Puffy Ack request

[Blue Mako]

The trouble with this discussion is that everyone assumes that the 88's are modelled as a real gun that is tracking the aircraft around them.  It does not.  All it does is instantly start puffing into existence around the plane currently targeted by the AI at the field.  There is no fire prediction, load times, nor any aiming, it just instantly appears around your aircraft with a randomiser deciding if you get hit or not.  The drawback is that no matter how hard you maneuver, you never maneuver away from the ack, it just increases your chances of getting pinged.  The side effect is that a bomber straight and level is much less likely to be pinged than a fighter (at least anecdotal evidence suggests this).

HTC please add some code to make the 88's act like a real AA gun:

• Make the AI guns fire shells like the manned fleet ack.
• Make the shells time fuzed.
• Add a delay between targeting a plane and firing the shells.
• Add a delay between the target maneuvering and the guns reaiming.
• Add a small randomiser to the aiming (like the osti gun) and timing settings so that bombers get a reasonable chance of survival.

The psychic insta ping flak that we have had until now is just a weak approximation of reality in a game that is meant to pride itself on high-fidelity models.

[lasersailor184]

Yes, I'd like to see alot more ACK, but I think it should be hard to use.

[BenDover]

Originally posted by Furball
A swirling furball with friendly and unfriendly aircraft however... if you want realism... what gunners would shoot at their own aircraft???

American;)

[frank3]

The problem in real life was that they couldn't see clearly if it was a friend or foe
(many gunners accidently shot down their own ac)

[Lye-El]

Originally posted by Blue Mako

• Add a small randomiser to the aiming (like the osti gun) and timing settings so that bombers get a reasonable chance of survival.

No wonder you have to be able to stick an Osti muzzel in a pilots ear to get a hit, because it sure doesn't hit in the crosshairs.

The puffy ack doesn't seem to do much to wave after wave of bombers coming in on a field.  The bombers get destroyed when they dive into the field.

We need something better for field defense, or what we have to be more effective.  Polesti or Ruhr valley effective.

[hitech]

Blue Mako:

It used to be the way you described you want it to be.

There are and were some major draw backs in doing it that way primarly do to the length of shots.

So we instead put a box around your plane and randomly shoot at points in the box.

This box then changes size with speed range and acceleration.


HiTech

[Furball]

Originally posted by hitech
Blue Mako:

It used to be the way you described you want it to be.

There are and were some major draw backs in doing it that way primarly do to the length of shots.

So we instead put a box around your plane and randomly shoot at points in the box.

This box then changes size with speed range and acceleration.


HiTech

HiTech, is there a method to best avoid puffy ack, like evasives etc?

In RL it would be changing course / alt, but by the above rules, the best way to avoid it would be to be far away, going very fast, and accelerating?

What if you just added a time delay between bursts?  keep the above rules you already have, but distance from cv = time variable.

The time variable is the time where the puffy ack gets your position, to where it explodes.

So say 8k from cv = 8 seconds time variable.  

Ack takes your speed, acceleration, distance like before, but it explodes 8 seconds later where you will be if you do not alter speed/course/alt/distance, not instantly like it does now?

So if you alter course within that time variable then it will miss you and explode where you would have been, not where you are?

[hitech]

Furball Acceleration is also turning/looping i.e. changing course so it is already taken into acount.


HiTech

[Tilt]

Originally posted by hitech
Blue Mako:

It used to be the way you described you want it to be.

There are and were some major draw backs in doing it that way primarly do to the length of shots.

So we instead put a box around your plane and randomly shoot at points in the box.

This box then changes size with speed range and acceleration.


HiTech

If you have a formation of three ac.....do you randomly fire three times as much ammo?

Is the total rate of fire proportional to the number of 88's shared amongst the number of targets

[Furball]

Originally posted by hitech
Furball Acceleration is also turning/looping i.e. changing course so it is already taken into acount.


HiTech

I seem to get hit very often no matter what i am doing, is that just bad luck?

i bet there is a .spite furball command i am unaware of...

[Blue Mako]

Originally posted by hitech
Blue Mako:

It used to be the way you described you want it to be.

There are and were some major draw backs in doing it that way primarly do to the length of shots.

So we instead put a box around your plane and randomly shoot at points in the box.

This box then changes size with speed range and acceleration.


HiTech

HT Thanks for the reply.

What were the drawbacks?  Just curious because I would have thought that it would be more historically accurate to have long fire times for large calibre AA guns.  This would make fighter types almost invunerable to ack but bombers very susceptible. Seems to remind me of real life a little...

Does the box get larger with higher speed or smaller?  Does positive acceleration increase the size of the box or make it smaller?  The reason I ask is that presently bombers appear to sail along without any accelerations at low speed and remain untouched.  Fighters seem to attract ack hits much faster than bombers even though they are changing speed and direction almost constantly.  eg. I had my engine killed last night by heavy field ack while in the middle of a dogfight near a base.  I had reversed direction using an immelman and was accelerating away at 180 deg from my previous track and yet I still took a hit...

Would it be possible to have the position of the imaginary box you are shooting into lag behing the targets velocity/acceleration changes by a small amount?  ie. it will still be centred on you if you are not maneuvering but dragged behind you by a small amount if you are?

[dedalos]

If they are shooting randomly in the box then your location in the box does not make a difference.

However, probability would say that it is safer or as safe to stay put.  Don't turn don't change speed don;t dive.

[TheDudeDVant]

!amazed

[frank3]

Originally posted by dedalos
If they are shooting randomly in the box then your location in the box does not make a difference.

I think you're always in the center of that box since it forms around the AC?

[dedalos]

Originally posted by frank3
I think you're always in the center of that box since it forms around the AC?

Yes, I was responding to someone asking for the box to drag behind you if you are fast or turning.  As long as you are in the box and the firing is random it would not make any difference if you are in the center or not.