Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
The over accuracy of the ai gunners is primarily a concern for the off-liner; specifically the off-liner who mainly plays fighter scenarios.
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Agreed, but I can accept the odd outlier. Unless you're moving faster than a gun can traverse, there should be a small chance of getting hit. It should be statistically very unlikely to happen, however.
I'd also like a system where gunner skill falls off as you add complications to the firing solution.
Rookie gunners should be reasonably effective at simple low-deflection shots against non-maneuvering planes within about 300-400 meters and should have about a 2% accuracy rate against planes flying at about 250 mph (~400 kph) and maneuvering relatively gently in one dimension (i.e., equivalent to what a target tug would do).
But, their accuracy should fall off severely due to their plane maneuvering, target planes traveling at much more than 300 mph (~500 kph) or with more than about 30 degrees of deflection in more then one dimension (i.e., a fighter performing a pursuit curve - diving and crossing over the gunner's plane). Each additional complication reduces chances to hit by some order of magnitude.
Better quality gunners have a slightly better chance of hitting the "baseline" targets and don't have quite the same penalties to skill to hit trickier targets.
Even so, any gunner's chance of hitting should go down to "almost impossible" against very fast-moving or erratically-moving targets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
It is enormously frustrating to spend 30 or forty minutes trying to fly formation with an AI `escort’ routine that seems more concerned with either burning off your fuel or playing hide-and-seek behind your canopy frames than it is with keeping in close contact with the bombers we’re supposed to be protecting, finally catching a formation of Bf 110Gs down low and then getting your engine shot out by a Rookie rear gunner
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Again, I'll accept the odd outlier, but statistically the AI is still too good in such cases. And, oddly, it seems to vary a lot by individual plane. Instead, gunnery should be made a bit more "generic." Unless you've got proof that a particular gun mount was much more stable and effective, pretty much every single ball-mounted rifle caliber MG gunner station should behave in the same way. Ditto for pintle or Scarff mounts with single or double rifle caliber MG, or single or double HMG.
Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
[*] For the off-liner or online player who specializes or even dabbles in mud-moving in two-seater, medium or heavy bombers, the gunners are not nearly effective enough.
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Which means that there should be a player-controlled option for setting gunnery difficulty. For offliners playing at being a fighter pilot, there should be a GUI setting to "dumb down" AI gunnery. For offliners playing at being an attack or bomber pilot, there should be an option to keep it the way it is.
For onliners, there should be a server-controlled setting to keep gunnery the way it is or to introduce all the hassles that real gunners faced.
Other than that, I think that your suggestions are excellent.