Aircraft in Planetside are extremely hard to balance, they have the greatest speed and mobility on the battlefield, and have decent armor and good damage against everything. Most ground units without hard counters like AA are essentially helpless against them. A single AA MAX is not OPed, in fact I'd say it was weaker than PS1 AA MAXes (At least the Starfire and Burster). But factor in the everyone can do everything in PS2 and you can potentially get lots of AA on a whim (just like everything else).
Without radically changing PS2 I'd try the following:
1) Reduce the effective range of AA, give it a sharp fall off where it becomes completely ineffective.
2) Limit all Air to Ground weapons to an effective range of about 25% less of what AA has.
These first two ought to result in limiting how much AA can bear on a single aircraft, where that aircraft is not attacking a fortified position on the ground.
3) Separate the the render ranges of MAX units from other Infantry, giving MAXes the longer render range showing them from further away.
4) Remove Scout Radar's ability to show Infantry on the Mini Map for ESFs (and all vehicles for that matter).
Points 3 and 4 balance the who can see who more fairly. Air should be able to visually see AA MAXes that are able to fire upon them. And ESFs have no business being turned into Infantry farming vehicles, you would think that was at least one thing SOE would not reintroduce from PS1 given all the good stuff they've left out... Get rid of the Infantry radar!
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