Konrad Friedrich

I've been looking more closely at the cockpit and found two disturbing details. Now I know why it is so hard to take the AI pilot down... ;)

I knew it... :D

Forget it. ;) The AI does not fight without ammo. He just will avoid you. Our daring AI hotshot is smart enough to play the coward at the right time. It really is even more annoying to get him down because you'll need a long time to get in shooting range. :joystick: And then there is still the fact that the players gun are apparently loaded with peas... :mad: Sigh... it feels like throwing cotton balls at him... :cry:

I shot him down 35 times in the last two weeks... But don't ask how hard it was... grrrgghhh... :furious: The only good thing with our perky bastard AI is that he really keeps you on your toes and you learn to fly as hard and precise as you possibly can... The thing that bothers me most is not it's extremely precision flight abilites - it's the fact that he refuses to fall down even when heavily damaged... I also found that a final kill shot appears to be only possible when you hit him from behind. Whereas head-on gun hits seem to have little or no effect... Unfortunately it drives away newbies that may come from CoD or RoF or whatever.

Ah... another victim... :D

Sorry for the late reply... :music_whistling: But I was really busy the last few days. I'm not sure if I can spend time online on monday or tuesday... I'll drop a message if it's possible. If not, there surely will be another opportunity to meet online. :D:joystick::D Btw: I'm GMT +1 Can't watch you video. Currently the connection to YT is quite slow. I'll check it later.

Due to the fact that English is not my mother tongue, I had to read that sentence quite frequently to come to the conclusion that I did not understand the content. :D:D:D And, hey, yes... would be nice to meet you in the virtual skies to shoot you down. :D Or vice versa... :music_whistling: :joystick: What about the weekend? Should be fun! Respect, too! Salute!

If you mapped the elevator trim to a slider or axis of your Hotas or joystick the sim will read out the current position (at least with the TM Warthog). So, if your trim is not in neutral position you'll get into trouble soon after mission start... :D Do you use rudder pedals? You may want to set the curve, too. Even if you only use the z-axis of a joystick. The rudder is pretty sensitive. Important: You really need to learn how to use rudder with the P-51. Maybe this causes your troubles. You need to anticipate the behavior of the plane and react with counteraction before it will happen. Sounds hard? Well, it is. ;) Stick... rudder.. counter-rudder. It's like dancing :D

In the first place I really hate the fact that he can swallow .50 rounds like popcorn. This is driving me nuuuuuuuuts! Aragaaaaragaraggaagaaaaaaaaaah! :furious::furious::furious: :D:D:D "Climb-till-stall", "turn-harder-than-hard" and "accelerate-like-a-rocket" is something I can handle. But it's boring me to pieces... "Climb-till-stall": You get on his tail - he pulls up... you follow (if you are quick enough to trim at the right moment...) you'll end up listening to the farting noise of your pop-off valve if you don't ease the throttle soon enough. If you do so - he will still climb at full throttle... and his radiator gate is not even opend one bit... and you'll fall behind... I finally gave up to follow him. Instead I break to one side and climb in a rather wide curve with the most energy saving elevator trim and stick movement possible to gain height. But to be honest: He is running into overheating trouble as well. After several of these manouvers he will be easy on the throttle for a while. You can hear that. This is a good opportunity to get him - well... if he only would fall down after you depleted your entire ammo... :cry: Btw: Most pilots considered this manouver as a suicide move. It's like playing the "sitting duck" in front of the hunters gun... I think this happend when a unexperienced pilot was in a panic. Probably Chuck Yeager was talking about rookies. The "turn-harder-than-hard" thing: I'm pretty much able to pull similar turns... But at this extremes it is really hard to stay focused on: prevent the plane from stalling, look at your opponent, aim, shoot - and then hit our perky bastard... You managed to accomplish this task? Fine. Unfortunatelly it was useless - because he merrily swallows your 12.7mm rounds... and is going after you again... AAAAaaaaaaarghhh! :cry: In addition: maneuvers like that are quite physically demanding and exhausting for a real pilot. Nobody would ever be able to pull this stunt on and on... and on... and on... :mad: "Accelerate-like-a-rocket": Yes, it is hard and needs a good feel for the plane and lots of practice to accelerate efficiently. But I relate to the fact that when you are in a height advantage and our master-blaster-super-flyboy :D is about 500 meters below, he pulls up, I'll open the throttle to full, decent a little... gain a gap of approximately 500 meters before he points in my direction (at virtually stall speed - you know: the "climb-till-stall" thing ;)). At this point I check my speed: 400 mph. Useless: I could have saved the fuel... He will close the gap... get's in shooting range... Guess what happens... yep: my next action is pulling the canopy release lever and: bailout... I studied a lot of track-files to check out how to handle the P-51. And I also checked the tactics of the AI. Of course, everything the AI does is possible. But it's all exaggerated.

I totally disagree. ;) Because I can "outfly" this bastard at any time. :smartass: He really isn't that good.

