Fed up with Super Buff Gunners

[Cobra]

 

Originally posted by RAM:
Cave then explain me how a B26 was able to hit me at 1.8k 3 months ago. THe post is here somewhere, the guy ADMITED having hit me at 1.8K

 [This message has been edited by RAM (edited 07-21-2000).]

Ram,
1 incident in all of the sorties that you fly....lets not blow the exception up so much that it is perceived as the rule.

Put it in perspective.  Buffs can be shot down..they can be shot down alot!  I like the balance now.  The buff drivers have a fighting chance at survival, but in the end, a smart fighter will always do them in, period.

Take away the buffs ability to defend itself EFFECTIVELY and you will rarely see a buff in the air.  From a gameplay standpoint, buffs need this balance.  You simply cannot get enough buff drivers together to make a combat box on a raid.

I don't know, to me, its a game.  I learn to adapt to it.  I get some kills, I get killed.  I just try to have fun and play the hand that is dealt.  If a better card game comes along, I might move tables, but so far, the dealer at this table has been good to me.

Cobra

[Fishu]

 

Originally posted by flakbait:
Now that I've got time in an M16 I can throw in what I've seen/done. Yesterday I nailed a N1K closing at 1.5k, only took 400 rounds of .50 cal fire. I fired 400 rounds, hit mostly on his right wing and blew it off. Here's the clincher; I actually WATCHED 30 some-odd hit flashes on him. 30 some-odd direct hits with quad M2HB .50 calibers and his wing was blown off.

Now to this morning: I hit another N1K, this time at 1.1k and WATCHED only 15 hit flashes or so. Guess what happened...go on, guess.
Nope, blew off BOTH wings plus his vert stab. Total rounds fired? 140.

As a contrast, I blasted a Panzer with .50 cals in an M16. Took 500 rounds, most of 'em direct hits, but I killed him. Blew of a track first then BOOM! Now here's another funny part; this morning I hit a Panzer 5 times with HE ammo....no damage. How do I know? I asked him on channel 1. He heard all 5 pings, but no damage was reported.

Either AH is going buggo or the Net was bad this morning. I know the Net wasn't bad, cause everyone was flying nice with no warps.
And the guy who I shot 5 times has a cable modem, he said "No problems on my end, yours?". I had no problems either.

Seems the guns, damage, and hardness need a bad re-work. Maybe change around the dispersion a bit too; not much, just a bit.

Flakbait

When I did do tests with latest 1.03, I we're droning in a buff and took 2-8 30mm rounds on me to die (avg. 5 hits), I shot that guy with 3 bullets from my rear turret (with just those twin .50s) and his wing blew off, began burning and saw some other smoke too, possibly from engine (I hit his wing around in the middle, but hits were fairly far spaced on the wing)
But then I did that test on purpose, he flew 80 yards behind and I pinged him about 15 times before something critical happend (though, engine seemed to get failure almost everytime within 3 hits, even if hit was in the tail, I once told him to drive aside, I shot his tail for 15-20 times before critical failure came - but his engine got oil hit after second hit in tail)
When I flew P-47 and were gun happy with eight .50s, it seemed weaker.. (even N1K2 took bunch of hits in the wing.. like 10-15 and still flew like nothing)
Though, once one zeke took bunch of hits from my B-17 from 1.3-1.7k, caught oil leak but kept flying for next 5 minutes, but, too slow .. lol

[Weave]

  I fly the Nik alot cause I seem to get along with it the best of all the fighters in the set. Now my gunnery skills are not very good. (actually they suck) (52 year old eyes and all) But on the few occasions when I have been able to score multiple hits on a B-17 with the Nik's 20mm cannon I usually get the satisfaction of makeing an engine or two smoke. Rarely does the bird go down. (at least while I am still alive)
  One or two pings from the B-17 50 cal gun and one of my wings is usually flying past my canopy and down I go.
  Be patient I tell myself, take some time to set up the attack. Well folks the only way to get an advantage in a 1 on 1 attack on a buff is to get lucky and catch him with his face in the bomb sight. I have chased bombers for next to 20 minutes and not been able to get an advantage. (hmmm, light fast manouverable fighter, out manouverd by heavy slow bomber? could something be amiss here?)
  A large bomber like the B-17 should be tough for a single fighter to knock down in one pass. It should take a number of passes, or a well placed volly in a critical area.
  I don't mind so much that his 50s do so much more damage than my 20mm cannons, (my Nik has taken multiple hits from a 51 with far less damage than 1 or 2 from a bomber) I just think that the bombers are far to manouverable.
  Even with my poor gunnery, I have killed a P-51, and a Fw-190 from the cockpit sight of a B-26. Before you claim I suprized them, know that they had a ton of tracer going by them before I scored any hits. (piss poor shot, remember)
  In short, turn down the manouverability a bit, otherwise leave em alone.
  For now, still the best sim out there, I'm havin a blast...

