Ammo Belts Loadout/Exploit Dicussion

[bw_wolverine]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Agree with most of your post, but I think the fuel consumption is pretty accurate. I inquired long ago when I was able to make 4 round trips from Calais to London, but was advised it was due to operational procedure differences, but the number of miles travelled was consistent with historical consumption. In RL, planes were started up, idling on the tarmac while checked out, taxied to position, waited for entire flight to get ready, took off, formed up, climbed to altitude, waited for rendevous with bombers, flew weaving escort patterns, and still reached London with 5-15 minutes operational time before needing to head home. The early parts of that flight could consume 30-45 minutes of fuel before the 109s had even started out towards England.

I agree some things need to be left for the players themselves to decide, not every thing can be ultra-historical. If people weren't putting themselves in the crosshairs of the enemy plane, you wouldn't even know what they're loaded with.

Ah, gotcha. That's why I left the '?' in there. I wasn't sure what was the case, but I had a suspicion (which turns out to be half true).

What you're saying goes exactly with what I was getting at. Historical operating procedure ended up limiting the 109s over England significantly in a way that absolutely impacted their effectiveness - but there is no evidence that people are playing it that way. So now people would have to talk about fuel limit restrictions on servers, etc. etc. etc. in order to accurately model the 'historical' situation.

It all gets very crazy very quickly if you go down that rabbit hole

If there are any 109 pilots out there who actually only take 50% fuel or less to simulate not having much fuel over England, then I tip my cap to them.

[TomcatViP]

C'mon guys no 109 pilot hve ever downed 3 bomber in a row even with that big mk108 !!!

We hve super high hit rate (what I monstrated some time ago) hence if the ammo belt is tweaked it get to the point of laughable results. I prey for a turn back toward more modest behavior !

[335th_GRAthos]

Originally Posted by bw_wolverine

If there are any 109 pilots out there who actually only take 50% fuel or less to simulate not having much fuel over England, then I tip my cap to them.

Unfortunately, I am afraid a lot, (at the server I play most of the time) I suspect they do, what is the motivation of flying all the way back home when you can be nice and light dogfighting at 500m altitude [historically correct? Noooooo!] and there is no threat to spend the rest of the war at the prison camp in England (or in Canada)? LOL
(@Krupi: Just do not get the idea to start a new poll !!!!!!!!! )

For the Bf109-E4 the max allowable take off weight, if I remember well, means around 60% fuel.

Agree with you Wolverine, in any case they definitively do not do it in order "to simulate not having much fuel over England"...

~S~

PS. Tomcat, I have a better score: Yesterday in my E1, I killed the four bombardiers out of the five Blenheims en route to France... my aiming is crap; I was going for the pilots ROFL!
To be a bit more serious though, for the memoirs of German pilots I have read, they used to take a long time to get into position for the attack and got well out of range before initiating the next attack. In real life you only have one life and take no risks. In this game, if my plane gets hit or I die, there is always re-fly...
This explains the "un-historical" success rate.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by 335th_GRAthos

Unfortunately, I am afraid a lot, (at the server I play most of the time) I suspect they do, what is the motivation of flying all the way back home when you can be nice and light dogfighting at 500m altitude [historically correct? Noooooo!] and there is no threat to spend the rest of the war at the prison camp in England (or in Canada)? LOL
(@Krupi: Just do not get the idea to start a new poll !!!!!!!!! )

For the Bf109-E4 the max allowable take off weight, if I remember well, means around 60% fuel.

Agree with you Wolverine, in any case they definitively do not do it in order "to simulate not having much fuel over England"...

~S~

cheeky gi...

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

if its server set then online wars could use this to determine what ammo is available i.e. if a supply convoy is destroyed you have less of a certain ammo .

I like this idea from the other thread.

[335th_GRAthos]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

cheeky gi...

Krupi, I swear to God, I take off 100Kg above the max limit 'cause I need the fuel waiting for ever being the only SOB circling at 4K waiting for something to come up there...

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by 335th_GRAthos

Krupi, I swear to God, I take off 100Kg above the max limit 'cause I need the fuel waiting for ever being the only SOB circling at 4K waiting for something to come up there...

LOL i fly with 100% as well, don't know why as I usually am on the deck

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by 335th_GRAthos

Krupi, I swear to God, I take off 100Kg above the max limit 'cause I need the fuel waiting for ever being the only SOB circling at 4K waiting for something to come up there...

That is one thing I like about the new ATAG mission. If you want a Spit1A or Hurri Rotol you have to start inland which means you can easily be at 10,000 feet by the time you get to the coast. I usually go up high and look for bombers which tend to attract other players too.

[bw_wolverine]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Promise you they are not taking it for that reason! LOL... More like, less weight = better performance. I always load 65% and up, because I think its too much of "gaming the system" to load under that. Plus, the 109 shouldn't handle like a Spitfire on fumes....

Heh, yeah I kinda figured

[klem]

To be honest I think this is just tinkering around the edges because a perfectly historical loadout will not be matched by a perfectly historical damage model. The damage model possibilities are too complex.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't mind if preset ammo loadouts are forced on us for a special mission as long as they were historically accurate, along with the availablility of Spitfire types, 100 octane, numbers of 109 E[types], 'N' series engines etc., i.e. a carefully researched day of the battle. I think the ammo load would have to be a download from the server and some kind of autoselect of the downloaded "mission_user" file containing the ammo details for all the aircraft in the mission. That would mean everyone logged in and waiting to go to avoid game lags and a firmly shut door to late entrants. It would also mean some additional coding by the devs (did I just hear the idea hit the floor with a thud?)

Another poster has given us statements about RAF loadouts during the BoB, possibly from this website:
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/BoB.htm
Even then there are two opinions for the use of DeWilde and the total loadout so the mission designer would have to decide precisely which battle day he was designing for. I think it will mean no "no tracer" loadouts though.

Meanwhile I will fly with my 4xAP, 2xDeWilde and 2xWhite Tracer (at least you know I'm behind you). I also don't understand why they bothered with plain Ball unless there was a supply (or cost?) issue.

Bottom line: given all the inevitable imperfections of a flight/combat sim I wouldn't want to see it on the every day servers.