Head-Ons... how to get rid of them?

[Fury]

.02

I persnally don't like a "ranking" system.  FA has had it forever and once everyone beomces a "General", then what?  Also people start making blanket statements about how the lower ranks do this and that.  Possibly part of the problem is that the rank is displayed as part of the icon.  Part of the reason I like AH is because there are no "ranks".  If it were to be installed a few versions away, I hope it would not be avalaible as an icon.  Let them look up my score to see my rank.

As far as HO's, I have often wondered about the people who complain about them.  Last time I checked, to have an HO, you need two planes.  If you don't like HO's, dont get yourelf into that position in the first place.  Sure you will always have the other guy who is trying to HO you, but that would not happen so often if you did not decide to HO him also.

I am still learning good SA and flying.  If I get myself into a position where someone is on one of my front quarters coming at me, I will generally turn into him because I figure if I turn away I will end up with someone on my six.  I don't turn into him to intentinally HO, I do it to force closure sooner and then force him to turn to get on my six.  It does not work real good, I usually get pinged on the pass because I do too much of an HO and not enough off-center HO.  I rarely if ever shoot back when I turn into someone.

People have already talked about play vs. the realism of HOs so I will not bother with that part.

The word "you" was used in this posst in a general term and not at anyone in particular.

Fury

[RAM]

As far as HO's, I have often wondered about the people who complain about them. Last time I checked, to have an HO, you need two planes. If you don't like HO's, dont get yourelf into that position in the first place.

Oh,yes, of course...when I see a con coming for me at 12 o clock I will turn around and present my 6!!! lol.
I wont say anymore about HO cuz I'd explode in flames.

But there is something I think will improve this game a lot. As there are so many people playing for the score, they usually fly the "kamikaze" way (I.E. going down into a cloud of cons, killing 4 or 5 and then getting shot down). Also this idea will make HO attacks much less wanted...

What if the score is divided by 5 if you dont land your sortie?...lets reward the landings, the RTB!!! So, if you are fighting a furball against ,say,5 lower cons with your friends with you (typical pre-vulch situation) and your fuel is getting low you WONT stay there to kill 3 or 4 more cons, but you turn home to land your sortie!!!

Is that possible? is a good idea? i think it is but what do you think about it?

[Fury]

RAM I like the idea of not getting full credit for a sortie if you do not land it.  Of course that means my score would go way down, but I think something like that makes staying alive a little more important.

Maybe scale it; discos don't count, landings count full, ditches/bails less than full, deaths not much at all.

Fury

[hitech]

The score catagory is already adjusted based on how you end the mission. Ditches 75% bails 50% death 25%. Or very close to those numbers.

But your post about changeing the scoring system to change the HO attack made me wonder. How many of the top 10 people in the ranks use HO's as there normal mode of attack. My guess would be none.

HiTech

[Toad]

If you are any where near corner speed, avoiding a HO is not difficult.

You can deny the other guy the shot. That's it; that's all. Believe it.

If you are not confident in your ability to do that, you probably end up going for guns yourself, thinking you're going to get hammered anyway.

This is why so many people say "it takes two to HO"; there's a mutual lack of confidence in the ability to avoid a HO.

If the HO bothers you, renounce it yourself first. Work on learning the moves to evade it. You'll probably get nailed a few times; that's how you learn what to do...by doing what you shouldn't do a few times.

Once you teach yourself, you'll never even really think about HO's any more. They just aren't a good attack option for either guy.

The last time I got nailed in a HO, it was all _my_ fault. I was vultching <in a D hog, mind you> and _I_ misjudged a Spit V's ability to get the nose around after T/O. I was below corner and couldn't get that hog to move at all. The Spit did the right thing; it was his best and only hope of surviving in a vultch situation. BTW, I never tripped the trigger...was trying to evade as soon as I realized his nose was really moving!

All that being said, if you catch me significantly below corner speed with no way to get to it....I'm gonna try to shoot ya in the face too!  

[Minotaur]

Go into the TA work with a new player who has just started.  All they can do, and just barely, is point the nose at the NME and shoot.

Sheesh....

