Anaxogoras: Do not think my statements are wanting to dampen the desire for a change for a damage model.
My statements are designed to put the correct expectations and logic to the outcome of any change. I have a base concept for how I will implement the system, but I do not wish to state what my plans are now simply because I have learned that it will just cause more whining if I state what I will do before a release in most cases. It is much simpler to state the outcome after I make it, and listen to players input for the design before I create the change.
In reality when we made the last damage change 1 or 2versions ago to more components for future expansion we also added to the core system floating point damage (incremental damage really is not a good term because we have incremental damage now) as people here are asking for. Long before this topic started I have had a basic outline of how I am going to implement more detailed damage and incremental damage.
This is a programming assumption on my part but let me know if I am incorrect. Every single plane part has, say 100 damage points. When each part is reduced to zero, the plane part fails. Maybe 1 beebee reduces a plane part by 2 hit points where as a 30 mm tater will reduce that plane part by 100 hit points. I don't believe it is fair that a 50 cal plane can say, reduce 15 plane components by 15 damage points for a total of 225 hit points causing no actual damage to the plane under the current damage modeling system. Another plane can then come in and actually kill the air plane by shooting off the left wing for a total of the 125 remaining hit points but since the the sprayer acrued 225 hit points, he gets credit. (Please don't pay too much attention to my numbers as they are all hypothetical, and obviously inaccurate but only used to illustrate my point)
Your basic assumption of how things work is correct, except the damage done is also based on velocity of strike. For vehicles there is a different system that also includes detail armor penetration systems based on vel and angle of impact to armor.
But your argument for a change may or may not be closer to real life. Your argument really ask for a very simple damage model of 1 component so 100 total damage from MG = 100 total damage from an Cannon no matter where they hit on the plane. So based on your logic you really just want to ignore where the bullet struck.
What I have been doing in this thread is trying to set expectations , and have people also try think about how any changes will effect peoples tactics. Your argument is simply based on the concept you want MG's to be more lethal then they are now as compared to cannon. To prove your argument you can not start from the premise that scattering MG's is worse than scattering cannon. That may be true, but you also must show that in the real world your desire is also true.
HiTech