HTC, High Alt Flak

[Yeager]

The high alt (88mm?) is not working well.

I have flown right through these ack clouds
and never even taken a ping on three dozen occasions.  One several other occasions I have blown up completely. There is no in between.

What I want to say is that I should be taking plenty of hits from metal splinters resulting in some consequential damage with the much rarer direct hit.

High alt flak is quite fubar'd right now, please make it a more useful experience if possible.

Thnx,
Yeager

[TheWobble]

I agree, yer either fine, or your in the tower.

[Jimdandy]

 

Originally posted by TheWobble:
I agree, yer either fine, or your in the tower.

Yep seems to be no in between. How about the ack memory. There a 10 other planes over the CV but you step back into the ack and BANG it's on you immediately. It's like it's been tracking you and even though it has other people to shoot at because you got away the first time it's been waiting for you. LOL! I'm a paranoid? Should I step outside my door for fear of the ack? It's still pissed because I got away. LOL

[bertie]

Yeah, i noticed that the hi alt flak is a bit strange... plz allow me to illustrate

say that muzzle velocity is 1000 ft/sec.  if you are flying at 10000ft that means that the shell will take at least 10 sec to reach you.  that means the guns have to predict your flight path by at least 10 seconds.

However, i noticed before that the flak tracks any changes in flight path INSTANTLY.  change speed, direction or altitude and the flak should march on for at least 10 seconds in the last direction it was tracking you.

this is a very simplified look at it but if i am on the right track then this is a problem...

[flakbait]

Well, I saw something recently that was really odd. I raided a radar factory with a Zeke offline. After my usual climb to 12k I headed out at cruising power. Once I got over the factory I counted 5 flak bursts before I was blown to bits. Re-upped and tried again; 7 flak bursts before KABOOM! Hmmm, hitting a Zeke at 12k within 10 shots...gotta be a record of some kind. Another case happened in H2H last week. I'm in a 109 G6 at 28k just snooping around the map when ack opens up on me. I stay level, and on auto, just to see if what they say is true; don't maneuver and you might not get hit. ERRRRRR, try again. Just over 400mph indicated and BLAM! I get nailed.
By contrast these guys can't hit the broad side of a B-17 at 9k.

There's got to be a middle ground on this. Fighters get whacked at hideous altitudes while BUFFs are rarely hit. What happens? Does the CO of the ack battery order up the crew with coke-bottle glasses when BUFFs show up?


-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta 6's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb
 

[TheWobble]

"say that muzzle velocity is 1000 ft/sec. if you are flying at 10000ft that means that the shell will take at least 10 sec to reach you. that means the guns have to predict your flight path by at least 10 seconds."

Well bert, there is NO travle time, in fact nothing actually shoots the flak, it just appears if flak guns are around.  The actual guns dont even shoot anything.  Thts why it seems there is no travle time, because there isnt any.

[Spatula]

I took 2 pings last night from otto fleet ack without any damage. I have taken pings before without damage. But, your right yeager, when it does do damage, i puts you back in the tower, no real damage per se, rather insta-death (tm).

And i still think they can track you far too well.

[This message has been edited by Spatula (edited 02-12-2001).]

[Mitsu]

88mm Flak could shoot B-17 which flies on 38000ft.  

I saw that.

[lemur]

Well a few things about real ack:

1) Yeah, it had a flight time of about 1000 FPS so it was a matter of leading the aircraft by a large margin.
2) They had to time the fuses right so the ack would burst at the correct altitude / distance.
3) Just like artillery batteries they had to use spotters ( radar later on) to home in on their targets.

So in theory, if you varied your speed & flight direction and alt, the ack would never home in on you. Then again, a lone buff flying straight and level would die as soon as they homed in on the correct range & speed.

And obviously, certain evasives would work better than others. Historically fighters would dive down to throw off the timing of the fuses, since the fuse timing was harder to adjust than where the gun was pointing.

I like the idea of ack the gradually homes in on you until you start doing evasives. It would start off far away, and gradually get closer. When you start hearing pings it's time to change alt!

~Lemur

[J_A_B]

It seems like the 88's are programmed identically to AW's ack--

The guns don't actually shoot, the puffs just appear around whatever plane it has targeted.   It can track you perfectly no matter what you do, once again because the puffs appear around the targeted plane--so in reality there is no tracking involved.  When it hits you it tends to do massive damage.   The ack accuracy is controlled by a broad "accuracy % chance" setting in arena setup.   Finally, the visible puffs are just for the eye candy, and do not show whether you get hit or not--the actual "bullet" is invisible.

Sounds a lot like AH acks?   Well, I just described the acks from AW.  Sounds like similar programming to me.

J_A_B

[lemur]

Probably is the same sort of algorhythm in all the major sims.

After all, great minds thing alike (or is that idiots seldom disagree   ?)

Still, they've done a great job with the field gunners, making them so that you can fool them pretty well with some well-done jinking. So why not the acks?

Similar code, but with a programmed 'ack target' that chases the plane around based on where it's going to be (distance in feet / 1000) seconds from now. It calculates that point and then magically puts some ack bursts there later.

i.e. An ack burst is an object that explodes x seconds after it's created (similar to the bomb code?) at a certain point in space.

The ack burst generator just 'predicts' where the plane will be in (distance /1000) seconds and then spawns ack bursts there with an appropreate  delay.

Throw in a bit of code that slowly improves the prediction algorhythm (Just ask HT, and I'll write it up in pseudocode   ) over time and you have realistic ack!

~Lemur


[This message has been edited by lemur (edited 02-20-2001).]