Is realistic the new black?
 

I, like many of my fellow Arcade Top Gun Graduates (Class of '09), have recently been playing a lot of realsitic online games. It's a bit of a revalation as to how good this mode is, very under rated. Watch out for the class of '10!

(The big red stall warning fades away after a bit...)

Do any of the sim guys play Realistic? It'd be nice to get some of the top Arcaders vs the top Simmers, in a half your rules half ours kinda way....

i'm one of the simmers who have actually been playing more than the normal amount of Realistic, mainly because it's all there is, but i do enjoy a bit of realistic from time to time. Always miss looking at my beautiful plane from outside when i'm in sim

only when I feel like breaking the sound barrier without a sonic boom

Is there a plane that'll do 768mph in realistic? I've not seen it.

It's with a tinge of sadness I see this thread. It does indeed appear realistic is the place to be. I like it lots, more challenging handling, better gun damage etc. But there are some things I hate. Dogfight becomes a daisy chain and he who tags on back end wins. Lots of kills that count as crashes. Worst of all the dreaded head on guns blazing suicide attack. I hate this technique in arcade but in realistic it's blood boiling. Team battle works a lot better than dogfight as these problems are reduced by cover and team work. Also smaller dogfights with freinds works well.

And now you're just the smallest step away from being full time simmers :-P

head on the nail

I didn't mean to make you sad :)

The caterpillar of death is bit of a bummer, If someones repeatedly head on against me I'll do slow barrel rolls and then at the top of the roll just before he flys by pull back hard. If it's timed right you can be directly on their six within 5 - 6 seconds of them passing you. If you do it with someone on your six at the time you tend to die tho..

I think the caterpillar comes from having too short a respawn time, there's very few good defensive pilots online it's all attack attack so they join the queue and see how many kills they can get before the inevitable happens.

For all it's flaws I still find the dogfighting in Realistic feels more authentic than the tree top stuff in simutation.

Agreed. I flew a sim game after the realistic late last night and it was all done at 0 altitude. I got so frustrated I climbed to 3000 with a hope the others would follow but no joy. I just ended up on my own watching specs on the ground killing each other. This kind of thing removes a whole axis from play and feels more like a fps. I could get into sim but only if there was an altitude limit.
I am back off to arcade mode. See you on the beach

Sim online works out like that because there's usually no teamwork, no objective except to destroy planes, and with the scoring system, no incentive to disengage from a bad situation. Join the team ladder where it's battle for least deaths again.

During the Battle for Europe many of the air combat matches were high speed and at decent altitude, and well-coordinated.

to encourage people to use real-life tactics, here's a link to one of the definitive air combat guides:

http://www.filestube.com/f263ec98406...neuvering.html

Here's an animated demo I made of "loose deuce" attacks. Team USSR used this fairly effectively in Battle for Europe. Say the big planes are Spitfires, and the little ones are 109k4's. The k4's approach in a slightly staggered bracket. The Spits slow down by turning to engage. The lead k4 attacks the spit that passed its wingman, doesn't have to turn more than 90 degrees or slow down much either.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...bracketld1.gif

Now supposing it's not flat, that the Spits make vertical zoom turns after they pass? That makes it even more effective as the spits lose speed by gaining altitude and are easier to hit.