Quicker than expected by a long shot! Finally the air will be a little friendlier with the new ESF lockon update. Now if they could only change the G2A lockons to all be like the striker. Although they have changed the hornets to laser guided instead of the original wire-guided. Wire guided shouldve been kept imo to give a max control range rather than an infinate one like the engi turret since the shooter can move. ------------------------ Empire Specific Fighter (ESF) Update: Weapons New nose cannon for each faction TR M18 Locust NC M20 Kestrel VS Antares LC These weapons feature a larger magazine that reduces how often they need to be reloaded. This allows for fewer missed opportunities when engaging fast moving targets. New wing mount weapons for all ESFs Coyote Missiles Coyote missiles fire a volley of small, light damaging missiles. If they get close to a hostile aircraft then they will lock-on and seek towards that aircraft. Hornet Missiles These laser-guided missiles will fly toward the pilot’s crosshairs. New Certification Lines: Engagement Radar Engagement Radar is a low cost certification that goes into the Utility slot. It provides pilots with increased situational awareness against other aircraft by displaying indicators over nearby enemy aircraft. This indicator will also clamp to the edge of the screen if the target goes off screen, showing the pilot which direction to go if they want to give chase. External Afterburner Fuel Tanks Afterburner Fuel Tanks now have a certification line. Ranking up fuel tanks increases both fuel capacity and fuel replenishment rate. Changes to existing ESF weapons and certification lines: Tomcat Missiles Air-to-air missiles now require the lock to be maintained (the pilot needs to keeps the target in their crosshairs until the missile hits). If the target leaves the crosshairs for too long then the lock will be lost. Added a lock-on loss angle to missiles in flight. If a locked missile finds that its target is more than 145 degree turn away then the lock will be lost. The max travel distance of fired rockets has been reduced from 1250 to 1000 meters Lock-on acquire time reduced from 2.5 seconds to 2.0 seconds Default ammo capacity increased from 5 to 6. Ammo resupply now gives 2 missiles per tick. Stock Afterburners Stock fuel replenishment rate reduced by 15%. This means it takes about 1 second longer to replenish from 0 to full. The cost of engaging the afterburner when in hover mode has been increased. This fuel cost is only applied once, when the afterburner button is hit. This consumes 0.5 seconds worth of fuel. Scout Radar Scout radars will now give detect experience to the vehicle driver ESF Fire Suppression Increased the amount of damage repaired by fire suppression on ESFs. Increased from 3/6/9/12% to 6/12/20/25% Note: This change does not apply to the Fire Suppression cert line on the other vehicles
A few other things as well: Balance: Added following resist types to Heavy Assault Resist Shield: Vehicle Grenades Vehicle Shotguns VS Vortex AV: C3 VS Vortex AV: C2 Liberator Indirect Damage Lancer AV Anti Aircraft Machine Gun Flak Projectile Infantry Flak Armor now resists Lancer and charged Vortex damage. VS shotgun slug velocity now matches the velocity of the other two factions. Depot: Updated the Bundle item preview buttons on the selected item and bundle purchase screens to make it more obvious that they are buttons that lead to preview. Heroic Boosts are now permanently available in the Boost section of the Depot. Bug Fixes: Fixed instances of flashing in the Amerish sky file on some graphics settings Fixed an issue with Squad Filters filtering by page, causing misleading results Stationary and deployed vehicles will no longer slide when on inclined surfaces Fixed an issue where HUD timers for primary and secondary objectives stop updating when you open a UI screen VS MAX bodies should no longer turn about 90 degrees when crouched Underbarrel grenade launchers reload animation now lines up with the weapon Fixed missing reload animation for NS-7 PDW The bolt action animation for VS sniper rifles should no longer block the player's view Adjusted position of misplaced tank guards in Ellis Amp Station Jump pad at Mani Fortress jump you to the Biolab onto the jump pad back to Mani Fortress Closed up some collision issues in Biolabs allowing Light Assaults to attack from unattended areas You should no longer be able to get under The Rink's collision When another player is talking in voice chat the indicator that displays at the bottom of the screen will no longer overlap your weapons info in the Centralized HUD The heat gauge and name of the turret are no longer overlapping each other in centralized HUD mode Fixed issue where AMS Sunderers were not animating when being deployed Fixed issue where some VS MAX projectiles were missing lights and sounds Adjusted NC Sunderer and Harasser colors Fixed the lock-on reduction buff (given by vehicle stealth) sometimes being lost when the vehicle comes from outside of awareness range Fixed pop after firing a SMG while aimed Jumping will pull character out of iron sights Fixed FOV being stretched in certain resolutions. It is now back to how it was before Performance Update 2 Added a Wide View Mode option under graphics settings. This option auto-adjusts the FOV to fit wider resolutions.
