I think total clips should have been total seconds. Meh.

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Also, yea. They kill infantry just fine. Infantry don't have the damage resistance vehicles do. That was sort of the point.
Vehicles are take bonus damage from most things that go boom.

How am i a skyknight? I like to fly and i dont like skilless weapons.

I also like to pound the ground and i didnt like shotguns pre-nerf. Does that make me a groundknight?

Thats the best argument skilless players can come up with. They try to label people as skyknights.

If you watch the vidoe that was posted on page one, you should easily be able to see why a2a missiles need to be changed in some way.

If you refuse to acknowledge VIDEO evidence then there is certainly no point trying to use words to persuade you.

If you like longer more skillful fights then you dont like a2a missiles and if you just care about zerging and farming certs then you like a2a missiles.

I personally play fps because i feel there is more aiming SKILL involved, vs tab target games that require no aiming.

I have over 75% accuracy with A2A missiles and almost all of my misses are due to flares or people dying while my missiles are in flight. I have about 25% accuracy with the nosegun. Sounds balanced. NOT.

I don't find the lock on mechanic to be enjoyable at all. On the other hand the nosegun is very fun to use.

What i really cant fathom is why people play fps if they want tab target mechanics. Why not just play WoW or something?

If you dont like competition then why are you playing a fps? And then coming into a fps game why are you trying to get rid of the heart of a fps which is aiming.

Also your last point about A2A missile user being more skilled because he chose the correct loadout is silly. Thats like justifying pre-nerf zoe max by saying that those people are just using the most effective weapon. By that logic nothing should ever be nerfed or buffed.

Something underperforming: dont use it.

Something clearly overperforming; you are stupid if you arent abusing it.

Thats the logic of a2a missile defenders.

Well I have 4 more days /played in my Reaver than you have in your Scythe and find your opinion on who can and cannot talk in this discussion hubris laden and unremarkable.

Do tell, what would you say to ME... as I not only condone but ENCOURAGE the use of A2AM and Coyotes in wings I lead? We will use whatever tool is given to us to win the fight and battle... if this upsets your sense of e-honour than that is too bad. If the metrics show that A2AM are over performing than by all means lets balance them but if the only reason you want them gone is because it's "not fair!" then I am afraid your concerns will fall on deaf ears... and earn you no respect.