"You have landed successfully."

[SlapShot]

The snobbery and the worrying about what others are doing in this game and how they are doing it is getting ludicrous.

[Krusty]

Personally I think it's a non-issue.

Quoted For Truth.

[icepac]

It seems strange people demanding realism from flight, damage, and gunnery modeling when they won't even attempt to fly with realism.

The perfect solution would be a finite amount of planes available.

You belly in and you've removed one example of a certain plane either permanently or for a week.

You belly in 26 times and find you have used up the last model of your preferred ride.

It would be difficult to code.

[grizz441]

I have always liked the idea of getting additional points based on how undamaged your plane is when you return it to base.  That goes from battle sustained damage and obviously, engine, and snapped wing damage when you land. 

I'm one of the worst habitual belly landers in this game, it's quick and easy, and also because I have no incentive to land with my gear.  Until there is incentive to land wheels up, I will continue to XBOX land.

[Krusty]

If you don't do it now there's no amount of points or incentive that will make you do it in the future.

[Soulyss]

Well I've been here for 10 years and I can count the times I've intentionally landed with the gear down!

Wait are we talking about landing? Or "landing"?

[grizz441]

If you don't do it now there's no amount of points or incentive that will make you do it in the future.

Really Krusty?

[Krusty]

Yep. If you want to get back to the fight sooner you will circumvent things that keep you from doing that. If you make it a punishment to do anything other than take time and land properly, people will avoid the punishment.

Landing is an immersion/fun/preference deal for any individual player. There's already a major perk multiplier for landing on the tarmac, yet most people mindlessly furball until they are dead because it's faster than flying back to land (quite a few have mentioned this is the best way to get a higher score). Make it a punishment to "land wrong" and all of a sudden they'll just bail or auger because it's faster and avoids the penalties.

So if you're not already landing with your landing gear NOW, no punitive additions to the game will change that. You'll just change and adapt, but you won't be forced to do something you don't want to do.

[Dead Man Flying]

Adding incentives for landing with the gear down sounds like a solution in search of a problem.  Is the game truly affected negatively because landing with gear up has become rampant?

[Krusty]

Agree there.

[Citabria]

Fly however you want to fly.

Just be warned if you aspire to fly real airplanes in the future that if you develop bad landing procedure habbits in this game (or good ones for that matter)...  Such experience may become a habbit that is either good or is bad and needs to be unlearned.

Make a habbit of doing a simple landing gear/flaps/fuel check to confirm that you are configured for landing.
Make a good approach and wheel or 3 point landing in the touch down zone at an appropriate airspeed
Keep the aircraft centered exactly down the runway while you roll out to a stop

It may not be the same as the real deal but its still good practice to get in the habbit of having good habbits for anyone with interest in real world flying.

[grizz441]

Yep. If you want to get back to the fight sooner you will circumvent things that keep you from doing that. If you make it a punishment to do anything other than take time and land properly, people will avoid the punishment.

I'd land with wheels down if I earned more points for landing an undamaged airplane.

[BoilerDown]

I always try to land with the wheels down.  I usually also land without power, 1) because I never learned how to do it "right" (sorry Rolex, you did teach me how to not ground-loop though), and 2) its good practice for when you're dead stick.  I'll goose a little power if I don't think I'm going to make it, but usually I'm coming in too fast and killing off airspeed until right over the runway.  I also like to practice taxiing to the refueling station if I have one kill and an undamaged aircraft.  I can't do that with a belly landing.  That's a skill that I need in scenarios that I would forget if I didn't practice.

What gets me the most is when I'm landing kills for "name in lights" and I forget that I have a damaged landing gear.  When that happens I usually end up barely off the concrete with a broken wing and/or prop and fairly pissed off.  

Of course sometimes it isn't the end of the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3aDYMCOeOk

[Krusty]

EDIT: Responding to Grizz, before boilerdown posted:

How does that justify "wheels down" earning more points than, say me with 1/2 wingtip gone, 1 flap out, 1 elevator missing, no rudder, and coming in belly landing after getting 5 kills?

There's no way to enforce it because there's no way to tell if it was intentional or if it was for extrenuating circumstances. The game cannot read the hearts and minds of the players to determine if they're cutting corners or pulling off a miraculous save.

[grizz441]

EDIT: Responding to Grizz, before boidown posted:

How does that justify "wheels down" earning more points than, say me with 1/2 wingtip gone, 1 flap out, 1 elevator missing, no rudder, and coming in belly landing after getting 5 kills?

There's no way to enforce it because there's no way to tell if it was intentional or if it was for extrenuating circumstances. The game cannot read the hearts and minds of the players to determine if they're cutting corners or pulling off a miraculous save.

It's pretty simple Krusty, if you land with damage you should receive less points than if you land a 100% unwounded bird.  Both score points & perk points, the weight of that difference I do not know but I think it should be taken into account.  It would also make sense from a real life perspective, just because you landed a plane missing half its parts on the concrete, I hardly think the crew chief would value that the same as bringing a bird back wheels up, with no damage on the grass next to the concrete do you?  

So per your example, if you landed with 1/2 wingtip gone, 1 flap out, 1 elevator missing, no rudder, coming in for a belly landing, yeah it would still count as a "successful land", but you wouldn't get as large as a point & perk point bonus multiplier for all the damage you accrued earning those 5 kills.  And how this relates to belly landing, since belly landing an otherwise clean bird would damage it, this would be a carrot as well to land with a gear.