Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Help and Training => Topic started by: Condor on January 25, 2007, 12:25:02 PM
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I’ve been reading “In Pursuit” by Johan Kuylander. It seems to be a pretty good guide to online combat. In the chapter on gunnery he emphatically discourages the use of the zoom view for aiming and firing. A very successful member of my squad uses zoom consistently for shooting and insists it’s the best way to go. I have tried both zoom and the normal forward view but am undecided (largely because of inexperience; my ACM skills are so poor that I don’t get a lot of good shooting opportunities). I do find the switching from normal to zoom and back to normal again to be one more thing for a newbie with already overtaxed SA to do. If it’s worth it in the long run, however, I will try to learn to do it. The zoomed view gives me a much better feeling that I’m going to score hits but Kuylander says the zoomed view is misleading. I know at my present skill level it tends to mess up my SA. Is this basically a personal preference thing or are there real advantages and/or disadvantages to zooming in?
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i have used the gun zoom since i started, and i have a hit % around 20 in fighters most of the time, which is very good.
do what you like, but i feel that using the zoom is much better, you can aim better and judge lead more easily.
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Given the much lower resolution of our screens compared to human antural vision, I see zoom as a necessity for me. I often shoot at ranges over 400yds, without zoom I could get no proper aim.
To get a real feel for distance and angles, however, set you zoom to a specific level. If your shoot with varying levels, you wont get a feel for it. And of course, too much zoom is a bad thing too.
Also do not forget to "unzoom" often and look around. Using zoom excessively will harm your SA.
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For me the zoom view greatly increases my accuracy...but in a rapid turning dogfight zooming can be a bad idead since you can lose sight of your opponent quickly. I find it best to only zoom in at the last second when u are on the other guys 6.
Flameboy
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in fighters i would never adise the use of the zoom function for gunnery.
i may zoom in at other times to get an idea of the direction a distant bogey is facing or turning to.
when actually shooting i find that zoom only makes things like nose bounce and poor lead alot more of a problem, obviously as the more you zoom the more a 'nose bounce' will disorientate you.
the single and only time i will use the zoom function for gunnery is when trying to ping a target beyond 1k away, and most often i will still fire this shot from normal view.
having a 21" analog screen might help me in this regard, and i feel the pain of 15-17" users as i used to have a 17" lcd and hated it.
its personal preference as has been said already, but i totaly agree with the author of 'in pursuit' on this subject.
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I use it sometimes and not others depending on circumstances. Even with zoom, never at greater than 50% otherwise small movements become too distracting.
About the only time I use it is if I'm in pure pursuit of a reasonably straight moving opponent. As soon as it turns into any type of turn fight the zoom goes off.
The other time I use it is at great distances to judge the direction of an enemy as someone already stated.
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by now, my system is on the "lower end" running a GF Ti4800 128 MB video card and all, on a 17" CRT (non flat)
without gun zoom a bogie 200 yards in from of my gunsight is only 1/2" in size, and I can barely make out hit shape against the ground or water. up to the sky it is a bit better, as i can clearly see his outline then.
I won;t be upgrading my PC any time soon, as i don't have money to do so, and i will have to go ground up, MB processor, memory, video, power supply, all that.
add in looking through the "opaque" gunsight, I'm lucky i can see the enemy planes at all.
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Fly to your opponent's six and get close...very close....and you won't need a Zoom View.
Gunnery decides who outflew whom, nothing more.
Just some thoughts.
Patches
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Major Biggles, thanks for sharing your hit %. It beats mine of about 3%. 20% is a pretty good argument for using zoom. Perhaps some others who consistently use or don’t use zoom could post their hit %s. It will be interesting to see if there is a correlation.
and I agree, the bigger requirement is outflying your opponent.
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Have had a dedicated toggle zoom button programed on my joystick since my first tour in the game.
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Originally posted by Murdr
Have had a dedicated toggle zoom button programed on my joystick since my first tour in the game.
