Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Widewing on July 24, 2003, 12:08:36 AM
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I need some advice from experienced trainers on how to go about training the "un-trainable". Seriously, I need some fresh ideas as I'm at a dead end.
Tonight, I was reviewing squad stats and was stupified at one member's fighter numbers. I won't mention his name.
K/D: 0.08861
Kills / Hour: .07216
Hit Percentage: 2.666%
I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that. Worse, he's been playing this type of game since Air Warrior DOS.
I've been thinking about taking some of our newbies to the TA for an evening and working with them to improve their skills, but I'm at a loss as to what to do with this guy. He's dedicated, always shows up for squad events, and is the first to volunteer for gooning. He just doesn't seem to understand that the record for the most sorties in an hour is not a desirable goal (he averages 11 sorties an hour). Moreover, he's not a suicider either. His problem seems to be that Stevie Wonder has better SA. He manages to land about 20% of his sorties, but almost never returns with even a single kill.
Despite his ACM and SA shortcomings, he is easily the most enthusiastic member of the squad. He absolutely loves this game.
He's a cancer survivor, suffered through all manner of surgery and therapy, yet there's not a hint of self-pity in him.
I'd like to help this fellow improve, but nothing anyone says seems to sinks in... Any ideas on how to go about helping this very kind-hearted and pleasant man improve his game?
Oh, and since I mentioned cancer, we have another squad member, VX who is another cancer survivor. Sadly, his cancer has reoccurred. He still flies with us several times a week, is a great squadmate and utterly dependable. Keep VX in your thoughts and prayers, with the hope that he is with us for many years to come. bud!
My regards,
Widewing
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I guess the first question is...
Does he want help?
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Wide, gosh this guy sounds like a great asset to the squad, in his own ways. I can understand that you'd want his numbers to improve in order to help the squad stats, but it sounds like he helps the squad in other ways (i.e. gooning).
If he is fun to be around, and enjoying the game himself, how much does he need to change?
Not harping... but, people that put up respectable numbers but are no fun to be around(like this author, oft times) are a dime a dozen.
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I think Steve nailed it perfectly :
If he is fun to be around, and enjoying the game himself, how much does he need to change?
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The most effective way I can think of is that you both actually sit at the same computer. First you at the controls, offline, showing how you handle the views, basic manouvres, shooting, etc. Then let him practise, you observing. Then you fly some missions in the MA, explaining all the time what you do and why you do it. Then let him fly some missions, you telling where to look and what to do thru the missions.
Of course, all of this only if he really wants to improve, and you have the possibility to pay a visit.
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Originally posted by Widewing
Oh, and since I mentioned cancer, we have another squad member, VX who is another cancer survivor. Sadly, his cancer has reoccurred. He still flies with us several times a week, is a great squadmate and utterly dependable. Keep VX in your thoughts and prayers, with the hope that he is with us for many years to come. bud!
Man, Ole ^VX^ spent a few years as a Shill before we lost him to the alure of FR in AW. Thanks for letting us know about his condition.
-Sik
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Originally posted by Widewing
Despite his ACM and SA shortcomings, he is easily the most enthusiastic member of the squad. He absolutely loves this game.
Every squad needs a mascot. I'm not kidding here lol. I spent probably 5 years as the worst pilot in the Shills. If he's having fun, then maybe that's all that matters. however...
If he has trouble with Energy management, the easiest way to address this is to simply ask him to follow you on your 6 through many many sorties. You can focus on maintaining a high E state, and setting up passes. At first he will be totally focused on following you. But as time wears on, he should start to get a better feel for how you are flying. Following will become easier, and ultimatly, he will begin to pick up how it is you maintain your energy state. Plus, if he's sitting on your tail, at about D700 he will be sure to get a few shots as bandits try to latch on to you.
This is the only method that ever had any effect on me when it came to Energy management. I must have followed Montezuma around for a year in Airwarrior lol.
-Sik
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yep.. I agree with steve. Who cares? If the guy is fun to be around and is having fun then he is an asset. He will get better if he enjoys the game. He might simply need to get into the fights more often. Nothing like getting into the thick of it to improve someone.
I honestly don't know our squad rank or the numbers on any particular squaddie. Our guys have access to films by drex, leviathn, hoolign and apache and maybe a couple of other allmost as crappy pilots but that is about it.
The maw beat their players with sticks if they dont get over a .05 K/d. If they still don't improve... a mild shot of "Raid" in the face.
If the fields were closer he would get better faster.
lazs
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Reality Check.
Fighting Cancer vs. Fighting to Improve personal/squad score.
HMMM.
get your head out of your 6 and let him fly anyway he damn well wants. He obviously has much more to offer your squad than a stupid number no one but you really cares about.
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I think, as proposed earlier, the question is… does he want help? If he’s having fun and supporting the squad then statistics are really just an indicator of vanity and not cohesion.
