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[10ebbor10]

I basically totally stopped playing planes after tanks came out. My biggest gripe is probably that they removed kill credit from ramming since I first played. Ramming is a totally legitimate strategy especially when you're already fucked that was actually extensively employed in WW2...

Remember, if you tried to dodge and couldn't, ramming takes skill and you got outplayed, so you can't complain.

If you didn't try to dodge then obviously you can't complain.

No matter what happens, if you get rammed you lose and it's no one else's fault.

Unless, you were a bomber, and therefore completely unable to dodge by design. Truly, anyone who rams me looses, stealing a kill from themselves and their friends.

Which was again reinforce the segregation between bombers and fighters, forcing them to fly so high that no fighter will ever find you as only means of survival.

I ram a lot.  You'd be surprised how many people will go head-on with a crippled plane, thinking of nothing but that kill credit.  I figure even if I don't get the kill, it's worth it if my plane's fucked and his is fine.  If my propeller isn't spinning don't play chicken with me, I have no reason to turn away.

I'm getting pretty frustrated as well overall though.  I don't want to deal with RB (I heard somebody say that RB's highs are very high, and its lows are very frequent, which pretty much sums it up for me) but energy fighting is such a bitch in AB.  I can do it, but it's very difficult, doesn't always work because of UFO physics negating all my advantages (BnZ still works fine if you pick your targets well.  Tunnel-visioners and other energy fighters zoomclimbing are especially easy targets, but most of the rest of energy fighting is a crapshoot).

And I know if I went over and grabbed my float Zero instead I'd be scooping up kills by the bucketload so I'm not really sure why I'm bothering trying to energy fight.  It works, but it's not fun in AB. 

And if we're being totally honest part of the reason it doesn't work is I'm just not very good at it.  But why learn when I can just do the furball with everybody else and get more kills.

Try RB tank and plane battles. The combined battles are great. The ground units provide a decent anti air, decent challenges, and actually prevent the entire game from devolving into one giant climbfest as they draw down bombers closer towards the ground. The fact that you get to use both ground and air units also gets to keep up activity.

[TheBronzePickle]

Better yet, do Simulator tank battles if you can. The aircraft are still nigh-unflyable, and the mode is more 'difficult' due to more stringent projectile and armor rules (resulting in a number of cases where the Germans or Russians have massive advantages with certain tanks), but it's still fun and it's a lot easier to do things like flanking runs without getting spotted and shot.

Also, the poor Simulator people need all the love they can get, since Simulator plane-only battles have been outright taken off the roster because of their poor performance.

[Aseaheru]

KIRSK.

THAT IS THE ONLY REASON YOU NEED TO KNOW TO PLAY SIM TANKS.

KURSK.
OR HOWEVER ITS SPELLED.

[Sonlirain]

Also, the poor Simulator people need all the love they can get, since Simulator plane-only battles have been outright taken off the roster because of their poor performance.

Might have something to do with requireing a joystick to be even eligable to play simuator aircraft.

[Cthulhu]

Decided to try HB again, didn't do it with tanks since that's apparently only Russian/German and fuck the fucking russians forever.

I just got rocketed by a chaika in my 190 at 5km off the ground.

[Sonlirain]

And speaking of rockets... i recently got acces to American anti ship rockets. Quite odd they are. 2 can destroy a Destroyer or light cruiser 3 sink a heavy cruiser and i have no idea how many are needed to sink a battleship (more than 8 anyway).
Weight to power they are horribly underpowered as each weights almost 600 kgs while having less destructive power than a 250 kg of bomb... or two 100 kg bombs (they can sink a destroyer).

All in all aside of the coolness they are kinda meh...

[TheBronzePickle]

Rockets have always had the disadvantage of requiring a significant amount of their mass be propellant, while bombs are almost completely composed of explosives.

[Aseaheru]

But hey, you dont have to learn to bombskip to beable to avoid the AA guns of death with them.

[10ebbor10]

Neither do you need to do that if you want to bomb anything else.

AA guns are (mostly) harmless.

