Where did I go wrong?

[maddafinga]

So Saturday I ran into Lazer in the arena and he promptly handed me my ass.  Now I know I wasn't flying very well in general that night, making stupid mistakes and dying a lot in general, but he killed me way too easily.  It was embarrassing even.  Watching it a few times I think I have an ok idea of where I went wrong, but I'm looking for whatever help or advice here I can get on where I screwed up and what I might have been able to do differently.  http://www.mediafire.com/?amdzc1trmgm  Any help and/or info would be appreciated for sure.

[Delirium]

You had entirely too much speed at the merge to make that initial Immel tight, did you throttle back at all? I noticed you were doing over 400, Lazer kept his speed lower and was able to do the same with much less G and a tighter reversal.

Jamming the bandit doesn't work if the other guy is one step ahead of you and you're flying like the Hulk.

(no offense intended, Madda)

[stran]

i think you lost the fight at the top of your first immel when you went down instead of going up. you kept yanking your vector towards him and you can't win a scissors fight with excess speed. if you want to keep your speed then play the energy fight otherwise you have to know when and how hard to hit the brakes.

i don't think i fully answered your post. this is what i would have done.
when you see him come around after the merge and notice him turning more in the horizontal than vertical then he's blowing more E then you(setting himself up for the scissors). you would continue pull towards him but don't drop your nose down. when you pass each other again(approximately) pull an easy immel as you pass him. if he goes downwards then drop your nose and chase. if he goes horizontal then pull harder to close separation quickly. now you have a good E advantage so remember to cut your speed in the scissors. if he follows you up then you really have to judge his E and rope him if you can(but you couldn't) or if you don't have the E then level out and start turning horizontally(slightly nose up if the fight is still fast, but you're probably slow at this point so nose down to bring it around faster) which may result in a shot opportunity in the luftberry or him diving. the horizontal turn should be in the same direction he's turning, you don't want to turn and have to cross his nose.

[maddafinga]

You had entirely too much speed at the merge to make that initial Immel tight, did you throttle back at all? I noticed you were doing over 400, Lazer kept his speed lower and was able to do the same with much less G and a tighter reversal.

Jamming the bandit doesn't work if the other guy is one step ahead of you and you're flying like the Hulk.

(no offense intended, Madda)

Heh, no offense at all Del!

I don't really remember if I cut throttle there or not.  I was flying badly like I said, so everything seemed somewhat off for me.  I think I had planned on doing a double immel but then changed after I saw him pull what looked fairly tight at the merge.  I'm thinking I should have stuck with the double and not tried to stick so close and get to scissoring that quickly.  I want to look at it again later though and see if there's another place I might have turned it around even after the bad merge.

Thanks for the comments guys!

[Qrsu]

Heya Madda, not flying the k-4 anymore? 
It definitely sounded like you pulled off the throttle right before the merge but he got the turn going a little sooner. With the excess speed it may have been easier to extend a little before turning in, either in a low g flat turn or some sort of pitchback. Hard to say sometimes but I believe with a bit of seperation and a slower speed you could force a remerge and would have been in good shape.

[Anaxogoras]

You had entirely too much speed at the merge to make that initial Immel tight, did you throttle back at all? I noticed you were doing over 400, Lazer kept his speed lower and was able to do the same with much less G and a tighter reversal.

Right when they cross paths, madda is doing 385mph, and lazer is doing 325mph.

For my part, if I'm confident I have a big energy advantage going into a merge, I'm unlikely to throttle back.  I prefer to use it to position myself above my opponent.

i think you lost the fight at the top of your first immel when you went down instead of going up.

Yup.  The nose low move after the first immel cut a huge radius around your opponent.

It definitely sounded like you pulled off the throttle right before the merge

It's impossible to tell precisely from the engine sound in film.  Frequently the difference between WEP and MIL sounds like full power vs idle.

[Delirium]

Right when they cross paths, madda is doing 385mph, and lazer is doing 325mph.

That is a huge difference, especially in the Ki61 and that difference is what cost him the fight. If hadn't of attempted to Immel, his best bet would of been to go in a low G climb to attempt to rope or extend out to reset the fight.