As far as how to instruct the fellow squadie, spend about 30 or so minutes of your squad nights in the DA fighting each other before heading to the MA.
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well well.....
I think Sikpuppy(sikboy).....nailed it right.....
I actually taught a 65 year old man(Hedd).....you wanna know how hard it was:D
now he actually gets kills and lands em.....took awhile....but like sikpuppy said...eventually he will get the feel for E state....just tell em to fug SA right now and concentrate on your BIG butt Widewing.....
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I noticed that lots of newbies are much too lazy to use their sights properly. Because of the fact that the cooliehat dont give you all sights you need in combat.
Thats the reason why my lefthand is ALWAYS on numpad. My lefthand does the biggest part when succesfull flying.
Sometimes, a friend visits me at home. And its always the same:
He watches me like i get kills in an easy looking manner, and then he wants to fly.
He is not used in using the numpad, and the cooliehat dont give you all views you need. So the most of the time, he is flying always looking straight forward.
when it comes to fight, he sometimes tries to hammerhead like i often do. Man..that hurts watching him. :)
Most of the maneuver he is looking straight in to the blue sky. No look left or right to control the planes position in comparison to horizon. Not even a look to the speedometer.
He is one of that guys who can fly a hammerhead contrary to what it should be: Climbing too long, stalling, tumbling down and get cherry picked by the former victim waiting down low.
:D
There is nothing to help him, as long he didnt want to help himself.
Ecke
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Originally posted by lazs2
The maw beat their players with sticks if they dont get over a .05 K/d. If they still don't improve... a mild shot of "Raid" in the face.
If the fields were closer he would get better faster.
lazs
LOL ... your to much !!! :D
WW ... I would have to agree with most of the other posters. If he is having fun then what the heck ... leave him to it.
Also, like someone posted above ... Does he really want to get better ?
If he really wants to improve, take him to the DA with the squad. Have him join you as you do 1 v 1 - 1 v 2 - 1 v 3 against other members of the squad. You can communicate on local channel to him telling him exactly what you are doing and he can see that your views/head seems to be on a swivle as you fight off multiple bogeys. Proper SA requires one to be a master of the view system along with good anticipation.
Good luck and <> and prayers to both of those pilots.
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acke ??? you have sites that explains alot:D no seriously thoughsa is the game, i tried teaching a friend of mine how to fly, he did ok except he would use his veiw keys or the tophat, now this is on my puter though and a setup he is not use to saiteck x45, anyhow as hard as i tried to explain to him keeep your thumb on that top hat at all times and use the forward up and angle veiws to see target(me on sons puter) he just had hard time douing it, dunno why i guess to some of the flyers in ah it is second nature by now.
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Originally posted by Sikboy
If he has trouble with Energy management, the easiest way to address this is to simply ask him to follow you on your 6 through many many sorties.
There's a downside to that. I don't mind squaddies following me around, but please stay outside 1.0. Otherwise, I'll hear their motors in my ears and won't know if its friend or a foe saddling up in my blind spot.
Best training plane: Yak 9U. Taught me to (a) measure my shots and (b) work the throttle to get in close. No WEP to its motor, so full throttle is full thrust - easy engine management there. Climbs well, good rearward visibility, good maneuverability, good speed to catch Spitfires and N1K2s or run away from them, and the nose cannon means you don't have to worry about convergence. It has flaps but you don't really need them. Its a good way to get some easy perk points, too.
But that assumes that the pilot actually wants to learn. Otherwise, just let him keep on truckin'.
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"Keep VX in your thoughts and prayers.."
Absolutely.
As for your Westy-like squad partner running a skill deficit? Well...
Assuming he wants to improve his abilities are you using VOX with him? That would be the first thing and it's a must IMO.
Second would be to make sure he wasn't growing potatoes in his ears or had ADD.
The third thing would be for you to ride as an observer as he "flies and dies." Like an online drivers-ed! Give him tips as he flies on when to make the turn, the type of maneuvers, appropriate merges, when to fire and if he does not see a bogy wake him up to it etc etc. He must of course have some communications skills, at a minimum a working set of vocal cords, to express what he's doing the whole time so you can guage what he's thinking and why he does the things he does.
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If you want, send me some of his films in combat.
drex@sbcglobal.net
Drex
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I think it is good Widewing (or anyone else) is actively trying to train people. It is a commendable thing.
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Originally posted by lazs2
yep.. I agree with steve. Who cares? If the guy is fun to be around and is having fun then he is an asset. He will get better if he enjoys the game. He might simply need to get into the fights more often. Nothing like getting into the thick of it to improve someone.
I honestly don't know our squad rank or the numbers on any particular squaddie. Our guys have access to films by drex, leviathn, hoolign and apache and maybe a couple of other allmost as crappy pilots but that is about it.
