questions and stuff

Talk to magnificent and colt they will make use of you and guide you in the right direction.

With the next patch I'm sure they could use you.

It's not as bad as all that. Air superiority is just going to be a big part of dealing with liberators and galaxies. It'll be a big part of protecting friendly libs and gals too, which is the idea - giving ESFs a role again aside from spamming rockets.

Skywatch has plenty of mosquito pilots and I think we can rustle up 1 or 2 guys who might want to fly a battle gal. Don't cert too heavily into anything yet - we have no idea if the galaxy is getting any love this patch. The only thing mentioned is the possibility of making a galaxy a mobile respawn point.

That said, the battle gal is a lot of fun. You can start with a single bulldog and the two walkers. Auto-repair is probably a good grab too.

Are you one of those premium members?


I merely ask because Galaxies are expensive to pull. Very difficult to do as a non-member, especially if we're on a losing continent, especially if that continent is Esamir.

370? resources... that lets you pull 2 straight off, presuming you have an average acquisition timer... so say 10 minutes between each?

As a premium member, on a winning continent it's about 150-200 resources every 15 minutes... and that's presuming you don't lose the first two right off the bat.

As a non-premium, well I haven't checked the numbers but i'm fairly sure you can half or 3/4 that off... 75-100 resources, on a winning continent?

Probably looking at least 45 minutes to an hour if you are fully drained of resources and need to recharge. As a pilot, you don't benefit from that "get a kill in a hex, get the resources". Since none of your gunner's kills count towards your pilot kills.. hence no resource gain that way.


Same general theory applies to liberators, I just don't see it as much because I have membership and boosts =) But even then I still find myself stringent on resources.




Building off this, you have to take into account the fact that infantry do not render to planes above 350m ASL (Above sea level). (This is also presuming you are going for anti-infantry). And I don't think anyone's going to argue that a galaxy at 350 meters above the ground isn't a tempting target for anyone with anything that goes bang. More a problem with big battles, less so with the smaller outposts fight... which seem to be fewer and far between.. and will be even moreso once lattice hits the other continents.


Now on a bit of a tangent on the galaxy changes.

The suggestions and dev posts about gal's getting ammo and repair abilities, like a sunderer are promising indeed. And it'll give gal's something to do... to an extent. First, we don't know what those slots are going to take up... they could very well put them into the armor slots.. so no more composite, nanite-auto repair or any of that stuff.

Second, the vast majority of mossies already run auto-repair, or are engineers and can simply land to repair. Same for liberators. Re-arming can be a bit trickier, and you would certainly save a little time just being able to buzz back to the galaxy... which shaves off a little time rather than find a landing pad (which, IMO there are plenty of within a reasonable distance of any objective)

Or you can find an ammo sundy.. which is far more difficult since most don't bring them except on organized operations (See FNO).



Now with alllll this in mind.... a galaxy requires a crew of at least 3.. IMO. 1 pilot, 1 waist gunner to switch between the two as needed.. and a tail gunner. 4 would be preferred, obviously, but three can do. You could probably even get away with two but I wouldn't suggest it unless you have lots of people volunteering.


As a mobile AA platform I don't see it as terribly effective. We all know how them aerial AA guns are. Ground attack would be more effective, against infantry targets. But gal's are giant targets, burster nerf none-withstanding... you're still going to get drilled.



As Hans said, battle gals are indeed fun to do. But as a dedicated platform? Ehhhhhhh... there's a reason you don't see too many of them.


Not saying don't do it, but I'd suggest looking into it a bit more. Definitely wait to see how the changes come along. Any buffs/nerfs to the air game are going to affect how things shift.


Having a well certed gal is certainly a bonus... after you've certed out other things that you can play more often and don't require dedicated gunners.

(I should point out that each weapon would need to be certed in addition to the gal certs... that's what... 3500 certs per gun? For magazine size, ammo count, scopes.. not counting the cost of the guns. If you have those certs laying around, sure why not.. if you're BR 20-50 and certs don't come in so quickly, and I'll presume you haven't certed too heavily into anything else... it's, in my opinion, a poor choice to spend all those certs into something that requires so much effort and organization for escorts and all this. And with that in mind, do not ever rely on pubbies to escort you.. once there aren't any ESF's around they'll wander off to find other things to do)

I love the idea of a battle galaxy. Like Snoggy pointed out, unfortunately there seems to be a lot of draw backs to them currently. The new ammo/repair options coming will provide a little bit more certs for the pilot as well as possibly changing the way ESF's can cert out their mossy's if the repair is effective. If the repair is nice I may just go back to stealth or composite armor and fly back to galaxy when running low on health (it may be faster than nanite and quicker to start as well as providing a barrier from ESF fire.). The great thing about battle Gals are the huge bait they provide. A lot of newer pilots are automatically drawn into engaging a galaxy and become an opportunity for an ambush from above or behind from mossy's. Like suggested before I would hold out on certing too heavily into it and seeing what this new patch has to offer. Those new weapons may make flying a big vehicle have a huge draw back especially with the range those mass drivers may provide (essentially turning ESF's into air snipers. I would even suggest waiting a couple days after the patch to really get a sense of how it effects the air game.