[humble]

It's hard for me to look at a film when someone is using trackir since I can't follow your views. So on the assumption you've got him in sight the entire fight...

1) You picked the wrong 38. So while I can say "you should have done this"...he would have "done that" and the fight would play out differently.

So looking at the film...

2) at :50 with him 1.5 out your in either perfect position or your a dead man walking and you just don't know. You've clearly got the under but you don't know relative E state. If the 38 is fast and high he can seize the vertical and you've got no ability to control the fight. Since you have the under I'm going to open with a low G vertical "read and react". If he shows me he's going vertical then I'll either look to cut into him or try and top him out based on how it feels. I got the sense that you came off the gas and got aggressive without regard to what you saw. In effect you flew an aggressive angles merge from a +E state.

3) at :51 you come of the gas (look at drop in manifold) and move out of plane to him. It's to late to set a hook and a bit early for a lead turn and your giving up E and position. If he is fast and elects to go vertical right here your in bad shape. So to me you jumped the gun and gave up a chance to read him and gave him control of the fight in the "read and react" sense. If this was in a training setting I'd stop it right there and ask what your thinking.

Freezing the film again at :54 look for lazer as he's even with your cockpit. Look at relative position and lift vector. He's not taken any angles, in fact he's rolled his lift vector off of yours and (IMO) is assessing you and waiting for you to show your cards. He knows he has an exploitable advantage and is just waiting for you to tell him what it is.

If you go to about 58 seconds you see the beginning of the remerge. In effect Laser denied the merge in the sense he wasn't aggressive (he has no lead turn at all) and is flying to the "re-merge". Look at the view from his cockpit at :58 seconds. He's in out of plane lag with a full profile view of you in the "under" position where he can build E and attack or defend and easily deny you any angular advantage. If we go to your cockpit view your lift vector is pointing to the ground and your in out of plane lead (IMO). About the worst combination you can have. Your lift vector orientation denies you any shot window and sacrifices angles while creating an "E trap" that forces an overshoot with no ability to escape unless you act right at that point.

In effect the fights over right here. This is just a case of running into a sushi chef. He flew a wonderful read and react -E opener and flew to the 2nd merge from the start. As much as you "did stuff wrong" he did everything right.

[humble]

After I posted that I contemplated what I'd do at the :58 second mark. We all run into this in the MA (and DA) where the other guy has countered what ever we were thinking. The faster you realize that "your dog won't hunt" the better off you are moving forward. At the :58 sec mark I know my dog isn't hunting...so...

1) I can recognize that he has a positional advantage having secured the under. I've got an idea that I was +E but am now less so. My options (for me) are to either reset by rolling my lift vector to in plane lag...basically I want my nose under him and my intent is to fly thru the merge just like he did and then pull into a late low G zoom...I want to force him to fly the long way around into trailing position and I can assess my E state...If -E I'll low yoyo back into him looking to fly to the next "remerge" in the under...if +E I'll go truly vertical for the rope.

2) I can attempt to "go sushi" by cross controlling the plane and forcing my nose left and horizontally in plane. I'm looking to skid so I push the 38 off of my (Right) wing tip while flattening out my path to remove the vertical "hook" while creating as much horizontal separation as possible. At this point I've moved my lift vector from lead to lag and reoriented it skyward. In effect I've done all I can to minimize his movement into my "donut hole" while freezing my position in the fight to gain angles and scrub E...now I can roll back into in plane lag and pull thru to out of plane lead looking to start a rolling scissor fight. If you look at just about any of my films this is normally what I'll do in some manner...basically take a bad situation and get it into some type of aggressive scissors type action....

[Anaxogoras]

That is a huge difference, especially in the Ki61 and that difference is what cost him the fight. If hadn't of attempted to Immel, his best bet would of been to go in a low G climb to attempt to rope or extend out to reset the fight.

Agreed, though I still think a big mistake was when he went nose low.

