Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Axis vs Allies => Topic started by: WildBlue on February 22, 2002, 09:08:36 AM
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Okay, I've noticed that HO is NOT the thing to do unless you want to be called a "dweeb". I have always avoided this "luck" shot, and have been successful in my avoidance, but... it seems there are people that actually TRY for this shot. And to be honest, after someone puts me in the situation of avoiding it 2 or 3 times in a row (okay, i'm not THAT good, lol), I simply give them what they are after, and shoot. I usually lose this, and the victor claims a true victory, but when I do win this, I am called a "dweeb" among other things. So, what's the big difference? If you win, it's good, but if I win, I'm a loser? Bite me! Lol, what's good for the goose... you know the rest. I'm not a newbie, been here off and on for well over a year now (yeah, I know you aces have been here longer), and long ago, no-one would force the HO. It's interesting to have the HO folks, it brings about a whole new defensive aspect, but hell, if HO is all you can do, just go somewhere else please. It is getting old. I have especially noticed this in the current C/T setup... those flying jap seem to love trying for HO shots. Hey, I know I can outrun you, but sheesh, gimme a break! And for those who will look at my stats and say my stats suck and I don't know what I'm talking about... hey, I know my stats suck, I'm not a scorepotato, and just because I'm not the best doesn't mean I can't comment on what I've seen! It comes down to this... if you force me into a HO, don't squeak if I win!
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Whenever you win, it's likely somebody will find a reason to call you "dweeb". Ignore it, it's just sour grapes because you shot them down. :)
To take the HO or not is a simple tactical decision based on your gunnery skills and a comparison between your plane's gun set and toughness and the other guy's. If you are a crack shot and flying a plane with good guns... fire away. Just remember that it is a high risk shot, so factor that in if you can get a better shot instead.
That said, avoiding the HO attack, done properly, confers an angles and energy advantage on the avoiding fellow, not the shooter. I wrote a bit about it in an article here:
http://lephturn.webhop.net/hodefense.htm
Do it right, and after the other guy tries two or three HO shots, you will hold all the cards, even if he started with a large advantage. If the fight starts very even and he goes for the HO, you can lead turn him very effectively and gain enough advantage for a quick kill.
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Ahhhh... the age old argument.....
Who HO'd who?
Just squelch the people giving you grief over channel. Take the shot.
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Even a good HO'er will die eventualy and if you want to get a higher K/D ratio then something between 1 and 2 you need to start practising tail chasing. But for newbies (like me ;) ) HO'ing is often easier to get score then tail chasing.
Broes
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Last night I repetedly found myself low, slow and outnumbered in an A6M. The odds were as bad as 10 to 1 at one point, almost always at least 2 to 1. I couldn't afford to take the time to line up any shot other than a quick HO. I suppose that we were all dweebs, them for gang-banging, me for HOing. Either way, I was happy to trade 1 for 1. Call it what you want, it was the best option in the givin situation for me.
eskimo
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to HO or not to HO that is the question :)
the answer depends on many things
is it me or is the zero and the cane's (the 1st one on the list) cannons about 300% more powerful than any cannon combo on any of the 109's?
I feel like Luke Skywalker with his light sword shootin with those things, they cut through anything. Sawed a F4U right in half with one ping :)
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I never ever understood this anger towards the HO. Maybe it's just a very vocal minority who are against this method of combat. I've actually read many accounts where the HO was a viable tactic during WW2. And today's missiles have accentuated this tactic. Isn't it "kill or be killed"? The one-v-one arena (whatever it's called) is the proper place to go if a player wants to dictate the rules of a fight but not in the swirling skies of the MA and CT. You play with your opponent too long and you run the risk of losing due to an additional enemy aircraft joining the fight.
The thing that is dissapointing though about the HO is the lag. There are times where it looks as if I have enough angle off where my opponent's guns are not trained on me and we fly past each other to begin a swirling dogfight...and no kidding here, but then sometimes a full two seconds after having passed each other and having never seen any tracer fire, I'll hear the impact of bullets and lose my empenage. This can really anger and upset me and I try to remember it's not the other player's fault but the difference in what our FE's show. I'm a lousy shot and suffer from a 13" monitor (until I can buy a new one...just bought a big screen HDTV so it may be a while ) so I personally rarely take a serious HO shot but sometimes I'll throw some bullets out early to make the other guy point his nose away a little bit.
