Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Mugzeee on June 11, 2004, 07:26:05 AM
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There has been much reference to "Hit Bubbles" in threads that deal with the "Gunnery" of AH2. Most feel it tougher. Many say it isnt.
Originally posted by Kweassa
HT, Pyro, and Skuzzy all say that AH never had 'hit bubbles' - neither AH1 nor AH2.
So unless HT, Pyro and or Skuzzy say different from here on out..... CAN IT!!!!! LOL
Although there MUST be something different. Because Most guys are telling me that gunnery is tougher for them. Some say it isnt here on the BBS...but most in game feel that it is harder. There has been reference to the Icon Counter causing this along with tracer smoke and maybe a few other factors.
What is the model character that scores hits?
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Gunnery really hasn't changed, just everything else that it rely's on has.
Icons, range, visual cues, hit sprites are all changed/different.
So for some people gunnery is still very similar for others I suspect its a relearn from scratch.
My advice, go back to basics, start in a spit/zeke, get close, blow em up.
Relearn how much lead, distances, etc.
Then work your way back to your fav ride.
No its not easy, but hey, its made a whole new game out of it in many respects.
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I have concluded that the slight changes in th FM is the cause for the gunnery whoes. Why...because i have noticed that the nose of most planes i fly have become a litle more bouncy when trying to fine tune the aim. Noticably different than it was in AH1. And yes...my stick settings are the same as the ones in AH1. (All at default). The slight differences in FM in AH2 coupled with the default stick settings may well be a place to start. And ill bet if we work with our stick settings we can smooth out the problems. Now...where to start with the Stick setting Sliders? welp...im not sure. But if i find something that helps me. Ill pass it along here.
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Haven't noticed that big a difference myself, but I had heard before I started flying in AH II that gunnery was supposed to be more difficult, so I concentrated on it from the start. The amount of lead needed for deflection shots appears to be about the same. You're going to have to draw a finer bead on your target to score a kill, but I don't believe it's going to be that big a transition for anyone except indifferent flyers.
Spray 'n' pray may be curtailed somewhat.
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I've long ago come to the conclusion that AH1 has hit boxes. In other words, the size of the hit box is bigger than the actual 3D shape of the plane.
In AH2 it seems that the size of the hit box is equal to the size of the 3D shape. Therefore, the planes are now harder to hit.
All in all, the gunnery in AH2 is a huge improvement! Very similar to IL2FB and WW2OL now! Me likey. :)
Camo
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Haven't heard the term "hit bubble" since AW days.
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AH has never used a "hit bubble". AFAIK, that's only ever existed in AW. What has changed between AH1 and AH2 is the hit resolution. AH1 had finite hit resolution and AH2 doesn't(for all practical purposes, I really don't know if it works down at the micron level).
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Hit resolution?
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Originally posted by Pyro
I really don't know if it works down at the micron level).
I spit coffee on that one..you knew eventually someone will ask..
IKON
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I like the New gunnery.. seems more bullet dispersion with range.. Thats more accurate to RL than AH1..
Keep up the good work...
;)
DoctorYO
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Never heard of that concept before..
what's a "hit resolution"????
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Originally posted by Pyro
AH has never used a "hit bubble". AFAIK, that's only ever existed in AW. What has changed between AH1 and AH2 is the hit resolution. AH1 had finite hit resolution and AH2 doesn't(for all practical purposes, I really don't know if it works down at the micron level).
So there was a change in the "Hit resolution" settings? As for the "Micron" level. The community will let you know. :D
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Hit resolution is not quite the right term. I guess target resolution would be a more accurate description. In AH1, there was a granularity to it which you don't have in AH2.
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Yesterday, me d3a,target f4u d25 or so in front,his fuselage filled my gunsight, fire three second burst at point blank, 1 or 2 scattered hits,so tighten grip on stick and squeeze off short 1 sec burst no hitsprites and he blows up.
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Originally posted by Pyro
Hit resolution is not quite the right term. I guess target resolution would be a more accurate description. In AH1, there was a granularity to it which you don't have in AH2.
So was it easier to hit a plane in AH1? Ah2 is a huge improvement btw...
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Originally posted by Pyro
Hit resolution is not quite the right term. I guess target resolution would be a more accurate description. In AH1, there was a granularity to it which you don't have in AH2.
So it was like Sloppy resolution in AH1..and AH2 is finer? Like the difference between a 1st grader coloring outside the line's of a picture in a coloring book, compared to a 8th grader coloring the same picture?
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For me its really not that much different. I had noticed myself bouncing the nose a bit when I was taking my shots. This was killing my shots so once I stopped this I began to see the same results I had in AH1.
Pull up the nose, burry the con into the nose, shoot and when he comes back out he's cut in two or is a burning wreck.
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Roger, smaller hit grains :)
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AH1 bullet size = O
AH2 bullet size = .
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hhhmmm, ive been playin AH2 alot for the past while, havent playd AH1 in months. I couldnt hit crap for a looong time in AH2 i mean shots that in AH1 were easily nothin, planes right in front of me flyin level 3-400 out.
