For Pyro AHII Gunnery

[Rapace]

Will the AHII Gunnery be as ridiculous as the current one?
According to me the thing this game ruins is Gunnery they do of the draws from unbelievable distances ...
I hope that the thing is revisited ...

[Ghosth]

2hawks made a good point in another post.

In WWII Fighter pilots fresh at the front my have only fired his guns once or twice.

They may or may not have had a towed target, shot at some fixed point, or in some cases, opened up on the ocean.

In Aces High even moderate pilots have years & years of playing under their belts.

If you were able to tell me how many rounds of ammo I've expended since AH started it would be a huge amount.

Of course people with that kind of skill level are going to get some hits & therefore some kills at extreme ranges.

Ussually its the Turbolazer Hispano's that make those long hail mary shots.

So before you go critiquing the gunnery & damage models. Take skill level's into account.

Some of these guys are just plain good.
They'd make Bong look like a 2 week trial dweeb.

[OIO]

Currently the gunnery allows the "hail mary shots" because of the laser rangefinder.

No other reason. Skill only allows the "experienced" pilot to know how much to raise nose when it reads "D900" compared to "D800".

[214thCavalier]

I used to watch the range before firing, now i just fire when it feels right.
Experience nothing more.

[ALF]

Originally posted by OIO
Currently the gunnery allows the "hail mary shots" because of the laser rangefinder.

No other reason. Skill only allows the "experienced" pilot to know how much to raise nose when it reads "D900" compared to "D800".

Once...Im only going to say this on this threat ONCE


The "laser rang finder" is a concesion made to help with the fact that we get ZERO, NONE, NO, NADA info on range using the current computer hardware.  You cannot say to look at the size....because a large plane at 500 looks like a small plane at 300 in the game, but in real life....I can tell if its a pickup truck 1/4 mile away or a semi 1 /2 mile away.  At anything but extreemly close ranges (under 300 for sure), there is too little info on screen to make any kind of distinction.  You also get NO DEPTH PERCEPTION, and so what is obvious in real life is very hard to determin in the game.

[Sixpence]

I don't get it, could you repeat that?

[Furious]

Originally posted by Rapace
Will the AHII Gunnery be as ridiculous as the current one?
According to me the thing this game ruins is Gunnery they do of the draws from unbelievable distances ...
I hope that the thing is revisited ...

Provide proof that the gunnery model is "ridiculous".  

Proof is not that IL2 seems more real.

[Karnak]

I was thinking of this subject while getting ready for work this morning.  Funny.

There are a few factors that, so far as I know, are not modeled in AH that had a detrimental impact on WWII gun accuracy.


1) Air turbulance is not modeled.  Because we have just about the cleanest flying environment imaginable we do not have to worry about the vagaries of the air currents and eddies throwing our aim off.

Due to the incredibly complex and intensive nature of modeling air currents it is not possible to simulate this.  It may be possible to fake it, but I do not know how.  Hopefully HiTech has ideas.


2) The ridgidity, or lack of ridgidity, of the gun mounts are not modeled.  I don't have hard numbers for this and I doubt hard numbers exist.  I do know that wing mounted guns were noticably less accurate because they would torque the wing.  How badly they would do so would vary depending on the strength of the wing in that direction and the kick of the gun.  Spitfire wings, for example, torqued noticably when the Hispano cannons were fired.  The British noted that the fuselage mounting of the Whirlwind and Mosquito was far more accurate than the wing mounted cannon on the Hurricane, Spitfire and Typhoon and attributed it to wing flexing.

I think this might be something that could be modeled.


3) Turbulance generated by the target is not modeled.  When attacking from 6 'oclock, or nearly so, the wake of the target creates turbulance that makes shooting harder.  This is especialy true of big aircraft like B-17Gs and Lancasters.

I think this might be able to be modeled or faked convincingly, but as it only affects a limited number of attacks it would not always have an effect.


4) Guns and gun mounts on bombers seem to lack recoil and offer perfect stability.  The gun turrets on bombers were not mounted in concrete and the kick from even rifle calibre guns, let alone 50 cals or 20mm cannon,  made these weapons inaccurate to say the least.  Hand aimed guns suffered even more from kick induced inaccuracy.

I think this would be the easiest to add, but without adding the others, at the very least 2 and 3, this would merely make bombers utterly helpless in the face of super accurate fighters.


All that said, I do know of a 800-900 yard intentional kill using low ammo quantities from a Spitfire Mk V against a fleeing Italian aircraft by George Buerling.

