Time to present our cases on the missing wing/wingtip/high speed ditch cases. Here's my views.
High speed ditching: a 10 000 pound aircraft loaded with inflammable fuel hitting the ground even at a gentle angle doing more than 250 mph has a very high chance of doing a FlameBall(tm) imitation in real life. Not much to discuss there - the historical evidence is quite overwhelming. I can probably dig something up should it be necessary but I have some hope in people understanding some rather elementary rules of physics.
Ditching with missing wingtip/wing The argument here goes along the lines of "representative damage" - i.e that at the moment, AH shows a missing wingtip but the actual damage might not be what is displayed. I have two objections to this; one is more of a question, and another a fact. First one is; how has HTC modelled the compartments? Are they gradually modelled, i.e performance sinks as % goes down, or are they either destroyed or not destoyed. The way the FM is today, I am led to believe it is more of a bvinary thing - I get performance problems when I lose an elevator, not when I damage them. Nor do I get 35% peformance loss when it is just shot up a bit.
Second, some planes can fly without a wingtip or wing, others cannot. I dare anyone to land a 109 who has lost a wingtip. This in itself suggests that it is not a representative damage problemm, but inherently linked to compartment damage. If it was a representative damage thingy, 109G10's should be able to fly without a wingtip just as well as a 190A8 (potentially) does it, given the damage is relatively the same.
It's a GAME, it's supposed to be FUN Now this argument I feel is totally out of place in a simulator which strives to meet reality all while trying to keep the sim fun. First of all, it is so much out of proportion that it is akin to asking for powerups, because "it is a game, it is blah blah".
Yeh, sure is fun to ditch at 300mph with a missing wing. Sure would be fun to have quad damage too. Sure is fun to fight without a missing wing too, but I would also like health powerups for my injured pilot.
This thing has just started to annoy me a bit. I am not however sufficiently annoyed to lose my objectivity or lose sight of the fact that my opinion is that something is wrong, and they're based on what I feel is reasonable arguments.
So those who advocate the ditching/wingless flying or people who find flaws in my arguments, please point them out so we can have a *real* discussion about this.
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StSanta
II/JG2
