Need feedback if this happened to somebody else - never saw this in 20k Air RB battles. And, ofc, i had a 300% SL booster running…
What happened?
I played 1 vs 2 with 6.072 own vs 3.900 enemy tickets, i killed one of them (18:10) playing then 1 vs 1 vs the last enemy player - a min fuel spammer in an XP-50 low near his own airfield, still with 2.000 + ticket lead.
Out of nowhere my own ticket bar dropped to zero - between ~ 2:40 and 0:55 time left. The last enemy stayed near his airfield - and i was 2 km above him.
Even as the last enemy did nothing and after watching the replay (i saw no serious attacks by enemy ai planes - which should not produce ticket defeats after the last update) there are just 2 possible explanations for this defeat:
As rare bug declared me as inactive (despite i had full control)
Some of the 2 enemies (1 guy was in spec mode) found a way to declare me inactive
I dismiss option 2 (even as the “alive” XP-50 has not bad stats) as i don’t believe that such cheats would remain unnoticed - either by players or by gaijin.
So before i invest 15 minutes for a bug report it would be great if some of you could reply if you had similar “experiences” (outside the known airfield repair timer / inactivity bug), otherwise a report makes no sense.
Just speculation, but maybe you had packet loss during that moment and the server thought you were not present any longer? Specifically, your packets did not reach the server, but the server’s packets reached you, letting you see the ticket bleed and inactivity. It seems like a plausible scenario.
Edit: I watched the replay. Could be because you climbed so high. Maybe the inactivity system takes that into account too, much like how you can’t cap points in sim mode when you’re too high.
Personally I’d use all that accumulated energy to bait a fight from the XP-50 by going lower than him. There’s a chance he’d give chase, but you still have kinetic energy to trap with.
I have on US servers a stable ping of ~120 (CIS ~ 60) and have usually 0 PL. I checked this in game, but i didn’t mentioned it. And i was neither in the game or in the replay shown as “grey” meaning that i was disconnected.
Whilst i never had an inactivity issue even being above 6-8 km (mostly as last guy in my B-18B with 3-5 guys at my six) i do agree that in hindsight going more risk would have been better.
Baiting the XP-50 might have worked - totally agree.
From my pov my main mistake was flying towards him, which allowed him to retreat to his af. I saw this earlier in the game that he tried to fight just above his airfield, but i assumed he would come out this time.
As i am not kill-driven (i play for fun only) i simply play not aggressively enough - so if there is a significant ticket lead - i play safe and secure the win. That’s why i have a rather poor KpB ratio, but an “ok” WR.
An XP-50 is easy prey, like the Yak-9U i killed earlier as the B7A2 turns way better and dropping on them with air brake leaves them zero chance to escape as their rip speed advantage is way too small.
Even as i use exclusively a HOTAS in Air RB and have therefore a potato aim and avoid head-ons at all cost this works against any opponent - outside Ki-43s and A6Ms which are extremely annoying to fight as they tend to pull up out of nowhere…
But why take a risk with 2.000+ ticket lead and 3 minutes left?
The ai ticket bleed in Air RB stopped weeks ago as gaijin adjusted ai planes, there were no cap points to be conquered by ai ground units (like on older maps), so in 100% of similar cases in the past i won.
I do not see a reason not to use your resources (namely, the stored energy) to attempt a controlled very low risk energy trap. It would lead to a faster conclusion to the battle if it works out, and if it doesn’t, you’re still safe after it ends.
Back to the original topic: one more speculative idea I have is that while you were chatting, you were not changing direction, which may have triggered the inactivity system. If I ever find myself in the same situation as yours, I will attempt recreating the same outcome to see what may trigger the inactivity system. Or a GM/dev could just tell us how it works lol.
The fact that i can’t move my plane whilst chatting is a bug when you use xbox - as soon as you open the chat window you can’t control the plane. My bug report written whilst using my 3rd HOTAS (i use now #5) was never processed…
As i fly with disabled instructor slides i can only chat in very stable and most important undamaged aircraft. That’s also why i prefer twin engine aircraft or fly just a few very stable single engine planes.
My favorite aircraft (the SM 92) is slightly unstable and breaks off to the left and goes down after ~10 seconds, even with auto-trimm. To make this clear - i disabled the 5 or 6 specific instructor slides, but I keep the main one enabled in order to use the underlying auto trimm function as i see FR as overkill for Air RB.
Thx for your support! I agree that a dev might have an answer, i will create a bug report and a support ticket to get the win bonus as the 300% booster had not worked.
Hidden as imho off-topic:
I see this as a theoretical dicussion as the underlying issue (= tickets go to 0) was not the root cause for the defeat.
My enemy was not a rookie prone to be easy prey for an energy trap. Seeing that he had rather good results in his A7M and the remainIng time and distance to him i tend to stay with initial assessment that flying towards him was the main mistake as this allowed him to retreat.
Energy traps need time for a setup and requires an enemy willing to engage in unfavourable conditions. At least one of these 2 was missing…
I really appreciate your feedback, but you might have noticed that i am aware of how to fight in this plane even whilst being in a much lower energy state than my opponents. XP-50s are no threat as long as you keep your speed very high and reduce their initial energy surplus - i still haven’t met an XP-50 pilot able to win a dogfight if i can choose when, at which speed and were it happens.
I had a similar thing happen recently. I was flying low BR and was flying the BR 1.7 German flying boat BV 138 in a “Battle of the Rhine” match and was trying to ride the river back to base, taking the scenic route. I was touchdown on the river but going at some 100 kph, basically being a speedboat. Apparently I was the last player. While riding the river, suddenly the message came that there was no player in the team any more and all tickets vanished.