Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: DeadStik on May 07, 2011, 11:49:30 AM
-
So why exactly do some people prefer tracers off? When is it ever beneficial to not see your stream?
-
When your enemy can't see your stream either. :D
-
Because the other guy can't see them either. You can't dodge what you can't see.
-
We hold this truth to be self evident.
-
At one point my gunnery became pretty instinctive so the only downside to turning them off was not being able to mark enemy positions for GV's and not being able to use them to get a guy to turn off of a buddy. Otherwise I was able to shoot guys down and they wouldn't know I was attacking them until the bullets were already hitting them, them floppy Spit16's are a lot easier to hit when they're flying level thinking nobody's firing at them.
Soon enough though, I just lost it and couldn't hit a thing. Eventually resorted to turning it back on.
If you've got your sound levels right and you're paying attention you can hear guys shooting at you anyway, but you still don't know which side of the canopy the rounds are flying past :uhoh
-
I have mine off so no one can see how really bad of a shot I actually am :lol
-
People turn them off and try HO alot more because the enemy can't see the tracers
-
This is the only reason I could think of. Thanks for the clarification, guys!
-
Your gunnery can also improve with out tracers. With tracers people tend to adjust constantly. With out it becomes more like instinct/ shot gun shooting and you hold a steady lead instead of watching tracers.
At least thats the way it works for me.
HiTech
-
p 51, tracers off, convergence on all guns 300. :O Even in the B model it kills them before they can really react. :ahand
:salute
-
All though i like using my tracers to snapshot just over someones canopy that I'm chasing, and they tend to turn.
-
Personally I think turning tracers off is one of the most over-hyped aspects of aerial gunnery in the game.
If there's an actual advantage, it's that your opponent can't see your misses. And really, that's only an advantage if your gunnery is so bad you can't hit someone who's unaware of your presence.
If your gunnery is so bad you can't hit someone who's unaware of your presence, you need feedback to allow you to correct your aim. You only have that if your tracers are on. Tracers may very well allow you to correct your aim before he can react anyway, even if they alert him to your presence...
How do you learn anything in life? With feedback. With feedback, you know. Without it, you guess. When learning something, is it better to have the facts, or just a guess?
Throw a rock straight up in the air, and shoot at it with a .22. We'll assume you missed it. Did you miss it to the left/right, high or low? How do you know, since you have no feedback? Now, correct for that mistake with your next shot. If you missed low, aim higher, etc. But wait, how do you know if you shot low? Maybe you think you shot low, so you aim higher, but in actuality, you may have initially missed it to the right... How will your "guess" of where you missed help you? What if you think you missed a foot low, so correct for it, but you really missed 6" or 18" low?
Even if you eventually hit it, what have you learned? Nothing. You just randomly hit the stone. You got lucky. You didn't learn (for example) that you have a tendency to aim low...
Now, try the same exercise with tracers... Shoot at the rock, but miss low. Now, do you know you missed low? Yup. Do you know you missed low by 12", vs 6" or 18"? Yup. Can you intelligently correct for it? Yup. Over the course of a day's shooting, can you learn that you have a tendency to miss in a particular way (low, or to the right maybe?). Yup. Can you begin to correct for that tendency? Yup. Are you learning with "facts"? Yup...
In AH though, you don't always have a target in the same position, offering the same shot scenario. You need to learn a myriad of angles, leads, etc... How will you learn quicker? With feedback.
With tracers off, the only feedback you get is for hits. Those are the shots you really don't need feedback for... Imagine if you were in school, and you only got feedback on tests where you scored 100%.
Imagine throwing a ball, but not being able to see it in flight. If you miss the glove, or the basket, or whatever, how do you correct for it for the next throw? You don't... You can only guess...
-
i lieave it turned on because it is beaultiful to watch! :P
-
Personally I think turning tracers off is one of the most over-hyped aspects of aerial gunnery in the game.
If there's an actual advantage, it's that your opponent can't see your misses. And really, that's only an advantage if your gunnery is so bad you can't hit someone who's unaware of your presence.
If your gunnery is so bad you can't hit someone who's unaware of your presence, you need feedback to allow you to correct your aim. You only have that if your tracers are on. Tracers may very well allow you to correct your aim before he can react anyway, even if they alert him to your presence...
*snip*
aside from the fact that you used some poor examples about learning to shoot...the feedback you get in ah is seeing the hit sprites on the target without the tracers distracting you...some people tend to pay too much attention to the tracers and either over compensate when they shouldn't or think they are getting hits when they aren't. i suck at shooting anyway but...it can be a good learning tool if you want to increase your hit percentage, mainly because you're not so prone to taking 1000 yard shots, you tend to try for much closer range high percentage shots, and you have to watch your target alignment in the gunsight more...but that only applies to people who aren't gaming the game.
-
over the years i have done long stints with and without tracers. My overall hit percentage with and without is pretty much the same. I go with what looks cooler, so I leave them on. I also like being able to mark GVs for other people.
-
I dont like folks to know when Im shootin at em. and I dont need em most of the time.
-
In Real Life, were there pilots who chose to loadout without tracers? Were they even allowed to make that choice?
-
I've never really flown with tracers on for an extended period of time, so I can't really compare the two, but from what I've seen people with tracers off tend to shoot a lot better.
Gunnery comes down to how much you're willing to practice. Every time I'm about to log into Aces High I spend about 30 mins offline shooting at drones in my F6F with tracers off, as usual. However, I even take it a step further. I turn the brightness down on my gun site so it's invisible. That way, instead of lining a gun site up like you would on a rifle, I'm lining the whole plane up. That forces me to pay attention to the whole plane, how much it's slipping to the side, my AoA, etc, instead of paying attention to a single dot, the gun sight.
On the topic of range, I would probably say that for shots greater than 800 out, tracers on is probably the better package, as long as you fire in short bursts. However, that doesn't mean I'm afraid to shoot at a P-51 trying to extend at 1000 out. Tracers off is probably better for short range. I have my convergence set to 650. When I'm shooting at a plane closer than 200 out I have to remember that the bullets from the left wing are far apart from the bullets from the right wing. Even if a plane is flying straight I have to aim either left or right about .5 inches on my screen in order for half the bullets to hit, because it's impossible to get them all on.
As far as using no tracers to avoid the enemy seeing your shot......I think you have to use the old "one shot one kill" strategy. If you aren't going to miss, the enemy won't know what hits them.
For those who say it's just luck....on a good tour I shoot 16+% in the WW2 arena, and over 35% in the WW1 arena. Also, I'm not afraid to shoot at a 190 stick stirring at 1000 out.
-
aside from the fact that you used some poor examples about learning to shoot...the feedback you get in ah is seeing the hit sprites on the target without the tracers distracting you...some people tend to pay too much attention to the tracers and either over compensate when they shouldn't or think they are getting hits when they aren't. i suck at shooting anyway but...it can be a good learning tool if you want to increase your hit percentage, mainly because you're not so prone to taking 1000 yard shots, you tend to try for much closer range high percentage shots, and you have to watch your target alignment in the gunsight more...but that only applies to people who aren't gaming the game.
I stopped using tracers a few months ago. While an advantage can be had by keeping the target unaware that he's being shot at, there is a more important reason for me personally. In short, tracers are a debilitating distraction to my shooting. For others they are a valuable tool, but I find I personally gain more shooting accuracy by not using them; at least for now.
Gyrene pegged it: by not using tracers, I actually see where/when my shots hit. I see the hit sprites, not the tracer smoke obscuring my target. Others don't have a problem with that, but I have very, very bad eyesight so the tracers confuse me, and as Gyrene and HT said, I then overcompensate by focusing too much on where the tracers go and not on where the target is. By removing tracers from the sensory input mix, I've simplified my view of the situation enough that I have a better idea of the gun solution. Since I also try to shoot close in, at that point, I have a strong sense of when I'm close to the lead that I need. Kentucky Windage/ intuition handles the rest. It may not always be precise or efficient, but it's improved my Hit % from "truly pathetic and awful" to a much better "paltry and substandard." I'll take it! :joystick:
There is yet another benefit from my perspective. I tend to fly a small variety of planes with differing gun packages: wing mounts and cowl mounts, all cannon, all mg, and mixed packages (usually dictated by ENY and offensive/defensive situations), most of whose guns have flatter trajectories. By not using tracers, I find that regardless of which plane I'm in, I'm able to focus on where the sprites/shots are hitting and not the fact that all these different tracer trajectories are coming off and converging from my plane from different locations on the airframe. Again, less sensory input is sometimes a good thing.
So yes, there are tactical reasons why some folk don't use tracers, but there are other benefits for the shooter too. It does help in gunnery improvement; at least in my case it has. Your mileage may vary, of course.
FWIW,
...
-
Turning off tracers and leaving them off for an extended period of time will improve your gunnery. Thats the first reason why you should do it. The 2nd reason is also the why it helps, tracers obstruct your view. You will notice after having them off for a long time, that the minute distances you see in a proper lead are hard to see when tracers are flashing through the entire shot. Not every shot mind you, I think it's only the flatter shots. Anyhow, after turning mine back on one time, I was appalled at how much they aggravated me.
People not knowing when you are shooting at them is just an added benefit. But this also is a reason why your shooting will improve. After missing many shots initially, you start to hone in on that minute sweet spot that results in a kill. Do this long enough and it becomes instinctive.
As for those who think it is a cheap tactic use by those who can't shoot, the top shooters in the game usually have them off. And if a persons SA is so bad that he doesnt know someone is on his six unless he sees tracers flying past him, well, I think they have bigger problems than the minority of people who fly with tracers off.
Gunnery comes down to how much you're willing to practice. Every time I'm about to log into Aces High I spend about 30 mins offline shooting at drones in my F6F with tracers off, as usual. However, I even take it a step further. I turn the brightness down on my gun site so it's invisible. That way, instead of lining a gun site up like you would on a rifle, I'm lining the whole plane up. That forces me to pay attention to the whole plane, how much it's slipping to the side, my AoA, etc, instead of paying attention to a single dot, the gun sight.
On the topic of range, I would probably say that for shots greater than 800 out, tracers on is probably the better package, as long as you fire in short bursts.
I like that idea of turning the sight off. Sounds like it might be beneficial.
I have spent maybe 2 hours shooting at drones offline over all the years I've played and I think it is a bad idea unless you are absolutely brand new to shooting in flight sims. The drones are too slow and predictable. They are highly inadequate for the 300 to 500 mile per hour shots you frequently find in game. Not to mention the multitude of different deflection angles.
-
aside from the fact that you used some poor examples about learning to shoot...
In RL, have you ever taught anyone to shoot? I'll admit, I have limited experience; I was a certified shooting instructor for only a few years. Competitively, I've been shooting far longer than that.
How do people learn to shoot? (In your words/experience)
the feedback you get in ah is seeing the hit sprites on the target without the tracers distracting you...
Ah... The distraction theory... I see. :aok
some people tend to pay too much attention to the tracers...
Where do you get that idea? Any data to show or support that theory? Just speculation?
i suck at shooting anyway but...it can be a good learning tool if you want to increase your hit percentage, mainly because you're not so prone to taking 1000 yard shots, you tend to try for much closer range high percentage shots, and you have to watch your target alignment in the gunsight more...but that only applies to people who aren't gaming the game.
I'd ask (if you really shoot as poorly as you claim) how you feel qualified to make gunnery recommendations?
Why you'd think turning tracers on (or off for that matter) would have any effect at all on someone's willingness to take long shots? It has the opposite effect on me, since I see how much more effective my gunnery is in close compared to way out. I consider 500-600 as "way out".
I'm also curious if anyone out there has any (even a tiny amount) of factual data to show the correlation between turning tracers off and increasing hit %. I'd be especially curious to see if the data could show that the tie was directly related to tracers and had nothing to do with skill acquired through repetition or experience.
And, tell me more about how having tracers off makes you watch your gun sight alignment more? That would seem to be a bad effect, if AH gunnery has any semblance to real-world gunnery. Whether shooting moving targets with a bow, rifle, or shotgun, paying too much attention to your sights is a proven way to increase your chances of a MISS, not a hit... Why is fixating on your sight a good thing in AH? In the real world, especially on a moving target, you should be fixating on your target instead. The sights should be little more than a peripheral object, really just assuring you that the gun is aligned to your eye properly (which we don't need to worry about in AH, making the sights less important in AH than in RL).
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I recommend turning your sight off before (instead of) turning your tracers off... It almost never points where you need to shoot anyway.
-
In RL, have you ever taught anyone to shoot? I'll admit, I have limited experience; I was a certified shooting instructor for only a few years. Competitively, I've been shooting far longer than that.
How do people learn to shoot? (In your words/experience)
Ah... The distraction theory... I see. :aok
Where do you get that idea? Any data to show or support that theory? Just speculation?
I'd ask (if you really shoot as poorly as you claim) how you feel qualified to make gunnery recommendations?
