Why puffy ack doesn't work.

[hubsonfire]

Krusty what you describe is not how randomizer work. What you are saying is if you roll a dice  and change your guess as you roll the dice you have a higher chance of getting hit.  S turns increase the size of the box, or to describe it differently , Turns increase the size of the random number generated .

Gun shoot threw hills simply because of the range the Ack shoots. To do the collision checks along a 6 mile line is very expensive.

HiTech

How about making it an actual gun, instead of randomly timing explosions inside a box and then trying to calculate whether or not there are any objects between point A and Plane B?

[Rebel]

How about making it an actual gun, instead of randomly timing explosions inside a box and then trying to calculate whether or not there are any objects between point A and Plane B?

Ballistics modelling stops at a certain range- I believe it's 2-3k, but I can't say for certain.

The distances you're talking about are more like 15-35k, and that's assuming the plane is straight up.  Add a ballistic drop going through 25k vertical, plus any amount of horizontal....you can see where a problem might develop.

Not only that, but say someone gets in the way of said shell....more overhead.

[Vasco]

The whole AI gunning scheme needs rework, IMHO.
Not just puffy Ack, actually all field/ship guns.
The current logic is blatant simple from what I experienced in the year since I play AH.
And the initial post proves the simplicity esp. for puffy Ack.
The field guns for example are so damn predictive, and like ship's close-range defensive armament, often focus a single target though there are plenty of targets within range. No wonder carriers get sunk so easily...

And what's missing too are automatic gunners for bombers.
The current setting to instantly fire almost all the guns of the three B-17/24's in a formation at one focal point isn't that realistic.

The game could be so much better with just a little more code reworked and some extra or smarter logic added here and there.
Not just in AI. Other parts like weather (clouds, haze, dusk), terrain (water, vegetation) and its generation etc, too.
Lots of room for improvement actually... Wished HTC would open the code (under the terms of a NDA or such) to external devs to fix such issues or enhance the game a bit...

But then, I haven't asked yet...

Cheers,
Vasco

[hubsonfire]

Ballistics modelling stops at a certain range- I believe it's 2-3k, but I can't say for certain.

The distances you're talking about are more like 15-35k, and that's assuming the plane is straight up.  Add a ballistic drop going through 25k vertical, plus any amount of horizontal....you can see where a problem might develop.

Not only that, but say someone gets in the way of said shell....more overhead.

B-25, tanks, 5" guns, 8" guns all fire beyond 3K feet. Guns, shells, and proximity fusing all work just fine as is. All have drop, all can calculate lead and drop accurately, even when taking into account motion from whatever is firing them, and all continue working just fine even if someone inadvertently wanders in front of them. In fact, the auto ack at airfields and on CVs will actually kill friendlies if they happen to be in the way when it's firing. Manned guns have no effect, while vehicles and fighters/attackers killshoot on friendlies, while bombers are immune to KS when firing upon each other, although they will also KS against other friendly equipment.

I do not see where a problem might develop which hasn't already been dealt with for years.

[Vasco]

Ballistics modelling stops at a certain range- I believe it's 2-3k, but I can't say for certain.

The distances you're talking about are more like 15-35k, and that's assuming the plane is straight up.  Add a ballistic drop going through 25k vertical, plus any amount of horizontal....you can see where a problem might develop.

Not only that, but say someone gets in the way of said shell....more overhead.

Puffy Ack has a very low firing rate compared to all the close-defense cannons, so this shouldn't be a problem.
Plus the amount of those guns is rather small.

And about the inaccuracy on longer-range: that's actually intended.

With a small kalman-filter applied for example you can optimize the aiming of those guns over time to have the same effect like the current radar-controlled ones, with more noise... 


Cheers,
Vasco

[Rebel]

Okay guys, I'm just saying what I understood HiTech to be saying, which is, a 6 mile collision line would be too expensive- and that would *have* to be what was needed for a 88mm flak shell.

Rate of fire is low, yes- I don't think there's enough flak.  There should be double, if not triple the amount of puff out at big targets like the HQ/refinery. 

funny though- in a fighter, I've never ever been hit by puffy flak.  In a bomber, I've lost an engine.

