Food for thought on this.

I see a handful of players in this game that consistently get 1 pass or 1 ping kills.

For those who say that it doesn't exist:

https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/11/05/f ... be-videos/

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Swanee - NWO / AE

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There are 2 kinds of people in this world...
Fighter pilots – and those that wish they were.

Yo Grumps. yes, this is true. However, this was after the update that supposedly addressed the issue of pilot kills being achieved by a fighter firing from the six thru the entire fuselage and hitting the pilot before any other damage was incurred. Not really a conx issue this time. from the update info..

"The pilot will be somewhat better covered which should reduce the one-ping kills of bombers unless shooting at the cockpit from a realistic angle. You'll need to HO a buff from straight in front or slightly above, and it will be harder to get a pilot kill from underneath. This should better protect players who climb to altitude compared to lawnmower buff players."

Just pointing out that it didnt seem to make the PK from the rear any harder.. it seems to be the same as before.. YMMV tho..

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Regarding rear shot pilot kills
<S> Pakrat!
Yes the cockpit is now better protected, meaning that there are hitboxes better protecting it from rear-angle shots. It is less exposed than before and requires a shot from 4 'o'clock or 8 'o'clock to have a chance of being hit. This should make it less common to get rear shot pilot kills. However I guess that micro lag can sometimes cause the bullet (which travels almost 2000 ft/sec) to sometimes skip a few hitboxes and not register it's position until inside the pilot hitbox, causing a ghost shot pilot kill. This would then need a server rehaul to be fixed. I can't be sure this is the issue but i suspect it.


Regarding B-17 hitpoints
<S> Finn!
I guess you were flying the P-39 with the 37mm M-4 cannon? Do you have a link to the video? The thing of interest is to see exactly where did each of those 5x 37 mm shells hit. Remember there is no partial damage in Warbirds, so if they hit different areas of the B-17 then you would now have several parts with low hitpoints, but still no part that is 100% destroyed. The B-17 is the largest and toughest bomber in the game, and there were several ww2 records of B-17's with half of the aft fuselage shot off but still got home. Never shoot at the aft fuselage of the B-17, but go for the engines or a front/side/top shot on the cockpit. While we are missing the graphics to show large holes in the aft fuselage from damage, the B-17 would still be able to fly until the tail is completely destroyed. Note that the B-17 has not been given extra hitpoints to be extra tough. The hitpoints have been set using the same formula, based on size, as for other bombers. It's just more massive than the rest.





You can use the picture below to assess how many shots you need to kill the buff, depending on where each bullet hit. As a general advice the hitpoints of the B-17 engines is less than 1/10 of the aft fuselage hitpoints, so always go for the engines. It will save you time and ammo. Wether or not the hitpoints vs gun damage is fully representative of real world results I don't know, but when remaking the buff hitpoints I pretty much kept them at the same level as they were before, as to not change the balance of the game. They might probably be a bit tougher than in real life, which is to compensate for the fact that you can't fly in 100x bombers formations in Warbirds and lone buffs are more vulnerable than a tight large formation. The difference is that while all buffs previously had a generic hitpoint pool, regardless of relative size, the buffs now have the toughness of every part set depending on the hitbox volume, and the engines can no longer take over 10 direct 20mm rounds without being damaged as before.





Below are hitpoint values for some parts of the B-24 Liberators. Go for the engines, not the fuselage.




<S>
/Robert

Here's the link to that b17 video.
https://youtu.be/bzF386AVYcM
I count at least 5 hits. left wing, fuselage, right wingroot.

This is the composition of the 37mm round:

"The bursting charge of tetryl weighed 0.10 lb (45 g), and the alternate Composition "A" charge weighs 0.105 lb (48 g). The tetryl loading consisted of a 200 gr (13 g) tetryl pellet pressed into the shell cavity under 9,000-10,000 psi (60-70 MPa) pressure and the remainder of the charge of two equal increments pressed under approximately 9,000 psi (60 MPa) pressure. The Composition "A" bursting charge is loaded in the same manner as the tetryl charge, except that the relay pellet with the Composition "A" weighs 36 gr (2.3 g) as against 23 gr (1.5 g) for the pellet used with the tetryl load."(from: http://p63kingcobra.com/m4_37mm_auto_cannon.html)

That video is here- if anyone is interested.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChakjo ... subscriber

Geesh Finn. You crashed into the thing before we could see if your shots had crippled it.. Looks to me like you need a bit more technique for buff killing. People have gotten so used to these not-so-tuff to kill bomber settings that when they correct them and give the damned pilots a chance, people start to complain. I like to see incremental damage to the bombers rather that the whole thing coming apart from one shot to the tail.. Having been here for upwards of 20 years, i've seen different FM's, buff tuff settings from 0 to 25, detuned ammo effectivity and the like.. and had to re-adjust my game play accordingly.. In the older days you could go on your team channel and call for a buff raid. When several bombers flew in formation it required a fighter to use skill and patience when attacking. The most successful fighter attacks were performed by the slashing six or the head on attack with the latter being the method the bomber pilots feared most.. Now we dont have the numbers to get folks to fly these mutiple buff raids anymore so most have to fly solo which opens them up to easy attacks from fighters who just come up repeatedly until the bomber dies. Making it more difficult to kill the buff is the only defense for those pilots who can replane from the base under attack and use 2 or 3 aircraft to kill the same bomber who by now has been crippled and cant fight back against a fresh fighter.. I say leave the settings alone for awhile and let people adjust before you respond with a knee jerk reaction because someone threatened to quit the game if you dont make it more to their liking. We finally got the damned things hitboxes fixed. Let it ride fer chrissakes..

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Watched vid. looks like every hit landed on a diff part of the buff. 1 engine, one tail, one left wing root, one right wing root, then ram. It would make swiss cheese out of the buff, but not bring it down. nothing nefarious going on there... see roberts hit box post above.....

Buff flyers, if there is a 4tman online and on your side, no problem asking us for escort! Just give us time to either take off with you or rendezvous with you...

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Either of the wing-root shots could have taken a wing off- remember the wing is under stress in flight as well.
Also.. YES I did deliberately fly right up to and crash into the bomber. The idea was to get as many 37 mm hits on it as possible.
I believe there was another hit mid-fuselage just behind the cockpit.
That slashing attack you talk about pakrat is ideal, but most of the bombers destroyed by the LW- even throuigh 1944- were destroyed from behind and below, just like that one.
I think we use the 'bad attack form' argument too often to excuse the a poor damage model.

finn

Pakrat,
If you want to play the 'experience' game, I've been playing the game since it was in closed beta, version .80,. so I've probably got five or so years on you. In addition I worked for years on the FM team and spent hundreds of hours gathering data and helping to apply it to the game.
So... I've seen a lot of changes too- and this is not a knee jerk reaction to a change I don't like. It's a call on a bad model. I know the game has to balance survivability versus invulnerability due to low player numbers, but I think the pendulum has swung too far in the bomber direction. Numbers are low for defenders too- often the side I choose is outnumbered by up to 4 -1, and almost always by almost 2-1. When the other team has more bombers than you have fighters, and when bombers are THIS tough, it makes the game pretty unattractive. (Of course side balancing is another issue- and one I've advocated changing for many years.
I watched the video in slow motion and counted 6 cannon hits. 6 37mm hits, 2 or 3 of which should have been pretty lethal on their own. Ain't no armour on those wing roots.

Cheers
Finn