Author Topic: Single ping killing AAA - WHY? (Read 298 times)

Tac · « **on:** February 23, 2001, 12:02:00 AM »

I just need to know the reason behind this. Now the AA dont follow you with laser guidance as before, a huge improvement that does simulate, if at least in a minuscule way, the gunners missing/tracking the target.

But what's up with this single ping kill thing? Ack hugging has been exponentially encouraged, jabo attacks are almost unsurvivable and even worse, the game now allows the players to move mobile nests of single ping AAA across the seas with those fleet task forces.

The Flak needs to be fixed, desperataly. The AAA needs to be fixed desperately. We are fighting AI, not another person.

IMHO, fields should have ack ONLY to defend against goons, troops and m3's. If someone wants to keep their base, they should defend it themselves (manning ack, upping gv's or planes). Tone down the AA or make it fire to 3k alt only, this ack hugging and AI dependancy is just ludicrous.

Gameplay has been shot to hell, literally. Now people RELY on the AI to save their tulips instead of using their own skill or a buddy. This is becoming EVERQUEST -WW2 A/C mod.

[This message has been edited by Tac (edited 02-23-2001).]

funked · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2001, 12:19:00 AM »

Some of the AAA is 40 mm and 88 mm. I'm pretty sure those are the ones killing you with one hit.

gatt · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2001, 07:15:00 AM »

This ack-ack/flak thing is becoming more and more annoying. Yesterday a (big field) flak followed me for 6-8 miles (I was about 10K high) even if there were 4-5 mates between me and the field (at about the same alt). Hope HTC will fix the whole thing (CV ack included) with the 1.06 release. Really.

Fury · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2001, 09:59:00 AM »

Yesterday I bombed a "P" field from 12k.

I made 4 (four) straight and level 150mph passes of the field at 12k. Single-salvo drops each time.

The flak burst all around me all four passes. It *never* pinged me until I decided to test it and turned slightly while outbound on one pass with the flak still firing on me. Then it did ping me, once, but stopped pinging me when I straightened back out.

What I don't understand is that I can make four 12k passes in a 150mph B26 and never be touched by the flak guns. And the ping I did get was nothing, no damage at all.

However, when jabo-ing, I have to agree that the field ack is simple to fool but that first ping is a deadly one -- that is, if I let it ping me. Usually my engine, oil, etc but never a single-ping kill.

Fury

Tac · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2001, 10:13:00 AM »

88mm is FLAK. It does have the right to kill a fighter with one hit, but its tracking is FUBAR.

The AAA seems to be composed entirely of 75mm cannons. Ive only ONCE survived a ping by an ack, and that was because it took off my wing and I managed to ditch, the rest it has been insta-kill.

I would prefer to have the AAA fire a LOT of tracers and do DAMAGE instead of single ping killing. How about a 30 cal ammo for those acks?

CavemanJ · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2001, 11:28:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by funked:
Some of the AAA is 40 mm and 88 mm. I'm pretty sure those are the ones killing you with one hit.

<ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ>
Wrong answer!

I've gone in on a JABO run, 450+ mph diving on a hanger, on a field with only TWO ack left up, and they were small caliber gun. Medium field, gun closet to the FH and the SE most gun, niether of which are 40mm guns. And no 88mm guns at a medium field.

Dropped my eggs and dinnae get a chance to start any kind of pullout. CRACK! left wing is GONE and I go spinning in.

flakbait · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2001, 11:41:00 AM »

<thumps Cave with rubber chicken>

Try again Bwana. The SE ack is a quad .50 cal, but the ack nearest the FH is a 40mm gun. How do I know? I've still got Glars old maps of the fields. Just S of the FH there's a gun, it's a 40mm gun. I've taken solid hits from 40mm guns in a Typhoon and never taken damage. Sometimes I'll get whacked and the engine will die, or my precious oil will be blown. Try a little test offline by turning the ack lethality down to 50% of normal. It makes it quite nice for surviving ack strikes.

You can actually take a few 20mm or quad .50 hits and live with just about anything. Although this has the side effect of the 40mm being nerfed. I've nailed all the ack at a port once, took at least 10 hits from 40mm guns, and lived. This was in a B-26, not a fighter. If you could set the lethality of each gun individually for H2H or offline it would help. Plus scenarios would be a little more realistic. 40mm guns could still kill with one ping, but you could tone the .50 cal and 20mm ack down a smidge.

-----------------------
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

MiG Eater · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2001, 01:12:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by gatt:
Yesterday a (big field) flak followed me for 6-8 miles (I was about 10K high) even if there were 4-5 mates between me and the field (at about the same alt).

Isn't it possible that a manned AAA gun could become target fixated as well?

MiG

Tac · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2001, 02:20:00 PM »

The point is we are fighting AI, and depending on AI. Its ridiculous. I KNOW that if someone is stupid enough to follow me into ack, I will get a manouver kill. So why the hell ACM? Just show him my 6 and dive. Some people have turned this into an art.

In the other guy's shoes, he is playing to have air combat with me... he flew 1 sector to get to me, we meet at 10k, I lose a little advantage and sees me run to ack. So what then? Circle field till I leave? Bloody unlikely. Run out of gas or wait for higher cons to arrive or what? Its this BS that makes most people, me included, give a damn about dying to ack in that case. I am playing this game to fight someone else not the godlike, all following ack and FLAK AI.

