Realistic...historical....

[Hazed]

I just want to say that I play AH because it is realistic and i love the idea of re-enacting battles from WW2.Now at the moment im enjoying playing in the main arena but my preference is for SE with axis vs allies and when we get a map that represents england/channel/france i suspect ill want to play nothing else  
this talk of easy flight mode has made me think twice about carrying on with my account and also although i hope it will be changed the f4 one ping deaths are making the damage model unnecessary and the game less enjoyable. why have a model with many different places that can be damaged when 1 round from f4c's cannons destroys the whole plane?
i love trying to wrestle my stricken craft to the floor after being shot by other planes
so why is it when a f4 is anywhere near 900-1000 yrds behind me its twice as likely to destroy me rather than damage me?
i dont mean to moan but i am now avoiding f4's in general and although i understand they were a good plane why didnt the allies use them in europe and finish the war earlier if they were THAT good  
my vote is for historically accurate planes,realistic flight and realistic axis/allies balance
the zero and 190 a5 will i hope readdress the problem of facing late version allied planes in old version axis planes  .Lets really see what the allies faced.A deadly and efficient enemy.

[RAM]

oh, no another flamewar???

 

BTW F4U1-C's turbolasers suck  

[miko2d]

 The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!! Er.. Easymode is coming, easymode is coming, everybody close their accounts!!!
 Personally I will believe in easymode in AH when I see one.

 F4U, the "Ensign eliminator" was a difficult aircraft to fly, especially during takeoff and landing. Many pilots were killed during crashes in those planes.

 German pilots flew untill they were killed or untill the war ended - some for 6 years. Also the Luftwaffe was never numerous compared to other airforces. So LW pilots had much, much more stick time and experience then any other side. That is why they achieved such high kill counts in plames that were not that great.
 American pilots served relatively brief tours of duty and usually had considerable numerical advantage. Most of them did not get much combat time.

 An AH/WB pilot may have more stick time than any RL WWII pilot. He has enourmously much more COMBAT time than any RL pilot most of them had to fly hours to get to the combat zone and most sorties they did not even see the enemy.
 Also, AH/WB player obtains experience much quicker then a RL pilot - it is much easier to concentrate on your gunnery if you are not at risk to actually get killed.
 We also have a laser/radar ragefinder - as a RL T72 gunner I cannot express how great an advantage it is.

 What it boils down to is that a properly modelled plane in the hands of an AH player is much more deadly than it was in real life.

 One solution would be to make gunnery more difficult, but that would make the game impossible for a new player.

 Also F4u 900-1000 yards from you and diving at you may be 400 yards on his FE - the lag effects are more pronounced when the planes accelerate.

miko--

[Mox]

Nice post Hazed.  I couldn't agree more about the HogC and the talk of an easy flight mode.

If the HogC's guns stay the same, and we don't get some form of a historical arena soon I'll likely start looking for other places to spend my $30 a month.  I've already cancelled one of my accounts, I had an account for my wife but she lost interest fast (oh well it was worth a try).  

All of my friends that I brought to AH have already quit and cancelled their accounts, except one (who's already told me this is his last month).

This is not a "I quit post".  I'm not looking for a flame war over the HogC cannons etc.

I've been having fun lately but my interest is starting to stray to other things.

Mox
TWC


[This message has been edited by Mox (edited 05-31-2000).]

[Toad]

Before the pointless back and forth bickering begins, here's a couple of often (excessively? routinely?) ignored "game facts".

1. "One ping" kills are VERY rare. "One ping" does NOT mean you were hit ONCE. It means you were destroyed by a heavy series of blows and you DIDN'T hear them all. I think you quit hearing sounds when the Host decides you die. Ram once told me I "one-pinged" his 109; my FE showed me about 25-30 20mm hits in his cockpit/wingroot area. So, forget "one ping", please.

2. Recent independent tests show that the F4U-1C and the FW-190 destroy a hangar in about the same number of shots. Lethality, in this limited example, is essentially EQUAL. As yet, no one has brought any substantive proof that F4 20mm's have significantly more leathality than FW 20mm's.
Pyro is looking into this, so we may get some other data points in the near future.

3. There are differences in trajectory between these two guns. Since Ballistic Coefficients for these rounds are hard if not impossible to determine this MAY be an area that harbors a problem. Pyro is reportedly looking into this as well.

