Could use some helpful hints

[Popeye44]

1. I don't have a problem with heavy's at high altitude and bombing. However, when at low levels, say 8K, is where the wheels go square.
Guys I fly with are picking out hangers while I'm lucky to hit the base? No calibration?

2. Also I've heard of "J" & "L" turns?

3. You've landed after a successful bombing run but lost your two drones in the process. Is your damage score reduced by two thirds or do you get full credit?
And if you don't make it back at all, did the damage/kills not count?

4. How do you join a bomber or CV TF as a gunner?

5. Lastly, how do you "hot reload" if your A/C is intact but your out of ammo? I think there's a spot at either end of the runway?

Appreciate any comments.   

[Brakechk]

1. I don't have a problem with heavy's at high altitude and bombing. However, when at low levels, say 8K, is where the wheels go square.
Guys I fly with are picking out hangers while I'm lucky to hit the base? No calibration?

2. Also I've heard of "J" & "L" turns?

3. You've landed after a successful bombing run but lost your two drones in the process. Is your damage score reduced by two thirds or do you get full credit?
And if you don't make it back at all, did the damage/kills not count?

4. How do you join a bomber or CV TF as a gunner?

5. Lastly, how do you "hot reload" if your A/C is intact but your out of ammo? I think there's a spot at either end of the runway?

Appreciate any comments.  

I don't know all these answers but here are some suggestions:

1.  Calibration:  You need to calibrate at a steady speed.  If you're having trouble at low alts then it could be that your speed isn't settled down.  When you go through the calibration routine you have some info on the top right of your screen in your bombsite.  After calibration check to see that "calibrated" and "current" speed are within 1 mph of each other and then aren't moving apart as you head into target after calibration.  If current is high then you can make some adjustments to throttle to keep it within that 1mph.  If calibrated is high and you're not gaining then recalibrate.  Your plane needs time to get up to current speed, opening bombbay doors slows ya down, big turns slow ya down, dropping bombs speeds you up.  So if you have to do any of these things between calibration and dropping your speeds can change.  Get a fairly decent lineup and be level for about half a sector before calibration to make it easier.

2.  J and L are the default keyboard commands for rudder trim.  A lot of guys use rudder turns to turn their formation.  I assume they are talking about getting in a gunner position, then using rudder to turn.  I use my controller rudder and can't remember the actual rudder keyboard commands.  Some advantages in rudder turns are a less dramatic turn, less alt loss in the turn, ease of keeping your formation together.  You can also turn from within the f6 view or bombsite.  You can use your aileron control to do this to make small adjustments while on the run in the bombsite.  These tend to be less dramatic turns also.

3.  I'm not sure.  I know you lose the perks associated with the drones you lose.  I think you may get your points but lose some perks for each drone you lose but someone else can prob answer this better.

4.  To join as a gunner on a bomber type ".join xxx" where xxx is the name of the player whose bomber you wish to join.  You can use this command to "ride along" with any player in any plane but only in planes with gunners would you be doing anything but watching (handy for seeing what another player does in a dogfight).  Ask the player you want to join before sending the request.  This can be sent at any time in the other players flight.  To gun a CV TG open up the clipboard map and choose "gun position" just as you would any other plane or gv.  Once you click it a map depicting the tg with several round dots come up.  Click on the gun position you want to man, click on "H" to launch just as you would to launch a plane or gv or boat off the TG.  Red dots are out of action (destroyed), blue dots are occupied, white dots are available for you to man.

5.  Rearm pads are in general located at the ends of the runways.  Near the end of the runway you will see a small taxi way that resembles a freeway onramp or offramp.  Follow it off the runway (the typically curve off the runway) to a small concrete pad with a yellow circle that has "rearm" painted on the ground.  There is also a small building on one corner of that pad.  Once you get to the pad stop inside the yellow circle.  You will get a message telling you that you are rearming and it will be complete in 30 secs.  Once the 30 sec.s has transpired you will get a message telling you that it is complete.  Taxi back to the runway and take off.  You need not shut down the engine for this to complete.  The easiest way for me to locate them is to fly low and slow over the field and look for them, they are easier to find the first time from the air.

Hope this helps.  There are several films posted by vudu15 covering basic stuff i AH.  I think he may have one regarding rearming.  They are very handy for new players you might try checking them out.  I suspect some other players will log on and clarify some of this stuff I responded to you with.

Zaphod

[Lusche]

You've landed after a successful bombing run but lost your two drones in the process. Is your damage score reduced by two thirds or do you get full credit?
And if you don't make it back at all, did the damage/kills not count?

