Puffy ack

[BaldEagl]

shooting through the hills is my biggest problem with it. 

Yes, I hate that through the hills c*** too.  What's up with that?

[Yossarian]

I'm largely fine with the puffy ack the way it is.  EXCEPT for the shooting through mountains.  Also, I think we should be able to destroy it in the same way that we can destroy field ack guns.

<S>

Yossarian

[moot]

I wouldn't mind if the ack was twice as lethal.  I just want it to at least pretend to obey the laws of physics. Gun-to-target time of travel delay in aim corrections, or something emulating the effect.  Like a loosening or tightening of the box, proportional to your velocity and distance from the guns.

[crockett]

I lost a 262 to puffy ack a bit ago. 1st few hits were close, so I nose down and dove out of it. Pushing almost 650knts and it still took me out=/ Even worst, I had no visual on the CV.

I've lost a few because of puffy. With the exception of this morning I tend to stay away from CV fights these days.

A perfect example of how bad AH puffy works is right here in this picture..


Oh it this picture was just before the puffy hit me directly into the cockpit blowing me up instantly.
This is the film..  http://www.wargamerx.com/temp/puffy.ahf

Nothing kills a fight faster than puffy and it never kills the guys actually bombing the CV's.. (ie level bombers) Yet it can zero in a 262 a quarter sector away. IMO puffy should be a manned gun and not auto.. That way players can aim it at the "real" threats top a CV.

[crockett]

Puffy ack should be perked. 1 perk per shot sounds reasonable, I think.  


No but really, puffy ack is one of the major downfalls of this game (along with the Spixteen and Wirble). I've been 1 pinged by puffy ack at 17k and going 375mph IAS. It's absolutely ridiculously strong, accurate, and unescapable.

And by the way, 38s seem to be the favorite target of puffy ack.

Only reason to dislike the wirble is if you are a vulcher, with the exception of defending against a GV attack. If you don't vulch then they shouldn't bug you.  

[Lusche]

I wouldn't mind if the ack was twice as lethal.  I just want it to at least pretend to obey the laws of physics. Gun-to-target time of travel delay in aim corrections, or something emulating the effect.  Like a loosening or tightening of the box, proportional to your velocity and distance from the guns.

But actually that's the way puffy ack works: Explosions appear randomly within a box drawn around your plane. The size of that box is depending of your speed, your pulled G's (=turning) and distance to ack. Flying faster while maneuvering at a bigger distance lessens the probability of getting it.

And of course there is some chance that you're getting hit when following an enemy into ack.. just like in real life. "There is no thing as friendly ack"

So far I have lost some fighter's to "friendly" ack, but I have lost far more bombers to enemy puffy, both above strat targets as well as enemy CV's.

[moot]

You're sure about this?   That film is the first of two times in <10min where I ran into puffy, both times that fast, and the first time I had already lost a flap on maybe the 3d or 4th burst.  That's the first thing.

The second thing is that there's no time delay in the box following you.  There ought to be one.  Just like in real life, the shells went where the guns pointed them at in expectation of the targets speed and velocity at the time they were fired.  Just like we don't get instant hit-scan ballistics in the mannable 5" guns.

[Lusche]

You're sure about this?   

I am, 'cause that's the way Hitech explained puffy ack in various threads, for example here: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,173460.msg1987753.html#msg1987753

[moot]

Well.. Then I must have some sort of observer bias, because I definitely notice more damage in fighters, while bombers seldom take damage unless someone's shooting the manned 5" at them.

The second point still stands.

[AKDogg]

I have noticed that the faster u go in the CV puffy ack no matter what alt, will hit u more then going slower and flying level.  Getting puffy ack through mountains is also false.  Pretty amazing flak shells to go through mountains.

[moot]

It wouldn't even matter if the shells detonated with a delay as though they had real ballistics..  You could easily dodge them from a distance.

[Lonmower]

Puffy through mountains realy suck. Awile ago i was fighting a F4U, just so happend that when i caught him we where over a frendly strat. I was just about to seal the deal when BOOM , my own puffy ack killed me then it got the F4U, man i was pissed. Untill then i never realy paid much atention to the puffy.

[MajIssue]

Problem was the mountains were above 3k, and i was dancing around them tryin to be lowest i could be.

I noticed that too. Strat tgt ack is not affected by your altitude AGL but will stop shooting at you at less than 3K MSL regardless of the terrain around you!

[Yossarian]

Wait....if this puffy ack actually is designed to help stop people lancstukaing or whatever they do to blow up CV's, why is it only effective above 3K...?

If I'm really, really determined to get rid of a CV, I won't come at 3K.  I'll come in at 0.03K.