Some times when I play ground battles (usually observed in Arcade) an aircraft gets damaged and shot down by me.
However I didn’t shoot at any plane and most of the time I don’t see what plane it is at all. It just suddenly shows up as a confirmation and end up in my score. Doesn’t happen often but at least a few times / 100 games and been around since like 2017 or something.
Have anyone experienced it or have a decent explanation for this?
Here’s an incident. I roll around with my SU-152. I fire at someone (ground target) in the horizon, possible blowing someone up. Some where here (not the moment when firing, not moment of hitting something, just during these two seconds) it appears that I suddenly, magically, damages an air plane. Then there is an enemy aircraft high above the battle field that passes me smoking, (IIRC) making a slow u-turn and then falling apart crashes off screen to my right some km away. Its the first phantom air kill I have observed.
Now I might feel cool sometimes, but not that cool - that I down an air plane with a SU-152.
So how come?
I randomly got a heli kill in a chally 2 like 2 months ago and I didnt even have line-of-sight on it, not too mention do any damage to it. Was kinda random. Even went back and checked to see if I managed some kind of insane fluke hit with the sabot discard or something. But nope. As far as I could tell. Just randomly gave me a free air kill
I have the same thing happen in ARB. I think it has something to do with a mechanic that if a undamaged player J’s out the nearest enemy player to them gets the kill. But I find that it’s kind of finicky.
Yes, now when you’re mentioning it I had something similar incident some month back in ARB where after a respawn I suddenly got news that I damaged an airplane and I was ‘damn I havn’t fired a round in anger yet. Apparently the plane fell apart through some repeated damage calls but being too into the game I didn’t take time to register any results of it.
Most definitely this. Got a random air kill on my Brummbar on a GRB match, I was pretty groggy at the time so I had to check the replays just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating lol
Twas a B7A2 randomly deciding to J out, and I happened to be the only enemy vehicle nearby
Obtaining a kill on a plane randomly in ARB happens when the vehicle player J-out, the reward for the kill is then given to the closest vehicle. I don’t know exactly how the distance calculation is done but it’s happened to me several times.
I had two experiences (arcade) where I tracked down the magic A/c kills through re-plays. One was in in a Marder III GB where distance was like 1.4km (I should have a screen shot somewhere showing the range) and the other in ARB was around 2.3km IIIRC, so I think its actually random. It was just a fluke that the plane passed the top of my SU-152 when I got it in earlier example, and actually I don’t think there was that many of my team on the map by the time so 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 is a good odds for me to get it.
But whats get me is that there is by time (afaik) no official explanation from Gaijin on it, or is there?
There is actually a logic behind this. I do this as well, when I take a plane in Ground Arcade.
In late 2021 the devs changed how the score/rewards system works in the game. They removed proximity and visibility score, but a death score was added instead. So in the new system you simply gain by dying. But there is a catch here. You have to be killed by a player, and then you receive 30% of his gains.
For example, a player killed you and received 200 score for that kill. You will gain 30% from that which is 60 score just for the fact that you died. In Ground Arcade, planes are free, you only need plane spawn points to use them.
So when you crash without any damage, you gain nothing from it. But when a player kills you, you gain 30% of his gains. Which means it makes sense to J-out close to the enemy, even if you are not damaged. This will benefit both of you.
Many players figured this out already, and they are just using this system to their advantage. Just keep in mind, you need to be close to the enemy, when you J-out without damage. I don’t know the exact distance, but it should be something like 3 km max. Sometimes I even wait above enemy spawn for someone to spawn, so I can J-out and get that additional reward. It simply makes sense, especially in Ground Arcade.
