What to do about the P-51D scourge?

[Guppy35]

What really erks me is the few notable individuals in our community that fly the pony like a total pansy love muffin. Good job teaching everyone else how to fly like runtards.

Would you agree that applies to just about every high performance bird in the AH inventory?  Many of those birds have pilots who fly them 'to live' or to 'land kills' and don't ever learn to push them to the limit and to fight without the advantage.

It's always going to be about how each person chooses to play the game.

I'm trying to think of who lately would be considered a notable AH pilot flying 51s in the MA having such a big influence on newbies?

[Scotch]

I'm trying to think of who lately would be considered a notable AH pilot flying 51s in the MA having such a big influence on newbies?

-(---zZzzzZzzz---

[Kingpin]

I love flying the Pony-D and think it should have a significant presence in the game, especially as a fighter/escort aircraft. 
That said, I totally agree that it is abused as a bomb truck. 

+1 to the idea of PERKING 2x1000lb BOMB-LOAD on the P-51.

This would likely reduce its abuse as a high-speed, flying-bomb, kamikaze plane, which would be an improvement to game play (without taking away anyone's ability to fly the P-51).

Please add this idea to the WISHLIST.

 

[BigR]

There is no 51 Scourge. Its only a scourge in your mind because its faster than your plane choice. There are many planes out there that can run down a mustang depending on the alt. People try to run me down all the time, but usually the jokes on them because I rev and fight. I understand your frustration with certain pilots who dont engage 1v1, who fly in orbit, and only will engage when they have 8 buddies, but its really not the plane, its the player. Perk the ord on the mustang only? You think that will stop the vtards or whatever they call themselves these days? They will just show up in Jugs or F4Us. Catching them has never been a problem for me even when they fly 51s. The problem is the WAY they fly. Its near impossible to shoot down ALL of them before they do damage. This thread should be about the horde scourge, and the general mentality of players who will not fight without overwhelming odds...as if their actual lives depended on it. Like Filth said, if you perk bombs on the mustang, you better perk them for all fighters, or it will make no difference. Personally, I think the mustangs ENY is fine at 5. BTW...the LA7 is currently at 8ENY...thought i read someone saying it was at 5.

[Sunka]

Just another post to complane about what others are doing.

[Fish42]

The P-38 and P-47D-40/N can already carry more ords then the pony, which means the pony is liked by the bomb-truckers for another reason. If you look at the speed charts there is only a small handful of planes that can catch them on the deck. Now look at the P-38 and Jugs, I think to the horders mind, this is a big bonus.

If the 1000 is perked then they still have the 500 and rocket options, they would still have the tools needed to shut a field.

[bongboy1]

I'm just thinking about all the whines that would come from perking the pony

[Fish42]

I'm just thinking about all the whines that would come from perking the pony

Most dont want the pony perked.

I like it when I run across P-51s and the like escorting B-17/B-24s, or when they give cap to an attack of B-25s or Jugs or P-38s or anything but more superheavy ponys lugging 2x1000blers and 6x rockets.

As it stands the pony sees more action then the next to most flown planes combined. And quite a few people think it boils down to the hordes flying huge pony mission that have nothing else but 1-2 C47s.

[bozon]

I dont see that many P51s and most of those I see die easy enough. Yes, a fast plane is often an annoying plane, but at least this one does not climb so well and does not have cannons. If Doras were as abundant as 51s they would have been a much greater nuisance.

Reducing ENY too much is a bad idea. ENY does not affect the (willing) plane choice of almost all players and preventing an entire chess piece from flying a major 1944 plane for extended periods is bad. Fighter perk points are worthless. Getting 12 perks in a mission is cool, but what will I do with these perks? I'm not very interested in 262s, Temps or Spit14s, so 1 and 12 perks have the same value for me. If I could trade them for bomber perks at least I could blow them on Mossie16s.

I have long supported the perk ordnance & loadout idea, but it has nothing to do with the P51D. It has much more to do with the paragraph above and reducing the effectiveness of suicide attacks (Pay the perks or suicide with 500 lbs)

[DREDIOCK]

Yanno  what the Pony needs more then anything else?

Flight instructors to teach the people who like the pony, how to.

Of all the people who fly the pony, there are but a very few that are very good in it. I don't look up and say "Oh no. a high pony" Usually its more like "A high pony...cool."

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As far as payload. Its no bigger a deal then an f4u1d, a 110,(in fact a 110 is more effective) or a P-47.

There is nothing wrong with the pony that needs to be altered or fixed. If the problem lies anywhere It lies within yourselves.
Lets say they alter any,perks, whatever to appease these whines. 6 Months from now. The complaints will again be the same. Only the plane will be different. And that isn't a plane problem. Thats a player problem.

[Shifty]

Yanno  what the Pony needs more then anything else?

Flight instructors to teach the people who like the pony, how to.

Of all the people who fly the pony, there are but a very few that are very good in it.

Agreed for all the guys that shoot and scoot you'll run into a some that can really fight in the Pony.
These guys are a blast because they'll surprise you a lot of times when they reverse with blood in their eyes
and you figure out oops not your typical pony driver.

[oboe]

I agree with Bozon.   I have so many fighter perk points its meaningless.    I think the perk system has the potential to induce more variety in player aircraft choice, but that would require lightly perking more planes.   I could see later models of the '38, '51, and '47, La, 109 and 190, and Spitfire all being lightly perked, and also resetting all player perk balances to zero or some nominal amount at the beginning of each tour.   In fact I'd be interested to see an in-game economy being built around perk points - with expansion into fuel, ordnance loads, and even pilot equipment like G-suits and shaded goggles, etc.   I think I might enjoy spending a bit more time in the hangar before each sortie, deciding how to allocate my points.   And it might reduce unrealistic practices like taking 50% internal fuel + full drop tanks, or suicidal Lancaster missions, if pilots had to pay for the wasted items.

But I suspect the majority of players would rather have the ability to fly what they want when they want, rather than limiting choices of what everyone flies in the name of arena variety.      

[caldera]

There is no 51 Scourge.

The stats say there is.


Checking the official AH stats pages for the last 12 completed tours produced these results:



P-51D was the most used plane 12/12 tours (and in fact has been consistently since Tour 108 iirc)

SpitXVI was the second most used plane 8/12 tours

La7 was the third most used plane 8/12 tours

The only difference was the LA7 and Spit trading places a few times.


Out of 66 fighters to choose from, the 51D always leads the pack by a huge margin. 

As in, double the nearest competitor.

As in, more kills than the 2nd place and 3rd place fighters combined.


Tours 142-153 total kills:

SpitXVI + La7 - 298,384

P-51D - 299,820


Please explain how that is not a scourge.





edit:if you count kills+deaths (Lusche-style) to determine usage, the difference is even greater.

[DREDIOCK]

Explain how a plane thats most commonly used equates it to being a "scourge".

[DREDIOCK]

Last tour. Which is the last time Ive been able to fly because of Sandy. I killed 47 P51d's while only being killed 17 times by them.

Now The pony is the plane that has killed me the most just by the sheer virtue of its popularity. If P 39s were the most popular plane it would probably have the most kills on me as well.

But I'll take 47-17 in my favor any time. I suspect many others would too.
Is the pony popular? Sure. But calling it a "scourge" because of its popularity is at best a bit of a reach