My favorite about the notes is the fixes, mainly the iron sight pull out on jump. Bug Fixes: Fixed instances of flashing in the Amerish sky file on some graphics settings Fixed an issue with Squad Filters filtering by page, causing misleading results Stationary and deployed vehicles will no longer slide when on inclined surfaces Fixed an issue where HUD timers for primary and secondary objectives stop updating when you open a UI screen VS MAX bodies should no longer turn about 90 degrees when crouched Underbarrel grenade launchers reload animation now lines up with the weapon Fixed missing reload animation for NS-7 PDW The bolt action animation for VS sniper rifles should no longer block the player's view Adjusted position of misplaced tank guards in Ellis Amp Station Jump pad at Mani Fortress jump you to the Biolab onto the jump pad back to Mani Fortress Closed up some collision issues in Biolabs allowing Light Assaults to attack from unattended areas You should no longer be able to get under The Rink's collision When another player is talking in voice chat the indicator that displays at the bottom of the screen will no longer overlap your weapons info in the Centralized HUD The heat gauge and name of the turret are no longer overlapping each other in centralized HUD mode Fixed issue where AMS Sunderers were not animating when being deployed Fixed issue where some VS MAX projectiles were missing lights and sounds Adjusted NC Sunderer and Harasser colors Fixed the lock-on reduction buff (given by vehicle stealth) sometimes being lost when the vehicle comes from outside of awareness range Fixed pop after firing a SMG while aimed Jumping will pull character out of iron sights Fixed FOV being stretched in certain resolutions. It is now back to how it was before Performance Update 2 Added a Wide View Mode option under graphics settings. This option auto-adjusts the FOV to fit wider resolutions.
Thoughts on ESF update...... The patch as a whole helps Scythe's the most because: Nerfed Rotary 1 Clip Ability -> Fire suppression means the default guns kill faster than the Rotaries with the nerfed reload times from previous patches. Greater Ability to Maintain Range -> Default AB Nerf + AB Tank Buff allows tank setups to outrun missiles and those with secondary weapons. When turning to counter attack at range, the Saron is by far the best gun due to no drop, the fastest velocity, accuracy, and reload times. At range, the Scythe hitbox advantage really shines. Racer is a more viable choice now because with the new tanks, nerfed missile range, and requirement for A2A to maintain lock, you are more likely to be able to outrun them and pick and choose your fights with the Saron. You will not, however, be able to outrun a Mossy or Reaver running tanks, nor they you, as long as you have decent aim because the differences in speeds between the frames are too small. If someone is dodging, then they're travelling slowly and you can easily makeup ground with correct intercept vectors. If they're not dodging - lol Saron. The laser guide rockets are worthless because they do less damage than rocket pods while requiring you to be vulnerable for a longer period of time due to the nerfed 450m range. The Coyote acceleration and RPM was buffed so it's a very viable weapon to close the damage gap against fire suppression to kill someone before they can get away. It takes 4 sets of rockets to kill(600 damage each volley), and reload speed is the best cert line when you have good aim. You would probably want to use Hailstorm and Racer or Dogfighting with this weapon - Racer obviously to close the gap and Dogfighting to get that little bit of extra maneuverability up close to get a firing angle. You could also use PPA + Coyotes since they also do good damage to infantry and provide some level of protection against air, although I'd still prefer rocketpods for the armor damage and enjoy dogfighting with the old ones. I would keep and eye out for Racer reavers with stealth, air hammer, and coyotes as they're likely to ruin your day before you can react. If you hear a Reaver, get eyes on it quickly. Edit: Important side note: The Coyotes are a weapon that gets you more kills and gets you killed more since you cannot retreat. Saron + Tanks is still the best A2A setup, but Hailstorm + Coyotes are a viable option to close the gap between a good and great pilot or numbers since they can't be dodged. Also, a note on A2A missiles. They detonate without doing any damage if they have to make >140 degree turn. This is actually easier to do than it sounds because if you turn and reverse maneuver directly towards the missile, it will actually do a 180 turn to hit you about 2 feet underneath your aircraft, which now makes it do 0 damage. This works against ground missiles, HOWEVER, since you are high and the missile is coming from the ground, you have to make a concerted effort to get your momentum going back towards the ground from which it was fired from, not just a 180 turn along the horizontal axis as if it was an A2A missile fired from a similar altitude. A2A missiles were nerfed and buffed at the same time. They require constant lock, but no longer require you to relock after each missile. This means you simply lock and keep firing when the next missile is available like the Striker. Reload speed is now a larger increase in DPS than lockon time, however it is costly. This is also why when fighting against them, if you aren't running tanks(or they started firing close to you and can AB to maintain chase for just long enough for the missiles to hit), you must pay attention to the new missile blip on the radar and turn back into them or you will die faster than before. The new large magazine weapons have slightly lower RPM than the default cannon with the velocity and accuracy of rotary. This is pretty bad against anything but a lib or gal unless you have terrible aim, but if that was the case you'd probably want to be using either short or long range a2a missiles anyway. The Scythe reload times are so short that you can get a full reload off inbetween maneuvers to align shots against a dodging target, and if the target wasn't maneuvering to require you to do that, you would have outright killed him with a Saron before needing to reload anyway. Swarms of these are annoying in the hands of noob pilots since they prevent nanites, however I'd much rather have to deal with tiny nonanite pecks than swarms of missiles.
