HTC...details of 1.09 buffs?

[Tumor]

Originally posted by ergRTC


How excited would you get if your in a mossie at 30k and you see a huge formation of 17s down at 20k?  

>s< erg

Ya'outta be horsewhipped for even thinking of flying a Mossie that high lol

[Tumor]

Originally posted by ergRTC
Not a lecture mrsid, I just dont see the lethality you do, and was describing why I probably don't see it.

In my stats, I have killed 2 people while flying my 17, and I have been killed 3 times while flying a 17.  I have been killed only once by a 17.  Seems pretty even to me.  This is out of around 18 b17 sorties this month.  I have shot down 3 b17s, course I rarely run into them.

I dont see hitech turning these formations into impossible targets, but I have a feeling that it will be much more meaningful to alt monkey in a 190 a8 when it happens.

Technique and lethality are really altogether seperate issues.  I'll garuntee you that if you get your aircraft anywhere near my B-17 and I'm not concentrating on my bomb-run, 9 of 10 times I'm going to kill you dead I don't care what direction your attanking from.  I don't even fly the B-17 much but lately when I do, after finishing my bombrun I usually extend out and act as a decoy so any other bombers won't have to worry, and I usually land a couple kills.  B-17 gunner lethality is beyond whats needed if you take the time to learn how to employ it.

[Toad]

Anybody got a film of a Lancaster doing 400+ with the wings still on it?

I'd like to see that if you do.

[ergRTC]

One way to keep the buffs from doing aerobatics in these drone formations, may be to "lose your friends" if you start doing wild maneuvers.  If you dont stay flying like you were trying to maintain formation, you lose your formation.

I am trying to imagine the synchronized swimming one would observe with 3 buffs all doing the same 360 at the same time... hehehe

[Critter]

Ya know... I dunno if I like that.

I like flying my single bomber. and wasn't the reason the Norden bombsight was so secret was because it was accurate? I like the idea that if I want to fly in formation, we get a bunch of guys to up on a  mission. Also, I think the reason a lot of people get iced when making runs on bombers is technique. Think about it. you're just flying straight and a lot of times, the only way the guy is gonna catch you is by following you in a straight line. Then he moves onto your tail. Well... this in gereral is a bad idea. Depending on his positioning, he can have the tail gun, waist guns, ball turret, and top turret shooting at him all at once. OF COURSE HE'S GONNA DIE!!! If you were matching speed on someone who was flying level and you were on his tail in a p47, you'd make just as short work of him. WHY? Because there's 8 frickin .50s pointin at you that's why! Even with all these guns pointing at you, I've still been in a b17 with a guy makin a run on me and the majority of the time, I might get a few pings on him but NEVER  do I come out unscathed. It's all proportionate. if you want to kill me by knocking out my engines... you've got to hit 4 of them. if I want to kill you, I only gotta kill one. (or 2 for certain airplanes) You kill my rudder. Big hairy deal. Name a plane out there that suffers greatly from no rudder. (not talking about combat situations, just straight level flight)  Knock one of my wings off, I'm just as helpless as you would be.  And lessening the lethality of my guns? why? a .50 is a .50 why change it into a .303 when most fighters are slingin at least 20mm at you. One thing I am completely for, is rather than Otto... how about making it so that each plane can carry... *gasp* more than one gunner! That way the guns aren't all concentrated unless there is a gunner for each of those guns. As well as if there are two fighters jumping that B-17... the crew didn't have to decide which fighter they'd shoot at first, it was the responsibility of the guy at each individual gun to shoot at that incoming fighter.If there were for example two fighters, one running at the tail, one making a HO, that I doubt the nose gunners would be watching what was going on at the back and ignoring their sector of fire.

Drat... I'm sure there was a point to all I was whining about... but I forgot

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Critter
Ya know... I dunno if I like that.

I like flying my single bomber. and wasn't the reason the Norden bombsight was so secret was because it was accurate?  

Norden and Sperry sights were accurate and took control of the AC...... yet from 20K the target box was some 100 yards wide and  300 to 400 yards long.

Trailing bombers in a formation released on sight of the bombs leaving the leading plane.

50% bombs landing in the box was considered to be "hitting the pickle barrel"


The Norden was preset to run a bombing course by the bombadier who had calculated speed drift etc etc. he had only very slight control for final adjustment.......

In the Lanc there  was no Norden or Sperry sight (Yanks would not let the Brits have it) The bombadier had to talk the pilot to the target.


To draw a parrallel with AH

IMHO

The Norden could not "zoom" onto a single gun pit from 20k and pick it off........ The zoom function in the B17 should be limited to one magnified view only. Further the directional changes available from the gun sight are far more than the bombadier had available to him. This should be limited further than AH currently allows.

The zoom function in all non Norden/Sperry bombers should be even further restricted and a bigger delay introduced in the JS inputs.

Finally drift and wobble. Bombs should wobble randomly within a tolerance circle of the targeted point this error gets bigger with altitude. Bombs should drift in accordance with the arena wind settings.

Once this is done then AI planes following or in formation with a player based plane makes very good sense........

Some points of discussion on this........

