Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Saxman on October 03, 2009, 07:39:47 PM
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In a recent discussion regarding the damage model, I recall hitech mentioning that one reason that it's done with the way it is is to remove randomness: People would just get mad and complain if the game randomly decides a round cut your control lines. Modeling such components would certainly be a complex process, as well.
However as a result of the "all or nothing" model, there's a bias favoring cannon-armed planes to a degree beyond historical performance. Simply put, machine guns could inflict fatal damage just by shredding an airfoil beyond its ability to sustain lift, or by severing control line, fuel lines, and various other internal parts.
The game does already track "damage points" for each component to determine when it should fail. What if the % to which, say, a wing is damaged before it pops off directly translates into a given loss of lift. In other words, you rake an enemy's wing and deal 15% damage. That part of the wing (let's say it was the outer half) loses 15% of the amount of lift it generates.
The same can be applied to control surfaces and flaps as well. If the aileron takes 50% damage, it's only 50% as effective as it should be.
Wings, wingtips, vertical stab, horizontal stab, rudder, ailerons, flaps and elevators would all be affected in this manner.
This will help alleviate the exaggerated advantage of cannon without introducing a random element into the damage model, or needing to track dozens of additional components in the flight model.
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Been suggested before, but +1000000. And for bombers, if your carrying a bomb or torpedo, and a bullet hits it, you have what looks like spauntanious combustion :D. I say we modle that as well. There are a certian number of bomb slots for each load, and each one has its place, emptying from bottom front then bottom of the next row, and so on. If a bullet hits your plane where that bomb is stored, you die....
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I don't really agree. When a cannon shell explodes it sends shrapnel out that is just as likely to sever a cable as machine gun fire is. If you look at a plane that has been shot up, even machine guns don't hit with that many rounds.
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I don't really agree. When a cannon shell explodes it sends shrapnel out that is just as likely to sever a cable as machine gun fire is. If you look at a plane that has been shot up, even machine guns don't hit with that many rounds.
Your right, 8 .50's firing at 800rpm for a solid 3 secs DON'T put a lot of lead on a target. Plus cannon shells only fragment so much. 1000 fragments the size of a grain of sand won't do as much as 20 quarter sized fragments.
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Nemisis you have any idea of what the odds are of any given bullet penetrating a bomb casing?
First, you have a curved surface, so unless it hits exactly 90 degrees chances are its going to bounce off.
Second if it did punch a hole through, that will not necessarily set off the explosive.
Granted, you might start it on fire, but there is a big difference between a fire and a explosion.
A bomb cooking off would be in effect a really wicked blow torch for a few seconds.
But only in 1 direction, like a jet, and only for seconds.
Most military explosives are actually have fairly high tolerances for pressure.
Unlike say an old stick of TNT which a rifle bullet could set off.
But just to cut the chase, I'll gladly donate to a fund to supply you with .303 ammo and a 1k bomb for you to shoot at providing you do so from a range of no more than 25 yards. Let me know how that works out for you. :)
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Sorry about the Hijack Saxman.
Not totally sure I agree with you, but you raise a good question.
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Your right, 8 .50's firing at 800rpm for a solid 3 secs DON'T put a lot of lead on a target. Plus cannon shells only fragment so much. 1000 fragments the size of a grain of sand won't do as much as 20 quarter sized fragments.
No, they don't, not when the target is only in the stream for .2 seconds and the shots are distributed over a good portion of it. If you can hold the fire on the target, you could do so with cannons too.
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Karnak,
Yes, I fully realize that a cannon shell is easily able to sever a cable, but I think you're missing my point: We don't model that ANYWAY. The damage model as it is is all or nothing, which still exaggerates the effect of cannon vs. machine guns. That is NOT to say the cannon wouldn't still be more devastating, but I think machine guns would gain far more benefit from damage % having a direct effect on the amount of lift provided by an airfoil or control surface than would cannon.
And again, it's a way to make a more detailed damage model using hard numerical data rather than a random dice roll.
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First, you have a curved surface, so unless it hits exactly 90 degrees chances are its going to bounce off.
hmmm, good point. Lets up it to a cannon shell
Most military explosives are actually have fairly high tolerances for pressure.
Unlike say an old stick of TNT which a rifle bullet could set off.
Yup, but they weren't made shock proof untill the 50's. And this is in the 40's so your SOL. A bullet hitting a pice of TNT from the 40's would set it off.
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Nemisis,
There's FAR too many variables. Could it happen? Maybe. But it's probably a one in a million shot. My post is aimed at ways to increase the robustness of the damage model WITHOUT resorting to random chance, which this would require.
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I like the idea Sax :salute
I would also like to see drop tanks catch on fire :x :x, probably wouldnt happen very often but it would be cool nonetheless.
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OK then...then when a bomber crashes, can we have its whole load go off at one time?
I like the idea Sax :salute
I would also like to see drop tanks catch on fire :x :x, probably wouldnt happen very often but it would be cool nonetheless.
+100
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I definitely support this idea, Sax. :aok
Whenever I run out of cannon rounds in my spitfire, I immediately want to head home. Those little .303s don't do squat :(
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I'm all for revamping the damage model. I'd suggest studying how Il-2 does it, and then improving on that.
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Sax I would 100 percent love this as is when I am flying the all or nothingness of being hit has begun to sadden me beside some planes like spits and hurricanes that had canvas wings sometimes would simply have the cannon shells pass through harmlessly like an mg round so long as they didnt hit something stable inside the wing.
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machine guns could inflict fatal damage just by shredding an airfoil beyond its ability to sustain lift, or by severing control line, fuel lines, and various other internal parts.
