How to fly Battlefield 3 Jet?

Soooo, how is it that bombs worked in previous BF games but not here? How is that the flight ceiling was higher in previous BF games, but it won't work here? Flight ceiling there's no reason for it to be where it's at. It's all hearsay unless they implement changes in a patch and let us check it out. It's not worth arguing over something that we can't prove. But we have evidence from past experience to show it's possible, not the opposite.

 

I don't play many shooters - last 4 I've played are BC2, Borderlands, TF2, and the CoDBO free weekend. I'll admit that I haven't run into hit detection problems as often in BF3 as in BC2, but I don't know what DICE did because it felt nearly flawless in the Vietnam DLC. In Borderlands, I have to lead the targets a little further than I noticed I would in single player, but that doesn't happen much since I usually go close to midrange. With TF2 and CoD, hit detection feels fine, but I think latency affects my chances of reacting faster and killing before being killed.

 

I don't really think they're hard to fly. I think it's inordinately difficult to score a kill compared to every other vehicle.

 

^^^^^^^
THIS

I made three passes, full magazine each time, at a transport chopper from side to side and it still wasn't disabled or destroyed before I got shot down by an AA missile. I still can't kill another jet either. I empty bullets into them, they're in flames, but still flying like nothing hit them. Flames go out, then continue in pursuit. Regenerative armor is dumb dumb dumb. At least make it so you have land or pass over the landing field like you did in BF2. Now that requires skill. Not evading an enemy until your armor regenerates, but making it back over your airfield with a few passes to heal.

 

I don't put too much stock in one experience with the transport chopper in terms of latency issues. The transport choppers *can* carry engineers, so they can self heal.

They're also very slow - and, if carrying passengers, big kill targets. You can also kill the passengers easily with the jet and score kills, unlike infantry on the ground. You do have to keep in mind the transport chopper has a lot of heath. It can take multiple AA missiles without going down.

I do think the auto-regen armor is funky. In fact, I think the auto-regen health is a little strange, too.

At the same time, I think the balance is pretty good right now.

Just yesterday I was playing on firestorm and every pass I would take, I would launch the laser missile and get a tank kill or disable. I would clear out the sky for a few seconds, instantly do a run by and drop a missile, and then instantly do a sky-check and repeat.

Considering it's just you in the jet, I get more vehicle kills in a match dedicated to flying than I do any other vehicle. I might get about the same number of kills (and more points for assists) in the tank, but only if it's at least a 3 man effort with engineers and a medic, being coordinated with repairs and swapping seats, etc.

I look at the jet as a potent anti-vehicle weapon, but it does have a pretty high skill requirement.

I guess the skill level requirement for the jet is pretty high, I agree. Much higher than the tank. Although, flying the helicopter is also quite difficult. Being the gunner is not. They also do a lot of damage to ground AND infantry (attack chopper only, not the transport chopper) but it's also a 2 man effort, they are vulnerable to AA missiles from infantry, and jets with chaingun or missiles, and even tanks from the second seat weapon if they get too close.

 

Choppers can't self heal because there are engineers inside. They self heal regardless of which class is inside.

Again, I don't think the skill level for the jet is that high, it just requires a lot of time to get upgrades that are worth a damn.

 

The lag is really starting to me off. I was riding gunner in the Viper last night, swung the cannon sights onto an infantryman running across open ground. The sight promptly snapped back and proceeded to hop all over the place like a sugared up 6 year old.

 

there's a difference between the self heal and the engineer heal. the self heal wont prevent you from killing a helicopter or jet if you stay on it. the engineer heal will. simple difference. the self heal is also dependent on the vehicle not being significantly damaged (ie. disabled).

while i don't necessarily agree with the vehicle self-healing (its sort of weird) - it certainly won't prevent you from taking down any vehicles unless they shake you. an engineer behind a tank or in a chopper can help it to survive indefinitely.

As far as taking a lot of time to get important upgrades, I mostly agree. To be survivable, you really only need to get a few kills. To be useful, you need to get the air to ground missiles. The game in general requires you to spend a lot of time to get upgrades that make you combat ready.

