Air-to-Air Missles, Better at High Altitudes?

[Ghost-MOH-]

So I was flying a jet on Wake Island and thought I'd dogfight with another jet. The other pilot went high to about 700ft and kept going higher (hoping to get me to lose control). I fired off a two missles before diving low and to my amazement the missles hit him as I saw the "You killed [so and so]" message.

Intriged, I decided to test this again. I got into another dogfight, the pilot went high again, and I fired two off. Guess what. They hit! I'm not sure why but it seems that the air-to-air missles hit their targets most of the time when they are fired above 600-700ft at a target 600 to 700ft in the air .

[IVfluids]

Re: Air-to-Air Missles, Better at High Altitudes?

Yes, you do have a better chance of getting a missile to hit at a higher altitude. It's something I've kind of hinted at a long time ago in a discussion about the turning radius of jets in this game. Actually, in this post from October: http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showp...1&postcount=25

Actually, I think I explained it a bit better back then, so I am going to quote myself from that thread.

....

The wing physics thing is a bit off, it's the placement of the afterburner engine on the jets.. The lower altitude you are, the better you turn but the slower you go. The higher altitude you are, the worse you turn but the faster you go. Hitting the afterburner will cause the jet to turn better at any given altitude than you could without the afterburner at that same given altitude. Fly a stable level height and let go of the joystick/mouse without the afterburner, with the exception of the JSF, all the jets will fly level. Now do the same thing, then apply the afterburner, you will see that the jet starts to lift up. This lift that the afterburner generates is what causes the jet to turn better.

About the JSF still generating lift with afterburner off, my guess, it has to do with the VTOL capabilities that most pilots whom have been flying for a bit don't bother with.

So, when someone is firing a missile at you, it isn't good to fly too high to get away from them. You don't want to fly too low either, otherwise you will pick up a lot more missiles on your tail.

The missiles probably are not affected by this very much because their mass is set a lot lower than the mass of the jets in the code. I am making an assumption on this part, but I am willing to bet that if you cranked the mass up on them, they would behave differently. Most of this I know from previous BF series games in mods where they changed the mass of a vehicle (hummer in DC for example) and it changes the how hard the vehicle bites during a turn, it also works that way in the air. This game engine is pretty much the same, just prettier and some extra trimmings, but otherwise I believe it still reacts the same way.

Here is another funny thing to note about the missiles, sit on the runway, don't move and just fire off one missile and watch what it does. If you've every flown against the ai in this game, you'll probably have noticed that when they fly jets, it isn't anything fancy and they don't do any fancy twists/loops/etc, I would put a six pack of miesterbrau (eww) down says the missiles are the same way. Now remember that and look at what that missile did and put that together for good use for when someone fires a missile at you.

Your probably the only person I have ever seen that figured this out on their own, your probably going to get really good at flying if you keep noticing things like that

[MaNiAc_619]

Re: Air-to-Air Missles, Better at High Altitudes?

yeah ive found that too... the air to air missles are pretty dodgy otherwise..

[XxSubZeroxX]

Re: Air-to-Air Missles, Better at High Altitudes?

i also have found this out... probably becasue the other plane cant turn as sharp, the higher it goes!