Why you'd think turning tracers on (or off for that matter) would have any effect at all on someone's willingness to take long shots? It has the opposite effect on me, since I see how much more effective my gunnery is in close compared to way out. I consider 500-600 as "way out".
I'm also curious if anyone out there has any (even a tiny amount) of factual data to show the correlation between turning tracers off and increasing hit %. I'd be especially curious to see if the data could show that the tie was directly related to tracers and had nothing to do with skill acquired through repetition or experience.
And, tell me more about how having tracers off makes you watch your gun sight alignment more? That would seem to be a bad effect, if AH gunnery has any semblance to real-world gunnery. Whether shooting moving targets with a bow, rifle, or shotgun, paying too much attention to your sights is a proven way to increase your chances of a MISS, not a hit... Why is fixating on your sight a good thing in AH? In the real world, especially on a moving target, you should be fixating on your target instead. The sights should be little more than a peripheral object, really just assuring you that the gun is aligned to your eye properly (which we don't need to worry about in AH, making the sights less important in AH than in RL).
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I recommend turning your sight off before (instead of) turning your tracers off... It almost never points where you need to shoot anyway.
I also would like to see hit % vs tracers on or off,though i do keep my eye on some of the ...more skilled players hit % and KD ,and Mtn Man i know your hit % is in the top, along with some others that i also know leave their tracers on.
-
Turning off tracers and leaving them off for an extended period of time will improve your gunnery.
How so? Explain.
The 2nd reason is also the why it helps, tracers obstruct your view.
Having used tracers for most (not all) of my 10 or so years, I disagree. I've never felt they obstructed my view of the target, but maybe that's because I don't shoot until around the 300yd mark? On long shots I guess I could see it. Or maybe with nose-mounted guns (which I don't use)?
After missing many shots initially, you start to hone in on that minute sweet spot that results in a kill. Do this long enough and it becomes instinctive.
Very true. But turning tracers ON will shorten the time required...
As for those who think it is a cheap tactic use by those who can't shoot, the top shooters in the game usually have them off.
Curious... Data to show this? Out of, say, the top 100 shots, how many have tracers off? How many in the top 10?
The one thing I really do like about tracers being turned off, though, is when my opponent has them off. It makes me smile!
-
I am with the Mtnman on this one. :aok Further I think Zoney asked a good question about the ability to choose and whether it was ever really done. :aok
-
I don't know if it's mental or what but I seem to hit with 30mms easier with tracers off.
No Tracers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nveifeh6rYc
-
Personally I think turning tracers off is one of the most over-hyped aspects of aerial gunnery in the game.
Your gunnery can also improve with out tracers. With tracers people tend to adjust constantly. With out it becomes more like instinct/ shot gun shooting and you hold a steady lead instead of watching tracers.
At least thats the way it works for me.
I think both of these statements have merit.
Mtnman is a Trainer, and giving folks feedback on their skills is what he does to help them improve.
HiTech is the developer of this game and is a real life pilot who knows how to fly with his head outside of the cockpit.
Both of these gentlemen are accomplished Aces High Pilots.
Tracers on...Tracers off...in my opinion it really doesn't matter because if you've listened to, and practiced with the Trainers (Mtnman, et al), and through their efforts you've learned to fly like the developer (HiTech), you've already learned to: (a) first out-fly your opponent...and then (b) shoot him down.
To me, the hardest part of Gunnery is setting up the shot...i.e...out-flying my opponent. If I have flown well, a brief burst from my guns will put my opponent in his parachute. Did he care if my tracers were on, or off? Probably not.
Tracers are a visual tool, nothing more, nothing less.
Trapshooters know how to use the sight on their shotgun. Most "shotgun" shooters don't.
-
In RL, have you ever taught anyone to shoot? I'll admit, I have limited experience; I was a certified shooting instructor for only a few years. Competitively, I've been shooting far longer than that.
How do people learn to shoot? (In your words/experience)
Ah... The distraction theory... I see. :aok
Where do you get that idea? Any data to show or support that theory? Just speculation?
I'd ask (if you really shoot as poorly as you claim) how you feel qualified to make gunnery recommendations?
Why you'd think turning tracers on (or off for that matter) would have any effect at all on someone's willingness to take long shots? It has the opposite effect on me, since I see how much more effective my gunnery is in close compared to way out. I consider 500-600 as "way out".
I'm also curious if anyone out there has any (even a tiny amount) of factual data to show the correlation between turning tracers off and increasing hit %. I'd be especially curious to see if the data could show that the tie was directly related to tracers and had nothing to do with skill acquired through repetition or experience.
And, tell me more about how having tracers off makes you watch your gun sight alignment more? That would seem to be a bad effect, if AH gunnery has any semblance to real-world gunnery. Whether shooting moving targets with a bow, rifle, or shotgun, paying too much attention to your sights is a proven way to increase your chances of a MISS, not a hit... Why is fixating on your sight a good thing in AH? In the real world, especially on a moving target, you should be fixating on your target instead. The sights should be little more than a peripheral object, really just assuring you that the gun is aligned to your eye properly (which we don't need to worry about in AH, making the sights less important in AH than in RL).
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I recommend turning your sight off before (instead of) turning your tracers off... It almost never points where you need to shoot anyway.
i can tell certain things are slightly over your head...i actually listened to some advice another player far above my cartoon skill level and turned off tracers for a bit then went into the dueling arena to practice...it helped bring my focus to the sight picture, not take low percentage shots, not fire beyond 500 yards and use shorter bursts...as you can see by other responses, i'm not the only one who has done the no tracers and found some measure of improved gunnery.
yes i have taught marksmanship...as a civilian and in the military. now i'm sure you are a good instructor and above average marksman, but i have to ask...when was the last time you used tracers to teach someone how to shoot a rifle or pistol, in real life? if you have ever fired an automatic weapon with tracers you would know that real life tracers don't have the same visual effect as they do in this game, especially in broad daylight. and yes, i do use the gun sight in the game...same as i do on a real weapon, focused on the target and not the front sight post or crosshairs. i still fall back into the "follow the tracers" mode more often than i would like, because i don't leave them off all the time...and that is simply because my stats in this game have exactly zero influence on my life.
-
i can tell certain things are slightly over your head...
LOL over Mtnman's head? Now you have been awarded priceless post status here on the AH BBS... :rofl
-
:lol
-
How so? Explain.
I just did. As did a few others. The tracers are a distraction and take concentration away from the sight picture. And really, how often to you teach people to use tracers as a means of becoming a better shot in your professional "instructor" position? Just curious.
Having used tracers for most (not all) of my 10 or so years, I disagree. I've never felt they obstructed my view of the target, but maybe that's because I don't shoot until around the 300yd mark? On long shots I guess I could see it. Or maybe with nose-mounted guns (which I don't use)?
Maybe its because you havent tried it enough in "most" of your ten years or so. And I do use nose mounted rides in games, and yes that would certainly make a difference but doesnt change the fact there will still be a considerable amount of distraction even on wing mounted rides. Since you brought it up, I do fire at ranges up to 1000 and get hits 80% of the time. NO it doesnt show in my hit%, and as an "instructor" you should be able to figure that out.
Very true. But turning tracers ON will shorten the time required...
Curious... Data to show this?
Curious... Data to show this? Out of, say, the top 100 shots, how many have tracers off? How many in the top 10?
Curious... Data to show otherwise?
Curious, in all your years as an "instructor" how many of them did you spend in a ww2 fighter aircraft teaching aerial gunnery?
-
I'm one of those players doing very good in the shooting department in AH.
Without tracers, I suck.
I tried it several times in my AH career, for extended periods each. And regardless of being noob or vet, I always had the same experience: When I shut off my tracers, nothing happened at first, I was hitting just about the same at all ranges.
But after 1-2 days a slow degradation started. And the more days passed, the worse my aim got. An this despite flying the same rides with same settings for several hours a day. Without tracers, I start to lose my mental sight picture somehow, even if I hit at first.
And after maybe a week (that's been like 30 hours game time), my ability to hit dropped to a third or even less the level it had been before.
So for short times I can switch tracers off, but I had never any real benefit in terms of hitting from it, but an ever accelerating decline, both by perception as well as very measurably by hit %. I absolutely do need tracers on to keep my aim consistent over time.
-
I just did. As did a few others. The tracers are a distraction and take concentration away from the sight picture. And really, how often to you teach people to use tracers as a means of becoming a better shot in your professional "instructor" position? Just curious.
Maybe its because you havent tried it enough in "most" of your ten years or so. And I do use nose mounted rides in games, and yes that would certainly make a difference but doesnt change the fact there will still be a considerable amount of distraction even on wing mounted rides. Since you brought it up, I do fire at ranges up to 1000 and get hits 80% of the time. NO it doesnt show in my hit%, and as an "instructor" you should be able to figure that out.
Curious... Data to show this?
Curious... Data to show otherwise?
Curious, in all your years as an "instructor" how many of them did you spend in a ww2 fighter aircraft teaching aerial gunnery?
You obviously don't know the difference between opinion and fact.
-
IRL at a range you can see the results of your mistakes. Where your shots are landing on the paper, or if they're not hitting the paper you can see the dust puffs on the berm behind it. When firing at a moving target with nothing but air behind it you cannot diagnose your errors, you can only confirm your hits with the sprites.
With practice I have found myself able to ignore the tracers and focus on the target and look for sprites when I'm making simple tracking shots, when BnZ'ing for instance. When I'm trying to make a shot while we're doing like a 45 degree bank turn or so (for some reason I almost always miss my first shot on these) the tracers help me correct because I get the feedback. Maybe one day I'll be confident enough to turn them off, but I don't even know if I will because I like being able to use low percentage shots just to get a guy's attention who's about to kill my wingman.
-
NM
-
In Real Life, were there pilots who chose to loadout without tracers? Were they even allowed to make that choice?
56th FG used tracers to signify to the pilot that he was about out of ammo. 10 or 20 tracers in a row before the last 200 rounds. Otherwise, no tracers.
It was up to the pilot's preference.
I don't know if it's mental or what but I seem to hit with 30mms easier with tracers off.
No Tracers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nveifeh6rYc
I thought tracers showed over 30mm whether you turn them off or not?
wrongway
-
I thought tracers showed over 30mm whether you turn them off or not?
wrongway
no, only time when tracers show when you have them off is in tanks and your bomber drones
-
56th FG used tracers to signify to the pilot that he was about out of ammo. 10 or 20 tracers in a row before the last 200 rounds. Otherwise, no tracers.
It was up to the pilot's preference.
I thought tracers showed over 30mm whether you turn them off or not?
wrongway
That's a confusing question, really. You can turn tracers off for 30mms but the YakT and P39 37mms cannot be turned off, while the IL2s 37mms and the Hurricanes 40mms can be.
-
To be honest I turn mine off so I can see.
-
i don't really know which way is best, but i can't shoot with tracers on. they distract me i guess. i've been flying with no tracers since i learned i could turn them off like 5 years ago.
-
I shoot with tracers on, but I dont look at them. i pay more attention to the hit sprites and only look at tracers if I miss and only to adjust my aim. about 10-20% of my rounds go into making the other guy nervous by shooting so he can see tracers going all around him/her while in turn fiting. with one exception, i dont use cannon in this manner those I save for the sure hits :D.
as for the people who say tracers improved their percentages, that is misleading. most likely now you only shoot when you have a sure hit. as I have seen some of you guys do. How do I know if you're shooting when your tracers are off, you ask. mg/taters/20mm sounds. some of you shoot very little.
semp
-
question: with tracers off should your guns hit harder?
seems like the tracers would be replaced with live rounds making your guns more effective. :headscratch:
-
question: with tracers off should your guns hit harder?
seems like the tracers would be replaced with live rounds making your guns more effective. :headscratch:
Hit harder? no.
-
question: with tracers off should your guns hit harder?
seems like the tracers would be replaced with live rounds making your guns more effective. :headscratch:
A tracer is still a bullet....
wrongway
-
I think both of these statements have merit.
Trapshooters know how to use the sight on their shotgun. Most "shotgun" shooters don't.
I put a scope on mine. I can really slaughter the ducks now.....
-
As wrongway said, tracers are just regular rounds with phosphorus on the end that's ignited when fired. They don't take up more space or hit with less force. I'd hate to cite Wiki, but here we go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_ammunition
-
30 caliber ball next to a 30 caliber tracer on the left. 5.56mm ball next to a 5.56mm tracer on the right. The 5.56 aren't exactly representative since the ball is a 55gr projectile and the tracer a 62gr but it's close enough to make the point that there are some differences between the two.
(http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff345/martinguitarist/tracerplan.jpg)
Looking from the rear. You can see the lead core of the ball rounds and see the thin jacket on the back that would contain the tracer material. Different materials yield different colors.
(http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff345/martinguitarist/tracerrear.jpg)
I'm not brave enough to cut them open with anything so use your imagination for the rest :)
-
I suppose I was mistaken seeing as they're not exactly the same. I've used tracers but I've never looked at the bullets outside of their casings. As far as I can tell though they look like they should fly through the air almost exactly same at normal ranges.
