Damaged engines run far too long.

[Wanker]

Last night, I was involved in a furball and one of my countrymen took a firing pass on a Yak, damaging his engine. Black smoke was pouring out of this Yak, so I figured I was safe and that the Yak was out of the fight. But no, this Yak driver instead made a beeline for me, and with an amazing amount of energy, outmanuevered me and shot my butt down.

Now, before y'all jump down my throat, let me say that it was my fault for letting my guard down. I assumed he was going to have to ditch, so I let myself get into a bad situation. That being said, shouldn't damage to an engine lead to a relatively quick catastrophic failure of said engine?

I'm familiar with the durability of the P-47's engine, but shouldn't an engine that has been damaged start to lose power immediately, even if it doesn't die immediately? This Yak driver had to actually climb over 1500 ft to get at me in the first place. I find it hard to believe that a damaged engine would supply this much power.

At the very least, this Yak driver shouldn't even have been able to see me with all that oil or coolant all over his windshield.

Sorryif this sounds whiny, but it just seems that there needs some tweaking of the engine damage model.

[Swoop]

Ya know.....you've got a point there.

Depends what was damaged but typically IRL an engine that's taken some 20mm fire is gonna be clunking and backfiring like a bastard.  Yeah, ok, the engine may not quit totally right away but they'll still be a marked drop in available power.

However, again IRL, that Yak driver would have disengaged and ran for home before his engine quit completely and stranded him deep in NME territory.  At present there is no penalty for death (appart from your k/d ratio), maybe HTC should consider not giving out perk points if you dont make it back to base  (ooer, just like that other sim in closed beta right now).

Swoop

[Vermillion]

banana, you might have hit his oil line, which if its a slow leak could last quite a long time.

So he would have plenty of time to kill you.

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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure

[Ripsnort]

I am in agreement that engine degradation should be in effect here, no?  Or did they just seize up when the oil supply was exhausted?  I know that if you lost a cylinder that engine degradation ensued, but I'm not exactly sure what HTC is modeling here....loss of oil or what?

[LLv34_Snefens]

Engine is currently either working 100% or not, right?
Like Verm says if you just hit his oil line his engine works 100% until oilpressure drops to zero. Generally the leaks seems to have been made of variable seriousness for all planes in 1.05.
In 1.04 I think only the P51 had this feature(or just always a very slow loss of oil), while most other planes always only had about a matter of seconds each time the oil was hit.

[Mayhem]

 

Originally posted by banana:
Last night, I was involved in a furball and one of my countrymen took a firing pass on a Yak, damaging his engine. Black smoke was pouring out of this Yak, so I figured I was safe and that the Yak was out of the fight. But no, this Yak driver instead made a beeline for me, and with an amazing amount of energy, outmanuevered me and shot my butt down.

Now, before y'all jump down my throat, let me say that it was my fault for letting my guard down. I assumed he was going to have to ditch, so I let myself get into a bad situation. That being said, shouldn't damage to an engine lead to a relatively quick catastrophic failure of said engine?

I'm familiar with the durability of the P-47's engine, but shouldn't an engine that has been damaged start to lose power immediately, even if it doesn't die immediately? This Yak driver had to actually climb over 1500 ft to get at me in the first place. I find it hard to believe that a damaged engine would supply this much power.

At the very least, this Yak driver shouldn't even have been able to see me with all that oil or coolant all over his windshield.

Sorryif this sounds whiny, but it just seems that there needs some tweaking of the engine damage model.

Depends did you get his radiator his fuel or his oil accourding to your information it's oil. unfortunately he could have slow leak. more then 1 oil system and or that neet stuff we see on tv that lets you runn and engine oiless for hours before break down.

actually Oil leaks do take abit to cuase break down of the engine. and engine will run for a bit without oil and his is leaking not gone. oil drains slower even under presure then gas does. Beleive me Ive destroyed so many car engines for lack of oil (ran one for a day or two without any) or lack of oil changes including a brand new 1999 dogge carivan so I have experiance with this   Just an opinion but you shoulda just nailed him till his wings fell off ;P

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Mayhem 33rd S.G.
"Destination anywhere, so far gone, I'm already there!"

[Swoop]

Well, not that I'm an expert on WW2 fighter aircraft engines.....but......if ya run outta  oil in an engine the temp will build up and up until the piston rings melt.  *if* a ring doesnt drop into the cylinder and cause a mighty bang, eventually the pistons themselves will start to melt and weld themselves to the barrel causing a sudden seizure.

It depends where the oil leak is.  If the oil line itself is shot out then no oil will be reaching the engine so it'll happen pretty fast.  If it's the oil reservoir then the engine will still run fine until there's no more oil left to feed it.

Swoop

[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

[Moose11]

Kind of related...

Was in a p51 at one point last night and a nikki hit my oil line. I stayed in the fight and put him down, and was able to rtb.. Flew for about 15 mins on a damaged oil line.

*Hey, I'm not complaining either - thought that was pretty cool myself*

[AKDejaVu]

Have a vid of an N1K with a blown oil line staying in the fight for far longer than I'd expect... about 10 mins or so.

Musta been a real tough engine in that thing.

AKDejaVu

[Ripsnort]

Judging from these posts, I would say that HTC needs to re-evaluate this....

[SFRT - Frenchy]

U guys know I fly P47 a lot, so I'm used to RTB with oil shot off wich I think is a good trade for the representation of the "toughtness" of the P47.

