Special Weapons Balance is all over the Place

[Order]

TL:DR - Weapons should be rebalanced for Single Player or MK 1 Parts stronger for the overall "Fun".

Before i start all that keep in Mind please that i speak of a Single Player Experience, we all know probably more or less that QAAM / SASM / EML are the best Weapons in MP no doubt about that.

Second, before someone need to say to mee i should keep playing and getting more out of the Game. I got every Plane, every Part, every Special Weapon (duuuh) played over 85+ Hours for this Game and managed to get every Medal except Normal / Hard / Ace S Ranking and played all Missions around ... 10 or more Times over and over.

And lastly, point three, its just an opinion guys, i dont bash the Game or want to say people how they see the Game itself, so chill out please!

With that now cleared all i can say is that the Tuning is somewhat okey for the most Part but for the Special Weapons they are all over the Place, for some Weapons it might just be okey, others are just garbage compared to others which i find sad in that case that you are a little bit more restricted then you should be for you Playstyle. Here is the List of the Best / Worst Weapons in this Game.

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Good

LACM - Take the big AOE from a UGB and the long Range from a Anti Ship Missile and you get the best Anti Ground Weapon in the whole Game. Makes every other Weapon almost absolete. Exclusive for the Gripen and Rafale

SASM - Great against mobile Enemies that tend to otherwise just evade your Missiles or get tricky to hit sometimes (like AH-64). Simply explodes near the Aircraft if it somehow evades it and still Damages it.

SAAM - The Sniper Weapon against potential every Aircraft, hits like a Truck and has some of the best maneuverability (still a little bit under the QAAM) if you can manage to get the Enemy in your Crosshair.

QAAM - Probably the best "Fire and Forget" Weapon you can imagine, makes every Encounter with Aces almost too easy and you can upgrade to basicly fly around 2 Circles around until it can, potentially, hit someone.

PLSL - Accuracy of the EML while it fires, almost, like a Machinegun and can splash every Enemy with a few Hits. Easily one of the best Weapons for both Air and Ground Targets. With Upgrades you can beat the entire Game with it.

MGP - The exclusive Weapon for the Mig-21 is in itself really laughable, its just two Gunpods that aim and fire like your primary Gun and has the same low Range. But if you fire it with all MG Upgrades along with your primary it devastetes everything in a few Seconds. Arsenal Bird? Mihaly? Sol Squadron? Tanks? Aircraft? Drones? Just brrrrrrt it away! One of the surprisingly strongest Weapons in the Game. Dont believe me? Try MG only Campaign with the Mig 21 and this Weapon and you will see what i mean. Still takes some practice to get used to it.

Meh - Basicly its the "too good to be bad and to bad to be good" Section

UGB - Has a Nice AoE Damage but you need to aim with it quite good to hit more then one Target.

GPB - Bigger Brother of the UGB

SFFS - Little bit better then UGB in Terms of AoE but it can happen sometimes that the Damage isnt enough to get the hardest Enemies killed (like Tanks and AD Tanks). But good against low Health Armys and Buildings.

SOD - Bigger Brother of the SFFS and also strapped onto a Guided Missile.

XSDB - Basicly the 4x AGM Version of a Bomb with nice overall Stats and little AoE.

4x / 6x AAM - Multiple Target Lock on, but has Standard Missile Guidance which tends to miss most of the Time except you are behind a Group.

4x / 6x AGM - Same as with the AAM, just as a Anti Ground Missile but actually hits something!

LAGM - Is really good against Ships, against everything else just a waste of Ammo.

Bad

8x AAM - The same as the one explained before but it has the "Feature" to lock on twice on the same Targets which sounds pretty nice but tends to waste lots of Ammo!

8x AGM - Same as with the previous one.

EML - Before you will probably now start writing to me that this Weapon doesnt deserve to be here hear me out. It IS nice in the right Hands. But for the overall Gameplay its just a waste. Why? Even with the Parts to make it stronger it doesnt make it from the Damage better then a LACM, its Crosshair and Hitting Area is almost non existent and it doesnt have AoE. Try to Snipe a moving Ground Target or even Aircraft that isnt below 500 Meters to you ... its hard and you need lots of practice for it. Missions tend to be quite short so you dont have all the Time for Aiming! And also if you miss it will be harder to retry it because its Reload takes so long. If it would have the Multiplayer Parts installed it would be on the Goodd List believe me.

TLS - This Thing to me is more of a Laser Pointer then a devastating Weapon. It takes a long time to actually hit Something and after that you will get hardly a 2nd kill even though it fires quite a while. And you are vulnerable to any other Enemy that is below or behind you. And even though it looks like it has a AoE Splash it doesnt, at least to my Tests. I dont say it should have the Firepower of the One Hit Kill Capacity of AC5 and Zero but its still underpowered by a large amount.