Sax, that's what I see during pony sorties. I no longer keep on a con to put him down. Usually, a well aimed burst will get me the kill after other guys have put him down.
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Nemisis you have any idea of what the odds are of any given bullet penetrating a bomb casing?
First, you have a curved surface, so unless it hits exactly 90 degrees chances are its going to bounce off.
Second if it did punch a hole through, that will not necessarily set off the explosive.
Granted, you might start it on fire, but there is a big difference between a fire and a explosion.
A bomb cooking off would be in effect a really wicked blow torch for a few seconds.
But only in 1 direction, like a jet, and only for seconds.
Most military explosives are actually have fairly high tolerances for pressure.
Unlike say an old stick of TNT which a rifle bullet could set off.
in ww2 the germans used (now I dont remember exactly) either 262's or 163, i know it was a jet plane to fire rockets at the moment that the bay doors would open. bombs would explode, blow up the buff and several other buffs around it. one of the jet planes that got shot down, had just fired its rockets into a b17. in total he got 8 buffs with one salvo of rockets. it is also known that flak blew up several buffs by hitting its bombs. guess u call that one in a million.
also a bomb that blows like a torch, would make the bomb itself a rocket, for only a few seconds but it aint gonna stay in place, and guess what's next to a bomb, another bomb? remember a rocket is nothing but a bomb with a hole at the end of it.
semp
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Guncrasher, yes, when you consider how many MILLIONS of flak rounds were fired at a bomber, yep, I consider that 1 in a million.
Nemisis, 20mm while it will do more damage to a plane, because it explodes would likely do less damage to a bomb. As it doesn't have the penitration.
Guys please remember, these are not some jury rigged sticks of dynamite.
Bombs are carefully designed with safety systems to only go off under certain circumstances.
They had to fall for a certain distance to arm the system. Then and only then would a contact fuze in the nose be able to set the bomb off if it strikes something.
And yes, perhaps a 88mm flak round could trigger a bomb to go off with a direct hit, thus causing a series of them to go off. But the odds are against it.
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And yes, perhaps a 88mm flak round could trigger a bomb to go off with a direct hit, thus causing a series of them to go off. But the odds are against it.
That, and an 88mm flak round would probably just blow up the bomber itself with a direct hit on its own, anyway, so it's really sort of a moot point.
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Something else to consider, to extrapolate on Saxmans point....
When a control surface like a wing takes an excessive amount of lead, perforating the control and lift surfaces....it becomes less stable.
I can't count the times I've unloaded MG's into an enemies wing/tail only to see them perform a high G evasive maneuver to escape my attack. If you damage a wing to a good 35-50% and someone yanks hard on the stick putting a high G strain onto the surface, physics suggest that the surface should shear/tear off. This is definitely NOT modeled into Aces High and would be absolutely awesome. Taking damage like that should put the fear of death into the pilot, and require nursing his banged up aircraft back to the hanger, not getting aggressive and continuing the fight. Of course I could shoot straighter and aim for the cockpit....another story though. :D
Damaged planes taking out friendlies is a regular occurrence, when actually they shouldn't be able to put the strain/load onto the wings that they are.
I love the damage model from IL-2 and would love to see improvements made in that direction to damage modeling. I get a real kick out of IL-2 looking out the window and seeing a giant hole in my wing that I can see the ground through! It's such a beautiful thing.
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Sax I would 100 percent love this as is when I am flying the all or nothingness of being hit has begun to sadden me beside some planes like spits and hurricanes that had canvas wings sometimes would simply have the cannon shells pass through harmlessly like an mg round so long as they didnt hit something stable inside the wing.
yeah but swiss cheese canvas don't do squat....
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Something else to consider, to extrapolate on Saxmans point....
When a control surface like a wing takes an excessive amount of lead, perforating the control and lift surfaces....it becomes less stable.
I can't count the times I've unloaded MG's into an enemies wing/tail only to see them perform a high G evasive maneuver to escape my attack. If you damage a wing to a good 35-50% and someone yanks hard on the stick putting a high G strain onto the surface, physics suggest that the surface should shear/tear off. This is definitely NOT modeled into Aces High and would be absolutely awesome. Taking damage like that should put the fear of death into the pilot, and require nursing his banged up aircraft back to the hanger, not getting aggressive and continuing the fight. Of course I could shoot straighter and aim for the cockpit....another story though. :D
Damaged planes taking out friendlies is a regular occurrence, when actually they shouldn't be able to put the strain/load onto the wings that they are.
I love the damage model from IL-2 and would love to see improvements made in that direction to damage modeling. I get a real kick out of IL-2 looking out the window and seeing a giant hole in my wing that I can see the ground through! It's such a beautiful thing.
The problem is how do you introduce the potential for stress breakage from damage without getting into random behavior?
I suppose you could use the percentage of damage to the airfoil as a baseline. Say, if your wing is 25% damaged, you lose 25% of your max G-load before failure under stress (IE, if your wing can normally tolerate 12G, 25% damage means you can only handle 9G before it snaps off). This would also allow the addition of the main spar to the damage listing to directly control wing breakage, while the wing itself determines lift generation (so you can shred the wing's surface all day, but if you don't break the main spar the wing won't come off).
This then leads us to the question of how to implement such a damage model without adding to the processing load.
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I love the damage model from IL-2 and would love to see improvements made in that direction to damage modeling. I get a real kick out of IL-2 looking out the window and seeing a giant hole in my wing that I can see the ground through! It's such a beautiful thing.
