Poor Gunnery

[Noah17]

I've been on AH for a few months now and my ACM has improved dramatically but I can't hit a thing.

I find that I'm able to get the nose/sight of my plane at the target maybe 3 times before the fight goes against me. If I could land a hit I'd live longer.

Often my sight seems "very jumpy" when trying to get it on my target. I can't hold it straight while I'm firing. As a result I'm moving the stick around just trying to get it settled on the amount of lead I think I need. But I can't really get it to move to and stay where I want it. Even when the target is not really maneuvering against me.

Any thoughts would really be appreciated.

Thanks

[SPKmes]

You could try to adjust your dampening on the x/y axis (for the bouncing)...as for gunnery...well, I have been here for a little while now and still have bad guns...I have read and read but putting it to practice is another thing......I believe it is the one thing that cannot be taught. It is just a time and zen thing.
 I used to be totally shocking at gunnery and so spent time on how to how to effectively evade.
 Try not to go for the quick kill but sit on the tail of a con till you are basically at the same state and then concentrate your fire in small bursts at lower G's....a hard thing to do in a furball but to help this sit more just outside of the main furball and pick on stragglers. Another thing I found was to use a spit... these are a good stable platform to use for gunnery practice. I myself used the spit 9 and 5   the 5 was good to teach me conservation of ammo.

Well enough gobble de goop from me.. the more informative crowd will be along shortly...thank you for your time....hahaha

[Anaxogoras]

I would try some stick scaling on the Y axis before I would consider dampening.  Make it look like like this:

            -
         -
      -
   -
-

etc.

[boomerlu]

For me, it's almost instinctive when I need to shoot - the "killer's instinct." This has developed over many years of flying various sims from flight sims to space sims all of which require lead gunnery. My gunnery is currently not great, but I land some shots which surprise myself (e.g., a deflection shot from 600 out). There's a lot of theoretical discussion in the 109 thread on this forum towards the end. That will help.

I agree with SPKmes's advice about dampening but I prefer the "dead zone". My stick is slightly unstable around its center, so having a bit more dead zone than normal helps keep me flying straight.

Personally, I disagree with Anaxagoras, I don't like stick scaling. It's just preference, it feels awkward to me.

My advice is to practice with the lead computing sight for a while (which I'm sure the trainers will be glad to help you to set up). That will help give you the "sense" for where to shoot. After getting used to it, turn it off. Same thing with tracers. You will want to work the four combinations:

1) Tracers, lead computing sight
2) No tracers, lead computing sight
3) No tracers, no lead computing sight
4) Tracers, no lead computing sight

Each will give you a different sense of gunnery. Of course once you get the instinct, you will want to turn off the lead computing sight permanently. Tracers/no tracers is debatable.

[mtnman]

If you haven't already tried it, try using the Lead Computing Gunsight as boomerlu mentioned.  It only works in the TA, and only works on "friendly" planes, so head on in there, make sure you're Bishop, and work on it.  To turn it on, the command is <Ctrl>-<Tab>.  You'll see a message stating "Friendly Lock Enabled".  Now, find someone to fight, get them in view, and hit the <Tab> key until you see their name get bracketed.  You'll now notice a little green "+", or two, if you have both cannons and MG's on your plane.  In theory, if you aim at the green "+" and shoot, you'll hit the plane you're fighting.

So, start chasing the guy around, aim at the "+" and fire.  The important thing to do though is to pay attention to were the "+" is in relation to the enemy plane, at different speeds and angles.  This tool is just that, a tool to teach you where to aim.  Don't get too used to it, because it won't work anywhere else in the game.

As a side-note, this tool works on any weapon you have armed, so is also useful for learning where to aim while firing rockets, dropping bombs, etc...

I'm one of those that doesn't like scaling.  I choose to leave my set-up as sensitive as possible, and just use fine controls to direct my flight.

I also don't like the no-tracers idea.  I've tried it several times, and my gunnery is better with tracers.  I've had several people tell me to turn them off to get better, but their gunnery wasn't as good as mine...

