I’m on dial-up and always feel like I’m a second or two behind and need to shoot where I think the bad guys are instead of where I see them to be. I have been working to dispel the idea by telling myself that what I see on the screen is my "reality" and to just shoot based on what you see. Getting shot down while behind someone’s wing line, enemy planes "magically" appearing 3k away out of empty sky, bombs that explode but seem to have no affect, and tracers that pass through the enemy without producing any hit sprites are all part of the Fog of War that is also part of the game. But last night I noticed something that HTC might be interested in.
I was helping in a base-take flying an F6F. I was in a climb after bombing a flak-pnzr when a plane popped up on the end of the runway. I hit the backspace to switch to guns, winged over, lined him up, and started shooting. The rounds landed close to his right wingtip and there where a few hit-sprites on his wingtip. I moved the bullet stream to the top of his canopy but there where no hit sprites – only the grey puffs you get when hitting the runway. I fired a good two or three second burst with only the plane's tail and wingtips visible from under the grey puffs. Someone else came in and fired a short burst (possible with cannon) and got the kill. I only got an assist.
Obviously, what I saw was not the reality. From my point of view it looked like the visible model of the plane and its hit-box where not lined up, and only hitting the intersection of the two would produce a hit-sprite.
I'm not expecting any major troubleshooting efforts here because I’m hopeful that re-logging and/or re-launching AH will fix the problem – thus I did not post in the Bugs. But maybe the misalignment theory of the visible model and hit-box will give HTC some ideas on how to tighten up the code.