Right, but what's important is that when a surface takes damage, its efficiency decreases. HTC could implement a similar feature in the next update if it were a priority.
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Ok, so let's see the damage model expanded as follows:
- Left Wing Tip - % damage = % lift lost of left wingtip.
- Left Wing - % damage = % lift lost of left wing.
- Right Wing Tip - % damage = % lift lost of right wingtip.
- Right Wing - % damage = % lift lost of right wing.
- Left Main Spar Outer = % damage until left wing tip breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Left Main Spar Inner = % damage until left wing breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Right Main Spar Outer = % damage until right wing tip breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Right Main Spar Inner = % damage until right wing breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Left Aileron - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Aileron blown off at 100% damage.
- Right Aileron - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Aileron blown off at 100% damage.
- Flap - % damage = % effectiveness reduction (done per flap. So the F4U with its complex flap 3-part assembly would have one flap listed for each of the six components [three left/three right]). Flap is blown off at 100% damage.
- Left Horizontal Stabilizer - % damage = % lift loss of left stabilizer. Stabilizer blown off at 100% damage.
- Right Horizontal Stabilizer - % damage = % lift loss of right stabilizer. Stabilizer blown off at 100% damage.
- Left Elevator - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Elevator blown off at 100% damage.
- Right Elevator - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Elevator blown off at 100% damage.
- Vertical Stabilizer - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Stabilizer blown off at 100% damage
- Rudder - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Rudder blown off at 100% damage
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Sax they'd just have to modify the current stress/speed relationship with an introduced damage variable.
I know that if you dive in some planes, and attempt a high G turn to pull out of the dive, the wings rip off. Zeke is a great example of that.
They'd just have to tweak it to include the damage variable.
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However as a result of the "all or nothing" model, there's a bias favoring cannon-armed planes to a degree beyond historical performance.
Could you please explain this part in more detail? Frankly, I do not see any bias favoring cannon over machine guns at all. From strictly damage point of view, a cannon round does more damage in AH, but so it did in RL.
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Ok, so let's see the damage model expanded as follows:
- Left Wing Tip - % damage = % lift lost of left wingtip.
- Left Wing - % damage = % lift lost of left wing.
- Right Wing Tip - % damage = % lift lost of right wingtip.
- Right Wing - % damage = % lift lost of right wing.
- Left Main Spar Outer = % damage until left wing tip breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Left Main Spar Inner = % damage until left wing breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Right Main Spar Outer = % damage until right wing tip breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Right Main Spar Inner = % damage until right wing breaks off / % G-load reduction until stress failure.
- Left Aileron - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Aileron blown off at 100% damage.
- Right Aileron - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Aileron blown off at 100% damage.
- Flap - % damage = % effectiveness reduction (done per flap. So the F4U with its complex flap 3-part assembly would have one flap listed for each of the six components [three left/three right]). Flap is blown off at 100% damage.
- Left Horizontal Stabilizer - % damage = % lift loss of left stabilizer. Stabilizer blown off at 100% damage.
- Right Horizontal Stabilizer - % damage = % lift loss of right stabilizer. Stabilizer blown off at 100% damage.
- Left Elevator - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Elevator blown off at 100% damage.
- Right Elevator - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Elevator blown off at 100% damage.
- Vertical Stabilizer - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Stabilizer blown off at 100% damage
- Rudder - % damage = % effectiveness reduction. Rudder blown off at 100% damage
Maybe not quite like that. I think untill 10% damage is reached, each damage % should equal .5% effectivnes lost. Once 10% damage is reached, it upps to .75% effectivnes lost untill 25% where it reaches 1% efectivness loss per each % damage done. Then once it reaches 50% it upps to 1.25% efectivness lost, then 1.5% once it hits 75% damage, and once it reaches 90% it goes up to 2%.
This would represent compounding damage: if you take 15 .50's to the wing with a fresh plane, it won't hurt you as much as 15 .50's to the wing in a plane that is already 75% damaged...
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Booze,
Y'know I could have sworn my original post did this already....
Scenario 1:
An F4U-1C and F4U-1A both put a half-second burst into the inner half of a target's left wing--say, a P-47--under full convergence range. Using my settings, that's at 200yds. The 1C will likely take almost any opponent's wing right off at that range. Depending the target, however, the 1A may not have caused enough damage to finish off the airfoil. Under the current model, the enemy escapes and continues to fight without problems and possibly gets a shot of its own at the Corsair before it can be finished off.
Now, let's change the damage model so that the amount of damage caused directly correlates to the amount of lift lost:
The 1A puts in his half-second burst and fails to destroy the wing, however the hit was sufficient to do 60% damage to the airfoil. The target has suddenly lost 60% of the lift produced by that part of the wing, leading to a stall of the left wing. The pilot is unable to recover, perhaps because the aircraft was already at a high angle of attack while maneuvering against the 1A, and the stalled wings snaps the aircraft into an unrecoverable spin.
Scenario 2, with Wing Spar damage added:
The 1C and 1A both put their half-second bursts into the wing, striking the main spar. The 1C's cannon destroy the spar and the wing shears off. The 1A, meanwhile, not only shreds part of the wing's surface (damage to the wing spar shouldn't take the place of damage inflicted to the airfoil itself) but seriously damages the main spar, perhaps within 60% destroyed. Although the P-47 is flyable, he can no longer press the fight as the damaged spar wouldn't be able to withstand the G-loading of hard maneuvering and threatens to snap under the stress. Compounding the situation is the shredded airfoil reducing the amount of lift the wing can generate, causing the aircraft to roll to one side. While the P-47 may still be flyable, in all probability he's out of the fight (perhaps the creak that plays under high G-loads can occur at increasingly lower airspeeds and G-loads as an audible queue of damage to the spar?)
