Unrealistic Bombing Accuracy

[Fokker]

I agree that some gameplay concessions are neccessary, like limitedless lifes as the most typical one.

But even to this gameplay concession it could have been done a twist that gave some realism without taking away the game part.

If you could not take off from same field or spawn from same point when you died, this could introduce some fix to this. You would have to carry out a sortie from another field or spawn point to be able to start from the same spot from where you last died.

That would end that silly part of someone getting killed on the runway over and over again. And the spawn point ambushing where you can sit an get 20 kills and more on more or less the same victims.

[MiG Eater]

I have an idea that does not involve changing flight models, damage models or the pinpoint accuracy available in the current bombing system.  

Change the way the simulation presents and handles ground targets.  Camoflage or hide the assets. Place them randomly around a field.  If you were a combat engineer or base commander, would you build an ammo dump in plain sight, above ground in the middle of your airfield?  Would you rebuild it in exactly the same place after it was found and destroyed?  If an ammo dump gets destroyed, it would ideally be rebuilt in another spot and well hidden.  Regarding the hangers (and correlating their existence with the late war German airplane set), a great deal of flying was done from dispersed fields with few ground structures.  A large number of airfields in WW2 didn't sport much more than a large grass field being devoid of paved or plowed runways.  We have a limited set of airfield layouts that make it easy (too easy I feel) to find/target a truck-sized ground structure long before it comes into view.  I find it amazing that we have such perfect intelligence regarding the layout of every base and the exact location of every item on each field.  This is one of the few areas of the sim that lacks the dynamic environment that we see throughout the rest of AH.

MiG

[Fokker]

It would be nice with a greater variety of field and objects. But i think you are adressing something that is very difficult to do.

There is a limit to number of objects that can be used in each teather. In AH i belive it is about 4000. That is why many objects are repeated like fields and field structures.

This is a limitation to present programming/hardware capacities.

[Robert]

here is an idea for carpet bombing in AH.
Make the runway the maim target have it broken up in to seperate parts the effect seperate things at the field. Bombers would have to salvo the whole bomb load to take out these areas thus effection the different targets.

{------------runway----------------------}
[-ack-][radar][fuel][ammo][hangers][88mm]
    ^       ^  
     \     /
a hit from here would effect ack and radar but knot completely take it out.

RWY

[This message has been edited by Robert (edited 04-26-2001).]

[BigJim]

Game play concessions must take into account game play "Balance" as well as what the "pilot" gets.  The bomber accuracy as it stands "unbalances" game play.  I think that the bombers must at least be true to life in some extent, I can find NO reference to a B-17 dropping ONE bomb at a time during WWII unless it was a "hanger" and dumped manually by the crew.  I think the bombers should HAVE to drop their "stick" and move on and that "stick" should spread due to drift etc.. it should also have "blast effect" when it hits and do whatever damage that "blast" would incurr.  Please all you flamers don't cite me the atomic bomb as you all know we are NOT talking about that.

[This message has been edited by BigJim (edited 04-26-2001).]

[Toad]

"I sure would like all units to act and feel as close to the real thing as possible. And that goes for fighter planes, bombers, vehicles and vessels.- Fokker"

OK, then you would support .50 BMG rounds having an "accurate" range of ~2000 yards and an "effective" range of about ~7000 yards, correct?

...and the 20 mm's would have to be adjusted as well, because they travel more than 1.0 too. This is basically true of all the mg's and cannon in the game. The projectiles are artificially terminated in the programming at an unrealistically short range.

So you're for that as well, right Fokker?

Just checking how committed you are to "realism".  

[RangerBob]

BigJim is basically saying exactly the same thing my uncle, the real WWII B17 pilot, said about Aces High bombers.


Dowding has a point...

RangrBob - like SOB, I'd like to see the WBs bombsight in AH - i.e. you have to fly level before dropping, in order for the bombsight to aim. I'd also like to see cratered runway having an effect on field operations - although nothing would stop people from using the grass to take-off.


....but only a handful of planes could really use the grass for takeoffs and landings and those grass takeoffs were on maintained grass landing strips. The grass around our airfields shouldn't be maintained for takeoffs. It should include ditches, dips, obstacles etc.

Anyway, the bombing system needs a fix if Aces High is to be something more than just a game. Surely the staff can see that. They have fixed other problems so I would expect to see changes with the bombers too. I'm sure they know it doesn't represent anything realistic at this point.

Ranger Bob

[Maverick]

Toad, you are a very inflamatory person. Shame shame shame on you!    

Mav

[This message has been edited by Maverick (edited 04-27-2001).]

[john9001]

I can find NO reference to a B-17 dropping ONE bomb at a time during WWII [end quote]


lancaster 617 sqdn, "dam busters" , dropped one bomb at a time, (special drum shaped skipping bomb), each plane carried one bomb and they made they made the runs one plane at a time......ok , it's not a B-17 and it's a special mission to blow up dams, just saying

44MAG

[Toad]

No, Mav, no flames.

I've just decided all these "'leet bob" realists are RIGHT.

We must DEMAND that HTC make our $1500 2D desktop computers give us all the RL visual, tactile and auditory cues that a $850,000 Spitfire would provide for us... since the ONLY thing that stands between any of us and RL glory as a summertime Spit airshow performer is just a few bucks.

