YMMV / Aces High

• Fandom Rivalry: With Warbirds and Fighter Ace in particular when those two games were still active, as all three were largely inspired by Air Warrior.
  • Increasingly with War Thunder. War Thunder fans accuse Aces High of being outdated and primitive, while Aces High players attack War Thunder for its focus on arcade mechanics and graphics over realism.
  • To a lesser extent with IL-2 Sturmovik, primarily focused on which has a more accurate flight model.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The nature of the game allows several:
  • The real-life Me-163 Komet was a very short-ranged fighter/interceptor powered by a rocket engine that allowed it to achieve altitude quickly, and fly at extremely high speeds. However in the real craft it had very short engine endurance, and once its fuel was used up it was a glider, making it ill-suited for engaging in more than a few passes against bomber formations before it had to withdraw. It also lacked conventional landing gear, making use of a sled that was dropped on takeoff during launch. In-game, players often use the 163 as a pure dogfighter. Since combat usually takes place at very low altitudes, the 163 doesn't need to use up its fuel to reach the fight, allowing its rocket to be used as a temporary speed boost allowing it to outperform any other fighter in the game (it doesn't help that it's ridiculously maneuverable). Furthermore, the 163 is partly controlled by only being available from the airfield closest to a country's HQ. However if the craft is kept under a certain speed it can fly with its launch sled still attached, so with careful altitude management can hop from airfield to airfield, refuel, and move on to the next, enabling a very game-breaking fighter to operate on the front lines.
  • A very common tactic is the use of dive-bombing by heavy bombers, leading to the pejorative term "Lancstukas." While heavy bombers such as the Lancaster were capable of some surprising feats of maneuverability, the tactic takes advantage of the fact that the game doesn't account for restrictions on drop angles; because of the internal bomb storage, a heavy bomber had to be flying within a certain attitude band for the bombs to clear the bomb bay. Dive-bombing usually exceeds this, and a real life bomber attempting such a tactic would end up releasing its bombs into front bulkhead of the bomb bay! Furthermore, many multi-engine bombers were unable to release bombs from the cockpit to begin with, but this is not a problem in-game.
  • "Bomb and bailing" is frequently used by players looking to rearm and return to the fight as quickly as possible. Pilots release their payloads, and rather than returning to base and landing simply bail out to end their sortie.

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