Posted by: Bino (II./JG54)

Message: : Really, how likely is it someone we may see in the arena has hacked the fe?why am i asking? Well i saw a guy do some amazing things today, no one i've ever heard of and i didn't start flying yesterday :-) I don't want to accuse anyone of anything, but it just made me curious.

: ik

...but I guess it depends on how "paranoid" the FE and Host code has been programmed to be. I can think of a couple of ways right off the top of my head how The Host could interrogate the FE for "purity." Without access to that Host program, a would-be hacker simply could not know how that interrogation was done. If I can come up with that, I'm going to presume that iMOL would be able to devise something rather more sophisticated.

OTOH, some time ago several of my squadmates claimed to have seen a Zeke in the MA shrug off mutiple cannon strikes from an FW. After that, the heavily-armored Zeke turned around and nailed that same FW from about d10. Now maybe this was simply due to a mis-routing of damage message packets, or maybe it was a hacked FE, or maybe there *are* some cool perks to working in Grapevine. ;-)

bino--

Posted by: -itmo- (Markus Mikkolainen)

Message: :Kill is determined on the shooter's FE, not victim's. Hacker may kill easier, but not ignore kills.

neg..hits and parts damaged determined on shoooters FE, damage effects and death on target FE (aileron lost, pilot killed etc.) so in theory

it could be possible to send a freak damage packet (100pts hit -RAMP-s head) or to filter out damage packets (delete damage packets from packet stream or change them to read 0 damage)

this is just guessing on the basis of what i have heard . this is how

I would do it =) but a simple fix for this problem would be to send

ack-packets back when the damage is sent/received or something..this in turn could be averted by making fake damage-ack-packets..but this

all would require complete knowledge or wb comms protocol and since all people who know how it works work at imol they could just do an improved FE for themselves or fly

Posted by: BozolaFT

Message:

Just because it's a zeke doesn't mean that it's supposed to immediately disintegrate upon receiving a ping. Just because you're d10 from a plane doesn't mean yer safe, either. I don't find this remarkable at all.

Posted by: Bino (II./JG54)

Message:

: Just because it's a zeke doesn't mean that it's supposed to immediately disintegrate upon receiving a ping. Just because you're d10 from a plane doesn't mean yer safe, either. I don't find this remarkable at all.

[RANT_MODE VALUE=INCREDULOUS]

Really? You find that lethal snapshots at a THOUSAND YARDS are not remarkable? Forgive me, but I find it remarkable that *any* plane in WarBirds can hit *anything* at ranges more than double what was possible in Real Life. I thought the whole point of this exercise was to mirror the real deal as closely as possible.

And yes, I do find it remarkable that an A6M5 can survive being hit by SEVERAL DOZEN 20mm shells. (Please recall that in 2.01 and earlier, each single ping from an FW's four cannon was worth about SIX Real Life 20mm hits.)

[/RANT_MODE]

bino--

Posted by: Bloo (Royal Knight)

Message:

: And yes, I do find it remarkable that an A6M5 can survive being hit by SEVERAL DOZEN 20mm shells. (Please recall that in 2.01 and earlier, each single ping from an FW's four cannon was worth about SIX Real Life 20mm hits.)

You have to hit something vital.

And the Zeke's got a whole lot of ammo to spray. I know that if I can get the stream correct, and predict the 190s flight path, they go down just as fast as any other plane.

Bloo

Posted by: Hatch

Message:

Bino,

From what Ive read, you will find that the convergence setting seems to be a personal setting. Bob Goebel, (11 kill P-51 ace from the European Theater) told us at the 98 con that he had his set up in a spread convergence (I believe it was 2 guns 250yds, 2 guns 350 and 2 guns 450yds), while J. Hunter Rienberg flying F4F's and F4U's in the Pacific Theater set his convergence at 900 yards. (Aerial Combat Escapades by J. Hunter Reinburg) Reinburg flew with several squads including VMF-214 with Pappy Boyington. He is also listed in Ripley's "believe it or not" series for making slipstream powered mechanical ice cream canisters and bolting them to the wings of his corsair before doing high altitude test flights. Thats one way to keep moral up..:)

Now there are many different references from many different people on the matter of convergence and effective range. In the case of the 50 cal machine gun, the Korean War proves that it had an effective range of 1500 to 2500 yards and most kills were scored in this range using the radar gun site.

So we dont have the radar, but we are using the same .50 cal guns in the US fighters. From what I have read, I believe that if a pilot has the skill to lead a target without the gunsite radar, and put bullets on his target at 900 yards, he deserves that kill. That simple.

I have a simple formula that I use when setting convergence. If the plane has most of the guns on the wings, I set conv to 550 yards. If most guns are in the nose or fuselage area, i set them to 999 yards.

Since I usually dont fly one of the fastest accelerating, most maneuverable, or better climbing birds in the arena, I need that range to kill alt fighters as they zoom after a pass. Or quite often, they will give me a nice slow and easy 700-800 yard shot at the top of their zoom, just as they wingover in preperation for another pass on me.

Note there is no mention of "snapshots" in this post. Im talking about long range tracking shots. The way I see it, if you have the skill, use it...

Hatch

Posted by: BozolaFT

Message: The topic is cheating, what yer ranting about is that the FE isn't close enough to reality to suit yer tastes.

I don't care what happens in reality.

You may have noticed that things don't quite operate in WBs as it does elsewhere.

1. The FE allows up to d12 for pings (probably more, I've been shot down by buffs at d16). So what if it 'can't happen in reality'. It can happen here. It's sorta stupid to shoot that far and expect a kill against and armored plane, but if you're lucky, there's always a pilot kill.

2. The hit damage is a simulation. Pieces ain't really falling off the plane. The algorithm that controls the damage isn't modeling the effects of every hole you put into the enemy. Sometimes it seem that the damage modeler is convinced that yer just pinging the radio arial, and no matter what, you're not gunna kill that bird. Again, so what if it 'can't happen in reality'. It can happen here.

If you've got a bitch about how the FE engine operates, I'd probably agree with you. But DON'T start accusing folks of cheating because they're just using the available FE parameters. That's rediculous. And geez, these aren't even bug exploiting features like alt-f4 & warp-rolling.

If you want to be a purist, then we should be allowed just one death, and be forever banned from WBs after that death.