S3 Series

All that was requested was a reasonable chance of success...don't you feel that's fair? Agree buddy!

Thanks Beaver. The player driven G4M1s were not the problem, sure they were tough to take out this and always will be the design in S3s. Using AI mbls to simulate a great war is a new thing for S3s and getting those bombers right is tougher. When they are more deadly than a formation of player driven bombers then something is wrong with the way they are designed. They were expected to be hard but not merciless thus the dailing down of their gunnery skill, they have no otto settings just that.

F103.

Player watched his acmcam and it appeared his gear snapped and he sunk off the side of the runway. I landed there several times as did the rest of the squad...so as long as you keep it "between" the lines, I think you are good.

Dobs

To give an Allied view of the non-player Ai's last frame and what called for a change to gunnery settings.

I think that for all pilots the new design of Ai's (non-human) is a wake up call. This we could see in =dobs= video from WTC when he all alone, attacked 3x IL-2s in formation in a, as I call it, lazy six attack. This is understandable as that's the way we've learnt to handle the "turkey-shoot" Ai's for years. Place yourself comfortably on their six, take your time to aim, blast it down in a short burst, proceed to the next Ai and repeat. This time his oil suddenly got smoked as the Ai's has started to bite back as they would realistically. This calls for new tactics such as attacking from below, the sides, high speed top attack, HOs or bring more than a single pilot to kill a whole formation. This is a good change.

However the (non-player) G4M1 Ai's last frame went from being "turkey-shoot" Ai's to "Hellfire" Ai's. The 4th had 7 pilots at 22k, and found 3x G4M1 Ai's unprotected low. We dove on them in a schoolbook example: Attacking in 2 waves, high speed from the top boom n zoom. That was a 7 vs 3 full advantage attack. We lost 5 pilots in that pass to their otto. 2 killed, 3 had to glide RTB deadstick. The 2 remaining pilots RTB:ed with damage. This is wrong, and I must give credit to -jabo- for being responsive when something seems off.

I understand that this new Ai addition takes several frames of tweaking, and is in my opinion for the good of the S3 community. If you attack a multi-engine buff formation in a lazy six attack you deserve to take damage or get shot down. However if attacking smart and especially with several wingmen, you should come out on top with minor damage.

My few cents
/Robert
4th FG - CO 336th.
http://echoesmarketing.com/4thfg/

Well written Robert!

And yes after attacking the WTC IL's in previous frames, I expected the same "turkey" type of response:)

Last frame we made a pass through the 3 ship of G4M AI nose to tail and rolled out behind targeting individual bombers.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617Vb0ZJlks[/youtube]

AI was returning fire, and as soon as they started losing alt (vatored) we would come off... Did not experience the same intensity of fire, but we biased our attacks from low 6 to avoid the top cannon, so only had to deal with tail gunner. And yes it appears the tail gunners can be killed!:) I think I might have killed the tail gunner on my HO pass as I strafed down its side....but hard to tell.


So what is missing is the part of the plane that made it "fragile":


Not an easy way to get around this IMO...fuel leak is a fuel leak in the game. HE rounds vs ball ammo...we have the short end of the stick on that:) If we could only get "if fuel leak in non-sealing tank aircrat =1, then next damage = BOOM/FIRE" coded we would be OK:)

But we can't, so remember the bombers have teeth...G4Ms have 2 x 7.7s in the nose, and side blisters, 1 x 20mm in Top and Tail. If you find yourself behind them, attack from low 6...and serpentine!

Dobs

Basically kept cranking up the IL2s plane damage until the last frame they were strong enough to withstand a good amount of sustained fire. They always had 100/100 settings but were only deadly in the last frame when they were at their toughest setting.

So started KT with those 100/100 settings and the stock G4M1 settings for plane damage. G4M1s are pretty strong and have much more guns training on a diving fighter thus their uberness. If those were B17s it would have been a bloodbath. Lesson learned. So now they are dialed back to 25/25. Single engine strike a/c will have a higher ability because they are so bloody dumb at 50/50 and their rear guns are limited to usually 1 rear facing.

Still dont claw up the assend of a defensive formation even with more reasonable settings. That being said I saw at least one excellent attack that took out two betties in the same formation in two seperate attacks so it can be done even with uber settings.

Hawk Finder on!

Summary above updated as well as the score.