[humble]

One other thing to note is laser is using what I call a "mirror" reverse (no clue what proper nomenclature is). Basically when you think your flying -E you mirror the bogies hi yoyo with a low yoyo looking to create an under on the ensuing "remerge". To some degree this clip illustrates this a bit. i'm working with black70 on some basic "dueling" concepts as transfered to the MA...
http://www.az-dsl.com/snaphook/film60_0314.ahf   

[maddafinga]

Heya Madda, not flying the k-4 anymore?  
It definitely sounded like you pulled off the throttle right before the merge but he got the turn going a little sooner. With the excess speed it may have been easier to extend a little before turning in, either in a low g flat turn or some sort of pitchback. Hard to say sometimes but I believe with a bit of seperation and a slower speed you could force a remerge and would have been in good shape.

Yeah I'm still flying it, but there weren't many fights at first that night and I was flying generally poorly so I was screwing around with my second favorite plane.  

I am complete agreement with everyone here that going nose low was where I went wrong.  I had planned to go double immel after that short dive into him, but for some reason abandoned that idea.  

Humble, lots of good info there and since I can't watch the film of it just now I'll have to re-watch it later tonight and digest a little better what you're saying.  Great breakdown though, and much thanks.  I did have him in view pretty much the whole time so losing sight wasn't a problem at all, though my tactics certainly were.  I'm usually not so bad that I can't give even good sticks a pretty good fight, though I'll almost certainly lose.  Just that night I was off a bit and lazer just really handed it to me in what seemed to me to be an effortless fashion.  I thought I'd be able to turn it into an good learning experience for myself, so input like you're giving me is super helpful and greatly appreciated.  Thanks to all  you guys for your input.  I've got a lot of thinking and film watching to do on this.  

[humble]

madda I feel your pain

From my perspective the single most important thing to realize is that 90%+ of the people in the game can't execute a read and react merge with even minimum efficiency. So if we have a real player base of 5000 then only 500 or so are even in that league. Out of those 500 we get down to a few hundred "duelers". Out of those only a select few make everyones "top prettythang whuppers" list and you ran into one of them. Forget the "knife in a gun fight" you brought a slingshot to a nuclear exchange. To me the real value in this clip is in watching the other guy. He's like Kurt Warner or Brett Farve looking over a defense. He doesn't much care what you do, he just needs to identify it.

Can you beat a guy like that....sure you can...some of the time. So the key here is learning to be deceptive in what you show and nurture your understanding of what to look for and then incorporate some type of "option route" in your game so you can begin to develop your own version of the hot read....then suffer years of misery mumbling "missed it by that much" as they still smack you around most of the time.

[Sonicblu]

Hey madda one of the problems i have is understanding what is actually going on and reacting or acting accordingly. 

I have been in that exact postions many times. You would laugh if you saw one of my films. That could have been me in your cockpit.

What i found was i was turning he was turning yet I assumed he is out turning me. When it is only partially true. By turning when the other guy has angles you are doing half the work for him. By placing yourself in front of his gunsights. If i can identify this I will take it to more of an E fight and try to get a reset. Then go back to angles. + once Del or lazer get behind you its pretty much over for me.

Never have won a fight against either one of them yet. But ill keep trying. What is funny to me is when i look at the films and it looks like im doing all the work and they are just waiting for the solution. Some acm that works on 90% of the MA is just a suicide move against a pilot that good.

Plus it is dark or low light and I always fly poorly when i have to struggle to see.

<S> Madda. Wish I could help more but struggling with the same exact issues.

[CAP1]

So Saturday I ran into Lazer in the arena and he promptly handed me my ass.  Now I know I wasn't flying very well in general that night, making stupid mistakes and dying a lot in general, but he killed me way too easily.  It was embarrassing even.  Watching it a few times I think I have an ok idea of where I went wrong, but I'm looking for whatever help or advice here I can get on where I screwed up and what I might have been able to do differently.  http://www.mediafire.com/?amdzc1trmgm  Any help and/or info would be appreciated for sure.

i'm at work, and can't look at the film now......but one thing i can suggest........when you're fighting a guy like lazerr........ask him. he's one of the guys that likes a good fight, and i think would be glad to offer advice.