Author Topic: Mosquito (Read 394 times)

J_A_B · « **on:** August 28, 2002, 12:25:38 PM »

No beating around the bush here.

Karnak and I spent most of Tuesday evening playing around with the Mossie in the DA.

There is one undeniable conclusion. The Mosquito is messed up. It DOES catch fire at the slightest procation (a few 7.9mm's set the wing ablaze several times), and it is generally prone to falling apart, even to light snapshots.

Even the A6M5 takes more damage more consistently. No joke.

Karnak and I, however, could not diagnose the problem with the Mosquito. In side-by-side comparisons with other A/C, individual parts of the Mosquito didn't seem any easier to break than parts on any other plane. However, when in combat situations, the Mosquito would invairably either burn or fall apart with very small amonts of damage. It SEEMS as if individual "damage zones" on the Mosquito are way too large and overlap each other. Such a problem would have the effect we noticed, where the individual parts don't seem particularly weak yet taken together the plane UNQUESTIONABLY lacks tuffness.

If that wasn't bad enough, several times we noted that when we shot an engine, the OPPOSITE engine would take damage. This by itself suggests there is some sort of bug in the Mosquito damage model.

Damage modeling is very subjective and every person will have his own opinion. Only HTC knows exactly how it works. However, I was one of those who didn't think there was anything wrong with the Mossie.....until I spent an evening flying and shooting at it. I was wrong.

It's broke. I hope HTC takes a look at it when they get the opportunity.

J_A_B

gatso · « **Reply #1 on:** August 28, 2002, 01:43:54 PM »

Didn't have anything much to add to the original thread. Would like to say a big Bravo for taking time out to do something constructive. Karnak and J_A_B

Next time I head down to the Mosquito museum I'll have a chat with a few people and see what they say though.

Gatso

thrila · « **Reply #2 on:** August 28, 2002, 05:51:05 PM »

Thanks Karnak & Jab. A big fat to the both of you.

I fly the mossie quite often and have always thought it was far too flamable and fragile as Karnak said.

Wtg guys!!:)

Karnak · « **Reply #3 on:** August 28, 2002, 11:19:13 PM »

Thanks for posting this, J_A_B, and thanks for taking the time to test it.

I will admit that I was expecting the individual pieces to fail more readily than other aircraft, but that proved not to be the case. It seemed fine after our run of controlled, component specific tests.

Buts when we switched to combat tests it failed repeatedly and dramatically. Snap shots from the P-51D would light up the damage tree like a Christmas tree. Brief applications of 20mm from a Bf109G-2 (no gondolas) set it ablaze consistantly.

The control aircraft that we also tested were the Bf110G-2 because it is similar in size and has not been toughed like the P-38L. The P-51D because of J_A_B's familiarity with it. And the A6M5b to compare its light contruction and durability.

After three hours we concluded that the Mosquito was noticable more fragile than any of the others.

It does not seem to be a lack of durability in any one location, but as J_A_B said, more like the zones overlap improperly. It seems that damage from one shell sometimes (frequently?) hits multiple locations.

Karnak · « **Reply #4 on:** August 28, 2002, 11:29:33 PM »

As an example of the engine bug.

J_A_B was in a Lanc's top turret, firing only that turret's guns. He fired a total of 61 rounds of .303 aimed at my right (#2) engine. The first 40 rounds or so destroyed my right landing gear and right flap, the last 20 rounds destroyed the #1 and #2 engine (despite only hitting the #2 engine),the oil for the #1 and oil for #2 engines and the radiators for the #1 and #2 engines.

bloodstain · « **Reply #5 on:** August 29, 2002, 01:49:04 AM »

Ive noticed single pings that hit main fuel tank and Im a fireball within 5 seconds and dead in 10:mad:

Karnak · « **Reply #6 on:** August 30, 2002, 08:47:18 PM »

And why does the Mosquito rip its control surfaces off so easily?

Earlier this week I tore both ailerons off while diving on a Bf110, probably at about 500mph.

I just ripped the rudder and both elevators off while diving on an La-7 at about 450mph.

Why does it shed control surfaces?

Witless · « **Reply #7 on:** August 30, 2002, 09:09:28 PM »

Hi,

Just a quick to you both for your time and trouble.

Cheers...........Witless/Trikky

Seagoon · « **Reply #8 on:** August 30, 2002, 10:50:59 PM »

Thanks much for doing this, I didn't want to post a whine based on my limited missions in the Mossie. But whenever I went up in one I ended up coming down as a blazing fireball.