If buff guns are tweaked for gameplay, I say tweak the AAA for gameplay too. Make them non-lethal unless you receive a serious dose of lead from them. That should be enough to discourage goons and m3's, and be a threat to fighters, not a death warrant.

30 cals in the AA would do quite nicely.

Flakbait: Buffs are the only things that can survive hits from the AAA, albeit a few hits only. A fighter breaks apart with one ping. Last time I saw, my P-38 of P-47 could take 1 20mm hit on the wing or 4 .50's on the fuselage and not break into a fireball. The AA seems to fire the same ammo as the Ostwinds, you hear the same ping noise, the same 1 ping kill.

20mm, quad .50's? Yah right.

[This message has been edited by Tac (edited 02-23-2001).]

Jekyll · « **Reply #9 on:** February 24, 2001, 06:56:00 AM »

Well, if the field is being attacked from a close-in CV, the defenders have no option OTHER than to ack hug.

As soon as they grab over 3000 feet the fleet ack swats them out of the sky!

So you finish with defenders clustered over the field at 2,900 feet, unwilling to climb further or even go vertical during a maneuver for fear they will break the magical 3000 foot limit.

------------------
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Chapter 13, verse 11

flakbait · « **Reply #10 on:** February 24, 2001, 06:54:00 PM »

This was an odd one. I went ack killing offline for some practice after turning up the ack lethality to normal. I was doing this in an La-5, and took off for A61. On my first pass I got the VH ack, second pass I got 2 acks on the VH side of the field. Then I went around in a flat turn and heard a single "BANG". I don't know what hit me, but there wasn't any damage. The ping flash showed up in the cockpit, so I thought it had nailed my belly.

I came back around after the offending ack gun, killed it, and took another hit. This one hit my fuel tank and started a fire. "Ok, time to gain some alt and distance, then bail" is what I'm thinking. Then my wing falls off. No ping, no bang, it just fell off. Weird to say the least. I went back, again in an La-5, to de-ack the place. On my first run I took a round right into the engine. It kept running, and no damage showed up on the list. I turned around and went after the 40mm gun near the FH. I took two hits, which again hit my fuel tank and started a fire. I also lost my engine.

So I decided to glide out of ack range and bail out. Plans were cut short when the entire tail fell off. No ping, no bang, the darn thing fell off just like my wing. Could be one of those one-shot things that happens, or a bug. I just don't know.

-----------------------
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

Sabre · « **Reply #11 on:** March 07, 2001, 11:37:00 AM »

Well, field ack accuracy seems to have gone up recently, too. I usually manage to drop my bomb or strafe the ack I'm after, but am killed by the one-ping death on pull out (despite manuevering out of plane to throw the AI's aim off). More often than not, it's one-pass, one-ping, one "we regret to inform you" letter to next of kin.

------------------
Sabre (a.k.a. Rojo)

Graywolf · « **Reply #12 on:** March 07, 2001, 12:20:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by flakbait:

[SNIP]

This one hit my fuel tank and started a fire. "Ok, time to gain some alt and distance, then bail" is what I'm thinking. Then my wing falls off. No ping, no bang, it just fell off. Weird to say the least.

[SNIP]

I took two hits, which again hit my fuel tank and started a fire. I also lost my engine.

So I decided to glide out of ack range and bail out. Plans were cut short when the entire tail fell off. No ping, no bang, the darn thing fell off just like my wing. Could be one of those one-shot things that happens, or a bug. I just don't know.

When your plane catches fire the fire will continue to do damage to various bits of your plane (I would suspect which bits of the [lane would depend on where the fire is, the graphics seem to always display the fire as coming from the center fusalage for me). When that damage becomes enough the affected part will fail. There will be no 'ping' as nothing has actually hit you.

If your plane catches fire to need to get out ASAP (in real life I doubt you'd hang around either). From my own experience fighters tend to lose something major within 30-40 seconds of catching fire.

------------------
Graywolfe <tim@flibble.org>

Swoop · « **Reply #13 on:** March 07, 2001, 01:49:00 PM »

See this:
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum1/HTML/008408.html

[This message has been edited by Swoop (edited 03-07-2001).]

TheWobble · « **Reply #14 on:** March 07, 2001, 03:55:00 PM »

Yesterday i was leading a mission to A18 in a P-38 and after dropping bombs i began to climb, at about 6k i got 1 ping and BOTH engines on my 38 died, for a second i thought i was out of fuel because they shut off at the exact same time, but wasnt, as i began tu turn to glide it away i got a second ping and the whole back of the plane was gone.

Now it WASNT an 88 , they were not even firing at that point so if it was a 40mm:
A: how can 1 bullet kill both engines that are on opposite sides of the plane at the same time?

B: how can 1 bullet (EVEN 40MM) rip the entire back of a P-38 off?

Now dont give me that "not every round is a tracer" crap i wasnt counting visible shots, i was counting HITS, i know how many times i got hit. Cant really chalk it up to lag either seeing as how I usually have about 35 ping to AH server.

Author Topic: Single ping killing AAA - WHY? (Read 298 times)

funked

TheWobble