I think Kweassa pushed himself off the high dive on that post, Eagl. I know plenty of vets willing to help a fellow countryman, I know of many who fly headlong into 5 bandits alone and do so when they have no chance of running away. He's trolling or something of that nature.
Gimme a break, nirv.
Anybody who's flown with me knows I'm the guy who stays behind in all the worst-case scenarios. Upping from vulched fields, fighting against 10 to 1 odds, upping goonbusters amidst zillion red-hordes, lobbing ords against barracks to delay enemy advance, etc etc etc ad nauseaum.
I'm not complaining about it, since a "normal" fight under those conditions is mostly out of the question, and a high death rate and a conga line of the incoming "red train" behind my rear just comes with the job description. I like ruining the day for pompous hordemongers. It's the way I have fun.
However, one thing I've learned in being in the worst places one can fly in, during my masochistic career as a "last line of defense" pilot, is that the self-styled "vets" never, ever, venture out to these parts to offer any kind of helping hand. More than anywhere on this corner of the map, where their skill is needed, where it is a "target rich" environment which they profess to love so much - not a single "vet" shows. The only people who actually show up in these "target rich" parts are either the total n00b, the psychopath, or the knee-jerk patriot who'll do anything he can to stop enemy advance.
In turn, I get to meet all the famous "vet" guys of other countries during my sorties. It's simple really - like the self styled "vets" of my own country, who is having a great day collecting a baggage train of baby seal carcasses flying with the our own "horde" against sparsely defended enemy fields, the enemy "vets" are also the first ones to enter my "target rich" world. It is only natural they show up wherever I go, since I'm always at the places where we're doing the worst.
But even then, it is always the enemy runts and "expendable" average joes who do all the work, picking off acks, hunting down few defenders, destroying objects, etc etc.. and when those runts are being challenged by me and my fellow pilots, turning into a heap of fireball and aerial junk, only then the "vet" actually comes down from the stratosphere, collects all the cheap kills, and turns back merrily home and lands them - leaving all the average guys behind to die to the defenses.
Again, I'm not complaining about the situation I meet, since I'm always there by my own choice. However, what I do find absurd is those self-styled "vet" weasles who is typical in taking the credit, thumping the chests, professes to be "skilled" enough to face many enemy planes, and yet in practice he rarely, if ever, shows up under those conditions to haul some prettythang.
The resentment applies both to the "vets" of my own country, who never show up in all the "best" parts of the map, and to the "vets" of my enemy countries, who are the first to enter the vulch, and first to run away when things go bad.
I mean, have you actually never wondered why all the most "famous" pilots of each countries rarely ever fight each other? They are typical in saluting each other, chatting around alot in 200, except when you think about it, the "vets" never, ever seem to actually gather around a single point of the map and show us the most extravagant aerial fights of the day. These "vets" rarely fight against each other.
The reason is simple. All of them "vets" are in different fronts of the map. All of them are located at the easiest situation possible for one's own country. Since the dynamics of the MA horde dictate that one horde avoids the other, it is only natural to expect that the "vet vs vet" fights are a rare thing to happen in the MA.
They're the
scavengers of the MA. Nothing wrong with that. They're just good at it. However, they will never admit what they are. Since they're supposed to be
"driven by thrill of combat and competition of skill". This heap of bullshi* has been so thoroughly propagated in the flightsim communities, that it has become a something of a permanently embedded myth.