can someone explain seemingly "magical" bullets to me?

[rstel01]

Right off the bat, this is not to call anyone cheaters or any of that. There are tons of people with way more skills than I will ever have in the game.
Where I am confused for instance, I bull a nice clean Bnz with a P-47M say onto a spit, completley lighting him up and I see tons of splashes.
Huh, no damage and he is still flying ok. Roll over get another clean pass and see good splashes, again nothing.
A tempest on his side enters. I turn into a high G reversal im at the point of blacking out both of us turning a scissors move. Boom one shot im done.
This seems to play out time and time again for me and I cant figure it out.
I have even replayed the film and the rounds seem to defy physics?
It's happened in GVing with similar results.
However, some days everything is spot on.
Is it lag or what? I am fricking lost here? I have a great FR, DSL, IP package looks clean. I was told "rubber bullets" don't exist and if you see a splash you get a hit in the damage modeling. 
I suck granted but this sure gets fustrating   

     

[Steve]

Lots of splashes w/ .50's will not always garner critical damage. You want splashes as convergence. Check convergence, get your hits in or near the convergence sweet spot.

Tiffie killing quickly with hits is not unusual..... cannon bird.

[Stoney]

The effectiveness in game of a 4 cannon shot cannot be overstated, regardless of what aircraft you are in.

[Sol75]

50 cals are not explosive, and must "saw" through a part. (put enough holes in it to cause a critical failure).  Cannon on the other hand are explosive, which means they will explode on impact causing MUCH greater damage.  The same applies to the pilot as parts, being PWd by a 20mm cannon round exploding causes shrapnel, which any chunk can cause "insta-death".  a 50cal can as well, but it would have to penetrate the pilot directly.  Keep in mind, even a 1 hit can cause a pilot fatality, even with 303s.  This is modelled in-game as the aircraft exploding.  I know I personally always aim directly for the cockpit on every guns pass/solution I get if possible.  Many others do so as well.

Sol

[Soulyss]

Another thing could be range, 50's have a pretty flat trajectory if you were seeing hits at 800 out then yeah it's entirely possible to light something up like a Christmas tree and not do much to them.  

[E25280]

Not quite sure how to answer as it seems there are several questions. But here is an attempt.

First, if you are firing at another plane and see a lot of hit sprites all over the place, then it could be the "all over the place" that is the problem.  Each part on the airplane can take a certain amount of damage before breaking.  So raking a plane stem to stern and wingtip to wingtip may have caused a lot of damage overall, but the damage is not concentrated enough to break something vital.  (Shooting at convergence will help with this, too, as your bullets will tend to hit one area of the plane rather than spread out.)

The insta-kill vs. your airplane is related.  If they hit very vital areas at convergence (and especially from a cannon-armed aircraft like a tempest, which has one of the deadliest gun packages in the game), they can certainly make you go down quickly.  One-shot pilot kills are frequent.

The last part you may be asking, is at times you can be hit by an opponent who appears on your screen to not have a shot.  And, yes, it is due to internet lag.  Look up a collision thread sometime to understand the difference between where you see your aircraft and where he sees yours.  In the case of gunnery, his hit detection is occurring on his computer, then that info is transfered to your computer for damage assessment.  If he sees you are in front of him, but due to internet lag he seems to be offset from you on yours, this can create that "magic bullet" appearance.

Hope this helps.

[rstel01]

thanks so much for the replies!

It clears allot up now, I appreciate it 

[Sunka]

Check convergence, 

Most of the time i have a max of 4 ,50 Cal's' ,with what i fly.When i started to watch my films i noticed what rang i get most of my kills at and set my convergence to match,now a lot more birds go boom a lot faster.And i have a lot less assists.

[LYNX]

on your vid card settings make Vsync on by default
set all guns to the same place  i.e 275 or 300 yards. 
shoot close in 400 yards or less.

good luck

[Kweassa]

Like others have mentioned, and I repeat;


1. Seeing "lots of flashes", actually means that your aim was inadequate. It means that your rounds are scattered all across the surface of the target plane - hence, "lighting up like a Christmas tree".. Ideally, you should only be seeing one or two sustained flashes - which means your bullet stream is grouped and concentrated at a very tight area, and thus, is visible as only one or two flashes.

2. Seeing the plane flying around does not mean "no damage." Some damages are easily perceivable, in the form of fuel trail, smoke, fire, debris, etc... while other internal damage may not be so obvious. You never know if you just gave him a pilot wound, or busted his guns, or blew his oil pan.. and etc.

3. The fact that you're pulling hard enough to black out, does not mean the enemy behind you will be doing the same. That only happens if the enemy behind you follows your exact same turn radius (or tighter turn radius) at exact same speeds. And even he does, he may have pulled a totally blind lead shot just before the verge of total black out - which is fully possible.

[Chalenge]

In addition to everything said so many times by previous replies... your connection can play a part in it too. Not that it is causing you grief so much but its possible that when you get hit a dozen times you actually only hear one hit. Its also possible that the guy that shoots you is not very well synced with you and it appears to you he does not have a gun solution and yet he kills you by firing (from your perspective) 400 yards behind you. Learning how to be evasive and hard to hit is not only about being hard to hit from what you see but making it impossible for you to be hit at all.

As for the blackouts... Make sure you have your joystick setup so you can fly smoothly (even with a 'wild thoroughbred') and trim your airplane for corner speed before turn fighting. The trick is in getting your joystick tamed but allowing the airplane to remain borderline unstable.

[dedalos]

and trim your airplane for corner speed before turn fighting.

 

[groundfeeder]

The problem is that you are too good
the bullets all went thru the same hole 

[Sunka]

The problem is that you are too good
the bullets all went thru the same hole  

Funny! 

[usvi]

One word...HISOOKAS