What happened to the gunners

[Lusche]

Old players will probably remember it: "ANYONE NEEDS A GUNNER?" - "NEED A GUNNER NOW!!!!!"
Once ago it was ubiquitous on all country channels. Today, you never see it anymore. Is it gone just because of the lower numbers?

Out of curiosity, I checked last tours (276) numbers. Only 50 players registered as a gunner in the plane stats. Then I looked up the stats of tour 76 for a quick comparison:


Tour 276: 959 pilots total, 50 gunners, 67 kills
Tour 76: 5056 pilots, 626 gunners, 1385

So while we had about 5 times as many players, there were 12 times the gunners with 21 times the kills.

Maybe it's because we got more planes of the years? But that doesn't make much sense to me, there were already over 60 planes in game and gunning for someone is something completely different. And why would players stop being a gunner when it's 12 bombers in game instead of 10? But being me, I took a closer look at the numbers:

Percentage of gunner kills / number of planes in game.


So the rapid increasing number of planes in the early days apparently had no impact on gunning. Neither had the introduction of bomber formations which happened in tour 30, numbers didn't really go down until like two years later. The big drop basically happened between 2004 and 2008.

So what make gunning for other players disappear? Was it the end of the squeaker era? And what stopped first, players offering to gun, or the willingness of pilots to accept a gunner in the first place?

 

[CptTrips]

So what make gunning for other players disappear? Was it the end of the squeaker era? And what stopped first, players offering to gun, or the willingness of pilots to accept a gunner in the first place?

 

Wasn't that primarily the Sqeakers?

They grew up and went to other games.

[Lusche]

Wasn't that primarily the Sqeakers?

That's what I initially thought as well, but that's just my own perception. Also I didn't think the squeakers stopped playing AH until like 2009 or so?

[CptTrips]

That's what I initially thought as well, but that's just my own perception. Also I didn't think the squeakers stopped playing AH until like 2009 or so?

I'm not sure.  But those are the ones I remember on range.

<Beaver_Cleaver_Voice> Anybody neeeed a gunneeeeeeer? </Beaver_Cleaver_Voice>

Shudder.  I still hear them in my nightmares.

 

Sorry I misread the second part.

You might be right. 

But correlation doesn't prove causation, right?  Like the start of population decline coinciding VERY closely with the announced canceling of Tour of Duty.

Neither are proof, but both are very interesting correlations.

[oboe]

Remember this one?

[DmonSlyr]

My guess is that the bigger squads were utilizing them more and there was much more communication then. Now probably most people don't know you can even do it and there is more individual players who don't communicate as much. Interesting hypothesis though.

[mERv]

My guess is that the bigger squads were utilizing them more and there was much more communication then. Now probably most people don't know you can even do it and there is more individual players who don't communicate as much. Interesting hypothesis though.

A lot of those dedicated position players like myself are no longer in AH. Shame, when the arena has numbers there is so much going on...

I won't use gunners. Limits me to 1 gun instead of em all and when it's down to one plane all I can do is watch. Request declined.

Hate it when someone sends a request when I'm in a fight. I have to stop everything and click decline

[Shane]

If you're referring to the pop out box, you can turn those off using  ".showjoin 0" which will send all join requests to your text buffer which you can ignore, unless you want to ".accept"

Hate it when someone sends a request when I'm in a fight. I have to stop everything and click decline

[mERv]

If you're referring to the pop out box, you can turn those off using  ".showjoin 0" which will send all join requests to your text buffer which you can ignore, unless you want to ".accept"

ty <S>