If im RTBing because i’ve just gotten 4 kills in my Spitfire, run out of ammo and running low on fuel, I dont think there is much to be punished for. Likewise if im in a bomber and im RTBing to grab more bombs before heading back out again, then again, I dont really see what i’ve done wrong and why I should be punished for it.
Whilst its less of an issue because of the BR (in fact, I dont think there is any need for an AF AAA disabling past about 9.0/10.0) one of the main aircraft I play at the moment in ARB is the Tornado GR4 and if I can, I will always RTB and head back out again for another bomb run, but not before getting my hands dirty and trying to dogfight.
had a match the other day where after killing someone, destroying a base and RTBing, I went out again and took out another base and killed the last guy on their team. Now whilst I didnt need the AAA protection necessarily for that as they were no where close, I dont think RTBing is a bad thing. There was nothing for me to “learn”. I needed more fuel, missiles and bombs. What’s next, just remove AFs altogether?
If teams were much smaller, maybe. But as is, you need airfield protection to land and rearm if you want to do a serious carry. The only replacement would be an aerial rearm zone.
The next issue is how random the game is. Yesterday I was playing the A6M3 Model 32, and in one match I onetapped a Spitfire MkV and a P-51A. Next match, I’m shooting a Yak and the same 20mms with the same belts as before took several hits to bring him down. It’s not like the Yak is that tough, I’ve onetapped plenty of them in the past. The game is simply not very deterministic.
My personal record is 12 kills without rearming in Bf 109 F2 and at the end I still had a few 15mm shells left.
Look at high scores, battles with over 7 kills are super rare.
Either disable AF AAA or literally force people one way or another to fly away from AAA bubble.
Give player a warning he’ll be treated as coward and deserter and knocked unconscious via 9mm nerfdart through the back of the head if he doesn’t leave 7km zone around AF for 140s (this can be adjusted depending on the rank, and aircraft type, f.e. Po-2 should be have a bit more time due to super low topspeed, just like AF AAA range and intensity should be adjusted) and be done with it. There should be also limited time for takeoff - blocking runways is an act of sabotage.
140s is enough time to get to speed and sufficient altitude. If it’s not enough - well, such is life.
Then make it so that the timer only resets by 1s every 3s, so if you want to return to AF too quickly. Anyway, there’s plenty of better solutions than allowing people to fly around the AF for entire game.
The F-2 especially is very efficient on ammo after the 15mm got buffed. Extremely good ballistics and just one gun, placed exactly where you’d want it.
But that’s far from applying to most or even half of the planes in this game.
IMO AAA would only turn on if you are below ~500m radar altitude, ~1km from the center of the airfield, AND have your gear down. Or you’re on the runway already. No more blasting past the airfield at top speed with someone in tow. If AAA turns on with someone in that radius, they would only start firing IF that player is not travelling away from the airfield.
Or make it so if someone stays in a, say, 6km radius from the airfield (twice as long as AAA range) they count as inactive, as if they were sitting on the runway. Add in a delay timer after takeoff so you don’t get slapped by it if you’re being an honest pilot and playing the game.
There’s a thousand different ways to stop this from being an issue and we could sit here all week coming up with new ways to do it.
Landing is a PRIVILEGE, not a guarantee. If you fuck up a dogfight, you take your L Bozo, and you die.
also above 8.0 AA is useless, just kiss the ground and strafe the airfield princess hoping they win on tickets, always sweet fanmail after the match ends too <3
On the flip side, why should someone who hasn’t done anything the entire match, deserve a free kill of a vulnerable plane? How on earth is that fair? Why should someone be punished for playing the game?
Should I be a free kill because I actually did stuff? Why does the other person get a kill despite not doing anything to outplay the other?
It’s incredibly good at defending the AF if the person is flying over it at altitude.
I guess that is the conclusion at the end of this. People like to say if you landed its because you “made a mistake”, so even if you get 5 kills and just need ammo, you should just die, or leave the game, because you made the mistake of shooting at 5 players. Rocket planes should also last the entire 25 minutes of a match, 2 minutes of fuel is plenty. Used all 4 missiles in your Sea Vixen? Guess you should have gotten 2 kills per missile.
Garbage opinion. You just want to farm helpless aircraft and not get punished for it. How bout YOU get better and shoot people down before they can RTB.
ROFL.
Yesterday I basically had to kill myself to let the enemy win.
Why? Because when a swarm of enemy aircraft appeared (typical German team, 75% dead within 120s from the merge) I did 180 degree turn towards my AF and started shallow diving.
When I was like 18km away, people started to turn around as they knew they won’t get within 900m (a distance where spraying may work) before I get within AF AAA.
It caused a situation where I eventually ended up above a few aircraft and they only survived because F84 decided to tank some 30mm and 20mm shells and keep flying and I simply did not even try to dodge the Attacker, as I felt the enemy deserves the win anyway at that point and did not want my 40IQ team to get the benefits of my hard work.
Thing is, AF AAA negatively influences game dynamics even when still very far from AF.
When people land, it’s their own fault they become easy kills. If you just fly straight and slow, like a lot of people so (unless I’m attacking, then they perform insanely well-timed dodges) should you also be protected? No free kills, right?
Landing is just as much of a choice as flying low and slow.
Strafing kills are just as much free kills as are people getting energy trapped who I literally single-tap with 30mm to conserve ammo.
I am not sure why some of you continue with beating a dead horse. I mean seriously - getting kills is way easier than 5 years ago and you still invest time & energy in order to have it even easier?
Even if you play this game for (semi-) competitive reasons and are eager to score as many kills as possible (which is not wrong as wt is a plain shooter) i recommend to take a step back and try to look at the whole picture:
I see mostly highly successful players advocating for a removal using and repeating the same arguments for years.