I opened up "Fire In The Sky" and quickly found this (further search would probably come up with many more examples):
pg 456. "Note that an aggressive American pilot welcomed a frontal, or head-on, attack against a Zero."
pg 479. "Head-on was good, too. I'd take a head-on with them anytime."
pg 491. "The head-on attack was part of the American repertoire of basic combat techniques since being recommended by Chennault."
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I can be a bad HOer at times. Mainly because I'm lazy and willing to take the 50 - 50 chance I'm going to win.
If I choose not to HO and attempt to avoid it I ALWAYS get hit by the other guy as he flies past me at a ridiculous angle.
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To me,a HO is a desparation move..It means your are outnumbered in a fite and will do any means necessary to even the odds...To others though,it's a way to try and get a kill without any thirst for a fite...This of course plays right into your hands as he tries to line you up for a HO,you are of course making a jink and converting E as he misses and you of course use your move to get the easy kill......That's when you know you've killed an HO dweeb...:)
This tag of "HO Dweeb" does not apply if you are in a FW 190A8...:cool:
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The only time a HO really annoys me is when I figure the other guy had lots of options but decided to just HO instead. It honestly doesn't take 2 to HO since if one person doesn't accept a HO then they tend to give up position and a close front quarters shot. Too many people in AH can make that shot if given it. HO'ing is realistic though, that's been supported several times before, and there are ways to avoid it most of the time. Then again, when you're the underdog and getting jumped by a bunch of enemy the HO is sometimes you best option so I don't blame people for using it. I do at times.
Almost nobody will call you a HO dweeb if you have no options but to HO, but if you have lots of options and you still insist on HO'ing everyone, well, wear the "HO dweeb" tag with pride.
Some could say attacking B17's is like HO'ing them every time :)
-Soda
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I don't know about the rest of you, but if an enemy has his plane pointed at me, I'm pointing my nose in his direction. I want to increase his AOT (angle off tail) as much as possible. This is going to invite the head on. If they go for it, so much the better, I can gain angles on them. If they start manuevering to avoid the HO (they think I'm gonna take it) I've got two choices. I can try and take the front quarter shot (but if I miss, I'm giving them a possible angles advantage) or I can use their avoidance to go for the angles myself.
Front quarter passes I prefer, I'd rather have 'em coming that way that crawling up my 6.
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To this day one of my favorite kills is to come in HO from one of the front quarters 2 oclock or 10 oclock. I nice burst of deflection fire and the guy is lit up :) BUT :D if you are on defense sometimes the HO is the only option to take. Gotta get under the nose of his plane ya know.
Head On's are a valid tactic in my book. You just better make sure you know what you're going HO against. Not to wise to HO a 190 or f4u, you never know if they have 4x20 mm pointing at you :)
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Originally posted by skernsk
I can be a bad HOer at times. Mainly because I'm lazy and willing to take the 50 - 50 chance I'm going to win.
If I choose not to HO and attempt to avoid it I ALWAYS get hit by the other guy as he flies past me at a ridiculous angle.
If this is the case it usually means you are either not doing enough to evade, or you are not ding it early enough. Hit your evasion at D1.5 in a HO, and by 500-300 you should be hitting your lead turn. Most times I get hit HO it's because I didn't evade early enough. Because of net lag you need to evade much sooner than it looks like... but that also means you can start your lead turn earlier too. :)
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I had a great ho the other night. Mauser in a zero was in deep, saw me coming in my f6f started for the ho took my rudder off. I complained at him for the HO (i just dont shoot and evade, rarely do I get hit). Immelman, here he comes again for another ho, but he had less alt and e. All I had to do was zoom climb alittle and immediately drop on him. Raked his whole aircraft nose to rudder with 3 .50 cals (he went down real fast after that). hehe ultimate revenge on HO. I have noticed that many pilots in CT do not shoot on a pass. This is good. Dont think I would be playing suicide games if I were a pilot in ww2.
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"Hey ! Ho ! Let's go !
Shoot em in the back now ."
-Joey Ramone
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The only thing I dont like about HO's is that there's people who KNOW they have average to bad connects and they abuse that by becoming dedicated HO'ers.