This is why I say the effectiveness of cannon have to some degrees been exaggerated by AH's damage model. I'm not arguing that cannon wouldn't inflict more damage, my argument is that the all-or-nothing, your wing is either there or it isn't damage modeling makes machine gun fire less effective than it SHOULD be. Cannon would remain more potent, but machine guns gain an additional benefit by not needing to destroy a component entirely to have an effect.
Nemisis,
The problem there is what is the rate of increase? An equal, tit-for-tat correlation between the amount of damage inflicted and amount of lift/effectiveness lost is cleaner, easier to understand, and less arbitrary.
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I understand what you're saying there sax. A few hits with cannon can take off a wing, thus making a kill. A few shots with 50s will damage the wing, but the flight of the target aircraft will not be damaged. In fact he'll fly just fine until the right number of 50s go into it.
Interesting point.
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Nemisis,
The problem there is what is the rate of increase? An equal, tit-for-tat correlation between the amount of damage inflicted and amount of lift/effectiveness lost is cleaner, easier to understand, and less arbitrary.
Yes, I know, but its the best I could come up with. .25 increase for every 25% damage isn't enough, as you will only hit 1.5% loss of effectivness per % damage cause, and that is the max you can do with each damage %. I know what I've stated isn't perfect, but its better than the above.
What do you guys think of the idea as a whole?
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Yes, I know, but its the best I could come up with. .25 increase for every 25% damage isn't enough, as you will only hit 1.5% loss of effectivness per % damage cause, and that is the max you can do with each damage %. I know what I've stated isn't perfect, but its better than the above.
What do you guys think of the idea as a whole?
That's why 1% damage = 1% effect is the best option. Damage a wing at 25%, it loses 25% of its lift. Damage it to 50% it loses 50%, etc. The damage directly correlates to the effect.
I'll certainly admit that it IS simplified as compared to what the real-life effects would be, but under the circumstances I think this is the most flexible and easily implemented approach. It's purely mathematical, meaning there's no real basis for complaint about someone saying the game randomly tore their wing off, and it's good enough to simulate the effects of having your wing riddled with bullets.
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That's why 1% damage = 1% effect is the best option. Damage a wing at 25%, it loses 25% of its lift. Damage it to 50% it loses 50%, etc. The damage directly correlates to the effect.
I'll certainly admit that it IS simplified as compared to what the real-life effects would be, but under the circumstances I think this is the most flexible and easily implemented approach. It's purely mathematical, meaning there's no real basis for complaint about someone saying the game randomly tore their wing off, and it's good enough to simulate the effects of having your wing riddled with bullets.
yes, but mine wouldn't be random either, and I do admit it would me harder to implament. I'm just suggesting a more realistic option. What happens when you shoot up an alreay shot up wing? each bullet causes more problems then one hitting an undamaged wing. Your tearing off MORE of the already lacking flight surfaces which means that it hurts you more then a bullet would if your in a fresh plane.
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I have a feeling HiTech is sipping coffee from his I heart HTC mug, slowly reading over this thread and raising his eyebrows at some of the interesting points brought up in this thread...
Hey, nobody said I couldn't wish here in the wishlist! :P
Give ye olde damage model an update, eh? :pray
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I bet everytime someone starts an "IN" thing, the moderators start laughing there tulips of cause we just told them we expect them to close it.
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yes, but mine wouldn't be random either, and I do admit it would me harder to implament. I'm just suggesting a more realistic option. What happens when you shoot up an alreay shot up wing? each bullet causes more problems then one hitting an undamaged wing. Your tearing off MORE of the already lacking flight surfaces which means that it hurts you more then a bullet would if your in a fresh plane.
The key here is to balance realism with playability and keeping things simple enough for to be done without enormous expenditures of processing power. Yeah, it would be great if airfoil surface damage responded EXACTLY as it would in real life, but that would be unfeasible. I also don't expect it to ever be quite to the level that Il-2's is, because while Il-2 has the benefit of only rendering for only one to a handful of players at a time, Aces High needs to track this information for hundreds of players at once over a network connection. The simpler the equation is the better.
The other problem with % effect increasing exponentially as % damage does, rather than effect increasing with damage linearly, is that eventually you'll reach a point where % effect will exceed 100%. For example, if you start at 1% damage = .25% effect, and double the effect with each % point of damage, You'll reach 128% effect at only 10% damage.
A MUCH better way to do it would be this:
Rather than having effect increase exponentially with the amount of damage inflicted, have DAMAGE increase exponentially with the number of hits. Say, a .50cal round causes 1pt of damage baseline. You fire 100 .50cal rounds at a target, and all 100 hit. Rather than each round causing 1pt of damage for a successful hit, as the part takes fire the amount of points of damage inflicted by the round increases to reflect the weakening of the part. This will also account for other factors such as range, hit pattern, etc. (so if you hit the target in a five foot zone on the wing at long range it may only cause 4% damage if the wing is undamaged. However if you make the same shot while the wing is damaged above a given level, a hit under those same conditions may cause 25% damage instead).
That way, % effect can never exceed % damage, while at the same time, weakened structures will be more susceptible to continued punishment.
