Improve your aiming/marksman skills

[pstyle]

I've anecdotally (about 2 hours flying time, 7 or 8 missions, about 10 engagements) found that having the "cone" of fire set as my load-out convergence has drastically reduced my damage inflicted.

I've decided to revert back to 200/200 on all guns.

Preferably pilots who are flying online for a while now, and know their kill ratio and skill level.

[hegykc]

Originally Posted by klem

Well we shouldn't fall out over this but here are a couple of quotes.

It could all be a bit moot though. I don't think the aircraft and damage modelling is sophisticated enough to place each round at a specific component, I imagine there are hit boxes or bubbles, however small, for damage modelling.

No fall out here
Thanks for the effort, that's what I was looking for. The 450 yards is just crazy

I'm trying to get a hit area the size of the canopy, or the engine, at a desired convergence and deflection angle. That's why I modeled everything in scale.

Cause shooting from a deflection angle, you don't need 8x bullets on the pilots body in one single spot, right? so if a pilot's profile is 2x2 feet why not set the scatter to be 2x2 feet at say 200 yards, or even more because the pilot is the weakest point. So you might actually double or triple your chances of a pilot kill even if your not spot on his head

I just hope the devs took the effort to code the "damage bubbles" to represent rel life .303 scatter.
I read that the game is too easy to be modified, maybe someone can take a look to see how big the damage area of the bullet is? Does it change with distance?

So for a good marksman the concentration area will be maybe 10-20-30% larger, just enough to fill the part of the aircraft (and the aircraft type) he's aiming to hit, depending on the distance and deflection he's comfortable shooting at.
He's still getting a huge concentration of fire.

And keep in mind that the vast majority of people flying are really poor marksmen, and that's no surprise. Shooting from a moving target into a moving target in 3 dimensions. That's exceptionally hard to do.
So as per your quotes, the shotgun pattern actually does increase hit chances for most of the pilots. It's only expert marksman that are penalized with that. Even though at 450 yards the scatter of just one gun is 5.6 feet which is just ridiculous, and I do agree, tighten the pattern as much as possible while still having a nice hit area.

So what I propose is to have a pattern for good marksmen which would fill an engine profile, a fuel tank profile or the pilot profile at his desired range. Or separate the convergences vertically so that when shooting from deflection 4 of the guns hit the engine while other 4 hit the pilot. Or 6 guns hitting the engine while other 2 hit the pilot.
Or if someone likes to cut a wing off, set the scatter so that it's more of a "line" than a "dot". Again, it might suck big time, but why not try and test it, it might just work, there is some logic behind it.

And for people that just want to fly, it's really disappointing to not be able to get at least some bullets on the target. So for them, have the shotgun pattern, more so, separate the convergences horizontally and vertically because they're probably not setting their sights correctly or watching they're range.
It might make the game more easy and awarding for the arcade crowd.

Anyway, off to do some modifications...

[JG27_brook]

So what are the opinions for the best ammo loads in the E-3 ? Online now , whats cutting wings off ?

[louisv]

I tried all kinds and the best is 150/400...got that a while back from a post by Mr.X...please correct me if I'm wrong Mr.X.

Today it still gives the best results I've seen from 400 meters and it seems, all the way up to the target. If I bulls-eye exactly at 400 meters say a steady un-armed bomber, it will hit. Spit or 109.

The tough part of course is getting in place and holding steady on the moving target. I believe the best marksmen are simply the best pilots. In the game anyway.

If you try historical settings -with CloD- ahem...

The worst I've tried is 200/200, you have to be close for this one to work !

Lou

[klem]

Hi hegyck,

We're not doing prone rifle shooting so you'll get scatter anyway from relative movement of the aircraft. Speaking of which I am old enough to have shot 0.303 rifles in competitions as a lad and we would put shots inside an 8 inch (?? I seem remember it was almost the size of a human head) bullseye at 200 yards time after time so I suppose your dispersion does come from the Browning machine gun action and vibration (0.303 Bren guns were harder to group).

I doubt if 1C have modelled the Browning dispersion anyway, they have enough trouble with a Merlin engine.

this is the loadout i use seems to do real well

conv _Gun03 Gun.Browning303MkII 145.3281 145.3281
conv _Gun06 Gun.Browning303MkII 150.3281 146.3281
conv _Gun00 Gun.Browning303MkII 160.3281 144.3281
conv _Gun01 Gun.Browning303MkII 150.3281 146.3281
conv _Gun07 Gun.Browning303MkII 160.3281 144.3281
conv _Gun02 Gun.Browning303MkII 145.3281 145.3281
conv _Gun05 Gun.Browning303MkII 145.3281 145.3281
conv _Gun04 Gun.Browning303MkII 145.3281 145.3281
belt _Gun03 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8
belt _Gun06 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9
belt _Gun00 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11
belt _Gun01 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9
belt _Gun07 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11
belt _Gun02 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 11
belt _Gun05 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 11
belt _Gun04 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8
beltPreset Custom _Gun03 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8
beltPreset Custom _Gun06 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9
beltPreset Custom _Gun00 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11
beltPreset Custom _Gun01 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9
beltPreset Custom _Gun07 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11
beltPreset Custom _Gun02 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 11
beltPreset Custom _Gun05 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 9 9 11
beltPreset Custom _Gun04 Gun.Browning303MkII MainBelt 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8

[hegykc]

Bullet scatter is easily modeled with bullet "damage bubbles". If I could just know what size they are in game. At 200 yards they should be 30 inches.

Here's how the Bf-109 looks in sight at 200 yards
- differences between a single point convergence (yellow) and a more spread out (still concentrated) pattern (red):


And same for He-111


You can see, if bullet "damage bubbles" are smaller than 30 inches, getting a good shot would be like finding a needle in a haystack, literally.
At more than 200 yards you might as well throw the bullets out the window.

[lonewulf]

So... just so I'm getting this; you're flying along at about 450kph and the enemy is doing about 300-400 kph and your aircraft is moving around and his aircraft is moving around and maybe he's in a slow turn or climbing or descending and your MGs are many things but certainly not target rifles but these facts notwithstanding, you want to harmonise your guns to try and hit the pilot? Are you aiming for any particular part of the pilot?

Those two diagrams appear to show about 20 degees of angle off, so that's a miss if you pull the trigger.

[hegykc]

Originally Posted by lonewulf

So... just so I'm getting this; you're flying along at about 450kph and the enemy is doing about 300-400 kph and your aircraft is moving around and his aircraft is moving around and maybe he's in a slow turn or climbing or descending and your MGs are many things but certainly not target rifles but these facts notwithstanding, you want to harmonise your guns to try and hit the pilot? Are you aiming for any particular part of the pilot?

Those two diagrams appear to show about 20 degees of angle off, so that's a miss if you pull the trigger.

You misunderstood completely I'm trying to do the exact opposite.
When the convergence is set to single point, that's when you're trying to kill the pilot with a sniper rifle which a plane is certainly not.

However if you set your spread to cover the whole profile of the canopy and then some, then you just have to be near enough. And it's not about a pilot kill, any vital part will do.

And the two diagrams above are an illustration to show how tiny the spread is with single point convergence. There's no target lead there.