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General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Spork on October 09, 2012, 03:10:28 AM

Title: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Spork on October 09, 2012, 03:10:28 AM
Here is another example of the ridiculousness known as RNG puffy ack @ 6:45 in the film...

AND IT'S FRIENDLY

Give me a break HiTech.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dzt113ftd7zy36t/sabakKS.ahf (http://www.mediafire.com/file/dzt113ftd7zy36t/sabakKS.ahf)
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Debrody on October 09, 2012, 03:15:17 AM
Chill..
You lost a plane to friendly puffy ack? Right after you lighten up the last b24s left wing what was looking for your boat? Were you doing 450+ at 15K and were pulling 5Gs when it happened? Was your plane a 262, by any chance?

Until then...                                                     i still agree with you   :aok
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Spork on October 09, 2012, 03:21:47 AM
Chill..
You lost a plane to friendly puffy ack? Right after you lighten up the last b24s left wing what was looking for your boat? Were you doing 450+ at 15K and were pulling 5Gs when it happened? Was your plane a 262, by any chance?

Until then...                                                     i still agree with you   :aok

lol Debrody. Seems you may have gotten it worse than me on that one. At least we can agree on something though   :aok
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: diaster on October 09, 2012, 05:10:08 AM
i was chasing buffs over our cv and the cv puffy killed me
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Lusche on October 09, 2012, 05:53:30 AM
Would you follow an enemy into a mine field and expect the mines not to explode on you because they are "friendly"?
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: pervert on October 09, 2012, 06:18:04 AM
Would you follow an enemy into a mine field and expect the mines not to explode on you because they are "friendly"?

I would expect the bomber to get shot down...oh wait...bombers are imune to puffy  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Spork on October 09, 2012, 06:19:03 AM
Would you follow an enemy into a mine field and expect the mines not to explode on you because they are "friendly"?

According to that logic, field auto-ack and the "Regular" CV ack should be the same way, no? And it's not. So it should be standardized.... IMO
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Lusche on October 09, 2012, 06:33:02 AM
According to that logic, field auto-ack and the "Regular" CV ack should be the same way, no? And it's not. So it should be standardized.... IMO

All AI ack attacks the same way. They never aim at you (unlike real world, friend/foe identification is no problem for them), but if you get in the way and get hit, you take damage.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Wagger on October 09, 2012, 06:45:17 AM
Well lets take a look at the Germans.  If I am right our Bomber Crews did not have to worry about German fighters on their bomb runs.  Why?  Because German fighters did not follow them into their own anti-aircraft fire.  They seemed to figure out one of Murphy's Laws or War.  Friendly fire is not friendly.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: ozrocker on October 09, 2012, 07:00:02 AM
Would you follow an enemy into a mine field and expect the mines not to explode on you because they are "friendly"?
:rofl :rofl


                                                                                                                                                     :cheers: Oz
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Volron on October 09, 2012, 12:22:03 PM
Would you follow an enemy into a mine field and expect the mines not to explode on you because they are "friendly"?
All AI ack attacks the same way. They never aim at you (unlike real world, friend/foe identification is no problem for them), but if you get in the way and get hit, you take damage.
Well lets take a look at the Germans.  If I am right our Bomber Crews did not have to worry about German fighters on their bomb runs.  Why?  Because German fighters did not follow them into their own anti-aircraft fire.  They seemed to figure out one of Murphy's Laws of War.  Friendly fire is not friendly.


 :O  Woah, woah, woah!  Making sense and telling truth about ack is taboo here! :bhead  Shame on you both. :furious  Now, go piss into the wind.  You will accomplish more and get further. :)
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: whiteman on October 09, 2012, 01:32:36 PM
Simply lesson, don't fly into it.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Babalonian on October 09, 2012, 05:59:40 PM
According to that logic, field auto-ack and the "Regular" CV ack should be the same way, no? And it's not. So it should be standardized.... IMO

 :rofl  :lol  :aok  :neener:

If only I had a dime...

Your statement is true only for manned AAA in the MAs.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Condor11 on October 09, 2012, 06:25:36 PM
Would you follow an enemy into a mine field and expect the mines not to explode on you because they are "friendly"?

