*NwA*Orford wrote:AA hip fire bug
it's hardly a bug, and it's not more effective than sight firing if you know what youre doing. Basically, the AA weapon locks regardless of whether or not youre looking down the sights, however the lock times are the same, and in both cases the missiles will NOT track at all if you do not have an actual lock. Meaning the pilot has the same chance to flare, and receives a warning for both cases.
The reasons people somehow seem to think this phenomena is exploitative are as follows. Firstly, people think theyre firing without a lock, and thus think the enemy has no chance to flare, they think hip fire doesnt lock in the same way sighted does. This happens when someone looks at an enemy aircraft with their AA weapon for long enough to lock, and fires from the hip, and then gets a kill, without understanding what's actually happening. They think they're not locking at all, and this is an exploit, but the fact is the enemy heard the warning before the missile impacted, just like if you were aiming with the sights. Secondly, people tend to aim RIGHT AT the target with the sights, when the cone of sensing by your weapon is very large. This causes people to rarely lead shots with AA weapons, which is ineffective. HOwever, when aiming from the hip, people tend to look more in front of their target's trajectory, and thus have a greater success rate of hitting the target, so they think its somehow more accurate, or cheap.
The only advantages hip firing an AA weapon are, is that you can spin around faster, and have nothing blocking your vision. However, you dont get a tone at all, and the missile will NEVER track before youre actually locked, meaning that sometimes you may take too long to lock onto the enemy, letting him flare easily, or sometimes you may fire too early and simply dumb fire the missile.
The only exploit that hip firing truly could have, is that if the lock from a man portable actually comes before the change in tone you hear when sighted, meaning that hip firing allows you to not be confused by erroneous tones, and perhaps be able to fire sooner when you get a real "feel" for the weapon. Even then it's not really an exploit, because you could do the same with the sights.
Remember kids, use your sights, lead your target, and fire at the exact moment you hear the tone for the best results, hip firing is a placebo.
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