Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: smash on November 20, 1999, 06:16:00 PM
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Not to start a flame war... though it's probably unavoidable. But I am curious as to what other people think.
I enjoy buffing as much - or more - than flying fighters. But having the gunners go to sleep in the bomb run, and having the left waist go to sleep while the right waist is firing is a bit silly to me. And totally unrealistic.
That combined with 1 ping on me when I am in the tail gunner posit and poof I'm in the tower has really frustrated me to the point that I am not flying the 17 right now.
Just my opinion.
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1 ping? might been lag or lucky hit into butt
But it aint easy for fighters either, those guns feels too powerful (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
Just watching those videos with tens of B-17s in formation and fighters surviving through fire storm without 600mph speed and weird angles, is something unbelievable to survive in AH though.
Comes more to think about it when single B-17 was said to be easy target for fighters, but in AH its alot more than easy without real poor gunner or much speed and 100% correct approach.
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The key seems to be speed. I took out Rexx in one today, if your moving over top of 300mph IAS it seems that gunners have a 100% harder time killing you.
Also note: rudder helps alot, slewing approaches throw off their aim and allow you to hit from odd angled runs.
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If your in range, so is the enemy.
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Yeah... he's in range but not getting fired on... it's a one man ship during the run.
just a bit unrealistic is all...
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I usually have to hit the 17 alot to knock it down.
Might be a network thing, I have 1 ping or no ping killed in a fighter.
Mino
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The thing I have noticed when on is that none of the buff pilots want gunners.
I make a regular call to gun. Especially after a long intense fight. On occasion I get a ride, but for the most part, I see b17 after b17 take off with nary a word.
I have also heard many other pilots offer their gunning skills, without response. So buffers speak up. Remeber, we can join u in flight!
PS. I am not a bad gunner. I have not made a trip yet with out at least 1 kill.
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"Just Plane Nuts"
Gazoo
http://plaza.v-wave.com/SolarStorm/index.htm (http://plaza.v-wave.com/SolarStorm/index.htm)
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speaking as a buff driver, I think for the most part we prefer to man our own guns and have someone grab another 17 and form up on our wing. I'd personally rather have 4 single-crewed 17s in a tight box than 2 17s w/ gunners flying side by side. Saftey in numbers and all that ya know =)
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Air power is a thunderbolt launched from an egg shell invisibly tethered to a base. - Hoffman Nickerson
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As another buff driver I too have found it much easier to man my own guns. Don't know why, but from practice, seems ride along gunners see some things totally differant from what I see when I gun my own.
I also dislike the rudder will respond to gunner movement since I use a MS precision Pro "sidewinder"....
Have run rudder damp to full, both in the game and in the stick software,, and still rudders much to sensitive. (throws off my gunnery really bad.)
(just one of my pet peeves)
The other complaint I have is nuthing worse than jumping from either rear to front or top to bottom, and finding the damn gun pointing wrong direction by 180 degrees.... I think ALL guns should track nearest target. (if not under direct bearing control.)
ie: if target coming up from under, then as it clears the plane of the plane the upper guns should be bearing already.
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GreyBeard
Flight Commander, Aces High
Skeleton Crew
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Adding my two cents...
Otto being too good? Thanx for the compliment! I try to ping at 1100 yards and kill the con before they get inside 600 yards. While I'm not an expert on ballistics I've had some practice with Light and Heavy machine guns and the ballistics are pretty damn close IMHO.
1 Ping kills? Has to be net lag or a pilot kill. I'm yet to die from a one ping kill while flying a buff.
Sorrow's point on speed is a factor as well as range, (fire at about 400-100yards). I fly fighters about as much as buffs and get regular kills on buff pilots who don't know how to lead properly from a gunner position. I also find the angle of attack counts for a lot as well. Head on and 10-2 attacks are my mainstay against buffs because the offset for the buff gunner is so tricky. I also try to attack through 3 axis so the gunner has to change position once or twice to get a shot at me, as I pass by.
From a gunners point of view I get most of my kills of fighters either because they drag up on my low slow 6 or screw up the entry for the first attack and end up sucking lead in through their teeth as the blow by my tail at 600mph. The hardest kills are cons with speed and altitude attacking from the front quarters because they move to fast too track with the guns.
