What are we going

[Kingpin]

I don't think maneuvering needs to be considered more than it already is. You aren't shooting birds with a .22. You are shooting a shotgun. Precise tracking is not what's getting hits, it's the pellet distribution.

I used to duck hunt, so I've shot birds with a shotgun.  You hit a flying object when you lead it (predicting their course).  Any ack gunner (or fire control system) should do the same thing.

I get your point though.  You've explained that the Aces High ack system doesn't lead targets – essentially it doesn't aim.  It fires into an area and sometimes it gets lucky hits.  Aircraft going fast in a straight line are better off than those who are maneuvering. 

I really think that system is flawed and I've even offered an idea how it could be fixed.

I’ll leave it at that.  But now I’m gonna be really pissed when I get hit by ack at 15K, knowing that a really lousy drunken duck hunter just shot me! 

[Wiley]

Wiley, do you see a lot of other sources of regular customer feedback for HTC? Just wondering cause I don't.

Of course its well known in the game industry that trying to pull meaningful and usable feedback out of a forum is problematic. Forums can flag problems in a gross way, just by what gets a lot of posts. They just aren't real useful because you run the very real risk of building a product for just the people who frequent the forum, which is sort of path to going over the edge. The actual denizens of a forum are just the tip of one iceberg of users. There are whole sets of users that wouldn't get near a forum for good reasons. Without considering those users you build the wrong thing and you lose them.   

I just don't think that there is access other possible avenues like surveys and focus groups which might result in better feedback. So what happens here I guarantee has an effect. The problem for them is to sort it out into anything they can actually do.

Oh, it's feedback.  I've even seen stuff from here make it into the game.  The tone of your post seemed to indicate you might think us having a consensus would result in change.  I may not always agree with some of Hitech's choices, but he seems to have a pretty good handle on what the boards mean and what they're useful for.

Wiley.

[Noir]

why Bombers have so much more 'hit points' than fighters? A hit that would snap a wing on a fighter will only smoke a bomber's engine, while both use the same materials and construction methods, not to mention downsized things have more resistant by definition. This disparity is most blatant with puff ack, as everyone has seen bombers are immune to it. I'm tired of selective realism that favors bombers.

[moot]

Show your data

[Noir]

Show your data

you use 30mm's, you've seen how A20's can take 5+ hits and fly away, while any fighter will die with 2hits max.

[moot]

My experience is too fuzzy to go either way on this.  IE the "hints" of something fishy are in the noise.  Noise IE anecdotal recollection's fuzziness.

Relative fighter:bomber tater damage seems about right.  One of the big deals with doing damage on bombers is the relative scales.  If you tell yourself I put 3 taters within "1/5th wingspan" of the wingroot, that's a big difference in absolute distance depending on whether the target is a B24 or an La7.  I honestly don't have any trouble taking down bombers with german 30mm if I don't screw up - if the tater burst lands all in the same spot.
If I put 3 taters in one area (say wingroot or mid-wing or within a 5m diameter on fuselage) and get no kill, it's pretty much guaranteed (again this is from experience, no actual knowledge of the damage model brass tacks) a second pass with 20mm hits on that same target area will kill the bomber.

I flat out disagree if you're saying a bomber's (e.g. A20 or B17) structure is no stronger than a fighter's equivalent -- apples to apples like an A20's main wingspar element compared to a Hurricane's equivalent. 

An A20 can take 5+ hits, but exactly where those hits are, what the internet was like, etc, are all non negligible factors.  Saying 5+ hits isn't enough.  But all things being equal, 5 hits versus 2 sounds about in the ballpark.  IE as it should be.  In my experience 2 hits for fighters is exceptional.  Most die to 1 hit.

[TheDudeDVant]

So, i guess no point in a film atm.

[moot]

Structural damage context



Compare in your mind's eye what 1 tater does, relatively, on each of these airframes.

[FLS]

I used to duck hunt, so I've shot birds with a shotgun.  You hit a flying object when you lead it (predicting their course).  Any ack gunner (or fire control system) should do the same thing.

I get your point though.  You've explained that the Aces High ack system doesn't lead targets – essentially it doesn't aim.  It fires into an area and sometimes it gets lucky hits.  Aircraft going fast in a straight line are better off than those who are maneuvering.  

I really think that system is flawed and I've even offered an idea how it could be fixed.

I’ll leave it at that.  But now I’m gonna be really pissed when I get hit by ack at 15K, knowing that a really lousy drunken duck hunter just shot me!  

How can you look at the ack shooting at an aircraft going 300 mph and claim it doesn't lead the target? It does aim at the targeted aircraft so it works as you want it to, but as I mentioned before the puffy ack dispersion is so great that maneuvering can as easily get you into trouble as out of trouble. In both cases, straight and turning, the hit probability is based on the size of the box.

While a .22 and a shotgun both require lead the shotgun requires less precise aim and in the case of puffy ack there are only a few pellets so it mostly misses. In order for maneuvering to make more of a difference the puffy ack would first have to be much more effective i.e. the box would have to be much smaller.

[moot]

It doesn't "lead the target" because there's no such lead system.  It's an absolutely instantaneous client-side spawn box.  IE there's no aiming & time of flight delay in the flak's aim.

[Tordon22]

Moot owns you 

[FLS]

It doesn't "lead the target" because there's no such lead system.  It's an absolutely instantaneous client-side spawn box.  IE there's no aiming & time of flight delay in the flak's aim.

The effect is the same even if the mechanics are different. Making the code more complex wouldn't change the outcome.

[moot]

I think I agree.  I'd disagree because current "Results-based" emulation ignores a mountain between you and flak guns.   And because of that pissy pilot instinct that some stupid AI is cheating me out of maneuvering out of its "aim" - e.g. doing a split S at 450+ from miles out and still being tracked like the ships had either/and way more guns tracking you than they actually do, or were shooting a much wider pattern than the game tells you graphically.

[FLS]

The mountain line of sight issue is unfortunate and I'm sure that Hitech could fix it since the small caliber ack modeling manages LOS so I assume there is a good reason, like client hardware resources, that explains why it's like it is. 

[moot]

Yeah I asked HT and he said collision calcs are too expensive.