Main page

The description says "significantly increases chance of directly hitting an aircraft with rockets"

 

My question is does this only apply to rockets that are designed to shoot down planes for example the BVP type or does it in fact increase the chance to hit with the types like the ground ordnance rockets the Hurricane II uses as well?

 

It should apply to ever rocket. 

I seem to remember that eekeeboo or someone once said that it was not really a direct hit but more of a proximity fuse ... 

 

That is obvious to anybody who ever did or saw rocket kill. 

 

I've done few rocket kills, with no such skill on my pilots, and it wasn't obvious at all. Lol. Actually, I was wondering what does this skill really mean. Now I know

A kill with a rocket can be achieved without the skill and without a direct hit, as all ordnance has explosion radius, and rockets have a set flight time (and explode either on impact, or when they reach maximum range). I'd wager a hefty bet that a huge majority of rocket kills are just that, proximity kills. However, Rocketeer works like a proximity fuse, thus increasing the probability. Replace 'directly hitting' with 'causing damage', and you get the point. There might be some slight auto-aim involved, but it's hard to verify - it's happening too fast and too far while in battle, and replays 'lie' about trajectory (i.e. they record the actual data from the server - being scored hits - but show visuals as interpreted by client, thus subject to lag etc).

I'd take the skill description with a pinch of salt tbh, their effect are very much dramatized by it more often than not.

 

Not sure if it's some sort of translation thing, being a Belarussian gaming company(it shouldn't be ff*) but ya, if we take a look at some other skills we see the use of "significantly increases" being used to describe a gain that would be better described with the term "slightly increases".

 

For example, marksman 1 "significantly increases the chance of hitting a target" when it's just a little 5% reduction to the dispersion circle on screen... that's like -2.5% from the top and bottom of the circle you are looking at, barely noticeable and only the same as a stock optics with no upgrades.

 

Then there's Engine Guru 1 "Significantly improves aircraft acceleration" Is that so? +3% lol! 

 

Aerobatics Expert. Again, same deal, "significant advantage in close maneuvering combat" It's +2% lol

 

Don't get me wrong, every little helps and they are worthwhile skills after this and that BUT, let's not get carried way by describing what's in truth a very small gain as significant. Such skill % gains are only really there to add a little extra to equipment featuring many upgrades to overall accumulate into a significant gain if that's the goal but just by themselves, pffff lol. Unless there's something within those skills more than their % gain description, and that's entirely possible, otherwise I haven't noticed any difference tbh. In fact, I've banged in some pretty big results with crappy stock aircraft and 90% trained pilots with no skills and just a stock optics lol. Was that because I was amazing? Hell no, the point is that what happens in this game seems to be very RNG orientated a lot. Sometimes the most upgraded aircraft with a highly trained pilot just doesn't land the shots in one battle that it was God like in another battle... what can I say... the games just like that. I suppose upgrades increase the likelihood of something positive and reduce the likelihood of something negative but it's very unpredictable. I'm not talking about turn and speed gains obviously, with those it's more locked in and very predictable, I am talking about registered shots, accuracy, damage, all of those things that appear to vary from battle to battle with the exact same aircraft and pilot. 

 

While I do feature this skill on my ME 262 which prints off Golubev medals with reasonable ease if play for them, I would otherwise say the skill is placebo, especially for ground rockets and that a player will just simply get used to hitting targets through the simply repetitious act of "practice makes perfect". With this skill and without this skill, I will play an aircraft featuring ground target rockets, have an enemy aircraft straight line charging at me, sometimes the rocket hits, sometimes they all miss, regardless of this skill, this is how it is it seems, no obvious gain with it, no obvious loss without it. But if there's not much other skills and my aircraft features lots of rockets, I will take it, most certainly for the aircraft with AA rockets because I feel if there's anything to be gained it would make sense that it would be AA rockets, as the description for rocketeer skill is "hitting enemy aircraft" and that's what those particular rockets are for. Does it pack the rockets into a tighter dispersion? Maybe, it does. Hitting targets that are moving around in circles is nigh on pure luck, they are mostly reserved for straight line head to heads against pilots that don't know you have rockets(mega lol btw) or up the backside of slow and predictable aircraft like some bombers(crits to wings and tail) and groundhogs... these I would imagine would be hit regardless of this skill its not so hard. 

 

Ironically the skill that gives a genuinely significant gain, Aerodynamics Expert, features no such "significant increase" description even though it gives the most % gain of any skill I can recall, and significantly so(forgive the pun and so long as applied to ultimate equipment of course) 

 

Hi! I try to make every description in the Wiki as accurate as possible, but when there is little information available i just stick to what i have. 
However, i do in fact have a bit more in this specific case: 
The rocketeer skill increases the hitbox of the rocket to be larger than the rocket itself, which acts like a proximity fuse- the rocket seems to not hit the aircraft, but according to calculations it does, leading to an effective hit. 

 

While the skill technically works for any rocket type, the effect is most noticable in cluster rockets, since each rocket will then more easily detonate the next rocket, leading to a big explosion of rockets that will all do some (only tiny) damage on the enemy aircraft. A lot of these small explosions combined can deal a lot of damage!

Video explanation for anyone interested:

: