[Vehicle] Why Tomcats are amazing!!!

Honestly, if these pilots were serious about really using "the most skillful loadout possible", where we define "skillful" as "most difficult to secure kills with", they should use the following as their A2A loadout:

A2G nosegun (Banshee/LPPA/Air Hammer)
Rank 1 AB tanks (don't you dare put certs in that, noob!)
Utility slot: Nothing, real pros fly stock.
Defense slot: Nothing, again, real pros fly stock.
Airframe slot: Nothing, what are you some kind of noob? Fly stock or else.

Actually, selecting the correct load out to perform a given duty IS a skill... one you do not recognize but it is one none the less. Comparing A2AM with Zoe is... well... silly. One removed all penalties of the unit in order to buff it in insane ways while the other is a single weapon system with a lower TTK than almost every other weapon and VERY easy to deal with if you are willing to work with your team mates...

Oh wait...

You don't have a wing man? Is that the problem? I suggest you get one.

If you fly solo then you have NO dog in this show as you are choosing to not use all the tools open to you.

Which part of you is not Skyknighting?

You proclaim that you do not use it because it's overpowered and "unskillful", and call out on everyone who do use it. If you're not a Skyknight, I'm afraid I can't find a single person on Forumside who is.

A2AM and Coyotes are the alternatives of going through a learning cliff (not a curve) to be just moderately effective. I'd say that SOE did a good job on evening the table between the 1337 4<35 and normal players, especially when the latter has a numerical advantage.

The tagline of the game Is SIZE DOES MATTER, if you want to play One Man Air Force by denying lesser-skilled players an effective option of ganging up on you then perhaps you're playing the wrong game.

This is also a war simulation game where the objective is not to dance with the enemy pilots for 3 minutes before someone finally dies, if someone embraces a weapon that shorten that ridiculous dance and in the process ditching the even more hilarious Space Bushido, good for him.

Hey look genius, both forms of A2AM are available to all ESF pilots on all factions. They are also air-to-air weapons mostly used by ESFs against other ESFs, which has the option to equip said weapon themselves. This is at most a loadout balance issue, not inter-unit balance like ZOE.

And in any case, look at EVE Online and the Goonswarm alliance. They're notorious for not abiding to EVE's version of Space Bushido -- they infiltrate, spy on and sabotage hostile corps and alliances, exploit gameplay mechanics to their advantage (e.g. attacking their own system to delay an enemy attack and in the process wear them down), and they are extremely successful in the game despite all the hate they're getting.

While PS2 has different and way more rules than EVE's ruthless environment, the basic logic remains the same: If it's allowed and it gives you an advantage, DO IT. E-honor be damned.

actually flares stop all current locks, and prevent you from being locked-on to by anything else for 5 seconds. recharge is 40 secs for level 1, down to 25 for fully certed.

add that to the one second that stealth gives you to get locked on, so thats six seconds of being unlockable every 25 seconds.
that means if you spam flares every 25 seconds, you're effectively lock proof 25% of the time.

It sounds like a good amount of time that an enemy pilot wasted that you can take advantage of.
Because he spent all the time trying to get a lock on you, (plus a second with stealth) and upon firing he had to keep the lock.

If you had flares you can basically decide to fight or flee (the map shows where he is or at least where his missile is coming from) from the first moment you get warned of an impending lock. Then you pop flares right as the missile is coming in, make your move, and your enemy pilot is screwed because even after reloading a new one he still cant start a new lock right away.


Also, like fire suppression, flares work for EVERYTHING. I mean, all lock ons. So it prevents damage, as opposed to fire suppression healing damage.

Personally, I'm nowhere near the skill level needed to capitalize on the time it buys you so I would go for fire suppression.
But I've seen a scythe basically spin around and face me as im guiding my rocket in, pop flares and start shooting me. My first reaction was to spin away and he chased me down and killed me.

You sound like a nub, let's do it your way then, remove every weapon except for nosegun, knife, pistol and basilisk. That way we can play the same boring weapons over and over again because they require "skill".

point is, he isnt not engaging those infantry in manner that is skillful, fair, or will improve his anti infantry ability. Which contradicts his point.

