Fultures!

[Toni74]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

...really? What's so great about it exactly?

depends on who you are vulcher or beeing vulched

just look at all those beautiful new ricochet tracers. they have been made for making vulching a impressive experience.

[ATAG_Keller]

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.

[Force10]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Keller

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?
.

Yeah right...that's the same. At least you got in the air and were flying. Not just sitting on the ground warming up the engines. Did you read the thread?

[Catseye]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Keller

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.

S! Keller,
I want to say first that I would not like to see any artificial restrictions on how players are to "fly". Rules as shown in other servers like puting bonfires near an airfield and stating that the next 5 square miles is off limits for attacking IMHO is unrealistic and a large impact on the suspension of disbelief. I support ATAG's general approach to their server. I do have opinions though, as do others, on possible ways to alleviate some issues.

So switching to bombers and attacking bombers; I do so love the challenge of the hunt for those bombers that are human piloted. Many times I pass up the AI bomber flights in my quest to locate the human flown bomber. I have to think about what targets are available in England, what type the bomber is, what will be the pilots strategy, what will be his tactics to realize his strategy and so forth. Many times I have been in one place on the map to find the target at the other end of the map is being bombed.

I sometimes take a flight to where I know the bombers take off from in the hopes of seeing one inbound or outbound. I refrain from attacking any bombers on the ground but would rather catch them in the air. Doc has successfully evaded me by flying through the cloud layers. I've learned the possible routes and set up barcaps in the general area they may cross. The bomber pilots are now wise to this and are taking other routes. Also, with the addition of high altitude bombing, the barcap becomes more problematic.

What I would suggest for the ATAG server regarding bombers flights would be to: Open up a few more blue airbases where the heavies can take off from. I know the two main blue bases now and the moment I see a heavy in the net stats list, I'm heading to intercept before the pilot has got his engines started. More airfields makes it harder for me to figure out where the attack is coming from.

I would also like to see a couple of more airbases for the Red side for Blenheim flights. I don't think that Blue heavies take off from coastal airfields and having a Blenheim base on the coast and in close proximity to furball city Hawkinge, is somewhat problematic. Perhaps even discouraging some to even try to fly the Blenheim to targets. Could you assign valid targets for some blue airfield hangars for reds to attack as this would be somewhat historic. Even deep into France.

So Keller and other Blue Bomber pilots, I do enjoy the hunt for you guys and will continue to do so as best I can. Hopefully some tweaks might help to improve Blue bomber odds for making it across the channel. But, when you reach the shores of Old Blighty - all bets are off.

Looking forward to future "Cat" and Mouse games.

S! and good flying!

[FS~Phat]

This>>>

Originally Posted by ATAG_Keller

... 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.

Best advice ever... Get on to teamspeak and instead of going it alone cooperate and communicate with your team. A number of times I have come back from a patrol to help clear an airfield when under attack from vulching because some has mentioned it on comms.

This way you know ahead of time to spawn from another base.

I would love for sirens to sound and a bit more AA fire but they have to balance gameplay performance vs realistic scenarios until the multiplayer code is further optimised, or people like Wolf find ways in the mission scripting to do things more efficiently.

For now its not a show stopper and moving bases or getting on comms is an easy solution.

PS... Please ATAG at least put a siren on the bases if you can!

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

feltchers?

as a side note vultching is entirely historical. even on heavily defended airfields it could and often did happen, just a single pass and then go. many accounts of the same as well.

War is hell!

[senseispcc]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

War is hell!

It did not often happend over airfields, they where well defended by triple A.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by senseispcc

It did not often happend over airfields, they where well defended by triple A.

That is true, but a few people will always try for an easy kill in games...really nothing to be proud of but, it is their way because they lack the skill's.

[U505]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

That is true, but a few people will always try for an easy kill in games...really nothing to be proud of but, it is their way because they lack the skill's.

it depends first who we are in real life

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

as a side note vultching is entirely historical. even on heavily defended airfields it could and often did happen, just a single pass and then go. many accounts of the same as well.

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

Originally Posted by Red Dragon-DK

I think vulturing is a great part of the game, and Im greatfull its alowed on ATAG.

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

Originally Posted by Force10

I thought the proper definition for vulching in internet air combat slang was:

You shoot up a guy, his engine is on fire heading down, along comes Johhny A-hole and puts 1 more round in him and says "chalk one up for me" and he gets credit for the kill.

no, thats "kill stealing"

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)

Originally Posted by Force10

LOL. On the one hand, folks are always talking about trying to get more people involved in simming, on the other hand, they happily strafe noobs on the runway and when they come here complaining about it, we call them "slow" and suggest that combat sims maybe aren't for them.

hear, hear !!

them is wise words

Originally Posted by Force10

senseispcc: The best course of action is to just stay off of ATAG's servers.............. boosting their kills on a leaderboard is all they care about.

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.