Gun jams

[IronDog]

Adding guns jamming would be a nice thing to have.AW had it,but it was about as well liked as the overrev feature,which was turned off most the time.I suppose the sprayers wouldn't like it,or Hitech has a reason for not instituting it.
IronDog
475/431 Satans Angels, Public Relations Officer

[Denholm]

I know you posted there, yet I do believe this discussion should be continued in the "Gun Jamming in the Bombers" thread.

[Ack-Ack]

When did AW have gun jams?  The only time I ever recalled guns being jammed is they took some sort of damage.


ack-ack

[IronDog]

I was sure I recalled gun jams.Just had surgery today,mabe anesthesia hasn't wore off.
IronDog

[VooWho]

This would keep noobs from Spraying and Praying. It was a real thing that happend, and it still happens today. Gun jams were comming. I think it should be added. They have gun jams in Targetware, and its kinda makes the game more intersting. A gun jam could show up yellow on your damage list to show that you have a gun jam, and to fix it, you can land, rearm on ammo which fixes your jam. I think there should be jams. It won't effect game play, it well effect on how we take our shots. If you dumb and you spray you might end up with a gun jam or two, but if you take quick burst, you'll less likely get a jam gun. If we can run out of ammo, we should be able to get gun jams to.

[Stoney74]

I think HTC's idea is to get rid of all the external factors and set the game up for performance based purely upon a pilots use of the planes as presented.  Therefore, none of the "realism" of mechanical difficulty, weather, gun jams, bombs that don't drop, etc.

[OOZ662]

As Stoney said, HTC is going for Pilot v Pilot warfare that doesn't involve luck past the not-actually-luck style luck you get when, say, you flip your plane while firing and end up sawing his wing off (you know, dumb but good stuff). If it's something that would randomly happen, it won't be added.

Having said that, I think this thread needs to be looked at over past ones. The idea of guns jamming due to firing too many rounds in succession rather than pulling negative Gs or a round slipping makes some sense. However, I think it'd be best if it were the same amount of rounds each time (you fire 300 .50 rounds in a certain time frame you gun jams, in order to prevent just twitching the trigger to avoid the jam) to eliminate the aforementioned luck factor.

[BaldEagl]

Currently one or more guns can be damaged in an engegement by enemy fire or by collision.  That (those) guns are now disabled.  How is that any different in practice than a gun jam?

BTW, happened to me last week in a P-51, one gun of six taken out in a minor collision.

In my opinion this requst not only replicates something we already have, it falls into the larger random mechanical failures catagory which, I don't believe, most players would be happy with.  How would you like to spend 20-30 minutes flying a set of bombers to 20K only to find out the bay doors don't open?

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by BaldEagl
Currently one or more guns can be damaged in an engegement by enemy fire or by collision.  That (those) guns are now disabled.  How is that any different in practice than a gun jam?

Mostly I'd say because its a result of what someone else did to your plane (another pilot for instance) instead of some random mechanical problem that occurs because the server spits out the wrong 0's and 1's.

BTW, happened to me last week in a P-51, one gun of six taken out in a minor collision.

Fly a P-47...Lose 1 gun and its no biggie, you still have 7 more

And, Ooze, I'd say an actual numbered round count may have some merit, but...

I would think more jams were caused by G-induced misfeeds or stoppages than sustained firing.  I've read of U.S. pilots taking 3 second bursts with no problems.  Personally, I don't think spray and pray is a problem with .50 cals.  Its a problem with the cannons and the way a desperate pilot can blow your wing off with a prayer shot from 1.0K.  But that's a whole different thread entirely...

[Kweassa]

Personally, I'd like to see reliability issues modelled into the game, one way or another. I don't mind random instances, and I sure don't get angry or pissed by something happening which is not of my own fault.

 In my own opinion, reliability issues are also as much a part of the plane's characteristic as its climb, turn, accel, or etc etc.. For instance the late-war planes like Ki-84, while impeccable performance overall, was plagued with maintenance issues. Same holds true for some German planes. Others were also notorious for their own quirks - such as the early P-51Bs having a tendency to gun jam when the 50cals were fired at high G loads... or the F4U-1C had a tendency of the gun barrels freezing when it flew at high altitudes. The '41 Typhoons with problematic tail structure, La-7 with unreliable emergency power performance, and so on and on.

