CAS not affecting gameplay.(?)

[Jack_Howitzer]

It's OK to kill enemy tanks while playing tanks and then annihilating enemy team including useless TOWs, HATs and LATs. But if you manage to kill enemy CAS squad, god forbid you from killing any enemies after that! For some reason people don't mind getting sent to destination fucked by armor, but if they get killed by CAS it's like getting raped by a rabid monkey.

Tanks be like: kill all enemy tanks and wipe out enemy team.

Cas be like: kill enemy CAS but get shitmixed by MANPAD, FOB AA, and AAV.

DEVs be like: I think it's ok now bro.

[DogACTUAL]

You totally hit the nail on the head jack.

For some reason people have a total double standard for CAS, while they accept armour racking up massive kills once they disposed of their counterparts and AT weapons, CAS doing the same after getting rid of the hostile jets is constantly met with 'CAS too OP'.

Also this argument annoys me greatly: 'Ground AA is finally just doing what it is supposed to do effectively, destroying aircraft. Typical assetplayer, complaining about AA doing its job'.

Unlike armour, CAS has no cover at all. While armour can sit behind cover from AT and still be able to engage other targets, CAS is forced to totally expose itself everytime it attacks a target (unless there are mountains and even then the approach is very risky).

While armour can spot AT quite easily itself without being exposed, by the driver jumping out and looking over the hill, try spotting ground AA with a jet before it sees you.

[chrisweb89]

It's almost as if you have guys on the ground with binoculars that find targets before you pop up.

AA works, laser work. A team that loses its air shouldn't be pummeled into the stone age if they are properly using their aa assets. That would happen before though

[Fuller]

The problem is that CAS relys on teamwork with other squads.
You need intel about enemy AA vehicles/emplacments and you need a lase.You cannot find and engage ground targets on your own!*
If we had to change tank gameplay in a way that matches CAS gameplay it would look like this:
-no zoom for driver and gunner
-no thermals
-no binoculars for crewman
-tank vs. tank => one hit kill
-tank vs. HAT/TOW => one hit kill

That would change gameplay quite a bit

*In theory that is possible but only under some rare circumstances because you
have to loiter the battlefield at a low altitude.

[fecht_niko]

CAS can still be effective if you dont go full retard.

Some "pilots" here think that flying/hovering over any reported enemy position is smart...
Imagine you would just drive a tank like a retard over the map. You'll get killed pretty soon.

Here some pro tips:

-Use CAS when you have a CO using the UAV
-Avoid marked AA ( YES AA can kill you)
-wait for lazed

-And only for dogactual: Dont get LATed in CAS

[Fuller]

It can be effective but only in like 1% of all the games.
Honestly when was the last time CAS squad had a 50:5 k/d ?
I know k/d doesn't matter in PR but either all the pilots are retards or CAS is underpowered/has some serious gameplay flaws.I mean a k/d like that should atleast occur every now and then (stacked teams/steamrolls) but i haven't seen it in like 2 years. To compare this to APC/tank i had something like 36:2 on muttrah with the aavp and 40ish:5 on kashan with a tank squad. Both happened this week and we even lost the kashan round(280ish:0) because our inf couldn't hold north bunkers.

[Frontliner]

It can be effective but only in like 1% of all the games.
Honestly when was the last time CAS squad had a 50:5 k/d ?
I know k/d doesn't matter in PR but either all the pilots are retards or CAS is underpowered/has some serious gameplay flaws.I mean a k/d like that should atleast occur every now and then (stacked teams/steamrolls) but i haven't seen it in like 2 years. To compare this to APC/tank i had something like 36:2 on muttrah with the aavp and 40ish:5 on kashan with a tank squad. Both happened this week and we even lost the kashan round(280ish:0) because our inf couldn't hold north bunkers.

