Just curious about folks' thoughts on this issue. Twice now people have complained because I shot down twin-engined a/c that already had one engine smoking or flaming. Here are the two scenarios:

1. A damaged P38 had managed to clear the furball and was making its way home, so I did the best I could to bring it down with my Macchi (and ended up in a collision when it pulled up at the same time I did). The P38's starboard engine had just stopped flaming but was still smoking. The pilot was all p.o.'d. He said it was poor behavior on my part to shoot at an a/c with a smoking engine.

2. A Ju88's starboard engine had been torched by an A20. I initially started diving on the A20, not realizing that it was friendly because of the distance between us; as soon as I saw what was what, I adjusted and flew onward to the Ju88. Unfortunately, this gave the Junkers time to dump its bombs on my carrier, which promptly sank. It then executed a turn to starboard and began beating its retreat homeward. I caught it in a deflection shot as it turned and it went down. The A20 pilot accused me of kill stealing. On open chat, he wrote: "Everyone knows 88s explode once an engine has caught fire." From my own experience with 88s, I haven't always found this to be the case - I shut down the rad, turn off the engine, and hope for the best. Sometimes I get home, sometimes I don't.

My argument is this: the point of most missions is to destroy the ground targets and shoot down as many enemy a/c as possible. If a twin-engined a/c is still flying, you should drop it. Period. I have no problem with other pilots downing twin-engined birds that I've shot up and have never cried foul when this has happened. But maybe this mentality is wrong? I thought I'd post here to see what others think. If it's poor form, I'll stop doing it.

your question can be answered in many ways

a) you are right, get those suckers, they are fair game, they should be left alone only when BOTH engines sustained damage

b) your are right, but considering how few people actually fly twins due to their lower manouverability , and how much they needed for immersion, let them go with one engine damaged by someone else, so they will keep flying them next time around (BUT: make sure to kill both engines when you go at them)


I actually like the third option: since on the servers I fly the scores are team-based (all shared), it does not matter the slighest, who makes the kill, as long as it is made. I just had this situation 3 hours ago, smoked a Bf-110 engine, thick black smoke from right engine, and disengaged, because I flew a yak-1b, so I had to preserve ammo for later engagements. Another pilot with an A-20 went after the slowing 110, and started to shoot it up. I didn't bother at all, because I rather watched the area for incoming 109s and let the A-20 do the dirty job, than the opposite

It's amazing how much this kill-stealing bull**** is reduced with team point sharing...

"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"

Kill stealind and sholder shooting

Just today I was in a hurry by two zekes. Both shooting like crazy, hitting me now and then until suddenly I spotted a fireball behind me, shulder shooter tore off the wing of his teamate
Still got nailed before homebase though

(great team, 10 planes passed me and not one helped, since they were all chasing a lone smoking bogie.)

quote:

disengaged, because I flew a yak-1b, so I had to preserve ammo for later engagements. Another pilot with an A-20 went after the slowing 110, and started to shoot it up.

Well done both of you, using the A20 as some kind of external ammo container for the Yak

P-38 is fire friendly aircraft... it's a known bug/feature. You can drive that thing for a long time on fire and it sometimes flames out.
Ju-88 on the other hand will usually explode (fuel tank) soon after fire starts. And it also drains fuel like mad when thick black smoke appears.

Thats why i do my best to shot down the enemy ac in the first pass, i aim on the wing, exatly on the airlerons, if you dont rip his wing off he will fall it anyway, take out the airlerons and you have 95% of sure that the enemy will go down, both online and offline.

I am often courtious to the guy who has put in all the effort to get the plane damaged and let him finish it.

If this guy has done all the work and it just needs finishing off, then I will always leave it to him. After all I didnt earn that kill, the person who outflew that enemy and damaged him badly did.


To finish off this enemy when hes no danger to anyone else would just be points whoring IMO.

You would do better to cover the shooter from above from other enemies rather than both focus on this one damamged enemy.

quote:

Originally posted by berg417448:
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"

I'm an immersion buff, and sincerely, I don't think that in RL, there were things like "kill stealing". Everything was valid while the enemy was destroyed and you didn't put your buddies at risk.

These 'score' online things reveal just what this really is and why I don't like online gaming.

They have to change the way they assign the points for shooting down planes, or get rid of it completely -at least in coops. Or we'll have this issue forever: people insanely trying to earn or preserve their points instead of their -virtual- lives.

