Turret Gunner Controls

[Robotic Pope]

Originally Posted by Wutz

What is your problem? So allied planes go for all planes during WWII? And realism, yeah, try again.....why don´t you openly say Bombers only AI and only at rooky level. Talking about narrow minded!
Reading posts like yours gives me always the feeling keep everything one knows for yourself, no point in sharing anything with these kind of people.

I know your problem now. You are the same kind of person as a certain ex-member of the 1c forums, I won't mention their name but I am sure the mods know who I am talking about. Oh and by the way please do keep all that you know to yourself in future, it would be very helpfull.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Robotic Pope

If you didn't want to use the joystick for the gunner, there could be an option to use a mouse directed turret. So you would move a small mouse curser to where you want the turret to move to and the actual gun would lag behind and fire at the correct speed for that aircraft. I understand the OP's point, It is rather unrealistic to have huge motorised turrets that you can move around like you're firing a pistol.

Exactly. It's not a question of interfacing, it's a question of how fast a human being can rotate a 15kg machine gun and at what angular velocity the mechanically driven turrets operated historically.

I don't care if it's mouse or joystick, the problem lies in the fact that the gun feels completely weightless.

As for balancing reality with gameplay, hopefully we'll get some competent AI that can be ordered to do a few things, instead of doing what the IL2 gunners do: wait until the bandit fills you full of holes, then sniper-kill him with a single shot.

The gunners are not meant to shoot down planes (although it's desirable), but to damage and deter them from pushing the attack.
In that sense, having the ability to give certain commands to the gunners would take away the need for us to fly the aircraft with one hand on the stick and shoot the defensive guns with the other on the mouse.

Imagine this menu in the radio/commands interface, you press tab, then the number corresponding to gunners. Then you get the following commands, some with extra sub-menus:
1) Range submenu: Fire at close/medium/short range
2) Firing Mode submenu: Fire for effect (barrage fire to deter attackers) or fire aimed shots (to actually score hits)
3) Closure rate submenu: Prioritize incoming targets, targets who are moving away or don't prioritize at all
4) Fire at will (cancels all previous modes)
5) Hold fire (puts the gunners on "pause" without canceling previous modes)
6) Resume fire (gunners start firing again according to their previous commands)

It might look complicated, but it's very versatile. You are on a low level Blenheim raid and you see 109s up high but they haven't seen you. A lonely, unarmed Fieseler Storch passes by, what happens?
In IL2, your gunners will fire and give your position away. With this system you issue a hold fire command.
Before you reach the French coast, you already have your gunners set-up to ensure maximum defence with the least amount of exposure, by issuing the orders to fire for effect at close range on incoming targets. So, when the Storch is away again, issue the resume fire command and they keep doing that.

If a bunch of 109s see you and are out to attack you, the gunners will fire when they need to, but they won't give your position away for miles with their tracers.

Different scenario now. You are flying a high altitude raid with lots of bombers and you're streaming contrails, so everybody knows you're there anyway. You set them up for barrage fire at long range to make sure the interceptors don't get close.
Another one, you are in a fight flying a 110. In this case you want the gunner to be somewhat accurate, since you are in an aircraft that maneuvers anyway (as opposed to a straight and level bomber group) and if an enemy is onto you he'll probably be right on top of you at minimal range. So, you tell him to fire aimed shots at incoming targets.

[MadBlaster]

@ Blackdog_kt
"In that sense, having the ability to give certain commands to the gunners would take away the need for us to fly the aircraft with one hand on the stick and shoot the defensive guns with the other on the mouse."

Flying backwards while shooting the guns, it's one of the best parts of the game imo. Wouldn't want to give it up to AI. Only thing I need AI for is tracking bandits.

[Robotic Pope]

Originally Posted by MadBlaster

@ Blackdog_kt
"In that sense, having the ability to give certain commands to the gunners would take away the need for us to fly the aircraft with one hand on the stick and shoot the defensive guns with the other on the mouse."

Flying backwards while shooting the guns, it's one of the best parts of the game imo. Wouldn't want to give it up to AI. Only thing I need AI for is tracking bandits.

You could still have the option to do both at once if you wanted. What Blackdog is saying is with better AI and AI commands you wouldn't absolutly NEED to.

Blackdog, A crew radio menu like that would be awesome, cool idea. It would bring a lot more tactics to the fight.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Wutz

Oh there are eight candidates that are in that club.
But back to the topic, when thinking of the twin 20mm flak guns used during my military service those could swing around really fast, that is why I would like to see hard evidence that turrets where slow or laggy, and not just some fighter jocks wet dream to easy successes.

Mate, there's no need to be aggressive, it just detracts from the point you are trying to make.

Not all of us are looking for easy kills against bombers, but if a particular turret was slow in real life then the simulation should reflect that and that goes for guns in swivel mounts too, depending on their weight and other factors.

