Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Krusty on March 17, 2008, 09:44:21 AM
-
Folks have complained about puffy ack for a while.
Why can bombers, flying level, steady, and slow, be unharmed while fighters doing 500+ TAS at 25k are hit repeatedly while jinking and evading?
Hitech has explained how it works. There's a box within which ack is fired. The box follows your plane. The box gets larger (the area the hits can explode gets less dense) the faster you are, if you're turning, or diving/climbing.
Yet, somehow, this disparity of intent and effect persists!
While flying 500 TAS at 22k over an ack strat, and being pinged REPEATEDLY, I decided it was time to type up why I think the puffy ack doesn't work properly, and perhaps get it changed.
This is all based on my experience, and based on what Hitech has described, and using some logic I can put together a reason for what's not working.
Say you have a box around a plane. However the code is set up, say a % of the shots are all clustered pretty close to the center of it (even if they're not hits, they're near misses). So you fly level and oooh and ahh at the eye candy bursting around you, but your bomber never takes a hit.
Now, say you're in a fighter, making S motions gently, climbing and diving but still going very fast. The box opens up to a larger box. The puffy ack can still spread out and be further away, but it's still got N% near the center of the box.
So, it's hard to explain without diagrams and sketches, but since I'm at work and have no access to photoshop I'll have to use words.
If while flying steady and slower, a puffy burst would have gone off at your 11 oclock too far away to hurt you, since you were S-turning to the left anyways, and going much faster, you've now flown INTO the puffy ack.
The intent is that the ack gets further away from you, less likely to hit, the result is that it gets more in front of you and more likely you will actually fly INTO it rather than past it.
Think of it as a ring around the plane, but the ring doesn't take into account speed and velocity changes. If you are constant, the ring is constant and keeps pace. You might get close to the front of the ring, but not touch it. Say you're going much faster, turning left, right, up, down. The "ring" lags behind your movements, and now you've breached it either by speed or manuver, and the puffy ack hits you repeatedly.
How I would suggest fixing this:
The faster a con is, add a higher % of puffy ack to the REAR quadrant of the box around the plane. Less in front means that due to the delay of fire and burst, the con is less likely to be hit. Also, I would seriously suggest concentrating more ack closer to the center of the box and in the forward quadrant, the slower and more steady the con is. Back in AH1 the puffy ack used to be a threat to bombers.
Rather than randomly puffing code in the box, assign % of that ack to different parts of the box.
For a long time, however, I've never been hit by puffy ack that wasn't manned by somebody in a fleet 5" gun. My suggested correction would make puffy ack more of a nuisance for bombers. I don't want it to decimate them, but I really HATE that it never even touches them!
EDIT: If it's easier than assigning a % of ack to a part of the hit box, then simply move the hit box. Instead of always centering it on the plane, move it backwards the faster the planes goes, so that with the same random dispersion it the effect is still the same: the puffs start lagging behind instead of hitting you repeatedly.
-
If I understand what you're saying is that... with the distances involved the and the travel time of the shells, that the timing is off.. at high speed the A/C effectively compresses the front half of the target "box" making any shells set to go off in that part zone have a higher % chance of actually hitting?
If you're not missing something, the logic here seems to make sense, maybe that instead of a box, (I'll assume here that the box is a cube). As speed increases the cube should rather elongate into a rectangle that follows the A/C?
-
Something along those lines, yes.
-
Gripe from me.
Please sort out puffy ack shooting through hills!
-
Gripe from me.
Please sort out puffy ack shooting through hills!
I think HiTech said that was intentional? Although why he would make puffy ack shoot through hills is something I fail to comprehend.
-
I think HiTech said that was intentional? Although why he would make puffy ack shoot through hills is something I fail to comprehend.
think maybe he was mesith the time/space continuim? :D
-
This isn't about the technical issues from shooting through hills. That can be highly annoying as well, but this is about ack not hitting slow steady bombers at 15k, but pinging me262s at 25k doing high speed manuvers to avoid ack.
