realistic gunnery

[MiG Eater]

Judging by the lack of long range shot complaints in recent months, it seems that this is far less of a perceived problem than in the past.  This is somewhat surprising to me since the cones of fire were tightened up a couple of versions back. I don't ever recall being pinged beyond 900 yds by a fighter.  I do regularly suffer d1.4 and closer hits from the machine gun armed ground vehicles and bombers.  Nearly every bomber that has hit me at that range recently has been off of my right or left wing on a parallel course negating the effects of net lag on the range value.  That 500 additional yards seem significant until the volume of fire is factored in - most are sprayin' and prayin'.  Damage from the lucky hits at ths range is usually negligible.  Its the close range rifle caliber devastating hits from GV's that perplex me more than the long range "silver bullets."

MiG

[Lephturn]

Just an FYI:

The cones of fire were not tightened up.  I believe the only change was that the dispersion pattern was given weighting towards the center of the cone.  Instead of a completely random pattern of dispersion, a given round is now more likely to land closer to the center of the pattern, giving us a much more realistic dispersion pattern.  The cone of fire is just as big as it ever was, the difference being that "most" of the rounds now pass closer to the center.  

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Sean "Lephturn" Conrad - Aces High Chief Trainer

A proud member of the mighty Flying Pigs
http://www.flyingpigs.com

Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH articles and training info!

[Toad]

Tac, you're simply describing your idea of how the game should work.

I have a slightly different view of how things look from a RL cockpit than you do, I think.

[Tac]

Ok, tell me then why the icons are in the game. Enemy icons/laserranging that is, friendly icon are needed to IFF a country with mixed war AC.

What are the advantages vs disadvantages? Which one simulates combat better?

[easymo]

 I play on a 17in. monitor. No Icons would be a big Bye Bye for me. That is to much of an edge to give to the guy with the equipment. I think I read somewhere that in RL they had a sort of rangefinder. If the wingspan fit into a section of the gunsite, they were X number of yards away.

 The no Icon thing reminds me of the guys in WB, who think the dumbed down gunnery is just fine. You can bet its not the guys with packet loss problems that want to keep the weak guns.

[Toad]

Pretty simple Tac, but you won't accept it because you have made up your mind based on your vast experience.

The icons are in the game because a 2D monitor and key pad do not, at this stage of technology (and probably never will), provide the visual cues that are nearly instantaneously available to the guy in the RL cockpit.

Since WW2 ACM is based on visual cues, there you have your answer.

"Crutches" have been built into the game to compensate for the difference between 2D monitors and RL eyeballs on a swivel mount.

Now, you have your own personal idea about how the crutches should be implemented or not implemented. Good for you. Accept the fact that others may differ with you and you may not be "right."  

Tell me how much time you have chasing other airplanes, particularly WW2 aircraft, around the RL sky?

Then I might be able to assess your ideas more effectively. Right now, I'm sorta unimpressed.  

Just my .02.  

[Jekyll]

 

I think I read somewhere that in RL they had a sort of rangefinder. If the wingspan fit into a section of the gunsite, they were X number of yards away.

Yes indeed they did.  BTW, this 'feature' has been available in Air Warrior for at least the last 10 years.

[Karnak]

Here are a couple of ideas that I've posted about possible modification solutions:

1:
Remove the numerical ranges, but leave the ID as is. Replace the range number with a + to indicate that you are getting closer to the con and a - to indicate that you are getting further away from the con.
Or have the range number changed to a closer number, eg

Spit
+129

would indicate that you are looking at a Spitfire and are gaining 129 yards per minute on it.

F4U
-1526

would indicate an F4U that with a separation of 1526 yards per minute.

2:
Leave the ID as is and use "+", "=" and "-" symbols to indicate distance change speed.

A Spitfire that you are gaining on fast would look as follows:

Spit
+++

A Yak that was matching, or nearly matching,  your speed would be:

Yak
=

An A6M5b that you were escaping from would be:

A6M
--

An F4U-1D that you were barely out running would be:

F4U
-

And a Bf109G-2 that was rapidly gaining on you would be:

109
++++


Just a couple of thoughts

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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

Bring the Spitfire F.MkXIVc to Aces High!!!

