Not sure about the mini OB part lol, but I would love fighters.

Unfortunately from what I've understood the fighters CCP had envisioned (for Dust514) more than likely were of a VTOL type. This screams abuse and endangers balance, I feel, as this sort of craft would inevitably lead to far more infantry killing than it has any business doing. In response, AV damage would have to be set unreasonably high, and the only way around this would be keeping the (in my opinion) incredibly stupid system of "windows of effectivness" or "windows of opportunity", or however they refer to the function of vehicle mechanics at the moment.

PC= the ability to create large enough maps to insert and require runways for fighter craft (and hopefully bomber craft) to embark from. This would also add a new tactical layer to battles, as control of a runway could become very important in control over objectives, and therefore important to overall victory.

As I've suggested before (into the empty void that is these forums) fighters should NOT be VTOL, they should be very lightly armored, very fast, and do relatively low damage. A fighter should be for air superiority only. A fighter should only be effective against other fighters, as well as bomber aircraft. Leave ground attack combat to bombers, and to a smaller degree, dropships. If the enemy does not insert fighters or bombers into a battle, there should be absolutely no benefit to fielding fighters of your own.

Dropships should only be slightly worried about fighters, as the speed difference between the 2 craft should make targeting a dropship with a fighter unbelievably difficult.

A fighter of this type should not be concerned with small arms fire in the least, due to its speed and normal/recommended operating altitude. I would support a fighter flying extremely low/slow taking worrisome damage from small arms fire, but I would not support a fighter being able to deal damage in any way to ground troops, aside from a 1 in a trillion shot, or maybe a kamakazi style attack (which would be discouraged by the unreasonable tradeoff of 1 fighter for 1 ground troop).

I also do not know how I would feel about a fighter carrying lockon/target following munitions. Being a supposed game of skill, I do not support any fire and forget weapons, and the only thing that would even begin to sway me would be the addition of countermeasures for vehicles.

For the game we have now, I feel the swarm launcher is at best a stopgap measure to attempt to maintain balance. After seeing the many different changes to swarms and to the way they effect/interact with vehicles over the years, I feel that for the AV/V dynamic to progress past the (silly) point it is at now, damage output needs to get away from simple straight damage, and the ability to fire and forget multiple volleys of missiles over the course of a handful of seconds needs to be left behind.

And before any AV folks cry foul, please know I am of the school of thought in which vehicles should not perform well at all vs infantry. AV should be possibly a very painful thorn in the side of vehicles, and should be dealt with mainly through teamwork with infantry, not a large turret/flying craft taking potshots at ground troops.

*chopped for response space*

I'm just going to stake my claim here in this thread for when I finally have a chance to respond later tonight. Trust me, I can tell you more about aircraft than you'd ever want to know and would love to help put our heads together to develop some sort of in-atmosphere aircraft.

Just to point something out right off the bat, to anyone that might say that in-atmosphere mechanics that react similarly to modern aircraft being used in DUST doesn't make sense given the existence of anti-gravity levitation... Yes and no. Yes, technically aircraft employed in DUST 514 could hypothetically not have to subscribe to modern aircraft conventions and resemble aircraft similar to the Dragonfly in EVE. Hell, the Valkyrie comic depicts a Wraith mk II diving in atmosphere to engage a target, so we know that spacecraft can operate in-atmosphere.

However canonically anti-gravity manipulation relies on fixed-particle physics like the balloon islands in Bioshock Infinite. Moving these particles through space-time, especially at warp, causes a significant amount of "drag" which is why ships in EVE move as if submerged in a liquid medium. So you can imagine that a dogfight in-atmosphere in a EVE-style spacecraft would be like trying to fly a puck on an air hockey table underwater. Maneuverability would be GOD awful, so it would make far more sense to build separate in-atmosphere aircraft for land battles. That also explains why dropships, which are made to be deployed from low-orbit, use conventional plasma engines instead of gravity wells.

I just felt the need to justify this thread before me continue any farther.

If I may pick your brain a bit more Mobius, what do you see as a viable ground attack aircraft?

I personally drew myself into the vision of a dedicated bomber aircraft. In my mind I pictured a very basic Fighter/Bomber/Transport system as I have some reservations about CCPs ability (or any companies ability really) to balance the air dynamic beyond this simple setup.

Now obviously if CCP were to go full on in depth with it, we could see fighters, fighter bombers, pure bombers of both the dive and level variety, AWACS, large transports (for tanks and such), small transports (for troops, most likely a dropship), and a helicopter gunship equivalent (which is kinda how I view current ADSs).

I think the above is a bit too ambitious, at least in the beginning/without knowledge of what kind of framework/boundaries a possible new Dust would have.

I feel the cautious approach at first would be the simple fighter/bomber/transport dynamic.

My main fear (and everything I'm basing my calculations/propaganda on) is an aircraft targeting infantry with guns/lasers/rails/etc. as I worry about perceived balance and the effects this could have on aircraft. CCP (to me at least) never seemed to use incremental changes to alter balance, and instead put into place large, sweeping changes which, in my opinion, threw away any progress in regards to balance and basically reverted things back to square 1.

With that in mind, and to refine my question, should they start extremely simple and have a pure fighter, a pure bomber (no guns, only dumb bombs) and a pure transport (no guns).

**also, should aircraft be for attacking infantry at all, or only vehicles?**

Or should they introduce a ground attack aircraft with the ability to place gun/cannon fire onto infantry targets as well as bombs?

Beyond this, should the type of ground attack aircraft/bomber be dictated by race, or should each race have a vehicle of every type.

Example-
Minmatar- Dive Bomber
Amarr- Ground Attack Fighter
Gallante- Level Bomber
Caldari- uhhhhh.....I don't know lol. A balanced aircraft that is a bit of all of the above.

Or

Should each race have a Dive, level, and ground attack type?

This is taking way more space than I thought. Will continue, maybe tonight maybe tomorrow

@True Adamacne

Fair enough, warning systems being either standard, a mod, or standard with the ability to be enhanced by a mod should give sufficient wiggle room to make the mechanic work. Maybe restrict an aircrafts choices (through mod limitations) of either enhanced warning systems or countermeasures, not both.

Or just have warning systems standard and equal through all aircraft types, with no enhancement possible.

I like very much this discussion :)

I like to dream about the New Dust 514

I was watching this Star Wars Battlefront trailer
that shows something similar to my idea for a new Dust 514 Fighter

https://youtu.be/yjqqwZGNHPg

I think CCP could use this as a reference point,

They could add also a new Mode like Air Superiority
with only Air Combat Vehicles

And for example an Amarr Laser Cannon similar to Star Wars Laser Beam Weapons

Each race should have a different Fighter
with differences in handling, speed, and health

In this other trailer You can see how Battlefront Fighters
can hit infantry targets with their laser beams but due to their high speed
can't stay on target for more than few seconds

https://youtu.be/JDfbhM9rkAo

Ps: i have not played yet Star Wars Battlefront but it looks a Fun Game :)

Totally agree with You!

I Love How Dropship Fly,
CCP should do a similar flight mechanics for The Fighters,

Maybe It could be a Very Light Weight AirCraft,
with a Big Jet Engine in the Back and 2 Little Directional Jets in Front

The Big Jet in the back should keep a high constant speed movement

while the 2 little jets down the Nose are Directionals

I don't know maybe it's a bad idea :)
Maybe it would feel like Flying a Rocket i think...

but maybe it could be Fun :)

I hope that in the next game we will actually be able to go to those areas and those areas will be more developed and actually part of the battle.

Yeah that is a Must!
I remember how many dropships i crashed while learning how to fly them :)
but like you said it makes flying them more rewarding