Gazoo mentioned buff pilots not taking gunners. Don't take offence gazoo coz I'm sure you're a great gunner, but I'll never have a gunner in my plane. The reason: There's no-one else to blame if I get shot down! Paraphrasing 214CaveJ, I'd rather have another B17 beside me than a gunner behind me.
As for killing buff's I try to rake the plane from nose to tail with cannon fire, (the 190 is exceptional at this and with a pair of 30mm cannon on the wings it never takes more than one 1/2 sec burst on a single pass to finish the job). If the plane only has a pair of 20mm cannon or just heavy machine guns then I aim for the engines and wing root with the intention of crippling the plane and making it impossible to fly.
As a small aside: has anyone other than me managed to shoot down another B17 with a B17? It was as funny as a fart in an elevator on Sunday afternoon when a Knight B17 "bounced" me and with their single ball turret gun took on my top, tail and left waist gun. You guess the result =)
Spotcha in the Air
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I've taken down another 17 with a 17. I dinnae remember who I was riding with, but we were rtb after dropping on a target and there was this bishcuit 17 in front of us and a little lower. So he dove a little bit, got me in range, and I opened up. down they went =)
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Air power is a thunderbolt launched from an egg shell invisibly tethered to a base. - Hoffman Nickerson
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LOL;
Sounds like a cool idea for a Scenerio.
B-17 vs B-17 Deathmatch, last plane flying wins. Can't you just picture the tracers (or frame rate) with 15 B-17's circling in a furball.
Mino
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Gazoo,
I fly buffs a lot and any time I'm in the arena and you want to gun, give me a shout.
I've found that alot of gunners are not interested in a long flight. It is good to see someone who wants to gun. This is very useful especially when the enemy is attacking as you are on the sights. Also, with multiple attackers from different altitudes and sides, working together with a good gunner that understands is a plus. Your welcome on my ship anytime!
Salute,
Thunder
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Gazoo, you know that you volunteer for a long ride with some pilots? If I make a run in less than 60 minutes it was a front line field (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Mino: Hehe, sounds like fun to me.
Az
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Azrael
XO 487th BG (Heavy) (http://www.487th.de)
'The Gentlemen from Hell'
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I'm by no means a buff expert, far from it. Thought I'd share a tip though that seems to be working for me in defending it against a single fighter.
90% of the time the fighter attacks from my six (not smart imho). What I've been doing is, when the fighter is at d20, I'll go into a shallow dive to get my speed up. When the fighter gets to d13 I'll head back to man the guns, leveling the plane out. What this does is to increase the amount of time it takes for the nme plane to close - the speed difference of your two planes is much smaller. You now have a much greater window to get hits on him while he is still out of guns range of your 17.
Y'all are prolly doing that already anyways, or have a better method. I dunno. But I just started doing that a few days ago and it works quite well. Against an experienced buff killer, I figure ya can forget this little tidbit. They come in *fast* from high or low. However, when ya do see one inching up slowly on yer six, you can feel pretty safe.
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I do realize that sometimes it is a long climb to the target for 20 seconds of glory. But I love gunning esp. when in a formation of 2 or more buffs. I have been on a couple of raids where there were 2 b17's and 2 gunners. We could not be touched. The pilots kept WELL inside of d1 and well us gunners just had to shoot. That is a LOT of fire power in AH if the pilots can hold formation while under attack. This was a blast!
So for those of you buff drivers, give a shout when you want a gunner. If I can, I will join.
Also, buff drivers, we can join in flight in AH so a few min before you are turning IP and starting to concentrate on you run, call for a gunner. Someone can watch the guns for the bomb run while you are defenseless.
Personally I like the climb out. There is usually a lot of conversation that goes on. if your not into conversation, well I like to gun a run or two to relax and going along for the ride is ok.
Well for those of you that want to man your own guns <S>. I address those that cry for otto on their bomb run, or some other sort of otto solution. AI has no place in an online sim.
