Originally posted by kj714
My biggest weakness that I'm working currently on is that theory of an exit strategy, I'm getting better at that. In the past I'd just fight down to the deck and then get pounded. I finally am beginning to learn after many,many fights that it's okay to let one go sometimes and retain your advantage, another's gonna come along pretty quick. It's always that one last tempting kill that does me in. Whats that old bull story? Don't run down the hill to bag one of them, walk down the hill and bag em all? #2 prob is most likely that I take too much time in trying to get too good of a shot, should probably not be so picky.
As far as pasty skin, early on I was smart enough to hook my girlfriend into it, Duchess gets a few kills every now and then. Overall, my AH pays for itself , instead of taking her out on the weekends, I usually get her to play at least one night, sometimes get the whole weekend in.
A good exit and general survival strategy involves the following:
1) Before ever engaging know what direction you need to go if you get in trouble (egress path), make note of geographic features in that direction so you don't have to look at the clipboard.
2) Set a hard deck for yourself that suits the situation, the plane you are in, and the average reported altitude of the enemy in your area. If you get below that altitude and you aren't heading along your egress path, disengage and regain altitide in the direction of your egress path to something above your hard deck.
3) Every plane has a G spot, an area of excellence within which it out-performs most other planes in at least one key area, realize when an enemy is deliberately trying to pull you out of yours and refuse to let him. Similiarly, endeavor to pull the enemy out of his, and be sneaky about it, be the seducer not the seduced.
4) Try to have a vague or general awareness of what each red dot is in your area, even those beyond visual range, as well as its altitude and vector, do your own pre-fight recon. It is one of these cons that will be diving on your six shortly after you've engaged.
5) Use your altitude to maximum advantage, don't blow it. I have seen many times one higher con over a base with 10+ enemy, that one con with altitude can for 30 minutes or more prevent any of those 10 from getting above 10k. On the flip side, I've seen many 25k+ cons dive on a lower enemy only to end up on deck and dead in under 30 seconds. Getting altitide and knowing how best to use it are two different things. If being a successfull alt-monkey was just a matter of getting altitude everyone in the arena with 15 minutes to spare and the desire would be a successfull alt-monkey, obviously this is not the case. Patience and discipline are the key.
6) Don't get married to one target. Target fixation is a sin, and is often punished by death. Be flexible, take targets of opportunity, break off one after forcing him to blow his alt in an evasive spiral dive then wack his buddy nearby. Diving from 15k to deck after one spiral diving enemy is a complete waste of your time and effort in most cases and will usually just get you gangbanged.
7) Unless you have the luxury of a designated wingman or are flying with your squadron never get yourself into anything you cannot get yourself out of. Never assume you are going to get any help. I fly alone 99% of the time, as a result I never rely on my teamates to help me or even do the most logical thing in any given situation. If they do, it's an added bonus, but never expect it and certainly do not plan your attack strategy around it.
On the topic of waiting for the perfect shot, I am not sure whether perfect means low deflection or close range to you. I intentionaly choose planes with great nose low deflection views. Some planes have horrid nose low deflection views, with these planes (most LW planes for example) you are almost forced to take either blind' or very low deflection shots because of the engine cowling visual obstruction's proximity to the gunsight/bullet stream. On the other hand in a plane with a great nose low view (ie: Hurricane's, Fm2, F6f, P38, P51, Typhoon) you can maintain sight of the enemy even at very high degrees of nose low deflection. In these cases just hold fire until you are close, by close I mean close enough so that a 1 to 2 second burst will almost certainly be fatal (usually 300-400).
Zazen