[Sonlirain]

The only AA guns that do anything are the ones around the airfields in arcade and on Destroyers. Everything else is pretty much ignorable.

[Cthulhu]

Been doing nothing but historical mode and it's a little better, occasionally some very fun moments instead of nothing but bullshit, but there's still quite a bit of bullshit.

Decided to try arcade mode just to make sure the damage graphics were working on my new user skin, went in for a bnz and boom, kingcobra helicopters up at 90 degrees from nowhere and one shots me.

That's basically all arcade mode has ever been for me.  The only fun thing to do in arcade mode is biplanes.

Historical my main problem is that apparently i don't know how to fucking energy fight.  I'm doing exactly what I've been told to do, engaging enemies when I have an energy advantage,  using the vertical to bleed energy until they stall, then when I come in for the kill suddenly they get their nose up again and shoot me.  I've got one perfect BnZ kill, total, ever.  It was in my 190 A1 and I shot the elevator off of a plane chasing one of my bombrs.  That's it.  Every other bnz/energy kill has basically been a vertical head on pass when the enemy suddenly decided he wasn't stalled anymore and got his guns on me. 

So I guess either everybody's wrong energy fighting doesn't work in arcade or historical, or there's some fundamental thing that none of the guides have taught me.

And once again all I can think is "I could stop trying this bullshit at any time and have tons of fun with my reserve chaikas.  Why bother?"

[Naryar]

So how does the plane AB/RB metagame has changed since last patch ? Is there more bullshit overpowered planes (i'm looking at you, Cobras and Yaks and high tier Spits) and B-25's doing loopings in arcade ?

Haven't actually played due to different connexions.

I hear they fixed the explosive Duck issue though.

[Ai Shizuka]

Arcade is a mess, at least up to 3.7 br.

There are often, for many tiers, more russian planes in queue than all other nations combined, followed by the US.
Germany and GB are rare, Japan is pretty much non-existent.
At 3-3.7 BR it's basically yaks and cobras special olympics.

And bomber balance is a joke. The US get flying tanks with .50 lasers, while other nations get garbage like the wellingtons (still 3.0+ br for unknown reasons) or the HE 111.

I've been playing this game for about a month and it's already pretty obvious they have absolutely no clue about balance.
The whole statistics-based system is a complete joke.

Historical battles bore me to death, so I can't comment there.

[dennislp3]

I don't think they went for gamey balance but more for what planes each nation had and at what times.

[Sonlirain]

Been doing nothing but historical mode and it's a little better, occasionally some very fun moments instead of nothing but bullshit, but there's still quite a bit of bullshit.

Decided to try arcade mode just to make sure the damage graphics were working on my new user skin, went in for a bnz and boom, kingcobra helicopters up at 90 degrees from nowhere and one shots me.

That's basically all arcade mode has ever been for me.  The only fun thing to do in arcade mode is biplanes.

Historical my main problem is that apparently i don't know how to fucking energy fight.  I'm doing exactly what I've been told to do, engaging enemies when I have an energy advantage,  using the vertical to bleed energy until they stall, then when I come in for the kill suddenly they get their nose up again and shoot me.  I've got one perfect BnZ kill, total, ever.  It was in my 190 A1 and I shot the elevator off of a plane chasing one of my bombrs.  That's it.  Every other bnz/energy kill has basically been a vertical head on pass when the enemy suddenly decided he wasn't stalled anymore and got his guns on me. 

So I guess either everybody's wrong energy fighting doesn't work in arcade or historical, or there's some fundamental thing that none of the guides have taught me.

And once again all I can think is "I could stop trying this bullshit at any time and have tons of fun with my reserve chaikas.  Why bother?"

Energy fighting does work in arcade BUT you have to take some things to heart when doing it in arcade.
Basically you  have to stretch out everything as most planes in arcade are somewhat decent at climbing vertically but even in arcade they can and will run out of energy eventually but instead of climbing only 500 meters or 1 km they will climb 2 kms after you before running out of energy. I did energy starve people on occasion in a BF109 altho i must say it was cutting it close.