Before you draw any conclusions
a) yes, i used to fly bombers online all the time whenever a mission came up with fighters that i didn't know how to fly well (i flew Fw190s almost exclusively, so in maps without 190s i was always taking a bomber) and
b) back when i was spending a lot of time with IL2 i would routinely setup a high altitude QMB mission (7500 or 10000m) with me in an early model Fw190A against four B-17s at ace AI settings...no big guns or heavy armor, not even a full Mg151 loadout, just 2xMg151,2xMgFF and the machine guns and i could kill them all just fine.

Some of the people reading this will obviously think "what does this guy's bragging have to do with the topic at hand?" and guess what, they will be right because what we like to fly and how well we do it in the simulator is not a criterion of how realistic certain aspects of the simulator are. Unfortunately, it does tend to be a criterion of what kind of changes we tend to ask for in the sim

Well, i can defeat AI gunners just fine because i've found out exactly how to create blind spots for them by taking advantage of their simplified logic. In fact, if the gunner AI was reworked i would have less difficulty with the unrealistic sniper kill-shots, but i would have more difficulty with them tracking me in a realistic manner and shooting when it would be reasonable to do, which they currently don't do.
Just fly abeam some bombers and turn into them for a side slashing attack to see this. Ok, you might get some hits on the first run but if you repeat this from the other direction at high speed guess what happens...they are still facing the way you came from in your first pass! By the time they turn around they will be shooting in empty air and you can repeat that all day long.

Like i said before, i don't want to make it harder than it should be for the bombers. I like bombers and if the complex engine management and systems modeling in CoD is all it's rumored to be, then i'll be flying them a lot. However, i don't want to make it easier than it should be either.

I would just like to have historical gun traverse speeds for all defensive guns, so that flying a proper pursuit curve will give me an advantage over another pilot who just parks at their six and steals the kill i've been working on for the past few minutes, just like i would want a gunner AI that doesn't take sniper pot shots at 800m distance and then takes a break until the attacking fighter approaches to point blank range before he really starts to spray some gunfire at him, so that i can have a better chance of survival when flying a bomber.

[MadBlaster]

Originally Posted by Robotic Pope

You could still have the option to do both at once if you wanted. What Blackdog is saying is with better AI and AI commands you wouldn't absolutly NEED to.

Blackdog, A crew radio menu like that would be awesome, cool idea. It would bring a lot more tactics to the fight.

Here's why I lean against it. It is a crutch leading you down the wrong path. It also could give bomber pilots a bad reputation. Frankly, I wish it was true that AI gunners could not give you EAD. It's a freebie kill. They should only be allowed to inflict damage on an enemy fighter, but no EAD. Fortuneately, I can't remember the last time I had EAD from AI gunner, so maybe they fixed it in a patch. The flip to what Blackdog is saying about QMB: I can go to QMB, load up 4xp51 or 4xspit on ace mode (one in each slot for independent treatment) fly a Stucka or 110 in the QMB and I smoke/EAD each one from the rear gun position. If I left it to AI gunners, not going to happen. What I'm really saying it is a skill that should be learned by all bomber pilots. I think it is okay to use AI gunners in the begining when your learning the ropes of bombing. But at some point, you gotta dump the AI to get better defensively. If CoD does what Blackdog suggests, I fear that the incentive to improve defensive skills would disappear and that would be detriment to gameplay in the long run. If you want these commands as option, I guess that is okay. But they don't belong on full-switch/full-real servers.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by B25Mitch

Personally, I think everyone should be forced to use the joystick in gun turrets - it would help the immersion, and prevent people from opting for the super-easy mouse controls.

Again: People fly the plane with stick while at THE SAME TIME control the gunner via mouse.

Should they use the stick for the gunner and fly the plane with mouse?

Originally Posted by winny

For comparison : The ball turret on a B-17 could only do 30 degrees a second,

Only?

That's 5times faster than a modern battle tank.

[winny]

Originally Posted by swiss

Only?

That's 5times faster than a modern battle tank.

Only compared to a mouse.. I'.m pretty sure that 4 seconds would seem like a lot longer if there was a 109 bearing down on you and you needed to go from one side to another
There is a slight difference in weight between a Tank turret and a MG turret btw.

[MadBlaster]

Need to distinguish the electric turrents. Think these were often remotely controlled with computer assistance in aiming (i.e., no human at the gun). But maybe not all electrics? I can't think of any stock plane, but mod planes like the Hornisse, I think they usually put these types under AI control only. Page of interest:http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=19907 I think also, isn't this is late war stuff? So, not sure if electric will be relevant to CoD planes.

[winny]

Originally Posted by MadBlaster

Need to distinguish the electric turrents. Think these were often remotely controlled with computer assistance in aiming (i.e., no human at the gun). But maybe not all electrics? I can't think of any stock plane, but mod planes like the Hornisse, I think they usually put these types under AI control only. Page of interest:http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=19907 I think also, isn't this is late war stuff? So, not sure if electric will be relevant to CoD planes.

There were no Auto Guns in the BoB era. The auto guns in that link were never actually used. It says the project was cancelled in 1944.

If CoD is going for realism then you would have to point your mouse at where you want to shoot and wait for the turret to catch you up.