...Weav

[RAM]

 

Originally posted by Cobra:

Ram,
1 incident in all of the sorties that you fly....lets not blow the exception up so much that it is perceived as the rule.

Sorry no, it is a regular happening to me, when I go fast to win 1 or 11 position on a buff and I surpass it at say 1.7-1.8K I get pings (and quite a lot for those distances) even If I dont fly straight. What happens is that time I had film on so I had the proof. And I wasnt used to the uberbuff fire. now I am used to it so I dont start yelling each time it happens.

But for sure is not a strange happening. It in fact happens way too much times.

[Pavel]

My experience is that the key to attacking AH bombers is CLOSURE- reduce the range as rapidly as possible.
Mix some angle in with the closure and the odds shift heavily in favor of the fighter.  
I think the current bomber model is fine for the main arena.  However, IF bombers are intentionally overmodelled for main arena playability, then I think it'd be a good idea for CM's to be able to select a historical model for use in scenarios or other historical events.

[Pyro]

 

Originally posted by -towd_:
lol didnt pyro say the buff and fighter 50s are the same lol lol lol lol  ahhem   roadkill.  and once again roadkill . do you play the game pyro?

Excuse me!?  You know, I don't need this crap.  If that's what you think, do yourself and everyone else a favor and find another pastime.  A monthly subscription doesn't include us putting up with personal attacks, ad hominem arguments, and any other means you can think of to try to drive a wedge between players and developers.  



------------------
Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations

[Tac]

When a B-17 strayed away from its bomber formation, it was in SERIOUS trouble when one or 2 fighters attacked it.

This was in RL, with a plane that had human gunners on EACH gun.

Yet here we see a Buff laughing off attacking fighters because all the possible guns are aimed at the exact same point where the human gunner is aiming. So the 2 .50's of a tail gun magically become 4 . 50's if the attacking fighter is a bit above the exact 6 of the buff (or below it), and god forbid, if the bomber TURNS and tilts to one side you are suddenly faced with incoming fire of EIGHT .50's all aimed at the exact same spot as the human gunner's 2 .50's are hitting. Momma! Talk about convergence!

Not to mention that when you manage to be on the perfect 6 cloc position and get a GOOD burst of 4 .50's and one 20 mm cannon into the tail of the buff, you dont knock out the tail gun! I can believe that the gun itself isnt damaged, but the gunner? He should become a splat on the rear of that buff.

All these things have made me sick just to think on attacking a buff. So I dont even try any more to set up an attack or what not. I will just go in guns blazing and hope to blow it up, rip a wing or RAM it once the single-mega-ping of death makes my plane spin. If the whole point is to stop the buff from bombing, I have no problem to just go in and ram it out of the sky.

I climbed in 5 minutes, he has been climbing for an hour. Would I be annoyed if I was a buff? hell yeah. But then again, the LW did create squadrons of Fw190's whose sole mission was to ram the tail stabilizers out of the b-17s.

So far, this is the only solution I can think of for this problem. Tactics, high speed attacks are all fine and dandy, but they dont work when ONE lucky ping from the gunner means you got hit by more than the 2 .50's the human gunner should be firing at you is just plain ridiculous imho.

And to those that say that a fighter should not solo a buff I say: Why should a buff solo a bunch of fighters? I mean, Cmon! If we are forced to gang up on a buff just to be able to kill it, just to have a CHANCE of killing it and living to tell about it; why shouldnt buffs also be forced to fly in numbers so that they also have a chance of doing their job and surviving? Hey wait a minute.. thats how it really was!  

Rooks and Bish have done WONDERFUL formations of buffs. I would think twice before attacking a formation of 3 B-17's even if I had my wingman with me and had an alt advantage.

[Toad]

Well, Staga, here I go again...putting on my "yes" man hat.

Gentlemen, and I use that turn imploringly, am I the only one here that has noticed that replies from Grapevine are begining to show a bit of heat?

I think it's quite understandable, given the way complaints are made here. There ARE too many direct, vehement attacks on the people that make our fun possible.

WHY are you doing this? Did you never learn to make calm, rational statements? Can't you discuss things in a genteel way?

I don't think most of you have a clue as to the amount of work these people have done and are doing. Over the past 7-8 years I was privileged to write about computer games and was able to visit some flight sim design offices.

The workload and pressure is incredible! Just when you think you've got it made some little company like dFx upsets the entire apple cart and your code is worthless. I visited the Falcon 4.0 team right after another 3D card revolution basically turned 8 months of work to spit. Not many smiles for a while.

Did I mention the customers are never happy? Have you noticed that new flight sim releases don't seem as numerous as they used to be? I've talked to many, many marketing guys that told me this genre isn't worth the grief. You can't get good "word of mouth" going because you can NEVER satisfy the oh so vocal "hard core". As a result....fewer big sellers...fewer flight sims.