Your damage score is never reduced at all. In your example, you just suffer two 'death', which have an impact on your damage/death score.
Even when you don't return at all, no damage or kills are lost. You just get slightly less perks in addition to the effect described above (if you are in a perked bomber, you lose the perks for every plane you lose). Note that any kills made in bomber mode do not have any effect on your score/rank at all.

4. How do you join a bomber or CV TF as a gunner?

Bomber: You have to join a player already in flight, either by typing .join NAME or by selecting that player in the roster, rightclick and "join". Just do not try to join other players without asking them first.
CV (or base): Go to hangar, and select "Ship Gun Field" from the list of planes and GV (make sure you have 'ALL' tab selected). Then a map of the base will appear in the hangar where you can select the gun you want to man. Destroyed guns are marked red, already occupied guns are blue.

5. Lastly, how do you "hot reload" if your A/C is intact but your out of ammo? I think there's a spot at either end of the runway?

Yes, at the end of each runway there is a rearm pad. Taxi onto it and wait for 30 seconds. You can use external views while taxiing on the ground. Note that you can't do that in formation bombers, your drones will not take off with you again.

[Slate]

  On small fields only 1 rearm pad is available. Off the runway near the VH side.

[ImADot]

  On small fields only 1 rearm pad is available. Off the runway near the VH side.

There's a rearm pad near the end of each end of the runway.



While on the ground, use F3 view mode and F8 to move your view around to get a good external view to help your taxiing around the airfields.

[Babalonian]

1. I don't have a problem with heavy's at high altitude and bombing. However, when at low levels, say 8K, is where the wheels go square.
Guys I fly with are picking out hangers while I'm lucky to hit the base? No calibration?

2. Also I've heard of "J" & "L" turns?

3. You've landed after a successful bombing run but lost your two drones in the process. Is your damage score reduced by two thirds or do you get full credit?
And if you don't make it back at all, did the damage/kills not count?

4. How do you join a bomber or CV TF as a gunner?

5. Lastly, how do you "hot reload" if your A/C is intact but your out of ammo? I think there's a spot at either end of the runway?

Appreciate any comments.   

1 - When in the bomb sight (the F6 key), were looking at all those numbers on the uper left corner of the screen, verify your calibrated speed and altitude is not off from your current speed and altitud readings (after more practice with studying these numbers, you do gain a "feel" for much to compensate if you're only 3 or 4 mph off.  If the numbers are drasticly off, say by a dozen, recalibrate or abort that pass and set yourself up better for a second.).

I'm always watching these numbers when bombing for accuracy.

2 - J & L turns...  maybe some buff expert can elaborate, im drawing a blank atm - my blind guess would be laymans for left or right.

3 - I suck at the numbers crunching and Lusche gave the acurate answer:  If you drop all your ord on target and loose one drone RTBing - you loose perks for each perked drone you loose, you get full credit (names in lights) for total damage you inflicted regardless of loosing one of your bombers post-drop, but I am myself confused by the outcome of perk points generated (I suspect/think/guesstimate you get 2/3 credit landed and 1/3 credit ditched or ~50% for the drone you lost).  The math is actualy easier if you loose one drone pre-drop - it didn't make it, it didn't drop (33% of your total potential damage-inducing capacity), you do not collect 1/3 of $200 after passing Go.

4 - Lusche again has the bread a butter for ya on it.  I recommend not gunning (or taking on a gunner) with a drastic/notable difference in connection speed/quality:  IE - gunner and pilot have high-speed internet, one lives east coast and the other west, both have a ping to the server of ~50ms - they will have better results than if the high-speed east coast player joins up with a 56k user in Oklahoma or Australia. 

With shore batteries or ship guns, you should read up on how to toggle through the different aiming modes available to make it easier to learn from the get-go (Land Mode - tracks to a set position regardless of ship movement, Sea Mode - tracks to a set position in relation to the ship (and its movements), and Free/Normal mode.).  Also note some big guns have different loadouts of AA or HE, and 88s AA rounds need to be manualy fused/adjusted to detonate after a specific distance of travel (5" naval guns have proximity fuses  ).

5 - Rearm pads will reload your main/single buff and any undamage defensive guns (it will reload all of them, but they remain out of operation if knocked out).  You can land with two drones, rearm, and takeoff without them - but your drones will not land after staying behind, they will eventualy disapear and it will effect your score as if you flew out of range and ditched them.

  On small fields only 1 rearm pad is available. Off the runway near the VH side.

