Snapshot ability

[troon]

I have ok gunnary, but I can't seem to hit those snapshots.
Any ideas on how to be able to hit more snapshots?

[Spatula]

Its simply a matter of working out if you're leading too much or not leading enough. Film your fights and play them back in slow-mo from an external view point and look and you will see any lead failure patterns emerge very quickly. Also note the G meter at your point of firing as well. The more Gs your pulling the more you need to lead on top of leading for opponent movement. Normally people dont lead enough in high-G situations.
A good way to lessen the Gs variable is to pull more lead than you need, relax the Gs a little bit and then fire.  
Also learn one type of weapon first and spend ages learning it and becoming one with it. Rate of Fire, Muzzle Velocity, Projectile wieight etc are all critical variables you can easily remove from the equation by sticking to one type.
I would recommend a plane with 6x50 calibre machine guns as they have a relatively flat trajectory, High muzzle velocity, and High rate of fire. Really good for 'seeing' where your going wrong
Theres no substitute for practice either, and no easy shortcuts! More you practice one type, the better you will be - simple.

[B@tfinkV]

as always spatula gives the good advice.


i would add the fact that a crossing snapshot will be made more effective with only half a second more time 'guns on'

to help with this, i find its most effective if i lead my shot early, i mean aim infront of what i would expect. this way you maximise the cone of fire for the enemy to fly through(better to waste 5 rounds shooting early and get the kill, rather than save ammo and fire half a second late) also, as you fire try to drag your nose in the direction of the enemies crossing angle. If you have an enemy crossing from right to left, aim your shot and fire early, but as soon as you see hit sprites you need to kick hard left rudder to get as much lead into them in the short shot you have.

not sure if i am making sense, i advise riding along with a good pilot and watching how they do it.

one of the best tracking gunners i have seen in this game is YUCCA. he will make a crossing snapshot that most of us would only lightly ping the nemy on, and kick/pull hard on the rudder/stick to get the absolute maximum chance of killing the enemy in one shot.

[troon]

thanks for the tips

It just seems like most of my deaths come from a snapshot that just happens to take of my tail unit.

[Schatzi]

Also, theres a pretty good offline practice for snapshots.


Shoot the drones, but dont fly the circle counterclockwise with them, fly opposite way, clockwise. You can use the Lead Computed Gunsight (LCG) to help you judge leads at first.

To switch that on, make sure its enabled in the Arena Setup > Enviroment > Arena Settings - FlightModeFlags. Then, when inflight, you only have to hit TAB to select a target. (CTRL TAB to enable friendly lock first if the drones are on the same cuontry as you.)

[Simaril]

Running the drone circle in the opposite direction helps, but those targets seem to come awfully fast.

When I was working on snapshots, I would pick a fast plane (like a tempest or a P51) and cut across the circle. Make sure tracers are on, and watch to see if your shot is too early (or much more likely) too late.

The lead computing gunsight setting can also be very helpful.

I'm not sure if this is true for everyone, but once I got the timing close I also found that I was often having toruble in the vertucal plane. My shots would track a shade too low or too high even when they were timed right...so be careful of that as well.

Once you have the general feel, I strongly suggest you take some time with tracers off. When those flashes are heading in, it is WAY too easy to track targeting with them instead of focusing on the gunsight itself.

[humble]

I agree with all the comments above (especially Bats comment on ruddering into the flight path). A couple of additional points of consideration....

A true snapshot is when (IMO) the enemy is flying thru your flight path at a significantly higher speed....this creates a true "snap" shot. I've found that if I just tap the trigger over time I get a pretty good feel for the occasional "1 timer". You also have to remember that usually a snapshot is vs a faster con and "chasing" it simply erodes your E state farther...

More common is the "semi tracking" shot where you have reasonable vis on the con and you have a bit of "warning" that you and the cons flight path are going to intersect for a brief moment. The real key here is to fly the plane thru the enemys flight path and take your shot as things line up. Lead is generated by the movement of your nose thru the cons flight path (even if your going very slowly the rotational inertia of your plane moves your nose much faster then the con is flying. I have a short clip from a couple of nights ago that illustrates this pretty well. I'm in a P40 (E) vs a 109 (K) and the 109 lets me "sneak up" on him and then takes me into a vertical E fight and sucks the juice out of the P40. Pretty soon he's in a series of vertical yoyo's...I nudge the P40 up over one or two and he has to either get more aggresive or convert to a spiral climb to top me out....anyway he goes for the more aggresive play and after a couple of more twirls around the dance floor I get my one brief look....literally a split second of true flightpath intersection. Total of 40rds of .50's fired in one tap that one times him right in the cockpit/engine....

I'll try and get clip posted (need to setup a place to host it)....the three things it'll help illustrate are

1)views (the con is clearly tracked thru the fight){after all you cant hit what you dont see}.

2)Planning, the sequence immediately prior is almost identical and I have a similiar shot window at longer range but with different flight path alighnment...to convert my path the bogies would have but me to far in lead and created an E drain that would have created both a short shot window without the "nose acceleration" or visability. Italso would have immediately "topped me out" (meaning my ability to maintain a vertical fight was gone) if/when he slipped thru....

3) flight path management, even though I'm negative E I chop the throttle just prior to the shot. This is all a feel thing that comes thru practice but the less you have to "force fit" the shot the better.....

All of which leads up to the "one timer" mentioned above.....

[SlapShot]

Gun convergence also plays into this I believe.

If your convergence is set way out there with wing mounted guns ... getting the in close snapshot will be difficult as he just might fly in between your bullet streams or you won't put enough lead on him to make a huge difference.

