What planes are best to practice against?

[daiphan]

Hello all,

I have extremely hard time getting any kills in FC although I set the skill of AI to novice with slow moving planes like Bristol or DH2, Fe2b... But to get one down takes an act of the Lord. What planes shall I fly and what planes against that I should do in order to get some kills? I already set the sensitive curve of the joystick to my liking. Many people commented on how dumb AI planes are but not in my case. They attack head on and rarely allow me to get behind their tails. Dai 

[Panthercules]

I've had some fun practicing with QMB (quick mission builder) missions with me flying Albatros D.IIs or D.IIIs with 1 or 2 AI buddies against 3 AI  SPAD 7s or Nieuport 11s or 17s.  You have to be careful not to let your AI buddies run into you or shoot you down, but having them around provides some distractions for the enemies and tends to keep them from just ganging up against you.  And with all the chaos swirling around it gives you some ever-changing opportunities to attack and more interesting variety of approaches compared to 1 vs 1 duels.

If you just want to practice your gunnery to get the feel of what it takes to get in really close and aim for the pilot or the engine, you can also just do a QMB mission with only friendly planes and practice shooting down your AI buddies (they never see it coming so you can generally take your time and sidle up to them in formation without them breaking away or coming after you)  🙂

Edited April 23 by Panthercules

[Kubert]

Shooting at AI buddies is illegal.  Stop spreading heresy. 

[daiphan]

3 hours ago, Panthercules said:

I've had some fun practicing with QMB (quick mission builder) missions with me flying Albatros D.IIs or D.IIIs with 1 or 2 AI buddies against 3 AI  SPAD 7s or Nieuport 11s or 17s.  You have to be careful not to let your AI buddies run into you or shoot you down, but having them around provides some distractions for the enemies and tends to keep them from just ganging up against you.  And with all the chaos swirling around it gives you some ever-changing opportunities to attack and more interesting variety of approaches compared to 1 vs 1 duels.

If you just want to practice your gunnery to get the feel of what it takes to get in really close and aim for the pilot or the engine, you can also just do a QMB mission with only friendly planes and practice shooting down your AI buddies (they never see it coming so you can generally take your time and sidle up to them in formation without them breaking away or coming after you)  🙂

You are right. Shooting against AI buddies would work as they will not take evasive action. This will give me some practice. Dai 

[GiftGruen]

The 2 Mot Bombers ( Handley Page or Gotha ) are a slow prey.

You can very vell practice here, for example hitting motors to bring them down, hitting tail gunners to break their defense. 

( Bristol, DH2 or Fe2B are indeed quite agile - and in addition have rear defense. It's imho easier to bring down a SPAD or SE5 )

German side: Since Albatros, Pfalz or Fokker DVII are quite stable gun platforms, I'd propose to take these. Avoid Fokker DrI for now because she is quite tricky to fly.

Edited April 23 by GiftGruen

[mrtomek]

Setting your joystick curves and head tracker are also really important, just like mastering your preferred aircraft.

This is another, a little funny but interesting example from my experience, that getting used to the sim is also important:

In IL-2GB (in fantastic Operation Munchen campaign) piloting Bf109E-4 in one mission with realistic settings i got 7 air victories and still some ammo left (3x fast as hell MiG-3 + 3x agile as hell I-153 + 1x Pe-2).

With the same aircraft (Bf109E-4) but in amazing, incredible but a little buggy IL-2 Cliffs of Dover Blitz that I've been enjoying since few days after 5 simple missions with slowest enemies (Blenheim, Anson etc.) and tons of ammo fired i get 1 victory (an anti-aircraft balloon that I crashed into  😉).

So don't worry, just practice a lot flying one favourite aircraft and with:

1. stationary ground targets (artillery, static planes...)

2. slow and not very agile enemies (bombers)

3. agile, but unarmed enemies

and if necessary adjust your trackir/joystick.

(Ultimately change your aircraft fot that with bigger gun - like 50mm Me-410 😉. One hit and a little biplane is teared apart.)

[daiphan]

5 hours ago, daiphan said:

You are right. Shooting against AI buddies would work as they will not take evasive action. This will give me some practice. Dai 

I notice after the friendly AIs got shot at they start to take defensive moves and start firing back! This is a rare scene that I actually get behind someone. Dai 

[Avimimus]

Yes, I agree that attacking the two-engine bombers makes sense for practice. Additionally, use the 'skirmish' setting to reduce the amount of evasive action (compared to 'duel') in the quick mission builder. Adding bombs to the enemy can also weight it down.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Try ground attack first. It doesn't even need to be a "proper" target; just fire at a building or a tree or something. Once you can reliably hit a stationary target, try against a slow, multi-engine bomber.

If you aren't able to hit flying targets, there's likely something wrong with your flying or aiming. If you record a video, I'm sure we can come up with some bespoke advice on how to improve.

