4.13 development update discussion and feedback

[Pugo3]

I agree with and appreciate the various inputs and opinions re my inquiry, and want to state again, I think it is absolutely great that the AI are as deadly as they are in ACE mode. I would also re-emphasize that they do veer away if you stay steady and have them on dead center gun sight - I have fired a very brief burst on several occasions to deter them from continuing, a sort of warning shot if you will, and they most times veer away, again, a notable and welcome improvement from 4.10 and earlier. Of course, sometimes they take me out or we collide, no complaints here, my bad all the way!

The part I wrote about my plane veering down or away and the subsequent "magic bullets" is the aspect I mostly question. If you try this a few times in Invulnerable mode, and watch the tracers from the AI, you'll notice a pattern somewhat as if you spread your fingers of your hand as wide as possible, then altered the angle of various fingers upward and downward. Either those armament guys have performed some feat of field shop engineering, or that pilot has somehow acquired 'Jackie Chan' levels of mastery in dancing those tracers from each individual gun to cover an amazing spread up, down and sideways in a few seconds! It appears to me that the tracers are angled downward towards me while the AI aircraft is flying over me

Test this yourself and see if you find the same result; again, shells coming downward while the AI plane is in process of overflying me directly front above, and look for the 'W' spread of tracers, which of course should be parallel.

Not to worry, just thought to bring it to TD's attention, but I can live with it (adapt) either way.

p3

[Feathered_IV]

Would it be possible to see some shots of the Tobruk map that is coming? I'd really appreciate it!

[_1SMV_Gitano]

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

Would it be possible to see some shots of the Tobruk map that is coming? I'd really appreciate it!

Tobruk map just a rename of the Lybia map (with small modifications) made by JV69_Bada, which kindly gave his permission to include his map in 4.13.... so I guess anyone using mods already had a glance at it.

cheers

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Pugo3

Test this yourself and see if you find the same result; again, shells coming downward while the AI plane is in process of overflying me directly front above, and look for the 'W' spread of tracers, which of course should be parallel.

Would this be explained by the AI shooting at a distance way beyond convergence(say 600-800m)? So their bullets would drop quite a bit below their planes direction of travel, and thus come downwards to you -while AI passes overhead - and when fired from wing guns, bullet paths would cross in front of you and then angle outwards while passing you?

In general avoid head on attacks - with two exceptions:
-Bombers - you can hit the vulnerables (engines,crew) while spending very little time in the zone where defensive fire can easily hurt you. Against the better armed bombers this may be the easiest way to get good results, and one of the safest if you don't get target fixated and miss the pull out.
-Faster plane, not maneuverable, not good in the climb - against AI you may be out of other options, e.g. Bf110 vs AI Hurricane - and while it is still a bit of a crapshot game, you can get quite good at it - and its only a game so you can afford to get hit once in a while.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Pugo3

The part I wrote about my plane veering down or away and the subsequent "magic bullets" is the aspect I mostly question. If you try this a few times in Invulnerable mode, and watch the tracers from the AI, you'll notice a pattern somewhat as if you spread your fingers of your hand as wide as possible, then altered the angle of various fingers upward and downward.

I think that what you're seeing here is bullet dispersal. That's normal and it's a welcome bit of realism.

All weapons have an "inherent accuracy" which represents their ability to consistently put shots into the same location. Less than perfect accuracy means that bullets get randomly scattered around the aiming point. The smaller the amount of scatter, the better the weapon's inherent accuracy.

Realistically, due to imperfections in the gun barrel, recoil, differences between individual cartridges, wind, and other factors, even a perfectly "zeroed" gun in a bench rest is going to have less than perfect inherent accuracy. Weapons fired from a vibrating, bouncing vehicle traveling at high speed are going to have much lower inherent accuracy, so a larger scattering pattern.

Effects of errors in inherent accuracy become more obvious at increasing ranges, giving that scattering effect you're seeing. As an example, fly a QMB mission against an Ace Wellington III and try attacking it from the rear. It will start shooting at about 500-600 meters, but rather than seeing a perfect rectangle pattern of tracers from the tail turret guns, you'll see an irregular pattern.

Additionally, in a dogfight, an enemy attacking while simultaneously moving in all three axes (i.e., shooting while making a diving, banking turn) will also be scattering tracers across the sky, since each individual bullet is actually going to be aimed in a different direction. That will also give the scattering effect you're seeing.