This might tell something about RL "otto" effectiviness.

whole point is that IEn made a bad otto commands, there isn't much to fix that

 

What gahris said. There is no way to fix it short of complete reprogramming. Otto in WB2 will always be too good up close, too good at tracking fast targets, and too poor at hitting slow, distant targets.

Regardless, I still think a player is better at the guns....if someone comes up for the slow 6:00 approach that works so well against Otto, you can rip them apart at D7. Due to the tracer bug, they won't know you're firing until they get hit.

 

Im gonna lobby rgreat to add human gunners

 

Hi Gahis,

>you miss my point, not everyone like to attack a bomber, if otto is turned off at low alts, you can avoide a bomber

YOU are missing MY point! Otto must be reduced to realistical levels, and then there will be few who don't "like to attack a bomber".

"You can avoid a bomber - oh, great, someone should have told the Luftwaffe in 1943, then they wouldn't have suffered that terrible defeats in the Schweinfurt raids."

TOO BAD the Schweinfurth raids were desasters for the USAAF in real life!

That's the yardstick to measure otto against - I don't care what altitude, with Ottomonster enabled, EVERY bomber is an ackstar, no matter what altitude.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

Hi Mekh,

>That's a rather extreme exaggeration there...FH is not like iEN, you can't just strafe everything and have much of an impact.

The key is that fighter bombers have much shorter flight times so that their ratio of tonnage on target/minutes in the air comes out better. (Not even counting strafing.) What's more, they effectively suppress the defending fighters and are capable of clearing the field for the troop transport.

Fighter bombers also have the advantage of much quicker times from take-off to strike, and since they can fly multiple attack waves where level bombers are limited to one, they can rely on drawing addtional support as they go along.

You're right that bombers have some interesting capabilities, and in fact I've participated in quite a few bomb raids that made use of these capabilities, but the fighter bomber is so effective that noone ever cares for level bombers.

That's why we don't see more level bombers, and that's why the game needs to be changed to provide targets tailored for level bombers if we want to see more bombers in the game.

>As for Otto...illo's assessment is correct. It's easy to defeat, but the method to defeat it (long range attacks) is unrealistic.

That's not what Illo said. Illo said:

>I get usually downed in FH if i use proper tactics. If i spray from long 6 its most safe here.

Even if spraying from long 6 were safe (it's not - even Illo gets shot down that way), you won't down a bomber that way if you're flying a Me 109E or a Me 109F.

>Since most players don't man their own guns, bombers are generally not that hard to bring down except at extreme altitude....just sit back behind them at range and plug away.

Nonsense. I've been hit and severely damged by an Il-4 otto out at D8, a distance at which my Messerschmitt's projectiles spray out over a circle with a diameter larger than the wingspan of the bomer I'm attacking.

In fact, I've been systematically trying the long six tactics for a while. Otto accuracy is much higher than fighter accuracy, and otto lethality (with just a couple of hits) is much higher than fighter lethality, too.

That's not a question of how otto is modelled, is just a question how its overall lethality. And overall lethality is way too high on Freehost now!


Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

Hi Mekh,

>Otto in WB2 will always be too good up close, too good at tracking fast targets, and too poor at hitting slow, distant targets.

Accuracy is only one parameter - lethality is another parameter that may be easier to get under control.

And otto is not poor at hitting slow, distant targets - he hits at D8 just fine, and get every bullet of a long burst in. Just point your nose at the bomber, and you'll see.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

FH already doubled the amount of slots for aircraft, added new aircraft, items, vehicles, weapons, skins, models and are working on so much new stuff, like maps, bullet marks on the ground, etc. you never know how limited they are

human gunners would be a good solution for the accuracy, but the problem would be player 'consumption' and maybe the player's interest in being a gunner.
but it would be interesting to test it.

 

Hi Nicae,

>human gunners would be a good solution for the accuracy, but the problem would be player 'consumption' and maybe the player's interest in being a gunner.
but it would be interesting to test it.

I come from Air Warrior where bombers either took human gunners, or they had no gunners at all. Nearly all bombers flew unprotected, and still there were more bombers in the game than on Freehost.

The reason was that in Air Warrior, the targets required a much greater bomb tonnage, so it was either a heavy bomber or nothing.

And in Air Warrior, the pilot didn't even have the possibility to man his bomber's guns himself!

In my opinion, setting otto to the lowest possible setting and to leave the defence of the bomber to the pilot is the best way to go. In fact, this will leave the bombers with the choice to either evade or to shoot back, but not both. That't the way it was in real life, too - noone could hit anything from a manoeuvring platform.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

hi hohun

I agree totally ((first time ever ))

Only 1 point in that I would add, have human gunners aval too, I like being a gunner, but on the bomb run makes difficult, and planes like il2m, ju87d, bf110, would have a great potential with human gunners

 

Perhaps, perhaps, but that's only in a best-case scenario, where there's no defenders whatsoever. When enemies start scrambling after your first sortie or two, it's very likely that your future waves might not even get their ordnance to target, thus making the theoretical tonnage-per-time advantage unattainable. Plus, following up in later waves, even when successful, results in the base being closed for a much shorter period of time: by the time you've RTBd and returned a few times, the targets destroyed in the first sorties will soon rebuild, thus resulting in an unending cycle.

On the flip side, bringing a lot of tonnage at once achieves much better results: it's harder for the enemy to stop and it closes the base for almost an hour.

Frankly, if you want a medium or big field captured with a minimum of fuss, bombers are the best way to do it, and in the case of big fields, practically the only way to do it. There's certainly no lack of effectiveness for them on Freehost.