[GiftGruen]

It‘s all about getting used to be in a moving object in 3D space, hunting moving objects in 3D space.

You will learn what ‚direction‘ and ‚speed‘ and ‚energy‘ mean, bit this takes some time and can only be achieved by practice. Some YouTubers (Sheriff!) have great videos, but these dont replace experience by practice.

This is not ‚normal human behaviour‘ to be moving in 3D space, moving fast. We aren’t birds. So it‘s like learning to ride a bike. Practice. Simply.

One day you will ‚feel‘ where your prey goes, which flight path he can take, and how you get a gunning solution.

Me, personally, VR really helps, since it feels more natural in speed and distance perception. I am not a good pilot I think, but VR clearly made a better one out of me.

Ground targets. Hmmmm. I am a terribly incompetent JaBo-Pilot, so maybe my opinion is ‚wrong‘ … but hitting ground targets and fighting planes is a different thing in more or less all ascpects. So I‘d rather do trainings against slow enemy planes and see ground attacks as another topic. But I might be wrong here.

Edited April 23 by GiftGruen

[AndreiTomescu]

45 minutes ago, GiftGruen said:

But I might be wrong here.

IMHO, you are not wrong. @daiphan: hitting a fast moving target implies LEADING the target. You must aim at at point in space where your target will be after some secs. Again I say, find online that .pdf book, "In pursuit", read it. 

More a game is a sim, more it depicts things as in reality. Took a pilot min 1 year to train? So it is.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, GiftGruen said:

Ground targets. Hmmmm. I am a terribly incompetent JaBo-Pilot, so maybe my opinion is ‚wrong‘ … but hitting ground targets and fighting planes is a different thing in more or less all ascpects. So I‘d rather do trainings against slow enemy planes and see ground attacks as another topic. But I might be wrong here.

32 minutes ago, AndreiTomescu said:

IMHO, you are not wrong. @daiphan: hitting a fast moving target implies LEADING the target. You must aim at at point in space where your target will be after some secs.

I certainly agree that hitting aircraft is another thing altogether than hitting a stationary ground target. However, I feel that the underlying skill is hitting anything at all. Not that I have any experience, but I suppose that if you want to learn rifle shooting, you don't start with clay pigeons either. You start with a static target, just to learn the practice of aiming, and how this changes with distance. Once you can aim well enough, you can progress to moving targets where you'll need a bit of lead.

If you cannot even hit a static target, I think your chances of hitting a moving one are very slim indeed.

[Kubert]

I agree with @AEthelraedUnraed . Shooting at stationary targets give you useful informations about your guns. How long bullets travel to target, where bullet-drop starts, how much impact does a wind have on bullets and it is also useful for tweaking convergence, or better said, getting used to it. You can get all this things from shooting at aircraft too, but it is harder to figure out when target is moving, changing direction and distance all the time. I am using stationary objects as target practice even now, after more than thousand hours in the game before I start campaign with a plane I am not used to. Mostly to see how long bullets travel. It helps later with deflection shooting.

Edited April 23 by Kubert

[GiftGruen]

Yes. That‘s certainly true.

Speaking about gunning, training with stationary targets makes sense.

Getting at anothers plane 6 however is another thing and another ability to practice.

so … in the end … probably both is true. Learn to fly and learn to shoot.

Beeing a competent fighter pilot means both. It‘s also a matter of taste what to empathize. The ability to perfectly manage your plane is great, but means nothing if you aren‘t able to score a kill. And scoring a kill is hardly possible without piloting a fighter in a reasonable way.

btw - afaik Manfred von Richthoven was not that immense genious pilot. But for sure a good gunner.

Edited April 23 by GiftGruen

[Catch]

5 hours ago, GiftGruen said:

Ground targets. Hmmmm. I am a terribly incompetent ....

I hate ground targets too, particularly stationary ones. I'm all over the shop. Although I'm good with balloons because they're really big. I much prefer moving targets such as planes because they often accidentally move into my erratic line of fire. This astounds the enemy who raise their hands in surrender and/or befuddlement as they think I'm a hotshot. Which I am of course.

[Gutholz]

Something not mentioned yet, WW1 planes handle very different from WW2 planes. Some planes react very well/strong to rudder input and you need to use rudder for turns.

The good thing with ground targets is, they tend to stay where they are. You can do multiple passes even if the vehicles are moving. If you fail to destroy them, on the next attempt the targets will be in the same general. You have time to plan the direction of attack and where to turn after the pass. Also already before take-off you roughly know where the targets will be. That means in online play you can plan a meaningful attack and have some chance to return to base.

With air targets every attack pass is a slightly different situation and there is less time to think.