This.  This is by far the best breakdown of why friendly ack should hurt friendly planes who venture in it.

Us grunts sure love when u help us understand this flyboy stuff
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: shiv on October 09, 2012, 06:57:55 PM
All AI ack attacks the same way. They never aim at you (unlike real world, friend/foe identification is no problem for them), but if you get in the way and get hit, you take damage.

Question- how does AI work? Way I hear is the bogie is in the middle of a box that the AI fires into randomly, and size of the box is determined by a combination of the bogie's speed, G's, and distance from ack. Is that right?

And does the AI only target the highest bogie in range?
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Lusche on October 09, 2012, 07:06:04 PM
Question- how does AI work? Way I hear is the bogie is in the middle of a box that the AI fires into randomly, and size of the box is determined by a combination of the bogie's speed, G's, and distance from ack. Is that right?

Right


And does the AI only target the highest bogie in range?

I think it's rather based on net distance, i.e. closer bogie get's shot with ack somewhat "sticking to it" so that it's not constantly jumping around... but don't quote me on that part ;)
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: mthrockmor on October 09, 2012, 07:10:49 PM
Last week I was turning G's just above the dreaded 3k, maybe less then 3,500 alt. I'm in a Fw-190A5, speed above 300 knts pulling near blackout G's. I am guessing somewhere around 5-6G's. I have a Spit 16 firmly on my tail and not changing things. The enemy CV was close enough to put some puffy ack in the area. Suddenly, in the middle of a near blackout turn I have the wiz-bang-pop-engine dead experience. CV puffy killed my engine while in a tight turn, at beyond icon range of the CV.

In real life this was clearly one of those Vegas shots. (ie right up there with winning the jackpot.) Frustrating but there it is...

Boo
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: 715 on October 09, 2012, 08:06:17 PM
I would expect the bomber to get shot down...oh wait...bombers are immune to puffy  :rolleyes:

When this topic comes up many, including myself, say the CV puffy flak never seems to kill bombers before they drop.  But that's anecdotal evidence and so I decided to get a bit of data.  I did offline tests so they wouldn't be affected by enemy fighters or manned 5"ers (and so I knew where the enemy CV was located).  I confirmed that the default offline settings for gun lethality matched the MA settings.  I took a formation of B17s to 6800 ft and attacked the enemy task force ten times (I should have done it 100 times to get more accurate data, but I'm lazy).  I calibrated the bombsight, but I didn't drop (because I didn't want to have to restore all the destroyed ack with the object command).  The results are interesting:

Probability that all three bombers survive to drop on CV:  90%
Probability that one out of the three is destroyed before dropping on CV: 10%
Probability that two out of three are destroyed: 0%
Probability that all three are destroyed before dropping bombs on the CV: 0%

The margin of error is large, +-10%, because I only did ten tests.  Still, the chances that the task force puffy flak will protect the CV are very near zero.

So why does it seem the puffy flak is biased against fighters?  I suspect it isn't.  I was hit several times without any damage or non fatal damage.  A B17 can take a lot of damage, a small fighter- not so much.  So a fighter probably would have been killed by the first hit.

note- the drones flying around the task force drew it's ack fire but not the puffy flak as they are too low to be targeted.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: gyrene81 on October 09, 2012, 08:21:46 PM
When this topic comes up many, including myself, say the CV puffy flak never seems to kill bombers before they drop.  But that's anecdotal evidence and so I decided to get a bit of data.  I did offline tests so they wouldn't be affected by enemy fighters or manned 5"ers (and so I knew where the enemy CV was located).  I confirmed that the default offline settings for gun lethality matched the MA settings.  I took a formation of B17s to 6800 ft and attacked the enemy task force ten times (I should have done it 100 times to get more accurate data, but I'm lazy).  I calibrated the bombsight, but I didn't drop (because I didn't want to have to restore all the destroyed ack with the object command).  The results are interesting:

Probability that all three bombers survive to drop on CV:  90%
Probability that one out of the three is destroyed before dropping on CV: 10%
Probability that two out of three are destroyed: 0%
Probability that all three are destroyed before dropping bombs on the CV: 0%

The margin of error is large, +-10%, because I only did ten tests.  Still, the chances that the task force puffy flak will protect the CV are very near zero.