The difference is that it's rather easy to rack up infantry kills with APCs because they are designed to be effective against these. But even as you approach the 20-25 kill range that's only about 50 tickets right there. If CAS goes on a rampage they kill valuable targets first, not only effectively being able to easily rack up more tickets worth of damage but also killing all kinds of offensive prowess the opposing team has.
There's a reason why I usually tell my numbskull CAS pilots to go for the opposing CAS first because then it's just matter of avoiding enemy AA and looking for Tanks or APCs without air cover. You don't have to go 50:1 to effectively kill the opposing team's momentum if you know what you're doing, and if you think that gunrunning 6 people in the desert just so you get closer to that 50 kill scoreline I'm afraid to tell you that your priorities are off.

-tank vs. tank => one hit kill
-tank vs. HAT/TOW => one hit kill

Pre 1.3 Armour Battles. Glad they're gone.

[inb4banned]

You totally hit the nail on the head jack.

For some reason people have a total double standard for CAS, while they accept armour racking up massive kills once they disposed of their counterparts and AT weapons, CAS doing the same after getting rid of the hostile jets is constantly met with 'CAS too OP'.

Also this argument annoys me greatly: 'Ground AA is finally just doing what it is supposed to do effectively, destroying aircraft. Typical assetplayer, complaining about AA doing its job'.

Unlike armour, CAS has no cover at all. While armour can sit behind cover from AT and still be able to engage other targets, CAS is forced to totally expose itself everytime it attacks a target (unless there are mountains and even then the approach is very risky).

While armour can spot AT quite easily itself without being exposed, by the driver jumping out and looking over the hill, try spotting ground AA with a jet before it sees you.

Actually we were against the dumb TOW nerfs that made them horrible while you were the one trying to give us 10 retarded ideas showing how TOW is still amazing. But here you are trying to present it the other way around, because you'd like unkillable CAS again

[Jack_Howitzer]

It can be effective but only in like 1% of all the games.
Honestly when was the last time CAS squad had a 50:5 k/d ?
I know k/d doesn't matter in PR but either all the pilots are retards or CAS is underpowered/has some serious gameplay flaws.I mean a k/d like that should atleast occur every now and then (stacked teams/steamrolls) but i haven't seen it in like 2 years. To compare this to APC/tank i had something like 36:2 on muttrah with the aavp and 40ish:5 on kashan with a tank squad. Both happened this week and we even lost the kashan round(280ish:0) because our inf couldn't hold north bunkers.

Exactly.

Also, you can think of it this way: if you remove ALL means from enemy team to kill opposing tanks, what's gonna happen? Tanks will steamroll the enemy team moving from flag to flag, killing all enemies and FOBs, having no difficulty whatsoever to FIND and KILL enemies. Most likely such imaginary game would end up with steamroll and tank squad racking up 50-150 kills with ease.

If you would remove all jets and AA from other team however, what amount of damage could CAS (jets) do? Most crews couldn't even get 20 kills in a such situation. Jets are limited to usually 2 LGBs and they have to resort to spotter to be able to destroy anything, unlike armor. And that's the hardest part. You just don't have many decent spotters in this game, and the task of actually finding and lasing the enemies, is the big difficulty when trying to get kills with CAS. Even when there's air supremacy and no AAs for other team, 99% of the CAS squads fail to make any considerable difference, let alone actually rape the enemy team. Also jets run out of bombs and flares fast and have to reload at main base, which takes considerable amount of time, compared to tanks with +20 HEAT rounds and plenty of coax. Also you can hide from CAS or spread out, hindering their effect massively, unlike against armor which can find you and kill you no matter what.

Even in my best rounds as a spotter in previous versions, I've "only" managed to lase 50-70 kills for two jets combined and maybe max 35-40 kills for one jet. And those rounds have been exceptionally succesful. Never seen anyone else to lase that amount of kills for CAS jets. Yet there is no real difficulty of getting that amount of kills with tanks on current patch.

Fact is, average CAS squads are useless, yet average tank squad can get something done. And when exceptional CAS squad can get good results every once in a while, CAS has to be collectively nerfed to prevent such from happening. Even the best CAS rounds ever that I've been in, are still no match for best armor rounds in terms of kills and overall effect, yet it had to be CAS that gets nerfed...