However this is about Flying Circus and with WW1 planes I find ground strafing is much harder than with WW2 planes. Even light and fast WW2 fighters can carry at least one bomb. You can just take bombs that are totally overkill for soft targets. Trucks, trains, light buildings, AA guns are not so different between WW 1/2 but the aircraft guns are very different.

In FC planes you have to get closer to the ground, it takes longer to climb/get away, the weapon ranges are shorter and the bombs blast radius is so small, you actually need good aim. I am not sure if the machine guns can actually reliabely destroy ground targets? With WW2 cannons it is no problem to blow up trucks or trains.

[Catch]

I should add in relation to ground targets I probably need a better stick and pedals, a bit tighter you know, because I wobble around a bit when shooting and tend to over correct so I get into a sort of vicious cycle of wobbles leaving a neat line of bullet impacts all around the target, but none on it. You can see the little guys pointing at me, laughing. Oh gawd, they say, here he comes again as they collapse in involuntary paroxysms of mirth. Of course, when talking aircraft, it's a sign of excellent deflection shooting and I am feared. You blokes with Virpils and MFG's etc can have the ground targets. Not for me, no sirree. I'll stick to being an ace.

[daiphan]

Hi all

Does anyone here feel the planes get way more punishments than they should be before going down? I once raked a plane from head to toes at point blank and it was still flying just fine with some fuel streaming. I know I am just a bad gunner but I could not but feel this way in FC. Dai 

PS: Still learning how to post video here. 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

9 hours ago, daiphan said:

Does anyone here feel the planes get way more punishments than they should be before going down? I once raked a plane from head to toes at point blank and it was still flying just fine with some fuel streaming. I know I am just a bad gunner but I could not but feel this way in FC. Dai 

It really depends on where you hit them, and with what weapon. There are several ways in which you can instantly kill an aircraft: fuel fire/explosion, catastrophic structural damage (e.g. losing a wing), killing the pilot, and disabling the engine. The first two are less likely to happen if you're shooting with rifle-calibre machine guns, especially considering that many WW2 aircraft are armoured. If you "rake a plane from head to toes" the overwhelming majority of the bullets will end up somewhere where they don't do a lot of damage.

9 hours ago, daiphan said:

PS: Still learning how to post video here. 

You need to host it somewhere else, e.g. on YouTube. Then you can just post a link and it'll automatically become embedded.

[Catch]

 

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I once raked a plane from head to toes at point blank and it was still flying just fine with some fuel streaming.

It happens. They'll usually go down eventually but it can be perplexingly exasperating particularly when one is a crack shot. 🙂 If one is directly behind the EA there seems to be some kind of barrier, like armour sort of, which seems to negate bullet effect somewhat on pilot or engine. I dunno if they've fixed that? I haven't flown for some time. 🙂Best to come in at an angle and use precise deflection shooting (ie aiming forward of momentum) to take out what is vulgarly termed "meat or metal." Or come from underneath and get 'em in the belly. They hate that. Cojones dispatched in a rapid unscheduled disassembly.

But really it's all about practice and learning how to fly your preferred crate with enough confidence to focus on improving shooting skills. 

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

WW2

I think he's talking WW1 The Great War, the war to end all wars.

[daiphan]

I can shoot down a Ju 52 and I say the damage model is pretty realistic and fair. But in FC I start to wonder if the programing codes needed to be adjusted. I watch some YT online and some has commented the same of what I am thinking. I know I am just a newbie and lots to learn but with this level of difficulty it takes some fun out of it. I appreciate all your comments. Dai 

[GiftGruen]

With one full Spandau magazine in an Albatros you can easyly down 5 SPADs.

So, it‘s not the damage model.

It just makes no sense to pump all you ammo in canvas, you really need to hit motor or pilot. In this sense ww1 planes are somehow quite robust 😉

Since ww1 ammo spreads a lot, you also should rather be near to achive this. AI sometimes hits from 300 yards which is weird. As a human you really need your prey within max 100 yards, better very close like 50 yards, to hit exactly.

Did you try against 2mots as suggested? Then maybe practice by trying to hit the motor. It will burn if you hit good and really watch where your bullets go. They drop with distance so just having the motor in your crosshair is not a guarantee that you hit.

Dont waste ammo by just spraying loads ‚somewhere‘.

Edited April 25 by GiftGruen

[BlitzPig_EL]

With the WW1 kites you have to be a sniper, that is, a precision marksman.  "Spray and Pray" only runs you out of ammo faster.  Get close and aim for the pilot.

On a WW1 scout (fighter) everything that is important to hit is from the pilot forward. With the exception of some control cables, the only thing in the rear of the fuselage is air.

[daiphan]

Playing this sim on a lazy rainy day is just perfect. I am getting better at this now. Dai 

Edited May 2 by daiphan

[Catch]

Ah. Very good. I see you're enjoying the flagship, the jewel in the crown of the IL*2 series of modules.