4. As miko pointed out, "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear". Net lag is not constant and range indications when looking aft are NOT EXACT. They vary, and the differences can be significant. It is generally believed that if you show at least 1.1 or 1.2 you are pretty safe. Anything less than that and you CAN be hit.

OK, now let the whining begin yet again  

[LLv34_Camouflage]

 

Originally posted by miko2d:
...We also have a laser/radar ragefinder...

Something needs to be done to correct this.  IMHO, long range gunnery is way too easy now.

Camo



------------------
Camouflage
XO, Lentolaivue 34
 www.muodos.fi/LLv34

Brewster into AH!

"The really good pilots use their superior judgement to keep them out of situations
where they might be required to demonstrate their superior skill."

[funked]

 

the zero and 190 a5 will i hope readdress the problem of facing late version allied planes in old version axis planes

LOL!  Best laugh of the day!

[F4UDOA]

Hazed,

First I am not a flame artist so I will keep this short and to the point. First I checked your kill numbers and you kill way more than you get killed. I fly nothing but the F4U-1C and I get killed more than I kill. You may be better pilot than me but I can tell you that number one I usually get killed in headon's with spits, 38's 190's or N1KI's. The reason I fly the -1C is that the performance is better in that A/C compared to the -1D. It is lighter, Turns and climbs better and is just as fast. It is based on the -1A version of the F4U. Just look at the hard point's on the A/C to determine which model it was (Also Americas hundred thousand). My kills usually if not always come between 300 and 500yrds in the 6 position. Last night I fired at you from 800yrds to try to make you maneuver so I could catch you and it worked, you died at 300yrds. I have a cable connect and I'm sure about distances. The cannons in the -1C are not as important to me as the other features.

As to your question about why the F4U was not flown in Europe. I can give you the 100% truth as quoted from Gen. George C. Marshall
in a book on the Navy in WW2. I read it at the library and I can't quote the source but here it is. "I don't want any Jarhead pilots in my war". You see there was a great rivalry between the services that cut very deeply.
There were area's in the South Pacific where there was no Naval airpower allowed either.
Such as New Guinea in the central Pacific, an area under Army control there was no Naval or Marine Aviation to speak of. However the British did use Wildcats and Hellcats agaisnt the Lufwaffe. The Hellcats claiming 5 victories vrs 2 losses. British Wildcats claimed at least 1 Ju-88 and 5 FW-200 destroyed during the war. British Corsairs also saw service in Europe but did not have any air to air encounters. The US Navy had planned to use fast carries during the Normandy invasion equiped with Corsairs using 11.5inch TinyTim rockets (The largest of the war) to take out the German V-1 and V-2 launch sites and to cover the invasion of Normandy. Didn't you ever wonder why in the largest Naval invasion in history there was no Aircraft Carries anywhere in site? Army intelligence and ego my friend. The Navy had tested captured German A/C for the occasion.
 http://members.home.net/markw4/FW190_F4U.html . Face it, most of the flight simms designed today are for Army A/C and LW planes. Nobody in the flight simm market wants to seriously look at the performance of the F4U, Hellcat or Zero. If in 1940 the German's were flying Zero's the battle of Britian might not have worked out the same. They had three times the range of the 109's giving them much more time over target and were more maneuverable than the Hurri's and Spit's. Then everybody would be complaining about how the guns in the A6M2 are undermodelled and blah, blah, blah.

Anyway I'll make a deal with AH. Put a F4U-4 in the game to match the 109G10's and FW-190D-9's in the game and get rid of the cannons in the -1C and make it a -1A. By the way there were more F4U-4's built than any other version of F4U and they did see combat in WW2. There were over 1859 built and accepted by the Navy and Marines by August of 1945 and 2050 built all together by 1946.

Later
F4UDOA    

[Mox]

 

Originally posted by Toad:
Before the pointless back and forth bickering begins, here's a couple of often (excessively? routinely?) ignored "game facts".

1. "One ping" kills are VERY rare. "One ping" does NOT mean you were hit ONCE. It means you were destroyed by a heavy series of blows and you DIDN'T hear them all. I think you quit hearing sounds when the Host decides you die. Ram once told me I "one-pinged" his 109; my FE showed me about 25-30 20mm hits in his cockpit/wingroot area. So, forget "one ping", please.

4. As miko pointed out, "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear". Net lag is not constant and range indications when looking aft are NOT EXACT. They vary, and the differences can be significant. It is generally believed that if you show at least 1.1 or 1.2 you are pretty safe. Anything less than that and you CAN be hit.