After we get this gun range thing straightened out, I'll take on the "power trim" feature. This has simply got to go, particularly on aircraft that had no in-flight adjustable aileron or rudder trim. As I said, the "power feature" has to go in any event. After all, trim controls are almost always on the same side of the cockpit as the throttle and you have to take your hand off the throttle to crank the trim wheels. Somehow we've got to disable the ability to trim in the game while simultaneously moving the throttle. We've GOT to get to ultimate realism and this is a place to start.

Not to mention the delusion that trim is a primary aircraft flight control. That one is going to take a great deal of educating of the masses. It's pretty clear that most don't understand the difference between a primary and secondary flight control.

That'll have to be after we disable the autopilot in all fighters, of course.

Mav, as you can easily see, it's a tough long road that lies ahead. It won't be for the faint of heart or easily discouraged.

I know I can count on you, as an actual RL (tm) aviator, to help in this vital endeavour!

Thanks for your support!

[ra]

<<<I could agree if jaboing where realistic, but with present ack accuracy and deadliness, its not feasable.>>>


This is very untrue, jabos can and do take out acks every day in AH, probably much easier than in RL.  There's no reason for the super-accurrate Norden we have.  A bit of random inaccurracy increasing with altitude would add a lot to the sim.

ra

[illo]

 

OK, then you would support .50 BMG rounds having an "accurate" range of ~2000 yards and an "effective" range of about ~7000 yards, correct?

...and the 20 mm's would have to be adjusted as well, because they travel more than 1.0 too. This is basically true of all the mg's and cannon in the game. The projectiles are artificially terminated in the programming at an unrealistically short range.

So you're for that as well, right Fokker?

Just checking how committed you are to "realism".

Well this is exactly what I want.

With no enemy icons ofcourse. Those neonsigns with exact range make gunnery WAY too easy.
People actually had to shoot from short ranges to hit something. I know this from Warbirds. No icons make gunnery extremely challenging and youll see situations like in RL guncams.

Yes I want combat sim, not some arcade shoot em up which MA is now IMHO.

I'll save my money until that.

[BigJim]

Ok John thanks for your input I forgot about the "dam busters" so I will concede that "some" bombers did drop just ONE bomb in WWII and if HTC will "model" those and limit those planes to ONE bomb that would be fine (since the one bomb DID consitute its' "stick" of bombs)  

[This message has been edited by BigJim (edited 04-28-2001).]

[flakbait]

Don't forget, those Lanc's also dropped from a height of 70 feet if that.

-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb
 

[Toad]

Illo,

Glad to have you aboard the "Realism Express"!

Glad you agree that all the guns need to shoot much farther, probably twice as far as they do now.

We're going to have to get a much more sophisticated damage map as well.

Imagine this situation:

You're 2.5 (about 1 1/2 miles)away from a Jug pilot who is barreling in on your wingtip with a 90 aspect. He's a good shot, he leads you and snaps off a 2 second burst from 8 .50's. At 80 rounds/sec from each gun, 1280 slugs are headed your way, dispersing of course. Dispersion, as we all know actually increases the probability of a hit. When they get there, each one has about 850 ft/lbs of energy. If just one hits the side of the canopy it will punch right through. If your head is in line with that, the inside of your flying helmet will look like a pot of strawberry jam. Instant pilot kill. We want realism, so no complaints, right? No more bullets disappearing into another astral plane at 1.0! The HTC computer will have to work a little harder, but ...REALISM!

As for Icons, they HAVE to go.  Of course, this totally phony compressed field of view has to go as well and at the same time.

As Vermillion pointed out in another thread:

"Actually the "zoom" feature is not an actual zoom, like binoculars or anything. What it does is change your field of vision.

Flight sims like AH, use a 90 degree field of vision (to simulate your normal vision plus peripheral) and squeeze that down to what you see on your monitor.

What this causes is that objects look like they are smaller at a given distance, than they are in real life.

For example if your at 400 yards, it looks like your at a much farther distance because the planeshapes are smaller.

What the "zoom" function does is to change your field of vision down to 45 degrees, which is approximately what your normal non-peripheral vision is.

So you can't see as much of the area, but objects look correct in regards to size at distance. In other words, when you are in "zoom" mode, and at 200 yards, thats how big it would look in real life from that distance."

So the zoom is only giving you what it would really look like thru the gunsight in real life."

So, we have to end this totally unrealistic compressed field of view. It allows you to see far more of a situation in a glance than a realistic pair of eyeballs could. It gives you totally bogus SA abilities.

Once we cut down the FOV to normal, everything will appear much larger, of course. We'll have to have more views and a way to quickly scroll through them too, since with each "view" you'll only cover about 1/2 the sky you are seeing now.  Perhaps some sort of trackball to roll the eyes around, possibly slowing as G's build over 4 or so.

We need more detail to. In RL (TM) on an AH clear day you can tell if the gear is up or down on a multi-engine bomber size aircraft at 2 miles, about say, 3.5 or so in AH. Now you can't actually see the gear like the tires and brake lines, but you can easily see a shape change in the silhouette from the clean to dirty configuration.

We need more REALISTIC DETAIL!

Thanks again for joining the Realism Bandwagon!