[Kweassa]

I don't support the 'we have more experience theory'.

 The difference really shows when IL2 series and AH is compared.

 Both got range finders.
 Both boast accuracy and realism in their ballistics models.

 .. and yet, people can't hit jackshi* over 300 meters in IL-2 series games, but people snipe off targets upto 600~700 yards in AH.

 Why?

[Kweassa]

Oedy, true, even in IL-2 or FB the expert players can and will, shoot ranges over 300 meters. But even so, their concept of "long range shots" is something like a 500 meter kill with a lucky big cannon shot(and a BIG cannon, for that matter -  a MK103 or a MK108, or those soviet 45mms... sniping off wings and tails with .50s or 20mms?? Never).

 The vast numbers of people ranging from average to decent pilots won't try to shoot over 300 meters, because they know it's most likely waste of ammo. (Since the stability of the planes overall increased in FB, the average distance is 200 meters or so. In IL-2, it was even worse..)

 The only real discussion about weaponery in IL-2 or FB is the ability to do critical damage(such as the noted 'bug' instances of MK108s not doing correct damage and stuff..) - almost never about ballistics. Because, the ranges the weapons are fired, like in real life, are relatively close ranges that ballistics don't really show any difference.

 Only when the range is unbelievably far, is when ballistics differences begin to matter, which I think, is the case with AH.

 You don't hear people whining about Hispanos in FB(well, many people are astounded by its power, but nothing, like in AH 'Hizooka whine'.. ) In AH? I hear "bullshi*!!! You spray dweeb!" venting everyday.
 
 Perhaps some things are extreme in IL2 and FB, but in that sense, so is AH. Though Il2 or FB doesn't necessary have to be a role model for AH, but at least there are somethings which should be noted with keen interest, I think. And AFAIK, they don't do any sort of 'nerfing' in anything.

[fffreeze220]

The only thing that sucks are the BIG hit sprites. Little Puffs for HE ammo, and nothing or little sprites from the plane falling off if u hit with normal bullets.
Thats how it should be. These Huge hit sprites are Sega Style.

[BenDover]

Damn it freeze, i was gonna say something about the fireworks.


Btw, the ammount of damage bullets do in il2 is, IMHO, too weak.

[fffreeze220]

Yes but at least u cant tell in IL-2 if u hit for sure or not. If u shooting regulary non Exploding bullets u only see little parts falling of and u cant tell how bad ur hits are.
In AH every bullet that hit u can tell exactly. That should be chnaged. Also in AH only essential parts falling of the plane. I would like to see little fragments come off when u score a hit.

[OIO]

ALF, the current rangefinder gives the exact distance. You cannot go out on the street and say "Gee, that truck is 843 feet away from me!".

A far better range system would be WW2OL's. It doesnt tell you exactly how far away it is, but it will tell you if its far or close and if its closing or getting away.

Just so you realize how much you rely on the exactness of the laserangefinder icon, get on someone's 6, and turn OFF your icons when you're inside d1.0. Without the icon you will miss a cheeseload of shots , even though the fricken con is filling your sights. And why? Because you know those LW cannons on the 190 need to be *just* that higher above a target at d300 to hit it, but they need to be *just* a tad higher than that at d400. Without the exact laserangefinder, you will find yourself aiming at the d300 point when con is at d400.

[Michele]

Well Rapace,
I've been playing this game since beta tour 2 and I think the answer to your problem is only one:
MARKETING
In the beginning AH was intended to become a WW2 air combat sim - I remember discussions on this forum like this: AH a game or a sim?: the flight model was different, with less E-retention and without the combat trim, gunnery wasn't so Laser-similar, no perk planes and so on, but the result was that the arena was empty compare to actual numbers. Then HT and his company made the decision to increase the playability and reduce the fee: it was an important and right decision for the company and the results are in the actual numbers. But on the other side now the question is changed: IS AH A GAME OR AN ARCADE? I'm afraid is more and more arcade than in the past.
I am a sales man so I can understand HTC reasons but can also understand people complaining about the incredible gunnery of this game and its 900 yards shots (even 1K+ made by bombers), the starwars-like FM of spitfires or n1k, the continous vulch festival etc... so I hardly hope AH2 to return to the past, even in the fee if necessary, but with less arcading and more realism.

I love this game, AH community,Rooks in particulart, and all above are only suggestios for a better future to this game.

Bye
Michele