Could you show us some tracks of examples where the AI cheat? A track and the timecode when you spot roughly where the AI is performing one of these cheats would be useful surely.

:lol: is a rethoric question I presume no?......

However You can simply try the mission I suggested above (8 vs 8 spit/bf average quick mission) and you will find how many situation you want where you can see dozen of:
- Perfect deflection shooting by A.I. killing you (even in roll up/down situation ...)
- Uber climbing A.I.
- Uber rolling A.I.
- perfect front-shooting at one-pass to your cockpit/ engine.
- Your tail scratched by a uber a.I. wingmen appeared in 0,0001 millisecond at your tail immediately just when you try to shoot an enemy in front of you.

try to yourself and you will see m8 ...

I play the QMB regularly... so...

- Perfect deflection shooting by A.I. killing you (even in roll up/down situation ...) - NOPE didn't see it
- Uber climbing A.I. - Didn't see this either
- Uber rolling A.I. - This is a problem, agreed... only with some aircraft oddly
- perfect front-shooting at one-pass to your cockpit/ engine. - Not any better than I can do.
- Your tail scratched by a uber a.I. wingmen appeared in 0,0001 millisecond at your tail immediately just when you try to shoot an enemy in front of you. - I always shoot the wingman first... but they do latch on fairly well if you go after the leader and ignore.

+1

If anything, AI fixed gunnery has gotten unrealistically bad for Veteran and Ace pilots. Skilled human pilots are considerably better than the current version of AI. Of course, since human fixed gunners can ignore things like plane vibration, gun recoil, G-forces and so forth, maybe human players are unrealistically accurate.

OTOH, the problems with perfect climbing angle and engine management have been pretty well fixed in this current patch, at least for Average or Rookie AI - which is about like it should be.

AI flexible gunnery is still too deadly, especially at long ranges and for certain aircraft, but nothing that isn't manageable as long as you don't use stupid tactics to engage bombers. But, fly along the same vector for more than a few seconds and you're likely to get hit.

Yep. It's just stupid to put yourself between the lead plane and his wingman. Unless you're making a head-on pass or a B'n'Z attack against a target whose wingman isn't in a position to respond, you always go for the wingman first.

Somehow this discussion reminds me very much of the time when I had to teach evolution theory in an islamic country.
You can´t fight believe with reason.
The attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks ...

I also play lots of QMB, usually against veteran skill level AI.

But, I found it quite easy to dodge the AI's head-on shots. Two methods:
1, shoot first. AI will be scared, and evades.
2, fly upside down, then roll back+evade. AI tries to calculate the deflection angle, but he is usually too late.
Besides immunity to G, and sniping you from great distances (mainly bombers), I dont think AI cheats at all. There are a few cheat planes, like La-5/7 or Yak-3-VK107, but they only have overmodeled FM. You can also cheat with these.

I noticed similar in the IJA campaign. American planes cooperate extremely well, but it is manageable if you are careful. Strangely, I dont see anything similar with any other nations: german, soviet, japanese, etc. use "standard" AI tactics, wingmans dont help their leaders too much. Sometimes they just fly the opposite direction!

Tried 8 vs. 8 Bf109(regular) vs veteran SpitIXeLF25lbs, co alt, 5000m. In the merge I tried to shoot at one of them, no hits. Went right trough the whole pack, on full blast, course no more than 20 degrees of the original, now followed by them Spits. Went on on a shallow climb until Spits about behind me 3-4 km. Turned, tried to set up a shot, missed. Out again, and this time there were some Spits ahead (~30 degrees) and below, so I gradually turned and descended towards them. Tried to get a gunnery solution, but the rapidly banking and turning made shooting impossible without risking to get caught from these Spits behind me. Went out again and could have stopped there and flown home and as a real life pilot probably would have.
But as an online pilot I want KILLS. So I went back in, and spotted some Spits far below me, and though I knew there had to be Spits at near my alt, went for them down there(Bad move#1). Then I tried to get a gunnery solution and turned with the Spit (Bad move #2) -I want KILLS. Shot, missed, and discovered that Spit had some mates, and they were behind me. Went for rolling scissors guns defense, that worked surprisingly well (They AI not beeing able to make the split second high angle shots you present them helps-better since 4.11), and really got one of them in front of me, and damaged that one. Now I was down to about 3k (Spits now can match or exceed my speed), slow and alone with three veteran Spits. Next to no way getting out there alive. Someone really good at scissoring the enemy may have been able to do it -but I didn't.

Only thing I find a bit troublesome with the AI in that particular fight is that they do not use their planes strenghts very well, and do TnB in an 109 vs Spit. And they do not cooperate with you against the enemy.

Similar experiences here:
1. Very little cooperation: wingman with "follow me" doesn't call me when attacked, doesn't warn me when I'm attacked, and doesn't attack when enemy is at my six and in front of his guns;
2. AI does use the vertical quite well, but not zooming out properly to perform a real BnZ tactic;
3. Veteran AI opens fire from 600-500 m, making occassional hits, but wasting ammo;
4. Rookie AI gunners are sometimes able to kill me with one single lmg shot from far.

ok then all this aces m8 who state to be SO brave:

gaunt1, Derda508, IceFire, please post here a track 8vs8 spit/me109 average level whatever year and then show how brave you are. Is simple to say just theoretical WORDS about how to be an ace-player like you all are arguing to be.
I'm waiting.. :rolleyes:

well, I play lot of QBM but maybe I'm not so good even still at this game.

I played moscow winter, 4 american p47Ds vs 4xbf-109E4s + 4xfw190A5s
Americans were ace, Germans were rookie. Altitude Americans at 3000m, Germans at 1000m.

I killed 4 planes in total. My allies killed maybe 1 plane from the Germans which was despicable performance. All American aces were shot down by rookie germans except my plane hehe lol

I tried to drag remaining focke wulfs to high altitudes. Remaining bf109 went home. Although I must say their performance didn't seem much hampered at all, I was trying to fight turn fight fw190 co-alt at 9000m, but they did have pretty good speed still, and turn performance! Stalemate in the end I should say, conga-line of enemies chasing you :-x