Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: 2Late4U on January 19, 2002, 11:29:59 AM
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With all the talk about how this plane and that plane are UBER and how other planes are all but useless, I was wondering what others though where the easy planes for new players and the most effective for those with more experience. Sure there are some that many will agree on, but I'm curious of how much divergence there is in the overall beliefs about what planes are best/most effective.
There are several planes that are typically death traps for newbies that become killing machines of doom when in the hands of an expert. Personal preference and skills decide what planes each player ends up gravitating too, but there are definite planes that just never get used because they are just not effective in MA.
MY OF EASY NEWBIE PLANES
This plane seems to attract new players for several reasons, most notably that it is a well known plane that is actually easy to fly in AH. The combination of great manueverability, outstanding firepower and good power make this a very common choice. The small ammo load does discourage some, and you will see many new players express their displesure of being killed after they run out of ammo.
Ah yes, there she blows. We all know the Niki has firepower that eats through armor like "good times" through AOL. The E retention has more than a few crying foul, and to top it all off, it turns like a race tuned Porsche. New players love the one ping kills, and are not easily put off by the limitations of slightly low top speed, and fragile wings at high G loads. Its like crack, it ain't good for you, but it sure is hard to stop using it.
This is a relative newcomer to the new player list of choice. Much of the reason it got noticed was all the complaints. Its not the easiest of the bunch, but with all the speed you need, and very respectable turning, many new players get hooked. It takes them quite a while to realize how hard the low velocity gun rounds make longer shots, all they see is that one quick burst kills everything. It also helps when they realize that if they get in trouble, they can run away, and with just a little luck, they will get away.
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What about the Vets choices
You may hear complaints from new players that the Mustang is undermodled when the most popular plane of WWII proves less than they imagined, but rest assured in the hands of an expert, it is a deadly machine. When flown smoothly the Mustang can make other planes look very vulnerable. One key is to remember it handles much better than most opponents at 20,000 feet and going 400 knots.
This plane gets new players killed when they get into the spin of death after a nastey stall, and it also tends to suck you into turn fights where it preforms very well.....but only for about one full circle. After the first 360°'s though, it starts to wallow, and before you know it, your a big blue target. In the hands of an expert though, the sumptuously large ammo load, great high speed handling and fantastic instant turn rate lead to a plane that provides many opportunities to get the kill. Add to this the fantastic JABO load outs, and you get a plane that can go in, do some ground pounding and then stick around and play with enemy planes.
No plane IMHO gains more from experience than the Focke Wulf. To the uninitiated its nasty spin characteristics and numerous other quirks put it quickly on the do not fly list. Thats ashame, because once you become farmiliar with it, and lern the discipline required to fly it, you end up with one outstanding aircraft. The phenominal roll rate make it almost impossible to follow in a scissors if a compitant pilot is at the controls, and the great speed combined with central mounted cannon make a particularly deadly adversary.
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Heh. I consider the P-51D an newbie aircraft. The thing is just so powerful and easy to get kills with.
I would say that the newbiw planes are:
Any Spitfire varient
N1K2
P-51D
La-7
F6F-5
P-38L
Typhoon MkIb
F4U-1D
Bf109G-10
B-17G (newbie bomber)
B-26B (newbie medium bomber)
Veteran aircraft are:
All aircraft not on the newbie list.
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F6F-5
P-38L
Typhoon MkIb
F4U-1D
Bf109G-10
those aircraft are not newbie aircraft. they are ones that if in newbie hands are gonna get decimated bby the others you listed
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Zigrat,
I don't think so. They are all pretty easy to get kills with. They aren't the easiest, but they are still easy. You also see a lot of these aircraft and to acomplish that they must have a decent number of nebies flying them.
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The G10 is the hardest plane to fly in AH, IMO. I still can't do very well in it, preferring a G2 or G6. A newbie needs a plane they can turn hard in, and the G10 goes in one direction - straight. I don't think any of the 109s are good newbie planes. When I first started, I tried flying them, and it led to a ton of frustration.
The Pony is a good newbie plane, in my book, as hit has a great armament, can turn pretty well, and is fast enough to get you out of trouble.
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Karnak said it pretty much with his post, The 109 G10 can be quite easy to run in, and if you got distance (2k or more) you can usually climb away, but that requires some speed too. The G10, however, is not very easy to get kills in, it's very poor high speed characteristics makes it difficult to aim at speed more then 450 or so and to avoid a fast G10 is real easy. Otherwise Karnaks list is the one I'd choose too.
P38 and F6F and LA7 can take one hell of a beating aswell so you can get shot up and still get home.
Also, the F4u, is fast, turns EXELENT and Rolls great BUT it's got nasty stall charecteristics and there is really a thin line between good turning and spin, once the "newbie" gets used to AH's FM a bit it will be a good plane, but it's not something you take up on your first flight IMO.