Same here.
ack-ack
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same here, right under my thumb for easy access. it's definitely one of the most important controls in AH. some people like it, some don't, it's the same with tracers.
some people say that using tracers is bad, but i've always used em and i've been a good shot for a year or so, tracers and gun zoom. do what you feel most comfortable with. in the end, it doesn't matter, as you'll grow used to shooting like that and start doing it by instinct.
edit: just checked my stats page, hit % is currently 20.7 for fighter A2A ;)
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Originally posted by Condor
Perhaps some others who consistently use or don’t use zoom could post their hit %s. It will be interesting to see if there is a correlation.
you should also take into account who flys more of a machine gun type platform(plane) verses cannon type platform (plane) when trying to compare hit percentage.......
those with mostly cannon equipped plane sorties will most likely and should have the higher hit percentage verses the less lethal machine gun equipped flyers........
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Ditto.
I zoom out for field of view and only zoom in when I''ve saddle up, licked my lips and let the guy suffer a little more before I send him back to the Tower.
I've had zoom mapped to my stick since day one of flying AH but I have it set to a specific distance to minimize any bounce yet easily see the target.
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Originally posted by TequilaChaser
you should also take into account who flys more of a machine gun type platform(plane) verses cannon type platform (plane) when trying to compare hit percentage.......
those with mostly cannon equipped plane sorties will most likely and should have the higher hit percentage verses the less lethal machine gun equipped flyers........
i find i get a higher hit % using mg's because to make a kill you need to concentrate more on gaining a tracking shot, and then you're letting loose with more rounds, which are mostly hitting properly. i'd say i get a 15% hit rate with cannons 30% with mg's (50 cal attacks on bombers, and TnB'in in a hurri 1 give uber hit %'s)
i've had my hit % just under 50 in fighters before early on in tours where i've been killing buffs with mg's. lost it soon after of course haha :lol
i suck at AH mostly, but i'd like to think i'm a fairly good shot, it's the one thing i'm proud of :)
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Originally posted by Murdr
Have had a dedicated toggle zoom button programed on my joystick since my first tour in the game.
Yep. Me too.
I have a 17" LCD, and my vision isnt what it used to be> (I'm 45). I also do NOT have natural instincts in this or any other real time game -- I have to work and learn to improve.
I use zoom to:
1) See the enemy's angle of flight at longer distance
2) Get the timing and placement just right for the kill shot. (I don't have any bounce problems at all, with all sliders at the absolute top of the scale and using an X52)
Downside -- Zoom also cuts your field of view, so when you're setting up a crossing shot you may need it off for the "peripheral vision" effects.
Now, while I have to work for every bit of improvement, guys like my son (15) and Biggles have both natural instincts (don't underestimate this factor!) and a childhood that included lots of gaming -- which means that generation's brains have learned a distinct wiring advantage over us "old" guys.
Biggle's 20% mark says much, much more about his innate talent and neural 3D estimation ablities, than it does about zoom's effectiveness.
BOTTOM LINE
YOU need to have the ability to estimate lead, timing and deflection from the information on your screen. If that were automatic for you, you wouldn't be posting here, and you wouldnt have a 3% hit rate.
Do what YOU need to do to develop those skills. For me, it's been a process that started with tracers on gennery against drones, then from "anything but behind" angles against drones.
Then I turned tracers off. For me, with tracers on I ended up watching the shiney streaks move onto the target, instead of actually SEEING the gunsight and judging lead. By having tracers off, my practice against drones got hardened into place with tracers off.
TRACERS OFF HAS A HUGE ADVANTAGE FOR THE GUNNERY IMPAIRED. It gives them time to get the shot right, without warning the enemy that he should break. For guys like Biggles and Batfink, it doesn't matter -- because by the time the target sees tracers, he's probably already lost important pieces! But for normal humans, tracers on ==>> lost kills and more frustration potential.
Once I hit a % plateau with them off, i turned them back on for a couple weeks to see where I was missing. (Almost always, that's from not having enough lead!) Then back off again.
Another MAJOR influence on hit percent is average firing distance. The closer you shoot, the more you hit. AND your convergence MUST be set for where you like to shoot -- that way you both concentrate bullets (meaning much more damage) and minimize stray rounds that drop your %.
My hit % started around 2%, and when I'm dsiciplined I can get over 9% now -- with the vast majority of my kills coming against the tiny little fighters, not the great big bombers.