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"Just Plane Nuts"
Gazoo
http://plaza.v-wave.com/SolarStorm/index.htm (http://plaza.v-wave.com/SolarStorm/index.htm)
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That was me raxx so shutup (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
And it was with cheek and ball, I couldn't get the nose far enough over for the waist guns.
One thing I have to argue though, raking a buf nose back is a waste of time. If you want to kill them fastest go for a wing, concentrate fire at tips moving inwards using rudder. Other wise I have amazing success at just leading my fire into their tail. As little as one stabilizer gone and the whole buff is going for a dirt nap.
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If your in range, so is the enemy.
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that's not always true sorrow. There've been several times I've landed with several parts of my 17 missing. I think my most memorable landing was with engines 1 and 3 out, both elevators shot out (adjusting pitch with engines), left aileron and right flap gone. Still haven't figured out how I nursed that thing back to the ground =)
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Air power is a thunderbolt launched from an egg shell invisibly tethered to a base. - Hoffman Nickerson
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not always, but pretty close. I mentioned tail for a reason. In AH when a stabilizor or the rudder goes the buff seems to be in a HEAP o trouble. Mind you, catching one stabilizor is the best. both go it kind of evens out eh?
BTW wasn't that plane you described in WB not AH?
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If your in range, so is the enemy.
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I am just tired of it I guess. If it is truly a simulation, then simulating combat against a B17 involves attacking an aircraft defended by multiple gun positions capable firing on aircraft. There was not one gunner who ran around from position to position leaving entire quarters of the sky unprotected.
I decided to break down and take one up again a few days ago. I even took it to about 33k or so, got 4 eggs off and butchered. It's about the same as taking up a C47, but with ordinance.
When we had the strat change in WB, and field capture was possible without closing the field, there was a huge change in offensive tactics. Prior to that we had large formations of bombers with escort doing deep penetration for target strikes. Lots of fun, lots of high alt combat with large groups of aircraft. In my mind a more realistic recreation of the environment I would like to fly in. When field closing was no longer required, much of that died. The squad I am in went to doing almost exclusively HA flying, but when you dump 10 or 15 people into an arena that has only 30 or 40 in it to begin with, it gets pretty unbalanced, and frankly a bit boring.
Hence my boredom with WB.
I will fly fighters, but I would have a lot more fun flying buffs. In fact I would really enjoy being in a squad that utilizes specifically medium bombers, such as the 25, 26 etc
So I guess I am squeaking because I don't see this as a possibility in AH. Yes, you might get 6 or 8 guys up but who wants to have to have gunners? If there are really extra people interested in participating in a mission, then lets have extra buffs and/or escorts.
Plus let's have some realism. If you're going to attack a defended target you should have to worry about it, the way opposing pilots "had" to worry about it.
Another thing, I have yet to lose an engine in flight. For me the wing just gets sawed off everytime. There's no intermediate damage, just death. (I know I know it's beta)
I guess it sounds like I am squeaking (I am hehe)... but I've squeaked at Pyro and the guys before so they probably take it with a grain of salt ;-) It's just my .10 and I appreciate everyone's taking the time to reply to my thread.
By the way I went through a B17 at Luke a couple of weeks back. The waist gunner positions are modeled much, much more realistically here than in WB.
I guess if we were being totally realistic... I couldn't fire half the positions anyway at 6'2" and 215 ;-) It was all I could do to crawl through the thing....
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smash the gun system in AH brings all guns able to fire on a target to bear on that target, and you have the option of firing only the gun position you are manning _or_ firing all guns that can fire on that target.
sorrow- WB? nope, I've not flown warbirds online in any mode other than h2h (and that only a couple of times).
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Air power is a thunderbolt launched from an egg shell invisibly tethered to a base. - Hoffman Nickerson
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Cave-
Smash's point is that if multiple fighters attack your fighter from opposite sides, it is impossible to defend your buff. Only one gunner onboard means only one target tracked at a time.
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No gunner system is without its downsides, but I really like the balance in the AH system. We don't like leaving buffs undefended if they don't have gunners. Getting a crew of gunners together is not something that happens a lot. Robot gunners on buffs are just impossible to balance and nobody likes to be shot down by AI from another plane.