So why does it seem the puffy flak is biased against fighters?  I suspect it isn't.  I was hit several times without any damage or non fatal damage.  A B17 can take a lot of damage, a small fighter- not so much.  So a fighter probably would have been killed by the first hit.

note- the drones flying around the task force drew it's ack fire but not the puffy flak as they are too low to be targeted.
if you pushed your bombers to 300+ mph the stats would have been a little different...
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: bongboy1 on October 09, 2012, 08:26:08 PM
Another puffy whine...
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: W7LPNRICK on October 09, 2012, 09:14:42 PM
There was a reason for that chicken wire over the trenches in basic training obstacle course, so dummies wouldn't stand up even though you can see the tracers shooting overhead & hear the grenades(fake charges) exploding next to you in the 55 gal drums. Even though they tell ya over & over don't stand up, occasionally some dip stick panics, tries to stand & gets tangle in the chicken wire. So? The game wants to be realistic...don't fly through the puffy!  :noid
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: kvuo75 on October 09, 2012, 09:26:56 PM
..don't fly through the puffy!  :noid

and that can magically be done by staying under 3000msl (why 3000?)

which kinda argues against the whole point of the automatic random number generated puffy ack.

just get rid of it, it doesn't deter cv killers. FFS i used to just take sets of 234's at 1500 msl and scream in and kill cv's. it's so easy i got bored with it.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Karnak on October 09, 2012, 10:10:02 PM
The reason it seems to have more effect on fighters is that when a fighter gets hit it often is destroyed or disabled.  Bombers get hit a lot more, but they just soak it up.

If a fighters wing has, say, 25 hit points and a bomber's has 150 hit points and the flak hit does 40 hit points, well, the fighter dies in one hit and the bomber has to take four hits to the same spot or it just flies on unaffected.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: kvuo75 on October 09, 2012, 11:16:09 PM
The reason it seems to have more effect on fighters is that when a fighter gets hit it often is destroyed or disabled.  Bombers get hit a lot more, but they just soak it up.

If a fighters wing has, say, 25 hit points and a bomber's has 150 hit points and the flak hit does 40 hit points, well, the fighter dies in one hit and the bomber has to take four hits to the same spot or it just flies on unaffected.

indeed, but the conclusion is, nobody should ever fly a fighter near puffy ack. they risk getting shot down by a random number generator.  bombers have 3 planes who can survive getting tagged a few times, fighter has 1 plane that cannot.

btw, why is 3000MSL the magic altitude?
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Chalenge on October 10, 2012, 12:01:19 AM
Even if you attack a bomber properly (from the front) you risk getting hit by your own puffy. Bombers are not immune though. That was a stretch.

Attacking from the front at strats where the puffy is probably at its most accurate I have been hit three times out of more than one-hundred attacks and only one of those was fatal.

Try flying 1.5-2k off a bombers wing as it passes over a puffy protected target. You can literally see the box the puffy ack stays within. The box extends further behind the bomber than in front and so that is the most likely place you will get hit. If you come up behind the bomber you have a decreased closure rate and therefore a greater risk of getting hit from both puffy and the bomber guns because you are spending more time in the riskiest zone.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Crash Orange on October 10, 2012, 01:42:56 AM
The reason it seems to have more effect on fighters is that when a fighter gets hit it often is destroyed or disabled.  Bombers get hit a lot more, but they just soak it up.

If a fighters wing has, say, 25 hit points and a bomber's has 150 hit points and the flak hit does 40 hit points, well, the fighter dies in one hit and the bomber has to take four hits to the same spot or it just flies on unaffected.

That is how it is in the game, and it's also how it's extremely unrealistic. Puffy ack shouldn't do the same damage to smaller target as to a larger one, because it is not one shell hitting or missing, it's a proximity-fuzed shell going off near the target and creating a random dispersion pattern of hundreds of fragments. Try shooting birdshot at a target with to-scale plane silhouettes on it and see what happens to those targets inside that pattern. A 4-engine bomber that is 4 times the size of a fighter will on average get hit by 4 times as many pellets. That's how it should work in the game but doesn't.