Sisu
-Karnak

[bowser]

"...Yes indeed they did. BTW, this 'feature' has been available in Air Warrior for at least the last 10 years..."

You can edit the gunsight files in AH just like in WBs (and AW) to include the range markings.

bowser

[Jekyll]

Sure you can bowser.. but that's not the point.  AW has always had a keypress which enabled you to scale the gunsight to a particular range.  The actual sight itself would grow larger and smaller, and in the radio message box you would see "300yds" etc.

Vastly different from a 'one size fits all' gunsight we currently have.

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When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Chapter 13, verse 11

[Jigster]

I dunno if giving concrete information on someone's energy state relative to your plane is such a good idea...

- Bess

[-lynx-]

 

But how come 1 ping can cause death whereas 500 .303 rounds do bugger all?

I can come up with a dozen reasons for 1 ping kill but I'm reading a book about a Finnish fighter pilot (don't ask me to remember his name ) and according to him 0.303 cals were useless . He describes an attack on a Soviet bomber where he'd killed a rear gunner first, then lined up on an engine of the bomber and having spent all 2,500 rounds at point blank range (2 MGs) he'd still failed to set it on fire - the bomber pulled away with a smoking but still working engine and escaped...

[Tac]

Then I guess all the flying ive been doing without enemy icons on H2H for the past 3 months against my buds means that the game *really* needs icons and laserrangefinders to dogfight and get a kill.  

I suggest you try and get off the "crutches" for a while. It wont look as in RL (heck nothing will in this decade at least), yet it does make all the features for which I, and I hope most folks here, are in AH: Good modeling and good ACM'ing. You will hardly find a quakehead in iconless games, you will rarely find people that will follow you in any manouver...because they wont have the icon screaming "HES HERE". Bounces work against the pilot that is not scanning the sky, no snap second look to 6 to see if there's a red icon there.

As I said before, it makes AH really shine in its best features and almost completely removes all the "gaming the game" kind of playing.

And yes toad, I have my mind made up. That is why im suggesting the enemy icons be removed. You may differ with me all you want, I actually like to see other points of views, yet shoving your RL experience (an incredibly common retort in this boards which "tell me sonny, have you ever flown? No? Then you dont have the right to say anything about it" attitude which I find quite hilarious) down my throat wont do you any good. And you still didnt say anything about advantages/disadvantages of the icons in the game, you just gave the reason why they are in right now.

BTW, the gunsight shake will be really cool to have next version, but I predict it will hardly do anything against the long range spray and pray.  

That's neat Jekyll! That would really help in AH    

[Toad]

No, what it means Tac is that you, like so many others in so many other topics before you, have decided that everyone else should play the game the way you think it should be played.  

Removing icons is simply a "difficulty level" adjustment to gameplay. It is most definitely not a "realism" adjustment to gameplay.

It ensures that you have less information than you would have in the same RL situation in most cases. This is a key part of the argument you seem to want to ignore.

Your argument is basically that if we were to have fewer and poorer quality visual cues than a RL WW2 fighter pilot, this game would be "more fun" or "better".

I have never said that the current icon system could not be improved. In fact I've said quite the opposite.

So basically, when I look at your posts on this topic I simply see one more in a long string of

"Gentlemen, I have determined that THIS is how the game should be played. You will now do it my way."

...and that's what I find quite hilarious.
 
 

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Toad, I'm sure most players agree that icons are needed in the MA.  I also agree with Tac (and the rest of ya   ) that the range icons should be removed at short ranges.

My suggestion is to remove the enemy aircraft range info below 1000 yards in the Main Arena.  That will surely eliminate most of the spray and pray- and long range kills.

No icons / friendly only icons -flying is a completely different topic and I won't get to it in this thread.

Hopefully the CM tools will soon include the option to tweak with the icons more, so we can try it out in the special events.  

Camo


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Camouflage
XO, Lentolaivue 34
 www.muodos.fi/LLv34

Brewster into AH!

"The really good pilots use their superior judgement to keep them out of situations
where they might be required to demonstrate their superior skill."

[This message has been edited by LLv34_Camouflage (edited 03-08-2001).]