I think they're 2 different issues, personally.
-
Shooting at planes the gun doesn't have a line of sight on...
Shooting at enemies while there are friendlies in the cube...
Sorry, but the way puffy ack works has left much to be desired for a long time.
-
Why wont it shoot under 3k?
-
Krusty what you describe is not how randomizer work. What you are saying is if you roll a dice and change your guess as you roll the dice you have a higher chance of getting hit. S turns increase the size of the box, or to describe it differently , Turns increase the size of the random number generated .
Gun shoot threw hills simply because of the range the Ack shoots. To do the collision checks along a 6 mile line is very expensive.
HiTech
-
Krusty what you describe is not how randomizer work. What you are saying is if you roll a dice and change your guess as you roll the dice you have a higher chance of getting hit. S turns increase the size of the box, or to describe it differently , Turns increase the size of the random number generated .
Gun shoot threw hills simply because of the range the Ack shoots. To do the collision checks along a 6 mile line is very expensive.
HiTech
Sounds like a 3 dimensional array or something around the flight path of the aircraft. Is otto actively trying to "guess" where you go, or is it just choosing a random value inside the box to hit?
I understand that the "box" around the a/c grows with maneuvers- that makes total sense.
-
Gun shoot threw hills simply because of the range the Ack shoots. To do the collision checks along a 6 mile line is very expensive.
HiTech
Can't the players front end somehow report "we can't see each other, therefore you cannot shoot at me" so to speak?
-
Krusty what you describe is not how randomizer work. What you are saying is if you roll a dice and change your guess as you roll the dice you have a higher chance of getting hit. S turns increase the size of the box, or to describe it differently , Turns increase the size of the random number generated .
Gun shoot threw hills simply because of the range the Ack shoots. To do the collision checks along a 6 mile line is very expensive.
HiTech
The idea of increasing the box if you're turning, diving, climbing, or going faster, is to make the ack less likely to hit the target, correct?
The intent was to make the ack less effective?
Do you know why the opposite is often true? Why is it that I've never been damaged/shot down by puffy ack for as long I can recall in AH2,* but I have regularly been heavily damaged or simply killed while in a fast moving fighter? Is there a workaround to bring about the intended results?
*= I recall way back early in AH1 ack was more effective. I don't know when this changed, because I moved away from bombing for a while, then went back. When I went back ack was ineffective.
-
Crank up the ack. And while your at it, make it friendly blind above say..20K.
-
I just press the cloaking device button on my panel.... it's still in R&D though. Once I ended up in IL2 in my AH 38. When I actually de-cloaked that time my magaritas were melted too. This I will not tolerate.
Before this cloaking test I tried another trick. As in hunting in Alaska.... they say no need to worry about bears, just take someone along that runs slower than you... using this line of thought... when I dive through ack I always take someone slower. Seems to work to an extent.
R&D will resume....
-
Krusty what you describe is not how randomizer work. What you are saying is if you roll a dice and change your guess as you roll the dice you have a higher chance of getting hit. S turns increase the size of the box, or to describe it differently , Turns increase the size of the random number generated .
Gun shoot threw hills simply because of the range the Ack shoots. To do the collision checks along a 6 mile line is very expensive.
HiTech
How about making it an actual gun, instead of randomly timing explosions inside a box and then trying to calculate whether or not there are any objects between point A and Plane B?
-
How about making it an actual gun, instead of randomly timing explosions inside a box and then trying to calculate whether or not there are any objects between point A and Plane B?
Ballistics modelling stops at a certain range- I believe it's 2-3k, but I can't say for certain.
The distances you're talking about are more like 15-35k, and that's assuming the plane is straight up. Add a ballistic drop going through 25k vertical, plus any amount of horizontal....you can see where a problem might develop.
Not only that, but say someone gets in the way of said shell....more overhead.
-
The whole AI gunning scheme needs rework, IMHO.
Not just puffy Ack, actually all field/ship guns.
