Spit 16 observations (much ado about nothing)

[Anaxogoras]

I will engage XVIs 1vs1 routinely in the 109G-6.  I'm probably going to die if the other pilot is good, but more than 9 times out of 10 it's a beginner, I sucker him into a scissors fight and shoot him down.

I'm not a fantastic pilot, but I'm significantly better than average.   So noobs in XVIs don't hurt me much.  Who they can hurt are average pilots trying to fly a more challenging aircraft.  When the average pilot makes a mistake in his plane, he is frequently punished for it.  The beginner in the XVI will be infrequently punished for mistakes, and has a good chance of shooting the average pilot down (if he's learned a little gunnery).  The average pilots says to himself "I'm better than that noob!  He just shot me down because of his airplane."  Things are more complicated than that, of course.  The airplane is only one variable of many, but it would be wrong to say the airplane didn't play a significant role in determining the outcome.

At this point, the average pilot will either have to suck it up and continue to be shot down by beginners while he learns his challenging plane, or he will go back to something easier himself.

[OOZ662]

Zero out turns I16's or the Brewster too?   

Looks like this post got skipped. An A6M2 will out-turn a Brewster. I know absolutely nothing about the I-16, but it felt like it turned worse than the Brewster the two times I flew it. Not really good reference, but...

[BnZs]

So your strategy is to bring more boys and alt to a fight? You realize that strategy is open to everyone.
Including everyone in spixteens. Down that path lies cesspool-ism.....

Yeah the Spit16 holds all the advantages given a Co-E duel and same pilot skill.

So why would you ever want to engage a Spit16 in a Co-E 1v1 duel with a pilot the same skill level as you? I'd guess most of our virtual deaths are due to stupidity, not bad flying. Taking on a Spixteen Co-E 1v1 with a worse plane falls under the category of "stupidity" unless you're positive the pilot is much worse than you. Remember our game is not a series of Co-E 1v1s. Come in with friends, come in with alt, come in with more speed. There is a reason the Spixteen is not the only plane you see in the arenas.

As far as how to give newbies a fighting chance? I don't know - I've never been a "true" newbie. I've sucked, and am still not great, but I've been playing flight sims (and "space sims") since I was 6 years old, so concepts like turn radius and drawing lead are second nature.

You cannot make a clueless newbie into an ace simply by throwing them into a superior plane. The only thing that does is give them a better chance against other newbies. But hey, they are all flying Spixteens anyways!

When I see a Spixteen land 2 kills, I think "maybe they are a newb got lucky with a good plane, maybe they flew smart." For 3 kills "they probably flew smart." More than that, I don't put an asterisk by their name at all. Why?

Because I know if they aren't flying smart, there are guys like me out there in 190s (or whatever suitably "inferior plane") with an E advantage ready to blow the Spixteen out of the sky.

[BnZs]

And the 109Gs are fairly maneuverable and good-climbing planes all in all...

I will engage XVIs 1vs1 routinely in the 109G-6.  I'm probably going to die if the other pilot is good, but more than 9 times out of 10 it's a beginner, I sucker him into a scissors fight and shoot him down.

I'm not a fantastic pilot, but I'm significantly better than average.  So noobs in XVIs don't hurt me much.  Who they can hurt are average pilots trying to fly a more challenging aircraft.  When the average pilot makes a mistake in his plane, he is frequently punished for it.  The beginner in the XVI will be infrequently punished for mistakes, and has a good chance of shooting the average pilot down (if he's learned a little gunnery).  The average pilots says to himself "I'm better than that noob!  He just shot me down because of his airplane."  Things are more complicated than that, of course.  The airplane is only one variable of many, but it would be wrong to say the airplane didn't play a significant role in determining the outcome.

At this point, the average pilot will either have to suck it up and continue to be shot down by beginners while he learns his challenging plane, or he will go back to something easier himself.

[Anaxogoras]

And the 109Gs are fairly maneuverable and good-climbing planes all in all...

Absolutely.

[Steve]

I engage spixteens routinely in my pwny. If I'm not gaining a gun solution and losing ground, I simply choose an egress angle that will either take the spit some time to get to or will cause him to pull hard and burn E. Then I just leave him behind.

I don't owe the spixteen a kill. I'm not obligated to hang around until I'm fighting his fight.  Unless of course I am miraculously 1v1 and he somehow has no friends in the immediate area.  Then, unless he is a very clever pilot, forcing a spixteen to overshoot is a very simple matter.

[boomerlu]

So your strategy is to bring more boys and alt to a fight? You realize that strategy is open to everyone.
Including everyone in spixteens. Down that path lies cesspool-ism.....

Usually it's just more alt. Sure the strategy (more alt and more planes) is open to everyone, and I'm sure that's why everybody nowadays keeps complaining about getting ganged in the MAs. That's probably what you mean by "cesspool-ism" which has more to do with the horde than alt. I see the problem, and I've felt it. I've been on the receiving end being ganged by 5 planes to 1, and I've been on the other end and enjoyed it just as little simply because there was no chance in hell I was going to get that kill.

No, my strategy is not specifically to bring more alt or more planes to the fight. It's to wait until my opponent makes a critical mistake that I can exploit. It could be getting way too low, it could be showing me his six at the wrong moment, it could be taking on a 1v2, it could be him doing something newbish, it could be climbing at the wrong time, or it could be him falling for my rope. Usually if the fight is already a gang, I stay out of it.