The maw beat their players with sticks if they dont get over a .05 K/d. If they still don't improve... a mild shot of "Raid" in the face.
If the fields were closer he would get better faster.
lazs
Sticks Bah we use clubs. Sticks are for sissys.
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Originally posted by lazs2
The maw beat their players with sticks if they dont get over a .05 K/d. If they still don't improve... a mild shot of "Raid" in the face.
Just when I think something lassie says might make sense....his true ignorance shows true........or maybe it is just envy?....
Come on lazsMAW...which is it?
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I would start with his J/S set-up if you havent already. If his J/S settings are way off he is probably bouncing all over the place. If he does manage to get on someone's six and his J/S is FUBAR he will not hit the sky let alone the nme. ;)
We also have a squaddie who struggles with S/A (views mostly IMO) He has gotten alot better since we duel frequently and record it. This way he can join my plane and watch himself get shot down :). Has really seemed to help him understand just how vital it is to never.... NEVER.... lose site of your opponent.
Just my 2 cents worth...
ManeDog
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i find when training our new squaddies...
# 1 IMPORTANT is teaching them the head positions and gettin their Hat set up properly. i have run into sooo many from AW that only had a 4 way hat back then and dont realize the incredible views you can get in AH. i usually email out a zip fiel with all my *.hps and *.cfg files for head positions and convergences.
the # 2 thing i teach is all the plane settings (auto pilots, fuel tanks, selecting weapons, ammo counters, trim, and so on.... i go from the very basic.) and clipboard stuff (zoom in, icons, everyting you need to know about the clip.)
these 2 phases of training take about 4-6 hours IRL sitting on the ground on the tarmac or in the tower.
after that we usually have them ride along in one of our fighters for a few days. we go to a rear base and do basic ACM telling them what we are doing the whole time.
once they are flying alone we hop in their plane to see what they are doing right and wrong. (thats the best way to see if their stick is set up right and they are not all over.
about 2-3 times a month me and JB42 like to set up an H2H for the squad to fight eachother. we set damage to 0 and ammo to full... you can hear the sound of a cannon hit. then we watch em and have them try and shoot us down. some are better than others. but we try to explain all we do and have others do it too. that way the whole squad knows the collective information.
oh well my 2¢
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One of the things I've noticed is that many people either can't or don't want to try to understand the charts, graphs and long texts explaining the in's and out's of ACM. They want to SEE how it's done. I suggest making up some "Classic example" films depicting the various basic maneuvers for each plane your squad flys. You'll most likely hear a lot of comments back like "Ooohhh...NOW I see!!....You make your pass and THEN climb BACK up to altitude!!" :)
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You know, alot about ACM is also based on how badly you want to kill the other guy.
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First ask him what hes having problems with...and if he wants help. Then let him join your plane in flight and talk him through the moves you make to show him how to correct his problems. Then take him to da and beat up on him to practice making sure he records the fights. Let him see what hes doing wrong. Then let him follow you around the MA and set him up some kills by letting bogies on your 6. Thats what I do and it seems to work...Although I suck at this game...
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Originally posted by Mars
One of the things I've noticed is that many people either can't or don't want to try to understand the charts, graphs and long texts explaining the in's and out's of ACM. They want to SEE how it's done. I suggest making up some "Classic example" films depicting the various basic maneuvers for each plane your squad flys. You'll most likely hear a lot of comments back like "Ooohhh...NOW I see!!....You make your pass and THEN climb BACK up to altitude!!" :)
there are some films out there . Realmedia though
it was like lemsko.de or something ... i DL'd them all about 20mb zipped... looking to get bigger webspace for our squad then will host em.
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Widewing, one of the things i do with my squad is; one night a week we all go to dueling arena we break in to two teams. one switches sides. We use 242 for Vox so both sides can talk to each other. Split the teams up by skill sets. Set up 1V1's by skill set and 2v2 also during 1V1 I and another skilled pilot will join planes and talk them through observe what they are doing wrong. This has helped my squad out a lot and it's great fun for he whole squad. Hope this helps
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Several things I have discovered about my squadie since I put up the original post.
1) He never designates an attack sortie for what it is, everything is flown under "fighter" sortie. That means every kill of a ground target is not counted, and strafing decimates his hit percentage.
2) He simply doesn't care if he gets shot down, as long as he takes out his target. Should he miss it, he'll fly right down into the horde just to de-ack or de-strat the field. He'll stay at it until his guns are empty or he gets clobbered. Should he survive the ack and fighters, he'll rearm and head right back again.
3) His SA is non-existant. He rarely knows what killed him unless it shot him in the face (in our last visit to the TA, I flew in the slot position at his low 6 for several minutes without being detected, even sent tracers whizzing by that failed to get his attention).
4) When he does detect a threat, he never seems to know what to do about it.
