Altitude Counter Circle?

[BeyondxAbilities]

So topic of this thread is what planes serve as effective counters against other planes. Feel free to discuss strategies to use when attacking a certain unit and all that jazz.
Problems with evaluating what's an effective counter are that you have to consider the fighting environment (corridor, open, etc.), the setup of your ship, and the set up of your opponent's ship. I'm spoonfeeding here, but I'm curious to see what people think.

[Triped]

Enemy planes counter my plane.

[protest boy]

Any time the opposing team has more than one miranda I usually whip out fatty explodet which I find to be the best counter. The mines eliminate the threat from miranda directional changes, it has enough HP to withstand a full laser blast and the missiles do a good job of stopping the miranda's momentum.

I don't think any other plane/plane combination results in as direct a counter as explodet vs. miranda.

[Triped]

Originally Posted by protest boy

Any time the opposing team has more than one miranda I usually whip out fatty explodet which I find to be the best counter. The mines eliminate the threat from miranda directional changes, it has enough HP to withstand a full laser blast and the missiles do a good job of stopping the miranda's momentum.

I don't think any other plane/plane combination results in as direct a counter as explodet vs. miranda.

Do you use the armored version?

[protest boy]

Originally Posted by Triped

Do you use the armored version?

Actually, lately I've been using flexible wings on Explodet and loving it (keep it quiet, my little secret). If I'm fighting several miranda at once though, then yes I would most likely go with heavy armor in favor of maneuverability.

[skywalker]

explodet is bomber's counter because it's the only plane bomber can't kill with a full load of grenades, therefore, bomber is disadvantaged against it.

biplane is loopy's counter because with biplane you can decimate a loopy in 1 pass pretty much every time if your aim/flying is good.

miranda is biplane's counter because in order for biplane to damage someone it has to get close to it, and miranda has good tricks for playing keep away.

if you disagree, w/e.

[DiogenesDog]

miranda kicks the **** out of loopy.

I think that's the only really nasty one. everything else is situational imo. and explodet is the most situation-dependent of all the planes.

[protest boy]

Agreed, it depends on the specifics of the situation. I might agree miranda has a clear advantage over loopy in most situations. That's what I think of when I try to decide whether one plane is a 'counter' to another plane. That is, is one plane favored significantly over the other in MOST situations?

For example, while it's true biplane can waste a loopy in no time in a point-blank situation, loopy has other advantages which should allow it to avoid that a lot of the time.

The same is true of all of the matchups, with the exception (in my opinion) of explodet vs miranda. If I could somehow play myself and was equally skilled with all of the planes, I theorize I could get 8 kills to 1 death as an explodet vs miranda matchup. The other combinations would be far more balanced, close to 50/50. I guess playing as miranda vs loopy might result in something like a 3 kills to 1 death ratio.

It would be neat if lamster kept data as to which plane kills which plane in all of the games played on the servers. With enough data, a grid that displayed kill/death ratios for each possible matchup would probably be a pretty accurate detailing of which planes have advantages over others.

[nesnl]

The only problem with the keeping track of all that data is that new players play loopy and so it would look like it had horrible K/D versus everything. Probably the bomber would be next because that is the next plane that is unlocked (if I am wrong on that then whatever plane is unlocked 2nd)

[ViruX]

Then only gather data from players over a certain level

[nesnl]

Originally Posted by ViruX

Then only gather data from players over a certain level

Still wouldn't work because higher level players still kill lower level players and therefore would skew the average away from loopy. Maybe if oyu just collected data from level 60s killing other level 60s but then that just seems overly complicated and unneeded.

[BeyondxAbilities]

Well again the problem with that is that a good majority of plane kills are highly situational. You have to consider what perks are being run, who's at what health and charge, where they are on the map, what direction both players are facing, and the skill of both players (should one stray into a wall for a posthumus kill point). Factors like these are what prevents there from being a clear-cut counter circle.

[lamsbro]

Ideally there wouldn't be a counter circle, only the skill of the competitors would matter.

[BeyondxAbilities]

Originally Posted by lamsbro

Ideally there wouldn't be a counter circle, only the skill of the competitors would matter.

Well naturally. But how often to things work ideally, be it in real life or in video games? That's what makes Altitude interesting is that the fighting that goes on is often far from "ideal." Different factors are constantly in play to prevent a win from boiling down to a mere mathematical equation.