Understanding the Niki

[Rich46yo]

Who flies Nikis full time, or a lot? Ive only tooled around in the TA with them but they seem to have a lot to offer. Im a little surprised I dont see them in the air more. Back when I was in bombers full time any fighter with a 4 cannon package had to be treated with respect. Are the Nikis dissed? Is the Japanese set dissed?

                  How do they stack against the other turners? And any other input is appreciated.

[Urchin]

The Niki isn't quite as good as the Spit 16.  That said, it is still usually in the top 4 as far as kills go.  Those four are some combination of P51, La-7, Niki, Spit.

As far as where it stacks up... it is similar to a Spit 9.  The 4 cannons have roughly the same firepower as other 2 Hizooka / 4 20mm birds so it can usually kill with a snapshot.  It rolls marginally slower than the Spit 9, but turns a little tighter.  

It is a marginally less effective Spit, with a whole lot more ammo.

[stroker71]

I flew one the other day in a mission.  I didn't care for it.  The roll rate seems slow, accel. seems slow, the balistics are horrid.  Only nice thing I can say is it has alot of ammo and a very nice looking plane.  As far as Jap planes go the KI-84 is a way better plane over all.

[E25280]

The Niki is very versitile for those who primarily fly "attack" type sorties.  The large cannon ammo load makes it an effective building buster, especially for those times when ord is down.  Without the large ord loadout, most .50cal armed planes are frustratingly poor town killers vs. cannon armed aircraft.

The added advantage vs. say a 110 is that the Niki is an adequate fighter.  It is too slow and the guns have too poor balistics to call it a true "air superiority" type fighter like the LA7s, Ponies or 190s are often used as.  It turns better than most of those aircraft, which lets you get out of the way of BnZ attacks, but you will never expect to actually catch them if they maintain their E.

Bottom line, I find it to be a good "jack of all trades" aircraft, but most late war planes can find an advantage against it to exploit.

My $0.02.

[SD67]

My first kills were in a Niki

[trotter]

Wow. I don't like the Niki much, but stroker and urchin above are really giving it a terrible rap.

As to weapon power, look at the fighter weapon rounds comparison chart at netaces.org. Using the .50 cal hitting power as base 1, the each of the Niki's Type 99 Mk 2 has a relative hitting power of 3.297222. For all four together, we will roughly say that the relative hitting power is 13.

This is FAR more powerful than the 2x Hispano and 4x Browning combination. Roughly, and the numbers are there on the chart if anyone wants to do more exact math, but roughly the combined relative hitting power of 2x Hispano and 4x Browning is 9.

The ballistics of the Type 99 Mk2 also cannot be described as "horrid". They are poorer than hispano's, yes, but far superior to German or Russian 20mm.

As to roll rate, yes admittedly it is terrible, but rudder can help you kick into a roll very well in a Niki.

The Niki has a very good climb rate, and can hang in the vert longer than people will expect. It is a little tougher than Spits, and a large advantage it has over the Ki84 is in the dive.

No, it's not an absolutely superb plane, but it's a little better than you guys above make it out to be.

[dkff49]

I fly the nikki alot. My favorite plane at this time (since I am relatively newto the a game) is the Spit9 though (maybe these 2 are my favorites because they are so close in performance, I never really thought about it before). I usually up the nikki when I need a little more turning ability and firepower. Those flaps are awesome since they deploy at higher speeds than most of the plane set. Which is probably where the little difference in turning ability over the spit9 comes from. All in all I think the nikki versatile plane to fly because yes itis a very nice town buster but it also carries 2 500kg bombs which will each take alot of the gvs, and it also doubles as n effective fighter (and for the record I don't ho in one unless it is at least a 3 on 1 fight or you have repeatedly attempted ho's on me).

[Xasthur]

9 out of 10 guys I come across in the N1k HO their balls off. They're the sort of guys that hold onto the trigger and punch the nose down in a desperate attempt to get you in a blind head-on shot whilst you dive and evade.

That usually means that they're particularly easy to dispatch because the people flying them are total knobs.

I think N1ks are worse than La7s because typically it's the 'advanced loser noob' that flies them. They've been flying for long enough to want to step out of the La7 so they get in a N1k and HO away because they haven't learnt any ACM yet.

