Suicide Dweebs.

[Innominate]

Not "Suicide Jabos", well not entirely, they're part of what I'm talking about  The complaints about suicide jabos always bug me, since they leave out all of the other suicide crap.

What I'm talking about are the people who crawl up a buff formations six, knowing that they'll probably kill one of them before they go down.  Or the people who dive into a huge swarm of enemies and field ack to vulch someone taking off before running into the ground.  Every action where the pilot says to himself "Well doing this will get me killed, but I'll bring one of em down first!".

Comparing planes in AH to real life often seems very wrong, and planes often seem to be better or worse than they were.  Survival is a secondary goal(often not a goal at all) to getting the kill.  The planes which are best at getting the kill, tend to be the ones most used.  Survival is pretty much irrelevent.  Some planes (primarily the LW planes, which is probably a lot of why there is so much whining about them) are very good at survival, but lack when it comes to getting the kill.

AH is about getting the kill, survival is secondary.  The lack of any reason to survive, and every reason not to bother is the root cause of much of the suicide  tactics in AH.

So the question is, How can you encourage flying to survive, over flying to inflict damage? If you do, how can you avoid hurting the newer pilots, still learning the ropes? Or should it remain the way it is?

[hitech]

Innom: Flying just to survive does not make a fun game.

Think of it this way, if living is the primary goal why ever take off.

HiTech

[Beefcake]

Both of Ye have good points, this is why I'm going to love the "MT" when it comes out.

PS HT, hows the B25 coming?

[Innominate]

bah, it wouldn't need to be JUST flying to survive, merely adding some practical reason(i.e. not stats) to land instead of crash into the ground.  Though I'm mostly just pointing out that the whole suicide "problem" isn't restricted to jabos.  The same suicide tactics are used everywhere.

[Booky]

Originally posted by hitech
Innom: Flying just to survive does not make a fun game.

Think of it this way, if living is the primary goal why ever take off.

HiTech

LoL, you don't really believe this do you? I mean if you do then why you even bothering to do the Mission Arena for folks like us that want to keep streaks and try to stay alive?


I am hoping to remove this piece of iron hook from my mouth soon:eek:

Booky

[Wotan]

HT has a point you dont want a main that catters to 1 type of flying alone. We would get an arena of mustangs cruising at 25k looking for aerial strafing kills.

The problem with suicide types in not that they get killed its the impact they have on others. Like Bomber divebombing CVs and suicide jabo raids against an airfield.

When the objective swings the other way, as I feel it has. When  the focus of the main gets away from a2a combat and replaced by "war winning" then you have a boring main as well.

I would hope the main and folks who fly there would be about aircombat and land grabbing would be secondary and developed to to enhance the air war.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Wotan
We would get an arena of mustangs cruising at 25k looking for aerial strafing kills.

But the 190's would still be furballing down low right, doin' that T&B thing like they are now?

See, cheap shots are easy.

When the objective swings the other way, as I feel it has. When  the focus of the main gets away from a2a combat and replaced by "war winning" then you have a boring main as well.

Yeah, IMO since Beta it has slowly but steadily moved away from A2A into a "war winning" mode. For several valid reasons, too. As bombers were added, GV's were added the requests for "strat" increased in volume. People wanted something to accomplish with these new items.  So, obviously, as these various elements were added, there was a trend away from pure A2A.

If we were still at a planeset that had ONLY fighters, it really wouldn't have changed much. But that's not what the clientele seemed to want.

All that being said, I think one can still find what he's looking for in the MA.

For example, I like A2A almost to the point of exclusivity. I really don't care who wins "the war". I fly fighters and I'm always able to find interesting fights somewhere on the map.

So what changed for me? Not much, really.

The Main is what you make it. IMO, of course.

[Wotan]

But the 190's would still be furballing down low right, doin' that T&B thing like they are now?

See, cheap shots are easy.

I would only consider that a "cheap shot" if it applied to me. But even so the 51, which is already the most used a/c in ah, would be the perfect aircraft for a main as described in the original post. Its fast at that height, it dives really well and has a good gun package. In the main where only "surviving" would be the goal it would be the plane of choice to do so.

If you felt that to be a cheap shot well get thicker skin. I think its pretty accurate.

As for the rest there has been numerous posts about how the main has changed some like the change some liked it better before.
 

When the objective swings the other way, as I feel it has.

As the quote implies its just mho. Ofcourse YMMV.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Innominate
So the question is, How can you encourage flying to survive, over flying to inflict damage? If you do, how can you avoid hurting the newer pilots, still learning the ropes? Or should it remain the way it is?

Delay accumulation of perk points during a sortie. Make it an adjustable setting on the arena. Default it to, say, 30 seconds, with a valid range of, say, 0 seconds (instantly) to 300 seconds (five minutes). If you get a kill or destroy/damage a ground target (depending on your sortie type), and die before the expiration of the perk delay time, you don't get any perks for that kill.