There is one rearm pad located at the end of each runway (and each runway has two ends).  They are always available (under friendly control) and undestroyable.  Here's some good images someone worked up a while ago (I believe thanks to RipRap from this thread http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?topic=330311.0 ).

At small fields they're square pads (with "RE-ARM" painted on them) located on the VH side of the runway, about 100 yards off the runway down two long-curved taxiways leading to each (my favorite rearm pads because of this design element) about 100 and 200 yards from the ends.  I would not recommend them to a "newbie" for rearming the very largest buffs, but practice makes perfect (use rudder and C/V keys for L/R brake).  One has a large shack on the edge of the pad that is an added challenge, and the other has a lesser-sized shack that can still be tricky since most buff wingtips will fit over it with but barely with only having to get one of your main gears on to initiate the rearm process (30-seconds, pay attention to the text buffer for when you're on it and when you're ready to go).


Medium fields is where practicality and convenience starts to show with rearm pads and their location and layout.  Note, the "short" runway at medium and large fields is only about the length of the single main runway at small fields.  The rearm pads also at the ends of these short runways features those same larger-shacks next to the pad for an aditional challenge of landing and taking off on the "short" runway wasn't enough for ya in heavies.  The pads on the main runway though are each different - one is "typical" with the medium-large shack, but the other has a different layout of shorter shacks along the pad, much more open and much easier to access with a very large buff.


Large fields follow the same scheme introduced with medium fields - short runways have rearm pads right on them, but that are relatively crowded compared to the ones provided more with buffs in mind at the end of the two main runways.

[Popeye44]

Wow! Thank you all very much. Only been playing about four months and would like to pull my weight.

I'm a much better golfer than pilot, but AH will give me something to do when I get orders to the assisted living facility.

 

[Lusche]

, but I am myself confused by the outcome of perk points generated (I suspect/think/guesstimate you get 2/3 credit landed and 1/3 credit ditched or ~50% for the drone you lost). 

There is only a perk gain modifier for sucessful landing: perks won x 1.25

[Babalonian]

There is only a perk gain modifier for sucessful landing: perks won x 1.25

Yes, but I was/am wondering to how precisely it works if say you fly two similar sorties (each one you make it to target with all drones and drop a full load), but one you sucessfuly land with two drones still in tow, and the other you only land with one in tow. 

This is specificly in regards to perk points generated, I know it'll give you full credit for damage sucessfuly delivered in the text buffer.

[Lusche]

Yes, but I was/am wondering to how precisely it works if say you fly two similar sorties (each one you make it to target with all drones and drop a full load), but one you sucessfuly land with two drones still in tow, and the other you only land with one in tow. 

There is no difference in perk gain as long as you get a "landed" in both cases. It would only matter if the bomber was a perked one.

[Babalonian]

There is no difference in perk gain as long as you get a "landed" in both cases. It would only matter if the bomber was a perked one.

.

So the only impact loosing a drone would have is to score (if the score takes into account deaths/losses you take, which I don't think is much a factor to bomber score/rank as other categories that stress K/D ratios....).

I'm surprised, when it comes to making it home as safely as possible in bombers, that it has such a negative impact with perked rides and such a marginal/nill impact with the vast and greater majority of non-perked formation sorties, post-drop....

[Lusche]

So the only impact loosing a drone would have is to score (if the score takes into account deaths/losses you take, which I don't think is much a factor to bomber score/rank as other categories that stress K/D ratios....).

Score and your perk result if the bomber was a perked one - the perk gain is not affected, but you will get a deduction for every perk plane you loose, which usually is more than enough to cancel out any perks won by bombing

And the impact on score is as big as it would be to a fighter being shot down. The fighter has one sub category where deaths do matter (K/D), the bomber has one too (DMG/D).

[Babalonian]

Score and your perk result if the bomber was a perked one - the perk gain is not affected, but you will get a deduction for every perk plane you loose, which usually is more than enough to cancel out any perks won by bombing

And the impact on score is as big as it would be to a fighter being shot down. The fighter has one sub category where deaths do matter (K/D), the bomber has one too (DMG/D).

There's got to be more to it than just DMG/D though, or that category is adjusted so it doesn't have much total weight on the score, or it has a multiplier in it to consider plane type, but it can't be that simple...  Otherwise the softer bombers with less ordnance capacity get a double whammie.  Sure, couple more perks are made, but you could loose ~9 B-17s and still not trade ranks if the guy below you lost 3 G4Ms, and the G4M pilot has made three times as many sorties in that time as the B-17....  or if somoene looses 9 G4Ms, their bomber score is porked.

