Request for "improvements" to AH...

[illo]

Maybe it is because I specialize in using 50 cals set to 650 yards convergence, but using any American aircraft so equipped, I can get good hits and even kills at that range when a target levels out to extend because it thinks it is safe. I don't recall ever reading about any real WWII pilots even firing at that range against airborne targets, much less hitting or getting kills. I suspect that the spread of rounds with range in AH is still too tight, though I have absolutely no hard numbers to back me up

Hans Wind had his .50cals set at 50m convergence. And he was one of best shots in FAF getting near 100% hit percentages. Finnish pilots were trained to shoot individual parts of airplane and generally opened fire under 150m.

Many .50cals will tumble if hit at long ranges, hits fall on larger area and miss which greatly reduces their effect and makes damage simply matter of luck. Hitting plane, not even speaking about certain parts will be trivial. Imagine the difference in closing to 50m and hitting radiator with good 1sec burst. Sure causes more damage than spraying from 600meters hoping to get lucky radiator hit which actually does enough damage.

Reason for opening fire only under 150m is clear. You don't want to just ping enemy, warn him and make him respond with evasive maneuvers. Finnish pilots considered their soviet opponents good pilots with bad gunnery. They opened fire at extreme long ranges even at 1000-500m) where changes of scoring hits was slim...they lost their suprise factor, showed their current heading and warned finnish pilots enough to make escaping and dodging rather easy. With shooting under 150m you usually get kill with one accurate burst. You only need to maneuver for that one burst. When enemy knows hes being hit its allready too late for him.

I think in AH spraying all over aircraft is too effective because of simple DM. Hit in left wing is hit in left wing. It's same if you fire 1sec burst into wingroot or spray allover wing.

I've read some RL accounts of FW 190s taking over 200 .50cal hits from 400-600 meters and keep flying, do you see this in AH? If that FW in RL was hit under 50m it would only need maybe 30-50x50cals i concentrated area.

[illo]

I can hit at ranges of 1000k in a P47....I dont ever do any real damage, but it sure makes the bad guy turn instead of just run. Eventually if he stays straight enough you can snipe away at that range to maybe knock something off.

I think the problem you guys are having has something to do with impotent guns....but dont worry, its a common occurrence among those of the LW persuasion.

I think you are just using gamey feature provided by current DM.

FAF had both .50cal and mg151/20 armed planes. Most finnish vets have praised 1xmg151/20 of 109g-2 and g-6 because it's superior hitting power compared to .50cals. It would only need circa 3-6 well placed shots to down enemy fighter. More than 3 times as effective as .50cal, you could concenrate lethal amount of fire with in smaller timeframe, 1 hit did same amount of damage not depending on range(Mine shell) and one could concentrate fire more accurately due to spinner mounted cannon.

Well thats only opinion of pilots who used both of these guns in RL.
.50cal was good gun but cannons had some advantages over it.

And about impotent guns. No i feel just the opposite. All AH guns are way too effective. Look my previous post. It doesnt matter in AH if you hit 10sqr/cm area in wingroot or if you spray all over wing.

[Vector]

Fighter equipped with 8x 50cal is able to kill fighter at ranges up to 800 yards (at this distance nme plane starts to get too small) and bomber 1500 yards. There is nothing strage with that and it is not so difficult either. My K/D against bombers went up like a rocket after I dumped all "historical" attack styles and just parked in their six at 1500-1200 yards. It doesn't matter whether they see you or not, but when you start to fire (no tracers), it's too late for them to start fire back and down they goes.
I use 425 converenge in P-47s.
Just yesterday I killed a 110G-2 at the range 800 yards, he was flying wings level no maneuvers, easy target. 2-3 second burst was enough and with 3400 bullets you have plenty left for others. Some could call it spray and pray (usually the victim), but I don't, kill is a kill period.

Neel kearby scored a kill against an oscar when chasing him and fired long burst at distance 1500 yards. Also it wasn't so unusual to start firing at 1000 yards and scoring a kill. So, CAVE TONITRUM!

jbroey3 wrote:
In aces high, 1000 yard + shots are easy sure fired kills

You sure have good shooting eye

[mrsid2]

Originally posted by BenDover
it may have something to do with the fact you can zoom in so far

and sid, wasn't thats lanc black??

The lanc sure is black, but I painted it white with hits.
If you want, I can post the film for viewing. I killed a 110 in a nearly similar way just before I hit the lanc at 1.5k.

I have to admit even I was surprised because I always thought max gun range in AH was 1.3k. I took long shots on the lanc, hitting it 3 times starting from 1.0,1.2 and finally 1.5.

[K-KEN]

I tend to think that most folks see this SIM as very good.  Some of the comments seem valid, but we do lose flaps, wings and parts during combat.  The picture above shooting the lanc, looks like someone above you is shooting. You must have tracers off.

Also, there is a tail hook on some planes.  (as I recall)
Anyway, I still think that ACES HIGH is still the finest sim out there.
The support from HTC and their continued effort to make things better is amazing.  Having been here since the Beta days, and there were only 5 or so planes only, and flying Air Warrior for years, What is here now, is light years from where it was before.

Making suggestions is encouraged and I am sure they are looking for ways to improve flight modelling, damage models, and many other issues regarding connectivity and all.  It's a huge task, and one that I have grown to appreciate and admire.

Kudos to all and HTC!

K-KEN


http://www.cutthroats.com/

[mrsid2]

Originally posted by K-KEN
I tend to think that most folks see this SIM as very good.  Some of the comments seem valid, but we do lose flaps, wings and parts during combat.  The picture above shooting the lanc, looks like someone above you is shooting. You must have tracers off.

