Unofficial Trainers - Read This Please

[Bosco123]

I don't know you bosco and I haven't run into you but once this tour, according to the kill stats.  The stats say you were in a k4, me in my pony. I don't remember the encounter to be honest.

Anyway, you claimed to be able to teach advanced and that caused me to raise an eyebrow, so to speak. I've looked at your stat sheet and while score doesn't mean everything, it does mean some things.   Many of the best furballers aren't ranked particularly high but you can take snippets of their stats to see their success. Let's take Levi for instance: you'll never see him with a huge K/D really, but he'll have a pretty good hit % and a really good K/T. His K/S will be at least 2.0 or better.

Then I take a look at your numbers from this tour and they are much different. your K/D of 1.33 is ... OK but not what many would consider advanced.
Your K/S is .86  again not what many would consider advanced.  Your K/T of 8.21 really isn't bad but not spectacular. Your hit% of 5.35 is pretty low.

I really don't mean to offend you but taken as a whole, these numbers don't paint a picture of an advanced pilot.  I'm not saying you aren't one, I am saying it seems unlikely. I hope you can see why people might be skeptical.

Truley you worded it the nicest way that I could see and I feel that deserves some respect.
I know my K/D and my hit% is low, I've never been a "Super Shot" and above that, I've been flying planes that I just don't fly all the time. Take the K4 for example, I've only been flying that for about a week, tring to understand how to get a shot with a tater. 262, I cain't hit fish out of a barrel in that thing, and its killing my score. course you saw my score today, and I just pushed it up a little, but still not all to bad.
I never worry about my score, I'm not a milk runner, and I'm not totally great with snapshots, but I do get my few in here and there. my problem is, I lead too much and a lot of times it throws me off, just the way I do things.
Again I give you a lot of respect, l a lot of people on this topic have been snippy about "My skill" <S> Steve

[Banshee7]

I'm glad no one looks at my stats...i'd be embarrassed

[Widewing]

Truley you worded it the nicest way that I could see and I feel that deserves some respect.
I know my K/D and my hit% is low, I've never been a "Super Shot" and above that, I've been flying planes that I just don't fly all the time. Take the K4 for example, I've only been flying that for about a week, tring to understand how to get a shot with a tater. 262, I cain't hit fish out of a barrel in that thing, and its killing my score. course you saw my score today, and I just pushed it up a little, but still not all to bad.
I never worry about my score, I'm not a milk runner, and I'm not totally great with snapshots, but I do get my few in here and there. my problem is, I lead too much and a lot of times it throws me off, just the way I do things.
Again I give you a lot of respect, l a lot of people on this topic have been snippy about "My skill" <S> Steve

Let me comment on this. There's many ways to pork K/D, K/T and K/S. Strafe some M3s in fighter mode. Launch out to counter a possible NOE and find just one enemy, or worse, he changes course or bails. Auger your plane to rush to a hot spot. The list can be endless. I gauge pilots by how they do 1v1 against me. All scores can be manipulated and mean diddly squat to me.

My regards,

Widewing

[Bosco123]

I acually did get to fight you last night Widewing, only for a few minutes though. You were playing with new sounds, so I don't know how good you were last night, probably not good at all. The one person that opend my eye was Texture, I took up a F4U1-D and began fighting him. To my suprise, no matter what I did, I could not get on his 6, no matter what I did, he had me the whole time.
I plan to go again tonight to work with him some more.
<S>

[BnZ]

I'm not sure that is entirely accurate WW...

I think MA and DA are actually different skills that don't overlap perfectly.

I mean, anyone worth his salt in the MA must be able to show a little in the DA. But IMO the chess-game 1v1 aspect of AHII is very different than the multi-bandit madness of the MA. I am a little above average at the former, below average at the latter anytime the fight gets much beyond 3v3, simply because I am not a multi-tasker and have trouble fighting one opponent intelligently while splitting my attention in multiple directions.

For the record, I'm not trying to be a snob here and look down on someone who is good in furballs in the MA primarily because they have great SA, can look around and instantly tell who doesn't have great SA, and has great gunnery on any fleeting gun solution, has a good grasp of teamwork, etc. On the contrary, these are skills in and of themselves and some of them are arguably intellectually more challenging than ACM, which afterall is ultimately mostly managing your energy and figuring out what spot to fly your plane to.