Also, the effects of maneuvering vs. flying straight and level are IMO undermodeled in the game. A RL gunner has to be able to guess where the plane will be several seconds after firing in order to have any chance of hitting it. That's orders of magnitude harder with a target that is maneuvering effectively randomly from the gunner's POV. The AI gunner doesn't have that problem, it's calculating hits as of the moment of the hit, it "knows" exactly where the plane is and only take a moderate penalty to hit if the target is maneuvering. Buffs flying straight and level less than 10k up in full daylight should be easy pickings for the AI gunners for this reason - that's a big reason why daylight bombing raids on the Third Reich were flown at 20k+ IRL, the flak would have massacred them at 8-10k.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: kvuo75 on October 10, 2012, 02:04:21 AM
i still think just making all puffy ack mannable, and if it isn't manned, it doesn't fire is a good solution.

Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Pand on October 10, 2012, 06:03:29 AM
i still think just making all puffy ack mannable, and if it isn't manned, it doesn't fire is a good solution.
This
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: whiteman on October 10, 2012, 11:21:36 AM
taken multiple puffy hits and flown away and have had the golden BB, i think it works just fine. Without the auto puffy CV's are even bigger sitting ducks.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Noir on October 10, 2012, 12:09:57 PM
puffy ack is good at killing defenders and nmy fighters cruising at 25K, not defending the CV.

It's awesome to ruin the fun too  :aok
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Ack-Ack on October 10, 2012, 12:11:20 PM
Sounds like to me people want it to be easier to attacks CVs.

ack-ack
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Lusche on October 10, 2012, 12:43:35 PM
Sounds like to me people want it to be easier to attacks CVs.

In my experience auto puffy ack is no factor in CV survival. Just like in the tests 715 presented above, very rarely I do lose a bomber from auto puffy, and never ever I had lost two of them or the whole formation. When jabo'ing a CV, my losses to auto puffy are significantly higher, but still that low that it's no deterrent at all. The overwhelming majority of ack deaths come from manned 5", followed by small caliber auto ack.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Babalonian on October 10, 2012, 01:36:21 PM
Sounds like to me people want it to be easier to attacks CVs.

ack-ack

I can only agree in regards to torpedo planes who I think have the worst chance of anyone in the MAs to reach their ideal drop point, otherwise I think CVs are pretty easy and doable for everyone to strike if they so want to or, at the very least, reach their desired drop points more often than not.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: diaster on October 11, 2012, 11:58:29 AM
I would expect the bomber to get shot down...oh wait...bombers are imune to puffy  :rolleyes:
nope, b29 went down. i was at 28 k at edge of puffy... blew my wing off
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Chalenge on October 11, 2012, 01:34:43 PM
I think Ack-ack nailed it. No puffy means there is no need for bombers because then anything can get through.

Besides. . . this is nothing more than a whine about not planning well. Bombers low enough to sink a CV are very easy to kill. If you are too busy furballing to see them coming from the base 25-50 miles away thats when you end up shooting them in the puffy.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Acidrain on October 12, 2012, 06:50:35 AM
I would accept a five fold increase in lethality to friendly fighters If I thought there was even a 50% chance the enemies bombers would be destroyed by puffy...right now its a joke , Bombers are immune. You virtually never see a organized Jabo attack on CV's anymore. Now its just some lone ranger tool bag upping from 3 sectors away in heavies to saunter through the ack and drop the boat. Bombers in the current dynamic are too much of a force multiplier vs a CV.
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on October 12, 2012, 07:52:38 AM
When I see puffy ack I usually make (made) sure that some other fool flies closer to it and gets it stuck to him :)
Title: Re: Yet another example of ridiculous puffy ack
Post by: Shuffler on October 12, 2012, 09:32:05 AM
When I see puffy ack I usually make (made) sure that some other fool flies closer to it and gets it stuck to him :)

Ahhh the ol' fishing in Alaska gig.  :D