bomber guns.....

[Nemisis]

Please limit the number of possitions fired with the "fire all" button to be limited to 2 (per bomber, not total). Honestly, its almost impossible to attack a group of 3 or more (if they are decent shots) the way it is now. Its like flying into a wall of bullets. You get pilot wounded, they kill your engine, or just go and shoot your wing off.

Support for this idea:
The single .50's we have on the M4's tend to give a lot of damaged engines (I've given many, and I've been killed by them) or pilot wounds. Most bombers have 2 per mount, and that gives a total of 12 landing hits at convergence range. Still shouldn't be TOO much of a problem to kill something with them.

[Jayhawk]

lol, Put on your flack jacket son.


As a bomber pilot who regularly flies in large groups, I've seen how very possible it is for some to fly through the group and take out bombers.  Death comes from greed and impatience.  One person alone is probably not going to take out all the groups, but can certainly have an impact, it's your decision when to go home or continue the attack.  Attack the right way and you will increase your chance of survival.


BTW, this is a classic example of, "this is too hard for me, fix it fix it fix it HTC!!"  

Edit again... Maybe we should only allow two fighters to fire when you get into a 1 v. 3 situation.  You know, because they chose to work together and it's not at all your fault for choosing to engage.

[Lusche]

Please limit the number of possitions fired with the "fire all" button to be limited to 2 (per bomber, not total). Honestly, its almost impossible to attack a group of 3 or more (if they are decent shots) the way it is now. Its like flying into a wall of bullets. You get pilot wounded, they kill your engine, or just go and shoot your wing off.

Just for clarification before I draw my flamethrower: By "group of 3 or more" - do you mean a standard formation (player plane + 2 drones)?

[Nemisis]

I always try to attack them from the front and sides. No doubt its possible, its just extremely difficult. Perhaps let them recruit a gunner, and that will let all possitions with a shot fire.

But my point is that anyone who has trouble killing with 12 .50's (often 15-16 counting the waist guns) isn't shooting strait. Multiply that by 3 and you have 36 .50's shooting at one aircraft.I'm fine with letting the bombers defend themselves, I just want it to be fair.

Take the 91'st for example; its galling when I can't get stop them, or even make them twitch, but I know its part of the game. I'll ask for help dealing with them before they kill all our hangers, and whine about unneeded hanger porking when they DO get the hangers, but I'm not about to start cussing them out on 200 or anything.


And lusche, I mean a group of 3 pilots with formations (9 bombers total, counting drones). You must admit that 36 .50's blazing away at a single aircraft is excessive. I do it with 4 often enough.

[Jayhawk]

But my point is that anyone who has trouble killing with 12 .50's (often 15-16 counting the waist guns) isn't shooting strait. Multiply that by 3 and you have 36 .50's shooting at one aircraft.I'm fine with letting the bombers defend themselves, I just want it to be fair.

The fallacy with this is that it's not possible for all the 17's guns to be firing at one plane at one time.  Think about a strait down attack, the top turret is the only gun that can get on them.  Even an attack from the dead six usually only fires the ball and tail turrets.

[Nemisis]

Jayhawk, with a dead 6 attack, you have the tail/ball guns of your target plane firing, those on the drones, AND the waist guns on the drones. thats still 14 .50's firing on your plane in a worst case scenario.

I'm not saying that every bullet fired will hit, or that every gun firing will aim directly at you (as opposed to in your direction). Attacks would be suicide if they did. I'm just saying that there is still a hell of a lot of lead flying at you, and it doesn't take a whole lot to kill or serisouly damage fighters. I've had P-38's explode after I got one solid pass with a P-51B (4. 50's to put things in perspective)

[Lusche]

And lusche, I mean a group of 3 pilots with formations (9 bombers total, counting drones). You must admit that 36 .50's blazing away at a single aircraft is excessive. I do it with 4 often enough.

In that case I applaud the buff guys for being smart enough and able to do such a thing. The utter majority of buff guys are flying single, with an additional percentage of players trying to fly in formation...but failing at it.

Limiting the number of guns firing is giving single players a notable disadvantage. It's the same of asking HT to remove formations.

Also you have to keep in mind the buff convergence settings. There is a lot of lead in the air, but outside the convergence point (500yds) it's all over the place. Of course a good buff gunner is a dangerous foe... but good buff gunners are much rarer than good gunners in fighters. And I'm sure you won't tune fighter guns down just because few guys are really good at it?

[Lusche]

Jayhawk, with a dead 6 attack, you have the tail/ball guns of your target plane firing, those on the drones, AND the waist guns on the drones. thats still 14 .50's firing on your plane in a worst case scenario.

And you totally deserve to die for even trying an attack from dead six. As you note it's the worst case scenario, but it's the fighters fault for getting there. And you really have to be almost inside the enemy formation, to enable the drone waist gunners to have a shot in this scenario. That's really a completely messed up attack.

