They're already too fast for ground lock ons, I'm not sure making them even faster is the way to go
Ground lockons have practically unlimited vertical range on jets (haven't played in a while, but remember being locked on by wildcats/stingers from distances exceeding 1 km).
Stingers and wildcats have a horizontal range of roughly 450 m (?) and 700 m (insane), respectively - this is a long enough range to allow easy lockon on a jet travelling at max speed. Jets currently have a top speed of around 420 kmph, ie, 120 m/s - this should give stingers around 4 s to lock onto jets (a little bit of teamplay can make this even easier - SOFLAM is your friend).
Also, considering how easy lockon weapons are to use, I would argue that they should NOT be very effective. Merely forcing a jet to waste its flares is good enough performance for a stinger because it makes the jet vulnerable to other aircraft and wildcats.
I'm speaking as someone who has over 200 hours of jet gameplay. From my experience, even when travelling at max speed, jets are extremely (even more now) vulnerable to nightbirds (while the opposite is not true).
@Metal_Daryl97 wrote:Also, considering how easy lockon weapons are to use, I would argue that they should NOT be very effective. Merely forcing a jet to waste its flares is good enough performance for a stinger because it makes the jet vulnerable to other aircraft and wildcats.
I'm speaking as someone who has over 200 hours of jet gameplay. From my experience, even when travelling at max speed, jets are extremely (even more now) vulnerable to nightbirds (while the opposite is not true).
I agree that there are still some finer adjustments that could be done. However I believe Jets are finally in a place that makes me want to fly them for an entire match. Tor tank can no longer one shot them from spawn. Dog-fighting is now more than who ever gets their missile off first.
I haven't flown enough against the nightbird since the damage range nerf but it feels like after their recent nerf, I can now strafe against them without dying! I survive with little more than 20HP, where as before, I'd die before I even completed the strafe! So yeah, I think the nightbird needs another minor nerf to bring that attack range slightly closer as it still feels like a flying AA, or that the nightbird actually needs to have gravity apply to it and its anti-gravity engines removed.
I'd argue lockons are ok, they're not perfect but it's a symptom of the poor map design in 2042. Everything is too flat thus, if lockons weren't so forgiving they would be quite bad overall. Probably why I die more to Lis than anyone else when I'm in an aircraft.
@S3SSioN_SoL
Should be back on the battlefield next weekend. Really looking forward to some nice jet dogfights - I'm sure that dogfighting is far more fun now, thanks to addition of the afterburner timer. But I suspect that nightbirds are still going to be a massive pain in the arse (hope that I'm wrong here).