-
Well they definitely fly different. Keeping the same point of aim the point of impact for a comparable weight tracer and a comparable weight ball round will be different. How you measure that difference and what you consider significant will determine just how much the difference matters. For a groundhog at 300 yards using a varmint rifle, it matters. For an airplane at 300 yards using a machine gun, it doesn't.
-
question: with tracers off should your guns hit harder?
seems like the tracers would be replaced with live rounds making your guns more effective. :headscratch:
In RL Yes! I dont know if it is modeled in AH though. Beyond 200 yards, the tracer round burns off part of its mass effecting its trajectory and impact strength.
-
In RL Yes! I dont know if it is modeled in AH though. Beyond 200 yards, the tracer round burns off part of its mass effecting its trajectory and impact strength.
Look at any old gun cam videos, rather rapidly the tracers start to tumble all over the place. In RL, this was better than nothing but also in RL, the real bullets don't fly perfectly and often tumble all over too...
-
Really, well I learned something today. I always just assumed they were regular rounds all d donut led up.
I said d a z z l e d! Come on! :rofl
-
NM
self imposed- see rule #4
-
thank you for clearing up the facts behind tracers :aok
-
Firing without tracers is leet. Chicks dig it.
-
Firing without tracers is leet. Chicks dig it.
You can't really pick up chicks in a K4 though ;)
-
U can in a K Money though.
-
In Real Life, were there pilots who chose to loadout without tracers? Were they even allowed to make that choice?
Can't give you a comprehensive answer on this, but I do know that at least several 8th AF squadrons were going no-tracer by the end of the war. All of the accounts I've read reported that their kill rate improved dramatically. I imagine there were various reasons for this, not least that tracers don't have the same trajectory as the non-tracer ammo and, as others have pointed out here, tracers over your canopy provide an unmistakeable warning that you're a target.
In AvA, where we've been flying no-icons for a bit more than a year, it seems to me that virtually everyone has turned tracers off.
- oldman
-
I've never fought with tracers off. My way of improving my accuracy is to use aircraft with limited ammo, such as my favorite Yak 9's. You don't have many rounds on you, so you have to be conservative and fire when & where it counts. If you can do that, imagine what you can do in an aircraft with a lot more ammo. ;)
-
The way i learned to get good gunnery skills... SHOOT LESS. CONSERVE AMMO. i ignore my tracer rounds. at a certain point i realized tracers meant nothing to me and my guns other than giving me a somewhat accurate path. with or without tracers, learn to shoot where the bullets go and learn to fire less
-
aside from the fact that you used some poor examples about learning to shoot...the feedback you get in ah is seeing the hit sprites on the target without the tracers distracting you..
WOW, the new version is showing hit sprites when you miss now? WTG HT :aok
-
WOW, the new version is showing hit sprites when you miss now? WTG HT :aok
dedalos... i think you misunderstood what gyrene said :headscratch:
-
WOW, the new version is showing hit sprites when you miss now? WTG HT :aok
haven't improved your reading comprehension have you? there is help...try sylvan should be one in your area
-
dedalos... i think you misunderstood what gyrene said :headscratch:
Not at all. I just preferred the example and explanation the guy he was responding too provided.
-
Where do you get that idea? Any data to show or support that theory? Just speculation?
:salute MntMan,
Feedback is good, but do the tracers provide better feedback than hit sprites is the question. In some cases of course the answer is yes. But I am one who often can't tell on an arching shot if the tracers are passing in front or behind the bandit. The tracer's flashes don't seems to change enough in size and appearance with distance for me to be able to tell in a stream of bullets which ones are close and which ones are farther away. Also in the arching shots, The closer tracers are visible from my plane to over the target, completely overlapping the ones behind them. So all the tracers look like they are in front of the target to me making it extremely difficult to tell if the far ones passed in front or behind the target plane. Deflection shooting is exactly the same phenomena, only in the horizontal plane.
I've recently turned them off and I find the things the Greene, HiTech and others said to be spot on. I turned them off in a Whirble because they make it too easy for Tanks and Planes to find you. Then I forgot to turn them back on. :D. It's working fine, but I'll have to see if the "Lusche Phenomena" set is after a while.
Only time I think they help is when I'm all twisty in the vertical and not sure which direction gravity drop is. The tracers will show them falling off in a particular direction.
Target shooting is very different, because you don;t watch the bullet, you can see where it hits in the plane (at the distance) of the target. If tracers only lit up when they passed through the plane of the target so you could see exactly and clearly if you were in front of behind, high or low, then it would be like target shooting.
By the way have you taught Skeet? I spent an afternoon firing at Clay pigeons and, without tracers, or a target behind them, had no idea where my shot was going. I missed those things for 2 hours. :rolleyes:
-
I am with the Mtnman on this one. :aok Further I think Zoney asked a good question about the ability to choose and whether it was ever really done. :aok
Night fighters were non-tracer equiped. So you could do it. Don;t know how many day light fighters did it. :salute
-
That's a confusing question, really. You can turn tracers off for 30mms but the YakT and P39 37mms cannot be turned off, while the IL2s 37mms and the Hurricanes 40mms can be.
I think the 37mm are deferent in that the Round won't "glow" if they are off, but the Smoke trail stays. Can anyone confirm? :salute
-
Your gunnery can also improve with out tracers. With tracers people tend to adjust constantly. With out it becomes more like instinct/ shot gun shooting and you hold a steady lead instead of watching tracers.
At least thats the way it works for me.
HiTech
Bingo!!
Some groups in WII actually removed tracers and had better success. Not to mention more ammo. :)
How do you learn anything in life? With feedback. With feedback, you know. Without it, you guess. When learning something, is it better to have the facts, or just a guess?
Feedback is sprites. You'll use more ammo trying to adjust your tracers onto target. To me tracers actually get in the way of a good shot.
You can check out my hit % but won't find useful info as I tend to shoot trees and splash water otw back to base.
-
Feedback is sprites. You'll use more ammo trying to adjust your traces onto target. To me tracers actually get in the way of a good shot.
The only feedback sprites do give is that I did hit. What they do not tell me: Why did I miss? Too high, too low, too much lead, not enough? And that's why at first nothing much changes when I disable tracers, but gradually do loose my aim over one week.
A frequent reply is "go closer then"... but I'm happy being able to do off-angle killshots at D600 with tracers on ;)
-
The only feedback sprites do give is that I did hit. What they do not tell me: Why did I miss? Too high, too low, too much lead, not enough? And that's why at first nothing much changes when I disable tracers, but gradually do loose my aim over one week.
A frequent reply is "go closer then"... but I'm happy being able to do off-angle killshots at D600 with tracers on ;)
It really is just a preference. I make 600 deflection shots with no tracers. I'm much more comfortable and use less ammo with tracers off. I know about where I need the nose on most any given shot. If I miss I pretty much know which direction on the clock I need to adjust from experience and sight picture. Either way is ok if it works for you.
-
:salute MntMan,
Feedback is good, but do the tracers provide better feedback than hit sprites is the question.
Yes, simply because they provide feedback when you miss. Hit sprites are only good when you hit. Without tracers, how would you know if you are firing long or short, up or down?
In the game however, no tracers provide advantages. One is that the bad guy does not see you firing. Only good for picking. However, the biggest advantage is the lag they dont cause when off. You may start thinking you shoot better because of the no tracers for some magical reason while the real reason is that your FE performs better without them (depends on the FE). That was the case with me. The flames coming from the guns were causing mini lockups. The tracers would cause mini warps that made planes fly between them unharmed. Turning them off did not make my aim better although I could hit better due to the performance increase.
-
Yes, simply because they provide feedback when you miss. Hit sprites are only good when you hit. Without tracers, how would you know if you are firing long or short, up or down?
In the game however, no tracers provide advantages. One is that the bad guy does not see you firing. Only good for picking. However, the biggest advantage is the lag they dont cause when off. You may start thinking you shoot better because of the no tracers for some magical reason while the real reason is that your FE performs better without them (depends on the FE). That was the case with me. The flames coming from the guns were causing mini lockups. The tracers would cause mini warps that made planes fly between them unharmed. Turning them off did not make my aim better although I could hit better due to the performance increase.
Okay now i feel nooblet..but whats FE?
-
Front End, or your computer
-
lol And i was thinking FR,and as long as ones FR is above 30 it just don't matter as far as lag. :rolleyes:
-
lol And i was thinking FR,and as long as ones FR is above 30 it just don't matter as far as lag. :rolleyes:
:lol Why is that? If your rate goes from 60 to 30 you don;t think you experienced some kind of lag?
-
:lol Why is that? If your rate goes from 60 to 30 you don;t think you experienced some kind of lag?
Nothing the human eye can pick up.And besides turn tracers off and on and check FR i just did (no difference) So tracers on or off vs FR dont matter.
-
Nothing the human eye can pick up.And besides turn tracers off and on and check FR i just did (no difference) So tracers on or off vs FR dont matter.
Maybe to you. Not everyone has the same system. Not to mention that what your eye sees is irrelevant to what the game is seeing or doing in the background. Remeber, I was seeing planes going through tracers. If the game saw the same thing that plane would be hit.
-
Yes, simply because they provide feedback when you miss. Hit sprites are only good when you hit. Without tracers, how would you know if you are firing long or short, up or down?
Ded, the rest of my post explains why tracers don't provide the feedback you suggest they do. :salute
-
Maybe to you. Not everyone has the same system. Not to mention that what your eye sees is irrelevant to what the game is seeing or doing in the background. Remeber, I was seeing planes going through tracers. If the game saw the same thing that plane would be hit.
Well your right that what your eye is seeing dose not matter in real time,but as i said my PC FR dont change and i don't have a high end PC.
No matter though what works for one person dose not work for others and their have been many opinions shard ,which I'm sure has been a help to the owner of this thread. :cheers:
-
A frequent reply is "go closer then"... but I'm happy being able to do off-angle killshots at D600 with tracers on
Another good point. Disabling tracers generally makes you hold your fire until you're at more historic ranges and angles.
- oldman
-
Another good point. Disabling tracers generally makes you hold your fire until you're at more historic ranges and angles.
- oldman
Yea but i DO use tracers and NEVER fire till im 200 off...so its all in the player and them (wanting) to have i good hit%.
-
I'd like the option to load tracers into mg belts only, leave them out of cannon belts. :aok
-
I'd like the option to load tracers into mg belts only, leave them out of cannon belts. :aok
what would this accomplish?
-
It would let him game the game by "making runners turn" without wasting cannon ammo which he would only use in actual "kill shots" in close.
-
It would let him game the game by "making runners turn" without wasting cannon ammo which he would only use in actual "kill shots" in close.
then he can just shoot the damn MG and save the cannon by primary secondary function :aok
-
then he can just shoot the damn MG and save the cannon by primary secondary function :aok
That's what I was thinking. Fire primary to make 'em turn and fire all when it's time to kill. And in my opinion not loading tracers on the cannons wouldn't make a difference because I never fire them unless I'm so close there's nothing he can do about it.
-
then he can just shoot the damn MG and save the cannon by primary secondary function :aok
I meant he doesn't want to have tracers normally when he's in getting killshots (where he uses the cannons only).
-
I meant he doesn't want to have tracers normally when he's in getting killshots (where he uses the cannons only).
still confused... what difference... augh brain melting... i give up :bolt:
-
Exactly, IMO. Not much difference. Pointless request IMO.
I'm in the camp that turning tracers off forces you to do the mental computation to get the right lead. The positive reinforcement when you land hits (i.e. sprites) rewards that and you learn better. I also think that tracers simply "clutter" the screen, and if you rely on them like a crutch you're not doing the mental math. It's a shame they're almost useless (I totally agree with the description that you can't tell if they're in front of or behind the target, just judging distance is hopeless) because they look cool. They just screw up my shots far too much to use regularly. Also they are negative reinforcement, only showing that you've missed.
It's better to learn what to DO, rather than what NOT to do. Tracers "off" shows you what to do.
-
By 1945 tracers were being used in many U.S. ETO fighters as the first few in the last 50 rounds in the belt to allow the pilot to know he was about to be out.
8th Airforce bomber command found that tracers were good for waking up bomber gunners dozing at alt when the few and last flights of the Luft came through in 45. Or, german pilots admitted seeing tracers coming at them caused them to flinch attacking from the tail or nose against those bombers.
During WW2 the american .50cal tracer round was not the same as an API round. It did not have the armor peircing ability or incedinary quality of the standard API. American fighter pilots loaded up the belt except for at the end with API to get more bang for the buck so to say.
The 8th Airforce through testing found that the tracer created an optical illusion and caused pilots and gunners to forget to focuse on their sight picture and rely on the tracer light. Relying on the tracer ment you were focused on rounds that were every other 5th or so which ment your lead was that much behind the curve at combat speeds. The tracer ball of fire was also behind the round visualy and in timing not in the same physical space as the round itself. So you were tracking late on target opposed to relying on your training, gunsight and knowing how to lead shoot.
