It's still pretty devestating if you don't compensate for it. Nose down manoevers still work if you've got a spit pilot on your tail who doesn't take the time to learn about the merlin's carburetor. Also, I think it occurs quicker the more rapidly you push the negative g's. A very very gradual nose down will start to sputter in a couple seconds, but a hard nose down will cough instantly. I think this is fairly good. It at least allows you to manoever in level flight without having to flip over all the time :) Hard dogfighting is another story, though, and you've got the be cognisant of it alllllll the time.

Good story! Outflying your opponent can be as satisfying as filling him with lead.

I logged onto the Syn server last night and there were around 24 players. Unfortunately, my FPS was dreadful and |I experienced the sound issue within seconds of spawning. During take off another Hurricane spawned directly in front of me and that was the end of that first session. My views would hold for around 5 seconds and the FPS got so bad I had to exit again and try a re boot and see if things were better .

I checked my Cache folder an noticed a whole bunch of files created during that MP session so deleted everything in it - my sound returned but the fps was just as bad if not worse.

At around 15000 ft (over my home base) I spotted a trio of Bf109's below me but, with my fps at single figures decided not to engage but keep a watchfull eye (which became increasingly difficult as panning resulted in frozen views).

I was spotted and the best I could do was take evasive action, survive and land with damaged rudder control.

It seems that the more players on the server the worse the performance which suffers dramatically when another ac gets close. I gave up trying again which was a huge disappointment as I recognised a whole bunch of regulars from this forum and it would have been great to fly with and against them. I won't give up and will try again - may be it was just a bad session!

Yes we have experienced similar things as yourself, I dont know if its the AI thats causing all the big pauses and lag, but something is definitley not right. I found it so frustrating I just gave up in the end, it could be that the game simply doesn't like steam.

Maybe a solution is a MP with AI special aircrafts. That mean, as example a Spitfire with less polygonos and specially, simple skins to reduced load time, avoid freezing and obtain top fluid FPS. That work quite well with FS9 and FSX and a good number of this models AI are of excelent qualitat like the Aardvark or FSP. There are thousend of repaints of this models, working usually only with one or two BMPs.Negative point: can be a little"frustrating" specially for the fans of personnel or specials skins.

This thread is obviously getting infected by an increasingly heated off-topic discussion.
Why not create a new thread for that as this one is for tales of bravery among the clouds.

I replied in this topic, let us continue the talk there.

Good suggestion Tom, i moved all of our posts regarding multiplayer modes to that thread.