Originally posted by Krusty
Meh, averages don't tell you too much, because while, say, 75% might get a hit percentage of 12%, say the other 25% fires of hundreds of thousands of rounds and never hits squat (HOs, spraying 1.5k, firing as they die, spiraling down, toolshed strafing), so I think that percentage is being dragged way down by the "low end".
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First of all, I see no reason to believe that hit percentage follows anything but a normal distribution where most people tend to fall within one standard deviation of the average. Second, if you take a random sample of, say, 300 players in the MA, you should find that the average hit percentage tends toward the low end and that scores tend to distribute normally around it.
In worse guns, with the 190E, I myself have gotten 3 b17 kills in 1 sortie (still had 21 rds of 20mm left) and 3 spitfire kills in 1 sortie (2x spit16 1x spit8) and had to rtb for lack of 20mm, and all the while my gunnery sucks. I take pot shots and bursts that don't land all the time. I screw myself over because of this but I'm a lucky SOB so I usually come out all right in the end (2:1 k/d this past tour).
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And I've had 26 kills with no rearms in the old Spit V with 240 rounds of 20mm. What's your point? Anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.
So if I can get multiple 3-kill-sorties on a plane with 120 rounds of 20mm but worst ballistics, anybody in a much more manuverable plane with better guns can too.
On average, the Spit V with half the ammo load does not furball for as long nor does it furball quite as effectively as the old one. Thus it is less fun to fly, requires more time to fly to the fight and back again for rearms or replaning, and therefore players gravitate to other planes that can approximate its performance without feeling limited by its ammo load.
-- Todd/Leviathn