The Luft discontiued tracer rounds for the same reasons. They did not use tracer rounds during pilot training becasue they wanted their pilots to rely on knowing their graticule sight picture. Their convergences for cannon and MG had been standardised along with knowing where the round streams should impact related to the standarised Revi graticules.
I'm sure some of you have a copy of or can find the following for free on the Internet:
(Schiessfibel.pdf) Illustrates the Luft's focus on precision aiming via the sight picture. Or the British (Bag the Hun.pdf) which relys on learning your sight picture relative to the angle of travers of your con.
By 1945 the 8th Airforce had determined that loading your belt with a single type of ammo was more productive due to the low number of rounds that actualy struck the target opposed to the luft practice earlier in the war of mixed round types in their belts. If you are not hitting fuel lines and/or tanks and only hit the fusualge with incedinary went the logic. American belts on fighters were filled with API and tracers had almost been totaly discontiued as a standared by 45 in the allied and german airforces.
U.S. Navy and AAF had similare thoughts on this in the PTO concerning tracer ammo and it signaling the enemy pilot. Hit percentages increased as tracer ammo was discontinued.
If you can find a free download some of this comes from an 8th Airforce report.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey
Report On
Armament In The Air War
1939-1945
Published at London, 1945
If Hitech would give us a check mark in the hanger to pick and choose tracers on/off for each aircraft or manable gun I would leave tracers on for wirbel and manned ack. But, in the heat of the moment drilling down through the menus is often a pain in the pooty just to enable and disable one check box all night long.
-
i can tell certain things are slightly over your head...
Lol, over? Nah, but my chin isn't tilted so high I can't see it down there either...
I understand perfectly well what you're saying, I just consider it bad advice and even superstitious. So far, every bit of "evidence" (I've seen) listed to support the argument to turn off tracers is circumstantial, with zero/zippo/zilch data to say otherwise.
yes i have taught marksmanship...as a civilian and in the military.
Your military service keeps me from dismissing you off-hand (normally I just take it as a sign of intellectual defeat when the person I'm conversing with gives up and resorts to what amounts to name-calling). Whether you deserve it or not is up to you to decide. It's neither here there to me. I'm not trying to "win" an "argument". I'm merely refuting what I see as bad advice which (IMO) will serve to discourage (or handicap) the players who need good advice the most.
now i'm sure you are a good instructor and above average marksman, but i have to ask...when was the last time you used tracers to teach someone how to shoot a rifle or pistol, in real life?
Never. And I don't intend to. I've generally used paper to teach the basics. The nice thing about paper is that it gives feedback for all but the worst misses. If the student is aiming at the ten-ring, a hit in the nine (or worse) is a miss. Not a "bad" miss necessarily, but they certainly didn't hit what they intended to, either. Those misses give feedback, and aids the instructor in teaching better marksmanship. Without the feedback, there's no point in an instructor, is there? Once the basics are learned, one can move on to more challenging aspects, but when problems arise, it's back to paper and the feedback it gives...
In AH, there's no paper. Tracers make up for that, and give some semblance of the feedback paper gives (although, like paper, it's open to the interpretation of the user, and admittedly not all are equally skilled nor observant in that regard). Filming (of course), adds to the ability to interpret what's happening in the game.
if you have ever fired an automatic weapon with tracers you would know that real life tracers don't have the same visual effect as they do in this game...
Not the same situation as in-game though.
...and that is simply because my stats in this game have exactly zero influence on my life.
Not supported by your posts... It looks like you strive to improve, , seek out advice in order to improve, make changes in an effort to improve, and then attempt to measure the improvement. That's what I get out of this anyway- is it not what you meant?
i actually listened to some advice another player far above my cartoon skill level and turned off tracers for a bit then went into the dueling arena to practice...it helped bring my focus to the sight picture, not take low percentage shots, not fire beyond 500 yards and use shorter bursts...as you can see by other responses, i'm not the only one who has done the no tracers and found some measure of improved gunnery.
I'd also argue that what helped you was mental discipline, not lack of tracers. You tried harder, and focused on the task at hand. None of what you learned couldn't have been learned with tracers on. Turning tracers off was essentially a "superstitious gimmick" that you attached more credit to than it deserved. Not a bad thing necessarily. Some people wear "lucky socks", or religious medals, etc, for the same reason. You proved that you could improve with dedicated practice, not that tracers were hindering you.
-
And really, how often to you teach people to use tracers as a means of becoming a better shot in your professional "instructor" position? Just curious.
"To you"? Do you mean did you? Or do you? IRL, never, as I stated above. As an AH trainer, it seldom came up. When it did, I always recommended leaving them on. I'm not an AH Trainer anymore though. I stepped down due to lack of time.
Maybe its because you havent tried it enough in "most" of your ten years or so.
Maybe. But then of course, that argument could be sent back your way as well... As in "maybe you haven't tried using tracers enough...".
Since you brought it up, I do fire at ranges up to 1000 and get hits 80% of the time. NO it doesnt show in my hit%, and as an "instructor" you should be able to figure that out.
No you don't. Now, if you put the word "some" between "get" and "hits", I could almost see it... Nobody gets an 80% hit% at 1000 yards. But getting a single hit at 1000yards would make your statement rue with the "some" in there.
But the hit% question raises an interesting question... What does it matter? It could be argued that a high hit% is better than a low%, and that one pilot is more effective than another. Or, it could mean that one pilot only takes "high%" shots (bombers, picks, or well saddled-up shots). But does that make him more effective overall? I hesitate to say yes...
Me, I could have a drastically higher hit% if I did that. When I've played with the idea, I've scored 60%+ against bombers, for example. But I don't... I take all sorts of low% shots (high-speed crossing, snap shots, blacked out, etc), waste ammo on GV's and ground targets, fire next to friendlies on the ground to "scare" them, etc. So my hit% doesn't tell the real story either.
And really, taking those low% shots makes me much more effective overall than I'd be if I didn't take them. There's a mental "toll" taken when you hit your opponent, even if it doesn't do any real damage. It effects the way he flies, and the way I fly. I often pick an enemy apart little by little, firing little "trickle's", which again, isn't necessarily related by my hit%. I make constant adjustments based on the feedback from my tracers. My tracers allow me to make quick, factual decisions, while I'd only be guessing at without tracers.
I've "lived" through many fights because my opponent couldn't get his tracer-less rounds on target. On the other hand, I've never been beaten because he wasn't using tracers.
I just did. As did a few others. The tracers are a distraction and take concentration away from the sight picture.
Didn't answer the question. That's simply "opinion", not "data".
Curious, in all your years as an "instructor" how many of them did you spend in a ww2 fighter aircraft teaching aerial gunnery?
None. But of course, the basics of teaching/learning are the same. Where would you like to take this part of the discussion?
-
My way of improving my accuracy is to use aircraft with limited ammo, such as my favorite Yak 9's. You don't have many rounds on you, so you have to be conservative and fire when & where it counts. If you can do that, imagine what you can do in an aircraft with a lot more ammo. ;)
Another superstition, I believe. This isn't how humans learn. Effectively, you're stating that you'll improve faster with less practice.
In reality, you'll improve faster with more practice, as long as it's good, effective practice.
Retention/learning is much higher with increased time and interaction (practice). Retention can be as high as 75% with quality practice and feedback (constructive criticism), and even higher (up to80%) if you use the information to teach others. Conversely, retention drops quickly without those aspects (as low as 5% if you watch it, 10% if you read it, etc).
Where your getting your improvement from in this case is by "focusing" and "practicing better". The amount of ammo in your clip doesn't effect that. It's the decision to be focused that matters. Staying that focused with a larger clip just means more quality practice, which results in faster learning. You just need to be "mentally strong", and don't allow yourself to get lazy.
-
Yes, simply because they provide feedback when you miss. Hit sprites are only good when you hit. Without tracers, how would you know if you are firing long or short, up or down?
And when you hit, how much more feedback do you need? Not all that much... You've accomplished the goal, after all. That's why the hit sprites are a pointless argument when it comes to tracers on/off. The feedback from hits is the same whether you use tracers or not... Both are equally positive, so cannot be used to argue either point.
As you state, tracers offer feedback when you need it (because you're missing).
-
I need to ask...
The primary reason I've always heard/seen/read when it comes to WWII use of "no tracers" has been the idea that they gave away your presence to the enemy.
In WWII, that was a very valid point, since the majority of the time the enemy was shot down because he was unaware of your presence... In units that didn't use tracers, I've seen the reports where it was linked to more success. Again, though, it was likely due to the same reason... Most planes were shot down by "surprise", using no tracers increased the chances of "surprise", so using no tracers led to increased success.
I've never seen any correlation in WWII for increased gunnery skill due to lack of tracers, like is sometimes argued in AH. In WWII, it very well could have led to an increased hit%, because an unaware pilot was more likely to be flying straight/level (easy to hit) than doing any hard maneuvering (hard to hit). I would certainly hope that an level-flying plane with an unaware pilot would be easier to shoot down, and therefore removing tracers would likely lead to greater success.
That's generally not the case in AH though, and lack of tracers is being used to argue something else entirely. I suspect it could be a distortion of historical fact to link lack of tracers to increased skill...
-
:ahand
I seen what others can do in the game and i know the ones that just talk big, Mtnman has proved time and time again that he is one of the best in the game,its a shame more people don't listen to addvice more because they are to busy trying to be right. And for my money Mtnman is or was one of the best trainers out their.But now I'm just ankle humping :D
-
:ahand
I seen what others can do in the game and i know the ones that just talk big, Mtnman has proved time and time again that he is one of the best in the game,its a shame more people don't listen to addvice more because they are to busy trying to be right. And for my money Mtnman is or was one of the best trainers out their.But now I'm just ankle humping :D
Ha! Just don't wear all the hair off that ankle (or get tangled in it, either). You may need to switch to the other side once in a while to keep the wear even...
Thanks for the compliment though, seriously. I enjoyed that aspect of the game a LOT, I just don't have the time to do the position justice anymore. Move over, make room for those that can, and maybe things will change in the future...
-
As I said before, I do not use tracers, I'm not afraid to take outside shots and shots on stick stirring planes when I get the opportunity, and I still average a high hit%. When I'm getting ready to take the shot it's almost instantaneous,I know exactly where I need to orient the plane in order to get rounds on, it just comes down to how steady my hand is. If you need to look at tracers to find out that you're shooting left or right then go back to the TA, because against a seasoned pilot that 2 seconds of confusion on your part can get you a ticket to the tower. When the person shooting at me is spraying cannon rounds everywhere, usually that's an automatic forced overshoot and kill for me. I'm not saying that no tracers leads to better shooting, I do think it forces people to pay attention to the way they shoot though, and that's a good thing. I know I've worked with people on their accuracy, and after flying with no tracers for a week or so they were dead on when they turned tracers on again.
-
Ha! Just don't wear all the hair off that ankle (or get tangled in it, either). You may need to switch to the other side once in a while to keep the wear even...
Thanks for the compliment though, seriously. I enjoyed that aspect of the game a LOT, I just don't have the time to do the position justice anymore. Move over, make room for those that can, and maybe things will change in the future...
Right on ..im not at home, but at home i lost net so i have not been able to play in some time,but once im back ,trainer or not i will need to wing up with you and get my wings back in order.
-
I leave them on to confuse the opponent in a HO situation.........which is very common here.
It's hard to see hit sprites when tracers are streaming toward you.
-
over the years i have done long stints with and without tracers. My overall hit percentage with and without is pretty much the same. I go with what looks cooler, so I leave them on. I also like being able to mark GVs for other people.
Damn dude you're still flying?
I remember fighting you in FR AW on AOL in like 1996 and BigT too.
Well, actually I remember quite a few guys especially the JG-27 guys I flew with a lot...
Guess it is just good to see an old player still playing. :D
-Raid
-
From what I read in an 8th Airforce gunnery analysis for why a tracer was not a good way to aim. The round and the flair ball behind it are far enough apart that the gunner or pilot looking at it is already behind in his mental timing. The flair ball is so large your eyes will naturaly tend to track the flair rather than looking to a point ahead of it. The shooter will tend to under compensate for the 4 or 5 rounds between tracers that he cannot see. That exaserbated the already large problem most pilots had with judging lead on a moving target befor the K14 Gyro sight came on the scene.
This is why they wanted the gunner or pilot to learn their sight picture and understand elevation, lead for given distances and angles of attack, and speed. Much of the gunnery in WW2 between fighters and their target was 300 to point blank. At those ranges a tracer helps at 300 to correct into the target. Inside of that your target is filling your gunsight and even a myopic man can pour automatic fire into something as large as a 30ft wingspan fighter. This may have been part of what eventualy dictated homogenious ammo belts to get the most damage for the load.
