Just before I get to bed...Ran a lot of simulations with some Order regulars, and with Simon. Simon, I'm sure, is an excellent choice if I want to work on avoiding missiles, with his neutralizer/paralyzer+cannonball/sidewinder+CD/Nova Torpedo Taiidan. It is an incredibly lethal foe, and if you even once drop your guard, it will eat you. No mistakes inside its field of fire. Of the rest, Aki Kimura is closest to my skill level, and handles her ship rather smoothly, but with something of a overuse of mines. Whoever's callsign is Fallen.Angel, got a good deal better, and I've faith we can get him up to snuff sooner rather than later. Karlotta is a rather strong hand with a mini, but rather slow on the dodge. Arthur Deckard just needs more experience, from what I can tell. All of the lot, myself and Simon included, could use more experience working as a group, and working against missiles.
Was interesting training in this manner, we dont often have mock battles among our own pilots due to the quite apparent safety issues and destruction of valuable order property - most of our training occurs in the Simulator... but live fire combat training was certainly more effective in honing my skills. I generally consider myself an excellent fighter pilot, though after spending so long in command of the Pakhet I got a bit rusty behind the stick.
I'm looking forward to future practice combat exercises.
I'm ashamed to admit, I forgot their names....After running a sweep into Major, 90 and 99, I was offered a practice bout by a squadron pilot, who had earlier had a discussion with someone else, both Squadron pilots, about how missiles should not be used in training matches. I only engaged in one exercise with the one pilot, during a duration of solar activity. Our electronics suffered for this, and he continued to remark on the added difficulty. He called off the bout, as it was too difficult for him to hit me without perfectly functioning electronics and computer systems. This has me worried, as, of course, in real combat, missiles and other explosives will be used, the enemy will not stop when asked to, and electronics are likely to encounter difficulties. I've always been under the impression that we train so that these things are not new to us when our lives are on the line, but it seems to me that the in the Squadron, and perhaps in the Order at large (Kimura seems to avoid Simon's missile bomber because she thinks it unfair...) to only train under the most favorable of conditions...How then will they be ready for adverse conditions in real combat?