Buff Guns are Fine

[Cobra]

Buff guns are at a good balance right now.  A sloppy attack on them gets you killed, a smart attack on them gets you THE kill.  Buffs have a reasonable chance of making it to target, therefore the buff pilots have a purpose in the game.

The player controlled guns are fine.  Thank goodness no otto here.  The balance is very good.

All lot of posts recently have said to tone the guns down to force the buffs to fly in formation to survive.

Well didn't the attacking fighters make their initial attack runs on the buffs as squadron formations.  So looks like you shouldn't expect to perform a solo, sloppy attack on a buff and survive.

The Balance is good IMO opinion.  I think HTC got the compromise right on this one.

Cobra

[RAM]

I could not disagree more.

Buff guns are self-aimed turbolasers.

 

[maximus13]

Yeah well too bad, they are perfectly fine now.

[troxel]

RAM, the .50s on buffs are no different than the .50s on any other American plane!  The only .50s that are different are the ones on the halftracks, where they use the M2 heavy barrel 50 cal.  In all cases, however, the 50 cal projectile is the same.

If it is the range you are concerned with, I suspect that this is due to the fact that the bomber is typically firing defensively in directions OPPOSITE to its direction of travel, thereby decreasing the drag on the projectile.

If you want to test this for yourself, have a buddy go up with you in the training arena.  One of you in a B26, and the other in a P-51.  Have the B26 trail the P-51 and fire at it with the bombadier's 50 cal.  until you determine the max range that you can still get pings.  Next, have the P-51 trail the B26.  Have the pony shoot at the B26 until the max range can be determined.

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"....where'd who go!"

Troxel
VMFA-212 "Lancers"

[This message has been edited by troxel (edited 08-05-2000).]

[popeye]

Yep.  Buff guns are fine.

popeye

[Replicant]

Yep, buff guns are fine by me.  Weaken them and you'll see a return to the Tour 1 & 2 flying at +35k if they've got any chance of making it to the target.  None of us want that again!!

Formation flying is very good fun, but it is rarely possible and if the formation is too large then you get a lot of lag resulting in no advantage of a buff formation at all.

Regards

'Nexx'

[Fishu]

 

Originally posted by troxel:
If it is the range you are concerned with, I suspect that this is due to the fact that the bomber is typically firing defensively in directions OPPOSITE to its direction of travel, thereby decreasing the drag on the projectile.

Only bad thing here is that .50 caliber bullet has range of 1.4-1.5k no matter which direction you're shooting at.

I have shot at Typhoon from 1.3 till 1.4k and got hits with P-47D guns. (I doubt that 20mph faster Typhoon will be shot from behind my P-47D by me)

I've also made strafe runs on M16s so that shots were fired 1.5-1.4k and break off, with hits and kills.

[GrinBird]

Maybe the 50īs are the same, but they all aim at the same spot, and thats the problem. All those 50 bullits comming in one concentrated beam, if you hit well with one bullit you will hit with them all, which make them as powerfull as 30mms. Try to take a shot with a B17 at a friendly plane with killshooter on, Then you will experience what the effect is, I swear not even a Corsair would compare to that
Make only guns fire from the turret you sit in, or make the other turrets fire with some kind of inaccuracy. After all the same gunner couldent be so many places at once could they?

[Swoop]

You know Grinbird's got a point there.....

However, if the buff guns get nerfed then we'll see em at 35k again.....

unless.......what if the buffs (b17s especially) were a lot tougher?  Make it so the buffs can still fly after a hell of a battering.....leave engine damage more or less the same but beef up the wings and tail.  It'd make 1 on 1 fights last much longer and really make then fighter jocks work for a kill.  You'd def have to balance the bomber gun damage though or you'll have a major problem of these seemingly impregnable buffs flying around killin fighters.

See, I think this would make things more interesting for the buff pilot as well.....having to nurse home a heavily damaged aircraft (assuming the fighter gets shot down or gives up).

Swoop

[Cobra]

Unless you are dead level 6 at about 600 yds back, how many guns can fire on you?...2?  4? maybe 6.  Well a P51 has 6 guns on you...and a P47 bears 8 guns on you.  

A -1C hog...thats only got 4, but they are Hispanos.

So u want the slow, less agile buff to only bring 2 guns to bear while the fighter can pick his angle of attack and bring all 6 or 8 guns of his to track on the target?

I don't think the point is valid...the fighter is holding the cards in the fighter/buff engagement.  It is the fighters hand to win or loose with the way the buff guns are now.

Cobra

[skippy]

I dont agree at all .. . the buff guns are too concentrated , the top gun should not be able to fire direct 6 the others are able to fire at angles that are rediculous. Just ck out any b17 at a show or something and ck out the gun angles available to them..noooo way.  Personnaly i like buffing for the destruction it reaps, not to go up and shoot down fighters left n right. Get HT co to get the guns set correctly and the dreaded Ackstar fools will disappear also.

[Westy]

 I like em as is. Balance is achieved when there are as many complaints from both sides of the coin as we see now.
 I persoannly like to force the gunner to jump positions so I usually try a 9 or 3 o'clock attack and roll back into them from the opposite 9 or 3. Then at some point I come at them from low 6  and then I pour it into them. Works about 4 out of 5 times   Would work all the time if I had about 5 seconds more of patience.

-Westy

[Fishu]

 

Originally posted by GrinBird:
Maybe the 50īs are the same, but they all aim at the same spot, and thats the problem. All those 50 bullits comming in one concentrated beam, if you hit well with one bullit you will hit with them all, which make them as powerfull as 30mms. Try to take a shot with a B17 at a friendly plane with killshooter on, Then you will experience what the effect is, I swear not even a Corsair would compare to that  
Make only guns fire from the turret you sit in, or make the other turrets fire with some kind of inaccuracy. After all the same gunner couldent be so many places at once could they?

I have noticed that .50 caliber rounds disperses fairly alot..
Ie. if you shoot fighter from 300 yards in your fighter, you will see hits with .50 calibers all around, even if your convergence is around 300 yds.
Might get hits, but not in the same spot though, so the power of '30mm' is bit too much said  

Ps. I don't prefer using 30mm anyway, lousy pea shot..

[Fishu]

 

Originally posted by skippy:
and the dreaded Ackstar fools will disappear also.

Unfortunately those never dissapears, unless you do something what would make ackstarrers mad and they would excuse that they didn't ackstar and things would be back to normal.

[SpyHawk]

Posting my still unchanged opinion (again):

The guns are fine, but to make it more fair/realistic we need to increase recoil dispersion.

Although I must say, I think the way AW handled gunnery it was very good too. Not the part about not being able to fly and gun the same plane, or the part about modified buff tough and buff gunnery, but that each gunner had only one gun to use. BUT that you could take an bellybutton load of peoples with you to gun it. It was very fun, and the commaradarie of a full buff crew was awsome. One of the funnest parts of the game.