La7 Offset suggestion

[Kweassa]

Learn to exploit the weaknesses of the La7 and you won't be part of the flock that bleets to have them perked.

 The very same argument can be used with the 262 and the 163. Get them on their take-off or landings. Sucker them into a high-G maneuver. Keep updating their position among friendlies in the area and they present virtually no threat as a A2A fighter.

 Oh wait. How foolish of me.

 Those things are unlikely to happen... and is a meaningless argument... about as much as it is unlikely that one has the time to wait for the La-7 to make a mistake, in an inferior plane, unless one has either the hoarde or the alt factor(or maybe both) backing him up.

[palef]

Originally posted by nopoop
I don't see this "thing" with the la7. I really don't.

They're fun to kill and with most pilots, one dimensional.

Just hang around, wait for the mistake..

Kill

What he said - only challenging La7 pilot to totally spank me of late is Shane.

palef

[Max]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Let me get this straight:

You are upset because ONE free plane is too fast and too good and your proposed solution is to allow free use of yet another plane that is even faster and even better - so that now we will have TWO planes that are too fast and too good...

This helps how?

I'm not upset, ranting or whining. I simply put forth a suggestion along with an informal polling of players.

Grunherz, you're using the old, "Two wrongs don't make a right" argument. In a perfect world, I would agree with you. The problem is, at times it seems half the MA players are swarming in La7's. Unless they're encoutered at high (over 20K) alt, or outnumbered, or perhaps you're a high ranked pile-it, you're dead meat due to the overwhelming speed advantage of the La7.

I simply happen to believe that one shouldn't have to expends 60 perkies in order to fly a plane that won't get run down by the LaLa crowd.

DmdMax

[BigWorm]

Is there a contest to see how many "LA7 is Uber" threads can be started?

BigWorm

[Hap]

great question! not sure how it would affect gameplay but here are my first impressions: 1) would reduce the # of pilots flying 190's & tiffs.  2) would affect # flying la-7's too--fewer maybe--. or . . . MORE people would fly laffers in attempts at catching tempests during their bomb runs. 3) pony's too would be affected.

When i say "affected" i'm referring to goal-driven reasons one might choose a plane not the "well i've not tried this one lemmie give her a whirl" reasoning.

I know this is a different question, but how bout changing the Spit14 icon to just plain ole Spit?[/i]

[Hap]

if the fastest e-retaining planes were perked . . . hmmm not sure how things would be affected . . . i'm for anything that would add realisim & enjoyment while making more viable more of the planes in our planeset.

but i bet tour of duty will certainly be reason for lots & lots of discussion.

i think the la-7 won't be perked in main arena & tempest will remain as it is.  that's what i think is going to happen.  main arena will remain as it is a furballers fun-bowl w/strat teams, missions, sorties, call 'em what you will & tactical & strategic planning taking a bit of a back seat.

[hazed-]

ok i think we should define the reasons behind the desire for it to be perked.

for me the reasons i would put a small perk value on it is that it was a very late introduction and was actually used in small numbers alongside other aircraft like La5's and yaks etc.Its a fairly similar situation to the F4UC, it wasnt used as much as many other types so when the MA becomes overcrowded with the rarer planes we end up with an arena which barely resembles a WW2 air battle.

If you see a russian aircraft in AH the one you are likely to see 90% of the time is the La7.This limits you to using faster aircraft in order to counter the threat, BUT this also applies to the P51D,FW190d9,109G10,P47D30 etc (all the later versions of AH aircraft). If i could ask for anything id like to see all these aircraft on a low perk setting (5 or 10 perks each)OR make scoring of perks in these aircraft very difficult thus reducing the appearance of the later versions in a similar way to the f4uc. We would all be able to fly them quite easily if we really would like to but it would mean either a cost in perks OR a very low scoring flight even with lots of kills.

I think we should be encouraged to use older versions in order to afford the use of newer ones rather than as it is now where we can fly all the late war fast aircraft at no cost and still score highly for perks.Really when we fail to use the perk system in order to ballance the arena we may as well get rid of it altogether.I think it(perking) works but we dont use it enough.

[SlapShot]

The La-7

1) is fast

2) has crappy gun ballistics

3) has crappy views

4) carries no ordiance to speak of

So because its fast, you feel the need to perk it. Get real.

I think the loudest whine comes from the BnZers who want to be able to drop in and out of the fight at will, against planes that have no chance of catching them as they slice thru the furballs or during a base attack, picking off the slower planes.

Its the 190, 109, P51 pilots that probably hate the La-7s the most. They want to be able to slice and dice without challange, even if they make a mistake.

