Weapon Leathality

[SpinMan]

Ive said this before, then I fly some until it annoys the hell out of me then I feel the need to whine again.

Buff lethality is insane, this wwii flight sim as its advertised is becoming less sim and more video game.  Perhaps thats where the studies of the Dev's have told them their market is.  The day a single set of 17's, 26's etc can fend off and defeat a pair or 3 fighters is crazy.  A decent gunner in this game can stop anyone getting within striking range of ships, fields or towns.  Flying is tough so I'll try gunning, well this is tough, so HTC makes it easier???  Fly against the CV 5" or anything other than nose on to 17's, anywhere within 1500yds of a flak or PT you will see what I mean, this needs to be addressed and balanced out, HTC seems to always correct one issue by creating another.  Not that my simple monthly fee will make or break this business nor is my opinion carrying any weight, I am sure im not the only one of this opinion.

Spin

[Nemisis]

Agreed. We have CV gunners nailing bombers at 15k, we have bomber gunners nailing guys at 1000yds. Hell, we even have 37mm AA guns firing HE taking down tanks from the side. I can see from the rear, and at point blank range, but at 1k is a little ridiculous.

[Jayhawk]

Maybe you need to learn new methods for attacking your white wales instead of blaming the game for your pitfalls.

[Nemisis]

Jayhawk, I can at least see your point on the bombers (at least for 1 or 2 attackers, but 3 is starting to push it IMO), but even you must agree that CV ack is ludicrous.

[Lusche]

 The day a single set of 17's, 26's etc can fend off and defeat a pair or 3 fighters is crazy.

Only if those 3 fighters attack bombers in the most stupid way... which most AH players unfortunately do.

When I'm in a bomber I see 9 out of 10 players simply creep up my six. I'm a mediocre buff gunner, but most of the time I can blast them.
But each time I see someone is simply taking his time to get into a serious attack position... I know I'm about to die.

[Jayhawk]

Jayhawk, I can at least see your point on the bombers (at least for 1 or 2 attackers, but 3 is starting to push it IMO), but even you must agree that CV ack is ludicrous.

I've never liked that auto CV ack can keep up with a fighter doing maneuvers at 20,000 ft going 400mph.  The auto gunners would have to know where I'm going sometime before I even do.  However, If a guy sitting in those guns is just good enough to knock my bombers down at 15,000ft, more power to him, he earned that skill through practice.

To reiterate Lusche's point, my bombers can take down 15 fighters if they all slip in at dead six one at a time.  IMO, patience is the most important thing when attacking bombers, once you start hurrying to try and kill bombers, you're dead meat.

[Beefcake]

And lets not also forget that bomber guns are firing backwards so they hit with more force because you're flying into his bullets. (if you attack from the rear quarter that is)

[Ack-Ack]

Ive said this before, then I fly some until it annoys the hell out of me then I feel the need to whine again.

Buff lethality is insane, this wwii flight sim as its advertised is becoming less sim and more video game.  Perhaps thats where the studies of the Dev's have told them their market is.  The day a single set of 17's, 26's etc can fend off and defeat a pair or 3 fighters is crazy. 

That gunner in the buff was lucky to encounter 3 players without any sort of knowledge on how to properly attack a bomber formation.  If anyone of those 3 had a clue, the gunner along with his formation would be dead.  No matter how good of a gunner or bomber pilot you are, you will lose 99.99% of the time to the fighter pilot that knows what he's doing.

A decent gunner in this game can stop anyone getting within striking range of ships, fields or towns. 

Grossly exaggerated but hey, you were on a roll.

Flying is tough so I'll try gunning, well this is tough, so HTC makes it easier???  Fly against the CV 5" or anything other than nose on to 17's, anywhere within 1500yds of a flak or PT you will see what I mean, this needs to be addressed and balanced out, HTC seems to always correct one issue by creating another.  Not that my simple monthly fee will make or break this business nor is my opinion carrying any weight, I am sure im not the only one of this opinion.

Spin

You're dying because you're not being smart when attacking things like PT boats, flak panzies, bombers and the like.  You're blaming the game for what is basically your own doing.  Not much different than the people that cry to perk the Spitfire Mk XVI because they can't fight against one.  I guess, just like screaming "PERK IT!", it's far easier just to scream "FIX IT!" instead of taking some time to learn and practice and build up on your skills.


ack-ack

[StokesAk]

Yea 5" puffy ack is the single most annoying thing in Aces High.

[Ghosth]

Learn to attack bombers from the front, or high/ low slashing attacks from the sides.

Dead 6 is called that for a very good reason. Your movement relative to the bomber is virtually nil.
Add to that the the formations defensive guns converge at 500 yards, anyone who sits behind a bomber from 800 to 300 yards out is going to die.  Why? Because he is a stationary target at convergence for the bombers guns. The gunner can put his crosshairs on your cockpit pull the trigger and you will run into those bullets.

 Fighter > 300 mph   *     <<<Bullets going 3000 feet per second.
 
Come into the TA, learn how to make high or low slashing side attacks. Learn to avoid the danger zones, learn to always be a moving target in the 800 - 300 foot zone.  Its not hard, it just takes a bit of educating, and discipline.