He catches alot of crap from the other guys for his constant chatter on VOX (Hey, he's just enjoying himself, but tends to ramble too much). His most common statement; "I'm in my chute", which gets responses like, "Naw you're kidding, right?" or "Who'd a thunk it?" and so on.
One thing everyone should know about him is that when he says he's going to take down a target, come hell or high water, he does. Even if he gets shot down several times trying to reach the target, he stays at it until it's dead. Should he get whacked while gooning, no complaints, he just ups another one.
Upon reflection, I have to agree with those posters who suggest that he's an asset just the way he is. In fact, despite the possibility that he is the game's worst fighter jock, he just may be the games best squadie as well, always willing to take the heat for the team, usually first on line for the honor of doing so.
I wish I could pay him a visit and work with him, but he lives in Alaska, and I'm out on eastern Long Island, about as far away as is possible within the borders of the USA.
However, I will suggest that he wing with me with the understanding that whatever I do, wherever I go, he follows. I will also suggest he join me in my fighter for a few sorties. Finally, I'm going to suggest that he spend more time in fighters like the FM-2 and Hurricane IIC, where running is not an option, and fighting out of trouble is the only way to get back. Nothing seems to sharpen SA and ACM skills like that environment.
Thanks for the input guys, it's appreciated.
My regards,
Widewing
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Originally posted by lazs2
The maw beat their players with sticks if they dont get over a .05 K/d. If they still don't improve... a mild shot of "Raid" in the face.
Yikes! I didn't know the "Raid" treatment was next! :p
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Man this guy sounds like half my squad... I tell you what though.. he sounds fun to have around. Thats the kind of attitude I look for in a squadie. Sooner or later he'll try to stay alive and will find that surviving can be very exciting too.... I have 3 squadies who couldnt even set their views to see behind the seat and didnt mind dying costantly. But since I showed them the light, the chatter on squad chl about what each other shot down or did and how banged up they are cracks me up...
The comic relief alone makes playing this game fun.
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You should be thankful you have a guy in your squadron that just wants to have fun and isn't all caught up in the rank/score hype.
You should also ask him if he wants to improve or if he's just happy to do what he's doing. Don't force him into something that just might end up stopping the fun factor for him.
But if he does want to learn, have him read Fletchman's lectures on Situational Awarness since that seems to be your squad mates major hurdle to over come. Once you teach him situational awarness, everything else will become easier for him to learn.
Have him check the roster to see if I'm up and I'll be more than happy to take him to the TA or DA and teach him some stuff. But beware, he might become another P-38 dweeb afterwards.
Ack-Ack
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Training a squaddie so he can add to the squad rank is never a good idea. However, if you're training him so that he can better enjoy the game (ie. he wants to learn, and enjoys that aspect of the game) try and single out good players in the game who fly the planes he wants to try, and get them to send in films. In the past I've posted films of dogfights on our squad forums to show different things, and watching them is purely voluntary for squaddies. Give the guy a venue to learn, and allow him to make the decisions on how he wants to enjoy himself while playing it.
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Wide wide wide..... hey put him in a spit 9 ,its still the most forgiveable plane in the game , you grab a spit 5 . start him with the continuous turns following you til the plane stalls .. do that over and over til he learns when and how to keep it from stalling.
Them work him hard with the HO merge with the immelman in it . and have him keep your plane in site at all times . (beshure bolth of you films it , then send him your films .)
trade planes with him after he gets a good feel for the spit 9.
He should wake up in a spit 5 and really start to get the hang of it in a few weeks.
Remember your skills are 100 times what his are . so try to keep your acm moves simple and predictable for him.Teach him to use the short blast instead of the spray and pray, Turning off tracers helps alot .
I'd spend the time training him in H2H land if he wants... I cant afford the MA until all my fire bills are paid off at this time ( eta Xmas at the latest then I'll be back ) Email me at Roscoroo@hotmail.com
P.s im having a headache with the Ghost BBS at this time (it may work again after i go back to win98)
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Wide This one is right up my alley.
I had a blind guy flying once who managed to take off, fly around, and do a good landing.
Course I helped talk him through it, but he had a ball.
billj69@btinet.net
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I don't think Wide ever said that he wants to help the guy just to make his squad score look better. It sounded to me that he mentioned the squadies score just to give an idea of what level he is at?
Maybe he just wanted advice on giving the guy a hand.....
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Originally posted by Ghosth
Wide This one is right up my alley.
I had a blind guy flying once who managed to take off, fly around, and do a good landing.
Course I helped talk him through it, but he had a ball.
billj69@btinet.net
Wide-
Trying not to hijack here.
If you need an agressor pilot to help in the TA, I'd be happy to do it.
Meanwhile, there's a great airshow in Schenectady Aug 23-24th. I'm going up with the family. Any interest?
http://www.esamairshow.com/