Low BR Air Sim battles are getting boring

Hey guys:
Low battle rating air simulator battles are getting boring:
Convoy attack missions are unfeasible since the convoys’ anti-aircraft defenses are so effective that they prevent planes from approaching.
There are no more bots in battles, and the number of missions is very low (I just flew 30 minutes without finding a single enemy plane before giving up and quitting the game).
On the other hand, it is increasingly difficult to find a mission to play, perhaps you should lower the requirements of two players per side, and compensate with bots.
Lastly, by removing the auditory advantage of the open canopy, you have taken away the possibility of compensating for the disadvantage that players who control their vision manually have over those who use virtual reality devices.
Greetings

6 Likes

While I agree that convoys are bollocks,

what maps are you playing to struggle with finding other planes, what is your timezone, BR range and typical playtime/server?

I don’t have any issues finding lobbies with good numbers of players flying my P-51 (3-5 BR range depending on rotation) and F4U-4B (5-6.sth). I play UTC + 2 EU/NA servers during evenings.

Picking your map however is pretty vital to actually getting pvp content. I avoid maps like Afganistan, sinai and the like because while my planes are on the pretty damn fast side, they’re still 128x128 with grids large enough (16x16) that you’ll not be spotting planes with much ease.

In my experience so far, the craziest/most objective heavy map there exists has to be Port Moresby. No matter what, the match is full of almost back to back air superiority, bomber escort/destroy, fighter escort/destroy missions. There’s also naval objectives but the rewards are as pitiful as for convoys with a similar high AA risk.

If there’s a Port Moresby lobby, I’m joining it as it’s guaranteed to be action packed. Bulge is also pretty nice, but more so for ease of spotting. Beyond these two,

Spoiler

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As for canopy,

There’s a very significant reason they developed fully enclosed cockpits in real life as planes got faster. We play sim for the immersion so… why complain about a feature/fix that improves realism?

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Port Moresby and Sicily are only ones that work propperly from my experience rest are hit or miss.

That’s true, but pilots flew open canopy all the time IRL for various reasons. For example, La-5 pilots had to fly open canopy if they didn’t want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

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The change is good for jets, but it could be done a bit better at lower BRs. I don’t think that you wouldn’t be able to hear a BF-109 that’s 200m away from you when you’re only going 350kmh.

I do have difficulty finding players, especially at low tiers, however. What match size should I be looking for?

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Dogfighting is on point and often above active ground combat, since fighters are going there to intercept bombers and cas. If you get bugged lobby without objectives it sucks and you can waste 15 minutes without finding anybody.

I stick to 64x64 maps where possible, and usually fly around A point if it exists. If there’s an “Escort bombers/attackers”, there’s a good chance the enemy will try to kill them so you can use them as a bait for finding action. Most games I join tend to be 6v6 or better. I’ve started ditching games where it’s cloudy as that makes it impossible to find anyone. I mostly stick to Bulge, Moresby, Sicily and occasionally dover (it’s bigger, but action feels fairly predictable there).

Paying attention to killfeed and seeing if the enemy is killing AI ground is a good indication as well. I’ve had one game where the enemy had a REALLY DEDICATED IL-2 and the entire lobby was trying to either kill them or defend them. The team with the IL-2 won the match handily.

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Try to stick out ur head out of ur car, going 100 km/h. You can´t hear much. Or drive your motorcycle at 240 km/h. You hear nothing but your engine and the wind, trying to rip off ur head.

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They “Fixed” open canopy exploiters?

Awesome!

As for the rest of the OP I do agree we need to fix the broken maps where the various goals are either uneven (always spawning for one team but not the other) and where the pathing is broken - or even worse when the bombers are flying too fast or circling out of bounds.

Destroying ships needs to yield higher rewards and everyone but the worst of the Karens hate the “Useful Actions” system.

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You aren’t hearing aircraft behind you with your canopy open, period. Eardar was not only broken but it’s also totally unrealistic and ruined BnZ style gameplay.

That said you’re right about the convoy missions. The AA gunner accuracy is inhuman at times.

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100% false - you would hear exactly jack squat other than “WOOOOOOOSH” from wind and “BRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRB” from your engine.

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I think we need you Paul to make the sounds for props in the next few patches.

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I do agree with this comments. I am really digging into the Japs planes and launching a game at port Moresby US VS JAP is like pure luck. Currently I am at BR 2.0 to 3.0 and there no one at all. I spent recently more time waiting than playing. The requiered number of player should be reduced to two in total. While writing we are both waiting for more than 10 minutes for the game to start and I am quite sure it will not. This is stupid why 4 players is ok and 2 is not! If contimue like this I will only play IL2 or DCS

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So they need to implement carbon monoxide poisoning for La-5 pilots…

Do you even understand why they had to do that? It gave them a huge disadvantage, not an advantage…

They had to do it, to not die!!!

Just stick your head out of a fast moving car (200 km/h+). And then tell me, it u hear the loud motorcycle right behind you. You just can’t…

Low BR as in? Early jets? Late props? Supersonic Cold War?

And I-16 pilots removed the canopies off their planes (this later became the standard) because the plexiglass was so bad. This improved their visibility.

Not the same thing, but if you’re on a motorcycle you easily can hear a car behind you. In a plane you’d have a windshield.

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Don’t also forget the gigantic and incredibly loud engine directly in front of you along with the prop wash and general wind as you fly along at speed. You aren’t hearing anything.

And the engine on everyone else would also be louder.

Not enough to overpower what each pilot is hearing. If you’re flying a biplane at 170mph you aren’t hearing the biplane next to you that you’re in formation with. I have not read a single pilot account that has stated “I heard my attacker coming and broke away”.

Note the famous phrase is “it’s the one you don’t see that gets you”, not the one you don’t “hear”.

There’s also plenty of YouTube footage such as this in WW1 aircraft travelling considerably slower than WW2 fighters, the pilot himself is even startled at one point when he sees the 2nd aircraft. Skip to 3:14.

All you hear is wind noise.

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