The current logic is blatant simple from what I experienced in the year since I play AH.
And the initial post proves the simplicity esp. for puffy Ack.
The field guns for example are so damn predictive, and like ship's close-range defensive armament, often focus a single target though there are plenty of targets within range. No wonder carriers get sunk so easily...
And what's missing too are automatic gunners for bombers.
The current setting to instantly fire almost all the guns of the three B-17/24's in a formation at one focal point isn't that realistic.
The game could be so much better with just a little more code reworked and some extra or smarter logic added here and there.
Not just in AI. Other parts like weather (clouds, haze, dusk), terrain (water, vegetation) and its generation etc, too.
Lots of room for improvement actually... Wished HTC would open the code (under the terms of a NDA or such) to external devs to fix such issues or enhance the game a bit...
But then, I haven't asked yet... :rolleyes:
Cheers,
Vasco
-
Ballistics modelling stops at a certain range- I believe it's 2-3k, but I can't say for certain.
The distances you're talking about are more like 15-35k, and that's assuming the plane is straight up. Add a ballistic drop going through 25k vertical, plus any amount of horizontal....you can see where a problem might develop.
Not only that, but say someone gets in the way of said shell....more overhead.
B-25, tanks, 5" guns, 8" guns all fire beyond 3K feet. Guns, shells, and proximity fusing all work just fine as is. All have drop, all can calculate lead and drop accurately, even when taking into account motion from whatever is firing them, and all continue working just fine even if someone inadvertently wanders in front of them. In fact, the auto ack at airfields and on CVs will actually kill friendlies if they happen to be in the way when it's firing. Manned guns have no effect, while vehicles and fighters/attackers killshoot on friendlies, while bombers are immune to KS when firing upon each other, although they will also KS against other friendly equipment.
I do not see where a problem might develop which hasn't already been dealt with for years.
-
Ballistics modelling stops at a certain range- I believe it's 2-3k, but I can't say for certain.
The distances you're talking about are more like 15-35k, and that's assuming the plane is straight up. Add a ballistic drop going through 25k vertical, plus any amount of horizontal....you can see where a problem might develop.
Not only that, but say someone gets in the way of said shell....more overhead.
Puffy Ack has a very low firing rate compared to all the close-defense cannons, so this shouldn't be a problem.
Plus the amount of those guns is rather small.
And about the inaccuracy on longer-range: that's actually intended.
With a small kalman-filter applied for example you can optimize the aiming of those guns over time to have the same effect like the current radar-controlled ones, with more noise... :D
Cheers,
Vasco
-
Okay guys, I'm just saying what I understood HiTech to be saying, which is, a 6 mile collision line would be too expensive- and that would *have* to be what was needed for a 88mm flak shell.
Rate of fire is low, yes- I don't think there's enough flak. There should be double, if not triple the amount of puff out at big targets like the HQ/refinery.
funny though- in a fighter, I've never ever been hit by puffy flak. In a bomber, I've lost an engine.
-
funny though- in a fighter, I've never ever been hit by puffy flak. In a bomber, I've lost an engine.
Yesterday I lost my 109K4 due to friendly puffy ack over strat target... ;)
-
Yesterday I lost my 109K4 due to friendly puffy ack over strat target... ;)
THAT'S IT!
get in as close as you can to those star destroyers, and engage them at point blank range!
-
My assumption was that the game actually tracers each round has it leaves the gun and travels skyward. I suppose I should have first asked if this was acutally true. Or rather does the game just generate # number of events that are randomized within a certain space at a certain based on the number of guns available at that point.
-
Yesterday I lost my 109K4 due to friendly puffy ack over strat target... ;)
Naval gunners had a really cute saying (why this didn't make the news reals is...obvious...)
"Shoot 'em all down and sort the wreckage later"
There were valid safety reasons for Invasion Stripes, and why the P-38 was used to protect the invasion fleet (the German's didn't have anything resembling the Lightning, so IFF is easy, right?). The Navy still shot down some striped P-38s. In naval gunnery, like submarine warfare, there ARE no "friendlies". Be glad the friendlyack doesn't AIM for you.