Also, there is a tail hook on some planes.  (as I recall)
Anyway, I still think that ACES HIGH is still the finest sim out there.
The support from HTC and their continued effort to make things better is amazing.  Having been here since the Beta days, and there were only 5 or so planes only, and flying Air Warrior for years, What is here now, is light years from where it was before.

Making suggestions is encouraged and I am sure they are looking for ways to improve flight modelling, damage models, and many other issues regarding connectivity and all.  It's a huge task, and one that I have grown to appreciate and admire.

Kudos to all and HTC!

K-KEN


http://www.cutthroats.com/

K-Ken wrong, the tracers go above me because I was losing altitude after pulling correct lead to hit the buff. You can readily see that from my speed, was nearing stall.

To end futile guesses I'm posting the film here

[Seeker]

Post the AVI, slacker!

[streakeagle]

I won't argue with anyone about AH being the best. I like it better than any box flight sim I have and don't play any other online flight sim at all.

ilo's discussion sounds good, but AH knows the approximate average number of rounds it takes to get a kill and the edges of the bell curve for that data. So I am guessing it is not generally a case of too much damage being done for a given number of hits. I am guessing it is too many hits for a given range and rate of fire.

While we differ on our opinion of why, ilo and I agree on what: real pilots had to fire at much shorter ranges than possible in AH to be effective. This game rewards long range shots. In real-life it was a waste of ammo whether it was because a lot more rounds missed or the rounds that hit were ineffective.

AH certainly plays well as it is, but fixing this would get rid of one of the most unrealistic aspects of this sim. Of course, it will penalize the very planes I love to fly. But I want them to behave as much as possible like their real world counterparts.

[mrsid2]

Seeker unfortunately AHfilm porks the film that I try to cut and the whole film is way too long to be posted as an avi.

The film will have to do for now

[SKurj]

Ahh well, the only kill I recall gettin at 1k+ was killing R4M's runstang at 1.1 in YakT with 1 hit +)



SKurj

[illo]

Neel kearby scored a kill against an oscar when chasing him and fired long burst at distance 1500 yards.

And there were loads of pilots who got over 100 kills by shooting under 150m.  

Yes, there was one finnish pilot who downed pe-2 at 1500m firing 2 rounds. He was testing if his mg151/20 was working at range of 1500m before closing in.  That doesnt make 1500m effective firing range.

I simply dont buy AHs DM. All that i've read speaks against it. I never read account of ace saying its good to open up over 500m. I've read tens of accounts of them saying it's most importand to get as close as possible and use concentrated fire. I've read them saying turbulence was quite bad at 100m from enemy planes 6 so it was good to go closer to 50m where turbulence disappeared and ride was smooth. I've read them also suggest 150m firing distance since at closer distance turbulence would ruin aiming. (why they were so fond about aiming exact parts if you could just spray&pray like in AH?)
I've also read them to say that opening up at long ranges was common novice mistake. Novices didn't have nerves to go close and fired from 500m without success.

And don't say average AH player is better in shooting than expert pilots in ww2. They had years of training. And at least finnish fighter training concentrated in shooting. It's like saying average quake player has better aim than best snipers of ww2.

[MadBirdCZ]

Do you really think that the distances in AH are displayed in METERS? Although for European players it would seem logical but don't forget that this game is made for US player's majority and those guys dont even know how long 1m is  So the distance is either in feets, yards or its just in some imaginary units for pilots orientation  But im sure that HT or someone who has some more insight in this problem will drop a line on this here soon

[illo]

Do you really think that the distances in AH are displayed in METERS?

No, i don't. What makes you think so?
1 meter=1.093 613 yards
Not too huge difference.

Although for European players it would seem logical but don't forget that this game is made for US player's majority

[sarcasm]I think i have noticed that. [/sarcasm]

and those guys dont even know how long 1m is  So the distance is either in feets, yards or its just in some imaginary units for pilots orientation  But im sure that HT or someone who has some more insight in this problem will drop a line on this here soon

Maybe it is time for you to learn. Vast majority of people in this planet use metric system and you want me to convert numbers to U.S system? Hmmmm...
Maybe it's other way around..atleast it would be more logical.

[illo]

and just parked in their six at 1500-1200 yards.

Those RL Jagdfliegers must have been idiots(judging on gucams) closing close to b17 engines in dive and picking them off from close ranges.(under 200m/220yards for sure)

Also those 190 HOing b17 formations and opening up "as close as possible"  and aiming front gunner/cockpit/wingroot must have had no idea what they were doing. Also again it was mentioned that new pilots usually lost their nerves and opened at too long ranges scoring no critical hits.

HA! Maybe they werent just aware of superb tactic..sit 1.4km(1531yards:D) away and let rock.

Im not coinvinced.

[MadBirdCZ]

Originally posted by illo

Maybe it is time for you to learn. Vast majority of people in this planet use metric system and you want me to convert numbers to U.S system? Hmmmm...
Maybe it's other way around..atleast it would be more logical.

Im not saying that I want to convert metric system into imperial or anything... I just say that all readings in AH (speed, height, distance) are in feet, miles etc. so no metric system in AH (when not talking about gun calibers and bomb weights).  Well duscussing why it is this way is IMO just like beating a dead horse.

Someone would quickly respond that to make it easyer for newbies and not to spread chaos in MA etc. is the reason for unification of those readouts. Yes I understand but stil dont like it but understand and im not squeaking about it coz I can live vith that quite well. Why it is not in metric system although vast majority of the planet uses it? Because its US game and US customers are the majority of players (at least I think so). Actually I dont think it matters anyway.

When I fly in AH i dont actually think about the units as about metres or yerds or miles... I take the 'numbers' just for orientation.

And really I think this debate takes us nowhere - Its just beating a dead horse anyway