I keep just about all my guns, especially knife-fighters, at 225 to 250. With a convergence like that, you also need to get in closer for the "regular" kill too.

[Guppy35]

He said "snapshot"  not "Slapshot"

[Mace2004]

A snapshot is any shot that isn't a tracking shot.  

A tracking shot is stabilized with both aircraft in-plain with each other (i.e., no track crossing angle) and the pipper positioned for appropriate lead. Theoretically, a tracking shot will put all of your rounds into the target.  

Snapshots are anything that isn't a tracking shot.  They're shots of opportunity, in other words, you only have a moment in which you can fire and you may not have even realized it's coming, someone just flies in front  of you in a furball for instance.  

What you want to do is predict where the target is heading, put your nose out in front of him with more lead than you think you'll need and let loose a burst that he will fly into.  The keys to successful snapshots is your ability to predict the target's flight path and getting sufficient lead.  Lead is harder to compute because the situation is more dynamic, that's why you use more lead than you think you need and fire a stream for the target to fly into on his own.  

Obviously snapshots are much easier and more successful (i.e., more kill shots) with high-power guns since you'll likely only get a few rounds on target.  The 20mm is my personal favorite.  Other factors include your forward visibility (over the nose in particular) and gun rate of fire.  A solid stream of lead helps, I've seen lots of instances where a target flies right through a perfectly executed snapshot when using guns with a low rate of fire because the target flies through the impact point very quickly.  

If you're going to make any mistakes it's better to fire early than late and it's better to have more lead than you need than less.  Also, be judicious otherwise you'll just waste ammo and when you finally get that perfect shot all you'll get is a click.

[TexMurphy]

DOUBLE your lead and you should be ok.

Tex

[humble]

Originally posted by Mace2004
A snapshot is any shot that isn't a tracking shot.  

A tracking shot is stabilized with both aircraft in-plain with each other (i.e., no track crossing angle) and the pipper positioned for appropriate lead. Theoretically, a tracking shot will put all of your rounds into the target.  

Snapshots are anything that isn't a tracking shot.  They're shots of opportunity, in other words, you only have a moment in which you can fire and you may not have even realized it's coming, someone just flies in front  of you in a furball for instance.  

What you want to do is predict where the target is heading, put your nose out in front of him with more lead than you think you'll need and let loose a burst that he will fly into.  The keys to successful snapshots is your ability to predict the target's flight path and getting sufficient lead.  Lead is harder to compute because the situation is more dynamic, that's why you use more lead than you think you need and fire a stream for the target to fly into on his own.  

Obviously snapshots are much easier and more successful (i.e., more kill shots) with high-power guns since you'll likely only get a few rounds on target.  The 20mm is my personal favorite.  Other factors include your forward visibility (over the nose in particular) and gun rate of fire.  A solid stream of lead helps, I've seen lots of instances where a target flies right through a perfectly executed snapshot when using guns with a low rate of fire because the target flies through the impact point very quickly.  

If you're going to make any mistakes it's better to fire early than late and it's better to have more lead than you need than less.  Also, be judicious otherwise you'll just waste ammo and when you finally get that perfect shot all you'll get is a click.

Obviously the closer you are to true flight path alignment the closer you are to your true "tracking shot"....this is probably less then 1% of all shots (except afk ones:)) IMO. Thats were Bats comment on rudder use really shines, you can yaw your nose into alignment and maximize your "guns on target" time.

My biggest problem with this "throw the lead out in front" practice is two fold. 99% of the folks I trained stopped flying when they started shooting and literally already have the con flying into their bullet stream instead of flying the bullet stream thru the bogie. The second problem is you change the focus from winning thefight to finding the shot.

Establishing Lag pursuit is the primary fundemental of air combat (IMO). Any time you switch from lag pursuit to lead or artificially force lead you change the dynamics of the fight. It is not really all that tough to recognize natural points of flight path intersection and/or "semi-alignment" and simply take your best chance. Once you start trying to "fish the nose" your going to lose alot more fights then you win....

[troon]

Ok now, Im starting to hit more of those shots, but the problem is im not getting the kill. All i get is abunch of assists. After reviewing the film, im seeing that im getting the shots but no critical hits. Do i need to move to a plane with 20mm (i right now fly the 51) or is it my technique?

[SAS_KID]

With the 50 cals you need to get a good steady amount of fire into the plane. Although 20mm is easier if you can do well 50 cals 20mm will seem like a piece of cake.

Edit: Make sure they fly through your convergence.

[B@tfinkV]

convergence plays a big part in that. when i first started i mostly used a convergence of 350 yrds for 20mm cannons and 400 for 50cals. this was usefull because the majority of my kills were chasing enemies or cherry picking unsuspecting foes. i had niether the knoledge or the skill to provide any other shots. I was generally either on somebody's tail and getting a kill, or squirming around and being killed myself. As I slowly improved my dogfighting tech, i found myself producing alot more snapshots and crossing deflections, and after a long while i changed my convergence to 300 as a maximum. more time went by and i developed alot of reversal moves, and learnt the basics of scissors and angles. these days i set all convergence for 20mm cannons to 175-200 maximum, and 200 flat for all types of MG rounds.  

there are pros and cons with this change. i find it alot harder in general MA use to kill people at 400 yrds, something i used to do with ease, but on the plus side snapshots and quick crossing deflections were more within my reach, and a kill more likely to be registered to me rather than an assist.

long story short, play with convergence, work out the ranges and angles that you most often provide and set sonvergence accordingly, you might be pleasantly surprised with the results.

above all, keep practicing and dont lose heart.