There is the complaint that buffs are unprotected during their bombing run. As others have noted, I do see a lot of people asking to gun on the radio. If you take a gunner, this is not a factor. If you want to gun for yourself, then that's the tradeoff you make. The good thing is that this system makes it so a lot of people do want to gun.
The complaint that multiple planes attacking a buff simultaneously is again, not that big of a factor in my opinion. First, this can be alleviated by flying with other buffs. Second, look at how often this were to really be a factor if we even allowed multiple gunners. Here's some very liberal estimates.
% of sorties that would be flown with multiple gunners
20% (in reality would be probably less than 5%)
% of sorties where simultaneous attacks take place
50%
% of simultaneous attacks where attackers come from different directions
25%
% of those attacks where the buff would be able to successfully fend off this simultaneous attack
50%
I think those percentages are fairly liberal. The end result is that it would make a difference in about 1% of the sorties.
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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations
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Another thing, I have yet to lose an engine in flight. For me the wing just gets sawed off everytime. There's no intermediate damage, just death. (I know I know it's beta)
Looks the different damage stages are implemented as of Version 0.39 - I had all kind of damage on my B-17: Engines shot out, engines leaking and later seizing, fuel tank leaks, elevator shot off on one side (nice feature compared to brand W where you loose everything), ailerons, flaps, vertical stab (I could actually see 1999 fire at the tail section), landing gear (there I was with 2 engs out, one gear shot up and 10 feet of the runway... grrr), pilot kills, wings broken off.
Of course I may have been lucky, most of my deaths prior to 0.39 have been wings shot off.
The damge in this picture was from a Me 262 (probably 4x30mm then):
(http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b17f-12.jpg)
Az
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Azrael
XO 487th BG (Heavy) (http://www.487th.de)
'The Gentlemen from Hell'
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Are you sure it was a Me262 Azrael?
I have seen the same picture in another book and it stated that it took a direct hit from a 88mm cannon at the wing root.
Just curious (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires ;) "
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Does not make too much sense for a 262 to be any where near a bomber taking AAA fire.
The question remains, who or what took the picture? Then mystery of what killed the bomber will be solved.
The damage looks massive to me.
Thinking of the men in that falling bomber, my heart also falls from the sky.
Mino
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Pyro.
And the auto fire coordination makes the 17 way more powerful against a single interceptor. The mission survival rating for the buff as you have modeled it is probebly far higher than if it required a man per gun.
You allways get the max guns against a target, instead of at most 2 other wise.
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Verm:
I saw that picture a long time ago in my SWOTL manual, and just found it again (on the top and a smaller part of the same picture) at http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b2-20a.htm (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b2-20a.htm)
The SWOTL manual states:
"Ripped apart by cannon fire of a Me 262, this B-17, "Wee Willie", goes down during a raid on April 10, 1945. Cuortesy of the United States Air Force".
The picture description on the USAF site states:
"B-17F with the right wing blown off - by an Me-262 over Crantenburg, Germany"
So I can assume that this particular B-17 was downed by a Me 262.
And the damage on the elevator and the (destroyed) wing look like this was gunfire not a single 88mm shell.
Az
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Azrael
XO 487th BG (Heavy) (http://www.487th.de)
'The Gentlemen from Hell'
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The robotic B29 gunnery system in this game sucks. Period.
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Two recommendations for Pyro:
1) Fix the B-17 Flight Model so that it isn't able to ascend into low earth orbit with a full load of eggs.
2) Compared to WB, increase the amount of time necessary to "calibrate" the bombsite and make sure that buffs can't do the ol' WB "gyro" turn (I've only buffed once or twice here, so if this isn't relevant, my apologies). Basically, the idea is to require buffs to fly in a straight line long enough for interceptors to run a 'real' attack. The lack of any ground vectoring system, and the short line-up times (which gives the buffs alot of leeway to maneuver) for buffs is what contributes to all the "up-the-buff's-6" attacks in WB. A good HO pass is still darned hard to execute right... but let's encourage this more realistic approach in AH's gameplay.
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SnakeEyes
o-o-o-
=4th Fighter Group=