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The key here is to balance realism with playability and keeping things simple enough for to be done without enormous expenditures of processing power. Yeah, it would be great if airfoil surface damage responded EXACTLY as it would in real life, but that would be unfeasible. I also don't expect it to ever be quite to the level that Il-2's is, because while Il-2 has the benefit of only rendering for only one to a handful of players at a time, Aces High needs to track this information for hundreds of players at once over a network connection. The simpler the equation is the better.
The other problem with % effect increasing exponentially as % damage does, rather than effect increasing with damage linearly, is that eventually you'll reach a point where % effect will exceed 100%. For example, if you start at 1% damage = .25% effect, and double the effect with each % point of damage, You'll reach 128% effect at only 10% damage.
A MUCH better way to do it would be this:
Rather than having effect increase exponentially with the amount of damage inflicted, have DAMAGE increase exponentially with the number of hits. Say, a .50cal round causes 1pt of damage baseline. You fire 100 .50cal rounds at a target, and all 100 hit. Rather than each round causing 1pt of damage for a successful hit, as the part takes fire the amount of points of damage inflicted by the round increases to reflect the weakening of the part. This will also account for other factors such as range, hit pattern, etc. (so if you hit the target in a five foot zone on the wing at long range it may only cause 4% damage if the wing is undamaged. However if you make the same shot while the wing is damaged above a given level, a hit under those same conditions may cause 25% damage instead).
That way, % effect can never exceed % damage, while at the same time, weakened structures will be more susceptible to continued punishment.
That looks to be a good compromise, I like it. And BTW, I wasn't suggesting exponential increase in damage done by rounds. I was saying that at 10% the structure would weaken enough, combined with previous damage weakening cruicial parts, that it would likely be .75% efectivnes lost for every % damage done. And likewise it would hit 1% loss of efectivenss for every % of damage done untill 25% is reached at that point, the damage done would likely be great enough to cause weakening of each sequential part.
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That's why 1% damage = 1% effect is the best option. Damage a wing at 25%, it loses 25% of its lift. Damage it to 50% it loses 50%, etc. The damage directly correlates to the effect.
I like this idea, but it does have one problem that would end up being odd. When damage to a surface begins to reach the larger end of the percentage range (80 - 100) it's going to seem a bit unrealistic. If a wing has 99% damage done to it, that means it would lose 99% of effective lift, which in reality would make it entirely useless. On the other hand, even if it did have 99% damage, with this system the wing would still technically be there and likely be creating more then 1% lift of its original potential in realism. I can't think of how to put it in an equation but I think the only way to solve this would be once the percentage of damage begins to climb into its higher end, the Damage:Effect ratio would need to lessen to make things a bit more realistic.
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so a graph of effectivness should look like this in your oppinion? would look like this:
(http://theguardians-aceshigh.webs.com/apps/photos/photo/next?photoid=54539895)
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Booze,
Y'know I could have sworn my original post did this already....
Scenario 1:
An F4U-1C and F4U-1A both put a half-second burst into the inner half of a target's left wing--say, a P-47--under full convergence range. Using my settings, that's at 200yds. The 1C will likely take almost any opponent's wing right off at that range. Depending the target, however, the 1A may not have caused enough damage to finish off the airfoil. Under the current model, the enemy escapes and continues to fight without problems and possibly gets a shot of its own at the Corsair before it can be finished off.
Now, let's change the damage model so that the amount of damage caused directly correlates to the amount of lift lost:
The 1A puts in his half-second burst and fails to destroy the wing, however the hit was sufficient to do 60% damage to the airfoil. The target has suddenly lost 60% of the lift produced by that part of the wing, leading to a stall of the left wing. The pilot is unable to recover, perhaps because the aircraft was already at a high angle of attack while maneuvering against the 1A, and the stalled wings snaps the aircraft into an unrecoverable spin.
Scenario 2, with Wing Spar damage added:
The 1C and 1A both put their half-second bursts into the wing, striking the main spar. The 1C's cannon destroy the spar and the wing shears off. The 1A, meanwhile, not only shreds part of the wing's surface (damage to the wing spar shouldn't take the place of damage inflicted to the airfoil itself) but seriously damages the main spar, perhaps within 60% destroyed. Although the P-47 is flyable, he can no longer press the fight as the damaged spar wouldn't be able to withstand the G-loading of hard maneuvering and threatens to snap under the stress. Compounding the situation is the shredded airfoil reducing the amount of lift the wing can generate, causing the aircraft to roll to one side. While the P-47 may still be flyable, in all probability he's out of the fight (perhaps the creak that plays under high G-loads can occur at increasingly lower airspeeds and G-loads as an audible queue of damage to the spar?)
This is why I say the effectiveness of cannon have to some degrees been exaggerated by AH's damage model. I'm not arguing that cannon wouldn't inflict more damage, my argument is that the all-or-nothing, your wing is either there or it isn't damage modeling makes machine gun fire less effective than it SHOULD be. Cannon would remain more potent, but machine guns gain an additional benefit by not needing to destroy a component entirely to have an effect.
Nemisis,
The problem there is what is the rate of increase? An equal, tit-for-tat correlation between the amount of damage inflicted and amount of lift/effectiveness lost is cleaner, easier to understand, and less arbitrary.
Saxman, I get your point, but still, no bias for cannons in your scenario. In any of your cases, the cannon armed bird will always do more damage - with the same ratio as it does now.
What your proposal essentially does is lowering the effective damage threshold - for both weapon types. It will not alter the effective power difference between them. So even if you get noticeable damage for machine gun fire earlier, the cannons will still disable/rip-off that part much earlier - just as it is now. Or from a more pessimistic POV, if you don't get enough machine rounds on target, that part may not be crippled at all. But the same with a cannon, it may very well cripple that part. You see the ratio does not change.
