Puff Ack Lethality in MW arena

[Yeager]

has there been a change to the puffy ack lethality in MW?  I have been experiencing a rather UNUSUAL and DEPRESSING number of insta deaths today above 10k and, well......it sucks.

[LTARokit]

Noticed it last night too.  Nasty stuff.  lol

[Ack-Ack]

Isn't it feasible that that flak would be able to kill you in one shot in a vital area?


ack-ack

[Flayed1]

Not that I like to be killed by ack but at least now it's not just pretty lil black puffs to fly through that look nice.. Now it is actually something to be feared a tad making it just a bit more interesting to get to the target.. Befor no one cared much about taking out the puf ack guns on the fields except for the ones in the town so you could take a base. Now they need to go down just like the others because they might actually hit you now.

[Yeager]

ack ack, yes its feasable but lets say that on average, in my experience, 100 flak bursts go off within a radius of 100 yards of my aircraft in a five minute period of time and I might hear one ping from those 100 bursts.  9 times out of 10 that one ping never causes me any damage whatsoever.  Rarely I might lose a gun or some silly little thing...and thats RARELY.  So we all go on about our business.  But once in a while you will be flying along in these harmless, barely even annoying flak burst fields then all the sudden your in the tower.  Its about the dumbest thing that happens in this game by design.

Ok, so the game aint perfect and we carry on.  I would guess the insta death by fluffy ack thing happens to me on average once every few weeks....maybe lets say once every 15 to 20 hours of playing time.

To have this insta death happen three times in less that two hours makes me raise my eyebrow and come here and whine about it.

[airspro]

So you meeted up with my friend "puffy" he gets quite alot of kills from time to time , but wat a banana he is he NEVER LANDS THEM

Really most internet players don't play games to be killed by AI . At least that's IMO .

carry on
spro

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Yeager
has there been a change to the puffy ack lethality in MW?  I have been experiencing a rather UNUSUAL and DEPRESSING number of insta deaths today above 10k and, well......it sucks.

To keep away the vulchers, in the AvA we've found it useful to keep the low level ack intense.  The high altitude ack, OTOH, has been more of a greifer, so we set it low.  May be different in MA arenas where players fly high altitude bombers, don't know.

- oldman (when you have pleasant people, you can set the low alt ack down, too, as the AvA is today)

[Spatula]

What really yanks my chain, is you been flying for 1/2 hour battling it out, got 5 odd kills when all of a sudden BANG - insta-death (tm) you get taken out by AI... Its EXTREMELY annoying. I dont like gettin shot down by anyone, but i can accept being shot down by another human player who had the skill to get me. I can never accept puffy kills. For the same sort of reason that 'random engine failures' etc arent added to the game, why do we get random AI kills?

Another thing about the AI ack its 6th sense. You can dive a few hundred feet but the puffy balls still always go off in a random pattern around you - like the AI gunners on the ground could see into the future. You bank turn and dive or climb, but the puffy stays with ya instantly. It seems manuevering has no effect at all at throwing the gunners off the scent. Shouldnt it take a little bit of time (conceptually) for the gunner on the ground to react to my turn and then recalculate, reposition the gun etc to follow me. How can they tell i dived or climbed 500 feet? It seems far too accurate in predicting where an when you'll be.

[FTJR]

2 occassions lately, i've been hugging the ground on the other side of the hill, with the puffy shooting at me. 1 occasion,  turning and diving, and getting  done by the puffy. Irritating.

[RTGorkle]

Originally posted by FTJR
2 occassions lately, i've been hugging the ground on the other side of the hill, with the puffy shooting at me. 1 occasion,  turning and diving, and getting  done by the puffy. Irritating.

Yeah, but that ain't new. Irritating because it's just plain silly to see happenning. Probably very resource-intensive to run code to prevent it.

I seem to have been killed by my own puffy ack, twice in a week. First time ever. Until now I've always scoffed at those suggesting it could happen. Doesn't worry me though, as it happens far less often that it probably did during the war.

[bongaroo]

The puffy ack dosen't track you, it just goes off randomly in a sphere around you when your in range.  If you pull g's though I think it increases the size of this sphere decreasing the chance of being hit.

At least I'm 80% sure thats how it works.  I dunno, search the forums for it.  Plenty of posts about it already.

[hitech]

It hasn't changed.

[Yeager]

Been on a few times since and it hasn't happened again.  Just checking in as it seemed really odd to get nailed three times so close together, like the AI was singling me out.......I guess it was just time for my karma to get adjusted.

[Simaril]

Originally posted by hitech
It hasn't changed.

...but the planeset has!

Elsewhere (was in in the con recordings?) HT said that after literally years of trying a variety of approaches, he found the current programming to work best.

From what I remember, the current system uses a "box" around the aircraft with random puffs thrown into the zone around the plane. If a puf hits the box, then damage is applied using the "AH secret formula" (tm).

And here's where it gets interesting...because the box gets smaller based on aircraft speed and G-load.

SO....one reason that puffy may seem rougher in MW and LW is simply that those planes are slower, and we generate fewer Gs in maneuvering them since 1) they have less energy to begin with, and 2) the slower airspeeds make it easier to see what's going on and react earlier (and more gently) than is the case with a late war plane.


When I'm thinking about it, I try to weave in the puffy zones, and pull Gs right before the next airmail is due to arrive. The times I get hit tend to be the times I'm lazy about this.

[BugsBunny]

1) Bad luck
2) Fly below 3K