Author Topic: A request to all players...(and HTC of course)...... (Read 174 times)

hazed- · « **on:** April 12, 2002, 04:23:53 PM »

Ok heres what i see it a slight problem at the moment in AH.

Torpedo bombing the fleet WHILST it has players manning guns.

The problem is the ease with which any low and slow moving target can be hit and killed with the proximity AA weapons.

(no other types are a problem)

I think, (being a player who both enjoys trying to torpedo and being on AA guns), that the proximity effect of firing AA shells at any low to the water aircraft is making the task of torpedo bombing a now redundant one. I have had successes as a torpedo bomber but only when there are no gunners on the ships.The problem being that even a pretty poor shot from the guns results in a direct hit long before you are able to get within dropping distance in the torpedo bomber.This means that a major element of the game recently introduced is becoming less and less popular.
However Gunning and shooting at long range or high bomber attacks WHILST playing as a gunner is a whole lot of fun and the proximity shells then become a truelly fair and fun way of fighting in the game.As a gunner in these long range shooting matches i have had successes but it required quite a bit of head calculation to predict a good bomber pilots flight path and its rare that you get the full kill on the first tell tale sign of flak puffs.
With the low and slow ju88s and ki67s and the tbm it is almost impossible to miss them when gunning. if you're short with your first shot, you see the splash in front of the enemy and you just keep firing and eventually the bomber will fly into it.If you're long theres no puffs of flack and you lower and fire again knowing its a long way off and you can have plenty of time for adjusted shots.

what i propose is we do something to make JUST the low level shooting more difficult. I feel the high level shots work perfectly well.My suggestions would be either:

1. change the trigger for proximity to target a much lower value so that it would reqiuire a much closer shot to set off the flack bursts at targets below say 1000 ft.

2. give the gun a single flack cloud instead of the multiple ones when fired at low targets (not high ones)

3. make the flak less lethal at the very low and close level.

4. remove the ability to use the AA shells below a certain height.(this one i feel is too drastic)

Im not asking for an easy time of it in the torpedo bombers and i realise the flack in Real life was probably even worse than we see in AH but i do want to fly and use these bombers and to have some use in MA and other arenas.

I dont want to remove the abilty to man the guns and wouldnt like to see option 4 because i enjoy using these guns.
BUT i have used them to kill boats on the water and any aircraft close to the ships with a great deal of ease. And i have torpedoed ships with bombers but it required lots of practice and quite a bit of luck to ever hit.Id just like to see this battle between 2 customers (gunner and bomber) to be a little bit more even on the skill level.

I think every aspect of the game should need some skill to get good with and its probably only the proximity shells firing at bombers that are forced to fly low and slow where i feel it has fallen down a bit.

anyone agree?

Tac · « **Reply #1 on:** April 12, 2002, 05:03:33 PM »

I have a better solution:

Increase torpedo range to d6.0 (aka, torpedo will swim d6.0 right now I think they only swim d3.5 or so)

Increase torpedo SPEED by 2X.

Right now the main issue with torpedo runs is that they are:

1) Extremely hard to aim when compared with dive bombing.

2) Torpedoes too slow

3) Torpedo range too short

4) Fleets too fast. & turn very well

5) Suicidal (cause: all the above PLUS manned 5")

By increasing the torp range, it allows players to drop the torpedo away from the AI fleet ack and hopefully before the gunners see your icon. By increasing the torpedo speed you'd make the torpedo much easier to attack with, making them a real threat.

Virage · « **Reply #2 on:** April 12, 2002, 05:06:57 PM »

Anyone know the historical specs of the german, us and japanese torps?

NUTTZ · « **Reply #3 on:** April 12, 2002, 05:52:15 PM »

I found this on the web..

http://uboat.net/technical/torpedoes.htm

NUTTZ

Quote

Originally posted by Virage
Anyone know the historical specs of the german, us and japanese torps?

