Merlin-27

Right. Agreed. I flew the mission once on High to see how hard it was to evade knowing the bandit was lining up for his shot. I got both of them to hit the water but it took a bit of work. The initial point was to show that the AI will shoot at a very long distance with incredible results. While this is fine for simulating the best of the best, it is a bit discouraging if you are "simulating" a realistic average pilot. If he is truly an average marksman then unfortunately every one of us MP pilots are thereby classified as WAY below average in that department :)

That's amazing. When will we see them available?

Man, that's pretty messed up. I doubt most of the actual pilots enjoyed killing horses...at least I'd like to think they didn't do it for "fun". You must really like kicking puppies too. Moving right along, I am very much looking forward to the Jug and to think of all of these amazing aircraft at DCS quality fighting in the same airspace gives me chills. One side note, if the AI damage model stays the same, you may never see an AI P-47 ever get shot down :)

To illustrate the point I created a mission specifically for this. The human player is pursuing a bandit and is followed by another at a range of 1 nmi. Both AI aircraft are slightly heavier. Everyone starts with identical speed & altitude. I found the AI at both High & Average begin firing (and hitting) at 0.5-0.6 nmi. That is over 3000 ft. Hard to imagine the convergence of those guns to be set that far out...especially the wing cannon, but almost every one of those projectiles will at least come close to it's intended destination. The issue is not with volume of bullets. If you have played SP & MP you will see a HUGE disparity in firepower effectiveness. I am not saying the top level AI shouldn't posses excellent abilites but "average" pilots do not regularly issue a high deflection kill shot at maximum range 9 out of 10 times. Just sayin' ImpendingDestruction-HIGH.miz ImpendingDestruction-AVERAGE.miz

And that is fair to say. So then extreme accuracy would be hitting very specific & challenging targets, correct? This is our contention. If the AI just hit the wing or fuselage there would be no complaints. The fact that they consistently disable your prop governor and other vital systems at the exact moment you are aware of their presence is by my definition, extreme. The only defense of this is to not engage bandits that have a numerical advantage. While not the end of the world, it does limit possible scenarios and in the end we are just hoping for a near realistic experience. I'm not trying to speak for David, but I am only offering this input as constructive information to make the product better. And just to clarify, this opinion is the result of many many encounters with the AI and is not just a first impression.

Oh cool. You work fast! Will you be hosting it at all before next Friday?

I think the important part there to remember is that the AI does not use the same damage model as a client. You will not hit the AI once and get one of the critical hits we all see on regular basis when jumped by AI (prop governor, fuel leak, engine MP drop) So it may take the AI much more effort to destroy another AI but that does not indicate accuracy to me...just time to complete destruction of the airframe.

Ok, the reason I mentioned Harmonization is because you mentioned using 50% of your ammo and you questioned the power of the six M2s. How you fight should depend on the situation at hand. If it's 1vs1 against another Mustang you can get away with using turn fighting tactics. If you are facing 2 or more bandits or a better turner you need to stay fast and getting locked in a turnfight will probably get you killed.

With the DCS P-51D If you hit a plane in that sweetspot around 1000ft with a well timed burst it can destroy a plane in short order. The trick is getting a large number of strikes on a small area of the moving target. It is not an easy thing. SO many factors can spoil a gun solution. From what I've seen, if you are using 50% of your ammo on one target you have made several errors in the process. Getting sporadic hits on a bandit will cause it to be a drawn out ordeal. I personally try to aim for a focused short burst. (Doesn't always turn out that way) A slight deflection shot also ensures you hit more vital/vulnerable parts of the bandit. This will probably turn into another convergence thread but it is possible, with the current harmonization setup to inflict devastating results with relatively small amounts of ammo.

Users/..../Saved Game/DCS/Screenshots I think.

P-51D dogfighting night Use the force, Luke :) Great event, Xcom. The base capture was very cool. Sorry I bailed early. I was getting some really bad warping on top of single digit framerates. Caused me to go hunting for some performance tweaks just in case my machine is the cause.

From what I've seen that has no effect on accuracy. As David said, it only becomes an issue when you are facing multiple bandits. The second, uber-wingman, will place almost every round, no matter the range or deflection, on your kite. You typically lose your gunsight, engine or prop governor if the AI gets any hits on you. It tends to ruin some great AI interactions. The "easy" solution would be to force some level of inaccuracy to give the human client at least a second to attempt some evasion tactic.

I agree. It would be nice to have a mechanism to make the use of custom paint work a bit easier. I'm comfortable with making skins now but the fact that in MP everyone has to manually install skins is not a viable long term solution. It seems like such a great unique element which when combined with a few others could give the sim that extra gear to leave all competitors in the dust. It would be nice to have the ability to pull custom skins from a server once the client computer recognizes that the mission includes other skins not currently installed.

While very interesting, can someone tell me why it really matters who came up with the idea first? I'd hope at some point we can just look at it as simply a collaboration that resulted in one incredible aircraft. It's amazing how much emotion can be stirred up by our beloved Mustang...or any of these legendary aircraft for that matter.

Can we fly it yet?! Can we fly it yet?! :) Just kidding. It is bound to be amazing.

I've been of the opinion for a while that we really need a Mustang screenshot thread. Today I saw something I HAD to post. I flew by my wingman while on my server and thought I saw legs hanging below his plane. Upon further investigation I saw this... Too funny.

Challenge accepted? :)

Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. So does that mean we might be able to see P-51 PvP stats with 7.1? Sorry if I misunderstood what you said. Either way thanks so much for all the effort in carrying on with SLMOD. I think it's an incredible tool from the short time I've used it. I'd really love to see it keep progressing and have our stats recorded eventually. If you need any other servers to test on let me know, I'd be happy to help. Yea I just tried to reach Batumi using the A channel. Who knows, maybe I goofed it up. No worries, I was just curious.

Roger. I tried out the mission for a bit right after I posted that. I shot up some RED ground targets with the Stang and then landed. Do the Mustangs have the freqs set? I attempted to contact ATC but didn't get a response.

I'm running 7.0 on my server and it seemed to only record hours flown and crashes/deaths for the P-51. Is it possible I set it up wrong?

Very nice!

P-51D? Are there plans to include Mustang stats eventually?

I'd assume they would have each. Can't hurt to request it! Or you can make you own :)

Not free anymore from what I see.

Yes! This thread is getting too friendly. I have nothing to entertain me during my early morning at work!