But the other week I was flying a Seafire, and I think Mathman would be my witness. He pinged me in the F6, I got the oil leack. I was nevertheless able to turnfight and shot him down, still flying, I could kill 2 more planes before getting shot down by the ack OTW home. I was stuned, maybe all oil damaged are using the P47 model.

For what I recalled, on some planes like pony or Spit, when the oil was hit, 2/3 turns later...kof kof kof scouic. You just had to "patiently" wait a bit for the guy to glide.

Not complaining, just a remark.

[Voss]

It might take more then a little adjustment, but...

When you hit a plane and see a big cloud of black smoke, doesn't that imply the pistons/heads have been damaged? I would think that a thinner cloud/stream of oil would indicate oil line, or oil tank damage. Ergo, when you see big clouds of black smoke there should be significant power loss and you should feel confident to turn your attention elsewhere. A thinner stream means more attention is required.  

Alas, if it isn't in the engine (heh - meant game engine), you should just use more ammo.  

Voss 13th T.A.S.

[jedi]

Here's where all the online sims (probably all the boxed ones too) 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.

A real pilot, on detecting engine damage over enemy territory, would be filling his drawers and figuring out how far he could get towards rescue, NOT how to best utilize his 6.2 remaining minutes of combat capability.  So, you RANDOMIZE the "severity" of the damage to the engine, based on how hard it was hit, so you NEVER know exactly how long you've got.  Single ping to the engine?  Well, that smoke trail might be a minor oil leak that would let you get all the way home at a reduced power setting.  But it ALSO might be the initial trail of smoke from the fire that's about to engulf the whole front of your plane due to having that golden BB cut your main fuel line, spraying fuel all over the exhaust manifold  

"Random" has been a dirty word in damage modeling ever since WB was started, but the capability for "sophisticating" the DM has gone up a lot since then.  It's time to USE randomization to IMPROVE realism, rather than substituting for it as in the past.

What we have now is basically "canned" damage: X number of damage points to part A yields damage effect B.  Easy to game the game once you have enough hours to have analyzed the models.  Throw a few cleverly-designed randomization routines, working with the existing damage calculating routines, and you'll put some "uncertainty" back into the game.


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[RAS]

First off, would like to say I agree with the engine issue banana....seems they still provide the same quality of power when hit as they do when fresh out of the package.

That having been said, I believe I was the YAKer you have been describing.  Did this fight occur perhaps 7-10 miles west of A8 (then owned by the ROOKs) ?  With your BISHOP carrier still "somewhere" SE of this position (not sure about the CV, and its not important).  Here is what I recall happening.

Met Bish P-51 at 11k....he westbound, me eastbound (with lots of speed....had been level flying for 5 minutes plus).  Ruddered out of HO position...P51 split-s as I come over the top.  We dance for about 30 seconds in near blackout conditions (still have lots of Kinetic AND potential energy...we are at about 8k now).  51 tires of the dance and dives east.  I follow....we blow all of our potential energy (converting it to kinetic E).  I am "barely" gaining on him in the intial eastbound route so stick with the pursuit.  Spot Bish La-5, Hog (unk model),Zeke all getting close to this position, and all from a higher alt.  Unknown to me at this time is a second La-5 saddling up in my six.  My first indication is tracer fire over my right wing...blew his pass I guess.  Quick look back as I start a barrel roll confirms an La-5.  Start very slow backpressure on stick as I weave back and forth to attempt to avoid getting hit (wanted to build just a touch of potential E with about 2k of alt), when POP goes the oil. I split-s to convert potential E to kinetic (the YAK gets kinetic E quickly).  Actually came out of the split-s at higher alt then I anticipated (must have gotten higher while dodging...chaulk this up to increased adrenaline and increased backpressure under extreme conditions).  At this stage I have P51 (oh yes, he rejoined the fight on my first break manuever), La-5 (original one I guess), and the hog, don't know where the Zeke went.  Since I saw the zeke earlier I assume he is still near (I never assume they are GONE until I can check area and I didn't have the time or "finger on hat switch" ability to do that fast enough.  WITH ENGINE OIL OBSCURRING MY VIEW, I catch a glimpse of La-5 just above me and to my right...I thought this was the original La-5 (as it turns out this may have been YOU) pulling up as he made another pass.
I still have about 280mph on the gauge and pull up into you.  Get a lucky ping on your bird causing you to go evasive....we dance, I get lucky and take your wing in another gun shot as you are climbing (looping??).
 
What you should know....my view was obscurred, my engine WAS dead on the last climbing (looping??) manuever, 1500' ain't nothing to grab if you have the kinetic E my plane had at the time, AND I stalled the right wing, got pinged by the hog (I believe, there were sooooo many at this stage) and went splat into the ocean.  Even though I was only 5 or so miles east of MY base at this stage I KNEW i couldn't nurse my lil YAKmobile back home.  I was out of potential E (altitude), the enemy planes had lots of potential E, and there were no friendlies far enough east over the water to help (they were busy flying around in circles over the base grabbing altitude I guess).

Suffices to say I was extremely "lucky" to have gotten your bird.  My only thought at that time was to take at least one of you with me, your plane seemed to be the only option....sorry.

Anyway, that is how I recall the battle...did not film it....my recorder is still porked and dumps me to desktop when I engage it....so I don't.

If this wasn't the battle you were talking about then....<punt>....sorry for waisting your time reading this post.

RAS