Guess what, Neither of those characters are mine LOL, I dont know who RobesSalvador is and i gave RobesDF to a friend when he started playing over a year ago, sorry i didn't bother switching around forum accounts but you are the first person to care enough to actually spend time digging haha (its a group youtube page, if you look through it you'll see a quite a few different names). I'm one of those coolkid fourm anoms now and have been for a long time.

I actually do find it rather hilarious though that people playing to get better/challenge themselves for fun rather than the "I MUST WIN I HAZ TO IF I DIE I MAD" attitude is such a foreign concept to you that you probably spent a good 30 minutes to an hour researching characters and typing out that reply to attempt to belittle/nullify what i had said (which you failed to as that research was wrong, funny).

Aside from the failed attempt at whatever that was, there any other approach you'd like to take for this or was that your "im out so im going to take a shot in the dark and call him bad"?

I'd console myself that in your 4 extra days you have less score, less kills, and less vehicles kills than me.

But seriously, fine you do fly a lot. So at least you do play the game we're talking about. I stand by my point that these threads are full of players who don't have enough time in the air that they should even care about this discussion.

You may be the first long time pilot I've seen defend these things. Usually the arguments are "I hate all pilots so I love that there's a weapon I can troll them with", and "I think anyone should be able to shoot down aces without learning how". But I do understand why you like them, you said yourself you want to win at any cost. And when winning is more important than fun, tomcats and coyotes are the way to go. Tomorrow in the server smash I and everyone else will run them...but most of us will be sad that we have to, knowing this game could be better. Which usually leads to some rather bitter discussion in the pilot channels.

There's about 4 video's on there, 2 from Planetside with RobesDF, the other two from old games.
It's easy to claim that you gave the character to someone else over a year ago. But why didn't you do the right thing and offer us the account you are actually playing with? Oh that's right, because RobesDF is your actual account.

Considering your account RobesDF is pretty darn bad at HE Lightning and pistols and not even good with other weapons as well you should already have a mountain of a challenge with normal weapons. There's no need to make the game a losing killstreak. As much as you claim you do it for fun, there's only a few people in the world who actually enjoy losing time and again.

I wasn't taking a shot in the dark. I did something completely foreign to you: research. I looked up your account, added another account that was likely yours. Offered you and the rest of the forum the same info to check if I'm right. Then showed you how those two accounts combined didn't add up to the ******** you were spouting.
My approach now would be to say "I've proven that you suck. You claim that it wasn't your account, prove that claim by showing us".
Oh and by the way, if you really think it takes 30 minutes to look up the info of 3 accounts and remember about 6 numbers... I feel really sorry for you.

Oh, our third who was using it did make his stuff private. The darkfall videos are mine, I can't record planetside 2 as my computer can't handle it. Like I've said I'm one of those forum anoms now. So yes, you did take a shot in the dark and you were wrong (robes is going to get a good laugh though when he actually gets on mumble again).

It doesn't matter if it's private or not.

Let me explain to you what "a shot in the dark" means since you don't seem to get it.
When you simply take a guess it's a shot in the dark. If I were to say that you have a drink on your desk right now, that's a shot in the dark. There is no way I can know it, there is no information that can help me with my guess.
I checked your forum profile, and used the info on it to find out more about the characters connected to it. The character connected to it is RobesDF. Since normal people do not simply give away their main character but keep the forum profile for... whatever reason it's not even a guess, it's a very very good conclusion. There must be a tiny fraction of the total playerbase that uses a different forum character than their main character. Therefore it's a great conclusion. Not a shot in the dark.
Here's another example similar to the above:
My friend says he's going from Madrid to Paris. I know he is afraid of flying and he has a good car that he used for the trip several times already. I say "Are you going by car?". That's a very good guess as there's logic behind it. My friend then says "no, we are going by bicycle". It doesn't suddenly change my guess into a shot in the dark, as 99% of the people in these conditions would have taken the car.

