So I read the PC gamer article

[Synapses]

Originally Posted by Bravix

Syn, I\\\'m also a pilot, and let me tell you this much. If they made aircraft realistic, they\\\'d be extremely overpowered. An F-22 would decimate just about anything in planetside.

Example being Halo. I\\\'ve always wondered, \"Okay, so Earth is under attack by some slow ass Banshees, and all the enemy has for AA is a turret emplacement....so whyyyy are we losing so bad? Bring in the mother fu$#ING jets!!\"

Reavers are extremely strong and well armored. They SHOULD die to skyguards, skyguard is anti-air. If you want to talk balance, explain to me why it takes so many mag rail shots to take down a reaver. That thing soaks up almost as much damage as a lightning.

The reason you don\\\'t see results is because you suck at flying Reavers. Not trying to be insulting, I\\\'m in the same boat. They just aren\\\'t realistic. If you wanna kick ass at flying, play Arma II.

You make valid points. Well done. And I do play chopper games to get my fight on, I just wish we had a bit more firepower in the reaver, or counter measures to be able to ditch out at least if we don\\\'t like how the fight is going.

My complaint isnt so much against skyguards, its against lock on style AA that I cant seem to escape even if i\\\'m hiding behind something solid at times.

It just pisses me off when i\\\'m clearly behind a wall and im still getting hit from missiles that I should have \\"dodged\\" and then it leads to my death. Either way its not really balanced that reaver\\\'s/mossy\\\'s die after 1.5 seconds of damage compared to it taking me almost a full minute to get a kill on something that\\\'s full life. I shouldn\\\'t have to go repair every 10 seconds of combat... Its frustrating. I just hope to see some added survivability in. Aircav needs to have a bit more power this time around.

I love playing planetside, but not as air... and yet air power is my passion. Shouldn\\\'t I be able to play my favorite aspect of the game without wanting to kick my computer over in frustration every time I try my hand at it?

[Bags]

I wouldn\'t trust someone who got to play the game for an hour on when the game will come out.

[TerminatorUK]

Reading between the lines, a 2013 \'release\' date might potentially mean a long beta?

Long shot I know but they did stress how important a beta is to an MMO.

[Coreldan]

It\'s not even uncommon to not like something in a game that is a true passion to you in real life.

I for example have a friend who has done several tours as a sniper to afganistan, but he would never consider playing a sniper in any game

Games have balance to consider, which is why they cant probably make aircrafts \"as fun\" as you find them in real life. That said, the problem with PS1 in mind seems to be you, not Reavers in general.

[Chaff]

I don't think PS1 or PS2 was or ever will be very favorable to air.

My impression is most PS players are into ground-based weapons. Be it an infiltrator knifing someone in the back...all the way up to a tank gunner causing mayhem on any number of ground-based targets.

Hardcore Air Pilots need to go to Flight-driven games.

I like the concept that AA essentially creates a flight ceiling - err, floor. AA should be able to effectively keep/force aircraft to stay at or above a decently high ceiling over ground battles. The more active AA (on a base, or vehicle / softie-based) that is concentrated in an area - the less air activity the typical ground unit will see or have to worry about.

Then, when a really BIG ground battle develops - high altitude bombing starts to become more enticing.....this in turn, would give REAVER, SCYTHE, or MOSSIE pilots someting to go after.....then.....you essentially could see the same mix of air vehicles duking it out (up high) as there is ground-based varieties of encounters. PS2 needs to build things so dog fighting becomes a major component for pilots.

To have ONE real-life F-22 pilot roar down over a PS2 battlefield and kill 500+ softies on one run.....would ONLY be fun for said pilot.

It's an MMO. To attract and keep the "MASSIVE" numbers required to be a $UCCE$$FUL MMO ..... SOE needs players. I see SOE building the gameplay in PS2 to give what the majority of their community wants ......FPS action (primarily ground-based).

Having said that - I definitely think they could do a LOT to add gameplay for pilots. GALS & LIBS in formations to help protect against fighters ...... fighter escorts......figher-vs-fighter dogfights. The Airboys should have PLENTY of action. 80% of theit fighting should be up well off the ground.

When pops are lower, or AA defenses are well worn by ground assaults ..... then air can venture down lower with better survivability.

[Rbstr]

AA should do a bit of both: Keep aircraft in the high skies or of range of AA but that also keeps the ground units out of range of the aircraft.
As well as encourage ground striking aircraft to stay lower altitudes and use terrain for protection from anti-air devices.

A strike-chopper which must bob and weave around while avoiding AA and hitting targets is an inherently more interesting activity than flying over at thousands of feet dropping a bomb at a dot on your map.

[BorisBlade]

The better games out there are designed around gameplay, not realism. Realism doesnt work in a game. Real life has to worry about budgets, and real world travel time, logistics, fuel, fuel costs, and the lists go on and on. If real life were a game we would drop prob 80% of the vehicles we use in the military if not much more because cost wouldnt be a problem nor would logistics etc, we would use a much much smaller array of weapons and vehicles. A game must instead make all vehicles viable since cost and logistics is irrelevant.

Aircraft like the reaver were already more powerful than anything else in ps1 comparatively. It took vehicles which required two people to take out the solo aircraft. And reavers could easily rack up the kills better than most all other vehicles even those that required many more times the manpower. So saying they were weak just shows that you dont know what you are talking about and most likely were just a bad pilot. Because if anything, they needed toned down rather than beefed up if you want to get picky on actual balance.

[Synapses]

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

This is completely and utterly off topic, but as for your rotary wing school, the idea is to not become overwhelemd. Yes, it's a bitch to figure out. YES, it's a complete pain in the ass to learn the switches and knobs, but you have to realize you don't have to know all of them the very first day. That was my problem and I nearly flunked out.

I'm going to recommend.. *wait for it!! Wait for it!!* A video game.

This is a sim that is 99.99999% accurate to rotarty flight, it's controls and it's over bearing need for complete and utter focus..

DCS: Blackshark. You will learn to fly a RUSSIAN attack helicopter and it will give you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much insight on every helicopter's ignition system. The reason I found it so helpful is because of it's language. You had to understand fully the word on the switch AND the actual switches' function, so it made you understand it very very well.

Learn THIS.
DCS - Black Shark Startup - YouTube

Ive been playing around with a lot of different flight sims and what not. Take on Helicopters, Microsoft Flight X, ect. I have a pretty good idea of how its going to work. I just hope its not as crazily stupidly hard to land as it was in Take on Helicopters, same with getting a good hover going.

That video is pretty intense. I cant imagine what it would be like to fly a chopper with all those nobs. I know the R22 (the one we learn on) is fairly simple in that sense. But when I start getting my turbine hours I know it'll step things up a notch on that level.