MrLars · « **Reply #4 on:** April 12, 2002, 06:39:09 PM »

I would guess that IRL a single torp carring plane would be toast trying to attack a fleet...look at Midway and the losses by the torp carriers. I would think that, just as an attack on an Osty, multiple planes attacking from different angles would be best. Cod knows I would like the manable 5" guns less accurate especialy for PT torp runs but extending the range of the torp isn't the answer IMO. It would lead to people launching many more torps than should be necessary just because they would be ALMOST immune to the fleet defenses.

YMMV as always.

MrLars · « **Reply #5 on:** April 12, 2002, 06:42:46 PM »

After reading the specs in that link...a bit of a range increase would be fitting, but I still think decreasing the gunners effectiveness would be a mistake....IMO

Tumor · « **Reply #6 on:** April 13, 2002, 02:18:41 AM »

Making torpedo bombers easier to kill would just result in more Torpedo suicide dweebs to help out thier Dive-bomb suicide dweeb girlfriends. Just like increasing the amount of bombs required to kill a CV has simply increased the number of suicide dweebs.

...Increase the range of the Torps, thats the only real solution if you ask me. Until HTC puts a 5min "penalty" timer for getting killed (prefereably 30min for suicide dweebs) ..there will always be a problem. Not advocating..just stating

Esme · « **Reply #7 on:** April 13, 2002, 04:41:57 AM »

Ermm.. has anyone got solid data on flak proximity fuzes? I DO know that the early ones weren't terribly reliable, and that well into teh secon world war many gunners didnt even use proximity fuses, they used time fuses, effectively set to go off at a particular altitude. (Hmnn... wonder if they had fuses that worked on atmospheric pressure...?).

Again, bearing in mind that I don't know for sure what the RL situation was, just suppose...

Flak gunners use timed fuses. Guns with particularly advanced sights have an optical system that brings things at the set range into sharp focus but blurs them at other distances. Gunner has to gauge range, one way or another, then set fuse, then blaze away. If the range is misjudged, then only a direct hit will hurt the plane, as the shell wil either burst short or long. Also, in a long engagement, the gunner would have to keep adjusting the fuze settings appropriately - easier to do with high alt targets whose range is changing only slowly than with low alt ones approaching or departing rapidly. The thing about this is that it makes good flak gunning a bit more of a skill. In skilled hands, its stil likely to be pretty nasty low down, but in unskilled hands, low-level planes would be a bit better off.

(further to the above idea, maybe allow gunners to pre-set their loadouts to various ranges, maybe give them a choice of 3 or 4, so then all they have to do is to press a numbered button to swap fro rounds of one setting to rounds of another. And if they run out of ones set the way they need, they can spend a few seconds resetting ones set in a way that won't be useful to them in current circumstances).

Also a possibility is proximity fuzes that dont work until they've been out of the barrel for a preset length of time. A look into the effective blast radius of various flak shells wouldnt go amiss, either.

Esme
CO, Kampfgeschader 2 "Holzhammer" (currently recruiting)
email: esmenhamaire@tiscali.co.uk

hazed- · « **Reply #8 on:** April 13, 2002, 11:32:16 AM »

remember the acks still fire 20mm etc and the torp range is 2.5k for LW torps and that means you HAVE to enter aa range.

on the american torpedo i think it runs some 5k! but droping 1 torp from that far and hoping to hit? impossible

I dont want the torpedo changed, it works fine its JUST when theres a human at the guns you cant even get close to have a try at it at less than 200ft and below 200mph its garenteed death.
It means easy kills for the gunner and this is what i find a problem.

the torpedo guy is doing a difficult and skilled drop whereas the gunner just points and shoots.One gets pissed off and the other gets a kill with no effort and therefore its not that great or enjoyable.
To make a game rewarding to the player it should always require a little skill.

btw Tumor have you tried torpedo bombing with axis planes?
'Making torpedo bombers easier to kill would just result in more Torpedo suicide dweebs to help out thier Dive-bomb suicide dweeb girlfriends.'