[Kweassa]

I think it would have to do with something about giving clear and simple objective at hand to the people who fly.

 In the days of the war, winning the war was the first and largest objective, but also as a living being, using one's military forces to fight a fight where your soldiers survive, and the other side's don't , was an absolute necessity. Smack-down, head-to-head, frontal-collision type of game of attrition was a costly move which even the sure winners would hesitate to play.

 In actual tactical combat, it seems there were also other type of objectives at hand which kept the pilots struggling to survive and yet, chained to combat. Surviving was necessary and yet, you can't just grab alt alone, ignoring all your squad mates in the dumps. You can't just run away screaming leaving others to get shot down and die. In other words, no matter how good a pilot is he was bound to his mates by duty. If one chooses to run and leave all his friends, being the only person to survive everytime, he'd probably face the military court. People were given a mission as a group, and aborting it was an option to be chosen only when there was no other option.

 So, I guess real life was a mix of factors of "survival" and "forced duty" which, in the MA, there is nothing that has to do with both. No lives are stake so no need for flying to survive, and no forced duties so one can ignore everything and everyone if he chooses to do so. Thus, the only objective in the MA that is remotely worth something is winning the war. People couldn't care less about flying smart, or carrying bombs in a flaming kamikaze. Nor do they care about group tactics or have concerns about the safety of their team mates. I guess we can't really expect that in the MA, and that's why probably mission theater is in plans.

 All I can hope for is a some sort of a management system which judges the pilots of the new Mission Theater which accounts for more factors than required in MA - "survival" "forced duty" "cooperation".. etc.

 Accomplished the mission, but failed to survie - low points
 Survived, but abandoned the mission - low points
 Accomplised mission and survived, but all your squad died - low points
 Acomplisged mission, survived, and lot of squaddies also alive - high points

 ...

 
 
 

 

 

 

[TheManx]

I personally hate attacking bombers at any alt, but I have to or else my base might be gone or badly damaged the next time I up from it. If HTC got rid of bombers, damaging bases, and base captures altogether, I don't think I'd really miss them. But he won't, so I'll have to go against B17's tearing me apart from 1.3k out while I have to wait till 600' before I can do any damage with the same ammo type.

[MrLars]

Originally posted by TheManx
I personally hate attacking bombers at any alt, but I have to or else my base might be gone or badly damaged the next time I up from it. If HTC got rid of bombers, damaging bases, and base captures altogether, I don't think I'd really miss them. But he won't, so I'll have to go against B17's tearing me apart from 1.3k out while I have to wait till 600' before I can do any damage with the same ammo type.

Bombers are way too easy to kill now. Climbing up their 6 isn't the way to do it though.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Wotan
But even so the 51...would be the perfect aircraft for a main as described in the original post. Its fast at that height, it dives really well and has a good gun package. In the main where only "surviving" would be the goal it would be the plane of choice to do so.

Yeah. The D9 is  maybe 10 slower, climbs ~ 200 fpm less, and has 4 cannons that make a quick kill much easier.  In short, there are SEVERAL aircraft that would be excellent for "surviving" but of course there's always one planeset that has an unfair advantage isn't there?

As for the rest, it would seem obvious that once you go beyond a pure fighter planeset, the focus of gameplay will drift away from pure A2A engagements.

[Wotan]

above 23k the d9 suffers in manuverability and it compresses before the 51 will. A 51 can turn and if it gets in trouble it can get lo faster and get away. Try it out.

Also the 50 cals on the mustang have a greater effective kill range then the 190.  Would all the faster planes get more useage in a main that revolved around survival?, yes.

"Unfair" thats your word. A few of you on the board like to insert your words and meanings into the mouths of those you may disagree with. I never said unfair and I never directed any comment at you nor do I see that anything I said was a "cheap shot". I made a post about a game. You felt slighted and you tried to "get me back".

Anyway my point was that going to far one or another can have the equal effect and diminishing the focus more away from a2a then some of us would like. Ofcourse this is only a "main arena" phenom and in the ct theres still the a2a focus. We will see what the mission arena brings.

Any other meaning you want to infer is up to you.

edit

Where can I get my other 2 cannons on the d9

[TheManx]

Bombers are way too easy to kill now. Climbing up their 6 isn't the way to do it though.

Yeah, I'm just really bad against bombers no matter what position I'm in to attack. But my point was more to state the only reason I attack bombers is to prevent the base from getting knocked down. I do something I absolutely hate, in order to preserve a more enjoyable aspect of the game for me later. I'm more justifying why people would do outlandish things to maintain a good fighting area over why people do outlandish things to attempt to restrict it.