[Lusche]

There's got to be more to it than just DMG/D though, or that category is adjusted so it doesn't have much total weight on the score, or it has a multiplier in it to consider plane type, but it can't be that simple...  Otherwise the softer bombers with less ordnance capacity get a double whammie.  Sure, couple more perks are made, but you could loose ~9 B-17s and still not trade ranks if the guy below you lost 3 G4Ms, and the G4M pilot has made three times as many sorties in that time as the B-17....  or if somoene looses 9 G4Ms, their bomber score is porked.

The score system is really very simple and straightforward, with one single notable exception.

You have 5 categories for bomber mode.

Damage / Death
Damage / Sortie
Damage Hit Percentage
Damage Points (Total Damage inflicted, this is NOT the same as the "landed damage" message you see in the arena)
Field captures.

Those categories are not weighted in any way. Your ranks in each of those categories are added together, and the total number is compared to all other players' sum to determine your final rank. That's all.
So speaking strictly in score/rank terms you want to make as much damage as possible in as few sorties as possible with as few bombs as possible and as few deaths as possible. And then a few field captures by a C-47.
Obviously a player making only town milk runs in a single B-29 at 30k has a huge advantage over someone flying a G4M. It's just like in fighter mode, where flying Tempests and Me 262's gives you a huge advantage in the score/rank race.

However, I want to emphasize that totally avoiding any death, respectively extreme 'maximizing' (or gaming) of the scores does only really matter when going for the top spots in the ranking. I have made a lot of runs with a significantly less than optimum plane choice / loadout / target selection (strat runs on the City are really bad for Hit %)  in the current tour and died several times, yet I'm still #3 at the moment.


Oh, I forgot the exception I mentioned above. It is as follows: While the plane type you are flying has no direct impact on your Damage Points (= no modifier) beyond the simple fact that more bombs means more damage, there is a very odd modifier for the bomb size you are carrying.

Bigger bombs (or weapons in general) generate much more score damage points per actually inflicted damage / destroyed objects than smaller ones. If you kill 60 town buildings with 500lb bombs, you will get less score points for it than if you had done the same with 1000lb bombs, even though the "landed damage" arena message was about the same.
I'm still trying to get HT to 'fix' that

[Babalonian]

The score system is really very simple and straightforward, with one single notable exception.

You have 5 categories for bomber mode.

Damage / Death
Damage / Sortie
Damage Hit Percentage
Damage Points (Total Damage inflicted, this is NOT the same as the "landed damage" message you see in the arena)
Field captures.

Those categories are not weighted in any way. Your ranks in each of those categories are added together, and the total number is compared to all other players' sum to determine your final rank. That's all.
So speaking strictly in score/rank terms you want to make as much damage as possible in as few sorties as possible with as few bombs as possible and as few deaths as possible. And then a few field captures by a C-47.
Obviously a player making only town milk runs in a single B-29 at 30k has a huge advantage over someone flying a G4M. It's just like in fighter mode, where flying Tempests and Me 262's gives you a huge advantage in the score/rank race.

However, I want to emphasize that totally avoiding any death, respectively extreme 'maximizing' (or gaming) of the scores does only really matter when going for the top spots in the ranking. I have made a lot of runs with a significantly less than optimum plane choice / loadout / target selection (strat runs on the City are really bad for Hit %)  in the current tour and died several times, yet I'm still #3 at the moment.


Oh, I forgot the exception I mentioned above. It is as follows: While the plane type you are flying has no direct impact on your Damage Points (= no modifier) beyond the simple fact that more bombs means more damage, there is a very odd modifier for the bomb size you are carrying.

Bigger bombs (or weapons in general) generate much more score damage points per actually inflicted damage / destroyed objects than smaller ones. If you kill 60 town buildings with 500lb bombs, you will get less score points for it than if you had done the same with 1000lb bombs, even though the "landed damage" arena message was about the same.
I'm still trying to get HT to 'fix' that

The fix you're going for though would go against the trend I'm seeing within the explanations of your post, that bigger is better for score, period.  Biggest payload bombers with the biggest bombs - all needing to be utilised intelligently though of cource, but still giving (vastly?) more favor and forgiveness to the big bombers.

The bogling part is when you take into account the "other" bomber choices, a player choosing on more than the rare occasion to utilise a medium and light classified buffs is hardly choosing an easier path.  And if they utilise them intelligently AND sucessfuly will still be at a defeciency of reward compared to the big buffs.

ENY must play a role then that I'm not seeing, or if it is I wonder how much?