[Lusche]

funny though- in a fighter, I've never ever been hit by puffy flak.  In a bomber, I've lost an engine.

Yesterday I lost my 109K4 due to friendly puffy ack over strat target...   

[Rebel]

Yesterday I lost my 109K4 due to friendly puffy ack over strat target...   

THAT'S IT! 

get in as close as you can to those star destroyers, and engage them at point blank range! 

[Soulyss]

My assumption was that the game actually tracers each round has it leaves the gun and travels skyward.  I suppose I should have first asked if this was acutally true.  Or rather does the game just generate # number of events that are randomized within a certain space at a certain based on the number of guns available at that point. 

[Puck]

Yesterday I lost my 109K4 due to friendly puffy ack over strat target...   

Naval gunners had a really cute saying (why this didn't make the news reals is...obvious...)

"Shoot 'em all down and sort the wreckage later"

There were valid safety reasons for Invasion Stripes, and why the P-38 was used to protect the invasion fleet (the German's didn't have anything resembling the Lightning, so IFF is easy, right?).  The Navy still shot down some striped P-38s.  In naval gunnery, like submarine warfare, there ARE no "friendlies".  Be glad the friendlyack doesn't AIM for you.

[Lusche]

Naval gunners had a really cute saying (why this didn't make the news reals is...obvious...)

"Shoot 'em all down and sort the wreckage later"

There were valid safety reasons for Invasion Stripes, and why the P-38 was used to protect the invasion fleet (the German's didn't have anything resembling the Lightning, so IFF is easy, right?).  The Navy still shot down some striped P-38s.  In naval gunnery, like submarine warfare, there ARE no "friendlies".  Be glad the friendlyack doesn't AIM for you.

Or in short: Friendly ack - isn't.


Just think of Unternehmen Bodenplatte 1/1/45, where German fighter units took horrible losses by German AA guns.

[hitech]

Soulyss: For puffy ack, what you describe is a fair description of how they work. For all other guns, they are real bullets.

[Furball]

I think the current system needs a time delay which varies depending on the distance from the CV.

IE.  If i am travelling 1k from the CV, puffy ack will calculate where i will be by my course and heading and explode 1 second later based upon that course and heading.  If i turn during that 1 second the shots will be off because i have already changed my course in the time between calculation and firing.

If i am 5k away from the target, then the shots will calculate 5 seconds before the puffy ack appears, therefore if i change course during that time the shots will be well off target.

Whats more, if you do not change course, the target box should get smaller and smaller to simulate correction by the gunners, this would make puffy ack more effective against level bombers (as it was historically) and not fighters.

I despise puffy ack in its current form.

[Krusty]

I despise puffy ack in its current form.

I can't fly near an enemy CV without being bracketed and taking damage. My squad tried to run a CV attack with dive bombing SBDs once [EDIT: About 6-7 of us]. We were over 15k coming in, and before ANY of us could dive in, despite our best evasives, all but 1 of us was dead. The one that was able to dive was killed before he could line up and drop. Yet no matter HOW many bombers fly over and bomb your fleet, NO ack will hit them, unless it's manned ack.

Maybe if it worked properly, CVs wouldn't be such pathetically easy targets as they are now. Maybe light fighters wigh ord would be more likely to get through than heavy bombers. Until we get CVs that do evasives to avoid level bombers, fixing the ack is probably going to be the best way of equalizing the CV defenses.

[Halo46]

How often is Puffy Ack really a problem though? I have only had a Stuka shot out from under me (at 8-9 K in a shallow climb on egress). I have been hit at 2.5 K with 1 shot kills from PT Boats and Ostis even though I can't get a hit with the pipper on the nose of a head on AC at 800-100 yards. I am guessing some good and some poor shooters would be representative in larger Ack as well. All in all, is it really such a problem? As a percentage of your kills, where does it rate? Mine is very low as I am usually a game player's kill rather than AI (except field ack where jinxing seems to provide more hits than not).I kind of liked the randomness of it... my 2 cents, anyone have change for a nickle?