------------------
Mino
The Wrecking Crew

[MiG Eater]

Great discussion above!

I have to admit I get a small chuckle whenever I read posts where people are complaining about head-ons - usually from the newer players.  

Thinking aloud:

In virtually all forms of fighting and combat with firearms, it is bad form and often considered downright cowardly to shoot someone in the back.  For most combatants, military or not, a face to face confrontation is the accepted norm.  All except fighter combat! (both real and simulated)  Not only is it acceptable to be shot in the "back," people prefer it!  Many get downright hostile when they have to face an opponent on even terms and die in the attempt.  I daresay many of these people are less upset if they are shot from behind with zero possibility of shooting back (in the case of a fighter). How ironic!  What makes us fighter pilots so darned special that we think we can just ignore centuries of fair play and good battle field etiquette!  

MiG

[Wraith]

 

Originally posted by Fury:
.02

I persnally don't like a "ranking" system.  FA has had it forever and once everyone beomces a "General", then what?  Also people start making blanket statements about how the lower ranks do this and that.  Possibly part of the problem is that the rank is displayed as part of the icon.

Yes, but in FA rank is determined by your kill/death ratio and some other obscure factors. What I say is that if you die, YOU DIE. You lose ALL rank and start from scratch again.

Rank would signify that the pilot flies smart and has skill (or plain dumb luck).
I don't say the rank has to be displayed on the icon... gods no! If that happened there'd be a stampede when the high rankers are spotted. Show the rank when the victory message is displayed (aka Victory 1 by Colonel Fishu of  =squadron name=).

Toad: Always shoot from the back, its the safest place to do so   . And you're right, avoiding HO is not difficult. Split-S or steep dive almost always does the trick  

HT: "Ditches 75% bails 50% death 25%"
I agree with ditches and bails.. but deaths? Nah! Give 0%, they DIED. Gone! Poof! No points for the dead.

[Westy]

 I once blew up close enough to Mitsu to almost hurt him once. Does that count?

-Westy

[Zigrat]

I for one don't think that any kind of ranking system based on whether you die or not is good

All it rewards are people who take off and climb to 30k, attack only when they have a vast advantage, and run when they dont

very few engagements will happen in this scenario, which is not the point of the MA like hitech said.

I think the best way to simulate "scared for your life" is scenarios. You get one plane in a scenario, if you loose it, youre out   Plus, in a scenario, forces start out supposedly even. If you get gangbanged in a scenario, its because either you let yourself get seperated or you let your teammates die  

Thats kinda why I don't like MA, there are very few "fair engagements", I always have the advantage (which I don't necessarily like since i have fun when i win a difficult fight, not a easy sure thing) or get raped (which i dont like because, well, I'm getting raped   )


Seriously, what fun is it engaging someone 3 on 1? I do it, and I still go for the kill, but I'd rather have a "fair" fight. It seems to me a ranking system would give everyone runstang fever and there would be more running than killing.

So basically, I would like to see a "scenario" arena much like there is now, except with a scenario scheduled to start mabye every hour? or 2 hours? I dunno, it would depend on how big the scenario was. Entry to the arena would be locked at a set time, then the scenario would occur with even teams ectera, the sceraio would have a briefing which everyone would have to read before they entered. You would have a mission, and 1 life. If you died, or RTBd, or whatever, then youre out of the game and you can go back to MA to practice till the next scenario began  

We could have stats on scenario kills, which would reflect the kind of stuff you are talking about. But the desire to run from a fight would be much less, because you have a mission to complete! If you runstang in your mustanfg those 190s are gonna chew up your buffs, ectera. I think this is the best solution.

[Wraith]

ZIGRAT! YOU THE MAN! *APPLAUSE*

That is an AWESOME idea! MA to hone the ACM skills, the Scenarios every 2 hours to SHOW the skill! YES YES! *joygasm*  

This is GREAT! Finally the BUFF pilots get their wish of good guns, escorts, formation flying and a mission, the fighter pilots get the chance to fly as escorts, foward sweeps, diversions, ground attack, etc.