[Rich46yo]

Originally posted by Xasthur
9 out of 10 guys I come across in the N1k HO their balls off. They're the sort of guys that hold onto the trigger and punch the nose down in a desperate attempt to get you in a blind head-on shot whilst you dive and evade.

That usually means that they're particularly easy to dispatch because the people flying them are total knobs.

I think N1ks are worse than La7s because typically it's the 'advanced loser noob' that flies them. They've been flying for long enough to want to step out of the La7 so they get in a N1k and HO away because they haven't learnt any ACM yet.

               Are you this big a jerk off in real life? Hold on guys while I put this nitwit on ignore. There, now maybe we can have a conversation without anyone putting anyone down.

                 I took a Niki out tonight and actually did OK in it. I hung it up verticle and forced a spit to drop out. Unfortunatly I lost sight of him and didnt exploit it. One thing Ive noticed is the Niki doesnt feel real good in the hands in a dive.

                 Hey Xasthur? You suck!

[Lusche]

[angelsandair]

Originally posted by Xasthur
9 out of 10 guys I come across in the N1k HO their balls off. They're the sort of guys that hold onto the trigger and punch the nose down in a desperate attempt to get you in a blind head-on shot whilst you dive and evade.

That usually means that they're particularly easy to dispatch because the people flying them are total knobs.

I think N1ks are worse than La7s because typically it's the 'advanced loser noob' that flies them. They've been flying for long enough to want to step out of the La7 so they get in a N1k and HO away because they haven't learnt any ACM yet.

The N1ks guns arent as powerful as a Las guns or a hurri 2cs guns. It takes alot more hits to kill something. But when i flew n1ks full time, i would kill easily 7 planes and have 200-300 rounds in each gun. It's a great dogfighter. Bad diver, only good if ya want to turnfight anything up to a spit16.

[Rich46yo]

Sorry guys for the dustup. Most of the people in this community are a pleasure but some of these guys sit around playing a cartoon airplane game for 20 hours a day and think their "all that". They need a job or a hobby or something. Do something constructive with life instead of whining on a computer all day about noobs in LA-7s.
Christ!

                  Yaknow what I mean Lusche?

                  Thanks to all for the input on the Nikis.

[Lusche]

Originally posted by Rich46yo
Yaknow what I mean Lusche?

No I do't. But I remember very well how you bravely put me on ignore because I cared to post  in a thread of yours where "I had no buissness in". Just like appr. 100 people more you triumphantly put on ignore in the past (most of them just because they cared to have a different opinion, or were talking without your permission).
But what happened? Running out of ignore slots?

And of course everybody knows that I'm whining on this board 24/7 about n00bs, La7's, only *****ing around, telling everybody how to play and never posting any constructive advice, help or information.

[BaldEagl]

It is absolutely true that the N1K2 is the HOing plane of choice.  More than any other plane, every time you see one expect the HO attempt.

I don't disagree with the noob assesment above but there are a few good pilots who fly the N1K regularily and are quite effective in it without having to resort to the HO.

It's not a bad plane.  It turns decent, has good climbing ability, a ton of ammo, good firepower but it's a little on the slow side and the ballistics are sub-par.  It's a middle of the road plane that matches up well with many others in the plane-set.

[CAP1]

Originally posted by Urchin
The Niki isn't quite as good as the Spit 16.  That said, it is still usually in the top 4 as far as kills go.  Those four are some combination of P51, La-7, Niki, Spit.

As far as where it stacks up... it is similar to a Spit 9.  The 4 cannons have roughly the same firepower as other 2 Hizooka / 4 20mm birds so it can usually kill with a snapshot.  It rolls marginally slower than the Spit 9, but turns a little tighter.  

It is a marginally less effective Spit, with a whole lot more ammo.

soooo.......by numbers it's not quite as good as a spit9.........but it's very close...........which says to me that if you placed 2 average skilled pilots in the aircraft, and they dueled, it'd be the first pilot to make a mistake going down......then have them switch planes, and still the same..1st mistake loses........except that the niki sounds to have a much harder punch wiht the 4 cannons? i've never flown that......yet.........

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