Vehicle Unlock Loadouts

[Carkus]

So, what do you reckon the most effective Vehicle Unlock Loadouts will be? I've been watching a few videos and based on my own experiences couldn't really work out what would be most effective since i hadn't unlocked everything. I know it's kind've subjective to your style of play but i figured some of you must've tried some of them out ...

Spent most of the time in the Jets so maybe ECM Radio Jammer, Air to Ground Missile, Fire Extinguisher?

What about Tanks, Choppers, APCs?

http://bf3blog.com/battlefield-3-vehicle-unlocks/

[Ranger Bob]

Spent most of the time in the Jets so maybe ECM Radio Jammer, Air to Ground Missile, Fire Extinguisher?


Hard to say really with the retardedly short vehicle respawn timers you wont have much time to do any ground damage before you're back dealing with the opposite teams jets again.

a good squad with laser designators and a tank sitting back on a hill could be pretty interesting/deadly, guess it depends on range

[Mayhem_Lee]

So, what do you reckon the most effective Vehicle Unlock Loadouts will be? I've been watching a few videos and based on my own experiences couldn't really work out what would be most effective since i hadn't unlocked everything. I know it's kind've subjective to your style of play but i figured some of you must've tried some of them out ...

Spent most of the time in the Jets so maybe ECM Radio Jammer, Air to Ground Missile, Fire Extinguisher?

What about Tanks, Choppers, APCs?

http://bf3blog.com/battlefield-3-vehicle-unlocks/

Jet for air to air combat (most of the time)
Stealth - IR Flares - Heat seeking air-to-air missilesJet if you have a team that uses stingers or another jet to watch your back (not often)

Beam scanning - IR Flares - Laser guided missile

[Bell]

If we don't proper external views I think pilots will need.

Radar
Extends the range of the jet radar to see enemy and friendly aircraft for longer distances.

[Carkus]

Hard to say really with the retardedly short vehicle respawn timers you wont have much time to do any ground damage before you're back dealing with the opposite teams jets again.

a good squad with laser designators and a tank sitting back on a hill could be pretty interesting/deadly, guess it depends on range

Yeah i know what you mean Bob, they spawn way too quick. I think for the larger maps, both Jet Pilots will really need to work together for example one pilot engages air targets, and one ground targets. The way they are balanced at the moment I don't see them providing any 'Air Support' for ground units really as you're right you tend to spend most of your time chasing tail.

[Mayhem_Lee]

If we don't proper external views I think pilots will need.

Radar
Extends the range of the jet radar to see enemy and friendly aircraft for longer distances.

Dont think that it gives you enough of a benefit to remove something like stealth which makes it harder for you to get a lock with stingers or A-A misslies

[Ranger Bob]

Yeah, if you get out outdone by someone else there should be a bit of time penalty for vehicles and reward for the person who got you, 1 or 2 mins flying around uncontested, people could wreak some major havoc as it was in bf2

[Ranger Bob]

If we don't proper external views I think pilots will need.

Radar
Extends the range of the jet radar to see enemy and friendly aircraft for longer distances.

I found a key that allowed me to free look inside the cockpit looking out windows and stuff, i didn't try look behind though, i think it was Alt but i can't remember. Possibly could be the feature your talking about?

[Bell]

Depends how its implemented, I used to dogfight using the radar exclusively in POE (a bfv mod) to see what my enemy was doing.
Knowing what your enemy is doing is far more important than anything else IMO, and without external views nor proper POV support how else are we supposed to do that?

[Carkus]

I found a key that allowed me to free look inside the cockpit looking out windows and stuff, i didn't try look behind though, i think it was Alt but i can't remember. Possibly could be the feature your talking about?

If you held down the right mouse button and moved left or right with the mouse you could look side to side, but still impossible to see whats on your 6.

[Bell]

I found a key that allowed me to free look inside the cockpit looking out windows and stuff, i didn't try look behind though, i think it was Alt but i can't remember. Possibly could be the feature your talking about?

BF has always had that but it has always locked your aircraft controls at the same time, so you cant really use it.
Flight sims use Snap views to snap to a POV position so you can look out the window for threats, i'd love to see them implement that.

[Ranger Bob]

ah ok was that what it was? i'm not a very good pilot so didn't worry too much about it

[Mayhem_Lee]

Depends how its implemented, I used to dogfight using the radar exclusively in POE (a bfv mod) to see what my enemy was doing.
Knowing what your enemy is doing is far more important than anything else IMO.

Due to the fact that minimap even zoomed right out is not large enough (its shit) you wont get the benifit or advantage you speak of in BF3.