So i went back to AH1 to see if it was just me or what,(btw in AH2 i fly G-6 or 10 alot of the time) so i up a G-6 in AH1 and land 8 kills mostly air to air.
whatever changed definetly messed me up, but the last couple nights in AH2 i have been gettin "it" back and landing hits alot more, i think you just gotta keep at it and it takes awhile to adjust.
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Gunnery is also, largely, dependant upon the users frame rate and system speed isn't it? I recently upgraded to a faster hard drive and video card, and things certainly improved for me. I can't say I see any difference in gunnery in AH2. Planes do seem to fall apart more quickly. Bombing is tougher, and rockets require more discipline (targets are also harder to see).
I do, regretably, see a lot of 'experts' falling from the sky in induced stalls. :D
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Two possibilities for why some folks are finding the gunnery harder.
- Ammo Dispersion. In AH2, it's still possible to get a few hits at 600/800 yards. What has changed is that it's no longer possible to shear off wings at that range on a routine basis. I come from a WB background, and since about 1999 the gunnery in that game changed so that you had to get to within about 200yds to stand any chance of getting a result. Further than 300 yards and you were just wasting ammo. I have been critical of the way folks in AH1 were able to shoot with laser accuracy and lethality at 800 yards or more - totally unrealistic IMO, and yet I was seeing it every day. I think what's happened now is that the disciplined guys who always closed in to realistic ranges to shoot (300yds max - even closer with the 109G 30mm spud cannon) are not seeing much change. The guys who are finding it tough are the S&P guys who routinely fired from 600yds - or more.
- System Performance. MetaTron beat me to it, but as many of us found out when WB 2.6 came out (1999) you had to get to the fast side of the 300MHz (lol) wall. I upgraded twice, secondly from 450MHz to 1.2GHz. The difference it made was amazing.
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Originally posted by Eagler
AH1 bullet size = O
AH2 bullet size = .
and it seems...
The size of my planes arse = O
The size of my enemies arse = .
heh heh...
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Wouldnt it be the new fm thats causing most of the gunnery issues, if the planes fly different, even if just a little bit, couldnt that cause your aim to be off, just a little bit?
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I think the new FM is it, expecially the rudder. I have almost stopped using the rudder altogether, otherwise nose/bullets end up all over the place.
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Originally posted by Hyrax81st
and it seems...
The size of my planes arse = O
The size of my enemies arse = .
heh heh...
lol...ummm, I won't say it, but I'm sure many will think it. ;)
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I figured out my problems with gunnery to be caused by a loss of my internal calibration process. A large part of my gunnery is built on being able to know what shots work and what shots don't. With the changes to hit sprites I have very little feedback as to when I get hits, and as such I can't calibrate and say 'at this speed I need to aim here'. My first day in AH2 I was really tearing things up, and then the next week I was lucky to get a hit from dead 6 at d200 as I lost my "settings" from AH1. Aiming hasn't changed, nor what happens to the bullet after its fired, but when success isn't seperated from failure it's much more difficult to duplicate.
-pellik
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I have found the AHII gunnery model as of B43 to have improved my accuracy in both versions.
Offline in AHII I pulled up the .target and tested at d300 and d600. It seems to me(IMHO) at 600d in AHII a little bit of rudder gets more scatter of the shot patterns than in AHI.
In response, I find myself not shooting until d400 and less while specifically concentrating on keeping my planes nose as tight as possible while shooting. I tested on the target putting a little wiggle and bounce in the stick. Got holes all over the target. beet1e's ammo dispersion theory has merit from my testing.
So with the smaller beebee diagram from Eagler we have to get more beebee's into one spot now to effect the same damage we did in AHI with fewer big beebee's?
PYRO - any chance of a general overview comparison of the 2 models?
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>>Hit resolution is not quite the right term. I guess target resolution would be a more accurate description. In AH1, there was a granularity to it which you don't have in AH2.
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Well if the target resolution isn't the same as the display resolution that creates a hit bubble :)
(http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/h/shawnlau/hitbubble.jpg)
Now if as you said, the target hit resolution was finite, the size descrepancy of the the bubble size to display size would be great at longer distances. Maybe thats why its harder to hit those 6-800 yard shots in AH2 :) The new gunnery makes for better fights I think.
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Thanks Tweety...you explained that well. Now I can sort of understand what the heck everyone is talking about...as well as resolving the hit bubble thing. :D
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It seems likely to me that the players who are accustomed to only firing at less than ~350 yards will not notice much change. Those were are (were :D) used to firing out at 600 yards on a regular basis will see a difference. Those who shot at 800-1100 will think their world has ended:aok
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Edbert - I agree.
As for this...Originally posted by Edbert MOL
Those who shot at 800-1100 will think their world has ended:aok
(http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_1_72.gif)
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While the AH2 hit resolution/range icon combination may technically make it more difficult, I really haven't found the geometry much different to hit at 800 to 1000 yards with 0.50 cals focused at 650 yards (the same way I always flew in AH1). Stability appears to cause me more problems than hit resolution/range icon. I can find the same old sweet spot, but I can't hold my nose there long enough to do fatal damage.
