Originally posted by mars01
That is where you strategery guys are all wrong. There is a whole lot of intellectual aspects of fighting en-mass and you have to do it a lightning speed.
To be successful in a furball, you have to Calculate and consider many things. These are just a few...
1) You have to think about how you are going to enter it, to maximize your killing ability without sacrificing your survivability.
This means looking at how the furball is moving, looking at where the cherry pickers are and what way they are moving and looking at what your teammates are doing.
2) You have to identify and think about the fast moving targets from the slow targets.
3) You have to identify and weight the planes and how much of a threat they are in the situation you are flying into.
4) You have to think about your egress.
On top of all this you have to make these decisions with split second timing. One wrong decision and you are dead. You have to constantly rethink these things as the furball progresses.
One of the biggest mistakes non furball types make is believing that furballing is a mindless pursuit. It might be for the many people that have very little experience or idea about how to survive and scoring kills in one but for the ones that are successful there is a lot going on.
As for 1 v 1 the factors are different but there is still alot to think about.
Most of this temporal processing takes place so fast that some may think there is nothing going on there, but then I would venture a guess that they are not very good at this game yet and still have a lot to learn about Air Combat.
This can all be summed up by situational awareness.
As far as the intellectual part by definition (the short version).
Intellectual - a person who uses the mind creatively
Now we are talking semantics, that is a no win situation.
As far as furballing goes, I have done my share, and I am fair at it, but it is not the only thing I do. The only "Furballers" that agrivate me are the ones that fly over to a base deack it and sit there for hours on end vulching. They never touch the city or anything else they are just looking for the vulch kill to score some points and make there name flash across the screne. Those are the only "Furballers" that agrivate me. Ofcourse mybe that do not rank the title of "Furballer" maybe they are just "Vulchers".
I say again, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
BTW do you think the only thing I do is fly around in bombers and attack craft hitting fuel? NOT
The whole point of the conversation is simply that fact that fuel should not be untouchable. You could make it more difficult, make it more of a strat target like refineries. Whatever, but not untouchable. Once you do you loose that strategic element of war, plan and simple.
As far as furballing be a "Mindless pursuit" I think not. I takes skill to do so. The problem resides when that is the only thing they want to do. Then little is acomplished. The skill can be put to better use rather than going to the same place with the same plane, time after time after time, and shooting people down to no end. Get an objective, work with you team mates and do it. If you do that great hats off, welcome to the rest of the world.
And yes there are some days when you get on line and you don't care about crap and you just want to mix it up. That is your choice. I have had those days myself.
Now where does that all come into play with the conversation at hand. Hell if I know.
This is a full scope warfare game. I ahte to see it erode to just another flight sim by taking out all the strategic values. You can through notions back and forth all day long, I could pick out things that you may or may not do and call them skill less too. For example..
You are in a furball and get into a bad situation, out number low on e. So you leave the battle get your e back up, get some alt and came back in. Oh sounds totaly skilless to me
No that’s called using your head, accessing the situation and taking appropriate action. If that requires me to fly higher, or a different course to get to my target. Well then. If I can go through the furballs and take some out in the process cool too. Time, resources, numbers, and many more things all play a factor into those decisions. If the situation dictates go low, and pull them down, cool. Whatever. At a "Furball" level your not going to put yourself in the position that sets you up for and easy cherry pick and your not going to get into a turn fight if you are flying a fast plane. Right?
So why the hell would you want to fly a Typhoon wit 2,000 lbs of ordinance through a bunch of enemy fighters that can waist you to no end. B and Z, turn, you name it. That would be pretty stupid in my book.. But some how you would criticize someone who does not. That’s like criticizing someone who does not play into a turn fight when they are flying the faster plane with more e.
Follow?
Both sides of the battle field require skill to get things accomplished. Team work overall is an essential part of that.
This is all good but still has little bearing on the conversation at hand. This could go back and forth forever.
The whole term of "furballer" in itself is almost assigning. Because once you set out to be a "furballer" you segregate yourself from everything else. To me that is just plain silly. I “furball”, I bomb, I goon, drive tanks, man ack, drive PTs etc. I Believe that if you sincerely consider yourself a "furballer" all you have done it limit your options in the game as to what you can do. There are many more options you have at your disposal. Not that furballing is wrong and evil and people that do it Suck, bla bla bla. But it is one element of many in the game. I firmly believe that if this game was only furballing it would not be nearly as successful as it is. It would be just another sim, like all the other sims that are out there to chose from. Granted most of them are not online, with as much detail so on as so forth, but I guarantee you it would not be as successful.
2. intellectual - of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind; "intellectual problems"; "the triumph of the rational over the animal side of man"
3. intellectual - appealing to or using the intellect; "satire is an intellectual weapon"; "intellectual workers engaged in creative literary or artistic or scientific labor"; "has tremendous intellectual sympathy for oppressed people"; "coldly intellectual"; "sort of the intellectual type"; "intellectual literature"
4. intellectual - involving intelligence rather than emotions or instinct; "a cerebral approach to the problem"; "cerebral drama"
Take your pick, they all fit in one way or another.