You can actually share a kill.. just as they do in RL..

Man I witnessed it, today.
On spitvs109.

I really dont mind someone kill stealing from me, but i tend to frown when someone is shoulder shooting behind me and hiting me in the proces . But i usualy let flaming/smoking aircraft go, because i have far too much knowledge of how frustrating it is to have 3 rookies behind you wasting their ammo, while you cant show them cause your engine is barely even alive and you are just trying to get home to your virtual fammily...

On these forums we discuss a lot about improving the game by using mods, changing video settings, conf.ini, upgrading videocard etc. all for immersion to give us a kind of suggestion of a real aircombat. But as soon people go online some simmers behave like little kids who play marbles.

In RL war is about surviving, killing or to be killed and they didn't whine about shoulder shooting, kill-stealing, shooting down parachutes, vulching etc. (well, maybe some Aces did.)

But on the other hand it is just a game and online they all have their own rules so I obey them.

Like today I witnessed both situations:
I shot one engine of a Bf-110 supposing it would hit the ground after seeing its burning engine but a few minutes later I still saw him flying and gave it it's final bullets. To me nothing wrong with that.

It happened to me as well. I left the furball with a black smoketrail and try to land on a strip and out of the blue comes an enemy who showed me the black screen finally


In another case today I saw a steep diving and spinning Yak so I followed him and hit him from a long distance. At a closer look I noticed it was already missing one wing so somebody else must have deprived him of his left wing. A few seconds later I saw this message that I was kill-stealing.

Just like whining about getting shot while taking off. If vulching is allowed so no problem I guess. Just press Escape and Refly or start from another airfield.

"You would do better to cover the shooter from above from other enemies rather than both focus on this one damamged enemy."

I should've specified: in both instances the enemy a/c had outdistanced any pursuers. In the case of the Ju, he was far enough ahead of the A20 to set up his bombing run without any problems. The only reason I caught him in my F4F was because of E built up in a fairly steep descent.

I don't usually engage enemy a/c if they're being pursued. I stand off and check for other enemy a/c. I'm not a stat/kill hog, either: anyone can check my stats on Spits vs 109s to see that - I go by BubbaFactor there. And I don't fly exclusively for one side or the other: whichever team needs more pilots to even things out is where you'll find me.

I do my best to be courteous, even when other pilots jump in front of me to take shots at whatever I'm shooting at. Because I like flying Italian a/c, this happens a lot: I guess 109 and 190 jockeys get tired of watching me "play with the food" (it takes forever for those Bredas to bring anything down, unless you kill the pilot or hit a critical part of the engine).

I can't defend myself on Teamspeak because my wife gets REALLY p.o.'d. when I use it (we live in a small one-bedroom, so she can hear everything I'm doing). Reading/starting posts is the only way I can learn about the community's preferences, so I appreciate everyone's responses to this query.

There's historic comments on fighter pilots at least in the USAAF being inveterate whiners.

I flew with Bula way back when. He was neither a shoulder shooter or even one who'd ever been accused of being a kill stealer. At least not in the little group we used to fly in. Ahh those were the days.

If they are a threat, kill them. Thats the basic rule. Don't endanger your own team by flying right next to them, though.

quote:

Originally posted by rnzoli:

It's amazing how much this kill-stealing bull**** is reduced with team point sharing...

+1
Hopefully SoW will do something about this.
Get credited with 1/2 a kill as in RL?

quote:

Originally posted by DuxCorvan:
I'm an immersion buff, and sincerely, I don't think that in RL, there were things like "kill stealing". Everything was valid while the enemy was destroyed and you didn't put your buddies at risk.

These 'score' online things reveal just what this really is and why I don't like online gaming.

They have to change the way they assign the points for shooting down planes, or get rid of it completely -at least in coops. Or we'll have this issue forever: people insanely trying to earn or preserve their points instead of their -virtual- lives.

Online furballs will be airquake even if you get rid of the points. If the people who fly those servers are trying to recreate anything at all its a Hollywood movie.

IRL there were shared kills but in the situation described above the original pilot would not have bothered even claiming. Same with the points that you get randomly 5 minutes after a combat because some noob crashes a damaged plane on landing - again in real life that was in no way a confirmed kill.

It is unfortunate there is no way of having the points work on an actual confirmed basis. For example you only get points if the plane is observed to crash by a friendly aircraft or ground troops.

Not that I fly online any more so it doesn't really effect me one