[chrisweb89]

Stop thinking of cas as only the plane/helicopter. It needs a spotter and that should just be automatically assumed as part of the asset.

[Jack_Howitzer]

Stop thinking of cas as only the plane/helicopter. It needs a spotter and that should just be automatically assumed as part of the asset.

Can you read my son?

Did I just mention that CAS is largely ineffective for the specific reason that it needs competent spotter(s) to get anything done? This obviously differs from ground assets where you are not dependent on spotters to be succesful. The requirement for competent spotter(s) makes CAS more complicated and challenging to use, which IMO makes nerfing said asset a fucking stupid idea. If you wanna nerf asset, why would you nerf the asset that's already the hardest and most complicated to use successfully?

[rPoXoTauJIo]

If we had to change tank gameplay in a way that matches CAS gameplay it would look like this:
-no binoculars for crewman
-tank vs. tank => one hit kill
-tank vs. HAT/TOW => one hit kill

I like this, thanks for suggestion.

[Fuller]

@rPoXoTauJIo
TOW/ATGMs should definately be stronger vs. tanks (maybe 2 hit kill front armor) but
tank vs. tank gameplay is pretty good right now.

[DogACTUAL]

Actually we were against the dumb TOW nerfs that made them horrible while you were the one trying to give us 10 retarded ideas showing how TOW is still amazing. But here you are trying to present it the other way around, because you'd like unkillable CAS again

Where did i say anything about armour being effective because of its frontal armour protection against TOWs?
I said armour was way more effective because it can use ground cover to hide from ATs and the driver can jump out and check corners or what's behind a hill.

You still don't seem to understand that a good TOW operator presents a big threat to a tank rolling up on it, even with front armour placed strategically, hence this embarrassment of a thread: https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f26-pr-bf2-bugs/145513-tow-vs-t72.html
A good tank crew will make sure that the TOW doesn't get to shoot first, frontal armour or not, period.

CAS can still be effective if you dont go full retard...And only for dogactual: Dont get LATed in CAS

CAS advice from a guy that's to afraid to even try CAS once in a while, why am i supposed to take you seriously if you never even use CAS?
But oh wow, my helicopter got LATed once while i was the GUNNER and my pilot for some reason was hovering still over an objective full of enemies inside a forest full of visual cover, while i was busy shooting the inf i could actually see, totally my fault right. XD

And you where there to witness it, so i guess i will never hear the end of it, since you do not understand CAS.

Stop thinking of cas as only the plane/helicopter. It needs a spotter and that should just be automatically assumed as part of the asset.

IRL spotters are nice to have, but not a necessity because of targeting pods. IRL jets also embark on SEAD missions and take out hostile AA themselves quite often.

Like jack said, as of right now for jets, all depends on spotters. And all too often, there are no spotters around and no squad is lasing. If you try to look for your own targets, usually AA will get you very soon.

A spotter should be assumed as part of the asset? No, it shouldn't, because in practicality there is barely anyone on a public server that is willing to spot for you, or knows how to.
People that only play with their clanmates tend to forget that PR is supposed to work with random people coming together on a server.

[Murphy]

So people are butthurt because CAS can't see the entire map all round long? Some how Armour balance is brought into question, why? It feels like some people want to derail this thread.

If you're in CAS and getting shot down it must be the developers fault, it must be Armours fault, it must be AA's fault, it must be Flares are broken.

Has it ever crossed your mind that you got outplayed? Isn't being BAD an option? Wouldn't relearning, or better yet TEACHING be the first solution to try?

I don't play CAS (cept Choppers sometimes), but I've seen very few good CAS players lately. I feel the issues brought up might be valid but are drowned out by whingers who would rather take personal shots than add to the conversation (not that I am adding much tbh).

[viirusiiseli]

So people are butthurt because CAS can't see the entire map all round long? Some how Armour balance is brought into question, why? It feels like some people want to derail this thread.