The reason bombers aren't popular is because they're just not interesting to fly. Most of the flight, you're on autopilot, nothing's happening, and you can expect to spend at least 50 minutes like that if you want enough altitude. I usually read a book or watch TV during it. When you get to the target, the actual bombing is pretty easy and not all that interesting, and if you do things right, you're probably not going to run into an enemy, so that removes the interest of manning a gun and plinking at them.

In my case, your reasoning completely the opposite. The one and only reason I fly bombers, is because they work so well.

BTW, as for 109E vs IL-4...the only two sorties I flew on medrl2, were exactly that. I killed both easily, at D3-D4, the first one didn't even touch me and the second one only hit with two rounds from random spray. The only difficult part about it was actually catching the buggers...I had to chase the second one 80 miles to down it. The IL-4 doesn't exactly impress me, I also killed a lot of them with a Zeke 5 when they first arrived after the update and everyone was trying out the new red torpedo bomber.

"Otto lethality" is not higher, it's that it always gets shots at your front fuselage...this of course being where all the most vulnerable spots are.

As for "Otto hits just fine at D8", tell that to someone who might actually believe it. I've got a -lot- of time in bombers and quite a bit hunting them, plus I've done it a lot in offline (where they're a lot more dangerous than online) -- and it doesn't happen aside from random spray. A player manning the gun, however, most certainly can light you up at D8 if you're slow and steady.

 

Now this, I'll agree with. Nothing annoys me more than to see someone abusing this facet of Otto, an evasive bomber still placing fairly accurate fire is a patently ludicrous concept.

 

Hi Mekh,

>As for "Otto hits just fine at D8", tell that to someone who might actually believe it.

Just to remind you: You are the guy who tried to tell us otto doesn't lead. I suggested a simple experiment by which everyone could confirm for himself that confirmed that otto did lead targets quite well, and that his error in estimating deflection was not much more than 10%.

I'm convinced that you honestely erred, but I think with such a history, you should better not question the credibility of others.

I'm not the first one to report long distance otto hits, either - in the thread I'm referring to, Spaceb described how he was hit at D7.

Even if you had been right about otto's inability to correct for deflection, otto obviously doesn't need to correct for deflection if a target is approaching on a straight path from the six o'clock, as necessary for a six attack.

If you don't believe me, just fly with reduced throttle at D8 on an Il-4's low six for a while. EVERYONE can try it, it's a verifyable experiment.

To remove doubts whether you were hit by a player manning his guns, observe whether the bomber is manoeuvring while you're hit or not. Any manoeuvre, and it was otto who hit you.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

Hi Mekh,

>>In my opinion, setting otto to the lowest possible setting and to leave the defence of the bomber to the pilot is the best way to go. In fact, this will leave the bombers with the choice to either evade or to shoot back, but not both. That't the way it was in real life, too - noone could hit anything from a manoeuvring platform.

>Now this, I'll agree with.

Mekh, Gahis and HoHun agree - maybe we should just skip the remaining detail differences and make it a formal suggestion to the FH crew now?

(Just disregard my last post in that case ;-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

That's not actually reliable, as you can adjust autopilot while you're in a gun position, and by changing into autoclimb, you can get the plane to begin an ascent/descent depending on the climbspeed setting.

The easier, more reliable way, is to see if there's tracers. Player-manned guns don't create tracers, only Otto does (unless this got fixed in the a2g ordnance display fix with the last FHL update...haven't tested since then)

And that "10%" you disparage is critical. With any real offset motion, Otto won't hit you except at close range. And at D8, you -won't get hit- except by random spray, even on AC10. Actually, the higher the AC, the safer you are at range, because then it aims precisely at its no lead position, instead of randomly spraying around. Plus there's always the dispersion you so hate, it affects Otto as well

 

that would be a significant improvement, but even with lowest possible setting, otto is seriously unrealistic.
those RL HO attacks will continue passing at d1 from the bombers. and even with the lowest settings, otto will fill u with lead at that distance

 

we can see rockets again, if thats what you mean

 

sry hohun, u were wrong about otto.
otto does not hit easy at d8. it hits easy at d12! and still scores pings at d13!

 

source, pls

 

How can 18.7 gram round kill 10000kg bird?

- Amouse!! It's simple question of weight ratios. (Netw. trefferzahl)

 

Hi Mekh,

>That's not actually reliable, as you can adjust autopilot while you're in a gun position, and by changing into autoclimb, you can get the plane to begin an ascent/descent depending on the climbspeed setting.

I was thinking of the more typical rolling and weaving motions of bombers under attack which really leave no doubt.

>The easier, more reliable way, is to see if there's tracers.

Good suggestion!

>And that "10%" you disparage is critical.

It's not. It's only enough to avoid hits if you're going at high speed at right angle to the bombers' path, which hardly is an effective attack strategy. If you go at a 45° angle, it's only 7%, at 30°, it's only 5%. (Too little to save you even at high speed.) It all comes down to geometry.

>Plus there's always the dispersion you so hate, it affects Otto as well

I don't believe it. The reason is that my cannon dispersion at D8 meant I was spraying a cone with a diameter greater than the bombers wingspan, and not getting any hits on the bomber. Otto on the other hand got in a concentrated burst of 6 hits in the fraction of a second, and apparently all of it at the centre fuselage as he took out my oil system. (This happened more than once.)

Obviously, there's a big difference in otto dispersion and in player dispersion. Needless to say, otto got the better end of it.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)