I wonder if they got the wrong meaning from the nickname "Wooden Wonder?"

- SEAGOON

Puke · « **Reply #9 on:** August 31, 2002, 12:50:59 AM »

Termites?

gatso · « **Reply #10 on:** September 02, 2002, 03:23:57 PM »

Had a quick thought about the 1 engine hit/2 engines die thing.

Since this subject came up I've started flying the mossie as much as possible. I have had situations when i've recieved 1 'ping' and lost 1 1/2 engines (1 outright dead, 1 radiator or oil hit).

so Q1. Where is the radiator/oil system in our mk of mossie: ie are they close together?

Q2. are large calibre shells or even mgs modelled so that they can penetrate and hit more than 1 component ( I assume so) and could this possibly explain why .303's could take out 2 engines when the initial hit was only on 1 engine?

Thoughts/info?

I love the damn thing, in fact I don't understand why more people don't fly it.

Gatso

Karnak · « **Reply #11 on:** September 02, 2002, 04:12:27 PM »

gatso,

So far as I can tell from the cuttaway drawings of the Mosquito, each engine is completely separate as far as oil and coolant are concerned. The oil and coolant are located in the nacell of the engine and the radiator in the leading edge of the wing between the fuselage and engine nacell.

.303s are rifle calibre guns and the test was performed so that the .303s were hitting from below. There is no way that they could have caused the simultaneous and total destruction of both engines.

Mister Fork · « **Reply #12 on:** September 02, 2002, 06:58:31 PM »

Good work Karnak!

I originally wondered if the matchstick problem is related to the damage modelling because the plane is made out of wood. However, after searching through hundreds of publications, the Mosquito never suffered from vunerability of being balsa wood construction. It was actually considered quite sturdy BECAUSE it was made out of balsa. Most cannon fire would simply pass through the plane leaving only holes in the wood design (Weapons of Warfare, De Havilland Mosquito IV.B).

HOWEVER, during my investigation, I asked myself - what are we after here with all the nit-picking of every aircraft? Is it possible that the game we are playing may have weaknesses that we can live with? Does every aircraft have to be absolutely perfect?

The answer is obviously no. Aces High is not a simulator, it's an MMOG. Every time I see a posting about errors in the flight or damage model, I can see both sides to the coin. Yes, it would be nice for HTC to fix each and every plane to achieve perfect status, but is it realistic for them to go for that level and forget about other more important game features?

For you Karnak to nitpick the Mosquito is a valid complaint. But whether or not it's a realism issue is something that Aces High has a lot of grey-area. Sames goes for the rest of the aircraft nitpickers. Yes, there seems to be a bias towards American aircraft. Yes, some Luftwaffle aircraft seems undermodelled. Yes, some American aircraft have radiator vunerabilities.

Personally, I'd rather see effort made instead of fixing a plane to add 20mph on the top speed but on adding a Stuka, He-111 or Do-17, Beaufighter, or other Axis and Allies aircraft.

Mark Luper · « **Reply #13 on:** September 03, 2002, 07:15:56 AM »

Actually Mr Fork,
Changing the performance I think is a relatively easy proposition, a matter of changing the performance tables set for ac. What may not be so easy is determining how much and what to change and what to base that on, i.e. what published values to use to determine the amount of change.

As far as the dammage model I am not sure how that is done, whether it is modeled into the ac when it's designed or if it uses a set of tables to determine dammage areas and how fragil they are.

Like Karnak, I too like the Mossie but found it to be much too fragil for my lack of expertise especially after being used to the toughness of the P-47. I too hope to see the Mossie "revisited" but do understand that with the limited number of people working at HTC and all that they have commited themselves to produce that it would not be something very high on their priority list at this time.

Mister Fork · « **Reply #14 on:** September 03, 2002, 10:33:37 AM »

Mark, no offense, you obviously know nothing about software development. Change one bit of code to fix one item is about 1/6 of the time it takes to make a game change.

There is a tonne of quality assurance testing that needs to be done, that's 2/3 of the time, and the remaining is the packaging it up into an install, documentation changes, etc.

Yes, it may be a quick fix, but every simple fix takes time to implement. That's why HTC hasn't just fixed every 'simple' performance changes, damange modelling on all the aircraft. It takes time and they got bigger fish to catch...