Why fly perk planes?

[EDO43]

I've seen more than one post from AH players who wonder why perk planes cost so much and for the most part, have little or no advantage to flying them.   I was pondering this point while trying to beat the LAG into the main arena last night and this is what I thought of as a possible solution.  When I fly a perkie, I usually fly it to perform a specific task, like bomber interceptor (262)  However, flying a 262 against a bomber formation is at times very precarious and costly with almost no reward.  Kill three B-17's, land the 262 and get .26 perk points.  Something seems wrong here...is it just me or should the reward mirror the risk involved?

A.  Since most players don't use perk planes much, if at all, and they do cost so much; why not raise the ENY Value way high so that if you do land 4 or 5 kills in a 262 (which for me is extremely hard to do) you're rewarded handsomly for keepin the wings on the 262 and being sucessful?  Perk planes such as the F4U-1C need not be raised but if the cost is 60 or better, I'd say that an ENY value increase is in order.  Increase in ENY should fit the cost proportionally.  

B.  If that were to happen, would the use of perk planes increase to a point where everyone who could fly them, did?  or would it become the ride of the experten who would dominate the skies and rack up more perks than if they had flown a regular airplane under the same circumstances?

I have not seen this thread yet but I'm almost positive that it's been addressed.  Sorry if this is a repeat but my brain was actually working last night for a change.  

[straffo]

Perk plane can be handy to drag away all the con in an area and so the goon can make a good stealth approach

[popeye]

So, you want MORE reward for flying superior planes?

[Pongo]

many people have no problem running up big scores in perk planes.
the reward of the perk plane is flying the plane itself not gaining the ability to fly even more perk planes.
If you raised the eny value of the perk planes to give them perk points for success, you would remove the perk points that they provide someone who shoots them down.

[EDO43]

True it would, but there would still be the loss of the cost of the aircraft to the flyer of the perk plane.  Personally, if there's a perkie in the area, I know way in advance that the majority of people in the area are going to be trying to catch and kill it, so I don't bother with em unless they attack me.  If yer flying something with an ENY of 40-60 unperked, your chances of catching someone in a perk plane are slim under normal circumstances (furballs excepted)  If you're flying a P-51B which has an ENY value of 35 or 40 (i forget) and you shoot down a Tempest which might have an ENY of 70-90 you'll still get some perks but not as many.  It would be like a N1K (ENY 10)shooting down a Hurricane IIc (ENY 40).  People who perk farm usually fly Hurricane IIc's, Spit I's, Hurricane I's and other planes with very high ENY's.  Raising the ENY of perk planes would get more people flying them and thus force them to get away from the "spit dweeb" syndrome or the N1K dweeb syndrome.  In my experience, these people who fly spits and N1K's do so because they're easier to get kills in, and/or they handle better than the others.  There are the exceptions to the rule as in anything else.  

Who now that flies a 262 which cost 200 points, flies it into a furball that doesn't have thousands of perk points to lose?  I've not seen that many in furballs and those that I do are usually on the outskirts  of the meelee waiting for stragglers.  

I'd like to know how one can rack up impressive scores in a perk plane, like the 262, and get a decent reward for doing it?  I've seen the text buffer say "so and so landed 5 kills in a 262 of....yadda yadda"  5 kills of what?  bomber's, fighters, Ground Vechicles?  I'd bet that 5 kills gets you 1.5-3 perks in that 262 under the  best of conditions.  To me, it's anti-climatic to land the plane, damaged or not, and look at your score only to be disappointed by the numbers.  

I don't know about anyone else but attacking a bomber formation in a 262 is nerve racking to me, when I know the gunner is watching me and despite my speed,  pings me up as I blow by at 600+ mph.  The 262 does not take damage very well in my experience.

Let the risk justify the reward.  It's not a reward to be able to fly the perk plane, it should be rewarding to do well in it given that it is supposed to be a superior airplane.  To do well in it, you know as well as I that the pilot needs to be not only aware of the strengths and weaknesses but be able to employ them.  Only experience flying the plane will afford the experience of knowing how to use it.

[J_A_B]

I'd be willing to suggest the guys doing well in the perk planes aren't worried about how many points they get.  

J_A_B

[Pongo]

It will not pad your perk points but it dous pad your fighter score.

[gatso]

The last thing I'm thinking about when flying a 262 or Temp is the perk points I'm gaining.  262's 30mm have knocked at least 2-3% off my hit% this tour because I can't hit crap with em so it's porked my fighter score in one area too   . Perk planes are FUN and as long as they stay fun I'll fly em.

Oh, BTW I fly 262's into furballs.  Truly a funny thing to do and I only have 750 fighter perks.