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hmmm, interesting points simaril, very good post
as for my shooting, i think it's just a matter of patterning. i started out with a hit % of below 1, and only started getting above 10% a few months ago, it just takes practise. i also find that shooting with machine guns gives you a much higher hit % because you spend longer shooting at the guy, so you hit him with more bullets, giving you a higher average hit %
i also shoot clays in real life, which helps.
a few quick tips on leading your target:
get in opponent's plane of motion.
fire bursts, open up only when you are hitting well with bursts and are close. keep your lead the same and hold the trigger down. you can use 1 or 2 very quick bursts to test your lead before you open up (tracers help a lot here)
*push* for your lead. follow the guys in your sight first, then push your sight ahead of him once you have judged the speed and turnrate.
set your forward view high over the nose to give you a better view for shooting (i have my forward view set as high as possible, so when i want to shoot, i push hat forward, head rises quickly and i shoot ;)
hope those help :aok
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Originally posted by Major Biggles
i suck at AH mostly, [/B]
allow me to disagree sir
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Originally posted by TequilaChaser
you should also take into account who flys more of a machine gun type platform(plane) verses cannon type platform (plane) when trying to compare hit percentage.......
those with mostly cannon equipped plane sorties will most likely and should have the higher hit percentage verses the less lethal machine gun equipped flyers........
very good point TC.
and then there are people like me :D who could quite possibly get some high level of hit% if i tried really hard all tour, but instead prefers to spray at 800 yards for the lucky kill, to strafe down towns and GVs and farm houses and trees and anything else that i can find when theres no enemy, and best of all, landing with half your ammo left and just sitting on the runway blasting the mags dry over your team mates taking off.
oh wait, the best is killshootering deliberately on your squaddies.
or sending them a chk6 when you know they havnt seen you below them, then sending some tracers flying up infront of thier nose! works best is they have many kills to land. i once saw someone auger 5 kills with that one.
so basically condor, hit % of different pilots is useless to you.
what you need to do is convince Biggles to promise to do a whole tour without using the zoom, then compare it to 20.7% when he uses zoom.
this way we have a control in the experiment in that its the same person with the same skills using the two methods with the same situations and planes overall.
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oom...most definently oom. ;)
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I would swear I typed gunnery; Zoom or No Zoom. Maybe this gives an indication of wht my hit % and kill rates are so low. The point about inherent skill of various players making the biggest difference is probably true. I never was any good at design of experiment. :o
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hehehe I had to do it sir. But answering the question...usually i do at ranges beyond 300.
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I have noticed that as I improve at gunnery and flying, I do the opposite of what I would have expected -- I keep moving my convergence closer rather than farther away. That helps my hits be more likely to KILL -- which is the point, after all.
I don't want to put too much emphasis on the inner skill thing, though. While that makes a difference in where you start, like Biggles was saying it's practice that makes a difference.
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Zoom is good .
I have three keys set for in on my hotta's .
zoom on and off
zoom bigger
zoom smaller
Most times I have the zoom set to about just under half way to full zoom . That makes it easy to see stuff farther away but you still can see your dash etc pretty good yet .
When I get saddled up I use the zoom bigger key to zoom in closer and then shoot , or if he breaks etc I then hit the zoom off again . First time I get a chance I put the zoom back to half way again .
I think I shoot pretty good , 16% most times . I do get in really close most times .
With zoom you can pick what part of the plane you want to shoot at also , I almost always shoot at the bombers wings .
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No zoom.
But I might try turning tracers off. Never done that before.
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like spro says, zoom is very useful for aiming. instead of just shooting rounds off, you can actually place them on the enemy plane, so that you can deliberately aim for wingroots on bombers, stabs on fighters etc, for quicker kills.
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Both sides are correct. Zoom does throw off your aim, but it can be a very useful tool and will improve your gunnery if you become used to it. Like Trackir, it's supposed to simulate something which, in reality, your body does automatically, and it takes some getting used to. But they're both worth the learning, because they beat handicapping yourself unrealistically by not using them.
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I always had zoom mapped to stick.
Turn off your tracers and bring convergence in 250-300.
Do not stagger your convergence (concentrated cone of fire creates most damage and brings up your hit ratio)
When you have the shotgun pattern on you are waisting ammo and lowering your hit percentage
When you go Jabo make sure you set your plane in attack mode
Ground hit in fighter mode wacks your hit percentage
I run double digits in this setting, mid to upper 30's in attack
teens to mid 20's in fighter
Fly planes with cowl guns for a while, this will help with your aim with tracers off
Fire at 200 even if your convergence is set for 300
I fly the 109 k4 with the potato gun 1 hit and the nme comes apart
Think sniper!:t