If you're in CAS and getting shot down it must be the developers fault, it must be Armours fault, it must be AA's fault, it must be Flares are broken.

Has it ever crossed your mind that you got outplayed? Isn't being BAD an option? Wouldn't relearning, or better yet TEACHING be the first solution to try?

I don't play CAS (cept Choppers sometimes), but I've seen very few good CAS players lately. I feel the issues brought up might be valid but are drowned out by whingers who would rather take personal shots than add to the conversation (not that I am adding much tbh).

I know you usually have extremely good points and well argumented posts, and apperciate them. But this isn't really one of them.

I could go fly CAS right now and fly it so I wouldn't get killed the entire game, it isn't about knowing how to stay alive.

It's just that CAS is so bad, that for you to stay alive you need to play in an absolutely ridiculous way that will in the end benefit the team less than if you just went armor or inf. A really good player in CAS, wanting to stay alive the whole game will just not accomplish anything worthwhile in it the whole round, because you need to be stupidly careful.

It's to the point where half of your round will be flying around the map edges to avoid being basecamped or AA'd, finding the only possible kills from whereever the objectives are not.

So basically, when you're in CAS, you have to avoid all the objective areas where you should actually do CAS, and go for random kills on the enemy supply line or other similarly useless targets.

That's because the AAs were buffed so much that if you do venture into the middle of the map, you're effed. And you can't get away, because helis are nearly slower than motorcycles.

tl;dr cas is not worth the effort

EDIT: Why you havent seen many good cas players is because all of them stopped playing cas for aforementioned reasons

[chrisweb89]

Big difference between tanks and cas is also that cas can be anywhere on the map in a small amount if time, and her cas especially can be hard to avoid. If you know the teams tanks are in one place, you also know where it's tank free...

Then there is the final point about realism that tanks are supposed to sit on position and constantly in contact using their armour as protection while getting kills. Irl cas doesn't do that except for insurgencies.

[viirusiiseli]

Big difference between tanks and cas is also that cas can be anywhere on the map in a small amount if time, and her cas especially can be hard to avoid. If you know the teams tanks are in one place, you also know where it's tank free...

Then there is the final point about realism that tanks are supposed to sit on position and constantly in contact using their armour as protection while getting kills. Irl cas doesn't do that except for insurgencies.

Since you made a point about CAS and realism, I think we first need CAS in more insurgency maps than 2 or 3. And I'm not talking about kiowas, they're nothing.

But oh right that wont happen, only nerfs can be realism based.

[Cassius]

I am sowwie but the reason that cas is not affecting gameplay is that to the people on the ground its an afterthought. How many pilots did I circle over a map where we achieved air superiority with no jet for 15 min. and not a beep from the ground? And how often are AAA vehicles ignored because they are looking for cas anyway so better shoot the apc?

IF case won out in the sky AND there were people on the ground coordinating with cas, cas impacted the game bigly. I have seen planes get 50 or so kills and more than half of those kills were vehicles .

Also cas already has hitpoints. I imagine irl a single hit from a vulcan means eject 80% of the time.

However I do agree with increased repair time.

[PatrickLA_CA]

Big difference between tanks and cas is also that cas can be anywhere on the map in a small amount if time, and her cas especially can be hard to avoid. If you know the teams tanks are in one place, you also know where it's tank free...

Then there is the final point about realism that tanks are supposed to sit on position and constantly in contact using their armour as protection while getting kills. Irl cas doesn't do that except for insurgencies.

Ask that of any tank commander and you'll get slapped in the face. Those videos that you see online from Syria of tanks sitting in position getting hit by ATGMs and what not are exactly that, the wrong way to use tanks and the right way to lose tanks.

Armor IRL is either used as a breakthrough asset or as a support asset, but you would never have a tank sit in a sentry role at an outpost. No tank relies on its armor for protection. It relies on information, just like CAS. The only problem is that CAS is way too limited in this engine and that is why the previous, arcady way suited it a lot better.