Community can make or break a game. One of the best examples is also arguably one of the most popular flight simulators every marketed to the general public: The Falcon 3.0/4.0 series. One of the earliest examples of community generated content . . . the community actually brought the series back from the dead, and a handful eventually put it back on the market. You can get the collection on gog.com for about $10.

Anyone who could pull of a WWI/WWII based MMO combat flight sim with anywhere near the level of complexity or realism of a Falcon 4.0 or say Flight of the Intruder (yes I'm THAT old) would own the serious flight geeks . . . and their piggy banks.

The problem being, there are far more "twitch junkies" out there on the Internet in the modern day and age that just don't have the tolerance for that type of game.

You will have to forgive me as I do not no which devices are superior and which are inferior. I play on a laptop. A pavilion 6 HP I do not notice that I have any advantage over other pilots using phones, tablets etc. Is there really that huge of a performance variance? I think there really is only a handful of pilots that are of high enough calibre to be able to notice or utilize the advantage. And even more rare that they end up fighting against each other in the so called turn fight.(Im sure it does happen,Just not on a regular base) That said, I am relatively new and I do not no crap about playing devices etc, I might be totally wrong on my hypothesis on this subject. Maybe some one good enlighten me on this subject. I am sure there are other old farts out there like me that have no idea about this stuff.

I'd settle for a higher graphics version of Red Baron 3D

darraxx wrote: And if and when zup splits the servers here .you know who will be the first to cry wolf .it will.be the pc droppers only for the fact is they won't be able to pad their stats anymore and wwill.be forced to fly with others like them .then maybe they will learn .it would really bite not to fly with so many great pilots I've made friend with .and this time.around I don't zup would even.give us a choice .

darraxx,

Did u forget to take ur yellow pills ? Ur anger seems to be the biggest issue here now that I taken the time to proofread. I thought we agreed for u to participate only in soft subject forum post ? & for u to stay away from the more in-depth stuff that makes u think more then whats required of you ? I can only imagine how u look while typing, probably lke sum Mad deranged lunatic by the comments u leave ? Well can't blame me for saying so, isn't it u that calls ur self, "mad rabbit" ? U are mad rabbit aren't you.. or are u just mad, & somebody else is the rabbit ? I get u mad pilots confused ? One says he's Mad, & the other says,"No, i'm not mad, I'm mad rabbit" ?

Are u the bitter person darrax ? Is there something i can pick up for u @ the grocery store ? Sumthing herbal for that splur of angry-ness ?

Why would u want ur enemy to be caring a bomb heading in ur direction in the 1st place ? I wouldn't want the enemy heading in my direction to have bombs or 450 rounds of lethal ammunition ? Just saying ? I never seen somebody want a plane headed in their direction to have bombs so badly.. why is that ? Could it be so they could actually pad their stats ? If not then what ? Why would u want an enemy air craft to be carrying vi@ bombs to blow up ur air field/ property/ possible civilians ? That's an odd ball for u ?

U should be happy to see a plane headed in ur direction with out a bomb or ammunition for that matter. Do u know how much damage a bomb could do to ur respected air field ? It could level all ur hangers, destroy ur troops, tanks, bases with secret intel, practically wipe out ur whole entire air field thus u would lose the war ? Is that what u want darrax ? Do u wanna lose the war ?

Do u call the enemies Commanders & Chiefs before a War & say," Make sure ur troops bring a load or bombs with them, are I'm going to be.. Maddddddddddd !!!???


Bahahlolol. Where do u see that @ ? Just saying ? I'm going to be Mad if ur planes doesn't have any bombs ? I want u to blow us up to smithereens !!?


darrax, as ur Commander & Chief, I order u to go & find ur pills. oh wait, I am not ur Commander & Chief ? Neither are u mines.. so why yell @ me ? I'm not ur subordinate ?






Heroics out !

Cypher7,

There has been a lot of debate about it. Zuperman says there is no difference in turning circumference or response time of controls between different devices. Some claim otherwise.

One of the theories is that using keys or joysticks provides for faster changing of direction. It certainly seems like it would be faster to press a different key than it is to tilt a tablet from one side to the other.

Another theory is that on keys and joystick you can turn with full certainty that your controls are at 100% of their limits. With tilt you can't really know exactly where the limits are: how far can you tilt back before it has no more effect?

My theory is that both have some effect but that the throttle control has more to do with it. On a tilt device the throttle is a slider on the screen that you move up or down with your thumb, on PC it is controlled by buttons going up and down faster and more accurately than the slider. Learning to use the throttle to help you turn faster is an advanced skill which would explain why the advantage only shows up for more advanced players.

I'm sure others have other possible suggestions and still more would go on to explain some challenges that PC users have that tilt doesn't, such as the resolution of control: ie with a key you have to constantly press up then down repeatedly to maintain a level course or to aim. Same for left or right.

I don't think anyone can say for sure where the greatest overall advantage lies so it has become one of those unresolved debates.

Here is the hardest part that I see being a tilt user on my tablet. It is the under/over tilt.

What's that? Well if a tilt user under or over tilts you do not get the max turning capability. Just being off by a little bit and you don't get the full potential. See in that alone there is a huge difference from a pc and tilt user unless the same goes for a pc which I do not know since I never played DF on a pc.

To get the optimal turn on tilt one has to hold the device in this sweet spot at all times. Frankly it's impossible to do at all times hence the pc has the advantage.

Plus in my case I like to have my caibration set up different. A bit higher for bombing missions and lower for bombless missions. So at all times I lose out one way or another.

