The Evil, Evil HO

[moot]

This is the fight.. Somewhere in it is a HO.  One more specific case with film to avoid any speculation or ambiguity as to what's more or less good sportsmanship in HOing.

From my end, I get a front quarter at the merge and take it, it's a "HO" that he could have avoided.  Because he's higher and appears to be about the same speed, in a plane that could easily deny the shot with a luftberry.  Instead he rolls over and noses to.  The rest of the fight has a couple of front quarter intersections, with the last shot being the only other one I could see being called out for a HO.  I take it because the fight's pretty much over (hog had his gears out the whole time and lost E parity) and it's a legit front quarter shot, the same way coming down early from a rope with a slight offset for a shot that the ropee can't adjust his nose for is not an unfair HO.

[PFactorDave]

Pardon me for mildly hijacking here, but this brings up a question I have had for some time and a discussion I'd like to get started.  Moot, if this is going to drag your thread way off of what you intended, just say the word and I'll start a new thread for this.

That said...  Often when HO shots are being discussed, someone will comment that trying to HO an opponent on the merge can actually provide you with an advantage on the merge that makes the fight easier to win.

I think I know what is being talked about when that is said, but would appreciate a discussion in detail on how to take advantage of another persons desire to HO.  Oh, and if you've got a good film to illustrate the concept, that would be good too.

Thanks

EDIT:  Just realized that this is in the General Discussion section rather then the Training section, so feel free to ignore this completely.  Maybe I'll start a thread there later today.

[humble]

This is where I get confused, nothing even close to a "HO" there. 1st shot is a pure FQ shot set up by the hogs poor choice of tactics. You begin to give him a similar shot a bit later and as is your responsibility move out of plane. Shot at the end is just the end of fight. He had no E and was a hanging curve ball with no remaining control surface authority. Very nice rudder/throttle work BTW

[PFactorDave]

Just watched it, I definitely saw a deflection shot at the first merge.  The Hog had roughly the same type of deflection shot (which he took and missed) on the 2nd merge.  Looked like the Hog was pretty much finished with little or no E after the scissors whereas you still had the juice to get above him.  As for you blasting him on the way down while he was headed up on his last bit of E, I've always thought that that was considered acceptable (especially in a rope situation).

[humble]

PF it's actually similar to some of what we covered last night. If the opposing player is "flying the gun site" that puts him in plane to you and minimizes any angle off he could establish. If you are flying a merge with good technique and have established good offset early then he's actually maximizing your angular advantage at the merge. In effect he sacrifices proper  positioning for a poor shot window. If we look at the very beginning of Moots film he's established a good amount of lateral displacement against the hog. Thats why we can see so much of the plane surface as he tries to turn in for the shot. Not only does he give Moot the shot, he also gives up any opportunity to control the fight.

This is actually exactly what we were working on but applied in a +/- merge scenario.

[PFactorDave]

PF it's actually similar to some of what we covered last night. If the opposing player is "flying the gun site" that puts him in plane to you and minimizes any angle off he could establish. If you are flying a merge with good technique and have established good offset early then he's actually maximizing your angular advantage at the merge. In effect he sacrifices proper  positioning for a poor shot window. If we look at the very beginning of Moots film he's established a good amount of lateral displacement against the hog. Thats why we can see so much of the plane surface as he tries to turn in for the shot. Not only does he give Moot the shot, he also gives up any opportunity to control the fight.

This is actually exactly what we were working on but applied in a +/- merge scenario.

Ya, that's what I was thinking.  In fact, I saw several examples of the right and wrong of what we covered last night in that film.  Was looking for confirmation on the HO thing to help put the puzzle pieces together in my mind.  Many thanks!

[moot]

Pardon me for mildly hijacking here, but this brings up a question I have had for some time and a discussion I'd like to get started.  Moot, if this is going to drag your thread way off of what you intended, just say the word and I'll start a new thread for this.

That said...  Often when HO shots are being discussed, someone will comment that trying to HO an opponent on the merge can actually provide you with an advantage on the merge that makes the fight easier to win.

I think I know what is being talked about when that is said, but would appreciate a discussion in detail on how to take advantage of another persons desire to HO.  Oh, and if you've got a good film to illustrate the concept, that would be good too.

Thanks

Basically, the window for a HO shot ends after the window for the next maneuver has opened.  In practice this doesn't guarantee that taking a HO shot hurts your chances of keeping up with what's to follow, because you can take the HO shot before it's time to maneuver (reverse or otherwise).  E.G. a HO shot from 1.5 to 800 out or so, made seemlessly enough that you used up no or negligible amount of energy for it.  The reason it most often does come at the cost of the next maneuver is that, in AH, most players HO from pretty close, way after the window for the next maneuver has already opened (remember that here we're most often at really fast closure speeds and every degree of angle and fraction of a second counts) and often enough one of the two planes is flying around in a way that spoils or outright denies a workable shot.  When that last thing is done right, the guy trying to HO is usually lead into a disadvantageous speed/direction/angle, before the initial merge has even happened.

The way to take a HO shot at no cost to the immediately following maneuvers is to shoot early and make the maneuvering for it seemlessly blend into the next maneuver.  That's a pretty skillful thing to do (I can't reliably pull it off myself, although the plane I fly is especially bad for this) because you have tiny margins of error. It definitely is worth adding to your toolbox.  

[humble]

I actually don't consider that a "HO" as much as a FQ snapshot. In effect your pulling lead to where you think the con will go. That is really the entire reason for the guns cold merge in a duel. I can recall 4-5 guys who were very good at pulling lead on the merge very consistantly, the kicker being that it really didnt hurt the merge itself in anyway since they popped off a round or two while pulling the nose around. If you never freeze the nose your not hurting yourself unless you use a lot of control input and end up going from lag to pure to lag without ever actually getting lead. Most of the time this is an out of plane merge that crosses the bogies flight path and then continues in an out of plane lag pursuit...

[Shifty]

That was not a HO in my book you were both pulling into each other at a high angle. You nailed him by shooting where he was going to be in a split second not face shooting him.
I'm not a big fan of Corsair drivers that drop their gear to fight. Just my opinion but it's every bit as gamey as HOing maybe more so.  You won fair and square in my book. He lost and lost while gaming the game. AKnot is a good enough stick he shouldn't have to resort to dropping his gear. YMMV.

[Murdr]

Dave, think of it this way.  If the nme is intent on holding his nose on you, it empowers you to "draw" his nose into a less than ideal attitude at the merge.  In addition to that you can be setting up a lead turn.

[Helm]

Another HO whine ....how exciting!   



Helm ...out

[FiLtH]

I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt at the merge. As soon as I see them nose into me I see that the quality of the fight means little to them so I do whatever I can to kill them quickly. The guy that sets up a better attack and turns out to be a good fight, I generally wont ho even if given the chance later in the fight, instead working for a tail shot.  

  It does depend on my mood though. Some days just suck and when I come in I just feel like hosing everything I see. Thankfully those days are rare.

[Shuffler]

Another HO whine ....how exciting!   



Helm ...out

I wonder why folks who HO always call it a whine?

This looks like an intelligent discussion. At least to the point where helm posts.

[Yeager]

this whole HO thing is a like listening to a professional boxer complain to the referee that he got punched in the nose.

[Shuffler]

this whole HO thing is a like listening to a professional boxer complain to the referee that he got punched in the nose.

Thread title says it all and you clicked to read it. Your choice....... what were you expecting.