 If the 'randomness' was too high, then it'd surely kill the game's fun. Like if I go fly a Ki-84 and its engines would malfunction, and give lower thrust everytime I fly it I'd certainly see it as problematic.. but if the probability was contained to a certain random limit.. perhaps 10%... where every once in about 10 sorties a Ki-84 might or might not have engine troubles.. then I think that would be acceptable as such.

 ...

 However, I do understand HTC's basic premise with AH. I think Stoney summed it up quite nicely;

I think HTC's idea is to get rid of all the external factors and set the game up for performance based purely upon a pilots use of the planes as presented. Therefore, none of the "realism" of mechanical difficulty, weather, gun jams, bombs that don't drop, etc.

 ...and if that is what HTC sees with AH, I can live with that.

 
ps)

 If there's one thing I'd really like to see though, is the removal of ammo counters. VooWho mentioned that introducing gun-jams would refrain people from spraying.. but the removal of ammo counters is far more effective in this. The reason people spray is that the certainty of the ammo count makes it possible for them to keep track of overall ammo spent, which allows them to take a calculated risk when firing their guns.

 However, when ammo counters are removed, there's a great anxiety factor working each time you pull the trigger. No matter how much you count the seconds fired, you are never really sure how much ammo is left for you during the course of the engagement, and your entire sortie.

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by Kweassa
ps)

 If there's one thing I'd really like to see though, is the removal of ammo counters. VooWho mentioned that introducing gun-jams would refrain people from spraying.. but the removal of ammo counters is far more effective in this. The reason people spray is that the certainty of the ammo count makes it possible for them to keep track of overall ammo spent, which allows them to take a calculated risk when firing their guns.

 However, when ammo counters are removed, there's a great anxiety factor working each time you pull the trigger. No matter how much you count the seconds fired, you are never really sure how much ammo is left for you during the course of the engagement, and your entire sortie.

Now this I could certainly support.  I'd even take it a step further and introduce some vibration from the shots.  The view from the cockpit is pretty pristine during firing.  Doesn't feel a whole lot like 18 cylinders firing at Max manifold pressure, generating 2000HP, with the recoil of 8 .50's all thrown into one big wad.  But again, this may not meet HTC's intent.  Unless he comments, I guess we'll not know, unless Ooze picked something up at the convention...

[Old Sport]

From my experience with a military .30 machine gun, the point of firing limited bursts is to keep from overheating the barrel. If you hold down the trigger you may not jam, but you will overheat and warp the barrel, and you have the possibility of runaway where the gun won't stop firing because of overheat - cookoff.

The heat generated depends on rate of fire and round velocity, so different guns may overheat sooner in a burst than others. However, there aren't that many different guns in the AH inventory, and some are similar, so it might not be that hard to model a "warped barrel" when overheating the gun, or a runaway gun that's cooking off all the ammo.

So for argument's sake, suppose someone held the trigger down for more than 5 seconds. The barrels would warp enough to affect their accuracy (i.e. scrambling your "set convergence" settings), meaning you are far less likely to hit what you are aiming at. That would be a permanent warp for the rest of the flight. And if you fired for more than 10 seconds without a break the gun would cook off all the rest of the ammo.

Sustained firing could be acheived by a 3 second burst followed by a 1 second break, followed by a 3 sec burst, etc. As long as you stop for 1 second between 3 second bursts your barrel does not overheat.

This might be a deterrent to the spraying.

I'll bet Tony Williams could enlighten us!

All the best.

[Soulyss]

On a side note, I wonder if the 200-400 mph wind going down the barrel of the guns during flight had any effect on heat damage vs. a stationary ground fired/air cooled weapon.

[Old Sport]

Yep, there is wind, plus it is - 30 C at high altitude.  On the other hand, they had to warm guns to keep them from freezing. So, they were warm enough to fire, and there may be some point during a long burst where guns would overheat. But I don't know fo sho. I would imagine that overheat would be more of a problem below 10k and increasing as you get closer to SL, right were a lot of AH flying takes place, lol.

[OOZ662]

Originally posted by Stoney74
Unless he comments, I guess we'll not know, unless Ooze picked something up at the convention...

ALF made recordings of the convention and turned them into a podcast. You can contact him and get the same info I have.