I know of some pilots in the MA that constantly and continously run or dive to get separation up to d3.0 or 4.0, and depending on their plane (turners do this earlier, maybe d2.0), then turn or loop and then come straight in a HO pass. If they miss or their target barrel rolls to evade, they go straight foward and repeat this process. There is no attempt whatsoever to gain altitude, or gain angles or any kind of advantage. They just extend and turn to HO again..and again...and again.
And thanks to their bad connects, if you HO in return (after 6 runs like that you DO get fed up with it), you can ping them FIRST, with bigger guns than they have, ping them MORE.. and still they dont get damage or ze damage packets "get lost" resulting in your 4X20mm 190 being shot down by the 4X.50 cal p51 when both planes hit each other a lot on the HO pass.
Aside from that, I'll take ANY shot I can get. If the other guy is dumb enough to turn his nose towards me and I have the chance of hitting him, hey, its HIS fault, I had my nose towards him first mwahahah! :D :D
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I must admit in comparision to the majority of AH flyers my connect sucks, returning pings of around 250 - 270 most of the time. (56K dialup from across the pond, No cable, ASDL, Gas Mains sewage etc) it is generally very consistant though and if I have a problem it's always a big one. I don't see any real advantage from my end to someone with a broadband connection and a 60ms ping to AH. I think the HO is fairly easy to avoid if you really want to, Ever tried doing a HO on the drones offline, It aint easy.
Having said that as far as I'm concerned it's only a real HO if done on the 1st pass, After that unless the guy consistantly extends and comes at you again sooner of later a turn fight is going to find you face to face, You would be stupid not to take the shot.
TTFN
snafu
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When i'm in a mossie i HO all the time. I've never been afraid to play chicken with someone when i have 4 nose mounted hispanos to back me up.:D
I actually shotdown two 190's winging together by HO's in the MA today (one of them took 2 HO passes). The funny thing is that they both tried to avoid the HO, but all they did was give me a nice front quarter shot.
About 2 seconds later i got HO dweeb shouted at me over ch1. :D
MUFWAHAHAHAHA!!!!:D
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When I lose, It was perpetrated by a cowardly no skill having dweeb pilot.
When I win, It is a historically tried and proven tactic so stop whining.
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If you have read Lephturn's stuff, you'll know how its quite ez to avoid, let them try to HO, and then kill them afterwards :)
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generally those that like to HO are greedy.Use that against them.Make them pull handsomehunked manouvers to get solution and kill all their energy.
I only consider it a HO if its a REAL HO. shots from 10oc/2oc or more require some skill to land and should not be frowned upon.
If the guy you are involved in a HO with was starting the engagement at lower E or Alt than you then YOU are the fool.
like its been said some aircraft need to use the HO in the MA. In a 190 you will find that if you are bounced the only shot your likely to get if you can reverse the situation is either a front quarter shot or an overshoot for a tail shot if youre real lucky.
The funniest thing i see is most that accept HO's are SPITS!! this is crazy as they can slip by a HO and reverse a lot faster and easier than most aircraft so the HO is far less necessary.
Heres something for you to try..... when the HO is coming from 1.5 or more in a pretty straight line put your recticle ahead of the approaching con and fire off a 2 second stream from just outside 900-1000 yards and pull out. Ive killed quite a few fools this way as i see them fly into the 'box' of bullets right under my dashboard. im well out off the way of their shots and its a lovely revenge. They end up doing the HO , not with you, but with a stream of 20mm :D.
try it.
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Hazed, if I do that I just die more. Beware that if you are flying straight and level at that range in a HO merge... you are a perfect target. Sometimes it will work I'm sure... but you are still taking a bad risk IMHO. Also I am not a good shot, so I try never to take them because I always lose. :)
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When I first started AH over 2 yrs ago, it was my first online sim and I was of the strive to be "honorable, no HO, no vulch, no chute shooting" type. I hated the Chog when it came out because timing the evasion was difficult in certain circumstances. Sometimes the con would land a few shots no matter how hard you tried to evade the HO and it was over after that. I guess I just learned to let it all go, since this is a game and you can't tell people how to spend their $15.
If you've got the E-advantage and are not outnumbered and just go for HO's, you're missing out on a lot of options to kill the other guy.
