Become a gunner....

[Knarley-Bob]

O.K. Sounds like a hoot. Would any one be kind enough to tell how one does that? And then perhaps explain which controls to use?

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

You want to be a Gunner? We'd love to have you fly with us as a gunner, good way for you to break into multi player. So you select become a gunner when you log into the server, select the plane that has an open seat. BUT it's always good to ask first. I usually leave mine open so anyone can jump in. Once you get in hit left shift and t to take control of the gun and r to reload, make sure your head tracking is turned off. if you want to join us on TS sometime your welcome. no20squadron.teamspeak3.com and we can go hunt those nasty German death traps. It's good to be on coms so we can scream at you to shoot lol, ai gunners never listen and shoot once ever 2 minutes and very seldom aim at what their shooting at. And if you forget to set the gunner for close range they love giving away your position. 

[TCW_Brzi_Joe]

5 hours ago, NO.20_W_M_Thomson said:

And if you forget to set the gunner for close range they love giving away your position. 

 

Hm, I never do that. Is it better this way?

I have binded together retracting gears + "gunners fire at will" + "gunners shoot ground targets" (that is not bad when searching enemy tanks on move, and sometimes they hit some trucks, or ammo boxes).

 

@Knarley-Bob you can jump a few times to see how it is in gunner place, but usually is much better (for your side) to take bomber yourself, and make company to other bombers. Your AI gunners can and will shoot down enemies sometimes. Maybe in late war years (1944/45) il-2 bombers are not so efficient any more, but in early years they are pretty dangerous.

 

Needed controls:
Turret: nestle to the gun sight:     L Shift + T
Turret: Take/leave control:         T
Switch to next firing point In the cur. turret:     L Shift + C 

 

move gun with right mouse button pressed + mouse move
Fire turret guns:             (LeftMousButton) or Spacebar
Reload turret guns:             ( Mid.MouseButton)    or R
 

[BMA_Hellbender]

1 hour ago, Brzi_Joe said:

Hm, I never do that. Is it better this way?

I have binded together retracting gears + "gunners fire at will" + "gunners shoot ground targets" (that is not bad when searching enemy tanks on move, and sometimes they hit some trucks, or ammo boxes).

 

@Knarley-Bob you can jump a few times to see how it is in gunner place, but usually is much better (for your side) to take bomber yourself, and make company to other bombers. Your AI gunners can and will shoot down enemies sometimes. Maybe in late war years (1944/45) il-2 bombers are not so efficient any more, but in early years they are pretty dangerous.

 

This.

 

It really hurts to admit, because the pilot+gunner combo was very satisfying and fun in Rise of Flight, and Captain Darling and I kind of made it "our thing", but it's much better to have an AI gunner in FC. You do need to program them to hold fire until close distance or else they won't hit anything, but otherwise they are great at spotting enemy aircraft and small or moving ground targets.

 

Additionally, human gunners in FC have broken animations, firing angle constraints compared to AI (in spite of several attempts by the devs at fixing this) and get no scoring in the parser. As in: gunner kills go entirely to the pilot, gunners get no points at all and a human gunner may as well be an AI.

 

If you fly another two-seater and add an AI gunner to the formation, you already more than double your usefulness to the group.

[No.23_Gaylion]

Yeah but just don't fly and gun or you'll be despised.

 

 

 

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:34 PM, Brzi_Joe said:

Hm, I never do that. Is it better this way?

When your doing recon or a secret bombing mission it's best to turn off the gunner or at least shoot at close range. The less the enemy knows were you are the better, unless your flying central then best to let the gunner shoot at will.? 

[Knarley-Bob]

There sure is a difference in the AI when one is being defended and defended from as far as it shoots.

If I'm FLYING a two seater, god help us.

If I'm flying AGAINST, that sucker sure is a marksman.

Luckily I have too much "PING" to worry about such things? …..Otherwise, I'd paint the sky RED?

KB

[SeaW0lf]

On 3/3/2020 at 8:55 AM, US213_Talbot said:

Yeah but just don't fly and gun or you'll be despised.

 

She's describing how hard it was to pilot from the back seat, using one arm laid on the side to give the legs some lever to control the ruder [to turn around a bus] and the other hand controlling the stick. So she got all her limbs occupied to control the aircraft. What does that has to do with people in ROF that fire  [the twin guns on single gun aircraft] and fly at the same time ??? and switching positions with the pilot on the fly. Then yes, I don't think we can be cool with that ? Either you use both hands and your feet to get some balance to handle the machinegun or you sit down on your seat to pilot the plane.

