sloth

I was a gunner over the weekend with Mafia (followed by some numbers I forget) flying I believe and while he did a great job keeping the heli steady and lining up shots for me I have to tell you, it is REALLY REALLY hard to distinguish targets on some maps in that black and white screen. Friend versus foe can be hard enough forcing me to switch back to color (and I still messed up which I am sorry for) but telling civilians from insurgents inside of a building is about impossible.

To all you heli gunners that don't stink as badly as me, hats off to you. Rough job.

Sabre_Tooth_Tigger

The civilian all green colour does show as its quite distinctive but the only reliable way to tell between insurgents and brits is with the radar

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gijoe

ya, i cant gun i dont have nearly enough skill but i can fly. determining friend from foe is just a matter of looking what they are wearing and what color the camo is. When u have played bd2 long enough u can tell just by the weapons they are holding.

Belhade

The trick is situational awareness (really, it is tricky). If you're going to hose an area make sure you know that there are no friendlies nearby (such as softening up a CP before your men move in). Or firing only on confirmed enemy armor.

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PhoenixxFire

I think the issue that sloth is more specifically reffering to is the distinguishing of the Civilians from some of the other insurgent classes on Al Basrah, when in the Apache because of:

1) The Apache Gun-site view camera is strictly in black and white, thus removing any ability to distinguish enemy based on uniform color (the green on the civies namely).
2) The Apache Gun Cam is very shakey in the second zoom level, regardless of how steady, or skilled your pilot is, leading easily to overshooting, and hitting friendlies and/or civies.
3) The fact that there is one other class (at least) on the insurgent team that has a nearly identical uniform style as the civilian. This coupled with #1 leads to either not shooting a target do to lack of confirmation, or the killing of a civilian.

Also, there is another item that an Apache gunner has to deal with. The intermingling of armed insurgents and civilians in a tight group. It's a great tactic for the insurgents but it wreaks havok with the gunner. When he has a Sa-7 carrying insurgent, that has him locked, in his sights, yet is sitting directly next to 2 civilans. Its usually tough luck, your either gonna get shot down, or your getting kicked from the server for a negative score

knewman

Man I havn't flown or gunned in .6 yet, but it looks like those helos are gonna be hard to gun from, movin that fast.

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Watch your fire, be safe.

Yamer

i use the kill all method...... its VERY simple....
anyone that shoots at my chopper dies... friendly or not.....

that way i stay alive and if a tard team mate is dumb enough to shoot at a friendly chopper he should die anyways.....

Braidedheadman

Spot your targets before you shoot. It's one of those "best practice" things that people should do automatically anyway and besides, it's the best, most reliable way to get confirmation in any BF2 flavor.

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w.WAREHOUSE

I agree. In conjunction with spam spotting, I would highly recommend that you gunners do not sit on the "gun cam" or the "tv missle cam" while flying. Stay in the normal cockpit view...press "C" to get rid of the cockpit and you will have a wide open COLOR field of view. Spot your targets out in this view, then quickly right click to switch to your cannon, then destroy it using your HUD radar to align your cannon quickly.

My best tactic yet was having 5 civilians spawn on me in the Village west of NVCP and hide UNDER me in one of those destructible buildings. I jumed up and down on the roof with an RPG...what pilot could resist that one! Pilot hits me with rockets sending me 30 feet in the air, roof collapses and all 5 skinnies die, pilot gets kicked and the chopper crashes killing his gunner. /gg warrior!

Sabre_Tooth_Tigger

If people start being that sneaky the heli should just stick to vehicles and objects, its a no win situation.

Most of us havent played proper AAS civilian games yet so its going to be a shock i think :|

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BigGaayAl

An easy method to solve most of these problems: support groundforces closely.

One thing I do for this is hover over the checkpoint flag, IF friendly ground-forces are defending it. What happens is the friendly forces spot enemies that are already engaged with the enemy.

1 They are busy and can't focus on you.
2 You can easily tell whether there are friendlies close because you are in the area for a longer period with situational awareness.
3 Civilians are in danger of being knifed.
4 Enemy vehicles are your prime targets. You cannot get punished for killing civs in cars, they are big targets, easy to track, you are equipped very well against suicide cars. (although I have been killed by a suicide car in a chopper .

Most importantly try and find enemy that are spotted by friendlies. You are really helping them instead of scoring. For this you have to pretty close to the spotter.

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I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy. ~J.D. Salinger