One more thing: Did you set the elevator trim to neutral? I trim only when needed. A little too much - and the Mustang behaves like a Bronco. :eek:

You did not happen to employ the flaps? I had this trouble in my first flight houres. I have mapped the flaps on my TM Warthog to the flaps-switch on the throttle. (You have to click the button to the down position several times to fully extend the flaps.) If I accidently set the switch of the flaps one click to "down", the P-51 will become quite nervous. Good for a dogfight and hard turns - bad during normal flight. Perhaps you have a similar problem? Btw: If I understood it correctly it's the laminar flow wing profile of the P-51 that can make things a bit tricky/twitchy at high G maneuvers.:joystick: You have to deal with it... This behavior is physically correct. :D I also thought (at the beginning) that there is something wrong... :blink:

To a certain degree you are right, because the Fw-190 was the first plane that had electric landing gear, flaps, trim tabs... They call it fly-by-wire nowadays... ;) Possibly because the constructor, Kurt Tank, was electrical engineer. Benefits were the reduced weight and space requirements, as well as less sensitivity to gun fire. I think both planes where ahead of their time. Too bad that the engineers seems to have their best ideas in war time... :cry: Actually, it's pointless to compare the "Pony" and the "Würger" technically. The engineers each arrived at different conclusions. That's all.

Phew... good to know I'm not alone... ;) Good to hear about the fact that the devs are aware of this issue.

Here he is, our 302nd Red Tail pilot: The developers seem to be obsessed with details.

Sure. The first thing I noticed ;) I allways use the mirror. The mirror is your friend. ;) Every now and then I look at our brave, focused-looking virtual pilot... ...hmmm, would be fun to replace it with my real face... :P Should be pretty easy with Photoshop... Btw: check out the 302nd Fighter Group plane ("Red Tails"). The Dev-team did not forget to change the color of the pilots skin. Cool. :thumbup: I was smiling when I looked into the mirror :)

Amen. :D This is the worst and most ridicolous AI I ever encountered. This is a simulation - it needs and deserves an AI that simulates a real opponent. Not a Terminator on steroids. Period.

The AI is annoying. It's not that I can't cope with it. I can avoid him. I can get on his tail. After I practiced the P-51 for a while I think the AI is not even good. :D The annoying thing is that you can shoot him to pieces... he is still flying and going after you... He can take way too much damage. Even worse: There is little change in his performance when heavily damaged... :cry: And I don't want to talk about the ridicolous "climb-till-stall", "turn-harder-than-hard" and "accelerate-like-a-rocket" maneuvers... :furious: It is cutting the fun. The AI needs rework. As soon as possible.:mad::mad::mad: This AI guy lost one of his ailerons... had several holes... lost fuel... was smoking... - and was fighting for another 15 Minutes - with no change in performance... Annoying...

Possibly. The A-8 had a better turning and roll rate. The Dora was a bit faster and could climb and dive faster... Unsure what I like better... :unsure: Well, the decision will be made by ED... Will be a lot of fun, anyway.

Why is the Fw190 called "butcher" in english? :huh: At Focke-Wulf they additionally gave bird names to the planes. The Fw-190 was called "Würger" which is a passerine that is called "Shrike" in english. Well... ok... the latin name is "Lanidae" which means "butcher"... :smartass: don't take it seriously. I'm kidding.;) Btw: The Fw-190 should be a worthy opponent for the P-51! Should be fun! :D:D:D

Ok, as promised... Here is my dogfight with the AI pilot. See attached file. Sorry but I don't have "fraps" so it's just a *.trk file. To be honest... I have not flown the P-51 for three days and had serious problems to control that wild horse... :joystick: So please forgive the most obvious flaws in my flying... :music_whistling: But at least I beat the AI on the first attempt. :D I'm slowly getting better... :D P-51D coping with the AI.trk

Don't ask how often this cheeky hell-of-a-pilot shot me down... :blush:

Oh, since we already show a masochistic tendency when we plunge into the dogfight with the P-51, I would prefer the Focke-Wulf 190 Dora. Would be the more frightening opponent. :blink: Or... what about the Me 262?!? :laugh:

Oh, I've already shot him down several times. 9 aerial victories until now. But, alas... it's so frustrating when this cheeky bastard just does not fall to the ground... even when his plane has more holes then Swiss cheese... :badmood: But you have to stay very focused. And use every trick you can do. And well... it feels like the AI ​​pilot loses less speed in sharp turns than my P-51... And... grmbl... he has sniping abilities... hmpf... :furious: I started with the "average" and the "good" KI pilot. Took me a while to be able to cope with the "excellent" one... And it's still pretty hard... :joystick: Btw: It's a good idea to learn to use the gyro sight of K-14 gun sight. It really helps! I mapped the K-14 controls to the coolie hat of my throttle. I'll record a *.trk file next time and post it here.:smilewink:

This can be easily overlooked. ;) Go to Options and follow these steps: Make sure to click on the axis you want to tune first or else the "Axis Tune" button will be inactive.