Edited March 5, 2020 by SeaW0lf

[HagarTheHorrible]

For a flight sim, with a USP, that it’s WW1 with VR, it’s not great that trying to play as a gunner isn’t great at best, and is decidedly problematic at worst.

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

13 hours ago, SeaW0lf said:

 

She's describing how hard it was to pilot from the back seat, using one arm laid on the side to give the legs some lever to control the ruder [to turn around a bus] and the other hand controlling the stick. So she got all her limbs occupied to control the aircraft. What does that has to do with people in ROF that fire  [the twin guns on single gun aircraft] and fly at the same time ??? and switching positions with the pilot on the fly. Then yes, I don't think we can be cool with that ? Either you use both hands and your feet to get some balance to handle the machinegun or you sit down on your seat to pilot the plane.

First, this is a game, nothing in FC is close to being real, I for one don't fly and be come a gunner at the same time. Second she flew in the dh4 one time, Had very little training so with experience she would be able to handle doing both in time plus I'm sure she didn't have the full strength a man would have, Not trying to be sexist here just stating facts. 3rd, did you see how fast she was able to move the guns, she had a bead on that alb the whole time, he would have gone down in seconds unlike the way we have it in FC, slow and only fires when the ai feels like it, which is not enough in my eye's.   

[SeaW0lf]

18 minutes ago, NO.20_W_M_Thomson said:

First, this is a game, nothing in FC is close to being real, I for one don't fly and be come a gunner at the same time. Second she flew in the dh4 one time, Had very little training so with experience she would be able to handle doing both in time plus I'm sure she didn't have the full strength a man would have, Not trying to be sexist here just stating facts. 3rd, did you see how fast she was able to move the guns, she had a bead on that alb the whole time, he would have gone down in seconds unlike the way we have it in FC, slow and only fires when the ai feels like it, which is not enough in my eye's.   

 

Are you saying that a gunner can be sat down with both feet on the rudder and controlling the stick and fire the gun (s) at the same time? That’s new to me. Perhaps the duo Dr. Evil and Mini-Me could pull the trick, but a normal human can't.

 

In general people avoid to compare Il-2 with War Thunder, so I think it is wise to keep it that way – the game is supposed to be a simulator. We have icons and furball servers, but this is not Asteroids or Space Invaders. You might think this is fun, but these out of the left field features just creates attrition amongst the community. Weapon mods were tolerated in ROF because it brought revenue to the studio, but here, with modules, I think there is no need to have these things. There is nothing to be gained from it, just the opposite.

Edited March 5, 2020 by SeaW0lf

[ZachariasX]

2 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

the game is supposed to be a simulator

...and what it does it simulates both inputs, flyight controls and gun operation.

 

What if I had someone sitting beside me controlling the joystick while I do the mouse thing on thesame computer? Is that cheating too? When does the cheating start? If we sit on two different computers doin the same am I good? Could it still be cheating if those computers were in the same room but not next to each other? Is it cheating if we can talk to each other instead of pointing and waving? Having radio is not cheating I'm told. Because it's a simulator?

[SeaW0lf]

1 minute ago, ZachariasX said:

...and what it does it simulates both inputs, flyight controls and gun operation.

 

What if I had someone sitting beside me controlling the joystick while I do the mouse thing on thesame computer? Is that cheating too? When does the cheating start? If we sit on two different computers doin the same am I good? Could it still be cheating if those computers were in the same room but not next to each other? Is it cheating if we can talk to each other instead of pointing and waving? Having radio is not cheating I'm told. Because it's a simulator?

 

Hey, you draw your line. As I recall, just who flew and gunned and the same time in ROF had this attitude of "I'm doing nothing wrong". I recall some old veterans just infuriated back then in 2015, calling all kinds of names on these people. Fine, the game was already on the down slope and it resembled no man's land, but it was never productive or resembling some kind of trade off. We can either turn a blind eye or evolve, because this is what we are supposed to do. I don't expect to see people flying and gunning in 20 years if some other studio comes by. The same way that we did not want ambient flak, that was from Red Baron. Things evolve. 

 

Or else I think, and this is my opinion, what has become a niche will die. And we are already in bad shape.

