The question should be with what he is not struggling.
2 Likes
His challenge confuses me, it is easy to fly in low and drop on an SPAA in the F-84F. I’ve done it/seen it done many times to Gepards, Shilkas, Yenseis, and even Yorks.
I mean, unless you are using 20km (or 25, I don’t remember exactly because I mix up the Shilka, Gepard, and M247 ranges) search distance planes can spawn without you realising and hit the deck before your 10km detection range and surprise you with a low level bomb run. The basic “stay under the radar” kind of attack.
The problem is there being no counterplay. I don’t struggle against SPAA but i’ve died because I couldn’t fight back against one with spawn prot b4. There aren’t any reasons not to reduce its spawn prot time.
The only instance when spawn protection benefits the SPAA is when the pilot head straight for it right after it spawns. If you are attacking anything else and a spawn protected gepard kills you, you wont even know if he was spawn protected or not because you werent looking at it. If i manage to destroy gepards with a strikemaster by ambushing them while flying low or maneuvering to f up the lock reticle, you can perfectly do it too with a F-84. Thing is: i dont head straight to a bunch of gepards shooting at me.
Also, they cant lock you for a few seconds after spawning, so there is that too.
1 Like
They can spawn in when you’re already flying and there’s nothing you can do about them for 20 seconds. Decreasing the spawn prot for SPAA would solve this and have 0 negative effects.
Again: it does not matter if they are spawn protected or not if you are already dropping bombs or about to do so IF they were not your intended target. What you want is to fly around inside SPAA range, see an AA that just spawned and get on top of it outside his radar detection range as soon as possible to eliminate the threat before he notices you. People barely spawn SPAA anymore or use it as tank destroyers and you propose to let them get bombed 10 seconds after they spawn. Yeah, no.
Here’s an idea I thought of for this:
Missiles in a spawned SPAA aren’t ready immediately, they have a cooldown after spawning that lasts the duration of the longest possible time you can be in spawn protection (maybe a reload of sorts), so you can’t immediately fire a missile at an aircraft and they can’t blow you up, even with a timed bomb dropped before the SPAA spawned.
This would NOT apply to guns mounted to an SPAA, so they can still defend themselves somewhat with the guns they are armed with, and their already existing limitations (2km max range) meaning a cheeky aircraft thats too close to the battlefield will still be punished for doing so.
So make SPAA defenseless and allow planes even more time to reposition to attack them in their spawn? IR missiles already take time to prep for firing and you have to aquire the target too. Doesn’t make much sense. Maybe planes shouldn’t loiter around enemy spawns when they know people they kill will spawn SOAA to kill them.
1 Like
People rage switch to SPAA after getting bombed while spawncamping which makes you helpless. Also you seriously don’t know how spawn prot works do you?
The average pilot just climb, get down to bomb, climb again, head down inmediately to bomb another target… and repeat until they are out of bombs or they dont have a cannon with decent pen. Of course they are food for gepards, i usually just wait for them to commit once they are heading down to bomb and send them a lovely burst of rounds. WW2 matches mindset when facing SPAA with autocannons and radar lmao.
Ah yes, so people should spawn another MBT after a jet just bombed them and their team mates, ignore the fact that they are also past half of the match duration and there could be other planes or helicopters up too. They should leave their AA as a last resource when they cant spawn anything else and lose the match. Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
3 Likes
They would have their spawn protection as defence, about 15 seconds if they play their cards right. Of course some AGMs can be fired at distances that can take too long (Kh-38 series missiles) but if they see an aircraft like that at a distance too far for spawn protection to protect them, they can sacrifice their spawn protection to go behind cover as they have enough time.
So you’re saying they should be able to kill the plane for free without the plane being able to fight back in any way?
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No, you said that missile SPAA wouldn’t have available missiles on spawn. That means they are defenseless. Missile SPAA should NEVER need to wait to have missiles available and fireable for any length of time after spawning. No other vehicle in game has that, and it pilots loiter in the spawn area long enough to get missiled by a spawning SPAA then they deserved it. What an absolutely asinine idea, that a vehicle can’t use its primary weapon until after it’s spawn protection is gone. Imagine if that was suggested that for other ground vehicles, it would make spawn killing easier…
4 Likes
Top tier is, has been and probably always will be unbalanced. The ever increasing ‘sophistication’ of technology in top tier and the distinct importance of upgrade status mean the whole range at the top inevitably skews hard in certain directions given what vehicles/technology are favored at the time.
A player can save themselves a lot of headache by avoiding that perpetual mess, though people are free to engage it as they please.