Just a few comments on Toad's post:

1.  One ping kills are VERY common for me  and some others that play on fast connections when a F4UC or a Spit is within 2.0 from me.  

I play on a Pent III 800 256SDRAM (PC133) with a GeForce DDR on a full T1 with less than 10 users at anytime.  I have a switched 100mbit fiber attached connection to the router which is connected directly to Verio in Dallas.  I live in Dallas (about 20mins from HiTechs office).

  I spent about an hour talking with HiTech about the "way" a ping (not just the sound but the sprites) were calculated standing outside his office some time ago.  

I've proven to myself and some others that tested with me that the single ping/single sprite deaths occur more frequently on my LAN connection versus a 56K modem.  I've tested it against 128K ISDN (Ascend Router, a local cable connection and a local ADSL (Caymen Router 1.54mb burstable to 6Meg downstream)connection all with varying results.  I'm not done with the testing of the ADSL but so far the 56K modem is less likely to experience a single ping/single sprite death.

The F4UC stands out on these test as the number one killer with single ping/single sprite deaths.  The Spits following in second place.

If a 56K modem player see's a hit sprite on his FE I take the damage on my system (T1) an average of 98% of the time, while in the reverse the modem player can take damage as little as 45% of the time compared to my FE.

So to say that it's "VERY rare" is not entirely true for some people.

I know my testing is not in a closed enviroment and has MANY variables including lag at different times etc, and would be very difficult to quantify but I assure you there was a big difference in the connections speeds as to the lethality of some guns.

These tests were done over a month and a half ago and HiTech said he'd look into it.

2.  I agree with Toad here, 1.2 is a good average to be safe but in my experiences on my connection I have to be careful with all planes out to 1.6 and very careful with the HogC's and Spit out to as far as 1.8.  I was killed by a HogC just last night at 1.6 on my end and it was the normal single ping death for me.

HO's are the absolute worst for me. I've been able to make a plane explode on the pass and continue flying along for as long as 15-20 seconds making some flight corrections for my next kill and BOOM I blow up.  

I've learned to avoid HO's and give major respect to the HogC's and the Spits because in my testing I'm at a disadvantage.

I believe this is the only game I've ever played where my connection speed to the net is a disadvantage.

It's still a hell of a game and I've learned to compensate for the differences as best I can.

Mox
TWC

[This message has been edited by Mox (edited 05-31-2000).]

[Badger]

Mox....

Intriguing data and ramifications..........

Thanks for the feedback and logical communications analysis...<salute>

Ironically, many still jabber on about lethality, captured plane tests, 1940's war office documents and a bunch of other static off-line analysis.  All these efforts spent in the name of justifying or refuting the accuracy of programming code for a computer game, which introduces variables such as what you've demonstrated.  

It is no wonder why some of threads on AGW and here are a complete waste of energy.

It must drive programmers at both iEN and HTC crazy to read some of them.

Regards,
Badger

[funked]

 

i am now avoiding f4's in general and although i understand they were a good plane why didnt the allies use them in europe and finish the war earlier if they were THAT good

Why?  Because the USAAF had no trouble slaughtering the poor Jagdwaffe with the equipment on hand.

[Toad]

Mox,

I'm not clear on your testing.

Are you saying that on the OTHER GUY'S FE (the killer's FE) he was showing one hit/one sprite on you and you died? And this would be with NO PREVIOUS damage to your aircraft?

Further, you indicate that you are getting killed by one round at a range of 2.0K? Is this on your FE or the killer's FE?

I'd really like to see this stuff. Do you have films? It would indeed seriously change some of my views.

I have NEVER killed an nme plane with one ping showing on my FE and I flew the -1C for a while. (Mostly the -51 now) I have also never seen a hit sprite on anything beyond 1.0 or 1.1 on my FE and damn few of those (usually a "goodbye" hose, trying to get the guy to jink or turn).

Anyway, I'd love to see some of this stuff on film or participate in your tests. I'm on a modem, usually around 40,000 bps.

[funked]

Mox,

Dinger's test found no anomalies in the cannon when firing at ground targets, so the only explanation for the high "percieved" lethality of the HS cannon is that relative lethality is different when shooting at planes.  Your finding suggests a reason why there might be some differences when shooting at planes!

You need to start another thread and give us EVERYTHING you have.  Enough that we can try to duplicate your experiments and add to the database.  There are a lot of nerds on this board, put us to work on this case.

