Unofficial HO Ettiquette

[Sweet2th]

This is all an end result of to many new players coming in everyday and not enough people to help them figure out ACM, evasives, and basic flight.You see these new players everyday on country type askin how to do this and how to do that and someone always tells them " go out of here and go into the TA(traing Arena) and someone will tell you all of that stuff" but you see the end result in the level of gameplay in the Main Arena right now.


Help a Cadet today!

[Dace]

To all of you who say "HO is bad form". I beg this question. If your in Typhoon or N1K2 or 110G or Mossie and your in a fight with a lets say...a P51, 109F, f6f or any such, do you still consider it bad form? I would think that if your in a "Heavy Hitter" ,so to speak, it would be to your tactical advantage to HO certain planetypes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it has always been in my mindset that the HO is a valid tactic if it is to your advantage. I rarely fly "heavy hitters", but on the rare occasion I up a 110, I'll HO anything dum enough to go there. Also, If a 262 gives me anything close to a HO shot I'll take it everytime, no matter what plane I'm in. HO is not a common practice of mine, but if it to my planes advantage and the other guy comes headon, I'll line up and pull that trigger. Call me a HOtard but thats my feelings on HO.

[Dace]

Originally posted by Krusty
HOing isn't bad form per se...

Only HOing, running to turn around to HO, extending, looping around (up, down, or flat) and going for the HO again, and suicidally HOing in a direct attempt to RAM every freaking time -- THOSE are the worst form. I've seen them a lot recently.

Excatly.

[Schutt]

I think this film shows nicely how instead of doing a "HO-merge" you can already turn halve way around while the other guy tries to shoot and end up in a favorable position behind him.

The maneuver i use is dangerous, because there is a chance the enemy gets a belly shot and disables / kills me, but the resulting position is pretty nice especially if the other guy does a flat turn. But if you pull it to aggressive the other guy has a chance to pull in behind if hes verry maneuverable and kills his speed fast enough.

What i want to say is, avoiding the HO merge with a good move gives you a nice position and with that a 70/30 chance of winning, much better than the 40/40/20 chance of winning, loosing or crashing when you try to keep on the HO.

merges.ahf .

cu schutt

[FBplmmr]

wow I just watched that film from the perspective of the LA driver and to be honest its really kinda sad that is all they can really do,  I feel differently about the HOer now:lol

(shocker that a HO film would feature an LA driver)


I use that same tactic as well and as long as you dont pull too early it works fairly well especially if there is a little more horizontal seperation

(i pulled early last night on a hurricane and he came up with me ... for a little ways... it turned into a rope   .. i still managed to auiger before it was over tho:cry )

[Guppy35]

My take on the HO.

You have to decide if you think it's bad form.  Clearly it happens often in AH.

Lots of us had it hammered into us in AW that it was bad form.  I haven't lost that.  I don't HO cause it seems like bad form to me.   That clearly doesn't apply to other folks and I don't expect them to fly it my way.

I'd be lying if I said it isn't frustrating at times to see guys coming head on with the wings lit up every time.  I'd agree you can duck them most of the time, but clearly my 38G is a big target cause often I get that one ping from the HO even as it looks to me I'm way out of the line of fire and I end up with a smoking engine.

In the end I think you'll find the old timer ACM guys see the HO as bad form, but it's hard to say if they speak for the masses, and I'd suggest based on the MA they don't reflect popular opinion, which is to let fly with the cannons in your LA7 head on and race on by.

[Innominate]

Like Krusty said, there's nothing wrong with an HO as long as you're not just doing HO-run-HO-run-ad infinitum.

Schutt's film is an excellent demonstration of why HOing is often stupid.  In a near co-e merge, if you begin an immelman before the pass, while the other is committed to an HO, you spoil his shot, and secure an advantage at the same time.  If you come over the top and your opponent didn't do the same thing, the fight is now yours to lose.  Really the only time you want to HO is when you're at a major disadvantage, such as while being bounced.

Committing to an HO when you have better options is stupid.  Going through an HO without firing, and expecting your opponent to do the same is even dumber.

[SuperDud]

Stoney, stick with WW there. He'll learn ya right:D

[Kuhn]

HOing in an La? Stupid? yes. unheard of? no. One MUST learn how to avoid it if your not going to do it. I do not like to HO on the first pass. Allthough it does make the trigger finger itch, when in the La its better to counter the move. I feel the HO is bad form if thats all you have in your tactics arsenal. At times it may be your only option if your dueling numerous opponents alone. I dont think its bad form when you get ganged, witch is also called bad form by some.

[xtyger]

It just makes sense for me to head on, if that's going to be the only way to get the first shot. Once someone ends up behind me, I've usually lost the battle, although I lose much of the time in a Head On, as well. About the only time I can recover from someone getting behind me is if there's enough friendlies around to distract him at some point.

As far as ramming, I don't think I've ever done it intentionally. I have a hard time seeing the enemy a lot of times because of the video/ graphics on my laptop, that I'm stuck playing with for now. It's hard to tell when I'm getting too close and before I know it..WAM, we've collided.

I usually end up the loser in collisions, as well, so there's little point in me doing it on purpose.

[humble]

Personally 95% of HO's simply aren't. Mostly they are really front quarter shots of some kind. To me once your actually engaged there is no longer a "HO"...only energy and angles. So if one player works to get his nose around faster you can either get your nose pointed the other guys way faster or elect to evade or E fight. No question its frustrating to see the endless "pull to HO" from hurricanes nikki's etc but normally they are fighting neg E and using the hand you delt them. When ever I run into a guy who gives up his advantage to chase a bad HO I know that all I need to do to win that fight is get by his single chance. Most of the time the guy forcing the HO loses....

[gixxer]

I agree that HO'ing is bad form.  However, If i'm in a 110 or Hurri and someone is dumb enough to HO, then I feel that it is my obligation to teach them that you never get in front of those planes.  

Also if I'm being chased by 4 or 5 planes and I obviously am about to die, and some idiot gets in front of me with an HO, then I will take it.  I see it happen on my side too where one or more pilots have a great gun solution on an enemies 6 and another pilot tries to steal a kill by HO'ing a pilot that will be dead soon enough.  The pilot being persued should have every right to fire on a plane that is dumb enough to get in front of it.