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Yes, but if you make mistakes or dont have good SA in a 38, you will die to the other planes in the list mighty quickly.
An F6 is a tad easier to fly and fight in, but its still nothing more than a blue splat if the pilot makes a mistake in ACM.
La7, n1k, spits, are all VERY forgiving. If you diddly up the plane's "superpower" (la7:accel and dive speed, n1k: turn and cannons, spit: superb turn, cannons and superb dive & E retention)ability can save your bellybutton many, many times. Even a newbie can make a vet work to kill the newbie. And heck, those planes do give anyone a marked advantage in performance vs the vet planes... below 15k (newbs up high? when? hehe).
The P-51 is NOT a newbie craft, but it is an excellent ride to learn in, and its very survivable. Put a newbie in a p-51 for half a month, point him on the path to E management and basic SA, and the p51 will teach him. No other plane in the MA can do that.
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The P-51D is a newbie plane only in the sense that newbies gravitate to it because it's often the only WW2 plane they're familiar with (true newbies, who've never played a flightsim before).
Of course, these same newbies invariably fly around nice and slow and always use the hard turn as their primary combat maneuver....and soon discover that "the P-51 sucks". Then they move to more forgiving planes.
J_A_B
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I guess I qualify as a newbie to this sim, and here is my $.02 :)
I was a newbie in here around Sept-Oct 2000, then was unable to fly until about a month ago. So I had to start all over.
Back before the perk system [which I personally don't like, but who cares, perk is here to stay I guess :) ]
Anyways, back then I liked the Cannon Hog, a great newbie plane IMVHO.
Now I seem to like the NIK2, I guess many purists consider it a dweeb plane, but I can survive in it more than a lot of others.
I want a plane where I get some kills and have a chance. I think any newbie is like me. I don't want to fly for months playing target drone so the old timers can sharpen their gunnery skills. I want to have some fun too.
You have to realize that newbies are the life blood of any on-line sim. Old timers leave for many reasons. If you don't have a influx of newbies, soon it is fewer and fewer old timers, then it becomes unprofitable, then they turn off the servers.
Make it fun for the newbies and you will have a Aces High for a long time. Drive away the newbies, and it will die.
My $.02 for what it's worth, :D
Have fun and watch your six :)
AKEagle+
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Originally posted by AKEagle+
I want a plane where I get some kills and have a chance.... I want to have some fun too.
Very well written and I think that pretty much summs it up. Having fun is all that keeps us flying in AH after all.
I like to fly spit ix every now and then, it's great plane to learn some acm and new moves and I think it's best newbie plane here.
IMO Karnak's list of newbie planes is good, except 109G-10 because it's easy to compress and it's fragile. If newbie wanna "grow-up" from featherweight to heavyweight , F6F is best overall plane there.
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well you choose what plane you wanna fly then thats on you.
Do you want htc to set up a "welfare perk" perk system and dole out perks because newbies might not get to fly them?
The whole perk idea is to keep perks limited it therefore stands to reason that not everyone will get to fly them.
The system is simple fly hi eny kill lo eny.
If your plane of choice is a niki well too bad for you. Theres a reason the niki eny value is lo. Because its easy to kill in..:)
See how that works ....:)
At the time the chog was perked I had no opinion but it was getting where it would get near 20% of the kills in the main per tour.
HTC had adjusted its eny value to where nothing else could be done.
So here we had a plane of which there were only 200 or so available in rl totally unbalancing the main. HTC perked it and we have a more diverse and more fun main. I think he did the right thing.
Even though I guess somewhere like to top 4 or 5 most used planes in ah now make up roughly the un perked chogs kill percentages the main is more balanced.
The fella flying the planes that are somewhat "hard" to kill in ultimately should get the greater reward.
Anyone can run up kills in a niki...........
Theres really no benefit for a newbie to fly perk planes. They aren't "superplanes". Just flying a niki wont help you live in a temp 262 ta152 f4u4 or a chog.
You can fly a niki all you want. but if every now and again you up a g2 or 205 or whatever all you need is 3 to 4 kills to afford 2 chogs. You dont even have to rtb to keep the points.
No free Lunch.....
you wanna fly perk planes then earn the points..........
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I like the -1a.
lazs
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Best newbie plane?
190A8.
Nothing out there will make a newbie a good player as fast as the A8 will.
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LOL
Nath makes a good point!
Bf109G6 is great begginer plane too.
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Not so sure the tougher to fly planes are really the best for a newbie to learn in. Essentially the more difficult the plane, the less options it has in combat. Give him a plane that retains some E so he can experiment/ learn a bit before he gets shot down....
