And how may I ask is the 30+ mission coming to pile drive an undefended base any form of "competition"? At most your given 1 minute to end your sortie, choose your ride and gain any sort of alt. At best as defenders will get would be 6 to 1 odds on average.
It's competition just like anything else, in that the person doing it has set a goal and is trying to achieve it. No different than vulching, picking, kill stealing, score padding, and everything else people complain about. I'm not saying these are ideal behaviors, but they are ways of trying to do well, as some might define "well",
within the framework of the game. They may be playing dirty, but they are
playing.
IMO...both are "weenie tactics" and there is no distinguashable characteristics between them
But that's just it... one is a game tactic and one isn't. Switching sides in order to spy is going outside the framework of the game, just like bribery, software hacks, or anything else in real life one might do to sabotage another player from hacking his computer to having a friend phone him and tell him his house is on fire. It's not about whether it's poorer sportsmanship or less honorable (although I think it is both), it's about maintaining the integrity (in the logical sense of the word, not the ethical) or internal consistency of the game's frame of reference. Spying makes no sense inside the game's internal world, it only makes sense if you bring loyalties and motives from outside that world into it - rather like having a bridge partner who keeps sabotaging your mutual play in order to curry favor with one of your opponents.
It's also incompatible with the idea of AH2 being anything even remotely resembling a sim. All the disfavored styles of play I mentioned above are things that could be done and were done by WW2 pilots. The mechanics of base capture were of course extremely different, but it was a military aim and good generals and admirals did it where they thought they would have the biggest advantage, not where the fight would be the most fair for the enemy. Pilots switching sides to gain or give any sort of advantage is, by contrast, utterly absurd on its face.
Finally, it's a betrayal of the people you're supposedly fighting alongside. Base stealing isn't dishonest, spying is. The latter point is why it rubs me the wrong way in a manner that no dishonorable tactic could. There's nothing worse than betraying your teammates.
