Stupid Puffy Ack

[CAP1]

http://www.mediafire.com/?yhntx9nlc4n

Okay, here this guy is, a high altitude in a maneuvering fighter without ords and puffy ack one-shot, one kills him! The carrier is not even within visual range! Furthermore, there are enemy fighters lower and presumably closer to the CV. Presumably it would still have flamed him to the exclusion of say, some torp-laden Ju88s on the deck. Does this make ANY sense to ANYONE?!?!?

you have to be above 3k alt to be targeted by puffy ack

[SmokinLoon]

Just for claification purposes regarding "puffy" ack:

I think it should be suicide for a single pilot, regrdless of aircraft, to attack a CV alone.  It should take a team effort to sink a CV.  The bigger the aircraft the higher probability it should have of getting hit.  The faster the aircraft the less probability of it getting hit.

With that being said, I'm wondering if the accuracy should be increased but the inst-kill-out-of-the-ballpark-homerun damage be reduced.  It seems to me that at least in a fighter the chances of me getting completely destroyed are much higher than if I were to receive multiple hits with less damage.

It is a slippery slope.  I wonder of HTC tinkers with the settings from tour to tour without our knowledge (or noting it in the changes)?  If they dont, maybe they should consider it.

[Banshee7]

Was headed to the Tank Town air base (on the really big map [ozkansas?]) in a heavy C-hog to take down ordnance.  I was over the water but still in reach of the puffy ack.  Within three explosions my tail was gone.  So I upped again, decided to take a wider course only to find out that the puffy ack can reach over my targeted base.  Right as I start my dive *BOOM* I'm now floating once AGAIN from puffy ack.  This happened at 11k so I KNOW it wasn't an ack gun (I also saw and heard the explosion of the puffy).


Was flying near a CV the other day in a light P-51.....same thing happened.  I didn't even know there was a CV around.  1st *BOOM* there goes my oil.  2nd *BOOM* there goes half a wing.  3rd *BOOM* Im in the tower.  The FIRST THREE SHOTS all inflicted damage on me before I could ever even try to get out of it.

[Sunka]

One of the worst things is when you have an enemy CV off shore of your base and the minuet your in the air your back in the tower from it.And why is it so bad for fighters? It is not like it keeps buffs from sinking them.

[Beefcake]

About 2 weeks ago I led a buff mission to bomb some strat targets behind enemy lines. While in route we had to cross over a channel and it just so happened that there was a CV sailing through it. (We were at 25k so it was hard to see through the clouds) I ordered the bombers along with our lone escort to turn hard, away from the fleet. As we turned the flak opened up on us and in the first burst our lone escort, who was at 30k, was hit and lost his tail. The buffs continued to fly away from the fleet and took several hits, I lost a landing gear and a gunner, and another buff lost a fuel tank, but overall we suffered little damage.
It just amazed me at how our escort, who was 5k above us, got hit in the first burst and yet the bombers suffered almost no damage.

[smokey23]

yeah a CV without puffy ack thats a great idea there would be dweebs circling over it all day and night sinking it at will. The auto ack is  not accurate enough in my book if HTC would just elevate the 5" manned guns above the 8" guns on the cruiser so we can shoot level at 12 oclock then i would be happy. Stay below 3k and you wont be targeted by the auto ack only the manned guns.

[Ack-Ack]

While there are some issues with the targeting of the puffy acks, there is nothing wrong with the lethality of the puffy acks.  The OP of this thread seems to be very surprised that puffy acks were able to down an airplane with only one hit.  He's not alone as being killed by a single puffy ack burst cries seems to always go hand in hand with the targeting issue complaints.

I hate to break it to you guys but flak was able to destroy a plane with a single hit and it wasn't all that uncommon either.  I guess you could call it the luck of the draw but it still doesn't take away the fact that AAA was able to and often did kill with a single hit.

B-24 hit by flak burst



Here is another shot of another B-24 that was downed by flak.