In other words my strategy is to fly "smarter". I enjoy an ACM dueling challenge now and then, but to engage in one with a Spixteen in an "inferior plane" Co-E in an arena filled with people more than ready to pick you is just not flying smarter. I might show him a merge and gauge his skill level based on his response to it and if I see I can take him down quickly, I'll engage. If not, it's usually a waste of time.

It's a better counter to Spixteens than screaming about them on 200 or comforting yourself that it was "just the plane". It seems Steve and I agree on our philosophies on handling spixteens.

And back to the newb Spit16 vs average pilot Other Plane. Since we are not talking about the "best way" to fly them and we are not talking about ace pilots either, we'll assume both people make mistakes. Sure the Spixteen punishes mistakes less, but it also PRODUCES more mistakes. Since other people tell you it's an uber plane, the newb will be overconfident. Since it turns very well, the Spixteen will tend to burn energy quickly as its newb pilot attempts to haul his nose around. Since its climb rate is so good, the newb will use the Spixteen to try to follow somebody's rope. Since it's an uber plane, the newb will chase a faster aircraft and run straight into a gaggle of enemies.

I know because I've been that Spixteen newb before! Sure all these problems can be avoided if the pilot flies SMART (ding ding ding do we see a pattern here?), but we are again talking about a newb flying it. The average pilot may have a more uphill battle, but he's flying a "challenging aircraft" for a reason right? The reason starting with "ch" and rhyming with "allenge".

I guess my philosophy about these "uber" rides is: why blame something you can't change when there are things you can change? You could work on being a better pilot and picking better fights. If you can't handle those two... you could always just change back to the Spixteen yourself.

Nowadays if I get shot down by a spixteen while I'm flying my 109 or 190, it's pretty plain to me that I should not have engaged in the first place or that I should have disengaged when my advantage ran out. Then I hear the old Top Gun line running in my head: "The Department of Defense regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid."

[saantana]

The best fights I've had are better pilots then myself in a spit XVI and getting shot down.
It tells me that although I thought I had flown that plane to its limits I've still got things to learn.

This thread forgoes one big point. By flying this plane one (a newb for instance) can concentrate on learning ACM, and not concentrate on learning the particulars of a plane itself.

[Anaxogoras]

Boomerlu, there a many reasons why someone chooses to fly something other than the XVI.  Just because they are more challenging doesn't mean that's why they are chosen.

It might be for history, or for variety, or for looks, etc.  The only reason why we call these other aircraft "challenging" is because we are comparing them to the XVI.  Otherwise I would say aircraft like the P-51, 109G, P-38, F4U are easy.

[waystin2]

Boomerlu, there a many reasons why someone chooses to fly something other than the XVI. 

Like the Yak-3 Gavagai?   

[Spikes]

Boomerlu, there a many reasons why someone chooses to fly something other than the XVI.  Just because they are more challenging doesn't mean that's why they are chosen.

It might be for history, or for variety, or for looks, etc.  The only reason why we call these other aircraft "challenging" is because we are comparing them to the XVI.  Otherwise I would say aircraft like the P-51, 109G, P-38, F4U are easy.

If you really wanted to you could say every plane is "easy mode" because of game functions...but I'm curious as to why you say the P38 and 109's are? Even the F4U...it's easy in some aspects but its a hard plane to mastre...

[Anaxogoras]

Don't read into that too much spikes.  I listed those aircraft because they are all capable in the arena, it's not difficult to aim their guns, and their flight models don't have many nasty surprises; still, all are challenging when compared to the XVI.

To me, genuinely difficult aircraft would be the Yak-9T, 190F-8, P-39Q, P-47D-25, etc.  These are aircraft with enough persormance to be competitive, but which require a lot of the pilot to make use of it.

[Spikes]

Don't read into that too much spikes.  I listed those aircraft because they are all capable in the arena, it's not difficult to aim their guns, and their flight models don't have many nasty surprises; still, all are challenging when compared to the XVI.

To me, genuinely difficult aircraft would be the Yak-9T, 190F-8, P-39Q, P-47D-25, etc.  These are aircraft with enough persormance to be competitive, but which require a lot of the pilot to make use of it.

Ahh, gotcha.
<S>

[boomerlu]

Boomerlu, there a many reasons why someone chooses to fly something other than the XVI.  Just because they are more challenging doesn't mean that's why they are chosen.

It might be for history, or for variety, or for looks, etc.  The only reason why we call these other aircraft "challenging" is because we are comparing them to the XVI.  Otherwise I would say aircraft like the P-51, 109G, P-38, F4U are easy.

Duly noted. Still, my point stands - better to improve (whether it's ACM, smarter flying, or plane choice) than to complain. For whatever reason, a bunch of us choose not to "improve" our plane choice (myself included), you've just listed more reasons why we don't.

[boomerlu]

This thread forgoes one big point. By flying this plane one (a newb for instance) can concentrate on learning ACM, and not concentrate on learning the particulars of a plane itself.

What particulars are you thinking of? I'm guessing you mean that the 16 is good enough at everything that it can be flown in any style. Am I reading you right?