These guys have given us a pretty fine sim for what I consider an unbelieveable price. It's not perfect, but have they ever stopped improving it since it went beta? Do they fix what's wrong pretty fast? Do they listen?

Be thankful for what we've got. A team that likes what you like and is doing their damnedest to make it even better.

Sure, you have a right to complain and criticize and suggest.

Can you just do it in a civilized manner? Is that asking too bloody much? Why does it have to always be accusatory?

For the record, I've never met anyone on the HTC team in person. I don't work for them either.

As I said in another post, I'm just damn glad that somebody that can write programs so enthusiastically shares my interest. Because then I can enjoy trying to blow you guys out of the sky!

Now show a little respect for the guys that make this all possible! Please!

[This message has been edited by Toad (edited 07-25-2000).]

[Westy]

 Toad, that'll get you at least one beer from me should we ever meet at an AH Con  

 Well said.

-Westy

[Torque]

I like it just the way it is nice balance between historical and playable <S> HTC.The B17s need a wet bar tho!

[Lephturn]

Damn towd... that was really rude, and completely baseless to boot.

I have never seen or even heard of a game where the developers are as involved and responsive as Aces High.  Period.

I respect the time they put into answering questions and dealing with the community.

towd, you are simply bad for the community, and I sincerely hope Pyro removes you from it, including this BBS.  If you were gone, maybe Pyro would have slightly more time to answer some legitimate questions, or read some valid feedback.  All things he spends an amazing amount of time doing now I might add, given that this whole thing is run by about SIX people.

Pyro you are 100% right, you don't have to put up with his crap.  He falls outside of the window of customer service, and is a disruptive force in the community.  Terminate him I say.

------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com


"My P-47 is a pretty good ship, she took a round coming 'cross the Channel last trip.
Just thinking 'bout my baby and lettin' her rip, always got me through so far."
 - Steve Earl

[Cobra]

 

Originally posted by Tac:
 why shouldnt buffs also be forced to fly in numbers so that they also have a chance of doing their job and surviving? Hey wait a minute.. thats how it really was!  

Ok Tac..you want real life....here goes, In real life, you didn't get the choice of flying a fighter or a buff.   So you want buffs to fly in packs...then when you log on you get assigned to buffs (unless ofcourse you fail the flight physical or can't qualify even for buff flying so now you are assigned as a gunner, no piloting period, like real life) until there are enough on to make formations.  Then the fighter ranks can be filled.

Its done for playibility simply because the numbers and interest is not high enough to get the numbers to man huge formations of bombers.  How hard is that to understand.  Fly Buffs for a while and see.  

Cobra

[Tac]

Cobra, I do fly them from time to time. And I feel like a god when I can ping fighter after fighter out of the sky.  

Cobra, I aint asking for huge formation. 3 17's have a very good chance of surviving a fighter attack.

I understand why this was done to buffs to improve their "playability", but it has completely ruined the buff experience for me. When I fly it, I can get lotsa kills, and most of them quite undeserved because I have a huge advantage with my turbolasers. Why do you think ackstars are so hateful? they barely take off and they are a menace, i've seen 2 ackstars clean the CAP off a base in less than 2 minutes!

Check the other buff thread. Some people have said that just making the buff more strong and withstand more damage would be preferable over superguns. And I agree with that.

[CptTrips]

Well, hehe, I don't think they're quite "that" bad.

But they can be a little too dangerous.


I would recommend the following:

1.  Leave the current max effective range advantage for the tail gun.

2.  Decrease the range advantage mostly for the waist, ball, and top turrent guns.  About 1/2 the range advantage they have now.

3.  Front and cheek guns get no range advantage.

4.  Add gun shake effect (per SpyHawk) dispersion.  It made a big difference to tanks when you added the gun recoil.  Made it harder to maintain laser accuracy.  The effect would be nice for the .50's as well.

The buff guns aren't "grossly" out of whack.  But maybe they could stand a little tweaking.

Wab

[Cobra]

Tac,
I don't like the ackstars also, but if you toughen the bird..they will never go down while ackstarring..or they will take your whole ammo load to do it, so they still achieved their mission of driving off the cap.

I've had pretty good luck shooting them down, but I am very patient, as one should be when setting up any attack.  I do give those guns alot of respect.  

We had a scenerio recently where we had 12 buffs in formation...12 of them in tight formation....the first enemy fighters we met, knocked down 6 on the first pass!  I think we got 1 from that first pass.

Out of the entire raid...3 made it back, and this was with fighter escort.

Fly a buff in those scenerios also Tac.  It can be an eye opener.

But if you toughen the bird and lower the guns, the ackstars will be even harder to shoot down at a field, and you'll expend all your ammo to do it.

Cobra