[Citabria]

I personally would have liked to see the f4u-1a

or perhaps a birdcage cockpit corsair

why not? we have 4 friggin 109s!

we have the cannon hawg 1c and the ground attack 1d

the F4u-1a was the essential fighter version of the corsair

[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 05-31-2000).]

[Mox]

 

Originally posted by Toad:
Mox,
I'm not clear on your testing.
Are you saying that on the OTHER GUY'S FE (the killer's FE) he was showing one hit/one sprite on you and you died? And this would be with NO PREVIOUS damage to your aircraft?
Further, you indicate that you are getting killed by one round at a range of 2.0K? Is this on your FE or the killer's FE?
I'd really like to see this stuff. Do you have films? It would indeed seriously change some of my views.
I have NEVER killed an nme plane with one ping showing on my FE and I flew the -1C for a while. (Mostly the -51 now) I have also never seen a hit sprite on anything beyond 1.0 or 1.1 on my FE and damn few of those (usually a "goodbye" hose, trying to get the guy to jink or turn).
Anyway, I'd love to see some of this stuff on film or participate in your tests. I'm on a modem, usually around 40,000 bps.

First of all thanks Toad and Badger for the responses as I was sure this message would start a flame war which I had no intentions of doing and would not have responded to.

My test was done on a 56K modem (USR Sportster) on a Pent III 600EB 256SDRAM PC100 with a TNT2 (Wifes pc setting next to mine).  I disconnected the NIC and used the modem on a local dial up. I would fire a single burst and count the hit sprites and compare to see if any damage and how many pings (if any) occured on the modem machine.  I always did this as the target aircraft was flying straight and level from the 6o'clock position.  I always fired as few rounds as I could (harder to do than you think).  When I saw the big differences between the modem and my LAN connection I decided to take it a little further by calling a squad mate that was across the street using a ISDN 2B 128K Ascend router (I helped build the network he was using so I knew it well).  We turned up our volumes so that we both could hear each others screen and tested over and over again.  While he had no reason to tell me anything other than the truth about his damage I did not review the films, I took his word for it.  As we reversed our test (squadmate was shooting at me)  I took damage/or at least a ping was heard just about ever single time he called out a hit sprite.  I had no way to be totaly accurate on the amount of hits versus the damage when there was more than 1 hit sprite.  I was only concerned about the single hit sprite to damage ratio between the connections.

While I heard a ping on his end (via the phone) about 1/3rd of the time I saw a hit sprite on my FE, he damage/pinged me a lot more closely to a 1 to 1 ratio.  The same squadmate went to see HiTech with me and we three talked about what we had been seeing and he said it's "possible" something was wrong and he'd look into it.  Since then I started testing the same thing on the ADSL connection but it was much harder to test as it was my office and my home connection that I was testing.  Hard to explain why I was at the office at 9:00 at night playing AH in my office. while talking to my wife at home asking "any damage?"  

I switched jobs and have been too busy to start the test back up.  I will tell you HiTech was very interested in what was happening.  After talking to HiTech I learned that you should not hear a ping for every round that hits you BUT you should be confident that if you see a hit sprite on a enemy plane on your FE, the other guys should take damage or hear a ping.  HiTech even offered to activate debug code on my system so he could watch and see what was happening.

My test were in no way complete, I did not test the N1K or the LA5, but I did test the others.  The .50's were porked when I tested them and they rarly did much damage.  I'm sure there's a lot I could have done on these test to make them more accurate and give us more hard data to look at but I never intended to spend as much time as I did on testing it.

I was a newbie to AH in beta and I never flew the other brands so I didn't/don't have a skewed perception based on other experiences in the other online flight sims/games.

I've learned a lot playing here but the 2 hours I spent at HiTech Creations I learned so much about the game, I can see the drive and the desire in HiTechs eye's to make this the best online sim ever.  I might poke fun at being bored with the "Quakers" arena but I know I'm backing the best in the business with my money.

When I have the time maybe I'll take up the testing again.  Who knows HiTech could have found a problem and fixed it by now.  

In any event I still give the HogC and the Spits MAJOR respect on range.  
For the record I have never been killed at 2.0 with a single ping without previous damage but I have been killed with a single ping (unsure of the hits because I couldn't see the others FE) at ranges of 1.7 by a F4UC multiple times.  I'm measureing these distances looking backwards and yes I know "objescts may be closer than they appear".

Mox
TWC