S3 Series

Well, frame 1 turned out to be a voyage of discovery that had game play turn into something I had not intended.
1) B-29 AI behaviour, or rather misbehaviour. The AIs do not stay in formation and tend to wander off at different altitudes and headings. Trying to keep them close to the player aircraft is impossible. The best that can be hoped for is that they will be in the general area.
2) F-86 and Mig15 FMs. Before we started I was pretty sure they were off, but I didn't really look into it closely. Both aircraft can easily exceed Mach 1 in a dive (I've had the Mig at 1000mph TAS). Both aircraft also have an automatic recovery feature. Once TAS exceeds 850 mph or so the aircraft starts a 5G pitch up and all pilot roll, pitch and yaw inputs are disabled and the speed drops below 800 TAS. Sounds like a great feature, but if you are inverted at low altitude the pitching action will make you into a lawn dart.
3) Mig15 killer cannons. A single ping from either the 23mm or the 37mm will destroy a hangar. Bombers just explode. Not sure how =wilz= managed to only have the engine of his F-86 catch fire when I hit him from low 6. Given bomber are just too easy to kill if you get into firing position, scoring for the series will be adjusted and loss of a bomber will only score 1 VP.

Team Gold (UN)
8 pilots, 22 sorties.
352nd: juice=, osker-, vokker, redsgt, =wilz=
Knights: okdoc-
AE: booner
69th?: papcwc
F-86: 17 sorties. 4 Mig15s shot down. 8 a/c lost.
P-51D: 2 sorties. No kills and no losses.
B-29: 2 sorties. No kills, no ground targets destroyed. 3 player aircraft and 2 AI lost. [1 other AI may also have been lost, but the log doesn't clearly indicate it]

Team Green (KPA)
7 pilots, 46 sorties.
4th: WLDBIL (1 sortie)
RCAF: muzz--, yukone, -deak-
23rd: grmpy-, -splt-, hardad
DR: riffer
Mig15: 38 sorties. 1 F-86, 3 B-29s and 2 AI buffs shot down. 8 aircraft lost.
Yak-9U: 5 sorties. No kills and no losses.

Frame 1 Scoring
Team Green scores 16 VPs for UN F-86 losses and 5 VPs for B-29s lost, for a frame total of 21 VPs
Team Gold scores 16 VPs for Mig15 losses.

Frame 2 will be interesting. Team Gold flying for the KPA and Team Green flying for the UN.
The arena is open for practice.
<S>

Muzz,

Yeah, the bombers were impossible to defend. B29 damage model is suspect. All exploded (PKs). Saw all of Okdoc's AIs explode at same time. Not to mention AIs seem to do their own thing.

I'd vote scrap the bombers and allow fighters to attack ground targets.

Oskar,
I have confirmed with SPINDZ the problem is not with the B-29 damage model, but the file for the Mig-15s gun effectiveness. Identifying the cause of the AI behaviour is still a work in progress.

My intent, for the sake of fairness, was to run frame two without correcting the gun problem. It has been suggested to me by an old CM that the B-29s might be flown in an irregular manner given the one ping kill. I intend to fly a B-29 to minimize risk of this behaviour. It was also suggested that by correcting the gun problem, the B-29s would be more likely to fly in an orthodox fashion.

So a question to Team Gold leadership, should I stick with my original intent to keep all game settings the same or would Team Gold prefer to have their guns fixed?

Respectfully,

Thanks Muzz,

Not my call, but the bombers are ineffective as is.. I think your suggestions are reasonable to stick with frame 1 settings since this is a short series.

If we wanted to do it right we could correct the settings (Mig guns, AI routines, etc) and replay frame 1. But scheduling, added work, etc probably doesn't allow for replays.

Appreciate the hard work Muzz.... Thanks again, Oskar