What are you going to do when they are on your tail with heat seekers? just look at map and go "oh i should move now" and they have already locked on and fired?


Radar - Extends the range of the jet radar to see enemy and friendly aircraft for longer distances.

From the discription they have of the unlock it could be for your mini map or the distance they are lit up as a 3d spot

[Krekor]

Multi-million $$ jet extremely vulnerable due to lack of $10 rear-view-mirror :)

[Obble]

Mayhem_Lee;1434290']

What are you going to do when they are on your tail with heat seekers? just look at map and go "oh i should move now" and they have already locked on and fired?


Dive at the ground so you don't get the kill, duh!

It will all depend on the camera views come full release for the jets tbh. :(

100% flares though <3.

[Bell]

Mayhem_Lee;1434290']Due to the fact that minimap even zoomed right out is not large enough (its shit) you wont get the benifit or advantage you speak of in BF3.

What are you going to do when they are on your tail with heat seekers? just look at map and go "oh i should move now" and they have already locked on and fired?
From the discription they have of the unlock it could be for your mini map or the distance they are lit up as a 3d spot

Yea without external views trying to figure out whos locking onto you will be pretty gay, but I guess you can assume its a jet based on your location when you hear the lock-on sound and start evading and throw flares and then once you get into a close range fight and thats when the radar would come in and I assume they are fixing that piece of shit map.

So once your missiles miss what are you going to do in a dogfight without knowing where exactly they are or what they are doing when they are anywhere but infront of you.

[Carkus]

Yea without external views trying to figure out whos locking onto you will be pretty gay, but I guess you can assume its a jet based on your location when you hear the lock-on sound and start evading and throw flares and then once you get into a close range fight and thats when the radar would come in and I assume they are fixing that piece of $#@! map.

So once your missiles miss what are you going to do in a dogfight without knowing where exactly they are or what they are doing when they are anywhere but infront of you.

A successful method seems to be changing to exterior view which allows you to track where your target is going more accurately since you have a wider point of view. In cockpit view it's a mission to stay on your target, particularly if they go off screen.

I think this is where the joystick pilots will have the advantage with being able to maneuver more easily than mouse + key pilots.

[Bell]

You still have a gigantic blind spot

[StarDream]

Rear view is also useful to track the movement of ground units after a strafing run while climbing. Pity the MG is so shit strafing runs are a waste of time.

[Carkus]

Rear view is also useful to track the movement of ground units after a strafing run while climbing. Pity the MG is so $#@! strafing runs are a waste of time.

Yep this is why i think the Air to Ground missiles are the ones to go for over the Air to Air missiles. It tends to disable most vehicles from most angles and then you can finish it off with the guns while the engy's are trying to repair. I think if you hit a tank on the back with it it might take it out in 1 hit.

[Mayhem_Lee]

@Bell i think it will all come down to camera views and how they are implemented in full release. Close range dogfights you can see them on minimap or if you swap to 3rd person you can work it out via tracers from their cannon rounds. I have some fraps vids of my time in the jet will have to sort out this week and you can see what i mean lol all valid points and views on it at the moment but will require full release to see whats what.

Agree with the need for a rear view cam 100%



Yep this is why i think the Air to Ground missiles are the ones to go for over the Air to Air missiles. It tends to disable most vehicles from most angles and then you can finish it off with the guns while the engy's are trying to repair. I think if you hit a tank on the back with it it might take it out in 1 hit.

A-G missiles/bombs will disable a vehicle (only needs to be 50% & below) Engy tool will repair 3/4 of a vehicles health & is rather quick jet cannons do fuck all damage to anything not air so you will struggle to get the destroy on the same pass, by the time you come back they have a fully repaired vehicle.

Rinse & repeat..........

[Carkus]

Mayhem_Lee;1434316']

A-G missiles/bombs will disable a vehicle (only needs to be 50% & below) Engy tool will repair 3/4 of a vehicles health & is rather quick jet cannons do $#@! all damage to anything not air so you will struggle to get the destroy on the same pass, by the time you come back they have a fully repaired vehicle.

Yeah It might be possible to destroy in same pass if you get a lock from far out, slow down, fire your A/G Missiles/Bomb and quickly switch to cannons. Seemed to work well on the videos I've seen. From what I've seen, the A-10 and SU-39 have much better success at taking out ground units with the cannons

Ok so what about tanks and other vehicles? Any suggestions or thoughts for the Choppers?

[=C=]

Mayhem_Lee;1434290']Due to the fact that minimap even zoomed right out is not large enough (its shit) you wont get the benifit or advantage you speak of in BF3.