When I started I cut my teeth on a lot of La7 vs. Niki engagements. Could get into fight fast, try some ACM (and hopefully learn something), die and quickly do it again. Not like I'm a hardcore vet yet, but basic things I learned doing that still apply when I take up a g2 vs. a hurri in the CT, for instance.
I could easliy be wrong though :)
Elysian/cmorris
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262 best for newbies and vets, doesn't matter - they all look good in it. And it comes with Channel 1 fun guaranteed.
Just tested it in H2H, collected following remarks: girly plane, sissy plane, jet dweeb and coward. Some were repeated more than once.
I looove the plane ! ;)
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AKEagle - very well written post - I tend to squeak from time to time about getting whacked by a NIKI in a HO and you just might have opened my eyes. =) Regardless - Im not quite sure if I agree with the list of newbie planes. The N1K is the king - we know that - only because the "newbie move" to follow the 6 of an enemy aircraft at all costs (No technical ACM) - is actually possible. When E fighting a NIKI you can wait and wait and wait for it to keel over and dive from speed deprevation but it NEVER happens!! The Spitfire MkIX IMHO is not a dweeb plane. Old flightsimmers (IE, AH newbies - but prolly from AW or WB) will gravitate to the spitfires to learn AHs modeling after they discover that the P38L isnt the same aircraft from AW. ;-) The MkIX is actually a very potent fighter - resonably fast, reasonably successful in turns , reasonable leathality and reasonable ammo load. Its not the fastest, doesnt turn the best, doesnt shoot the most, but its "good." If you want to point to a newbie Spitfire - the closest youll come is the MkV - GREAT turn radius - decent speed - here is where Newbies will learn turnfighting - anyone who has played for longer than 2 weeks will discover the Spit MkIX is better to E fight than turnfight and try the MkV. The 109 variants are not even close to newbie planes, they are undermodeled and defecient in almost all areas. The La7 is fast but easy to kill - its predictable. I cant call the Zeke a newbie plane because its basically a very SLOW flying coffin. The 190's (with the exception of the D9) are challenging to fly and require knowledge of advanced ACM to master. (Thats why I dont fly em) :P The "Veteran" planes as it was put boil down to a few IMHO: P-51B, Bf 109G-6, Fw 190A-5, P-38L, Yak-9U, F4U-1D, P-47D-30. =)
Mike "Mazz"
<-- The Flying Circus -->
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Whats a Rewbie? :)
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Sir, as a Dune fanatic, I slap thee!
*SLAP*!
Its SARDAUKAR .
*SLAP*
*SLAP*
*SLAP*
Kull wahad!!!!
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Frenchy gets his face closer to TAC's face and cannot help to notice the distinct blue eyes of the humans who spent too much time on Arakis without protection.
Easiest planes are the ones who don't have nasty stall characteristics like Spits, Nikis, F6s, Yak9, Zeros. The experten planes are the ones without canons who are neither the fastest or best turner. The P47, F4 comes to mind.
The rest are great "transition planes", the fast ones like the P51s, they teach the newbies to do something else than simply turning, but still offer the possibility to run when in trouble and survive. The second type of "transition" planes are the cannon ones, likes the FWs and 109s. They are tough to fly and require discipline but a couple of pings reward the the newbie with an instant kill thx to the fire power.
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I don't know guys. The Bf109G-10 was one of the first aircraft I did a tour in when I started AH and it was pretty easy. I had a couple of "special" moments in it, but overall found it quite easy.
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Originally posted by Nath[BDP]
Best newbie plane?
190A8.
Nothing out there will make a newbie a good player as fast as the A8 will.
Also, nothing will make a newbie quit out of frustration as fast as the A8.
I'd say that one can't go wrong with a Spit IX. It's a fun ride and if you're not getting many kills then at least you should have a fun ride under you (ie. you're not dying every second sortie due to a spin-induced auger or so). The N1K1 is a tough contender, but many beginners might not even have heard of it. Also, the Spitfire has a certain glamour bonus over it (ok, that's debatable :D).
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The easiest:
1 - SpitV
2 - N1K2J
3 - SpitIX
The hardest:
1 - 190D9
2 - 190A8
3 - 190A5
My advice for the newbies, start with La5, then switch to 190A5 (4x20mm), then go for A8 (4x20mm) and then for 190D9.
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When you start out with an easy aircraft, you learn nothing. Flying a difficult aircraft, as well as challenging yourself is the only way to improve one's flying. You learn discipline, proper coordination and ACM/BFM by having to work for your kills and learning how to get out of nasty situations.
I was never one to be reticent in my style of flying and ways in which I was looking to improve my AH skills. Nor have I ever been one to give up easily. Thus, I opted for the 190A8 when I first started. For many reasons, mainly because it was the most difficult aircraft in AH at the time and I knew if I could master this plane then all others would come easy to me.
My supposition was correct.
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Agree 190% Nath.