I gauge pilots by how they do 1v1 against me. All scores can be manipulated and mean diddly squat to me.

My regards,

Widewing

[Husky01]

Thats because texture is very good, aren't you texture. (Texture may also be one of the most modest guys in the game.)

[evenhaim]

Texture is a good man but an old one at that, sheesh no idea how he still flies

texture made me the noob I am today

[Zazen13]

I'm not sure that is entirely accurate WW...

I think MA and DA are actually different skills that don't overlap perfectly.

They don't overlap very much at all actually.

Success in the DA, in the ubiquitously common format of 1 vs 1 Co-Alt, Co-E, same plane/loadout, is to air combat as drawing a circle is to being an artist. I have participated in thousands of duels and filmed thousands more over the years. The single most important factor is the merge. Those who are very successful duelists have perfected a particular merge method to the fine point of a spear. They tweak it depending on the plane or the opponent, but it's almost always the same basic move. Ninety percent of duels are over in one or two turns following the merge, the percentage is higher than that if the participants have decent aim or one has a particularly weak merge move or blows it entirely. Duels almost always devolve into pure angles fighting if they last beyond a few turns. Once the angles advantage is assured the shots are generally close-in and fairly low deflection, affording time to hammer away indiscriminately with ammunition that need not be conserved.

Here's some examples that distinguish a duelling engagement from a MA flight.

There is no SA required.
There is no consideration needed for the careful balancing of the maximization of the strengths of one aircraft vs. the weaknesses of another.
There is very little consideration for E management required.
There is no need for cooperative tactics and communication.
There is no consideration required for ammunition conservation making good aim relatively unimportant as you can hose spray around and hope for lucky hits.
There is no consideration required for the adjustment of your flying to properly compensate for the state of your changing fuel-load.
There is no consideration for the exploitation of an initial energy advantage or negating an intial energy disadvantage.

Dueling is a wonderful way to master a Co-Alt/Co-E merge move and get familiar with "riding the edge" of a particular aircraft, but that's about it. That's not to say those are not valuable skills, but they represent only a minuscule fraction of the vast and varied skill-sets required in the highly variable and dynamic MA environment. So, the DA and the MA actually have very little in common. I know many who are geniuses in the DA, but are frustrated and abysmally ineffective MA flyers because the other skills the MA requires are grossly lacking. Conversely, I know people who's comprehensive diversity of skills makes them MA Mozart's, but they never completely mastered a Co-Alt/Co-E merge to razor-sharp perfection so are relatively weak duelists.

[2bighorn]

I disagree on few points (marked in red)

There is no SA required.
SA is required. Very much so. Albeit not all SA elements are required in a duel

There is no careful balancing of the maximization of the strengths of one aircraft vs. the weaknesses of another.
You can duel in diff aircraft. Many do

There is very little consideration for E management.
It is exactly opposite.

There is no need for cooperative tactics and communication.
True only in 1vs1 duel

There is no consideration required for ammunition conservation making good aim relatively unimportant as you can spray to your heart's content and hope for lucky hits.
Spraying will kill you quickly in a well matched duel. Good aim is essential

There is no consideration required to the adjustment of your flying to compensate for the state of your fuel-load.
True

There is no consideration for the exploitation of an initial energy advantage or negating an intial energy disadvantage.
Not as often as in MA, but it does happen in a duel

[Zazen13]

I disagree on few points (marked in red)

The post I was replying to was specifically talking about duelling 1 vs 1. Anything beyond a 1 vs 1 is what I call a "set-match", and is really not a duel in the classic sense. The more you expand from the traditional 1 vs 1 in terms of plurality of participants, variations of altitude and aircraft the more you are emulating the MA obviously. The more the 'set-match' is setup to emulate the MA the less it is a duel and therefore the more skills from the MA skill-set apply to it.

For example, if duelling in dissimilar planes (which is the exception) you can strike off the list the part about maximizing and minimizing relative strengths/weaknesses of aircraft.

