Ack is murderous.

[daddog]

The 332nd flew it's first mission today in the Special Events Arena.  

On our 2nd run we made a low level strike in B-26's to the city East of F9. We poped up to about 3k and went to our bomb sights. Not one bomber survived the strike due to the ack, and only one made a drop. Ack killed everyone else before we could even drop.  

Will low level strike ever be possible with this kind of ack?  Doubt it unless you do a high level strike prior. Thoughts of Polesti come to mind and I don't ever see that happening unless the ack is toned down.

On top of that unless I am rolling at 400 mph plus I can't even seem to survive a straffing run over a field.

Just my observations.  

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daddog C.O.
332nd Flying Mongrels

[This message has been edited by daddog (edited 04-02-2000).]

[funked]

I sure hope it gets fixed soon.

[Citabria]

ack is rough, especially when you experience a reset and the ack erupts under your newly captured base which was given back to the same team you captured it from. hehe

[MANDOBLE]

I supposed ack was 12.7mm weapons like those of the P51. Flying P51 I need to concentrate the fire one second or more on the enemy to do any substantial damage, but actually, 3 or 4 pings of the ack fire can make you a wingless pilot. And as you move fast near the enemy base, the ack can't concentrate the fire in a single point of your plane like a P51 can do. So, IMO, ack has actually much bigger caliber than P51 machineguns, or its initial proyectile speed is much higher.
If you try to attack those acks with a fighter using your guns will result with you killed 90% of times, and using rockets will result with 99% of missed targets (you'll need a direct hit). Those acks are not armoured Tigers, so, a near hit of a rocket should put the ack crew out of action, at least for several seconds or minutes.

[AKDejaVu]

I don't know if ack should go down from a near miss, but it should wander.  I can't immagine any grunt wouldn't bobble just a bit with an explosion happening just 50 yards away.

I also wish there were some way to add a tad bit of randomness to the ack.  To actually have "missing".  Right now the ack will hit you if you have the same flight path/speed for x amount of seconds (no more than 2 I'm sure).

On the other side of the coin.  Any changes to the way ack works against low level cons is going to promote vulching.  The downside to having ack be anything less than perfect is exploitation by some or most of the players.  If you create any kind of loophole, people are going to take advantage of it.  If a bomber can come in and take out ack from 1k, you will see numerous bomber/47 flights take out bases in less than 10 seconds.  I guarantee it.

So, given the lesser of two evils... I'll have to say keep the ack the way it is.  Give people other targets to low level bomb.  A bunch of cons in a canyon with the ack on the ridges where the planes can fly below the ridge line would be cool.  Something that encourages NOE flying for survival.... maybe a dam or something.

BTW... I'm also for making ack more difficult to hit from altitude.  As long as a bomber can take out an ack from 30k with 1 bomb this game will suffer somewhat.

AKDejaVu

[popeye]

While I like to jabo as much as the next guy, I'm with Dejavu on this one.  Making it easier to capture fields would do more to hurt the game than uber acks do now.

I hope we're going to see major changes in gameplay in 1.02, with halftracks, increased ordinace damage radius, and killable spawn points.

popeye

[Chain]

Ack... the only thing I REALLY hate in this game. I hope they fix it soon !  


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Chain
Aki Holopainen
      aki.holopainen@quicknet.inet.fi      
HLeLv FennoManiacs

[This message has been edited by Chain (edited 04-03-2000).]

[daddog]

AKDejaVu, popeye, I hear you and judging by your posts you both know a lot more than me. I have to say though if your concerned about vulching and that is your reason for keeping up the super ack would it not be prudent to just switch fields if your getting vulched (lots of aircraft were strafed on the ground and on take off). I know I am not saying anything you don't know. I just don't really understand your reasons.

How about these solution:

1. Make all the ack human just like HTC did with our gunners.  

or

2. Dial down the ack to a more realistic accuracy and then once an ack is down a little trooper comes running out of the barracks to set up another ack. Those flying low can choose between strafing the little troopers running to set up another ack, or strafing planes taking off. If several ack are down there will be several men running to make more.  

Keeping the ack as is will keep Aces High from developing all types of air combat. One of which is the ground attack.

Just my nickels worth.  

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daddog C.O.
332nd Flying Mongrels

[Yeager]

I dunno, supposing I can get some ground elevation in my Panzer, how many shots of 75mm would I have to make before killing the ack?

I think the designers intent was to force teamwork by getting buffs, C47s and fighters
to work together across several layers to capture a field.  Stick around, it will change.

Yeager

[Fatty]

The problem is Daddog, if a team is a little down, it would be very possible to vultch every field they have left.  It's actually loosely possible with the ack we have now, but less so because most pilots are afraid of it.  It's not unstoppable, it's divebombable, it's quite limited in range but it's strong enough to give pilots room to take off (forcing circlers to wait until they reach 1k alt before swooping through and killing).  Realism has to give way to gameplay at some point (are you not glad we can play even after we die?).

By the way, I'm no historical expert, but would a bombing run 3k over Berlin have survived (from what little I've seen on this, escort fighters actually went around the target areas and met up with the bombers on the other side, because they would be dead)?



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Fatty
FAT DRUNK BASTARDS

[daddog]

Yeager, fatty, I see your point. Make sense to me your line of thinking. I am sure AK and pop were saying the samething, but it was not sinking in.

Just wish there was a better way than leaving it as is. I still think human ack or visual men running to repair/set up could be an answer. I hope HTC comes up with something that is reasonable to most of us.  



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daddog C.O.
332nd Flying Mongrels
Where men become friends and friends become brothers.

[AKDejaVu]

 

I still think human ack or visual men running to repair/set up could be an answer.

WHOA! WAIT A MINUTE! Nobody mentioned human ack.  I can't even begin to get across how AGAINST this I am.  In a game where people play to win, someone will inevitably hop into an ack position and not use it.... just sit there so it doesn't shoot at whomever is capping the base.  3 people wouldn't even need a bomber... just 1 47 flying from base to base.  I am totally against player manned ack for this reason.

As for the people running out to bring the ack back up... sure.. this would be great.  But it doesn't really adress the problem of killin the ack initially wich seems to be the major tone of this thread.

I do think it should be more possible to kill ack at low level (like a 50/50 chance) and less likely at alt (like a 20% chance if 1 bomb is dropped... higher the more that are dropped).

AKDejaVu

[funked]

I'd settle for more acks that had a more realistic amount of accuracy and firepower.  If I wanted to fly against a ZSU-23 I'd play Falcon 4...

[K-KEN]

I won't begin to touch this issue, except to say....ack Kills!  Now that you know that...make the necessary adjustments to counter it's effectiveness.  This isn't rocket science!  Make an ACK RUN, then a low run to finish the base/facility off.  
I am sure the pilots in WWII would have loved to avoid ack.....merely because it was 8K.....do we turn off realism, or do we want to keep some part of it here?  There has to be a setting that meets a middle ground.  8K is cool.  In WWII, where was the ack range?  Anyone know?  I know....don't reply-just for that reason alone.  But consider 15K + and ask yourself...maybe a variable ack alt might be considered too, and changed daily!  
I can hardly wait!


K-KEN


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