The real skill in WW2 or in Aces High comes down to piloting your ride inside of 300 yards at which point most players can even hit themselves in the kester with a banjo. There is nothing like flying offline and shooting over and over for 30 minutes or more at full zoom to key your brain into the proper sight picture to place a stream of rounds where the con will fly into them. I will ventur mntman has one graticule he uses all the time and the sight picture burned into his brain for elevation and lead at 400 into point blank in his favorite ride. Nothing like repetition to remove hesitation.
From watching several hours of offline drone killing film a few months back at very slow motion. The tracer in aces high is kind of like an 6 ft plasma streak 3inches in diameter tapered at both ends. When the tip of it intersects the pixel area representing parts of the con it makes damage on contact to damagable areas. Looks like plasma bolts from some FPS game. If you are leading far enough ahead of your con you will see the tracer round intersect and damge the con. I've found them to be helpful in making lead corrections to get the rest of my rounds on target. But, in most cases knowing my sight picture to begin my shooting was more important for placing enough rounds on the target to matter.
You only get better at shooting by shooting. Ergo, in an air combat simulator you have to practice flying along with the shooting to make the shooting better. Chicken or Egg.....hmmmm...KFC...heheheh ee
-
Yes, simply because they provide feedback when you miss. Hit sprites are only good when you hit. Without tracers, how would you know if you are firing long or short, up or down?
You dont. You try a different shot! Thats the whole point of not using tracers. Keep trying until you can find the shot without the help of tracers.
-
Maybe. But then of course, that argument could be sent back your way as well... As in "maybe you haven't tried using tracers enough...".
wrong again. MOST of my time, I would guess more than 70% of my time in game was with tracers.
No you don't. Now, if you put the word "some" between "get" and "hits", I could almost see it... Nobody gets an 80% hit% at 1000 yards. But getting a single hit at 1000yards would make your statement rue with the "some" in there.
If you read correctly, it says I "get hits" 80% of the time, NOT 80% hit percent.
Didn't answer the question. That's simply "opinion", not "data".
No, thats FACT. You and many others may have become desensitized to it and learned to use it, but it is still a distraction. It is fact that the more stimulus, the more the human brain and eye has to focus on the worse the results of the overall task. It has been scientifically proven beyond all doubt. So when firing, you have to watch the pipper, the target, and the tracers. Compared to just the target and the pipper. And that doesnt even consider all of the other stimulus the pilot has to deal with... "what is my e state, what is his, where are the other cons, how much fuel do I have, how much ammo do I have..."
And tell me this, how well are you really judging where those tracers are going when there are dozens of them arcing in your view? So not only do you see the bullets on the upward leg of the arc, but you are seeing tracers that preceded those on the downward arc further out, PLUS the crisscrossing on wing mounted guns. It all adds up to excessive stimulus. It is a distraction and unnecessary.
And if you want data, Bustr just gave it to you and it verified everything that I said.
U.S. Navy and AAF had similare thoughts on this in the PTO concerning tracer ammo and it signaling the enemy pilot. Hit percentages increased as tracer ammo was discontinued.
(Schiessfibel.pdf) Illustrates the Luft's focus on precision aiming via the sight picture. Or the British (Bag the Hun.pdf) which relys on learning your sight picture relative to the angle of travers of your con.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey
Report On
Armament In The Air War
1939-1945
Published at London, 1945
-
If you read correctly, it says I "get hits" 80% of the time, NOT 80% hit percent.
I read it correctly. If you get hits 80% of the time you have an 80% hit%. You're firing a stream of individual shots. Each one is directed independently of the rest, which is proven with tracers and film. A shot-stream fired while pulling fans out, it doesn't curve... In reality, you probably get hits less than 5% of the time. Even a blind man gets lucky sometimes...
No, thats FACT.
Until you expand your knowledge, and learn the definition of fact vs. opinion, there's no point in arguing with you... Grab a dictionary, or PM me and I can direct you to the information you need.
And if you want data, Bustr just gave it to you and it verified everything that I said.
Not that I'm seeing from what he's posted here. Which line/lines are you referring to?
-
I minor point, there are no "tracers" with civilian pistols, rifles, shotguns.
If you need tracers to learn to shoot how did anyone ever shoot anything?
The answer is feedback, when you did it right, something happened, ie the duck died.
The same is also true for AH. Its "feedback" that for some people is vital. Mind you, I did not say ALL, I said SOME.
For those people, tracers get in the way of seeing that feedback.
With repetition, and desire in an hour the average person can hit a thrown beer can in the air with a BB gun 4 out of 5 times. No tracers, feedback. You hear the "ding" and your brain remembers what things looked like. You learn to hit it at the top of the thrown arc, when for a split second its virtually standing still. With repeated practice some of those could move on to hitting a silver dollar sized washer with a .22 with similar results. Pure instinctive shooting.
Now for some, tracers on works better for them. For others tracers off. Why anyone would put anyone else down for their choice absolutely baffles me. Do what works for you, and if what your doing isn't working, try it the other way.
-
I need to ask...
The primary reason I've always heard/seen/read when it comes to WWII use of "no tracers" has been the idea that they gave away your presence to the enemy.
In WWII, that was a very valid point, since the majority of the time the enemy was shot down because he was unaware of your presence... In units that didn't use tracers, I've seen the reports where it was linked to more success. Again, though, it was likely due to the same reason... Most planes were shot down by "surprise", using no tracers increased the chances of "surprise", so using no tracers led to increased success.
I've never seen any correlation in WWII for increased gunnery skill due to lack of tracers, like is sometimes argued in AH. In WWII, it very well could have led to an increased hit%, because an unaware pilot was more likely to be flying straight/level (easy to hit) than doing any hard maneuvering (hard to hit). I would certainly hope that an level-flying plane with an unaware pilot would be easier to shoot down, and therefore removing tracers would likely lead to greater success.
That's generally not the case in AH though, and lack of tracers is being used to argue something else entirely. I suspect it could be a distortion of historical fact to link lack of tracers to increased skill...
In all of your responses you didn't address the the issue that some have expressed, that tracers don't provide good feedback because you can't really see where they are going. I think you are making a very good theoretical agrument about feedback, but it's only valid it the feedback is good and effective. IMO it is not very good so the trade off with giving away position is much more relevant in the cost benefit analysis. :salute
-
I think you are making a very good theoretical agrument about feedback, but it's only valid it the feedback is good and effective.
For me it is. Not perfect, but far better than having no visual feedback at all. See my earlier report about the detrimental impact of disabling tracers had on my ability to hit consitently. :)
-
For me it is. Not perfect, but far better than having no visual feedback at all. See my earlier report about the detrimental impact of disabling tracers had on my ability to hit consitently. :)
Not only did I see your earlier post, I referensed it calling it the "Lusche Effect" :salute
For me, the feedback is good in certain types of shots, and lousy in others. :salute
-
From what I read in an 8th Airforce gunnery analysis for why a tracer was not a good way to aim. The round and the flair ball behind it are far enough apart that the gunner or pilot looking at it is already behind in his mental timing. The flair ball is so large your eyes will naturaly tend to track the flair rather than looking to a point ahead of it. The shooter will tend to under compensate for the 4 or 5 rounds between tracers that he cannot see. That exaserbated the already large problem most pilots had with judging lead on a moving target befor the K14 Gyro sight came on the scene.
This is why they wanted the gunner or pilot to learn their sight picture and understand elevation, lead for given distances and angles of attack, and speed. Much of the gunnery in WW2 between fighters and their target was 300 to point blank. At those ranges a tracer helps at 300 to correct into the target. Inside of that your target is filling your gunsight and even a myopic man can pour automatic fire into something as large as a 30ft wingspan fighter. This may have been part of what eventualy dictated homogenious ammo belts to get the most damage for the load.
The real skill in WW2 or in Aces High comes down to piloting your ride inside of 300 yards at which point most players can even hit themselves in the kester with a banjo. There is nothing like flying offline and shooting over and over for 30 minutes or more at full zoom to key your brain into the proper sight picture to place a stream of rounds where the con will fly into them. I will ventur mntman has one graticule he uses all the time and the sight picture burned into his brain for elevation and lead at 400 into point blank in his favorite ride. Nothing like repetition to remove hesitation.
From watching several hours of offline drone killing film a few months back at very slow motion. The tracer in aces high is kind of like an 6 ft plasma streak 3inches in diameter tapered at both ends. When the tip of it intersects the pixel area representing parts of the con it makes damage on contact to damagable areas. Looks like plasma bolts from some FPS game. If you are leading far enough ahead of your con you will see the tracer round intersect and damge the con. I've found them to be helpful in making lead corrections to get the rest of my rounds on target. But, in most cases knowing my sight picture to begin my shooting was more important for placing enough rounds on the target to matter.
You only get better at shooting by shooting. Ergo, in an air combat simulator you have to practice flying along with the shooting to make the shooting better. Chicken or Egg.....hmmmm...KFC...heheheh ee
Please refrain from confusing this discussion with facts :P
-
Not only did I see your earlier post, I referensed it calling it the "Lusche Effect" :salute
You are confusing something.
The "Lusche Effect" is when someone is getting so much immersed in stats & numbers that he not only forgets to play the game over it, but also feels the urge to use every possible excuse to post senseless charts... like this one:
(http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1375/clipboard02cb.jpg)
:D
:uhoh
:bolt:
-
You are confusing something.
The "Lusche Effect" is when someone is getting so much immersed in stats & numbers that he not only forgets to play the game over it, but also feels the urge to use every possible excuse to post senseless charts... like this one:
(http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1375/clipboard02cb.jpg)
:D
:uhoh
:bolt:
:rofl
-
You are confusing something.
The "Lusche Effect" is when someone is getting so much immersed in stats & numbers that he not only forgets to play the game over it, but also feels the urge to use every possible excuse to post senseless charts... like this one:
(http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1375/clipboard02cb.jpg)
:D
:uhoh
:bolt:
I like your stats. They make me feel good about my ePen.
-
From what I've seen on WWII gun cam films.it appears that most pilots used tracers.One about every tenth round.I watched an interview with Bud Anderson,and he said he only used tracers at the end of the belt to let him know he was getting low on ammo.He also stated he didn't care which Pony he flew as the lack of a pair of MG's didn't bother him.Personally I would like the 6 MG package,as with 4,it's assist city for me.
In the game,and with all the ho-ing taking place,tracers off is probably best.With all the face shooting going on,there will be collisions,and we all have had this one happen.The bad guy collides with you ,you get a ton of damage,and die,and he gets the kill.it also works the exact oppsite.I have seen a oncoming bad guy fly close to me and never hit me,and he gets a collide message!If they ever fix that aspect of the game it would be nice.
I use tracers off most of the time,but will switch once in awhile.I spray and pray,so it doesn't matter for the most part.
The Dawg
-
You are confusing something.
The "Lusche Effect" is when someone is getting so much immersed in stats & numbers that he not only forgets to play the game over it, but also feels the urge to use every possible excuse to post senseless charts... like this one:
(http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1375/clipboard02cb.jpg)
:D
:uhoh
:bolt:
:lol :aok
-
You are confusing something.
The "Lusche Effect" is when someone is getting so much immersed in stats & numbers that he not only forgets to play the game over it, but also feels the urge to use every possible excuse to post senseless charts... like this one:
(http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1375/clipboard02cb.jpg)
:D
:uhoh
:bolt:
Cumulative distribution please :)
-
Cumulative distribution please :)
Something like this?
(http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/3728/clipboard01z.jpg)
-
I'm one of those players doing very good in the shooting department in AH.
Without tracers, I suck.
I think it's one of those things that where it helps some and just doesn't help others. I know when I first started AH after coming from AW, my shooting was terrible with tracers on. Nowhere near the accuracy I had in AW, so I followed someone one's suggestion and turned off tracers and watched as my accuracy improved. It's to the point now that I can fly either with them on or off without any loss of accuracy between the two. I usually keep them on now because I am too lazy to go into preferences and enable/disable them when I hop between the Lightning and B-25H (use tracers to mark targets for friendly GVs).
ack-ack
-
Sight picture and repetition.
I used to shoot with and old marine who talked me into buying an M1A1 and a garand. All he would talk about was sight picture. Post and Pumpkin. Look through the rear peep. Line up the front post with the black target center on top in the center of the peep. Post and pumpkin. Burn it into my brain. 6 months later of shooting several hundred rounds a weekend with him I could off hand and put 5 in the black at 200 everytime.
Aces High is the same way. I cannot account for anyones flying skill. There are trainers and many hot aces in the DA. But, your gunnery is simple. Sight picture. First find a gunsight that works for you. If you want to be technicaly correct here is a real world sighting spec that works in the game because Hitech has programed down to that level of granularity.
Make a gunsight for your american, british, japanese and russian planes that has an outer ring 120mil, inner 60mil and a cross for a dot that is 25mil across. In your aircraft move your FOV forward until the 120mil ring fits the reflector plate or is even smaller. With the german, italian, Ki61/84 make a 100mil ring with a cross. Move your FOV forward to make the 100mil ring fit. With the Revi the 100mil ring showed roughly as 2/3 the width of the glass. Japanese just fit the glass.
