Damaged engines run far too long.

[Nash]

 

...need to take a page from the Air Warrior book, and accept SOME "randomization" of damage. The game engine detects engine hits. Based on what is detected, it will ALWAYS inflict the same "type" of problem: smoke, oil leak, fuel leak, seizure. So when you get x-colored smoke, you know you have y minutes of fighting left.

That's exactly what AH does. And you *don't* know how many minutes of fighting you have left. The oil/fuel leaks work the same as the damaged wings.

Look out yer window, and yer missing half a wing.... yet you can still fly it well enough to put her down safely. Next sortie, 1/2 a wing gone again, yet there no way to keep yer plane from wingin' over and augering in.

Same damage graphic slapped onto varying dgrees of damage.

It's the same for fuel/oil leaks. Some are serious, some are minor, but both look identical.

[Wanker]

<S> RAS,

Yep, this is the fight I was referring to. Except we were all Knits, not Bish.  

Actually, I was not in the fight, I was just watching my friend "Paxil" and another guy take you on. I cruised on by the fight, and was looking to the East for more cons, when I looked back, saw Paxil smoke your engine, then thought to myself "Well, he's had it....Holy S%!t! He's NOT done for!"

I realized shortly thereafter that you were pulling the old Kamikaze on me(which I'd have done, too, if I was in your position). And since I've been sucking pretty bad lately, I didn't get out of your way in time.

Anyway, in this case it seems that it wouldn't have made any difference, as your engine had died. But there are other times when people do get minutes worth of time on a dmaged engine. I like the idea of randomization of damage, not knowing whether the hit was serious, or only slight.

[funked]

On the other hand there are stories of WW2 pilots flying hundreds of miles with a damaged engine.  

I'd like to see a random time for engine failure.  When you take an engine hit, the engine will run for a random duration between zero and 1 minute for inlines and between zero and 5 minutes for radials.

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 01-09-2001).]

[RAS]

banana <S>

Not only was I wrong about your country (I had a large furball with Bish's later around A4 and A5), but intial heading of 51 was East, with me Westbound.  And the carrier was, I believe, SW (not SE) of A8.

Oh well....old age is definately making itself known (memory banks are shot).

"randomization" may very well be the way to go with damage results on engines...we shall see.

RAS

[Nash]

Funked,  what I'm saying is it already IS random. Start a stopwatch the second ya see smoke and stop it when yer engine dies. The times can vary by a large margin.  1/2 a minute sometimes, 5 minutes another time.

RAS obviously had only minor damage.

[sax]

I've had the rad hit in the p51 and flown 15 min, same thing and only lasted two min. We just need something to tell us the degree of damage done so we know when to rtb or stay engaged.
sax

[Wanker]

Regardless of the time it takes an engine to die, what about the performance degredation? Even if the engine lasted for 15 minutes, wouldn't it at the very least experience a performance hit?

I don't like the fact that you can motor around unimpeded until the oil or radiator fluid runs out. You would think that at least some of the engine damage modelled should be cylinder damage, or something else that would see an immediate decrease in performance.

On the other hand, it would be an interesting challenge to try to nurse a wounded engine all the way back to base. Right now, there no challenge. If your engine gets damaged, you either make it with no rough running, or it dies completely. It would be nice to have some more variation in the damage.

[BigJoe]

Myself, I use Slick 50 oil treatment guaranteed to make your engine last longer.


---------

I was too weak to defend, so I attacked.

General Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)

[Toad]

How long should an R-2800 run with two adjacent cylinders shot away?

How long should a Merlin run if you cut the coolant return line clean in two?

How rough would an engine run if you destroy 1/2 the plug leads coming out of one of two magnetos? What would be the % of power loss?

How long should an engine run if you destroy the engine driven fuel pump and the engine is mounted above the wing?

How long should an engine run if you hole the oil cooler with just one .50 round?

How would you know if any of these things exactly happened to your engine while you were strapped in the cockpit?

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

 

[mrfish]

 

Originally posted by AKDejaVu:
Seems the bigger initial problem with a blown oil line would be the tendancy for the windstream to deposit the oil on the windscreen.  Kinda wish that was modeled to some extent.

AKDejaVu

this is cool - randomized damage also. not priority but definitely cool.

"perk the 202!"

[Nash]

mrfish... am gonna say it again: the only thing NOT random about the damage is the graphic they use to display it.

[Dux]

Maybe this is slightly off topic, but I always wondered why I consistently get tail damage from HO's, and engine damage from an enemy on my six...?

Anyone else notice this? Granted, I fly P-38s alot, and it's tail is extremely frail from any angle, but the damages seem kinda random as to their location.

Any thoughts?

[mrfish]

 

Originally posted by Nash:
mrfish... am gonna say it again: the only thing NOT random about the damage is the graphic they use to display it.

missed your post nash - that's what i get for snoozin'  

[LLv34_Snefens]

 

Originally posted by sax:
[...]We just need something to tell us the degree of damage done so we know when to rtb or stay engaged.
sax

Check your oil pressure gauge when you get an oil leak. You can then judge how much time you have left by looking at it's movement.
I would think a radiator hit can be spotted on engine temp rising, but I can't remember for sure.

[hazed-]

its better now than it was....before only p51s/p47s etc lasted for any considerable time.
an engine hit in a 190 almost 100%of the time kills it but now at least my 109 runs longer than 2 seconds....
htc changed this for us because of posts before..... i like the changes.
now please make the 190 less succeptable to total failure everytime and ill be happy...unless of course they were like that in rl

hazed