Engine vs Flames

[SEseph]

On the sat KoTH of this month, I encountered a situation that made me think. It was at the begining of a round, and there were 4 of us in a small furball. One of my burts lit another pilot on fire. I turned to ignore him. No sense in wasting ammo on someone who can not complete the round, like having no engine. Next thing I know, I'm torn up by him, go down, to which he soon followed. When I asked the CM's why this was the case, I was told controlled flight was the reason.

So my question is this: What is the diffrence between a pilot with no engine using his remaining E to kill someone at the begining, or during the course of a round and someone on fire? Neither has any hope of making it to the end, there is no way to fix this or compensate for it. Rudders, Elevaters, even guns can be lost, no problem, you can keep fighting, and over come. Engine loss and fire are terminal. There is no hope. You can even give an approximate time of death for both. I believe this should be changed. Fire=done unless final 2.

[ROC]

Compare you signature line with the fact that you let him go and turned away.  Next time, finish him off.

There can't be a judge at every fight to determine who set someone on fire first.   It's not practical.  Kill em, be done, and move on Knowing he's out of the fight.  Clearly, he could not complete the round but was still in the fight, for all you know the other 3 of you might have  died while he floated to the ground and lived.  You are never going to have that many judges watching every single action to determine what may or may not occur.

Simple, take him out next time.

[Masherbrum]

This is one of the reasons why I don't participate in these "elite events".     To many nitpickers and few balls to the wall people.

[SEseph]

wow, alll you guys are being way up tight over something I talked with the guy about and told him it was a good fight. The rules where the way they were when he killed me, I can't complain about something in the rules, but I was told by a CM counterpart of yours, WMLute, to post the question here. He could have saved you time demeaning my question at that point. Next time before you try to make me look like I'm whining, atleast make sure it's accurate.

I've dropped outa my plane before cause of an engine, but I could have kept fighting because I had the E to do so, I just wanted some input as to the reasoning and all I get is belittled. You win I guess.

[Masherbrum]

You left a con that was on fire, in the air.    Combustion means they won't get you later.

[ROC]

Uptight?  umm, why post something if you don't want another point of view.

What's wrong, did I forget to add a smilee?

How can I be uptight offering advice, you seemed kinda uptight when you posted, I thought I'd offer a different point of view to perhaps make things less stressful for you.

I'll be sure to just let you go on your merry way in the future

There is a clear difference between advice and belittling, it's not like I told you to quit whining or anything, it was simply a different perspective.

[fuzeman]

First- this is a KOTH rule so I believe the KOTH forum would have been the right place to post. That's a minor detail though.
 
Second- It sort of falls into the same catagory as pilot wounds, fuel leaks, oil leaks and so on.

If the general KOTH population wants a plane that is burning to be 'out' of the fight, we can and would change it.
I suggest reposting your comment in the KOTH forum and see what other KOTHers say.
If there is some support for it we might change it or at least test it out and see how it flies.
That's the reason we had a few minor changes this month. KOTHers asked about tweaking some things and they were tweaked.
1) We used the larger crater field this month per a request/suggestion and it seemed to work well.
2) We tried to make kills a little more accurate by having people bail first and then end flight so whoever caused them to bail got credit.
3) Tied in with 2 above I ran logs, probably for the first time this whole year. We didn't before because KOTH kills with .ef enabled was very inaccurate. This did accomplish accurately tracked kills somewhat but was still not perfect. We still had people loose a fight by hitting the water or being so low when damaged they received a ditch. Some just ended flight without bailing first so those kills were not accurately credited.
I'm sort of waiting to see the responses from my text version of the logs under the November FriKOTH logs post in the KOTH forum to see how that works out.

I know KOTHs have not been as 'good' as they could be recently but maybe we've hit the bottom and are now coming up and the event will be better.

I'd really like the people who used to fly it and don't anymore to say why they don't.
We can't fix it if we don't know whats wrong.

[AKDogg]

Well we could try this.  If your on fire and are not the last 2, then u must bail out.  Sounds resonable to at least give it a try but the problem is police it, espescially on SatKOTH when we have like 40+ people that attend.  I can only be at 1 place at a time in the event.  I believe this is the reason for the rule in the first place with planes on fire are acceptable till lost of control.

[pez]

here is a differnt pespective as to why you can make someone drop out if they are on fire as a rule.

in the situation that you are in a hard turning fight with noone else for miles it is likely you will be useing primaraly your up, forward up, forward view almost exclusively. as such it is possable on rear ocation you might not even know you're on fire.

with an engine dead it's pretty easy to instantly know your out. but with fire, especially if the guy levels out and gives you a clear line on him you might not look back and see that.

but don't listen to me I'm sick and can't think straight right now.

[Murdr]

I have been flying KoTH since its third event almost 5 years ago.  
In a nutshell, if it is impossible for you to have controled powered flight, with expendable ammo available, and you are not one of the last two, you're out.  Add a fire clause, and throw that nutshell out the window.

I don't see the need for it.  I have seen a few unlikely wins over the years, things you would think wouldn't happen.  Actually some of those can't happen NOW the way the rules are.  Go ahead, keep making the rules more stupidly complex.  That's what drove me away from following nascar, and I'm sure we can recreate that situation here.

[pez]

oops that post above was to say why you can't do it not that you can.

[CAP1]

Originally posted by SEseph
On the sat KoTH of this month, I encountered a situation that made me think. It was at the begining of a round, and there were 4 of us in a small furball. One of my burts lit another pilot on fire. I turned to ignore him. No sense in wasting ammo on someone who can not complete the round, like having no engine. Next thing I know, I'm torn up by him, go down, to which he soon followed. When I asked the CM's why this was the case, I was told controlled flight was the reason.

So my question is this: What is the diffrence between a pilot with no engine using his remaining E to kill someone at the begining, or during the course of a round and someone on fire? Neither has any hope of making it to the end, there is no way to fix this or compensate for it. Rudders, Elevaters, even guns can be lost, no problem, you can keep fighting, and over come. Engine loss and fire are terminal. There is no hope. You can even give an approximate time of death for both. I believe this should be changed. Fire=done unless final 2.

i haven't flown these, as i'm not anywhere near good enough to compete,......but in furballs, or just a regular dogfight, if there's ANY possibility of the nmy maintaining controlled flight when i hit him, i keep at it till he's missing very large very improtant pieces of his ride.....such as a wing, or the tail.....only then do i dismiss him as done, and go looking for another. not trying to be wise..but if i were good enough to compete in these, i'd fly the same way.........

<>

[fuzeman]

Originally posted by CAP1
i haven't flown these, as i'm not anywhere near good enough to compete,......

You don't have to be 'good enough' to fly in KOTH to have fun. Even the average pilot can have a TON-o-fun. Of course the chances of winning it all is not large, at first.
Remember though, many will say you do not get better by flying against adversaries you can easily kill. KOTH will put you up against some good pilots and some very good ones. By flying against them and even watching the fights via CMEye you can see things that don't work and things that do.
So it's sort of training and definately fun.

[Lusche]

Originally posted by CAP1
i haven't flown these, as i'm not anywhere near good enough to compete

Originally posted by fuzeman

So it's sort of training and definately fun.

I agree 100%

KotH is among the best (and most fun) ways to learn dogfighting. Film your fights, and make use of CM Eye to watch how the top sticks pull off their incredible maneuvres.

[Getback]

Really can't add much to this, but I don't think anyone was putting you down SeSeph.