Apart from that, I'd welcome a higher fidelity damage modeling like your suggestion. But in that case I'd also lower weapon effectiveness across the range. It's is too easy to kill in AH, it should not be any easier than now.
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You're looking at it from a top-to-bottom view. "No matter what, a cannon will always deal more damage." Look at it from bottom-to-top: "A machine gun will always deal less damage." Until you get the kill, there is absolutely no benefit at all to landing MG rounds on target. It's essentially the same as waiting for the Golden BB, because you can (theoretically) pour hundreds of rounds all over a plane and have it not bother him at all. Not only is that entirely unrealistic, but it gives a slight disadvantage and "loss of reward" for firing MGs (reward for cannons being structural failure...why not reward the MGs with chipping away at performance?).
I agree with this wish, and add that the Ctrl-D list should display dark yellow (to make it more easily visible on the light blue sky) text for damaged but not failed components.
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I like this idea, but it does have one problem that would end up being odd. When damage to a surface begins to reach the larger end of the percentage range (80 - 100) it's going to seem a bit unrealistic. If a wing has 99% damage done to it, that means it would lose 99% of effective lift, which in reality would make it entirely useless. On the other hand, even if it did have 99% damage, with this system the wing would still technically be there and likely be creating more then 1% lift of its original potential in realism. I can't think of how to put it in an equation but I think the only way to solve this would be once the percentage of damage begins to climb into its higher end, the Damage:Effect ratio would need to lessen to make things a bit more realistic.
I had the same thought. Make it damage %/2.
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Not only is that entirely unrealistic, but it gives a slight disadvantage and "loss of reward" for firing MGs (reward for cannons being structural failure...why not reward the MGs with chipping away at performance?).
This is the error of your thinking - in the "new model" a cannon round (unless of course the big calibers, but those are essentially grenades anyway) will also start with chipping away performance and not causing structural failure at once - just as a mg round, but at a 3-4 times higer rate. The ratio remains the same as it is now, it's just the planes that "cripple" sooner.
If anything, if done correctly, cannon round will do much more damage than than mg rounds as we have now. A 20 mm HE blast for instance will tear more wing area off than 3-4 mg bullet holes.
Just look what a 30 mm cannon round does to a wing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLLDi-M3fk
For reference, a German 20 mm mine carries 1/4 th of the HE material as this 30 mm mine, so overall results will be much less severe, but still magintudes above than what a single MG round will ever do.
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Booze, you're still missing the point. Under the current model you're more likely to see instant results from firing cannon than with MGs. A part is either there or it isn't. The threshold for seeing results from MG fire is SIGNIFICANTLY greater than with cannon, where only a couple hits is often enough to break something.
I'm fully aware that landing a cannon hit is going to degrade performance under the new model as well. However since it's also much more common to knock a part off with only 2-3 cannon hits outright, the cannon aren't going to take as much advantage of this as MGs, which may take a good 100rpg to deal damage under the current model. I mean seriously, how often do you hit a fighter in the wing with a 30mm in the game and that plane remains flyable, anyway (barring incidents of rubber bullets from net lag)?
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Booze, you're still missing the point. Under the current model you're more likely to see instant results from firing cannon than with MGs. A part is either there or it isn't. The threshold for seeing results from MG fire is SIGNIFICANTLY greater than with cannon, where only a couple hits is often enough to break something.
Yes because thats the difference in destructive power. It's significant, like 3-4 times in favor for 20 mm cannons, and like 10 times for 30 mm. ;)
Take a threshold of X lbs of damage to knock a wing off. Therefore it will take Y machine gun round to knock it off, or 1/4 Y of cannon rounds.
Please note that if you fail to reach the threshold with cannon, you will have no damage on the wing either.
I'm fully aware that landing a cannon hit is going to degrade performance under the new model as well. However since it's also much more common to knock a part off with only 2-3 cannon hits outright, the cannon aren't going to take as much advantage of this as MGs, which may take a good 100rpg to deal damage under the current model. I mean seriously, how often do you hit a fighter in the wing with a 30mm in the game and that plane remains flyable, anyway (barring incidents of rubber bullets from net lag)?
I think your numbers are a bit off, I highly doubt that (small) cannon shells do 33-50 times the damage of mg round. I'm flying both .50 cal and cannon planes often, and I cannot confirm your observation. In my experience, 2 hispanos are worth 8 .50, and all other 20 mm a good 6 .50. That is for a sustained burst to knock a part off.
30 mm and up are overkill for fighters.
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I fly MG-armed rides extensively, and there's times where yes, I end up putting 400-600rds into a target's wing before it breaks off, and this is within convergence range. Probably netlag, but it DOES happen.
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Sax, if a 20mm round is 4X times more powerful than a caliber .50 round, the wing will pop off after you put 4X as many caliber .50 rounds into the wing. Thus, its a wash like Booze says.
Second, don't think of describing it as damaging the "airfoil". AH uses multiple spanwise stations to determine lift and other associated aerodynamic effects. Also, accurately modelling the effects of damage on airfoil efficiency would be truly difficult to do accurately. Now, the affect on control surfaces--that would be much easier to approximate.
The strength of your argument initially was the usefulness of MG at affecting systems. Rate of fire makes the difference, not the overall strength of the round. I don't have any rate of fire info in front of me, but 1 20mm round has a local affect, whereas a burst of MG that takes the same amount of time (and is spread across a section of airframe) may strike a number of locations, and perhaps have a greater chance of affecting those hydraulic lines and such you mentioned. Especially considering the higher kinetic energy of MG rounds at the same time compared to after a cannon warhead explodes. The fragments of the cannon shell travel at very low relative velocities. As stated by the USAAF during the war, using MGs instead of cannon was a result of desiring increased hit percentages and higher volumes of fire versus damage.