-
Naval gunners had a really cute saying (why this didn't make the news reals is...obvious...)
"Shoot 'em all down and sort the wreckage later"
There were valid safety reasons for Invasion Stripes, and why the P-38 was used to protect the invasion fleet (the German's didn't have anything resembling the Lightning, so IFF is easy, right?). The Navy still shot down some striped P-38s. In naval gunnery, like submarine warfare, there ARE no "friendlies". Be glad the friendlyack doesn't AIM for you.
Or in short: Friendly ack - isn't.
Just think of Unternehmen Bodenplatte 1/1/45, where German fighter units took horrible losses by German AA guns.
-
Soulyss: For puffy ack, what you describe is a fair description of how they work. For all other guns, they are real bullets.
-
I think the current system needs a time delay which varies depending on the distance from the CV.
IE. If i am travelling 1k from the CV, puffy ack will calculate where i will be by my course and heading and explode 1 second later based upon that course and heading. If i turn during that 1 second the shots will be off because i have already changed my course in the time between calculation and firing.
If i am 5k away from the target, then the shots will calculate 5 seconds before the puffy ack appears, therefore if i change course during that time the shots will be well off target.
Whats more, if you do not change course, the target box should get smaller and smaller to simulate correction by the gunners, this would make puffy ack more effective against level bombers (as it was historically) and not fighters.
I despise puffy ack in its current form.
-
I despise puffy ack in its current form.
I can't fly near an enemy CV without being bracketed and taking damage. My squad tried to run a CV attack with dive bombing SBDs once [EDIT: About 6-7 of us]. We were over 15k coming in, and before ANY of us could dive in, despite our best evasives, all but 1 of us was dead. The one that was able to dive was killed before he could line up and drop. Yet no matter HOW many bombers fly over and bomb your fleet, NO ack will hit them, unless it's manned ack.
Maybe if it worked properly, CVs wouldn't be such pathetically easy targets as they are now. Maybe light fighters wigh ord would be more likely to get through than heavy bombers. Until we get CVs that do evasives to avoid level bombers, fixing the ack is probably going to be the best way of equalizing the CV defenses.
-
How often is Puffy Ack really a problem though? I have only had a Stuka shot out from under me (at 8-9 K in a shallow climb on egress). I have been hit at 2.5 K with 1 shot kills from PT Boats and Ostis even though I can't get a hit with the pipper on the nose of a head on AC at 800-100 yards. I am guessing some good and some poor shooters would be representative in larger Ack as well. All in all, is it really such a problem? As a percentage of your kills, where does it rate? Mine is very low as I am usually a game player's kill rather than AI (except field ack where jinxing seems to provide more hits than not).I kind of liked the randomness of it... my 2 cents, anyone have change for a nickle?
-
I wish ack lethality was upped at all fields.
Maybe the vulchers and pic masters would have a thing or two more to think about before being such tards.
-
I just press the cloaking device button on my panel.... it's still in R&D though. Once I ended up in IL2 in my AH 38. When I actually de-cloaked that time my magaritas were melted too. This I will not tolerate.
Before this cloaking test I tried another trick. As in hunting in Alaska.... they say no need to worry about bears, just take someone along that runs slower than you... using this line of thought... when I dive through ack I always take someone slower. Seems to work to an extent.
R&D will resume....
I think you need to increase the amount of alcohol in your margarita. You see, as you manuver around your box gets bigger in a random way. This causes the ack going through the hill to generate heat that is absorbed by your margarita during "S" turns. The other solution would be to drink faster. IMHO
-
This isn't about the technical issues from shooting through hills. That can be highly annoying as well, but this is about ack not hitting slow steady bombers at 15k, but pinging me262s at 25k doing high speed manuvers to avoid ack.
I think they're 2 different issues, personally.
