yeah well, an easy kill is an easy kill, eh? no skill required

I think the whole debate is hilarious, to be honest.

As many here have said: If you're being vulched, then gtfo that airfield and accept that you'll have to do a bit of flying in order to get to the fight. Simple as that. Or, if you don't like being vulched, don't play on ATAG where that sort of thing is allowed. Bitching about how ATAG sucks because they don't have anti-vulching rules is, quite frankly, silly and borderline idiotic. If you don't like how something is run, don't go there. Hell, set up your own server with your own rules instead. Of course, that takes more work than most people are willing to put in, but hey, it's a solution.

While I don't usually play online, I will, if the opportunity arises, use every possible means I have to kill you. My basic instinct is that if I can kill you on the ground, you're one less tosspot that will get airborne to challenge my rather horrendous situational awareness and worse gunnery-skills. If I'm being vulched, I'll just spawn at a different airbase and then use the altitude/speed to enter/exit the fight Boom'n'Zoom-style. I will use every single advantage I have and can use in order to shoot you down, just as I expect you to use every single advantage and skill YOU have in order to swat my silly butt out of the sky. To do anything less would be stupid.

In a combatflightsim, I fight to win. That's the plain, naked truth of it. I fight to help my TEAM win. And I will use every dirty tactic that I within reason and within the rules can apply to do it. Hell, I will, if I'm completely out of ammo, low on fuel/heavily damaged and too far away from an airfield, even ram you if need be. I might die, but I'm taking you with me.

Avoiding vulchers is hilariously easy, as all you have to do is spawn at an airbase further away from the frontlines. Yes, you might have to spend 5 minutes flying to the combatzone, but you'll be in a superior tactical situation at that point. Few, if any, people realize this.

you will always have a chance against vulchers!
its the most statisfying kill, if you shoot down a player, who feels safe and convinced to kill you in a second when he dives on you...fight as hard as possible, fly clean and turn the tables!
its possible and its fun believe me!
everybody is welcome to try to vulch me!

The only reason I'm being critical Bliss is because you were so vocal against a more intuitive co-op gui. You stated you "hate" co-op style of play, and therefore would like to "pigeon-hole" everyone to your style of play. So it's pretty clear you will never have that sort of thing on your server and that's fine since it's yours. But trying to stifle a legitiment style of play and a requested feature because you hate co-op, isn't helping the sim expand to online squads that have been waiting for this.

i think you have a good point (btw maybe edit your tittle, its "vultures" not fultures ;) )

in a real life setting, other then an airbase just having been severely bombed, you would have AA flak going of and sirens blowing to warn you of nearby or incoming enemy planes

bit odd ATAG servers dont use AA flak guns and sirens at their airfields (was available on il2-1946 servers), is there a technical reason for this ? seems a bit odd of an omission and so is not even be willing to accept comments over it. ignoring criticism of this omission is a good example of the "fake real" point whores who ignorantly think it represents a real life situation. sadly this online behavior is only encouraged by the mutual gratification behavior of their air quake peers, so unlikely to change anytime soon.

The argument isn't about "I'm being vulched, this sucks!"

Vulching negates an entire mission by attracting lesser attentive players to one area. One single small area...which in turn ruins combat for the strategy-minded players because a server with 40+, hell, even 10+, should be chock-full of fighter formations roaming about the map and completing objectives (that you as a mission builder worked so hard on) is now a desolate and barren wasteland of blue.

You naysayers can't deny the negative effect on gameplay a majority of a team hovering around a single base has, whether it's a "valid" style of gameplay or not, it's detrimental to the majority. Spawning at another base to get away from the threat while taking off doesn't fix anything, because EVERYONE needs to do it, but that will never happen...stop dreaming that it will. Yes, you and I see the solution, but the major public does not, and never will. Besides, they'll spawn at the other base and head straight to the vulched base. Happens every time.

sure, but the AA folks wouldnt be having a nap, or have the rest of the base crew sitting in their sun-chairs smoking their pipe saying "hey what old chap, bad luck there was a fake-real jerry camper around to ruin your day, lets have another crumpet"

its all about context. lone enemy fighters attacking an airbase on their own (unusual in itself because of the risk) and then not having some warning/alert from the airbase in question, MOST unusual. right now on ATAG you can have undefended forward airbases with a constant cluster of enemy planes camping right over them, and no warnings by ATC or AA, and no nearby airbases dispatching fighters to dislodge the campers. so no, its not realistically representing a normal ww2 airfield scenario

nothing wrong with "being allowed" to vulch, setting artificial rules to not allow it doesnt solve anything

the question is, is having a constant swarm of vultures camping over non-defended airbase realistically representing a typical ww2 scenario, obviously not

no, thats "kill stealing" :P

if you'd want a zoological label or new nomenclature for that situation, then we need something new, eg an animal that is a cowardly scavenger (strictly speaking, the hyena and jackal dont fit that description because they do kill most of their own prey in the wild)

hear, hear !!

them is wise words

that indeed could be the main problem

if their server is setup to deliberately represent a non-real scenario (not proving AA at airbases, no siren warnings, and no nearby airfields dispatching fighters [human or AI] to dislodge fake-real campers), then rewarding that kind of behavior with a point system is a major part of the problem.

S!

+1 to what Fjordmonkey said.

Taking off or landing, they're still the enemy and valid targets. Vulcher guilty as charged. And I welcome everyone to vulch me in return :)

War is hell etc. Just pick the not-so-close-to-the-fight -field and you're safe from vulching. Or if you must take off from the front field, fly low and fast away from the direction of fighting before starting to climb.

Mission editors CAN make vulching much harder if they choose so, placing heavy AAA around the airfields.

According to Bliss it's impossible.

First off, ATAG has lots of Flak guarding both RAF and Luftwaffe airfields. I've been hit by Flak so many times over England at 3500m that I try to avoid the area completely.

Secondly, in the last 3 months I can count the number of times I have been shot before takeoff on one finger. It's not that people aren't doing it, it's because I'm on Teamspeak for a few minutes before I even enter the game and have an understanding of what's going on before I even create a plane.

As to the ridiculous notion that Blue has better airfield placement and therefore is less susceptible to being pinned down by people shooting planes on the ground, maybe you should go back to 1940 and tell the RAF to move those damn airfields further away from each other.

If you think being shot full of holes 10 seconds after creating a plane is annoying, try taking off 70km from the French coast, forming up a group of three bombers, and being shot down an hour into your flight 3 minutes before you reach target. You can create another new plane if yours gets shot up before you take off and what have you lost, 20 seconds?

Does getting shot down when I’m that far into a bomber mission make me angry? Hell ya it does, but what am I going to do? Should I blame the spitfire pilot for being smart enough to find us, and for doing exactly what I would have done if I’d come across 3 Blennys while flying a 109?

AbortedMan, you mention the night when I was involved in bouncing you when you left Hawkinge and then meeting you again when you took off from Manston. I apologize for this, next time I will try not to out-smart you when you are on the server.