Cypher7{WP} wrote: You will have to forgive me as I do not no which devices are superior and which are inferior. I play on a laptop. A pavilion 6 HP I do not notice that I have any advantage over other pilots using phones, tablets etc. Is there really that huge of a performance variance? I think there really is only a handful of pilots that are of high enough calibre to be able to notice or utilize the advantage. And even more rare that they end up fighting against each other in the so called turn fight.(Im sure it does happen,Just not on a regular base) That said, I am relatively new and I do not no crap about playing devices etc, I might be totally wrong on my hypothesis on this subject. Maybe some one good enlighten me on this subject. I am sure there are other old farts out there like me that have no idea about this stuff.

You know, from my own experience, I don't notice that I'm enjoying any noticeable advantage from my PC in a "Lufbery Wheel" (defensive circle) maneuver over anyone.

What I do notice, if anything, is a lack of disadvantage. What I mean is that I'm flying a tier 2 or tier 3 plane against tier 5-7 adversaries. The simplest of logic dictates that the higher tier plane, typically flown by a higher ranked pilot, should automatically have both an experience and an equipment advantage, and therefore win the death race 9 out of 10 times. I typically do much better than that (at least 50/50) in these scenarios. Some folks will say “see there, the unfair PC advantage.”

There are a lot of things, however, that can have just as much of an effect on the outcome:

• Are we both carrying bombs or both clean, am I carrying vs him clean or vice versa?
• Is one of us pulling a tighter circle, or one pulling a flat horizontal circle while the other is making slight yaw or pitch adjustments (zig zagging or ducking & hopping around the wheel)?
• Which one is more afraid of the ground or a midair collision?

In a match, I typically only hear complaints from the guys who are 6-14 ranks my senior, flying a tier 7 plane who are whining because I wasn’t an easy enough kill or, heaven forbid, I somehow beat them in the race around the wheel of death. If they're not crying about how my all powerful PC glitch has given my poor little tier 2 or 3 plane an unfair advantage, they're accusing me of dropping (when I have not).

W.D. Gaster wrote: Tech talk time.

Dogfight is more than a mobile flight simator app, it's an online multiplayer fps (first-person shooter.) As such, there are a lot of variables that go into device advantage. Hopefully, these explanations will help.

When someone logs in and plays Dogfight, they are not playing on their device. The actual game is literally occuring on a server: an abstract virtual field physically represented by a black box, which wirelessly connects all players and inserts them into the same room. This server has a physical location. This is important. You device is merely the controller. You see a visual representation of what is virtually occurring on the server and react accordingly. The virtual "plane" reacts in accordance to your physical actions.

The place each player takes up on this server is a "hitbox:" the virtual space each plane takes up. The visual representation of the hitbox should be in the form of an airplane on your screen. Then you fire bullets at it. Then, if your virtual bullets collide with the enemy's hitbox, the enemy is forced back to wherever the coded rules of the server dictate.

Now, here is where the issues lie.

Different devices connect to the same servers in slightly different ways. True, all connect through the internet, but everybody has a massive variance in connectivity. The only way to create a truly even playing field is through LAN: having a certain number of identical devices directly connected to the same modem.

Take, for instance, my favorite game, Counterstrike. Olofmeister is regarded as the best player in the world, and is the 1-vs-1 champion. However, because he is Swedish, he lost a 1v1 battle against M0E. Everybody knows M0e is an inferior player. He isn't even technically a professional. But M0e hosted the server, and even though they both play on high-powered PCs, M0e had a distinct advantage.

When I started play CS, I used a laptop. I was at a disadvantage to those who used Alienware PCs. More on that to come.

So, there are many variables in a server. The ones that are applicable in the case of Dogfight are connectivity,processing, and location. A North American player in the Brazilian server has a distinct disadvantage. A player connected to a cable modem has a distinct advantage to a player using Wi-Fi. And a player using a PC has an advantage over a mobile user.

Now, PC players aren't necessarily faster than mobile players. In a wing race, no PC will win outright. Controls don't matter either. They can help, but that's surprising irrelevant.

The reason is this. Each device is equipped with a processor. The processor dictates the capability of each device to handle the information being streamed to it. Reaction time is closely tied in. Even if I move quicker than OddJob, he'll still be quicker. He's got a superior processor.

When a higher-powered processor goes up against a lower-powered processor, the discrepancy results in the server experiencing a little something called "lag." The mobile player sees the plane on his screen, and fires directly at it. The pc player isn't there. He tries to spin. But the PC player is moving more quickly. It's handling and responding to the information more efficiently.

Don't believe this? Look at Dogfight elite. It's only workable on high-end devices. Because low end devices can't process both graphics and server speed. Even in this game, mobile devices are capable of processing, but at nowhere near a similar level than the PC. All gaming experts agree that a PC is the ultimate gaming machine. Even consoles such as Xbox or PS4, which are made primarily for gaming, can't hold a candle to a good computer. Imagine the discrepancy we're dealing with here.

I hope this helps.

Great post Gas!

With the caveat that while the average difference in processor speeds will lessen the effects of coded differences in plane/upgrade tiers, it will not completely negate them; I completely agree with you, Gaster.

Now it would be interesting to gauge 1.) how much of an advantage each upgrade provides, and 2.) how much the disparity in processor speeds nullifies/enhances those advantages.

In all seriousness, if the disparity in processor speed has that big of an impact, how is it anyone other than a PC pilot can ever touch a PC pilot?