Now, you got me curious, what sports did you play growing up? Because your and Kruel's mindset (like riding a bike) contradicts what I've learned about any sport....yet your trying to use it for your argument. I am curious
Sports? Not sure about you, but I grew up playing war games. Hooah!
In all seriousness, I played soccer and basketball. However, I practiced and practiced and practiced until those reactions became second-nature. And even today, those reactions are second-nature. I practice until the reactions are all but permanently ingrained. So when I come back, even years later, those reactions are still there. It doesn't mean that I'm still in prime shape to still play those sports, but luckily, this doesn't apply to flight sims, as I only need fingers and hands.
Here's the hilarity of the entire situation: prior to coming to Aces High, I took
four years off from flight sims. From August 2009, to November 2013, I didn't play a single flight sim. So if we go back and look at who's played more over the previous four years leading up to the fight in question, my time is insignificant. I took several 6-18 month breaks from Fighter Ace over my 11 years. Guess what? Same thing. Kruel and BeeLowk can vouch for this - it didn't matter if I was gone for 6 months or 12, my flying was unaffected.
Based on the responses in this thread, I think I'm seeing the problem. Most players here seem to approach dogfighting as a set of moves - turns, and counter-turns, and so on. Sure, if you learned to fly
that way, you'd have a hard time taking a break, because you're basing your abilities on who can turn quicker and who can think of the best counter-counter-counter-turn first. These are pre-formulated "moves," which have nothing to do with actual ACM and are little more than video game stunts. You'd also be utterly humiliated if you tried to perform those moves in other sims, because they don't work there.
Actual ACM is methodical, repeatable, dynamic, and logical when performed correctly. Once learned, it's learned. There is no need to take months or years (lol) to "get back up to speed," because there's virtually nothing to get back up to speed to. And this is why these excuses would have entire forums for other sims rolling with laughter. It's a joke to anyone who's played dogfighting sims competitively. At most you may need a week or two to get your timing and SA back. It's like riding a bike. Stating anything else simply paints you as an over-confident fool who bit off more than he could chew.
In our experience, we're used to dealing with hardcore sim pilots who accept their performance, whatever it might be, especially when they throw down the gauntlet and challenge another player. We apologize if this is not the case here.