If I may make an observation about the furball lake, removing any of the Spitfire marks would only make the prison gang-centred players pick the next best aircraft for their activities. It still doesn't address the underlying motivation for the prison gang approach.
If I encounter the Spitfire Mark XVI at the lake, especially a pair winging together at least I know they are going to stick it out and give a proper ACM / turnfight. In my humble opinion the typical Tempest pilots are a considerably larger nuisance, endlessly looping through a cluster of fighting aircraft and taking pot shots on other engaged aircraft at little danger to themselves. This pattern is the real fight spoiler.
However I don't suggest the Tempest be removed either, then you would deny the masters such as Diktater, who will turn with anything. I would recommend anyone to try and fight him to see what that aircraft is actually capable of.
Tailoring the planeset will not shift the paradigm of behaviour at the furball lake. That would take something like removing the landed victories system messages or disabling the score or a cultural change. This discussion however should really be a separate thread.
+1 on any new fighter aircraft!
actually, i have fought diktator in my p38.
he himself is not above the dweebish antics temp pilots perform.
about a month&half ago, was in furball lake around noonish. diktator& a friend(footloose i think) were paired up in temps. they stayed way above the fight zone, circling until they found a lone plane, than BnZ that one plane until it was down.
i had a fellow knight in a pony trying to fight this all off at the time, i had just upped in my 38. i saw 3 dots going at it at the edge of the lake so i flew in that direction, in which i saw 2 temps BnZ'ing my countryman. so i flew over to assist him.
i guess footloose got nervous about another plane evening the odds, because he broke from there usual BnZ tactic, and proceded to chase the mustang into a dive, the mustang pulled up, hanging footlooses temps allmost right infront of my gunsight, short burst&he was down. sadly tho as i was downing footlooses temp, diktator had zoomed down at the mustang. so now it was pretty much 1v1.
the fight started out in the vertical which escalated to a turn fight.at first i started to get the upper hand on him, but he switched back to the vertical real fast, i stalled out. he got a quick shot on me shooting off an elevator.
it turned back into a turning fight. i guess from the lack of an elevator i couldnt turn as well, because he started to outturn me.
but then he suddenly just broke off, dived down and headed straight for his base on the deck, i gave chase. hitting WEP to try to keep up with the running tempy. i couldnt figure out why he was running home until
i checked my 6 and realized footloose was back up in his tempy &coming in to pick me. i played dumb, acted like i didnt know. waited till he came screaming down at me, happened to pull a hard left to dodge his pick as diktator was actually turning left. had him in my gunsights, took the shot& downed him by shooting his wing off.
after i downed him i didnt really have enough ammo left to deal with footloose, so i went low to the water&booked it for home, he saw me, but luckily i had friendlies in the area who engaged him before he could get to me.
ive flown with&against diktator. he's allright. but not without his own dweebery.