[Nemisis]

No, no. I'm not asking to make the guns less effective than they were in real life. I'm just asking to cut out either the top/ball turret and the waist turret (3 guns total) if you fire to the left or right rear/forward. In most cases, it wouldn't make a HUGE impact, just that a group of bomber pilots (even 3-4) that knows what they are doing can be really hard to get at, almost assuring they will kill your hangers before being dragged down.

[Jayhawk]

Just played with some bombers offline, firing at the six doesn't seem to fire the waist guns, they can't get at that angle.  It requires you to be at ~4:30 or 7:30 before it begins firing, and at that angle the tail cannot fire.  Like Lusche said, given bomber convergence, there is only a small window where all 3 bomber guns are together, if you've got speed you'll only be in that spot for a split second.  Remember drones guns aren't smart guns, they just shoot where the lead is shooting.  So if you get right behind the lead bomber, the waist guns still won't shoot at you, even if they could, and the drone guns will still firing strait back into nothing.

No, no. I'm not asking to make the guns less effective than they were in real life. I'm just asking to cut out either the top/ball turret and the waist turret (3 guns total) if you fire to the left or right rear/forward. In most cases, it wouldn't make a HUGE impact, just that a group of bomber pilots (even 3-4) that knows what they are doing can be really hard to get at, almost assuring they will kill your hangers before being dragged down.

Well even 3-4 pilots who know what they are doing can be very effective at taking out bombers.

[Lusche]

No, no. I'm not asking to make the guns less effective than they were in real life. I'm just asking to cut out either the top/ball turret and the waist turret (3 guns total) if you fire to the left or right rear/forward. In most cases, it wouldn't make a HUGE impact, just that a group of bomber pilots (even 3-4) that knows what they are doing can be really hard to get at, almost assuring they will kill your hangers before being dragged down.

You should try to visualise the firing arcs of all those guns. You will find that it's never that both drone's waist guns can shoot at anything the tail guns can fire at the same time.
It's even rare that more than 12 barrels can point on any attacking  fighter. And as a fighter, you can do a lot to get that number much lower. And keep in mind the convergence issues of bomber guns:


(Picture by Fuzeman)


The result is that it's just helping those who are trying to attack a bomber in the most unsuitable, dumb way and to park their fighter right on the dead six of the buffs.

I mean that in the most respectful way: Learn to attack bombers properly

[Nemisis]

That is a good point , I admit I forgot about that. Perhaps then, put a 5-6 perk on the heavies? Just SOMETHING to inhibit the massive bomber raids that will disable all the bases in a 3 sector by 2 sector area that pop up several times a tour.

And lusche, as I said, I try to avoid dead 6 attacks. Thats about as dumb as HO'ing a 110 with a zeek.



Also, wouldn't mind it if you 91'st boys would hit the knits once in a while two. Lately (past 5-6 days), there has been rather little action on that part of your front (in the compello map anyway) .

[Beefcake]

In other words because a few buff pilots flew a nice tight formation and killed you with a wall of lead, you want HTC to "nerf" the field of firing for bombers. You want this done so you can attack and have a better chance of surviving when engaging a tightly clustered group of 9-12 buffs (3-4 players) even though the effect would weaken the majority of bombers in the game. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh hhh..........how about no.

Nemisis I'm not saying your a bad pilot, but if you died while trying to attack 9-12 bombers then you just need to suck it up and move on. The whole reason why buff pilots fly those tight formations is to combine their firepower and protect themselves from attackers. You need to get a wingman or two and split the bombers defensive fire, or you need to accept the risk that you'll most likely get killed when attacking a large formation alone. I'm sorry but to me this is just a "make it easier for me to kill them thread".

Lets also look at the impact this would have on other aircraft, not all bombers have 12 machine guns on them. What about my B25C's that I love to fly? Would only 1 or 2 of the turrets fire when I was attacked? How about the Ju88? would only 1 of the 3 rear gunners fire? What about the Ki76? B26? Lancs? You see this would lead to so many other problems it would make your head spin.

[Lusche]

That is a good point , I admit I forgot about that. Perhaps then, put a 5-6 perk on the heavies? Just SOMETHING to inhibit the massive bomber raids that will disable all the bases in a 3 sector by 2 sector area that pop up several times a tour.

The frequency "Several times a tour" strongly indicates that there is no problem at all.

Personally, I love that kind of missions, always a nice change of pace from the usual low/med alt jabo stuff.

[Jayhawk]

Also, wouldn't mind it if you 91'st boys would hit the knits once in a while two. Lately (past 5-6 days), there has been rather little action on that part of your front (in the compello map anyway) .

Nits had a tendency to not come up and fight us like the rooks did, milkruns just aren't fun.  You never know now,  seems to be all or nothing if one sides put up a defense.  We had a good one yesterday though, a pretty solid defense that cleaned up the guys who drifted out of formation.  I can't even remember which side it was on, red guys.