Another obvious improvement method is to get closer.  I recommend waiting to fire until the icon counter says D200.  Targets get bigger when you get closer.  You also don't need to lead as much, regardless of the speed/angle of the shot.  You may find that it's difficult at first to get that close.  That goes away.  The improvement on your aim does not.

[boomerlu]

I also don't like the no-tracers idea.  I've tried it several times, and my gunnery is better with tracers.  I've had several people tell me to turn them off to get better, but their gunnery wasn't as good as mine...

Re:tracers, I find that in the long run I'm better WITH tracers. However, I found that I improved faster by turning them off briefly. It really helped on that "instinct" and forced me to pick my aim points better. Now that I kind of have it, I turned tracers back on and my gunnery improved because now I had "instinct" as well as a real visual indicator.

Again, very debatable and very personal, but I think trying to "use the force" on and off by turning tracers off every once in a while is beneficial.

[mtnman]

Re:tracers, I find that in the long run I'm better WITH tracers. However, I found that I improved faster by turning them off briefly. It really helped on that "instinct" and forced me to pick my aim points better. Now that I kind of have it, I turned tracers back on and my gunnery improved because now I had "instinct" as well as a real visual indicator.

Again, very debatable and very personal, but I think trying to "use the force" on and off by turning tracers off every once in a while is beneficial.

Not at you boomerlu, just some speculative questions...

When you fire without tracers, and miss (I'm fairly certain this happens, at least occasionally), how do you correct?  How do you know if your lead was excessive, or not enough?  How about whether your aim was too high or low, but your lead was perfect?

How do you "fix the miss"?  Is there any information related to you that allows you to make an accurate assessment of your aim, and how to improve it (ie, I KNOW I missed because my lead was off, and I can to correct it by...).  Or, do you just randomly decide to point somewhere else next time, and maybe you'll be lucky enough to hit?  Without tracers, is it possible to lead too much, but decide to try leading MORE?  Or lead perfectly, but miss high, and decide you've over-led the target?

When teaching kids to shoot rifles, review of the shooter's performance (by looking at the target) allows a realistic interpretation and the ability intelligently set a goal on how to improve (ie, you're shooting high, see?  Try aiming at the bottom of the bulls-eye...").  Or "You're shooting all over the place!  Settle down, and try to shoot consistently, and THEN we'll work on where your group placement is".

The closest thing we have in-game to the paper target is the tracers.  If they go behind the target, you shot behind the target.  If they go high, you shot high.  The tracers give you feedback on your aim (good, or bad) where no-tracers only give feedback on good shots, and a big, empty "huh?" on the misses, which is vitally more important feedback to work with than the hits...

If I gave you a rifle, and you were missing the deer you tried to hit, would you fix the problem by shooting at a target that gives you feedback (a paper target, dirt on a hillside, or whatever) or fix the problem by shooting at something that gives no feedback, and adjust that way (how about a cloud, or a bird flying over, or a piece of cottonwood fluff gently floating on the breeze)?  If you miss the bulls-eye the paper target or hillside gives feedback that you can use to improve.  The others won't, so improvement is going to rely on luck rather than informed judgment.

If you take a quiz in school, would you like to know the results so you can improve for the test?  Or would it be more helpful to keep the results unknown?

[boomerlu]

MtnMan,

I agree 100%. This is why I advocate switching between the two. The feedback from tracers is good, it allows you to slowly fine tune your sense of aim.

The problem is that when you get too used to tracers, you almost fire off a few rounds first to see if you should draw more lead. When you turn them off, it forces you to pick a better initial aim point (which you learned INITIALLY from the visual feedback from using tracers).

Flying tracers off for me kind of ingrained this sense of lead/initial aim point. There are times where I fired maybe a 0.1 second burst on a deflection shot and had virtually all my rounds land because I had picked my aim point so well.

Once you have that sense, then there is no longer any need to artificially handicap yourself. Now that I fly tracers on, I can tell (on eg a snapshot) if I should keep shooting and let the enemy fly through my rounds or if I am already short on lead and should stop. I also get further feedback to fine tune my aim.