HCAA - Basicly a Standard Missile with lots of Ammo and it reloads faster and only can be aimed on Air Targets. Doesnt really justify its place if you have your normal Missiles with you.

LAAM - Long Range Missile with one of the worst Agility you can imagine, even though still better then the next one.

HPAA - Worst Agility, worst Reload of all Missiles but it takes a serious Punch ... if you can hit your Target and thats the most challenging Aspect of this Missile as a whole. Even Helicopters can evade it with ease!

RKT - I dont know why they even include that Thing in the Game. The Damage is low, its spread could be that of a Shotgun sometimes and its AoE is non existant while it takes a while to land every Rocket on your Targets if they are close enough. But its still better then the worst Special Weapon.

GRKT - I ... i dont even know what this Thing is supposed to be ... it doesnt have the Range of a LAGM, it doesnt even have the Damage of it from a single Rocket and it only fires everything on one Target?! Some Weapons should just remain a Mystery to the world, its just an obscurity in what it actually is and how it plays.

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Still here? Good! While the list itself is just a overall experience and Opinion of mine i would say it can also be fixed easily. The MK 1 Parts you get from the normal Tech Tree are overall really weak and doesnt deserve a Place in your Aircraft for some Weapons because the Bonus they give you is really small, like with the bigger EML Sights / Hit Area. On the other Hand we have for the Multiplayer exclusive Parts that make certain Weapons at least reliable! I just think they went a little bit overboard with the Balancing of some Special Weapons that tend to be just annoying to play most of the Time. Maybe we get a Balancing Patch or something like that, but we will see it.

But whats your opinion? Am i wrong with everything i said or right? Well then tell me!

[dml!]

I haven't even used all types yet, so I can't really compare all of them. But I do agree somewhat with the EML, even though I've had limited use. I was expecting it to be hitscan like AC6, but it actually has some travel which means you have to lead-aim beyond short ranges. Yeah I guess you could say it's more realistic this way, but with the long reload time and relatively low ammo there aren't many situations I would expect it to be useful in-game.

[Order]

Yeah, in the first couple of Times the EML is fun until you realize its just a waste of time you spend with aiming and how it actually hits something or misses. I stoped using it against ground targets and just focused for the most part against Aircraft and even then only if i am close enoigh.

[Z3r0_]

The TLS was a big letdown, good only for zapping drones.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

HCAA is one of the best weapons in the game. If you don't think so, you're just really bad at the game. It makes getting S ranks so easy on Ace.

Also, the HPAA doesn't have the worst agility. It looks like it does on paper, but it actually has quite good agility, equivalent to a MSL with Lvl 1 Thrust-assisted Steering.


The only truly awful weapons that need balance are:

GRKT - Independent targeting like 8X AGM would fix this weapon

RKT - Greater Damage spread would Fix this weapon

TLS - Complete change in how it works, give it like 250-500-1000 Ammo, and have it work almost like an MG, drain like 20/s while it's active or, the longer you keep it attacking the same spot (Within a margin of error) the greater the damage "Spreads" out




Everything else has a purpose, which is all you ever ask of a weapon.

EML is an Anti heavy weapon. Use it against Ships and bombers. It makes mission 17 hilariously easy to "S" as you can snipe out the Supply Ships pretty much as soon as the objective updates. It's also a good option to equip at the start of Snider's Top to destroy the fleet, at that point you can RTB and switch weapons, or keep EML and use it to snipe cores (Which is also a cheese way to spawn one of the enemy aces)

Also, SFFS is the best bomb. It's also a deadly PVP weapon in Battle Royale where you can drop it from great altitude and "Shotgun" kill an entire battle royale, lol. I don't know if it's a latency exploit, but it seems to hit way more often than it should. It's also an option to "Bomb Kill" Hugin and Munin


LACM actually isn't that impressive of a weapon. SFFS is much better, much more reliable. LACM is essentially a slightly beefed up LAGM that is easier for CWIS to shoot down.


Also, PLS doesn't have EML class accuracy, it's effectively an MG with no "Drop", which means you still have to lead targets. Ironically, this makes the Machinegun Sight more accurate with PLS than with the MG, as the gun sight does not compensate for drop. Still an awesome weapon though.

[TheJournier]

UGB is great... I really really doesn't need rebalancing.

Rocket (should be meh.) you just have to use unconventionally, it is ok against slow tough targets in the air.

HPAA is really good for tu-160s, S-34s... etc. tough 3 hit targets.

I find that if you just hover at like 5000 meters ciws doesn't shoot anything down... LACM is laughably op.
-like 10k+ range
-blast radius of an unmoded ugb...
yeah... nothing really beats it in ship stuff.

^EML is handy though it doesn't take that much skill. just dumb aircraft. And it's ok for Destroyer level ships..


My bad weapons are.