But i see also a lack of a neutral and sober view on your surroundings - you play with or against 95% absolute rookies (without any significant experience) or tankers without passion for flying which play Air RB with a complete different approach: They play for grinding & event mission score and don’t care about winning or losing.
So it is simply really hard to understand why this discussion is still ongoing - especially as gaijin totally ignores this issue and has (at least in the last 5-6 years) never released a official feedback.
They reacted indirectly as they removed af aaa from forward airfields (10.2023) which improved the game play significantly as the no-fly zone of the af aaa bubble is now just above the main airfield.
But even the removal of this af aaa was not suited to increase the awareness of way less experienced players; i see basically in every 2nd match a lot of guys strafing or getting strafed on forward airfields.
So the standard arguments of most “no af aaa” advocates (“take more fuel”, “conserve ammo”, “don’t get damaged”, “cover repairing friendlies”, “landing is a privilege”, etc.) are not wrong, but they follow the wrong assumption that everybody else would take the game seriously and would play due the same reasons or motivations as they do.
Those strafing kills are mainly based on a lack of experience of the “victims” like missing situational awareness or way too low crew XP to trigger markers and have zero value if you compare them with the satisfaction of getting a kill as a result of a classic dogfight, but that is just my opinion.
2 examples of the effects of a significant experience gap:
Three extremely cheap strafing kills due to lack of crew XP
Summary
In this replay you see 2 enemies above my forward airfield (a 109G and a P-38J) after ~ 7 minutes diving to kill a battle damaged T-18B which had previosly killed 2 bombers. I tried to strafe the P-38 but opened my fire too late as the P-38 got in range of my main af aaa. Btw: He never realized that i was firing at him.
Diving to chase the P-38 made no sense as i saw a higher Spitfire ~ 6 km away, so i decided to climb and follow him as it looks like he was trying to lure me away - and this would give my 2 last team mates (3 vs 5) the possibility to repair and climb.
I tracked the damaged P-38 heading straight to his own forward airfield and the Spit (with 3 kills) headed somehow in the same direction. I assumed a trap as i remembered a second Spitfire earlier but decided to dive and found both Spits and the P-38 landing and/or repairing (around 12 minutes). Even with my potato aim i managed to kill all 3 of them - leaving 2 enemy 410s left and granted a totally unexpected victory.
After watching the replay it was obvious that the Spit i was chasing had a very low crew XP, he never got a marker whilst i got a marker even at 6 km distance; so his lack of crew XP resulted in 3 totally undeserved kills.
Two cheap and decisive strafing kills due to lack of situational awareness
Summary
In this replay you can watch 2 P-63s killing together 6 out of my 8 player lobby. They fought well and managed to kill my friendlies even whilst being outnumbered and outturned by A6Ms and SB2Cs.
I had previously killed a base and damaged their Stirling bomber and saw that a smoking enemy P-63 headed to their forward airfield. The imho way better pilot in the other P-63 saw me 8 km away and broke off - heading also to the small airfield; he reduced speed and was even able to slip his plane.
He focused completely on his landing & rearming and did not saw me diving on him at 11:50 - his already landed team mate looked behind him after his landing and got a marker at 11:56 at around 4 km distance - he was stationary and came in with 700 kmph TAS.
I managed (ofc) to miss all my shots on the P-63 trying to land (potato aim thx to Hotas and compression = skill issue) even he had just 200 kmph speed and his squad mate finished his repair (what else…) exactly at the time i was in gun range.
So i performed an Immelmann (fully aware that i fly through the guns of the 2nd guy, he scored a crit) killed the guy trying to take-off (12:40) and then his friend (who tried his best, but i had way more energy and the better turn) at 13:32.
As their last guy was a damaged Stirling these way too easy kills rendered the very good combat performance of the two P-63s completely useless - if they would have repaired on their large airfield they would have won easiliy as my last remaining team mate in a A6M has a highly negative K/D and 0.38 KpB and the 2 P-63 showed extremely good cooperation.
So if you strive for a removal of af aaa - be my guest and address this topic in every dev blog or other somehow official thread - but from my pov there is no need for a conflict between players as just gaijin can change anything related to af aaa.
Alone the fact that you get killed by Rolands or M163s at WW 2 BRs should give you an indicator that gaijin is deaf regarding certain topics.
Have a good one!
Edit:
Hidden as an airfield was relevant, but not af aaa.
As a rather funny side story regarding airfields:
After 20k Air RB battles i saw today the first time ever an enemy using a hangar on an airfield as cover. The A6M pilot ran out of ammo on Peleliu and tried to capture the neutral (and therefore undefended) airfield (which does not work in Air RB, just in Air AB). As he got blind hunted he rolled into a hangar and had cover from my strafing attacks as 0.50 cals can’t pen the hangar roof.
The downside of this strategy was that his team lost this match (i played initially 1 vs 7 - in a 11 vs 11 lobby after 5!!! minutes) as 4 of his team mates died due to various reasons and i killed the other two. As the “inactivity ticket drop” gets triggered even on neutral airfields and i managed to kill the last airborne enemy at 22:44 the ticket drop started around 24:25 and drained their tickets to zero.
I consider strafing kills very satisfying.
I enjoy the damage models, even if they kind of suck, I like hitting the enemy with a ton of ammo and then replaying that in slow motion.
I would love to see fuel and ammo storages around AF with realistic AAA, as I generally love it when things go boom.
My little dream is seeing infantry in game and introducing a truck full of russian infantry to 30mm HE.
So, as you can see, different people enjoy different things.
And BTW, not my fault people are obsessively grinding and never getting gud. I don’t enjoy jets. I don’t care whether the game is competitive or not. I want to see planes explode.