I haven't seen the new map, but this would be something REALLY good and quite easy to implement (at least I think.. it would be making another Special Events Arena..but one that puts up missions every 2 hours. HT could appoint a player or a group of players as the "creators" of the missions so there are new scenarios every 2 or 3 days.).

[eskimo]

Gee, I guess nobody likes me because I often resort to jousting.  I love HO's and I win them at about the same rate as I win traditional ACM.  When my opponent has a higher energy state than I, I will sometimes instigate a HO, to put us on an equal playing field.  Sometimes when I bounce a guy from up high, he will go vertical into a HO.

(LOL, my wife just read this and she thinks that I am talking about prostitutes, tell her I really don't love HO's!   )

 When he has enough kinetic energy to do this, all I can think is: "Good move dude, I thought I had you, now you get to shoot back too!"

Anyway, this is just a game and most people don't care about scores and ranks, etc.  Of the 16 or so members of my squad, only about 4 of us ever look at scores.  The last time I checked, I was ranked 14 overall, yet I consider myself average among my squad.  Rankings will only effect a few, I believe.

By the way, Mitsu killed me once; spit(him) vs. N1K(me).
I killed him once; C-47(me) vs. N1K(him.  LOL

eskimo

[MANDOBLE]

I usually try to avoid any kind of HO, but sometimes I get on them because I cant determine the course of the other plane until too late to avoid (even using Zoom). This is specially frequent at low level fights, where the aircraft camouflage is more effective. The closure rate doesn't help me a lot, several times we have the same course with my plane much faster than the enemy and I get its 6 o'clock, other times the other is slow and me too and we have opposite courses, the closure rate is the same that in first case, but the final result is HO. I'm running at 1024 16bpp 17" monitor, and IMO the plane shapes (messed up with very pixelated textures), most of the times, appears to be poorly defined. In fact, I'm absolutelly unable to aim without zoom and it seems I need a 120" monitor to see any plane clearly.

As a side note, this is the main problem I see with this awesome sim, the graphic definition. Too many poligons, but poor object appearances until too close. As an example of very very good object definition at any distance, take a look at EAW. The shape of any plane is perfectly clear even when its size is 0.5 cm on the screen running at 1024. And I'm sure any plane in EAW has half number of poligons than the equivalent in AH.

[humble]

I think we need to define "Head On" a little better. To me a HO is a frontal attack on a co-alt merge. Those are really pretty easy to avoid. The Better pilots all work variation's of horizontal & vertical seperation to both gain angles and avoid a true head to head meeting. Ideally the goal is to produce an advantage at the merge that translates into a kill later...that being said front aspect shots are NOT HO's. Often times only one player has a firing solution, thtas not a HO it's a front quarter shot.

Most of the "HO's" I suffer are front aspect shots from B&Z cannon runs in the middle of a furball

[wolf37]

hello all:
i got tierd of reading all the replys here so if this has been said already, sorry.

regarding HO's and WWII real pilots. everybody stats that the real pilots avoided the Ho's because of the danger, well one thing i have not read about is the fact that in WWII, the pilots did not have a clip board with a map pointing out where ebnemy planes where, there for, they could not head straight at them but would have to look for them. yas there was radar on the ground or spotters on the ground to say what area enemy planes where in. but the pilots still had to look for the enemy planes, and this meant they could get the advantage of alt if they found the enemy and did not get spotted them selfs. but with out knowing whee your enemy was, you had to look and hope you spotted him before he spotted you, in this game fust head for the dot on the map, and then you will have the HO's happening. at the same time, we all know or have a good idea where cons will be heading and can just climb for alt and wait. no matter how you look at it, the HO's will never stop, and yes it takes two plane's to have a HO, if one deverts from the HO, then you have no HO do you. so go HO, or devert from it, best luck to you and have some fun.

as for those with the top score's, it seems that those would be the vulchers you do see any where else, some names i see only vulching but dissappear from defending or the dog fights, i will not mention name's as this alone will start a fight of words already, those that only seem to show up at vulch time will be sure to say it is not so. so lets hear from those that vulch only please. i wont say any more on it at this time.


blue skies all