It's like theory vs practice - use both, but for different purposes.

[Noah17]

I've tried w/ tracers on and off. With them on I found that if i missed the Con would be alerted and take off or ....Kill me because I couldn't kill him quickly enough. I turned them off so that if I missed he wouldn't see them and I might have longer to shoot.

So.... There's the issue. I haven't been able to figure out what was best.

I'd definitely like to try the lead sight though so, thanks!

[moot]

In the tracers on and off scenarios above: In the first one you die but come away with a closer idea of where bullets fly.  In the second you survive with a kill, but don't get as good an idea of where and how bullets are flying. From a perspective of strictly gunnery progress, tracers on are probably better. 

[tokenjo]

You'll be amazed how much a difference it makes. Turning
on the lead gunsite.  Also ease  a liitle on yer stick, let them fly into it.  

Also I thought the elevator scale was to be in a J shape?
that's how mine is.  Maybe a natter of preference?  Either
way I wouldn't leave it flat.

Hit the TA plenty of help there.

Tokenjo

[boomerlu]

In the tracers on and off scenarios above: In the first one you die but come away with a closer idea of where bullets fly.  In the second you survive with a kill, but don't get as good an idea of where and how bullets are flying. From a perspective of strictly gunnery progress, tracers on are probably better. 

I agree with moot on this one. While I did suggest tracers off, it is NOT to "sneak up" on somebody. In fact a lot of the times I wish I'd had tracers on to spook the other guy into turning and leaving my teammate alone.

I only suggest tracers off to force yourself to pick better aim points.

[morfiend]

Noah,

  while reading our post I see you have a "nose bounce" problem,that it's hard to steady your gunsite.

  That is usually caused by your JS,the 2 main axises{axii} that cause the problem are the pitch and yaw.You may want to try some different settings on these 2 and experiment to find the sweet spot on your joystick.
 
You may even be having some problems with your stick that you're unaware of,goto map controls,select the axis and check advanced box.You will see the adjustment there,also check the "raw" and"scaled" windows and move the axis to make sure it's responding properly.

   

[mtnman]

With them on I found that if i missed the Con would be alerted and take off or ....Kill me because I couldn't kill him quickly enough.

The tracers don't get you killed.  Missing the guy you're shooting at gets you killed (unless you can afford to miss, and still out fly your opponent without giving HIM a shot).

[mtnman]

MtnMan,

I agree 100%. This is why I advocate switching between the two. The feedback from tracers is good, it allows you to slowly fine tune your sense of aim.

The problem is that when you get too used to tracers, you almost fire off a few rounds first to see if you should draw more lead. When you turn them off, it forces you to pick a better initial aim point (which you learned INITIALLY from the visual feedback from using tracers).

Flying tracers off for me kind of ingrained this sense of lead/initial aim point. There are times where I fired maybe a 0.1 second burst on a deflection shot and had virtually all my rounds land because I had picked my aim point so well.

Once you have that sense, then there is no longer any need to artificially handicap yourself. Now that I fly tracers on, I can tell (on eg a snapshot) if I should keep shooting and let the enemy fly through my rounds or if I am already short on lead and should stop. I also get further feedback to fine tune my aim.

It's like theory vs practice - use both, but for different purposes.

I don't agree for a minute that you can get "too used to tracers".  Or that turning them off forces you to do anything but a whole lot of guessing, and then more guessing when the initial guess doesn't pan out, followed by more guessing when you miss again...

I don't understand your reference to tracers being an "artificial handicap".  How so?  A handicap that hurts you, by telling you how your aim needs to be corrected?  Or a handicap that helps too much, making gunnery too easy?

I hit on that tiny little burst most of the time.  Would that improve if I stopped having a clue where my "misses" were going?

Is guessing going to help me improve (and I'd still like to improve, I won't be happy until my hit% is better than 50%, and I'm a long way from there...) more quickly than knowing?

How much did shooting tracers off improve your gunnery?  How accurate did it make you overall?