To deny kills by bailing out is an embarrassing sportsmanship issue and is certainly a matter of griefing.
Bailing out is the passive, defeatist move of sore losers–desperate to deny opponents earnings in what is perceived to be an imminent loss–you cannot even honestly call it gameplay. Of course, many attack bailers flee from would fail…so often their vehicles are wasted for no reason except spite.
When you see someone bail out to deny an expected defeat, what you are seeing is contempt for competition. The player is so terrified of their own loss that they guarantee it just to swindle their foes out of what would be earned results. It’s an entitled, unsporting move…but that’s what they’re up to.
At its core, the mentality of bailers is toxic…part of the WT playerbase’s underbelly. People with the starch and talent to make it in-game don’t have to bail out, they stay with it–win, lose or draw.
It is not surprising to see the most prevalent poster here defending this griefing is a player known to rely upon a manipulated, cheesy setup. Amid their ‘free frags’ babble, they threaten to bail out on any competition they feel unfavorable about…but it’s the other people who want free frags! lmao
Does a person who goads an enemy into bailing win the engagement by doing so? Partially, but they don’t receive their rightful earnings for doing so. Resolving this would be complicated (there are legitimate reasons to bail out in other instances), but I suspect a mechanic like the TK apology setup could be put together.
As a matter of face, squadrons and other groups ought to discourage this: being a sore loser is far more embarrassing than being defeated.
Yes, the same way you would get killed by a spawn protected tank if you are camping the spawn on ground. You think that because you are flying at a speed that lets you cross the whole ground map in seconds it means that you cant spawn camp with a plane. Guess what, you are doing just that if you want to bomb freshly spawned AA, the same way a helicopter can spawn camp hovering at 6+ km and outside the ground map. Getting upset because your only real counter (aside for fighter planes) its doing its job and you cannot kill them as easy as you kill a tank that, at best has a roof mg to defend itself, its sad and silly.
SPAA purpose is to discourage pilots from flying too close to the battlefield and protect their fellow team mates by scaring away or destroying aircraft. The reward for shooting down aircraft is already a joke and depending on the BR played even heavily undertiered aircraft can get a bunch of kills, which grant even less rewards when you destroy them. You can even see this around 8.3 with the infamous gepard around: some dude takes a cap and a scout assist, gets killed/J out and spawns some WW2 thing even before there is any AA on the map.
So yeah, i have no pitty for aircraft being shot down and i regularly play CAS both with planes and helis. I will get shot down by AA but i wont be asking for nerfs to my only counter bc that will also justify nerfing ALL CAS so tanks dont die as easily to them. Would you want that too?
1 Like
Not really, pantsir can kill planes immediately on spawn in. ADATs can effectively track and engage low flying aircraft especially those just pulling off from an attack run. Anything in between these extremes is also undeserving of spawn protection.
The only SPAA at a BR where CAS is slightly threatening that could use spawn protection is the stormer.
I J out in SPAAs in three cases :
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i got disabled by a tank and can’t fire, while knowing an AGM is coming at me. I will usually leave the vehicle and give the kill to the tank, because that one at least bothered fighting its way through the map and managed to find me (i usually don’t sit at spawn)
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i got no ammo. No point in waiting for someone to kill me, it’s just tactically stupid to be useless to the team for 2 to 3 minutes. Only exception being if there’s an available and secured point where i can resupply of course
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i play a manpads AA against an heli slinging AGMs from 4 or more km and there’s no cover available
now regarding AGMs that can outrange SPAAs, especially at top tier : i shoot them down, as much as i can, but 2 planes are enough to make your usual top tier AA dry. Most importantly, shooting down AGMs gives no rewards what so ever. I only do it because it’s better to have my vehicle dry than 1/3rd of my team dead.
I also had one instance of a CAS guy throwing his entire arsenal, me intercepting all of it (4 x KH38), getting impatient and flying too close, and finally J’ing out when realising a VT-1 was headed his way.
Regarding the initial subject…
- Make SPAA easier to resupply with room to maneuver, behind spawn or on the flanks
- Give a reward for shooting down AGMs
- Lower the cost of CAP equipped with ARHs to the level of an heli equipped with rockets
- Fix the damn manpads and their laughable lock range and G pull
… and then we will talk about the issue of SPAAs J’ing out
7 Likes
The counter is not being present in their spawn for 15 seconds…
Su25SM3 = 40KM range AGM. 20KM tracking range. Show me a non-russian SAM that can counter it.
1 Like