Lastly, if you look at most of the gun camera footage from the ETO, almost all kills are dead-6 shots at very close range, with very little maneuvering. In-game, high deflection shots are much more common, and therefore reward cannon armed planes much more. That's not really a game mechanic, but more a reflection of how MA behavior is different than real life.
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The question then becomes, which will be easier to model: damage to internal components like fuel, oil and hydraulic lines, control cables, etc., or damage impacting lift?
hitech already said he doesn't want to leave component damage to random chance. Theoretically that means EVERY aircraft would need to have those additional components given hitboxes, so the game knows exactly when a round cuts your control cables. I'm not familiar with the finer details of how the game engine works, but it strikes me that tracking this additional information for hundreds of aircraft at once is bound to add to the load. Having this internal component damage would certainly be ideal, but can it be done in a manner that it's neither random NOR impacts performance?
By contrast, it at least seems to me on the surface that with the airfoil it would be possible to institute a "blanket" effect that results in "Damage X = Effect Y." From what you describe the way lift is handled is somewhat more complicated, but it still sounds like this would be easier to implement than internal components.
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Well, you may be right. The problem as I see it with the "loss of lift" model is that I'm not sure we could be assured of an accurate result that was consistent with what would happen aerodynamically. Just as we don't want an arbitrary system hit, we wouldn't want something similar with the wing efficiency.
I agree with the overall concept--that a more detailed, system based damage model would add to the overall experience, and that it would help to mitigate the advantage cannon have in the game. I'm just not sure what would be the best way to implement it.
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I'm sure HTC could come up with some sort of equation that would at least approximate the effect of having your airfoil riddled with bullets, even if it's not 100% accurate to real life.
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I think before we proceed, we must have some ballpark figure on what punching a bunch of holes in the skin of a wing should do.
It is possible HTC things the effect is too negligible to be modeled.
Sax: What I wonder about is the "iron tail" problem, or angles in general where you *think* a hail of close range 50 cals would *have* to get the pilot but doesn't. This seems to happen abit both from dead six and also belly shots.
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I think before we proceed, we must have some ballpark figure on what punching a bunch of holes in the skin of a wing should do.
It is possible HTC things the effect is too negligible to be modeled.
It'd be surprised if that were the case, as I've read plenty of pilot accounts where they've taken fire into a wing and the aircraft started trying to roll to that side due to loss of lift.
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It'd be surprised if that were the case, as I've read plenty of pilot accounts where they've taken fire into a wing and the aircraft started trying to roll to that side due to loss of lift.
Well, that is a data point. Increase in drag I suppose too. I tend to like your idea.
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Sax,
You have a valid arguement,I support it entirely.Personal I always thought the "all or nothing" the cannon birds.
I wont argue effectiveness and the like but if anyone read the lastest update release from HTC,they'd see that ammo loadout points and damage points were quadrupled.
The how and what of this implentetion,I'll leave to the people who understand it.
This I hope will be a step towards exactly what your looking for Sax!
:salute
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I don't know how the current system works so that's most likely the determinant of how the system develops. Frankly, leaving out the element of random damage is probably not the the best choice. If a round impacts a mechanical structure, what are the odds of it doing damage? With a machine gun, you can fire dozens of rounds through a wing to little effect. The additional holes cause some drag effects but little beyond that. There is also the chance that one round strikes something critical like a aileron hinge or fuel line and causes considerable damage. If you want high fidelity you can track each exact hit location and each component within the structure and plot the related damage. This would require identifying and plotting the sub systems within a structure and mapping it all out as well as the odds of a hit damaging or destroying it. For instance, in a wing you would need to identify guns, fuel tanks, landing gear, control wires and ailerons, flaps etc The easier way out is to figure there is a relative chance of each hit of each weapon type causing damage that matters. For example, if all you are tracking is whether or not the round impacts a object and not where on the object then your best bet is to assign odds for each type of round to cause certain damage. You guys seem to be focused on percent of damage so it looks like the old hitpoints model where you have to hit something x amount of times then something certain happens. While there is some value to consistency, I would argue there is always a element of random chance of individual rounds causing catastrophic damage. How many planes sustain huge amounts of damage yet make it home while others are brought down by just a few rounds that got lucky?
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The problem that hitech outlined in the previous thread, rab, is the minute you start moving into random effects, people are going to start complaining HARD. People don't like things like random chance intruding on their ability to fly and enjoy the game, because taking skill out of the equation makes it much less about your abilities, and more about the computer making random choices.
There's enough random chance within the game's mechanics as it is. Sometimes that snapshot takes your wing off, sometimes you luck out and maybe one or two rounds miss, saving your wing. However this isn't the game randomly deciding, "Oh hey, I'll have his wing pop off this time" but a product of whatever mathematical model is at work determining the amount of damage inflicted.
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I hear you. If they can map where exactly the round impacts on each object then great. If you are only mapping the fact that each object got hit and don't know the angle then you are pretty much stuck either doing the hitpoints thing which isn't very realistic or the odds thing which in all honesty, I think you can admit is more realistic. How else can you take account of the semi random odds of a given bullet striking or ricocheting into a sub component? Isn't that pretty much how things happened in reality? Sometimes things get broke, other times just damaged. I would rather have more types of damage than complete loss of certain structures which are consistent each and every time. What we have now is hardly realistic and rather boring. It presents few combinations of challenges to taking hits. Personally, I would like to know each round did something but some rounds had odds of knocking the hinge off an aileron causing it to flap or jammed the flaps shut. I see it as some damage happening but some hits striking critical hits. Hey, it's not my game but that's my opinion.