GRKT- truly pointless, it is guided so it can't be used against air targets. Its splash damage etc is equivalent to reg. rockets.



GBP is just pathetic it is guided yes but the blast radius is about the same as a lagm. And while I'm not arguing that it should have the range of a lagm it should at least have a better blast radius.

Sorry but HCAA does seem kindof eh...: what I've noticed is it has better recharge, it can see through clouds better, it's essentially an upgraded std. missile that's about it (it doesn't have good tracking either). And, it can't hit ground targets. I feel like there are better weapons.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

HCAA has good tracking, not excellent tracking. I'm shocked so few people like it, it's also really good against the Arsenal Birds. It does about 25% more damage than a standard missile. (it will kill 3 hit enemies in 2) I think how much you like HCAA depends on how well you can switch targets. I can usually get 6 missiles away and take out 3-6 targets, depending on what they are with one swarm. HCAA was truly the difference between "A" and "S" on Mission 19ACE. You just can't down the swarm of fighters in time with things like SAAM or QAAM


GPB is garbage, yes. It's been garbage in all Ace Combats though.

I miss FAEB/MOAB and Napalm though.

[Order]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

Also, SFFS is the best bomb. It's also a deadly PVP weapon in Battle Royale where you can drop it from great altitude and "Shotgun" kill an entire battle royale, lol. I don't know if it's a latency exploit, but it seems to hit way more often than it should. It's also an option to "Bomb Kill" Hugin and Munin

Seriously you can kill someone in Battle Royal with these Things?! ...... okey know i am really curious about all that!

And yeah as i said the rest is just an opinion but i 100% agree with you about the TLS, its just bad in the way it actually functions.

[Pragmatic_Hero]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

HCAA has good tracking, not excellent tracking. I'm shocked so few people like it, it's also really good against the Arsenal Birds. It does about 25% more damage than a standard missile. (it will kill 3 hit enemies in 2) I think how much you like HCAA depends on how well you can switch targets. I can usually get 6 missiles away and take out 3-6 targets, depending on what they are with one swarm. HCAA was truly the difference between "A" and "S" on Mission 19ACE. You just can't down the swarm of fighters in time with things like SAAM or QAAM


GPB is garbage, yes. It's been garbage in all Ace Combats though.

I miss FAEB/MOAB and Napalm though.

GPB is only good against hardened ground targets like tanks and AD Tanks which still makes it a one-trick pony at best.

[Useless Bunny]

Yeah it's not balanced at all. EML is the the best non-missile weapon and QAAMs are the best missiles. SASMs are also great, the rest is garbage with maybe some niche use like SAAM or whatever.

Every single great player goes to X-02 EML when they get serious, it's quite funny.

[Gojira destructor]

About the only possible use I could think of for the GRKT was against ships.

That's it.

It's an incredibly niche weapon on a plane who's very inclusion in the game is baffling given it's infamous safety record and wasn't ever intended for ground assault.

[Young Erusean Officer]

LACM is excellent in Faceless Soldier. The range is around 11k with the range part, it has excellent approach and the blast is huge. It lets you cheese the mission.

Its also good in Stonehenge where the enemy has moving swarms/waves.

[HATFPWDCATE]

we really should be able to use mp parts in sp it would really help the performance with the lower tier aircraft i use the F/A-18F and its just not that great performance wise also im more annoyed about the fact we only get 3 spec weps for each aircraft IIRC AC6 has 5 or 6 for each ship not to mention the selection for the f is ♥♥♥♥ its the qaams and thats it the lasms are basically only good for 2 sp missions and as u said the eml is basically trash in sp in 6 we got saams 4agms ecms and the last one was i think the sod AH nerfed it down to the saam lagms and ecms i dont remember the loadout for infinity other than 4agms which im dissapointed werent in this cuz i loved the look of it in infinity loaded down with all the missiles on the wings

[hot dog]

Originally posted by HATFPWDCATE:

...i use the F/A-18F and its just not that great performance wise... ...the selection for the f is ♥♥♥♥....

Why not use another aircraft?

[Useless Bunny]

Originally posted by HATFPWDCATE:

we really should be able to use mp parts in sp it would really help the performance with the lower tier aircraft

You don't really need any multiplayer parts to clear single player on Ace difficulty, the game is already quite easy as it is.

[Young Erusean Officer]

SWs have always been imbalanced in AC.

They had some good ideas like making 4AAMs more accurate than 6AAMs. While 8AAMs need to be used situationaly to conserve ammo.

And no the HCAA is terrible. Any SW missile that takes two hits to shoot down a drone is a waste unless you want to sacrifice a weapon slot just for that.

HPAA is a joke. Same damage as a QAAM and is almost unguided like a damn rocket. That insanely slow reload too.

TLS is just depressing. Why did they have to put that on my SU-37...