Many countries pre WW2 copied german export gunsights so their graticule was often to german standards. 100mil ring. Japanese used both 100mil and 120mil. Army, Navy kind of thing.
Offline chase cons around for 30 minutes at a time. Set your ammo to 10x in the arena setup so you can spray. Start all shooting at 400 yards and at "full zoom". Eventualy you will notice for most 400 yard lead shots you place the edge of the 60mil ring on the fuslage of the con elevated up from center about halfway down the vertical line of the cross. With the cricle and cross 100mil ring you hold the con's fuslage 2/3 off center inside of the 100mil ring with elevation. Helps to have the standard Reflexvisier stadia marks. Because of repitition you will start anticipating your lead and elevation due to perviously shooting at the same lead and elevation so many times before. Becomes second nature after awhile and you can focus on the pilot stuff....Tracers....optional or as a minor lead correction indicator.
The 100mph ring talked about by the british is 120mil with the horz bar spaced at 60mil. PBP1 120/60 with cross. American rings with the N-2 and N-3 series started out 30mil and migrated upwards through the war. N9, 120/60 move your FOV to fit it in the 51B and 47D-11/25. The K14 had a minimum setting of 60mil and a maximum of 120 which all fit on the K14 glass. Raise yourself up and move forward in the P51D and you will see the projector lenses. That is the size the 120mil ring should show on the glass. I found a reference to the Navy's Mk8 that it was actualy 200mil with a 100 then 50 ring while in some aircraft it was resized. Most times we only see the 100 and 50 rings in pictures. The Reflexvisier ring in all models is 50mm on the glass plate or 100mil with the stadia marks at about 16mil. Italian SanGior, 100/50 rings. Revi style cross/ring in 205 with MG151/20.
Why am I going here? Hitech has modeled the illusion of speed and distance accuratly. But, our default FOV is not. It's a comprimise to give us a semblance of periferal vision. I used to make the mistake of creating gunsights to fit the ring to the glass plate to look like each countries manuals. The gunsights though in their original specifications on zoom work as the manuals say they should. Especialy if you know the correct ring diameters the historic gunsights used.
60mil = 30ft wingspan at 200 yards. 400 yard deflection hold off 20-30 degrees.
120mil = distance at 200 yards aircraft travels left to right at 100 mph in .254 second.
120mil = 30ft wingspan inside of 200 yards only a blindman misses.
16mil stadia marks = deflection marks to calculate degrees of radi to shoot lead.
100mil = 10m wingspan at 100m.
100mil = 30m wingspan at 300m.
Sight picture and repitition.
-
Sight picture and repetition...
Awesome post! :aok
-
I read it correctly. If you get hits 80% of the time you have an 80% hit%. You're firing a stream of individual shots. Each one is directed independently of the rest, which is proven with tracers and film. A shot-stream fired while pulling fans out, it doesn't curve... In reality, you probably get hits less than 5% of the time. Even a blind man gets lucky sometimes...
Until you expand your knowledge, and learn the definition of fact vs. opinion, there's no point in arguing with you... Grab a dictionary, or PM me and I can direct you to the information you need.
Not that I'm seeing from what he's posted here. Which line/lines are you referring to?
Ya need to work on that comprehension.
I would suggest, when you can't come up with valid arguments, try insults. But you already knew that.
-
Something like this?
(http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/3728/clipboard01z.jpg)
I was thinking more of on the y axis you have cumulative percentage going up to 100%, x you have players. If you calculated the std dev and mean of the data and plotted Z norms on the Y axis you would have a beauty:)
U could plot every player data point on one graph actually and see what kind of distribution it is, i.e. normal, lognormal, extreme, etc.
-
U could plot every player data point on one graph actually
There is a single data point for every player on that second graph. It's an X-Y graph, with the players sorted by hit% on the X axis.
-
No, thats FACT. You and many others may have become desensitized to it and learned to use it, but it is still a distraction.
It is fact that the more stimulus, the more the human brain and eye has to focus on the worse the results of the overall task. It has been scientifically proven beyond all doubt.
I didn't want to skip past this, but had to run to work...
If it's being used, it qualifies as a tool, not a distraction. The fact that you haven't learned to use it doesn't change the fact that it's a tool. And it's a tool that you haven't replaced with a different tool in the case of tracers/no tracers.
Stimulus- you're picking the "juicy" parts of the study apart, and distorting the truth by leaving leaving out other parts of the study that don't support your theory. It's a misleading representation of the facts. In your sentence above, it could be summarized that more stimulus is always bad, which is far from the truth...
Stimulus is a requirement for learning. If you lived in a stimulus free environment you'd learn nothing (and you wouldn't need to). So stimulus isn't bad, and could be even argued as being a good "force". At the very least, we'd have to classify it as "neutral" overall.
What you mean (if I may be so bold) is closer to "too much stimulus is bad". "Too much" doesn't equate to "the more", though. We could actually have "more" stimulus, but still have "too little" to learn the task, right?
I'll let you answer that though. No point in progressing until we agree on the basics.
So when firing, you have to watch the pipper, the target, and the tracers. Compared to just the target and the pipper. And that doesnt even consider all of the other stimulus the pilot has to deal with...
I watch the target, and ignore the pipper and tracers until/unless I find them useful/necessary. Most of the time, the sight is not pointing where my rounds will hit anyway. I've learned that it's not a very good reference (when it comes to my shooting). It's nowhere near as useful as a sight on a rifle or pistol, for example.
And tell me this, how well are you really judging where those tracers are going when there are dozens of them arcing in your view? So not only do you see the bullets on the upward leg of the arc, but you are seeing tracers that preceded those on the downward arc further out, PLUS the crisscrossing on wing mounted guns. It all adds up to excessive stimulus. It is a distraction and unnecessary.
The easy (and obvious) answer is "pretty dang good". I've learned to interpret them, and ignore the information I don't need. Truthfully, I'm not even aware of them most of the time. I see them peripherally, but only pay attention to them for brief snippets of time when I want to know where my misses are going. They're a tool that I want instant access to, even though I seldom pay much attention to them. For example, I couldn't even tell you what color they are off-hand.
I could probably blame them for my very good aerial gunnery, but that would be jumping to conclusions. I'd need to look at the other causes as well, in order to identify the "real" cause (s). Have I practiced more? Concentrated more? Chosen easier targets? Wasted less rounds on targets that would lower my hit%? Has my accuracy really improved due to my tracers, or are they really just a small factor overall?
They definitely don't qualify as a "distraction" in my world, though. They don't effect me negatively (if they do, it's very minor), but they do effect me positively. They even effect me positively when I miss, because they tell me where I missed.
If I get time, I'll even throw together some films to show you what I mean.
****Speaking of which, I'd really like to see some film clips of some of you fighting without tracers. Anyone willing to post some? Not just the "final shot", but some that are representative of the "norm", start of fight to finish.
-
Sight picture and repetition.
I used to shoot with and old marine who talked me into buying an M1A1 and a garand. All he would talk about was sight picture. Post and Pumpkin. Look through the rear peep. Line up the front post with the black target center on top in the center of the peep. Post and pumpkin. Burn it into my brain. 6 months later of shooting several hundred rounds a weekend with him I could off hand and put 5 in the black at 200 everytime.
Aces High is the same way. I cannot account for anyones flying skill. There are trainers and many hot aces in the DA. But, your gunnery is simple. Sight picture. First find a gunsight that works for you. If you want to be technicaly correct here is a real world sighting spec that works in the game because Hitech has programed down to that level of granularity.
Make a gunsight for your american, british, japanese and russian planes that has an outer ring 120mil, inner 60mil and a cross for a dot that is 25mil across. In your aircraft move your FOV forward until the 120mil ring fits the reflector plate or is even smaller. With the german, italian, Ki61/84 make a 100mil ring with a cross. Move your FOV forward to make the 100mil ring fit. With the Revi the 100mil ring showed roughly as 2/3 the width of the glass. Japanese just fit the glass.
Many countries pre WW2 copied german export gunsights so their graticule was often to german standards. 100mil ring. Japanese used both 100mil and 120mil. Army, Navy kind of thing.
Offline chase cons around for 30 minutes at a time. Set your ammo to 10x in the arena setup so you can spray. Start all shooting at 400 yards and at "full zoom". Eventualy you will notice for most 400 yard lead shots you place the edge of the 60mil ring on the fuslage of the con elevated up from center about halfway down the vertical line of the cross. With the cricle and cross 100mil ring you hold the con's fuslage 2/3 off center inside of the 100mil ring with elevation. Helps to have the standard Reflexvisier stadia marks. Because of repitition you will start anticipating your lead and elevation due to perviously shooting at the same lead and elevation so many times before. Becomes second nature after awhile and you can focus on the pilot stuff....Tracers....optional or as a minor lead correction indicator.
The 100mph ring talked about by the british is 120mil with the horz bar spaced at 60mil. PBP1 120/60 with cross. American rings with the N-2 and N-3 series started out 30mil and migrated upwards through the war. N9, 120/60 move your FOV to fit it in the 51B and 47D-11/25. The K14 had a minimum setting of 60mil and a maximum of 120 which all fit on the K14 glass. Raise yourself up and move forward in the P51D and you will see the projector lenses. That is the size the 120mil ring should show on the glass. I found a reference to the Navy's Mk8 that it was actualy 200mil with a 100 then 50 ring while in some aircraft it was resized. Most times we only see the 100 and 50 rings in pictures. The Reflexvisier ring in all models is 50mm on the glass plate or 100mil with the stadia marks at about 16mil. Italian SanGior, 100/50 rings. Revi style cross/ring in 205 with MG151/20.
Why am I going here? Hitech has modeled the illusion of speed and distance accuratly. But, our default FOV is not. It's a comprimise to give us a semblance of periferal vision. I used to make the mistake of creating gunsights to fit the ring to the glass plate to look like each countries manuals. The gunsights though in their original specifications on zoom work as the manuals say they should. Especialy if you know the correct ring diameters the historic gunsights used.
60mil = 30ft wingspan at 200 yards. 400 yard deflection hold off 20-30 degrees.
120mil = distance at 200 yards aircraft travels left to right at 100 mph in .254 second.
120mil = 30ft wingspan inside of 200 yards only a blindman misses.
16mil stadia marks = deflection marks to calculate degrees of radi to shoot lead.
100mil = 10m wingspan at 100m.
100mil = 30m wingspan at 300m.
Sight picture and repitition.
This is the sight I've always done best with.
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m309/Mtnman_03/Blk_Dot.jpg)
But again, I really don't pay much attention to the sight. Most of my shooting is in the D200 - D400 range (so 100-500yds actual), although I'll open on bombers out to D600 occasionally (D200 - D400 is my norm there, too).
-
I do agree with the statement that given an aircraft which:
- Has 6+ guns.
- Guns where convergence is severe (wing guns).
- Is firing at D500+ (give or take)
... will result in a lot of tracers, which in my opinion can most definitely be much more than needed to track shots.
So now my question becomes: What if for aircraft of this sort you could decide if only two of those guns (probably the outboard most guns) would have tracers loaded but the rest without? A good example would be for the Spit-1 and P47 models. Would this be at all realistic? Did pilots opt for this in reality? Did pilots of those aircraft even use tracers? I would think in reality having 8 streams of tracers would be nearly blinding especially at dusk and dawn (I'm aware that at night tracers were never loaded). Does anybody have any data on this? Thanks!
-
I do agree with the statement that given an aircraft which:
- Has 6+ guns.
- Guns where convergence is severe (wing guns).
- Is firing at D500+ (give or take)
... will result in a lot of tracers, which in my opinion can most definitely be much more than needed to track shots.
So now my question becomes: What if for aircraft of this sort you could decide if only two of those guns (probably the outboard most guns) would have tracers loaded but the rest without? A good example would be for the Spit-1 and P47 models. Would this be at all realistic? Did pilots opt for this in reality? Did pilots of those aircraft even use tracers? I would think in reality having 8 streams of tracers would be nearly blinding especially at dusk and dawn (I'm aware that at night tracers were never loaded). Does anybody have any data on this? Thanks!
at some point there was a rumour that we would be able to make our own ammo belts. That would be cool.
-
Tool to some... distraction to others.
Used correctly means walking them on as opposed to using the sight picture.
Would be interesting to see how many that use tracers actually pay much attention to their sight before or during firing.
-
Would be interesting to see how many that use tracers actually pay much attention to their sight before or during firing.
Hmmm...
I'm a "tracer on" (98% of my sorties that is) player. My shooting process is as following: Like Mtnman, I use the simple dot gunsight. No additional reticles, lines or dots to confuse me. I use "the force", meaning I do shoot using my inner sight picture. If I miss my target, I use the tracers as feedback as to by how much and in which direction I did miss, so I can adjust my inner sight picture next time without guessing too much what went wrong. Only occasionally I am really "walking my fire" towards my target, mostly when flying US planes and attacking bombers from long range (but usually not that much adjustment necessary ;) ).
