Utterly confused on how you're supposed to counter

[Knight Siegfried]

Greetings so I'm a NC main and I like playing any class that's available but here's the issue.

How the hell am I suppose to do my job as support if I can't counter enemy actions?

Aircraft pilots can destroy an entire platoon of soldiers in seconds with a volley of accurate high damage rockets or a super minigun.

I as a Max unit or use a base anti air cannon can't do ♥♥♥♥ against them. Your normal AA guns are slow firing, inaccurate as hell and does inferior damage even when hitting them by leading your target for a long time. This issue is made even worse when an entire faction will pull up with a squadron of Scythes or Mosquito's.



Now let's say the enemy faction brings our numerous Magriders or Vanguards, or god help us all a few Colossus's.

The main class who should be a threat to land vehicles fails to be one. Your rocket launcher does not help in the slightest. It's projectile speed is painfully slow, has a heavy bullet drop and even if you get your flight path calculations correctly and it hits. It tickles the enemy vehicle by doing minimal damage.

Now I'm not saying rocket launchers should be instant kills for anything. With how huge the battlefield gets and the numbers of each side, having 50+ rocket launchers going off all at once at a target or more will deal damage even if half of them missed.

But the rocket launchers should either be fast firing and accurate while retaining low damage OR deal high damage with a slow speed.

Even the anti vehicle cannons at bases are crap at their job especially if they are meant for fighting off a squad of tanks.


Finally the pièce de ré·sis·tance.

The Bastion in all of its glory and shame.

I've been playing PS2 every now and then over the years and essentially still new to the game being BR 28. But what the ♥♥♥♥ is this ♥♥♥♥? They give one of the strongest nanite vehicles and only allow factions to use it?

Zerg outfits were already an issue who would mass populate around the map and control it forever.
Now they have a near unkillable aircraft who can destroy any aircraft near them, who can insta kill any landcrafts on the ground. Who can spawn camp easily with constant explosion AND could kill people in the darn spawn room.

The fact it has hardpoints is nice I guess but it doesn't matter much considering the vast amount of health each point has and they automatically regen after not taking damage for 20 seconds.

Landcrafts can NOT damage the bastion and getting aircraft close to it and survivng is nigh impossible with a horde of pilots protecting the Bastion at all times.

it's legitimately a free win handed to whatever zergfit owning the bastion. Once it's there, the entire enemy team is now royally ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and there's nothing they can do. Unless you belong to a extremely popular and rich outfit who can pull out their own bastion to counter, there's nothing your average joe player who isn't part of an outfit can do.

I'm quite curious of other peoples takes on this kind of stuff. Doesn't matter if your an old PS1 vet or newbie to the game like me.

[Delayio]

On the account of aircraft, I think you are over exaggerating some. Unless a group of players are standing within 5 meters of each other, one single a2g esf cannot kill an entire platoon, they'd be lucky with 4 or 5 kills before somebody deci'd them for standing still for too long. Your access to anti air is actually very powerful against one or two esfs. A burster max or an anti air turret will absolutely TEAR through an esf pilot, especially if he's naive enough to think he can out DPS them. Skyguards are my personal go to, as they are a very real threat to any aircraft, especially squishy esfs. Your g2a lock on launcher is another good tool. One thing that you need to think about is that the tools you have access to are not entirely designed to singlehandedly destroy all air. They're deterrents. If a single esf pilot is being a cancerous player and a2g farming infantry, you may not be able to kill him just with your launcher, but you can sure as hell make that lock on chime sound in his cockpit whenever he gets close, and if he's too slow he'll feel the damage from it too.

As mentioned with the aircraft, most of your tools for dealing with armor are going to be deterrents. I don't use them but your g2g lock on launcher can ensure you get hits on tanks, and in a similar way to aircraft, deter those tanks from entering your area. The damage they receive from you and your allies is to prevent them from performing their roles as armor.