They're more A2G than fuel pods; fuel pods don't have a blast radius. I'm not saying tomcats/coyotes need to be nerfed because all I want to use is noseguns, I'm saying I want them nerfed because they're strictly better than AB tanks, and all A2A secondaries need to be balanced against each other.

If you don't want to improve, why do you feel entitled to win? Should we bring rocket launchers to 1850 max splash, 2m max splash radius? You could still counter it with flak armor, which is better than pilots can say about coyotes, Stealth does nothing, and flares are worse than fire suppresion. And as for countering pilots with A2AM, why should I have to tailor my loadout to counter theirs and only theirs, when they don't have to spec out themselves to specifically counter AB tanks, but be worse against every other opponent?

Lol, no. That's just a straight buff to G2A loadouts, and even as a skyknight, I don't think that's necessary.

It's not just about skill, it's about fun. Imagine the rage if unneringly accurate auto-aim was added to infantry as an option, with the caveat that you can only get bodyshots. Sure, it's theoretically possible for pros to still win by getting headshots, but most players wouldn't do that, and that means you'd be gimped for actually trying to improve. It doesn't matter that the new player experience would be slightly better, experienced players would leave in droves because there's no reason to stick around and get better.

That's basically what's happened to the airgame- because such low-skill and low-skill-cap weapons are easily the beas choice, the good pilots gradually leave because there's no point sticking around in favor of warthunder or star citizen. On the flipside, mediocre pilots with lockons don't stay around because they don't have anything invested in the game anyways.

Bullcrap. A2AM is or coyotes are always the best loadout choice for the situation. It took no skill to choose ZOE for a loadout option, and it takes no skill to choose lockons as a loadout option. They're clearly better than AB tanks. Or would you enjoy the Gauss Saw being nerfed to 100 damage per shot? NC has other loadout options, so it's not like it's a problem that the default loadout choice is useless in comparison, only bads would complain because they're too dumb to make better choices.

Wingmen have nothing to do with lockon discussions. In fact, a squad with lockons will also outperform a squad without, since they can just insta-gank individual members,

This thread feaures a little bit of everything that's wrong with this game's playerbase.

I really hope people keep complaining about the AB tanks so they get buffed back to how they were. I love me some ABs, but they burn way too fast in hover mode.

"Tomcat scrup! L2P!" Yeah? Well, you're dead or without a ride, and I'm still flying. I don't think your argument is valid.

Lets be honest here, I'm not a good ESF pilot. And even if I was, I'd still use Tomcats simply because ESF pilots are just as, if not more, cheese then tomcats are. I've been rocket-podded, AI nosecannoned and belly slided (cheesiest thing I have ever seen, how the hell is this supposed to be a "feature"?) too many times to have a single molecule of care or pity for the ESF jockeys.

And besides, knowing reverse maneuver does not make you into some "ZOMG META GOD!". You know how to hold down three keys and a 3rd person camera, hooray, well done! Have a cookie.
If there's enemy to be killed, I'll use any and all tools in my arsenal. I'll roll a damn stealth skyguard under you warpgate with my mates bringing theirs and gank air mooks if we have to. We call that "Air Denial" or also "best drinking game".
If I'm in an ESF and have to fight air, I'll roll tomcats. If I fight ground, I'll roll hornets. Nosegun is whatever I feel like using at that day or moment.

Also, that part about the drifter jets. Come on! Die like a man, you sackless ball.

Who said the Tomcat slots are secondaries? I view them as both the same, tomcats are good for longer ranges and noseguns are good up close. Coyotes are better at mid range targets, you cannot really compare them because they are for different situations. Kind of like a heavy, the LMG is good for taking out infantry whilst a zooka is good for armour, you cannot compare them because they are usefull in different situation.

Fuel pods have their own unique situational usefulness. So really it isn't a secondary, it is a tactical option for engagement ranges for situation.

Should they be nerfed? No, they do what they are supposed to do, and that is an air superiority option for long range engagements.