I-153: cheap or not?

[sloppy_clock]

I disagree with all these negative comments. I use them, never in a dogfight of any kind though, but they are decent planes but very easy to kill. Its not fair to say users of them are cheating, their speed and weakness definatly evens the playing field.
Just in RL you wouldnt want to engage in a turning-game with one, so dont do it; use different tactics.

[kozzm0]

but that's the whole point, online dogfight isn't a real-life situation. In real life you don't have the objective of competing with several other planes to shoot down as many i-153's as possible in 20 minutes. In real life you just ignore them and fly away because they're tactically useless. Same with the I-16. The Stalingrad campain mission where you have to fight bf109's and then he-111's with an I-16 is a great example of how weak a slow fighter really is.

In dogfight mode, the player who stays in the furball will invariably rack up more kills over time, compared to the boom and zoomer, simply because they get more opportunities to shoot. They get more deaths too, but that doesn't stop them from winning the round and getting the points.

[InfiniteStates]

Originally Posted by sloppy_clock

I disagree with all these negative comments. ... Its not fair to say users of them are cheating, their speed and weakness definatly evens the playing field.
Just in RL you wouldnt want to engage in a turning-game with one, so dont do it; use different tactics.

I'm not saying they are cheating, I'm saying they are cheap. The weaknesses you describe don't apply to 99.5% of online games, because the tendancy there is for everyone to engage in a giant turning battle furball. So the I-153 pilot sits in the middle, merrily turning on a dime, picking people left, right and centre and too maneouverable to be killed by someone trying a turning attack.

As I said in the OP - the tactics to beat them are a no-brainer, but make for a very boring game. They are also not compatible with the above gameplay that online games turn into. You are going to lose if everyone is turn-fighting while you are making strafing passes. The guy in the 153 can kill 2 or 3 turning planes while you are flying away and turning around for another pass.

And the other problem with this plane, unlike jets, is that you cannot set up a game to prohibit them.