Stuart wrote: ...
When flying straight at another plane, firing, the red plane jumped off to the side. Then as my cousin redirected his fire at the same plane, it jumped to the other side. The plane, then disappeared and reappeared off to the other side. When he started to shot at him again, it disappeared completely.
As for the speed, they all experienced the red planes flying by us and by us at a tremendous rate of speed. It was as if we were standing still.
I have dropped my bombs and chased enemy planes and never have been able to get behind them. I think I am flying the fastest planes available to us. But I have never caught one red plane, or been behind one capable enough to shot it down.
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First, I have no real knowledge of how the game is programmed, so the following while probable is still speculation:
Plane positions on the screen are affected both by the up and down links to the central server which I assume is where the decision logic is based on calculating hits etc. and fanning out the position/status info to all clients attached. Apparent lag, jumping positions, etc can be caused by the up-link of the plane reporting its position, processing delays on the server, and then the down link to your client on your device. Any delays and/or lost packets of information will result in errors in positioning data and jumping on the screen.
Most internet based connection communications have asymmetric paths in terms of bandwidth and up / down speed -
I had to go to a much better communication path for the game to work at home and also a new router - I dropped my cable connection that was only 500k uplink to one that is fairly symmetrical 10mb+ both ways. While my new connection allowed me to play the game, there are still a multitude of reporting errors and dropped packets that may make a plane jump position, appear & disappear, etc. Considering it is a world wide game I find it amazing how well it functions!
As a side note, even though you have subscribed to a high speed link, the actual BW may vary greatly depending on both the time of day (loading on the server path) - and the capacity of the game servers. You are also at the mercy of connection quality of others in the game.
The only anomaly that puzzles me are the planes still flying around after being shoot down - I have chased many to the wilderness to have them finally disappear.
As to apparent speed of aircraft, the game only scales the planes into sight when close, you cannot see rate of closure until you are almost on top of them, as the main item you see is the name which is constant in size and the plane only a spec. I have done a lot of close flying in gliders, and the rate of closure can go from zero to twice your speed almost instantly when someone turns into you, not unlike what I see in the game.