By the way, it's similar in tanks. I don't use the fancy German sight as supposed, I have it set to a fixed range and that's it, using the big triangle just like the "dot" gunsight in a fighter.
-
Would be interesting to see how many that use tracers actually pay much attention to their sight before or during firing.
I do.
ack-ack
-
There is a single data point for every player on that second graph. It's an X-Y graph, with the players sorted by hit% on the X axis.
Can you msg me the source data for those graphs? I'll post what I am not explaining very well.
-
...and that is simply because my stats in this game have exactly zero influence on my life.
Your BBS stats, now that's another matter ;)
-
Can you msg me the source data for those graphs?
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/scores/planes.php
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/scores/pilot.php
:devil
-
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/scores/planes.php
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/scores/pilot.php
:devil
:ahand
:lol
-
This is the sight I've always done best with.
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m309/Mtnman_03/Blk_Dot.jpg)
But again, I really don't pay much attention to the sight. Most of my shooting is in the D200 - D400 range (so 100-500yds actual), although I'll open on bombers out to D600 occasionally (D200 - D400 is my norm there, too).
You really only have half of the Dot 'O Death sight.
Go here and check it out ... http://www.dogfightersclub.org/gunsights/dot_o_death.htm
-
This is the sight I've always done best with.
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m309/Mtnman_03/Blk_Dot.jpg)
But again, I really don't pay much attention to the sight. Most of my shooting is in the D200 - D400 range (so 100-500yds actual), although I'll open on bombers out to D600 occasionally (D200 - D400 is my norm there, too).
mtnman,
Thats a dot in the center of a 30mil circle(fuzzy BIG dougnut). At the begining of WW2 30mil ring and dot was the standard in AAF N-2/N-3 gunsights used by the U.S. and Britian. Just before Midway the Navy got rid of the sighting tube on in their Wildcats for N-3B and modified it to 35mil to induce some lead shot ability while waiting for the Barr&Stroud MKII/Mk8 to become available. June of 43 a maintenance order was issued for the AAF to replace the 30mil ring with a 70mil ring in the N-2/N-3 sights.
15mil/30pixel is about the average your graticule centerline stays above the highest point of travel along 400 yards for your rounds in the game except nearing and exiting the convergence point. About 6 months ago I took the spit9, K4, P51D, La7, Yak9T and 109G2 and graphed round impacts against the offline target every 50 yards out to 650 for the MK108/Ns-37 and 1000 for everything else. Convergence test sets at 150, 250 and 400.(man it was BORING) I created a 5mil grid target 150mil in diameter and recorded against the center line of the target the following.
GCL - above/below tcl<---on average your graticule CL is 80cm above engine CL at the cockpit.
MG - above/below tcl
C/MK - above/below tcl
Dispersion - (x,y) feild in mil
If you set (.target 10), F3 and look from the side you will see the airplane CL is tied to the target CL.
Note: At this time I beleive setting your engine mounted cannon to 250-650 is about the same as locking them into the engine CL at 0-degree. Nose bounce and coad induced dispersion eliminates any fractions of a degree in elevation. Sorry Mr. Hitech I had to beat myself over the head for awhile to accept you are correct. :)
In AH your GCL (graticule center line) is tilted down and out for you automaticly as you pull your convergence points out to 650 in the hanger following your primary gun. You can graph this for your selves via the method outlined above. It is pulled down to intersect the line of your primary gun at the convergence point you set. But, your rounds will then travel at or just below that point for another 50-100 yards and stay below the GCL. On average 400 yards is the best distance that your rounds consistantly average staying within 15mil/30pixel of the bottom of your GCL except at convergence point.
For the most part the only thing convergence settings do is concentrate your bullet streams at a setpoint@distance. Based on my testing your aim point is the same at all effective distances, just a tad above the con because of the GCL line of sight being auto angled down. But, TIMING for bullet travel and/or angle of lead is what gunnery becomes about after you put in the TIME learning your sight picture. We don't shoot lazers in this game yet......
Everyone is different, so this being a game and not the US Militairy, we all have whatever works for our eyes as a graticule in our gunsights. But, the fact of using it over an extended period of time means you have learned your "Sight Picture" by repitition. Now, for the most part you know where ahead of your con to place the center of it to send your bullet streams to let the con fly through them. (Sight Picture and Repitition......)
Angles, Realative Speeds, Timing, Elevation, Holdover, Bullet Time to Target and Sight Picture.
Mntman, I thought the tracers were hot pink, or is it lavender....hmmmm....I know!!! It looks like a stream of tiny Hot Pink winged sheep with rockets stuck in their tiney kesters...piu, sssss, baaa, piu, sssssss, baaaaaa...boooom.......yeah.<---AH Cartoon Material..hehheheee
-
This tour I turned my tracers off for a few reasons, number one my aim is good enough I don't need the tracers to adjust. Secondly, when bullets wizz past someone they tend to stick stur like no tomarrow, I fly the Ki-84 so I tend to use the 12.7's till I get hits then tap the 20s.
More often then none, I get more kills on a pretty tough deflection shot then If I were flying any other plane, I would highly recommend someone turning them off for a tour then see how much they get better.
-
There is a single data point for every player on that second graph. It's an X-Y graph, with the players sorted by hit% on the X axis.
First one shows cumulative distribution as hit percentage increases. Easy to understand but it gets cluttered at the max boundary condition making it hard to read as it approaches 100%. So for example, 50% of the population has less than 3.6% hit percentage. 90% of population has less than ~8.5% and so on. Just really easy to read.
Second one is the same graph with inverse normal on Y axis which is basically "normal standard deviations away from the mean". Easier to read for boundary conditions. You can see exactly how many players have high hit percentages and how much dispersion they actually have from the population.
I also removed anyone with less than 2 hours of flight time for that tour to attempt to remove outliers which would drag the mean down. Total data points ~3600.
(http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo237/grizz441/cumprobability.png)
(http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo237/grizz441/inversenormal.png)
-
First one shows cumulative distribution as hit percentage increases
And is basically the same graph as mine, just with swapped axis :)
The second is too complex for me, would have to understand math first I'm afraid :uhoh
-
And is basically the same graph as mine, just with swapped axis :)
Yeah it's close, I just did one extra step of sorting into probability of exceedances.
-
Graph war!
-
Yeah it's close, I just did one extra step of sorting into probability of exceedances.
I first did scale the X axis 0-100% (which would be the same as 0-1 on you Y axis), but I chose not to do this and get back to player ranks numbers to keep this chart as telling and accessible for the ordinary guy (=one like me) as possible ;) I even prefer my first one, as it's even simpler to understand.
Tracers rock! (<- to avoid this post being completely off-topic) :D
-
Too bad the relative coordinates of impacting rounds travel&(initiating distance) From--->To - (x,y,z) the target is not tracked along with the hit% stats. Then map that either for each player entity for possible gunnery skill estimates or aggregate to all players for position of most taken shots. Closest thing we might get to a post combat accumilitive debreifing regiment with guncam reviews to each individual.
Player A askes Trainer B to help him with his gunnery and ACM. Trainer B pulls up Player A's (x,y,z) hit report to get an idea of his targeting choice per each con killed and/or assisted.
This would still end up with the Trainer telling the Player to practice offline and develop his sight picture. But, in the meantime the Trainer would augment that with positive ACM training.
-
If it's being used, it qualifies as a tool, not a distraction. The fact that you haven't learned to use it doesn't change the fact that it's a tool. And it's a tool that you haven't replaced with a different tool in the case of tracers/no tracers.
Who told you I didnt know how to use it? I have never said it wasnt a valid tool. There's that comprehension problem again. It works very well to figure out where shots are going for very complex multi angle, high angle, and high G shots. And I have used them to plot and improve my own aiming.
Stimulus- you're picking the "juicy" parts of the study apart, and distorting the truth by leaving leaving out other parts of the study that don't support your theory. It's a misleading representation of the facts. In your sentence above, it could be summarized that more stimulus is always bad, which is far from the truth...
Look whos talking about misleading and representation. I never even told you where I got the information and you are accusing me of leaving out parts of a study that you havent read. Brilliant. So which parts of the study did I "pick," "distort," and "leave out?"
In your sentence above, it could be summarized that more stimulus is always bad, which is far from the truth...
Excess stimulus IS ALWAYS bad. But there is a certain point at which you cannot reduce the amount of stimulus before the results start to suffer. I can get rid of tracers and still be a proficient shooter. Competition trap shooters and bird hunters do it all the time without tracers. I could probably even get rid of the gunsight altogether and still shoot fairly well, but the hit% would probably drop.
I watch the target, and ignore the pipper and tracers until/unless I find them useful/necessary.
They definitely don't qualify as a "distraction" in my world, though.
So you say in the same post that you ignore the pipper and the tracers but they are not a distraction. Then why do you ignore them? I'll tell you why, because your brain does not want to deal with unneeded stimulus. They are distracting. You are shooting from other visual references. It might be the outline of the gunsight-glass, some part of the nose of your aircraft, or the framing of your windscreen. In actuality, it is all of them. They are part of the total amount of stimulus we all have to process. You have become an experienced shooter and you have learned to tune out information you dont need.
Just in case I didnt make myself clear enough in the begining, I never said tracers didnt help to learn. But at some point they become a hindrance. Especially in certain planes and shots.
-
You really only have half of the Dot 'O Death sight.
Go here and check it out ... http://www.dogfightersclub.org/gunsights/dot_o_death.htm
Thanks Slap! I think that's probably where I got the sight from, actually. I have several different versions, and I'm not even sure all 4 of the planes I fly have the same version loaded. I have the two-dot version too.
-
First one shows cumulative distribution as hit percentage increases. Easy to understand but it gets cluttered at the max boundary condition making it hard to read as it approaches 100%. So for example, 50% of the population has less than 3.6% hit percentage. 90% of population has less than ~8.5% and so on. Just really easy to read.
Second one is the same graph with inverse normal on Y axis which is basically "normal standard deviations away from the mean". Easier to read for boundary conditions. You can see exactly how many players have high hit percentages and how much dispersion they actually have from the population.
I also removed anyone with less than 2 hours of flight time for that tour to attempt to remove outliers which would drag the mean down. Total data points ~3600.
(http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo237/grizz441/cumprobability.png)
(http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo237/grizz441/inversenormal.png)
The only thing I don't liek about these graphs is that I came home today thinking I wouldn't need to look at anything like that tonight, lol.
-
The only thing I don't liek about these graphs is that I came home today thinking I wouldn't need to look at anything like that tonight, lol.
:lol
-
Muzik-
I'm getting kind of burnt out with going around in circles with you, truthfully. If you have any idea what you're talking about, you'll be able to look back at your statements and see exactly what I'm talking about. If not, oh well. Maybe I'll feel like delving into it again tomorrow.
The "responsibility" for clear communication lies with whom? My reading comprehension has actually been tested several times recently, and found to be well above the norm. That's probably a large part of the reason I can understand what your meaning is even if the facts you present aren't complete and your statements are misleading due to their (unintentional, I'm sure) incompleteness.
I apologize though. I commented on your "opinions" before, when they would have been more accurately described as "theory's".
Anyway, this is what intrigues me at this point...
Just in case I didnt make myself clear enough in the begining, I never said tracers didnt help to learn. But at some point they become a hindrance. Especially in certain planes and shots.
Honestly, I think you could possibly have a valid point, but I'm curious... At what point do they become a hindrance? At a certain skill-level? Hit%, time, distance, g-force, caliber? What? Which planes? Which pilots? How do you know when you've reached that point? How would I know my students had reached that point? What's the sample size, and how was it measured? If it's not your data, is it available for us to view anyway?
And once they've reached the point of "hindrance" (if they ever do) what are the measurable consequences? Without consequences, "hindrance" doesn't really apply, does it?
Keep in mind, back to the beginning, I challenged the idea that turning them off directly leads to improved accuracy. If that's true, turning them on should do what? Or for me, turning them off should do what?
If turning them off/on relies on other changes to influence accuracy (like time, practice, level of attention/concentration, etc) then it suggests that turning them off probably doesn't result in an increase in accuracy. On the other hand, if a pilot turned them off and saw a decline in accuracy (even with more time/practice added to his/her experience), followed by an increase when they were turned back on, what would be suggested?
Personally, I don't care whether folks turn them on/off, or see them as a distraction. What irks me is the recommendation that turning them off will improve your accuracy when it's much more probable that time, practice, and concentration are the real influences.
I wonder if a study could be performed in the game environment that could prove it one way or the other?
-
I aspire to the "Spray and Pray" theory. No math, formulas, tracers, or graphs needed :confused:
-
Honestly, I am getting bored with it too.
Obviously your comprehension tests didnt include a question on the difference between "getting hits 80% of the time at 600 yds" and "having an 80% hit percentage on shots at 600 yds"
Pop quiz...
