Monday 7 March 2016

Kick the instructor out! / How to capture airfields


Newbies have difficulties capturing airfields in Domination air matches. The reason is that they either approach at very low speed and get shot down or they attempt to touch down at high speed as do the experienced pilots - and crash.

The reason for the latter is that they have the "instructor" active, a ghostly AI instructor pilot sits in your back and when you approach the ground at high speed he pulls up, so you push down even harder and he pushes down even harder. At some point you either give up or crash.

Kick this instructor out - it has no usefulness whatsoever. You won't miss him.

Go to menu, then controls, then instructor and simply switch all those useless options to "off".



Other tips about capturing airfields:

Floatplanes and flying boats can capture by skidding over the runway at slow speed. They get a flying start after repairs.

Dive bombers can capture airfields by surprise. They pretend to be irrelevant at 2+ km altitude, then dive, brake with dive brakes, landing gear and flaps and touch down for the capture or at least neutralisation.
Forget the B7A2 for this, though; its undercarriage springs make it too bouncy.

You cannot capture an airfield if hostile ground forces (or non-repairing red aircraft) are on it. Kill tanks (or AAA, armored cars) in time!

Su-2 and BB-1 are close to useless for capturing airfields, which may be relevant on Krymsk at low battle ratings because these are really good attackers. You need to slow down to 140 kph to land these planes without propeller damage. A landing attempt means the loss of the plane, even if successful.

Some airfields are bouncy or have obstacles. There's a walled machinegun position on Korsun airfield, some flag poles and other obstacles are on other airfields. Keep your eyes open!

If the match is close and a red player is about to capture an airfield don't chase to kill him. Instead, lower your landing gear and manoeuvre to land yourself to recapture the airfield right after he takes off again (or dies).

You can capture an airfield not only along the runway, but often also obliquely - particularly with slow planes such as biplanes.

Turnfighters (I-153, A6M, Ki-43 etc.) are fine for guarding and recapturing an airfield. They can stay low and close to the airfield.

American fighters (P-51/Mustang, P-47) lower their landing gears very slowly. Keep this in mind if you fly in them.

What matters is that you roll with a single wheel or slide on the ground. More wheels are optional. A P-38 with destroyed main landing gear can capture with its front wheel, for example.

You are immune to collisions while rolling on an airfield, but not once you're airborne again. Watch it! You may collide immediately if you pull up at the wrong moment. This is particularly important at the beginning of a match when often 3-5 players try to capture a single airfield.

A capture of an airfield is worth 300 points. That's more than an aircraft kill. This is very recommended for fast stock planes.

Repairing aircraft do not defend an airfield (AFAIK), but they may deceive red players to believe so (or entice them to kill instead of touching down).

On the Britain domination match it's recommendable to capture moving into the direction of the blue spawn point, and at the blue side end of the very, very long runway. You may also decide a very close match in your favour there if you roll around at 'your' end of the runway. The reds cannot capture the runway while you roll there and survive.

About Peleliu:

Two things: Best winning tactic for a squad of four is to rush the 'hostile' airfield at the beginning. This badly disrupts their start of the match and usually wins the entire match if you succeed to capture it. Use chat commands to call for others to do the same!
Second, the Southern (crosswise) airfield is much more difficult to defend because it can be captured from many more directions.

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