[Krusty]

Bombers fly too fast in this game (unhistorically) thereby forcing even a plane in good attack position to fall into a trailing dead-6 attack after only 1, maybe 2 passes.

If you were flying along at historical speeds of 180mph, they wouldn't fall into that dead 6 trap that AH facilitates.


Think about that, Beef, Lusche. It's the speed of the bombers that limits even the best attackers' options.

[Beefcake]

 

Bombers fly too fast in this game (unhistorically) thereby forcing even a plane in good attack position to fall into a trailing dead-6 attack after only 1, maybe 2 passes.

If you were flying along at historical speeds of 180mph, they wouldn't fall into that dead 6 trap that AH facilitates.


Think about that, Beef, Lusche. It's the speed of the bombers that limits even the best attackers' options.

Krusty! *facepalms* It's not the speed that limits options, it's the patience of the attacking pilot that limits the options. A pilot that's cool and takes his time to setup, attack, withdraw, and setup again will usually succeed against me. A pilot that sets up, attacks, and then tries a desperate move will usually die and this is what I see 90% of the time in the MA.

Most of the fighters in AH can overtake most of the bombers. Granted sometimes the closure rates can be slow if the bomber is at full power but that doesn't limit the options, it just means the attacking pilot has to plan his attacks and decide how much time he's going to invest in trying to shoot me down. I've had fights that lasted 20+ minutes where a good pilot has dogged me all the way to target or home making great passes and giving me poor firing arcs/shots.

Going full power to escape is my defense against impatient pilots. Most people don't want to spend time setting things up so they just go for it and dive into the area that has the most guns pointed at it and pay the price. Is flying at full speed unhistorical? Possibly. But if I'm under attack and my B17 can do 280mph at full power don't think I won't firewall that throttle.

[Nemisis]

I must point out that following the logic of bullets doing more damage because you are flying into them, then they would do even more damage when attacking head on, as you have the speed of the bomber, the speed of the bullet and the speed of the fighter all working together, where as from dead 6, you have the speed of the fight and the speed of the bullet minus the speed of the bomber.

As to the attack position thing:

I must agree, I've taken out a set of B-17's withought taking a ping by HO'ing them, and attacking from the 3 or 9 o'clock possition after the HO.

In a pinch (you are unable to get in possition before the drop, or your engine is damaged) the 4 20mm's in my 190 are VERY effective at sawing the wings off of bombers while outside of effective range of retaliaton.

As to the 5" man guns knocking down bombers at 15k, show me 5 examples of a single 5" gun knocking down a set of 3 bombers at 15k with only 10-20 rounds expended.

[Ack-Ack]

Bombers fly too fast in this game (unhistorically) thereby forcing even a plane in good attack position to fall into a trailing dead-6 attack after only 1, maybe 2 passes.

Not true at all.  You will only get into a trailing position if you allow yourself to, it is easy to set up sequential attacks without ending up on the bomber's dead six.


ack-ack

[Krusty]

Not so Ack-Ack... Even in a position of alt and speed, you make 1 pass and even if you move along the same path as the bombers, they move so fast that by the time you reposition for a second pass they are pulling away. Every jink/evasive you pull while zooming past them serves only to bleed your speed.

Beef, you're wrong on that part. The speed of the bombers limits you to chasing them down. You try any manuvers that does NOT take you along the path of the bomber (dive with them, not against them), and you cannot reposition for another attack as they are well outside guns range and heading away.

You try a HO with a bomber formation and you won't get back in position behind them for a long time. Slashing attacks from the side also have this problem, as you are flying on a tangent and they are going straight, you have to cover far far more ground to make an attack than they do simply by flying level.

Historic B-17G speeds were 185 mph cruising, B-24s 20mph or so faster. In this game they're almost always going 300+ mph.


Don't try and tell me that there's no difference attacking a bomber going 185mph than there is one going 300mph. I'll have you know my main prey every month before all this server splitting and reorganizing (right around when my game time was cut down to nil) by a large % my most-killed-planes were the heavy bombers. I've spent a lot of time in this game attacking them, chasing them, working on them from various angles. I can tell you that from any angle, the speed of the bombers forces the attacker to either waste 10 minutes slowly trying to overtake and climb above them (by which time they've flown 50+ miles, dropped their load, and are no longer much of a threat to your country) or you resort to dead-6 attacks because you're only 10mph faster than they are.

Bombers are too fast in this game. They don't have engines that overheat. One of them (B-17G I think?) runs at full-time WEP settings. They can enter your country's radar, bomb your field, and be out the other side of the radar ring before you can even climb up to them, let alone build up speed and overtake them.

300mph = 1 sector crossed in 5 minutes. 1 radar ring = ~12.5 miles (roughly a sector?) from the edge to the field, meaning a bomber can get in and drop bombs in 2.5 minutes. Even a Komet rocket taking off would have a hard time getting to 20k, getting up to speed, making attack runs on and stopping bombers in those conditions.

The entire setup fosters unhistorical bomber gameplay.

EDIT: I don't agree with the topic that the weapons are over powered, I'm simply saying these comments about bombers being just fine are wrong.