By all means, have the targeting looked at but don't touch the lethality, it doesn't need to be adjusted.  AAA did account for the majortity of downed aircraft during the war.  Should stand to reason they should be just as lethal in game as they were in real life and players should face the same 'luck of the draw' that real pilots faced when flying through flak bursts.


ack-ack

[Beefcake]

My gripe is not with ack killing a fighter or bomber in 1 hit, by all means it can and should if it's a good hit. My gripe is with ack hitting fighters on the first burst. I know as the war progressed the ability to hit planes with flak increased with better guns and proxy shells, but it still took some shots to get them. I remember watching a show on the history channel about how in the early war it took 4000 shells to down 1 enemy aircraft. When that radio proxy fuse (or whatever it was) came out the number went down to about 500 shells per kill. In AH ack regularly kills a fighter, maneuvering or not, within 2-3 shots.

[Ack-Ack]

My gripe is with ack hitting fighters on the first burst.

Hate to tell you but that is not out of the realm of impossibility or are you trying to say that being hit by the first flak burst was something that never occured in real life?


ack-ack

[BnZs]

No, I am darn well NOT surprised by puffy ack being lethal with one hit. What I do have a beef with is it targeting what seems like the highest, furthermost, maneuvering enemy fighter without ord. I've seen it shoot at fighters instead of buffs. I think if it is technically possible, auto puffy would do its job better if it was "ordinance seeking" instead of doing what it seems to do , which is just shoot at the highest aircraft in range.

[Ack-Ack]

No, I am darn well NOT surprised by puffy ack being lethal with one hit. What I do have a beef with is it targeting what seems like the highest, furthermost, maneuvering enemy fighter without ord. I've seen it shoot at fighters instead of buffs. I think if it is technically possible, auto puffy would do its job better if it was "ordinance seeking" instead of doing what it seems to do , which is just shoot at the highest aircraft in range.

It seems to work along the lines of field acks, at least tracking wise.  I don't recall seeing acks target simultaneous multiple targets in the years I've played.


ack-ack


ack-ack

[Beefcake]

Ack, I'm not saying a flak gun killing a fighter on the first shot is impossible, it's just how many times did it happen? If it happened as much as it does in AH then I'm wondering why we still build carriers when we should concentrate on building battleships.

Ack I have no problems with Flak being incredibly deadly, it was in real life and it should be here. I have no problems with an occasional "lucky shot". I do have problems with the way flak does it's targeting (IE targeting fighters over buffs), and how it can track planes SO well. Going back to my story, our lone fighter escort was 5 k above the buffs zig zagging back and forth. Now if I was a fleet commander and I saw 12 B24s passing overhead I would order my gunners to shoot them, would you not agree? Instead the ack completely misses the big, slow, lumbering bombers and hits the tiny zig zagging 109.

Ack-Ack I don't want to nerf flak, I just want HTC to adjust it's targeting code.

[Anaxogoras]

ack-ack, I've never been shot down by puffy ack while flying in a bomber, nor have I seen AI puffy ack down a bomber (manned 5" do very well).  I agree that the lethality is fine, but there's something wrong with the code that causes it to go soft on bombers.

Fencer told me a story about testing the puffy ack for DGS.  He flew through the puffy with a formation of B-17s for 45 minutes and did not lose any of the three planes in his formation.  Other people flew fighters through the same puffy and were shot down within minutes.

edit: it's also pathetic that puffy fires through mountains.

[Murdr]

Well, I can't really disagree with the threads subject line. 

The AI puffy ack does not "check fire" when the acks friendlies are in close proximity the enemy target.  (very annoying to be shot down by your own puffy ack, or be taken out of a good dogfight from miles away with the acks friendlies within a couple hundred yards of you)

It does not proiritize targets (eg. will hound local fighters engaged with other fighters relentlessly, and effectively ignore the flight of high bombers that are a direct threat to the facility). 

It does not need a line of sight (eg. it shoots through mountains).

So sorry, but I don't see that particular AI as all that intelligent.  Hopefully that mechanic/model will be revisited some day.

[DH367th]

Beware the golden BB