castor troy
Posts: 14330
Joined: 8/23/2004
From: Austria
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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
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ORIGINAL: castor troy
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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
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ORIGINAL: Lowpe
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ORIGINAL: castor troy
If that wouldn't be the case, why is every PBEM seeking to win the altitude race?
I have never, ever tried to win the altitude race.
I rank many things over the dive speed, maneuver, guns, pilot training, leadership, radar, tactics.
Eric would agree with this I believe as well.
The counter(s) to the dive are both numerous, well developed, and highly successful. Proving once again how robust the ACM the Ian developed truly is.
The race to altitude has been quite over now for 3 or 4 years …
totally disagree here. Othern than The Elf admitting that something was wrong (after years of playing one of the three monkeys) there was never a change.
Castor,
You don't have to agree, but don't ever play any of the better players now as the allies or you will not like your outcome in the air war at all. Read any obvert or lowpe AAR's in particular for discussions about CAP strategies (you will need to go back a couple or 3 years ago).
While you were gone, the dive was completely solved. Put your Bolts at max altitude sweep against the better players now, and you will soon have no Bolts and for very comparable losses on the IJ side (which is saying something because the IJ planes are quite inferior to the Bolt as we well know). search for "layered CAP" ... the counter actually induces the dive tactic to kill the attacker.
I know you don't believe, but you should stop ranting about the "dive". The issue is now known to be the player, not the game.  And yes, Ian has stopped by in the interim to check it out ...
After having played way over 10,000 PBEM turns in the last 16 years with an absence of three years due to having decided it would have been cool to have a crash with my motorbike I finally get enlighted that the only reason I have been playing this game rather succesful was the fact that all my opponents were noobs. Having looked ONLY for experienced players, well known on the forum, I ended up having such great die rolls during the opponent search pahse that all I received were bad opponents having no clue about the game, or better say the air routine. My last PBEM ended due to my accident, pretty much all of the rest ended either due to decisive victories or many opponents vanishing due to "real life issues" just to see them start another game two weeks later. We have all been there, so nothing new. Some of those guys over the years are now seen as the grand masters of this game, being praised, I guess back then they must have been just noobs.
I did exactly what you have written above, just to quote the examples out of Obvert's AAR in my post above. This not enough, I decided to spend more hours setting up the usual tests which I've been doing hundreds of hours before over all the years when I just couldn't believe what people were claiming. The coordination silliness comes to mind, a guide being praised over time, done by a guy without any real PBEM experience making up claims that pretty much all (except EXP) were refuted. Over the years it all became true, feels like what we call operational blindness in Austria.
But before the test I was going through patch note after patch note and I just couldn't find the line that stated anything that could mean the dive or strato sweeps were solved but I admit, with hundreds and hundreds of lines I could have missed it and might be happy if someone could point it out. So I just went ahead.
Always the same aircraft against each other, always the same pilots. It was Frank vs Corsair, equal numbers, no radar.
Frank sweeping Corsairs at different altitudes but the Frank always 5000ft higher than the Corsairs, ten rounds.
Result: 8 out of 10 times the Franks received the dive bonus, 8 out of 10 times the Franks shooting up the Corsairs during the dive. When the dive ended it was a slight advantage for the Corsairs (at every altitude) in kill ratio but they could never make up for the losses during the Franks diving. No idea why two times there was no dive for the Franks at the beginning.
Next step:
Corsairs sweeping Franks at different altitudes but the Corsair alwas 5000ft higher than the Franks, ten rounds.
Result: First thing that was surprising me, 10 out of 10 times the Corsairs got the dive right at the start. Same result as with the Franks, the Corsairs were downing the Franks at will. DIVE - shooting from behind - kill. Note that without the dive you hardly get "xy shooting from behind at yx".
Ok, nothing new here.
Next step:
Same two examples with the CAP being split in three and being layered.
Result: the only notable difference was that this time also the Franks got the dive 10 out of 10 times, for what reason ever. Outcome was the same, the fighter getting the dive massacred the other fighter DURING the dive phase. When the dive ended it was always the Corsair performing better, no matter if offense or defense (no surprise I guess?).
Next step:
The sweeper is set LOWER than the CAP, 10 rounds each.
Result: must be extremely surprising to everyone... while it was only 7 out of 10 times that the Frank on CAP was diving on the sweeping and lower Corsair it was only 6 out of 10 times the Corsair diving on the lower sweeping Frank. But when the CAP actually got the dive it was the same as always, butchering the (this time lower) sweeper. Not once in those 20 rounds the sweeper got the dive, but I guess that shouldn't surprise anybody? Does it?  Again, no dive, it was equal fight, the Corsair winning.
Last step:
Sweeper and CAP both set to the same altitude, differing over the rounds.
Big picture was, mmmm, I guess great outcome. A low number of times it was either the CAP or the sweeper getting the dive (same outcome with massacres during the dive all the time) but most of the time when there was a dive it ended pretty much instantly, turning into A2A with nearly no "xy shooting at yx from behind" and the Corsair winning both times as the sweeper and the CAP. Kill rates without the not ending dives never exceeded 2:1, neither for the Corsair nor the Frank. Highest (totally off-) outcome were 19 Franks shot down for 2 Corsairs lost. Guess when? Yeah, during the Corsair sweeping higher than the Frank on CAP. Best outcome for the Frank was also an impressing 13:3 during a high alt sweep on low Corsairs. Of course if you compare the kill rates then that's 9:1 for the Corsair at best for 4:1 for the Frank at best. But only if you compare those two single sweeps and the 9:1 would turn into only a 6:1 if the Franks would have shot down one more Corsair.
At this point it already took me several hours to take notes, repeat and so on, not even including the time it takes me to write these two posts in my AAR which brings me close to wasting my time mood again. The result was clear though, the dive bonus is there, it's huge and nothing has been solved. Same as I see in my current game and every AAR that isn't just a text AAR but posting FULL combat reports. NOTE: I have never said having an altitude advantage shouldn't be an advantage as it sure is but the dive has such a huge impact it creates way too many loops and while many people here are just used to see those loops. Funny thing, if you do all the A2A at 15000 ft you get way better results. Better pilots in better aircraft still win high, but they aren't flying x-fighters in War in the Pacific.
If you like loops, you like the results. If you have read a book and realize a 9:1 isn't a normal result when equal skilled pilots meet in pretty much equal aircraft then you don't like the results. One thing to say at the end, from havying discussed things on private with two ex-members of the AE team I was told that the air routine was the most dissatisfying routine. Both of these great guys aren't around anymore and both left in anger due to different reason. 
edit: I used the latest beta patch of course.
< Message edited by castor troy -- 7/14/2020 5:32:23 PM >
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RE: AAR 1943 - 
Shows how much R&D depends on die rolls again. 
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