It took me finding a few references and going through periods where my skills were at their best from constant play to periods where I hardly play at all to come to the conclusion reached by HTC: we get a lot more gunnery time than any real pilot ever did. A handful of pilots using late-war gyro sights did get 800 yard plus hits without much practice.
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TweetyBird thanks for the illustration.
The general consensus is that the Longer Shots 600-800 yards are more difficult in AH2.
But i have trouble hitting at any range. In fact my hard fast rule is Do Not Shoot beyond 500 yrds. Although i will take a pot shot at the Rooster Tail being omitted from that Pony washing his wheels in the Sea water while fleeing his bloody fate. :D I rarely take a shot longer than 400 yards.
I am refering to my gunnery problems at a Low G Close range (200 to 400) yard shot.
Originally posted by Pyro
Hit resolution is not quite the right term. I guess target resolution would be a more accurate description. In AH1, there was a granularity to it which you don't have in AH2.
It has been said the the "Hit Resolution has changed. If i understand correctly. It went from the granularity of say Sugar...the the granularity of like Powdered Sugar. Give or take.
This leaves me to belive that the slight changes in the Flight Model (FM) in conjunction with the slight chang in the Sugar..err Hit Resolution are the culprit. Why? I noticed the ole Bouncy Nose Syndrome that i expereinced when i first starting playing AH1 well over a year ago (Its Back)!!!.
So ive been playing with the Joystick Axis sliders trying to smooth things out a bit. Still pretty poor but getting better.
Enter (More difficult gunnery for some players) Not so different for for other's. Originally posted by beet1e
MetaTron beat me to it, but as many of us found out when WB 2.6 came out (1999) you had to get to the fast side of the 300MHz (lol) wall. I upgraded twice, secondly from 450MHz to 1.2GHz. The difference it made was amazing. [/list] [/B]
Also it bares mentioning that my system doesnt run Ah2 very well. ie. I am one of the players that have been experiencing a lot of screen freezes. All my video setting are at the bare minium. Graphic Detail sliders all at "Performance" settings.
MAx Tex size 256. Screen res. 600x800. so on and so on.
Maybe the degraded Texture and or resolution is part of the "Hit" problem i am having?
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A very good way to test your gunnery is grab a 202 or a hurri 1 and start shooting friendlies. The damage from 2-3 303s is minimal, particularly on the hurri. Two things come out of this, you can see the really great new visual damage model first person, and you can see how high the resolution of the hit surface is. I am not sure if it was pure luck, but when I would ping the front of the cockpit of the guy in front of me, I had a nice big bullet hit on my front cockpit. Same when I hit the back (right over my head in fact). Right wing, I made a nice circle of pings on the enemy, and they were the same on my wing. Very nice.
What I found was really just as everybody else has stated, I dont think it is a real 'change' in gunnery as it is that everything has changed a little. I found it quite easy to judge deflection after chasing the f6f around for a while. Although I was shooting at d300 or less.
I have noticed, when being chased by la7s/109gs that long shots greater than 600 are very unlikely to hit. Much less than ah1, and perhaps even less than could be justified by poor gunnery due to the model. I have not really tried spraying and praying from a distance yet.
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It's not like that Tweety. It had nothing to do with your display resolution or distance to the target. It just limited how closely I could follow the contours of the plane. When the contours can't be followed precisely, one of two conditions arise depending on how it is dealt with. It either can result in very close misses being scored as hits or very marginal hits being scored as misses. It does work both ways but in general it made it slightly easier because thin components like wingtips and stabilizers were generally smaller than the resolution.
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Display resolution was a bad choice of words - it should have been object resolution.
Like if you were to have a 3d sphere defijned at a high resolution (thousands of triangles), it looks smooth. But a sphere described with 50-100 triangles can get blocky. Superimpose the blocky sphere over the smooth sphere and you get an error region or hit bubble.
Thats what I thought was going on. From the last explanation it seems the target regions were defined by hand, and the errors ( departure from the exact shape) were because of the constraints of doing it by hand.
I, dunno - I don't hit enough planes for it to matter much to me :)
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Originally posted by TweetyBird
Like if you were to have a 3d sphere defijned at a high resolution (thousands of triangles), it looks smooth. But a sphere described with 50-100 triangles can get blocky. Superimpose the blocky sphere over the smooth sphere and you get an error region or hit bubble.
Correct, except that hit bubble really describes something else and comes from a different era of online flight sims. The blocky part that you describe doesn't just occur outside of the actual shape, it can fall within it as well.
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I've noticed that hit "sprites" are less frequent. I've exploded planes completely with not one flash, on several occasions. Thought I read somewhere that this was a "feature". Gunnery feels much more realistic now.
g00b
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Really? In my 'kill shooter' excersize, I never receive damage without seeing a hit sprite.
Pyro, are you looking into a little bits and pieces falling off model as well? On the p51 films I have seen (so non explosive shells) I see both hit sprites (or whatever the RL version of that would be), and small puffs of smoke/pieces falling off. Is this in our future?
I wish I knew which film, but I think you have probably seen them all and could tell me if I were just absolutely crazy.