I really wish they would do a graduated damage model as well. It seems to me it could be done with no more information going up or downstream to the server, just using what is already being passed back and forth in a different way.
Your control surface's effectiveness would be related to what percentage of hitpoints it had left. 10% HP left on your rudder? 10% rudder authority. 60% of your wingroot's HP left? You can only pull 60% of max G-load before the wing rips. Also could only dive up to 60% of failure speed or the wing rips off.
I think that would add a lot to the game, because being shot up some would have more of an impact on your flying. I know for myself, if I'm rtbing because I'm 'soft' but nothing has fallen off yet, and I see someone in need of help low and slow, I have no problems helping, because even though I took several enemy hits, I'm still fully combat effective taking a shot at a guy who is targetlocked on a friendly. Wouldn't it be a big improvement if my right wing had nearly been sawed off, I would have to keep it below 2 Gs and 350mph, or my wing is coming off?
It would add a level of realism to dealing with a slightly shot-up plane that I believe would greatly improve the experience.
I just can't see a reason for arguing against more granularity in the damage model. In my ideal world, they would feed a down-to-the-rivet Solidworks file of each plane into the program, and bullets would deform the metal like it should, and whatever was damaged would affect the flight of the plane. Once we have a couple thousand times the computing power and network bandwidth of today, that might become a reality.
With what we've got now though, I think graduated damage would be viable. Maybe change the damage screen to show 10% increments so you'd have an idea where you're at.
Wiley.