What are you going to do when they are on your tail with heat seekers? just look at map and go "oh i should move now" and they have already locked on and fired?



From the discription they have of the unlock it could be for your mini map or the distance they are lit up as a 3d spot

What I'd like to see is actual dots as missiles on the radar, which will give you an indication of how close it is and you could time maneuvers as well as where it was fired from (2d radar). I assume something like this this is possible however it was locked in the beta. "Radar - Extends the range of the jet radar to see enemy and friendly aircraft for longer distances." Looks like no mention of actual missiles :(

Still, there has to be a full-size map when pressing M. The zoom out (n) is not enough. Without a full map and proper radar you are technically flying blind, relying only on the (left/right) view of the plane, since rear view isn't in yet...

Vehicles being disabled @ and below 50% is going to be another big hit. You will WANT to use the extinguisher too. However i've manged to fly right down, land and repair the vehicle. What's funny you get the 10Sec countdown however you jump in the jet and jump out for unlimited time goodness to repair :D

Personally I am looking at the following 3 for air to air.
Stealth, IR Flares, Extinguisher.

However, this can all change greatly depending on final changes to the jets come release day.

[Emrico1]

Rear view is also useful to track the movement of ground units after a strafing run while climbing. Pity the MG is so shit strafing runs are a waste of time.

Seems to take more bullets to kill infantry than a chopper lol

[Carkus]

Seems to take more bullets to kill infantry than a chopper lol

Well they had to do something to try and prevent the jet rape that occurred in Bf2. It is pretty stupid but probably makes it a bit more enjoyable for ground units.

[Spork]

That is actually very true, I was flying toward a group of infantry, fired with the mg and had multiple hits, but no deaths.

[=C=]

Bit off-topic - but from OP's post i just realized this link: http://bf3blog.com/battlefield-3-maps/

MAPS - possibly worthy of another thread :)
I didn't think they announced the list of all maps... But several seem to be situated around Iran.

[Vonrehc]

I found the minimap really terribad for any kind of practical use while flying. Used to leave my minimap opened for DC and BF2.

Ther permalock Air radar also felt faulty in beta as it fail to pick up seemingly closeby jets at random altitude (ie. stealth shouldnt be prevent the radar from spotting the jet when the target already filled twice the space of my HUD)

my problem with missile is that (could be a gfx glitch?) they look like photon torpedoes more than missiles, ie no smoke trail whatsoever, look on the bright side they appear not to do 180s and track onto friendlies like BF2 early versions.

I would probably go A-G most of the time unless being vastly outnumbered/outclass by air assets on the other team. (like constantly 1 vs 2/3).
Even though you only have a small window of opportunity to line up for ATG missiles because of dogfighting, the ability to provide air support for the ground far outweights the ability to get easier air kills, to me anyway.

Having that said though, A-G tend to attract more aggro - I found enemy ground/air units are more willing to attack you if their tanks keep getting blown up :) Especially when the other side has teamwork.

[=C=]

One flaw with the air to ground missiles at the moment is the requirement to lock on... I shouldn't need to lock on the missile to a ground vehicle if I don't want too. I want to time and fire the missiles as I desire.

All this n00b down play is catered for the console players in mind. If it was me i'd change air-to-air missiles also, which wouldn't require a lock on and just fire them strait at the target. This will bring more skill than just point, lock and click. Flares are pointless considering that any skilled pilot with wait for the flares to deploy without shooting then fire after :)

And regardless of missile lock-on. The cannon in skilled hands will bring the jet down so quick you won't have time to react, which is nice.

[Mayhem_Lee]

One flaw with the air to ground missiles at the moment is the requirement to lock on... I shouldn't need to lock on the missile to a ground vehicle if I don't want too. I want to time and fire the missiles as I desire.

All this n00b down play is catered for the console players in mind. If it was me i'd change air-to-air missiles also, which wouldn't require a lock on and just fire them strait at the target. This will bring more skill than just point, lock and click. Flares are pointless considering that any skilled pilot with wait for the flares to deploy without shooting then fire after :)

And regardless of missile lock-on. The cannon in skilled hands will bring the jet down so quick you won't have time to react, which is nice.

Flares for stinger nubs mobile aa etc on the ground. And i tend to wait for the missles to be fired and get proximity alarm aka missles about to get cosy before i use flares.

Stealth to make missile lock a bit harder/longer

& the cannon is good to get disabled vehicles but not quite enough to get the destroy/kill

I used A-G for a bit but Von or others shot me down needs more team work to finish the kill on armour

[O-L-W-A-G]

IMO stingers should be left in the ammo crates, while those RPGs are taking out tanks as aircraft ATM does stuff all against ground