I didn't say there is no consideration for E management when duelling. I said the more turns the duel goes the more it progressively devolves into angles then ultimately stall-fighting. Once you get to the point of a stall-fight all residual vestiges of E management as a consideration are gone for all practical purposes.

I fail to see how planes equipped with enough ammunition to drop 5-10 planes in the MA do not make spray and praying at every possible fleeting crossing shot opportunity a practical thing to do when duelling 1 vs 1. In the vast majority of the duels I've done or filmed, people take shots they would not ever think of wasting the ammunition on if the same fight were happening in the MA. But, since they have a practically infinite ammoload when applied against a single aircraft it's logical to hose around a fair bit on those poor crossing shots in the hopes of knocking off a control surface.

[Steve]

Spraying will kill you quickly in a well matched duel. Good aim is essential
 

Aww hogwash.  Since it's 1v1 you can hold the trigger down any time you think you might have a gun solution on your enemy. Since there will be no other combat in the flight, there's no need to conserve ammo. 

[2bighorn]

I didn't say there is no consideration for E management when duelling. I said the more turns the duel goes the more it progressively devolves into angles then ultimately stall-fighting. Once you get to the point of a stall-fight all residual vestiges of E management as a consideration are gone for all practical purposes.

I think the slower you are the more important E management becomes. This is equally valid for MA an DA. It is easy to manage E when you have loads of it. It gets trickier when you have almost none.

I fail to see how planes equipped with enough ammunition to drop 5-10 planes in the MA do not make spray and praying at every possible fleeting crossing shot opportunity a practical thing to do when duelling. In the vast majority of the duels I've done or filmed, people take shots they would not ever think of wasting the ammunition on if the same fight were happening in the MA. But, since they have a practically infinite ammoload when applied against a single aircraft it's logical to hose around a fair bit on those poor crossing shots in the hopes of knocking off a control surface.

Simply because shooting (taking extra lead to aim) will spoil your angles and if you miss, you'll most likely be shot in the next turn. From my personal experience, I take shots in MA I'd never take in a duel.

[2bighorn]

Aww hogwash.  Since it's 1v1 you can hold the trigger down any time you think you might have a gun solution on your enemy. Since there will be no other combat in the flight, there's no need to conserve ammo. 

Try it

[Zazen13]

I think the slower you are the more important E management becomes. This is equally valid for MA an DA. It is easy to manage E when you have loads of it. It gets trickier when you have almost none.

Simply because shooting (taking extra lead to aim) will spoil your angles and if you miss, you'll most likely be shot in the next turn. From my personal experience, I take shots in MA I'd never take in a duel.

I disagree with you. The less relative E you have the more important angles become as your options to use E to maneuver radically in order to create angles decrease progressively to the point where E can't be converted to angles at all and you are now stallfighting. The lower your E state the less you have to lose, relatively speaking, by sacraficing Energy for an angle even if it means eroding your E state further toward a pure stallfight where there is no excess energy to manage at all.

As far as the shooting thing goes, what you may do and what almost every other person I've ever seen duel does are apparently completely different. I've even had people comment after a duel that they specifically hosed around with their MG's to attempt to force a mistake or plink off a control surface while, in the process, dumping their excess ammunition to lighten their plane.

[2bighorn]

I disagree with you. The less relative E you have the more important angles become as your options to use E to maneuver create angles decrease progressively to the point where E can't be converted to angles at all and you are now stallfighting. The lower your E state the less you have to lose, relatively speaking, by sacraficing Energy for an angle even if it means eroding your E state further toward a pure stallfight where there is no excess energy to manage at all.

We'll have to agree on disagreeing.

As far as the shooting thing goes, what you may do and what almost every other person I've ever seen duel does are apparently completely different. I've even had people comment after a duel that they specifically hosed around with their MG's to attempt to force a mistake or plink off a control surface while dumping the excess ammunition to lighten their plane.

Spraying is always sign of desperation, either in DA or in MA. If a guy is spraying in DA he'll do the same in MA.

Maybe some are unloading ammo in DA before merge, but I have rarely seen a decent stick spraying in a duel.