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

6 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

In general people avoid to compare Il-2 with War Thunder,

I don't know why you bring warthunder into this but ok, They both have the same characteristics, you fly, you shoot, you die. Ok warthunder has arcade but it also has full real mode to it, were it has some parts of it more real than il2, you die you don't get to jump into another plane and start over, you have to wait to join another server.

 

Now the gunner thing, If we had real gunners it would be great, would be a bit closer to the real thing but we don't, so the next best thing is to have the pilot jump into the back seat, If your any good at it. I have no female ability's in me at all, meaning I'm not great at multi tasking. lol I just don't see the problem with guys jumping in the back seat, If they can do it great. I wish more guys would jump in the back seat, would be more realistic to have someone shoot when they need to. The ai gunners are bull shit, slow, miss 90% of the time or just sit there and do nothing while you have the target all lined up for them, Though I did have a human gunner sit there and watch a phals sit on our 6 and twiddled his thumbs, thank god we were on coms. He flamed that bird in seconds. Now that is more closer to being realistic.

[SeaW0lf]

In my opinion, you can jump in the back seat and leave the plane at level flight. If you don't have a gunner, let the AI do its thing. I was a regular recon and bomber player and got many kills with AI gunning in my Gotha. I only used weapon-mods in furball servers when things escalated to chaos. I'm not sure how is the hack here, but in ROF you could fire the front gun, and when the foe crossed paths you just swapped to the back seat to fire with the twin guns. And vice versa, resembling a Millennium Falcon of sorts. After a while people became a zapping machine (there were some weird single bursts kills as well). Hence why I saw some old and respectful veterans report these behaviors as beyond acceptable. Back in 2015 the forum was in flames about it.

 

The problem is, who gets tired of these nonsense and leaves are the enthusiast ones, people that in general would stick with the game for years and years. Me for example, if multiplayer keeps reasonable, I can play this game for decades, swapping for new versions every 10 years. Now if you start to piss off enthusiasts to favor a few trolls that like to get into a server to disrupt the game, you are trading loyal customers to seasonable customers that will leave in a year or so to troll somewhere else. 

 

That's my view. Niche markets have to thrive through some sort of quality. I always make a comparison to a snowboard / kitesurfing brand. You need to have some sort of quality control, reserve some serious space to enthusiasts, or else you will end up making sleds for kids to play in the snow. Nothing against sleds, but if you want to make snowboards, commit to it.

Edited March 5, 2020 by SeaW0lf

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

What? you think I'm not an enthusiast? I just don't get your idea how you think it's any different that a guys jumps in his back seat or having a human jumps in the back seat, only difference is it's harder to control the plane while in the back seat, every thing is reversed, the pilots 3 o'clock is the gunners 9 when facing the 6 position. at least the guy flying the 2 seaters has a chance of fighting back compared to the ai doing the work. If you get killed by the ai gunner then that's your fault, only because their easy to beat. But maybe that's what you want, the easy kill to pat your kill streak. Just a guess.

 

Plus how can you compare a Gotha or HP to a 2 seater, Bombers have gunners every were. Out of the 3 or 4 gunners one is going to get you. 

[BMA_Hellbender]

1 hour ago, SeaW0lf said:

Niche markets have to thrive through some sort of quality. I always make a comparison to a snowboard / kitesurfing brand. You need to have some sort of quality control, reserve some serious space to enthusiasts, or else you will end up making sleds for kids to play in the snow. Nothing against sleds, but if you want to make snowboards, commit to it.

 

Sleds are awesome! And snowboarders are elitists gatekeepers. Besides we all know that the slide model of snowboards is badly in need of a nerf. But if you mention anything about that you're an "SM whiner". In other words: your opinion is different from mine so I will question your slope cred. Meanwhile if everyone bought a sled then the snowboard manufacturer wouldn't be considering to drop snowboards altogether and just sell skis and skateboards like everyone else. Meanwhile skiers and skateboarders look at the arguments we're having, shrug and slide on out of here.

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, SeaW0lf said:

Hey, you draw your line.

Yes, but how should I do that?

 

See, often enough I can‘t fly without severe RTI by my boys. So if I let them use the mouse for guns while I hold the joystick while being at the same rig, are we griefers?  Cheats? Bad people? Or just lesser?

[SeaW0lf]

What can I say? In my view the values are inverted. That's me.