Flying for anything but stats......

[Jumoschwanz]

Sure, I did it before. Flew to see how many points and impressive stats I could rack up. I had to do it at least once just because the stat pages were there to climb.

For quite a while though I have been flying for other reasons, in combat not with things made by others, but by a personal code.

If I join a server I will always look at how many pilots are flying on each side, and no matter what I will join the side with less pilots. Joining a side with an advantage to me is silly and pointless. I would rather get shot down for all eternity that to fly against the disadvantaged.

The other thing I will fight are silly squads, maps and plane sets.

Servers are started by humans, and they make the maps, and because they are human with egos they usually can never help but put their personal wet-dreams out there no matter how ridiculous they are.

I certainly will not fly for any side which has ridiculously superior aircraft, this might even see me flying on a side that has a manpower advantage, but that rarely happens. I recently flew some very crappy early VVS aircraft against 1941-42 German fighters flown by very good pilots on a map they were very familiar with. I was never a VVS pilot much, but I was certainly not going to zoom around the server in a much better German aircraft shooting fish in a barrel that I could zoom up or away from at will, and probably even out-turn in many cases. So I jumped into one of the shitty old VVS aircraft and got my ass kicked over and over again. My fun was learning the aircraft a bit in the process, and hoping for the chance that I might actually get a chance to shoot one of those point-whores to pieces, which did not happen, but maybe next time..

For instance: I was recently on a server where one side had the Pe-8 bomber, and to oppose it the other side had a very slow 1940 and earlier set of fighter aircraft. The Pe-8 was like a death-star bristling with cannons and guns and it was not much slower than the fighter aircraft it was opposing. The RED team, instead of flying fighters were simply flying around the map in these Pe-8s while the Blue pilots were getting shot down left and right by the gunners. Their fighters did not have the speed or armament to bring the behemoths down.

So I changed the game. Instead of trying to shoot down the Pe-8s and getting blown to bits by the gunners. I simply got some altitude and started ramming them. If I made sure I was climbing at the time of impact I could sometimes even bail out if I was not instantly killed. This was my way of protesting against the silly plane-set, and protesting the pilots that were taking advantage of it to in my eyes unfairly win the map objectives and pad their stats and points. Screw them.

On another server a squad was attacking the base I was taking off from. I had to use the base because they had eliminated my other base after I had done well against them using it. They did not care that Red now only had one base and they had two, it was their server after all and their for their fun. The general public was also apparently there for their amusement. So they vulched me on take-off. I re-spawned and they simply kept flying around the base shooting me each time I did so. Sometimes I got the engine started, sometimes I would even get taxiing or a bit off the ground before they hit me. I just kept respawning not because I ever thought I would get off the ground, but I was just interested in seeing how very needy these people were, that the three of them could not let one aircraft take off and get to at least their altitude before they attacked. I thought it was pretty amazing that they could get enjoyment out of what they were doing, that there were people like that. Oh well.

Sure, I have attacked bases, shot out the AAA, and even vulched aircraft, but I would never do it if that was the only base they had to work from. I simply wanted to force them to switch bases and claim the territory for my side. Very often I will not even shoot at any aircraft again after I get it smoking or shoot off some part of it or sever it's controls. It is just no challenge and it is beneath me to hit the opponent again when they can not fight back effectively.

So that is it. For a number of the 15 years I flew this sim online I flew for myself, but now I am much more interested in flying for other things. For having simple fun or socially and sticking with the underdogs. Maybe I think I can show someone if the only way they can have fun is by rigging the game, they are the ones that are losers in the end.