@BlitzKriegerツ - I played two matches today. They were both terrible… but, hilariously, better than average. I suck at video editing… couldn’t figure out how to voice over these without re-recording them. Just a couple notes below.
1st Match - I smash my aircraft into the ground strafing someone on the FWD AFLD. I was doing about 1050 kph… should have known I couldn’t pull out of that dive, but went anyway. However, I was completely ineffectual versus a MiG and G.91 prior to lawn darting.
2nd Match - my team evaporates, which is pretty typical. There isn’t much in the way of fighting here. I mistakenly think I can catch an Su-7 and throw away any chance I had at early positioning. From there, it’s all down hill.
On balance, what I care about is “can I positively affect the matches I play to enable my team to win?” I am not great, but I can usually have a positive impact or make the occasional good play. I have not been able to do either with the Sabre… and I am arguably hurting my team’s performance considerably. It’s less about the stats themselves than the immense frustration/dissatisfaction they represent.
That said, I don’t see your comments… so it might be I am as poor an operator of YT as I am a video editor ;-).
I don’t have many recorded games in sabres, but I do have this one. Feel free to skip the bit in the middle where I RTB.
It’s in the CL-13A Mk.5 (Not the B Mk.6, despite the skin, its a user skin). The CL-13A is better than the F-25, but its upgrades are little upgrades across the board (i.e. a bit faster, a bit more manouevrable and a bit better acceleration), rather than being much better in one or two aspects. As such, the style of gameplay is very similar, especially with the CL-13A being 0.3 BR above the F-25.
I’ve had some 8+ games in sabres, but this is the best one I have recorded. It’s quite a good match though despite ‘only’ being a 6k.
I make a few mistakes across the board, so don’t think of this as an example of perfect gameplay, maybe more of a demonstration of things going right.
It’s taken a surprisingly long time to get watch/get through these videos. I sent a view request for the Google Sheets commentary. What follows is just general impression from the videos mixed with some of my own from matches.
I don’t really know why aiming the guns is so damn hard for me. Some days/some matches, it works… others it’s like I need twice the lead to make the same shots. I guess I am poor at judging speed/energy state. Either that or it’s a straight latency issue… or both.
I felt a little badly for that F-2 Sabre at the end of your match. You’re a better pilot than I am, but I recognized the tactics from a match I flew recently in the Bf 109 G-6… using a better plane to wear them down. I will say that he had a much better chance than any of the F4U-1C did ;-).
It seems like position is waaaay less important in jets than speed. I suppose that reflects the capability of the air frames… but it does mean that one of the tools I came to rely on in props doesn’t really have the same utility. The distances feel oddly distorted… it’s weird seeing someone 1 km below my plane without any ability to engage them.
Replying to your last point, Positioning is arguably as important. What IS important in all matches, jets and props, is energy.
Energy depends on altitude, as potential energy, and speed, as kinetic energy. However, the kinetic energy portion actually depends on the square of the speed, which means that a 100km/h speed difference in jets is a much higher energy difference than a 100 km/h speed difference in props.
Props most efficiently gain energy by climbing at a fairly low speed, since the v² growth is slower, and they are better off gaining potential energy as altitude, however jets can gain energy quite efficiently by accelerating, because the v² dependence in the kinetic energy term becomes really strong.
Altitude appears to matter less in jets, because you don’t need as big of a speed difference to make up for an altitude disadvantage. In props, most of the time you are above someone, you have more energy, but in jets, quite often someone going a bit quicker than you can have more energy despite being lower.
Energy always matters the same amount, it’s just that the nonlinear dependence of kinetic energy on speed means that jets and props maximise their energy in different ways. Altitude is important, you should still climb in jets, but the jet gains energy quickest at a much higher speed, so your climbing speed is much much higher.
I doubt that it’s a latency issue, your ping is super low (mine is like 230 normally). It’s just something that takes a while to get used to.
The F-2 sabre does lose to the CL-13A, but it’s closer than it seemed. He was too aggressive and lost his energy, falling into the low speed range where the sabre engine is weaker, and therefore not being able to claw it back again. I spend most of the time above 800, where my engine is very good at generating energy, hence why I ran circles around him.
Yes, even if he flew correctly, I would still have the advantage, but the reason why it looked like he was being stomped was because he made mistakes, not because his plane was inferior.
And yes, the F4U-1C is incredibly sad XD. Imagine being worse than the 2.7 one at 4.7 BR xD
Good to know it’s just a straight skill issue, lol. I threw up another match in which I don’t look like a completely incompetent boob… just a very, very lucky one. However, since I’m actually involved and not just flying around looking for a clue, there might be more here to discuss if you’re up for it.
This was the third of three, the first two were one frag each. They were much like the prior two I posted, but I at least survived and the team won, so that was nice.
I did take less fuel… it lasts a lot longer than expected. I am still struggling with accuracy. However, I had a lot of opportunities to face off against CL-13 and other Sabre variants… definitely a lot of luck and a lot of room for improvement (I think).
ETA: if I knew how to embed the video, I would just do that here… guess I need to figure that out.