It is important to note that these things aren't always going to work in every situation. Like you correctly said, if a squad of aircraft show up then there's not much you can do. But if a squad/or platoon shows up with that level of organization and numbers, then the base is probably lost anyway, and you shouldn't lose sleep over it, just redeploy to a fight that you will enjoy being at. You also mentioned AV turrets, they are pretty effective at warding off a couple vehicles but again like you said they don't do much good against an armor column, but that's because they're not supposed to.

I hope what I said helps, I'm not trying to contradict or discount what you said, I'm just hoping my two cents from thousands of hours of experience can help you out. On a final note, about bastions. I do not have very much experience at all with them, and since only outfits can use them, I assume it is expected that other organized groups from other factions are meant to deal with them, because I *think* colossi can only be pulled with outfit resources. I don't have to deal with bastions much, but maybe that's just because I'm not at the fights they are attracted to, but my best advice is listed above; just redeploy somewhere else, and don't let their playstyle ruin your enjoyment of the game.

[Lauleyhn]

The only way to counter air effectively is with other air units. People said it since the start of this game how op air is, but since this is an american game, air superiority is an all encompassing force here.

The best counter is to avoid them by redeploying. Colossus is useless btw - don't waste your ressources.

[Arionell]

There are plenty of anti-air counters in the game, even shooting at the craft with your rifle is a proper contribution.

The problem is that many times people just don't care about them. Even a single person with a lockon will most likely repel them away.

Also, I have NEVER seen a Vanu bastion in Cobalt live longer than 15 minutes. Bastions go down quickly as soon as the commanders calls for an air zerg.

Most of the issues you're pointing it out is all about players coming together to achieve something. If they don't, then there isn't much you can do about it.

[OldDudeGaming®™]

Game sucks ......Period

[JVonD]

Your far from the first with these issues.

If you played the game for a while you noticed DBG has a pattern of releasing things in game for real money that are always OP at first, then after sales drop off they get nerfed into useless items.

The Ranger was the last weapon I know of that was effective AA that I can remember. I would set one on my ANT and blow fighter's out of the sky while I was mining or I would drive a twin Ranger sundy that was pretty effective for base AA cover. Pilots cried and they nerfed it into the ground.

AA lock on times got longer, range, speed and lock-on distance got shorter. AA based turrets COF bloom and damage like the skyguard is a completed joke.

Bastions. Of the hundreds of hours playing form the non steam client or the 1000 hours playing with the steam client I have never seen one forced to withdraw.

[Vertigo]

Originally posted by Knight Siegfried:

Greetings so I'm a NC main and I like playing any class that's available but here's the issue.

How the hell am I suppose to do my job as support if I can't counter enemy actions?

Aircraft pilots can destroy an entire platoon of soldiers in seconds with a volley of accurate high damage rockets or a super minigun.

I as a Max unit or use a base anti air cannon can't do ♥♥♥♥ against them. Your normal AA guns are slow firing, inaccurate as hell and does inferior damage even when hitting them by leading your target for a long time. This issue is made even worse when an entire faction will pull up with a squadron of Scythes or Mosquito's.



Now let's say the enemy faction brings our numerous Magriders or Vanguards, or god help us all a few Colossus's.

The main class who should be a threat to land vehicles fails to be one. Your rocket launcher does not help in the slightest. It's projectile speed is painfully slow, has a heavy bullet drop and even if you get your flight path calculations correctly and it hits. It tickles the enemy vehicle by doing minimal damage.

Now I'm not saying rocket launchers should be instant kills for anything. With how huge the battlefield gets and the numbers of each side, having 50+ rocket launchers going off all at once at a target or more will deal damage even if half of them missed.

But the rocket launchers should either be fast firing and accurate while retaining low damage OR deal high damage with a slow speed.

Even the anti vehicle cannons at bases are crap at their job especially if they are meant for fighting off a squad of tanks.


Finally the pièce de ré·sis·tance.

The Bastion in all of its glory and shame.

I've been playing PS2 every now and then over the years and essentially still new to the game being BR 28. But what the ♥♥♥♥ is this ♥♥♥♥? They give one of the strongest nanite vehicles and only allow factions to use it?