If the BnZer is good, then the La-7 is not threat at all, but make that one mistake, which a lot of them do, and the La-7 is on you like "white on rice" and you don't like that. If the La-7 were not around, you would be able to make 1 and maybe 2 mistakes without consequence. Its the La-7 that balances the BnZ faction IMHO and that is why it will never be perked.

I fly alot and its the 109s and 190s that are proliferate in the MA, much more than the La-7. They hang high and wait for the opportunity ... nothing wrong with that, but when YOU make a mistake and there is an La-7 there to remind you of the mistake, don't get pissy, remember what you did wrong and don't do it again.

As Ack-Ack said ... the La-7 does have its weaknesses like every plane has, and can be exploited more by TnB planes than the BnZ planes. A good and patient BnZer should be able to kill La-7s without a problem.

[SlapShot]

Hazed,

Its been said a million times ... planes are not perked on what year they came out or how many were made. Its all about the total impact the one plane has in the total MA arena. The La-7 does not fit the criteria.

Changing the amount of perks earned in these planes will have no effect at all. I have 1000's of perks and only on occasion do I take up a perk plane. I don't care to fly those planes.

If you want to push the early war planes, then I suggest that you join Lazs cause for a separate early war area within an MA map (I like the idea). Too many people paying $14.99/month for you or anybody else to try and force them to fly planes that they don't want to fly.

[WineMan]

Originally posted by SlapShot
As Ack-Ack said ... the La-7 does have its weaknesses like every plane has, and can be exploited more by TnB planes than the BnZ planes. A good and patient BnZer should be able to kill La-7s without a problem.

While I think the LA-7, P51-D, and SPITIX should all be perked about 5 pps, I do totally agree that a decent stick can beat any of those planes if you know their weaknesses.

Especially a TnB vs. the LA-7.  I've killed my fair share of LA-7s by drawing them into a turn fight (while flying a TnB plane of course)after they've dived on me from 10k alt advantage.  A nice zero or hurri will kill any LA-7.

[Hap]

what hazed said about the speed of the laffer forces one to confront it--i agree--as do the other planes he listed.

[Hap]

& what wine-man said also; yes a decent stick laffers not a big prob it excells within what i think is a fairly narrow bandwidth in comparison.

air to air fights become lower & slower generally . . . WAY glad they don't perk the 2-C:D

[Steve]

NAY

and I still don't get the whole perk the la7 thing.   It's fast at low alts... nice accel at low alts.. that's about it. As a newb I thought it was uber, now I see its' glaring weaknesses.  Also, it's not like there is a proliferation of LA 7 "aces" out there unbalancing the arena.  I can only think of 2 "dedicated" LA 7 sticks that I would give extra attention to, Shane and kbman.  I continue to be surprised any time this "perk the LA 7" thing comes up.

[Urchin]

Well, the real problem I have is that it is superior in performance to all of our 'prop' perk planes except the Tempest.  I'd rate it equal to the Tempest in performance at low altitudes (which is, rather unsurprisingly, where the fighting is).

If you are in a Spit 14, an F4U4, or God forbid a Ta-152, you can't hurt an La-7 unless he screws up.  He can joust, make a pass, extend out 3,000 yards and turn around for another joust.  You can't just say, "Aw screw this" and leave... because the La-7 is faster.  The F4U-4 can get away from a La-7 (if it starts with a big enough head start to run the La-7 out of WEP), the other two don't have a chance.  Most La-7 pilots aren't stupid.  They realize they aren't very good at fighting, or they'd be in a plane that can fight.  So they do jousts, or camp out above and behind you and wait for 4 or 5 friends to engage before they'll take off their dress and get dirty with the rest of the kids.  So your choice, if you choose to fly a perk plane (and even the Tempest) is to fly at 30k where you don't have to worry about La-7s diving on you with a 1-2k alt advantage (which is all they need to run down any prop plane) and forcing you to turn back into the conga line chasing you, or ... to just fly an La-7.

I actually don't care if the La-7 gets perked.  There are other planes that would perform the same function for the inept pilots that make up the bulk of the La-7 population.  The Typhoon comes to mind, and some of them might even go to the P-51D.  What I would like to see is the perk costs eliminated or drastically reduced for our 'prop' perk planes.  That would also have the function of adding 'diversity', since people WOULD fly the F4U-4 and Spit 14.

[Hap]

i'm endorsing urchin's unperk-plan i think it would be way fun flying a spit 14 & tempest w/out 14 guys dropping everything to try to engage