Would be neat if the formation pattern was player settable.(even during flight)

AI Bombers should have  AI gunners (more on this below)

We should be able to choose single or formation  bomber flights from the hanger.

The formation size should be settable under arena settings or even per plane under field settings.

The player should be able to move to other planes in his formation in which case the formation reforms about him. (shooting down the lead plane should not take out the whole formation)

When choosing a formation bomber flight the bomb salvo should be locked to the maximum stick number... the play could still have control over delay provided it is valid to the aircraft type. (this is carpet bombing) Salvo settings should be adjustable when flying a single bomber.

This (the formation option) might apply to goons and M3's / LVT's  and the field capture / supply conditions would have to be changed accordingly........(it seems logical to recreate the massed paratroop drops and  beach landings actually deployed rather than trying to sneak a lone C47 with 10 troops on the back end of a bomber mission). (4 troop sets (40) do not slow FPS rate down so much)

Gunning

AI gunners should be "de skilled" with respect to their ability to "lead track" a target....... (generally but specifically if used from AI formation buffs)

Beyond a certain range (say 500 yards) AI gunners should use gun bursts that are proportional to their remaining ammo. eg at 75% to 100% ammo the gun burst is 2 sec followed by a 1 sec gap. at 50% to 75% ammo its 1.5 secs followed by a 1.5 sec gap. at 25% to 50% ammo its 1 sec burst followed by a  2 sec gap and finally  below 25% ammo a .5 sec burst and  a 2.5 sec gap. This would most probably be hard coded.

Having the guns of 4 B17's track a target that the player is firing at (with the same accuracy or inaccuracy)seems very unreal.

I think there is a good arguement for lowering the .303 lethality.......

Tilt

[whels]

Originally

I think there is a good arguement for lowering the .303 lethality.......

Tilt [/B]

id settle for just making them like fighter 50cals, which right now they are not.

whels

[LePaul]

Ah, but with buff guns, you miss the controversy...

Situation 1

Fighter closes in on buffs 6 from 5.9k out...then closes in, staying at the buffs dead 6.  Buff fires tail guns at 1k out and adjusts aim as enemy closes in.  Fighter fires and due to dodging incoming fire, misses most of the bomber.  Fighter dies.  Fighter than rants that the buff guns are too powerful.

Situation 2

Fighter climbs from under a Lancaster, where the Lancaster is most vunerable.  Pops up and fires at buff, making slashing attack.  Buff looses wingtip and begins to spin uncontrollably and has to bail.  We aren't talking a lot of damage here, but as modeled, the buff dies.

---

In situation 1, the buff wins, he saw the fighter coming.  Yet, the BBS is full of rants where the buff guns are too powerful because, of all things, were able to defend themself.

However, the only exception to the above is the B17, which has the uncanny ability to fire through its structure.  That needs fixing.  But, the B17 has guns all over it, so its a salamanderlier buff to destroy.l  Lancs, Ju88s and TBMs are vastly easier to wipe out.

In Situation 2, the poor buff is dead meat either via a lucky shot from the Fighter or the damage model being off.  I dunno, I've nursed home several fighters with missing parts on the wing.  But wing tips on buffs seem very easy to destroy.

--

As to the points in this discussion....the accuracy of the buffs.  Fine, take the zoom level away.  But re-initate the crater damage.  We have so few buffs flying in the game since the Goons reverse all their damage in a heartbeat.

[Vortex]

Interesting discussion.

Depending upon how its implemented, I quite like the idea of multi-buff formations. Many of Tilt's ideas on bombing effectiveness and bombsite usage are good ones that, with this new approach, could be put in place. For playability reasons buffs have some pretty significant tweaks that allow them a degree of survivability. If we see a move to more of an area bombing format (i.e. substantially less accurate bombsites, etc but with far more ordanance in an area) the move would probably be a good one.

I'm quite curious how these will be controlled though, both wrt guns and basic flight. For the latter, do the extra planes simply mirror your control inputs? What does happen when the lead plane is shot down? One option here might be to let the player pick any of the four planes to "fly" initially. You can't move after that, but at the same time the attackers have no idea what buff you're in? Once your buff is toast though, so goes the rest of the formation (maybe? I dunno, just thinking out loud).

Gunnery will undoubtedly be the tricky one. The current system gives the buff a huge advantage in a 1vs1 engagement with a fighter. A good gunner in a B17 or, for the most part, B26 can take out any single plane attack quite easily, regardless of what type of fighter it is. Lancs and the rest have it harder. Multi-fighter attacks are a different story and if done right the buff should be toast first past. Throw 3 more buffs into the equation and that could get tricky. I'm, not a big fan of auto-gunners as I've yet to see an instance where they are sufficiently "dumbed down" as it were. I just don't know how easy it is to code that sort of thing. At the same time though having a single player control the guns of all the buffs would be nuts, and counter productive too as you can still only target one plane at a time. There needs to be a way to get multiple gunners in the various planes I think. However I'm not sure what you do if you don't have a gunner for each plane? Revert to auto? You typically end up with having "auto" being far more effective than most player gunners in those situations though and thus one never gets/needs human gunners.

I dunno, lotsa questions. Should prove interesting though.

Vortex