Torpedo bombers easier to kill? no just the oppersite tumor.The fact you are low means death from any aircraft taking off but this i can accept.suicide torpedo bombers? i think you'll find those willing to risk torpedoes over a simple bomb drop are hardly the suicidal type, they are players wanting to see a proper attack instead of the dweeby hi alt dives etc.I personally always TRY to live but its a rare occourance when you have to enter the ack to drop i can tell you.So i die a lot of the times? doesnt make me a suicide dweeb.And with maybe 5% of drops resulting in hits its no easy task.

The point here is its a weapon used entensively during the war and we have it here.I think it should be a match of skills to fight torp bomber vs gunners not a turkey shoot.In the end people will turn to suicide bombing as the ONLY means to kill a CV.Just the oppersite of what im sure we all want.

Maverick · « **Reply #9 on:** April 13, 2002, 01:50:34 PM »

Perhaps HT just needs to make some defenseless targets so the jabo and torpedo folks can attack it without any fear of being shot down. Some large CV sized ruber duckies and a round bagel shape on the ground all without AAA of any kind. By making these targtets HT could increase the realism factor for the players wanting to just blow things up.

Lord knows it would enhance the immersion factor immensely to not have ack shooting at an enemy plane attacking a target.

Don · « **Reply #10 on:** April 15, 2002, 03:54:52 PM »

>>anyone agree?<<

No.

Mathman · « **Reply #11 on:** April 15, 2002, 04:56:35 PM »

The best solution to using torpedoes is the solution that worked in real life. That was to converge on a target from different directions so that the gunners couldn't mass their fire towards a single flight. This had the added benefit of making the job of avoiding the torpedoes that much more difficult. You might also try night attacks, this was pretty successful for the Japanese. I don't think anything should be done to this area, it is fine as it is.

Do yourself a favor and look up when the last IJN and USN CV's were hit by an airdropped torpedo (aside from the torp attacks on the IJN ships that were more or less abandoned in port from late 44/early 45 onwards). The vast majority of hits on USN CV's occurred in 1942, early in the war when there was very much a lack of AA mounted on the CV's, no prox fuses on the AA rounds and a lack of coordinated CAP.

Like I said, I don't think anything other than a change of tactics needs to be done. Then again, I wouldn't mind seeing torp effectiveness increased. That would mean more low targets for me to go after instead of climbing to find some incoming hi con.

-math

Don · « **Reply #12 on:** April 15, 2002, 07:27:02 PM »

I have a suggestion: cut off range finders for Torp bombers at low levels as they near the TG, say from D2 on in.
As a gunner on cruisers or CVz I notice that as a torp plane low on a run gets near, I am unable to distinguish it way out, only as it nears the TG can I make out a definite shape and within about 3 to 4 k I can see an icon. If it would give the torp pilits a chance, then cut off the range ID as suggested. Otherwise a low and slow lumbering plane like the TBM and Ju88, should get shot down given the amount of bullet and cannon fire that are generated from ships in a TG. As Mathman points out, a bit of strategy ought to come in to play here. If multiple attacks from multiple directions are employed, the chances of a hit is increased.

Seagoon · « **Reply #13 on:** April 17, 2002, 10:45:19 PM »

Hi All,

I have to agree with Mathman, the problem isn't with the torps or the acks, it's human error. Get 4 buds to torp with you and converge at different angles. Most of you will probably get shot down by the AI flaks but you'll probably get some torp hits.

- Seagoon

zipity · « **Reply #14 on:** April 18, 2002, 11:59:27 PM »

>Perhaps HT just needs to make some defenseless targets so the jabo and torpedo folks can attack it without any fear of being shot down. Some large CV sized ruber duckies and a round bagel shape on the ground all without AAA of any kind. By making these targtets HT could increase the realism factor for the players wanting to just blow things up.

Maverick may have a point here, although rubber duckies may be a bit extreme but whos to say, we did have a giant squid. How about tanker ships and merchants. Merchants could supply the ports and if you kill all the tankers before they refuel the CV, let the CV run out of gas and just float around until someone pops it.