Server update Sep 20th re-balances the Armored Kill gunship

Dear everyone,

Thank you very much for your feedback on our forums and social
channels. We receive an immense amount of messages per day — and
although we don’t have time to answer each and every one of them, we do
take time to read them and address the most important issues you bring
to us.

Battlefield 3: Armored Kill has been a huge hit, but we know that the
gunship we introduced has been a bit overpowered in some situations.
The bulk of our next server update on September 20^th is directly based on community feedback from the past two weeks, aimed at re-balancing the gunship.

Following this server update on September 20th, there will also be a
short planned downtime at 8:00 UTC where online gameplay on PC will not
be available. We expect this outage to be 15 minutes long.

Gunship balancing in server update R31 on September 20th (all formats)
• Stationary and mobile AA cannon damage has been reduced by 30% versus the gunship.
Rationale: This fixes an issue where it was too easy for players to
use stationary or mobile AA to shoot down the gunship from the other
side of the map.

• Jet cannon damage has been reduced by 50% versus the gunship.
Rationale: In Conquest mode, jets have been able to single-strafe a
gunship and destroy it. This re-balance will require more skill from
pilots to take it down.

• The delay before moving the gunship forward to a new base in Rush mode has been increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
Rationale: Previously, the gunship was moved to the next base so
quickly that it was possible to parachute from it into the base before
defenders were able to prepare. This tweak will give defenders time to
fall back and protect the valuable M-COM stations as intended.

• The Delay between gunship spawns has been increased from 90 to 120 seconds in Rush mode.
Rationale: After destroying the gunship in Rush mode, it reappeared
too quickly to be well-balanced. With a 50% increase in spawn time for
the gunship, defenders will now have more time to focus on the crates
and less of a constant overhanging threat from the gunship.

• Initial delay before the gunship spawns in Rush mode has been increased from 15 to 60 seconds.
Rationale: Before this update, the gunship gunners could find the
enemy before the round and instakill them when the pre-round timer ran
out. Now, it will take a full minute before the gunship will spawn,
giving defenders ample time to prepare.

Other changes in the server update
• Fixed a bug where a new squad leader wasn’t chosen when the current squad leader left.

• Fixed so that MK1A3 uses flechette rounds instead of frag rounds in
Gun Master mode for Premium members (non-Premiums already have
flechette rounds).

• Fixed a bug with Squad Rush on Sharqi Peninsula where the user was
spawned outside the combat area if they deployed shortly after the first
M-COM was destroyed.