Keep in mind, back to the beginning, I challenged the idea that turning them off directly leads to improved accuracy.
If turning them off/on relies on other changes to influence accuracy (like time, practice, level of attention/concentration, etc) then it suggests that turning them off probably doesn't result in an increase in accuracy.
What irks me is the recommendation that turning them off will improve your accuracy when it's much more probable that time, practice, and concentration are the real influences.
Did you or did you not comprehend this entire thread as a suggestion that the mere act of turning off your tracers would magically make anyone a better shot? Or are you just typing all the babble that pops into your head to confuse the situation?
I even specifically said that after missing your shots initially that you could start to hone in on the sweet spot that resulted in kills. That is comprehended as, and a perfect translation to, "time, practice, and concentration.
Anyhow, it's obvious since you didnt see fit to clarify what information I was leaving out or misrepresenting that you are the one who is trying to make your point by throwing baseless accusations and insults around.
DONE!
-
<snip>
15mil/30pixel is about the average...
</snip>
Are you saying 1 mil equals 2 pixels in game? I'm asking because I'd like to make some modifications to the gunsight I use in accordance with what real pilots used as described in one of your previous posts here.
-
The subject of our next 10 page thread will be "Convergence".
- - DO NOT Procrastinate
- - Have your thread prepared in advance
- - You must be able to support your argument with a valid source (Wikipedia doesn't count)
Points will be deducted for spelling and grammatical errors
Extra Credit - Any graphs utilizing dancing bananas
Class dismissed :D
-
I'm sure some of you have a copy of or can find the following for free on the Internet:
(Schiessfibel.pdf) Illustrates the Luft's focus on precision aiming via the sight picture. Or the British (Bag the Hun.pdf) which relys on learning your sight picture relative to the angle of travers of your con.
I've been hosting these for some time, here you go:-
http://www.4shared.com/document/SSRZ0ds3/Bag_the_Hun__RAF_Gunnery_Manua.html
http://www.4shared.com/document/QCAOypFW/Schiessfibel.html
There's also a good video on YouTube based on Bag the Hun:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsIz2bIBLwM
-
Are you saying 1 mil equals 2 pixels in game? I'm asking because I'd like to make some modifications to the gunsight I use in accordance with what real pilots used as described in one of your previous posts here.
Only in a 512x512 8-bit bitmap. 1mil = 2pixel. 240pixel ring = 120mil ring. Always include with a (xxxxx.bmp) a (xxxxx.mil) text file with 256 in it for the 512x512 format. Make sure the base background for the bitmap is black.
Make a ring and dot 60mil gunsight this way. Offline at full zoom pull up behind cons at different distances and check wingspan inside of the circle. Put a bomber in the circuit and check a 120mil ring. At 800 yards the 120mil ring is the holdover for shooting at a 20-30degree angle. Download the last posters manuals. You will see something familiar in Bag the Hun. It all works in this game.
-
nrshida, bustr, AWESOME posts, sirs. :aok
Thanks for sharing!
-
Obviously your comprehension tests didnt include a question on the difference between "getting hits 80% of the time at 600 yds" and "having an 80% hit percentage on shots at 600 yds"
I know the difference, which is why I pointed out that your wording was ambiguous and could be easily misinterpreted.
I've comprehended your (probable) meaning all along. :aok
-
If you guys spent a quarter of the time you spend on explaining why you know more than the others, in improving your flying, this game could be awesome :aok
Pages and pages and pages on why less input is better than more input backed with useless facts about WWII etc. This game is played on a 2D screen. What ever you think happened in real life does not always apply here.
-
If you guys spent a quarter of the time you spend on explaining why you know more than the others, in improving your flying, this game could be awesome :aok
Pages and pages and pages on why less input is better than more input backed with useless facts about WWII etc. This game is played on a 2D screen. What ever you think happened in real life does not always apply here.
I smell sarcasm. So you are in the more input is better camp?
-
I smell sarcasm. So you are in the more input is better camp?
Yeah, but that is not why I posted that. I just thought that if some of the aces posting here spent a quarter of that time practicing instead of posting pages and pages of useless real world stuff, we would have some awesome fights in the game instead of long chases :lol
-
Dedalos,
Hitech and Pyro had to learn all this usless crap to give you a game to participate in so you could tell the rest of us we have waisted our lives learning it for whatever reasons motivated us. I learned much of the theory while learning to use a Mildot scope in real life.
I learned about flying begining at age 5 in Milsurp Brit Austers in Peshawar Pakistan while my father was stationed at Badaber, Peshawar Air Station 6937th Communications Group USAFSS. They launched U2's and RB57's to spy on Russia from there way back when. Gary Powers launched from there in 1960. The nice pakistani gentelman showing me how to fly was a spit pilot out of India for the British during WW2.
Have you learned anything interesting in the last 40 years?? Or just how to play this ideot game??
-
Yeah, but that is not why I posted that. I just thought that if some of the aces posting here spent a quarter of that time practicing instead of posting pages and pages of useless real world stuff, we would have some awesome fights in the game instead of long chases :lol
That's true, but I can't fly and practice at the office, so I post instead! I suspect many daytime posters are in the same boat. :D
But your point is well made :salute
-
That's true, but I can't fly and practice at the office, so I post instead! I suspect many daytime posters are in the same boat. :D
But your point is well made :salute
It was not directed at you. Look above lol
-
Dedalos,
Hitech and Pyro had to learn all this usless crap to give you a game to participate in
Yep, but they developed a business that feeds several people and provide entertainment for many others. I don;t see them posting pages and pages of WWII irrelevant facts to explain why it is better to not have feed back on your shots. And BTW, they did not do it to give me anything. They did it because they liked it and made for a good business.
so you could tell the rest of us we have waisted our lives learning it for whatever reasons motivated us. I learned much of the theory while learning to use a Mildot scope in real life.
No sir, I never said that. I said if you spent part of the time you spent to post all these wonderful facts practicing, you would be a better player. I think that is a true statement right? Then again, you may also think that no practice is better than some practice lol. And to avoid further confusion, I said if you did. Not that you had to.
I learned about flying begining at age 5 in Milsurp Brit Austers in Peshawar Pakistan while my father was stationed at Badaber, Peshawar Air Station 6937th Communications Group USAFSS. They launched U2's and RB57's to spy on Russia from there way back when. Gary Powers launched from there in 1960. The nice pakistani gentelman showing me how to fly was a spit pilot out of India for the British during WW2.
Again with the useless facts. The fact that they launched U2's to spy on Russia some how gives credit to what you have to say? :lol Oh wait, if Gary launched from there you must have a good point. Did the nice Pakistani let you fire the guns with no tracers at age 5 also? :rofl
Have you learned anything interesting in the last 40 years?? Or just how to play this ideot game??
Yes, I have learned to recognize something as being funny and treating it as that. I know, nothing near as impressive knowing where Gary used to launch from.
-
If you guys spent a quarter of the time you spend on explaining why you know more than the others, in improving your flying, this game could be awesome :aok
I have to take breaks sometimes, how else are you ever going to have a chance to catch up to my level. :devil
-
Firing with tracers can result in a significant frame rate drop with marginal systems. This is probably the most beneficial aspect of turning tracers off for many.
-
Firing with tracers can result in a significant frame rate drop with marginal systems. This is probably the most beneficial aspect of turning tracers off for many.
Yep
-
I have to take breaks sometimes, how else are you ever going to have a chance to catch up to my level. :devil
WELL, YOU NEED TO POST MORE OFTEN THEN :furious
-
Dedalos,
I used to get paid to play AW to support sound card questions as a phone tech in the early 90's. Media Vision from it's Thunder Board on until they closed their doors and became Aureal Semiconductor. Back in those days when Paul Jain was the CEO and got in trouble. I put my time in with AW then again here with AH since 2002. Knowing all this historical gunsight data simply happened along the years of the two games. Now days I have the time and the money for many usless things that you would equate makes me useless. But, I do have the time during the day and other odd hours as you see because I made some very good decisions along the last 40 years. Then not everyone has to work 9-5 anymore in these so modern times to take care of their familes. Thinking about retiring to the Rumford area near the White Mountains in Maine. That would be a realy useless thing I guess... :)
No the nice pakistani man did not show me how to fire the guns in the Taylorcraft Austor IV. The British never found a need to mount more than a very pistol in the cabin since it was for liason and observation. In the pakistani Auster IV they only had a small wooden stool like contraption for the third person in the back where I sat most of the time as my father took flying lessons. In 63 the Peshawar flying club had 3 of them. Two for flying and one for spare parts. I did get to sit in a spitfire outside of Dunstable Downs in southern Bedfordshire once in 1960. I pressed the button on the control stick's ring and made my own version of Piu-Piu-Piu.....kinda like a gerbil with the walkin ferts.
The past is so useless, all that knowlege and experience laying around unused cluttering up things and putting everyone to sleep. Just gets all in the way here in the present for whats important to todays folks. Whatever that is?? Cloths have changed a bit and technology but, most folks still can't realy say whats important. They just seem to be stuck in the same loop then as now that what others think or say is irrelevant, useless and not important. Isn't repeating the same thing over and over again the clynical definition of insanity or some such variation on that theme??
-
Thinking about retiring to the Rumford area near the White Mountains in Maine.
(Looks around) (Where is ROX?) (OK, I have to do it then)
FAIL!
You need to move further north and east. Dover-Foxcroft. Greenville. Millinocket.
- oldman (who is planning to retire at the homestead on Sebec Lake)
WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR SCHEDULED WE-SHOULD-CLOSE-THIS-THREAD DISCUSSION
-
Thinking about retiring to the Rumford area near the White Mountains in Maine.
(Looks around) (Where is ROX?) (OK, I have to do it then)
FAIL!
You need to move further north and east. Dover-Foxcroft. Greenville. Millinocket.
- oldman (who is planning to retire at the homestead on Sebec Lake)
WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR SCHEDULED WE-SHOULD-CLOSE-THIS-THREAD DISCUSSION
-
I have to take breaks sometimes, how else are you ever going to have a chance to catch up to my level. :devil
You're not good.
-
Dedalos,
I used to get paid to play AW to support sound card questions as a phone tech in the early 90's. Media Vision from it's Thunder Board on until they closed their doors and became Aureal Semiconductor. Back in those days when Paul Jain was the CEO and got in trouble. I put my time in with AW then again here with AH since 2002. Knowing all this historical gunsight data simply happened along the years of the two games. Now days I have the time and the money for many usless things that you would equate makes me useless. But, I do have the time during the day and other odd hours as you see because I made some very good decisions along the last 40 years. Then not everyone has to work 9-5 anymore in these so modern times to take care of their familes. Thinking about retiring to the Rumford area near the White Mountains in Maine. That would be a realy useless thing I guess... :)
No the nice pakistani man did not show me how to fire the guns in the Taylorcraft Austor IV. The British never found a need to mount more than a very pistol in the cabin since it was for liason and observation. In the pakistani Auster IV they only had a small wooden stool like contraption for the third person in the back where I sat most of the time as my father took flying lessons. In 63 the Peshawar flying club had 3 of them. Two for flying and one for spare parts. I did get to sit in a spitfire outside of Dunstable Downs in southern Bedfordshire once in 1960. I pressed the button on the control stick's ring and made my own version of Piu-Piu-Piu.....kinda like a gerbil with the walkin ferts.
The past is so useless, all that knowlege and experience laying around unused cluttering up things and putting everyone to sleep. Just gets all in the way here in the present for whats important to todays folks. Whatever that is?? Cloths have changed a bit and technology but, most folks still can't realy say whats important. They just seem to be stuck in the same loop then as now that what others think or say is irrelevant, useless and not important. Isn't repeating the same thing over and over again the clynical definition of insanity or some such variation on that theme??
Dude, it was joke! :bhead
Remember the question was about tracers helping in the game or not? That is what make WWII and other real life experiences irrelevant. If those played out in a 2D screen programmed by a guy in Texas they would be relevant. But my guess is they were not ;)
-
If you guys spent a quarter of the time you spend on explaining why you know more than the others, in improving your flying, this game could be awesome :aok
Haha Diealot, for once I'll have to agree :devil
-
Haha Diealot, for once I'll have to agree :devil
Heh, can you even remember what you agreed to? :rofl
-
Heh, can you even remember what you agreed to? :rofl
Don't look now, but the AARP police are outside your house for constantly raggin on "old" people.
:noid
-
You're not good.
squeak, squeak, squeaaaaaaaaakk.
-
Don't look now, but the AARP police are outside your house for constantly raggin on "old" people.
:noid
There is normal old, you know, like you and Laz.
And then there is Bighorn old. I heard that on his last birth day they had to use carbon dating to figure out how old he was (yes, he could not remember). He is like Highlander old!!! :rofl :rofl :rofl
-
squeak, squeak, squeaaaaaaaaakk.
Hah, start playing again, you'd be surprised by what has changed.
-
:noid