Personally Krusty... I just think HT likes to stir you up :p
-
I stopped flying in the AvA arena when it had the carrier setup between USN and IJA. So many times I would explode before I even saw the enemy. :cry
-
During testing for the DGS scenario I flew a set of 3 B-17s over a strat target for 45 minutes while ROC and Roscoroo changed ack settings for both the strats and the adjacent airfield ack. I took 3 hits in that 45 minutes no damage to vital systems, and watched the guys attacking the airfield to test ack die to CIWS type ack. In that process guys in 51s would fly into the strat ack and die like lemmings, while I just continued to fly race track patterns.
Clearly fighters are scrooged compared to bombers no matter what the "settings".
-
During testing for the DGS scenario I flew a set of 3 B-17s over a strat target for 45 minutes while ROC and Roscoroo changed ack settings for both the strats and the adjacent airfield ack. I took 3 hits in that 45 minutes no damage to vital systems, and watched the guys attacking the airfield to test ack die to CIWS type ack. In that process guys in 51s would fly into the strat ack and die like lemmings, while I just continued to fly race track patterns.
Clearly fighters are scrooged compared to bombers no matter what the "settings".
exactly, since AHII ive been hit maybe 3 times by puffy ack, and i fly bombers alot!
however any fighters seem to be flak magnets, and it gets worse the more you turn. I just fly straight and level now and more often that not its safer.
-
I've tested that theory too. I have tried simply flying level in a fighter when bracketed by ack. It STILL pinged me pretty heavily, then BOOM I'm dead.
-
edited for uncalled-for cynicism and despair.
-
Gun shoot threw hills simply because of the range the Ack shoots. To do the collision checks along a 6 mile line is very expensive.
In what way is it expensive? Just wondering. :)
-
Also, if you are in a GV on the side of a hill above an enemy base, puffy ack will shoot at you.
-
Puffy Ack
some places have it and they shoot you if you get too close.
seems to work fine for me
other parts of teh game. yeah ok lets work on those
-
I almost invariably survive running across a CV group at 8K in B26's. I sink them nearly every time. My flights almost always survive the 5" guns as I go through unless there is a real gunner on board that can actually hit me. I found a long time ago that 8K is just out of auto-ack range, and that's why I level-bomb at that alt.
-
When i fly over any factory I almost never get hit by puffy and even when I do it's just a ping with no damage showing. Almost totally inifective,not that I want to be blown to hell every time I fly over a factory but as it is now it may as well be turned off to save my frame rates for the Oh so rare fight with those few that actually come after me when bombing strat.
-
I really enjoyed climbing for 10 minutes, to get almost as high as the enemy. enjoyed alll four higher jokers trying to shoot me in the face. Enjoyed dragging them toward my CV, so my own puffy ack could set my plane on fire.
-
First flak hit in the new version: 1 flak burst, 1 ping, pw.
2nd.. Nothing.
3d, lead Ar234 is set on fire at the 10th flak burst. This while doing a little over 450mph and maneuvering at ~5kft, and maybe 6-8K from the TG.
-
There is something wierd at work with puffy ack, in my estimation. Some times it's a nuisance - but if I don't get too close to the source it's not too big a deal.
But once in a while, it's like the dice are glued on snake eyes - by the third puff (still "dot distance") it's dialed in on me and I'm poof. And once I"m "dialed in", I'm dialed in for the night (or perhaps until I log, haven't tried that) it seems. Anywhere it can reach me, I'm a goner as soon as it starts firing.
<S>
-
12k alt, almost 1/4 sector away, poof=lost gear, bam=pilot wound, kaboom=ceased to exist.
be afraid. be very afraid... :eek:
-
Puffy ack seems to be working just fine. Ya can't even have a good fight for the ack. I guess if you can see the CV you are to close. First round I get the CV in sight 10k and just close enough to see the wake.......BOOM....tore the whole back of my F4U off.........second round dive in on an F6F and the HO tard missed but the ack didnt took a wing off.....again way out from the CV.