homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Rise of Flight - The First Great Air War Pulling the plug

Is it still possible to pull the plug (metaphorically speaking)?

I was given to thinking that the developers had solved this problem ?

I ask because I'm a bit pee'd off. This morning I got whacked off (NO NOT THAT SORT OF WHACKED, get your mind out of the gutter)by the same pilot (possibly WOLF 13, but may very well have been a clone with a similar tag) 3 times in a row, which is fine, he was a good shot and made the most of his positional advantages and turning ability in his DR 1.

However the fourth time I met him, he forgot to bring any little distractions with him(he headed straight in my direction, map icons on) we got into a real close in knife fight. He had the altitude advantage (air start) so dictated terms and made the initial attacks but after several minutes twisting and turning I, by delft handling and no small amount of luck (remind me to look up "delft" in the dictionary) got onto his tail, with the added bonus of having built up a small energy advantage (that's probably them Duracell batteries I picked up from my wife's..... eerrrrr, no maybe not). Just as I was about to get a good, long, close up shot into his low six, I think he'd lost site of me, he vanished into thin air.

Now I'm not saying I got any rounds into him, but there's every possibility that I may have clipped him, even if only causing superficial damage I was a bit miffed then when he decided he'd had enough and bugged out rather than run the risk of taking a fall (doubtful given my shooting skills). Maybe I was a tougher nut to crack than he initially thought and he got bored and decided to seek out easier prey else where. He certainly popped up again very quickly getting another kill near to his air start position.

I'm not outright accusing him of foul deeds, although it's a bit cheap if it was WOLF 13 (why was he on an easy fly server anyway, I wouldn't have thought it was much of a challenge ?) but his vanishing was bloomin convenient if it was a connection error.

So my question is , how much damage is it possible to take and still vanish without losing a life ? Do you only lose a life if you're mortally wounded, on fire or sans lift elements such as wings ? Can you take some superficial damage decide the situation doesn't look productive and yank the plug rather than try to escape or risk virtual death ?

I would have been less pi$$ed off if he had been some Noob but whoever he was he obviously wasn't.

I've no idea if you take any kind of penalty for disconnecting mid-fight, but the type of person who does it, is usually NOT a noob. They're sad. You just have to be satisfied with a "manoeuver-kill".

If it makes you feel any better, he was probably enraged that some "noob" outflew him and forced him to disconnect to save his kill-streak.

If someone disconnects in the air their pilot is considered killed and the streak is lost.
If you put some bullets into him before he disconnected then you would have been credited with a kill.
If you saw the message "X has left the game" then yeah its a disconnect, but your credit for the kill depends on if you hit the target or not.

If it happens without credit, then just be satisfied they take a death anyway..

Nice! Just getting into this sim and am pleased to learn this

Hope to see ya online soon . . .

Damocles, I'd lose no sleep over such a pathetic character who is so lacking in self esteem that he can't take it when he finds he is not king of the heap, even when that heap is noobies. They are not truly competative. Anyone who is would take the loses and examine why, not run away sobbing because their fragile ego has been bruised. My attitude would be to hone my own skills and hope to give the a***eh**e a big fright some time. Use your anger to get better and then go looking for him.
At the moment I am still in the early learning stage of the sim but I look forward to the day I can feel skilled enough to tackle MP.

Jerry

Funny thing.. I don't look at the leaderboards much but I just went and had a look at the "multiplayer" leaderboard, and there are two guys names Wolf-13, both with the forum name "=FX=Wolf-13" and both from Russia. One is the #1, the other is #34. The guy at #1 has 731 flight hrs and over a million points.

As the OP mentions, we don't know if either of these are the person who disco'd rather than be shot down. And I'd say it doesn't matter much; it's a low-life move and one that can take some of the fun out of flying online, but when people pull stuff like that the best thing to do is forget it and move on.

That said, I don't think it's common knowledge that disconnecting before being shot down will still count as a death and end your kill streak. Whoever it was, I'll bet he's awfully concerned with his stats. It's too bad we have to deal with such characters, ruining what sounds like a good fight up til then, out of poor sportsmanship. Unfortunately there's a few in every crowd. Fortunately it's only a small minority.

PS- on a side note, I remember flying on the same team with (I'm sure) the #1 Wolf-13 back in the coop-only days. It was impressive to watch but got tedious after a while. Each new mission he very quickly, efficiently, and methodically shot down almost every plane on the opposing team, usually while I and everyone else on our team were still trying to maneuver for position. That guy may be a stat-hound but he's also very, very good.

I certainly didn't underestimate his ability, the three times he shot me down, without over estimating my own prowess at avoiding death, they were all difficult out of plane shots with, from what I could tell, no spray and pray, quick and efficient.

Yeh, who ever he was, he was from Russia. I'm not going to hold a grudge or dwell on it, it's his problem. If it was a top scorer then it's just a bit sad, with my shooting it's doubtful I would have hit him anyway, even plonked right on his six.

Maybe it was simply boredom on his part and he wanted nothing more than a few quick victories to improve his stats.

may be you kill him in cockpit, he pressed "finish" and disappeared ?

Just goes to show that one of the advertised advantages of the 'always online' thing, the leaderboard and stats, is utterly meaningless if folk can get to the top by dubious practices. Even more so when only the top 1000 are accessible.

What are these "points," "streaks," and "air starts" you speak of?

Hedgehog - "points" are awarded for kills in multiplayer but depending on the difficulty settings of the server. A full simulation server should give over 100 points for a kill.
"streak" is how many kills you've had in your virtual life, i.e. since you last died. To preserve your streak you're supposed to act like the real life aces and avoid dangerous fights.. but sounds like something more dodgy was happening.
"air start" is a mission setting for the airfield where you start at altitude, instead of havinig to take off so that you can get quick into the action. Often you have both options with 2 airfields.

Damocles - I don't think he disconnected mid flight.

It sounds like he clicked "FINISH FLIGHT" as he went straight back to air start.

I know that the Japanese server "BEGINNERS WELCOME EASY TO PLAY" doesn't require landed only to finish flight! Most players have been good and not taken advantage of it.

But maybe this is what he was doing... does it count as a death if you finish flight mid-air?

Ah! Points and leaderboards... kinda like Super Mario Kart! My daughter plays that! Fun game!

one of the down sides of having a points system. I personally don't see the need for it, it just leads to situations just like this or worse. Who cares who scored the most points, isn't it all about survival in the mission? maybe you should get points for that?

SD

The problem is not having points. The issue here is specifically the server host allowing finish flight not requiring landing. Basically it's like having cheats available.