Zerg outfits were already an issue who would mass populate around the map and control it forever.
Now they have a near unkillable aircraft who can destroy any aircraft near them, who can insta kill any landcrafts on the ground. Who can spawn camp easily with constant explosion AND could kill people in the darn spawn room.

The fact it has hardpoints is nice I guess but it doesn't matter much considering the vast amount of health each point has and they automatically regen after not taking damage for 20 seconds.

Landcrafts can NOT damage the bastion and getting aircraft close to it and survivng is nigh impossible with a horde of pilots protecting the Bastion at all times.

it's legitimately a free win handed to whatever zergfit owning the bastion. Once it's there, the entire enemy team is now royally ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and there's nothing they can do. Unless you belong to a extremely popular and rich outfit who can pull out their own bastion to counter, there's nothing your average joe player who isn't part of an outfit can do.

I'm quite curious of other peoples takes on this kind of stuff. Doesn't matter if your an old PS1 vet or newbie to the game like me.

IMHO you focus on the micro and not the macro.

My experience with NC is that they are trash except for a few organized groups who are involved but unable to do anything more than the current alert. It means that instead of helping your smaller, unafilliated squad they are busy playing re-deployside.

Your mistake is you think this game is still played like a tactical combined arms battlefield. It has devolved into a series of small asymmetrical matches.

[Youngling Slayer]

For killing aircraft, I like using the mana anti vehicle turret since it one hits ESFs and you can make micro-corrections after firing. AP cannons on tanks also work well if possible.

Regaesinf heavy assault, yeah - rockets are pretty bad against vehicles unless used in coordinated groups. Light assault has become the de-facto anti vehicle class these days.

As for the Bastion Fleet Carrier, it is not really meant to be killed by one person. You either rush it down with a massive horde of aircraft or slowly pick it apart with Colossus fire. There’s not really anything a solo player can do against them.

That said, Bastions don’t automatically win you the continent. They require a decent number of players both to operate and for security. That means a decent chunk of your faction population is going to be stuck in the air, forced to ignore indoor infantry fights. So while the bastion farms a lot of kills, your faction might lose a ton of territory. I’ve heard a number of platoon leaders turn down requests to deploy the Bastion simply because they want to play for the alert, which requires infantry play/redeploy-side.

[Pervy]

Originally posted by Knight Siegfried:

Greetings so I'm a NC main and I like playing any class that's available but here's the issue.

How the hell am I suppose to do my job as support if I can't counter enemy actions?

Aircraft pilots can destroy an entire platoon of soldiers in seconds with a volley of accurate high damage rockets or a super minigun.

I as a Max unit or use a base anti air cannon can't do ♥♥♥♥ against them. Your normal AA guns are slow firing, inaccurate as hell and does inferior damage even when hitting them by leading your target for a long time. This issue is made even worse when an entire faction will pull up with a squadron of Scythes or Mosquito's.

You should try the mashhead AMR on Engineers, its made for killing ground farmers.

[c0x0c]

you have the phoenix for accuracy, after that shoot some anti armor primary or secondary, you also have deci and muramasa
muramasa is better since it can dumb fire at close range and aim at longer ranges
also as mentioned you have av turret but you will need cover to place it
as a side note vs have lancer which you can charge 3 then fire 6 uncharged which will kill esf full hp
for tr i heard their empire launcher is great

[I am making $90 an hour]

go fight somewhere else if enemy air is annoying, a good pilot or god forbid a platoon of good pilots is impossible to deter

[Case]

Originally posted by HIGH T MALE:

go fight somewhere else if enemy air is annoying, a good pilot or god forbid a platoon of good pilots is impossible to deter

Haha. Masthead goes brrr. See also: Strikers and Dagrs or Lancers.

[Eightball]

AA has always been and will no doubt continue to be subjected to the nerf bat.

There was a time, for example, when the fixed AA turrets in bases could reach out and slap pilots not paying attention and if a ground team wanted CAS they needed to knock out those turrets.

But after much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands by pilots we ended up with the useless AA turrets we have now.

Pilots feel they should be able to fly over the thick of battle as opposed to lurking on the perimeter.

Go figure.