Gatso

[Innominate]

As far as I gather, the purpose of perk planes is to reward people for getting kills in the lesser used planes.  As things stand now, the gangbang tags, combined with only marginally better performance than the non-perk planes, you MUST fly extremely conservativly in order to avoid getting gangbanged.

For instance, the f4u4, with the f4u4 tag, every la7, and p51d within icon range will lock onto you, and unless you're sitting up around 20k, waiting for someone to climb up and fight you, they can run you down fairly readily.  Only between 15 and 20k does the f4u4 have any real performance advantage over the p51d.  The plane sucks in the vertical, having unbelivably bad prop torque, and to date is the only plane I've managed to put into an unrecoverable spin.   I don't really mind that the plane is perked, but for f***** sake, the gang bang tags are over doing it.  As things stand now, The f4u-1 is a better aircraft than the f4u-4.  And the F4U-1C is the best perk plane, because its the only one that doesnt turn you into a gangbang target.

Turning the perk planes into gangbang targets removes any fun of flying them for me, and I'm sure for many others.  If they're supposed to be a reward, shouldn't they be fun?

If the perk system is there to prevent certain planes from being used, why do we even have the f4u4 and spit14?  They're almost never used, and are nearly impossible to do well in unless you're one of the better fighter pilots in the game, simply because of the gangbangs.

[Thrawn]

It's fun.

Flying a plane that climbs like and elevator or goes like a bat out hell, is a blast.  For me, the combat side of flying a perk is secondary.

[Innominate]

Originally posted by Thrawn
It's fun.

Flying a plane that climbs like and elevator or goes like a bat out hell, is a blast.  For me, the combat side of flying a perk is secondary.

Unfortunatly, the f4u4 does neither.

[Wotan]

perk planes are perked to keep them rare in the main.

how hard is that to understand?

They arent perked strictly on performance but other factors as well.

Quit whining over it.

Perk points are easy as hell to get. I get between 10-15 per average sortie.

the f4u-4 would end up being used more in the main and its overall impact would be equal to that of the chog. You werent here when the chog was getting nearly 20% kills in the main. Even with all the squeaking over the la7 it never has come close to chog level. We dont need cheeper perks because that would mean perk planes become less rare.

Theres a reason that perk planes have unique icons. It works well it keeps folks from hiding behind the icon for ez kills.

Go download the help files and read what it says about perks.

The perk system works as designed. Its a good system as the planeset expands hopefully the perk system will as well.

Next time you think you have come up with an original whine do a bbs search first. This topic has been beaten to death.

[Innominate]

Well I'm against unperking any of the perk planes, they all deserve it.  The problem is that,  because of the gangbang tags, you're better off flying a less obvious plane unless you happen to be one of the top fighter pilots.

If the intention is to keep perk planes nearly un-used, then it's doing exactly what it should be.  Why not just remove them completly?  Nobody would ever notice the difference.

You argue that perk planes should be rare, to a certain point I agree with you.  But c-47's racking up more kills than perk planes is way too rare IMO.

BTW, the more a topic "has been beaten to death"  the more it indicates there are issues that need to be dealt with.

[Wotan]

BTW, the more a topic "has been beaten to death" the more it indicates there are issues that need to be dealt with.

no it doesnt. with every new wave of new guys they whine about perks. They fly planes where they only score 2 perks a sortie and look at the 70 perk price tag and their jaw drops.

The c47 doesnt rack up kills. Dweebs kill themselves going after an easy kill. The same way they do on perk planes.

HT set the value to keep certain planes rare. The ta 152 get as many sorties as say a late war plane would get in an rps. They are still flown. They are flown effectively even with their icon. Most people have a hard time dealing with getting shot down in general. It really pisses umm off when someone shots down their perk plane.

I had near 6000 perks at one point lost umm got back to 3000 lost umm up to 1200 again. They arent hard to earn. they mean nothing if they're lost. The perk system does what it was designed to do.

You wanna fly a perk plane like everyone else then earn the points like everyone else.

My squaddie has almost 7000 and could give a crap about perks. He could fly 262s a whole tour exclusively.

If folks take the time to read how to maximize the number of perks they can earn per sortie then they  wont sweat the cost of a perk plane. Get out of the late war monsters and into some really decent mid war planes. I could earn enough perks in 3 average sorties to fly a temp or a f4u-4 if i cared to.

If dont wanna fly anything but late war planes well then dont whine about perks costing to much.

[Innominate]

I personally have 3000 perks, earning them is patheticly easy.  Earning them flying planes such as the F4U-1, is a hell of a lot more fun than using them.  I don't care about the price of flying them.  It bothers me that in the MA, an F4U-1 is a much more effective fighter than an F4U-4.

As things stand now, once you've flown the perk planes and realized how pointless they are, you'd might as well go back to the spit9's and la7s.