You need to have 4 people communicating in your squad and planning in advance. Their levels have to be MINIMUM 23+, 26+, 29+, 31+, in that order, to coordinate squad perks, which gives you a physical advantage on top of whatever tactical advantages you have. You also need the upgrades for other vehicles, especially the tank, which can be very effective if 3 people are focused and dedicated to supporting it.

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I think we've discussed this enough for my taste. If you still aren't happy with the role and condition of the jet, simply use something else. It's not like there aren't always at least a few people fighting over the jet. Diverting your energy towards something else would probably help your team more, especially if you're finding that it isn't effective for you. There are definitely expert pilots flying around already smashing up vehicles left and right and wreaking havoc in the sky.

 

I did not realize that an engineer can repair in flight. I've haven't flown choppers a lot or gunner but enough and have never seen it repair or have it repair more than if I don't have an engineer with me or I'm not an engineer.

edit: got it. you have to be a passenger as an engineer and look at the chopper to repair in-flight.

 

The point when they get their flames extinguished is when they use the extinguisher, like I do quite often.

 

they also have to choose between the extinguisher to put out the fire and flares to avoid AA missiles. Since the choppers don't have the speed of the jets, they get taken down extremely quickly without flares, just from infantry.

 

I like the attack choppers. If someone gets a lock I just drop NOE behind something so they lose lock and try to pop up somewhere unexpected if possible. Although once going nose first toward ground, it's damn near impossible to recover even with full back full throttle. I usually just try to reduce throttle to fall quickly but sometimes you just gotta nose dive!

 

On the topic of attack choppers, here something for all aspiring Chopper Pilots/Gunners out there, let me share some info.

Me and my buddy who's been experimenting a lot with different "setups" on the Attack Chopper have finally concluded that this seems to work best for us. Note: This will not work with random players, voice communication is kind of needed, but not necessarily required. As long as the pilot and speak it's alright.

So the pilot loadout:
- Stealth
- ECM
- Heat Seekers

Gunner:
- Autoloader
- Flares
- TV Missile (Radar Guided Missile is fine if you haven't unlocked TV yet).

Key is for the pilot to fire off his ECM about 3-4 seconds into a lock (Important: BEFORE the enemy missile is launched, this timing comes with practice). Firing off the ECM makes you immune to any lock on for 5 seconds, and since you're running Stealth, you have another good 5 seconds before ECM cooldown is ready. Should it be the case that they fire off another missile, then gunner will deploy flares.

With some clever (ab)usage of LoS, the gunner really never have to deploy his flares. Something to worth noting is that the gunner can't deploy his flares while steering the TV guided missile, which we found out the hard way and resulted in our death.

The only times we died was either:
- Miss communication
- Too late on using ECM (since it doesn't help against missiles already tracking you).
- Kamikaze pilots.

Now this setup has only been tested on 32 and 40 player maps. We never play on 64 player maps so I don't know how this setup would work there. Also worth noting is that the vehicle spawn time was pretty low, so we mostly spent our time attacking Jets, other helicopters and tanks. If you'd run this on a server with a good decent vehicle respawn timer, then it could be possible for the gunner to run Thermal Sight instead of Flares (assuming your team has air superiority), since ECM + Stealth makes you vulnerable for a lock for only 5 seconds.

We're going to try and find a server with a longer respawn time, get some jet pilots on voice and try to be a more CAS oriented with Laser Painter + RGM, since TV missiles doesn't work vs Choppers.

It's sad though that because of the fast vehicle respawn timers, most of the time you'll end up shooting down jets and choppers. I've yet to find a server with consistent vehicle respawn timers yet.

 

Respawn times vary from map to map. You can set a global server variable to have them respawn at x% of default time so it's impossible to have consistent respawn times between maps.

 

Le sigh...this is what happens when the flight sim genre dies off. There is just so much wrong with this. You can't dive at 90 degrees to horizontal in an SBD Dauntless, you can't zoom-climb effectively in a dive bomber because the dive brake will have prevented you from building up too much energy during the dive (the alternative is building up a ton of speed and literally having the Dauntless's airframe come apart around you), etc.

That would be as ridiculous as doing a kamikaze attack in an F/A-18...oh wait...oh crap. What have you done, DICE, what have you done?!