If you're losing your E-advantage trying to kill an angles fighter like a SpitV or Zeke, you should take whatever shot comes to you and then leave when you still can.
ergRTC, I'll rarely HO things even though I don't care much about them anymore. That evening it was just a bit frustrating when there were 4 axis pilots (hblair, eskimo, me, and forgot the other) and 11 allies all in one place. It became more of a game of figuring out when to up a zeke or when to up a m16 since your cv group was very near offshore. So I just decided to HO everything and take my chances. I tried to HO the first 4 f6f's I saw, I think you were the fourth, before reversing and trying again. Imagine that.. trying to HO f6f's in a zeke. Glad you got your revenge, I can say I got mine after I jumped into our cruisers guns and sank all three of your cv's with eskimo's help. Then allies can say they got theirs by capturing their field back and sinking our cg and cv. And on and on...
Point is that this is a game. No death penalty. I know a lot of pilots will HO in certain situations and I don't blame them for that anymore. Sometimes you should, sometimes you shouldn't. I heard that another sim used a sort of invisible frontal shield on their a/c damage models to prevent HO's. I don't think that should be the way things are done. Let them fly the way they want.
mauser
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what irks me on merges is that I'm usually running on a very low ping time with no variance. I get great connections usually. So I'm seeing the merge closer than what the other person is seeing it. so it looks like I'm PAST him on my end, but I'm still right in front of him on his end. It happened in an apparent overshoot on Sat night. I'm chasing someone, and I see his buddy coming in so I roll outta the turn, I look up (down since I'm inverted) and he's there and gonna be out in front of my guns in second... ping ping crack! I'm going down???? There's no one else in guns range. Maybe I just lagged on the damage packets, but I really think he was still behind me on his FE, while almost in my gunsight on my FE. hehe, oh well, the net rules!
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Originally posted by Nifty
what irks me on merges is that I'm usually running on a very low ping time with no variance. I get great connections usually. So I'm seeing the merge closer than what the other person is seeing it. so it looks like I'm PAST him on my end, but I'm still right in front of him on his end. It happened in an apparent overshoot on Sat night. I'm chasing someone, and I see his buddy coming in so I roll outta the turn, I look up (down since I'm inverted) and he's there and gonna be out in front of my guns in second... ping ping crack! I'm going down???? There's no one else in guns range. Maybe I just lagged on the damage packets, but I really think he was still behind me on his FE, while almost in my gunsight on my FE. hehe, oh well, the net rules!
Nifty is right.
This is something I wish everyone would realize and come to grips with. Unless you are playing on a LAN with your buddy next to you, you will experience some delay whether it's a result of your connection or the other guys it doesn't matter.
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Cable/ISDN connect should not ever meet a HO. they will lose.
56k modems and lower, go for it.
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Ahhh. I'm lookin fer my 'ol dusty and trusty sportster external... Ms Cleo sees a downgrade in my connect speed in my near future.
:)
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I agree with all those, that hate HO's when the guy doing it has all other options at hand.
The worst HO's this way, come from LA7s and Spits.
I simply dont understand when anyone with speed and alt goes for the HO, when he has all the chances to bleed my E and get me from dead 6.
In other situations i consider a HO a valid tactic, especially fo rplanes with hvy weapons (P47, Tiffie, A8 with 4 cannons), that lag some performance issues (like turn) and have to get everyshot they need.
In the defensive, it can be a desperate last move for any plane.
Also i found that evading the HO is very easy when you start it early enough (that requires experience on ur connet, abd ur usual lag). For me this is around D1.4-1.2, than i execute a barrel roll and if the guy still goes for the HO, he will need to pull some very bad Gs. Against higher nmes, i especially liek to dive to there 11 or 1 oc pos. If they go fo the HO, the pull neg G and will gain way more speed than they want. If they dont take it, i will have either enough speed to get seperation or to reverse into them once the go for the tail chase.
And cause i am flying mainly the FW190, i will very offen go for a front quarter shot. But i try to time it so that my tgt cant bring his guns inline with me. Those shots are as good as low angle tail shots, but they give you the advantage that you can usually fire at the engine.
If there si the likely chance my tgt will get around to bring his guns on me, i will not take the shot. Instead i will go for a new guns solution.
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WORST THING ABOUT AN HO is the whinner that lost.
don't like HOs ? go play Ms Pacman.
want to win most HO's ? FIRE FIRST AND MOSTEST.
too slow to avoid an HO you say ....well then YOU screwed up.
wonder why some people only HO? most because they are new and know no other way, they aren't MASTERS that can't avoid a lousy HO like you.