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I have a feeling HiTech is sipping coffee from his I heart HTC mug, slowly reading over this thread and raising his eyebrows at some of the interesting points brought up in this thread...
Hey, nobody said I couldn't wish here in the wishlist! :P
Give ye olde damage model an update, eh? :pray
More like, Rolling on the floor in laughter, thinking people do not really think much about the consequences of what they ask for.
Step 1.
Do you wish planes to die more quickly or less quickly, or the same.
Step 2.
Do you wish to be at more of a disadvantage with 1 bullet hit so fights will tend to be, who ever lands the first bullet wins.
Step 3.
How will any damage model change, change the tactics used in the game.
HiTech
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More like, Rolling on the floor in laughter, thinking people do not really think much about the consequences of what they ask for.
Step 1.
Do you wish planes to die more quickly or less quickly, or the same.
Step 2.
Do you wish to be at more of a disadvantage with 1 bullet hit so fights will tend to be, who ever lands the first bullet wins.
Step 3.
How will any damage model change, change the tactics used in the game.
HiTech
:aok Perfectly stated.
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More like, Rolling on the floor in laughter, thinking people do not really think much about the consequences of what they ask for.
Step 1.
Do you wish planes to die more quickly or less quickly, or the same.
Obviously there's going to be a degree of balancing that would need to be done. If wearing away at the wings suddenly makes the plane more difficult to control even before the part is blown off entirely, the amount of damage inflicted by successful hits may need to be adjusted with it to get the right balance of effect.
Step 2.
Do you wish to be at more of a disadvantage with 1 bullet hit so fights will tend to be, who ever lands the first bullet wins.
To a degree this is already the case, especially if you're in a plane armed with MGs and your opponent has cannon. More often than not, a cannon-armed plane will decide the fight the minute he gets a shot in, while an MG-armed aircraft may need two or three snapshots, or one good tracking shot to do the same. This is why I say MGs would gain more benefit, because cannon already have the capability to decide the fight on the first round, wherease with the all-or-nothing model damage the MGs ARE capable of inflicting that might do the same doesn't have the effect it should.
Step 3.
How will any damage model change, change the tactics used in the game.
I can imagine a couple scenarios:
1) Players may opt for more low-risk tactics. BnZ, hording, etc.
2) Players may develop better ACM so they can avoid getting hit in a tight fight.
3) Players who have sustained sufficient damage their aircraft becomes too difficult to fight with may opt to find an exit rather than push when they can't win.
4) Players are going down anyway, so they're going to push as hard as they can before they go down.
In other words, while mentality of individual players might change to accomodate the new model, I think the overall balance wouldn't see TOO much of a difference from the way the game is played now. Some people are always going to go for the least risk, others are going to focus on getting better. Some will find a way to get out of a fight if they're trailing smoke or fuel, passing out from P/W's, or find themselves missing important things like wingtips, and others are going to do everything they can to take their opponent with them.
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Saxman: You did not do any of the steps.
You did not answer what your goal is. I.E. what you wish to happen.
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More like, Rolling on the floor in laughter, thinking people do not really think much about the consequences of what they ask for.
Step 1.
Do you wish planes to die more quickly or less quickly, or the same.
Step 2.
Do you wish to be at more of a disadvantage with 1 bullet hit so fights will tend to be, who ever lands the first bullet wins.
Step 3.
How will any damage model change, change the tactics used in the game.
HiTech
The obvious answer is people are asking for a more credible damage model which has little relevance to your points. They are sincerely offering ideas on how to improve the immersion and overall gameplay which benefits everyone, especially you. People are glad to see some recent improvements and wish to see more. Just because they are participating in the thread does not mean they are criticizing you personally or demeaning your work. While you tend to be highly defensive it would be in your best interest to consider the intent of someones actions instead of your immediate interpretation regardless of whether you intend to act on it or not.
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There is nothing defensive in my post. Those are real questions that are very important and pertinent to this discussion. All you are doing is stating the blatantly obvious. People always want more imersion,
I think we should rename you Captain Obvious, champion of Dhuuuuu.
The problem is right now people are only seeing what they want to see in their vision of a change. They are not thinking threw what they ask for and analyzing the real results. And are not asking themselves the question. "Is this what I really was wishing for?".
Take the idea of adding control cables. Do you really want the possibility of more 1 shot 303 deaths and hence on average quicker kills? Maybe you do wish this, but when your trying to design something as you are in this thread, you best look at what you design will cause in game play.
HiTech
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That's mainly why in this thread I was focusing on having your wings (and other stabilizers) shot up affecting lift based on how much damage was inflicted, rather than internal components which can be single-pinged off. You wouldn't have the single golden BB clipping your control cable, but you would still have the accumulative effect of getting your wing, horizontal or vertical stab shot full of holes.
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Saxman,
Cannon were more effective and nothing done to make the game more realistic will even the power of machine guns compared to cannon. A P-51D puts out 75 rounds per second, a Typhoon puts out 40 rounds per second. That number isn't that different considering the difference in each round's striking power. The USN concluded that an M2 20mm cannon (Hispano Mk II) had the same firepower as a bank of three Browning M2 .50s. That isn't a hit from the M2 20mm was equal to three hits from the M2 .50s, it was the firepower output, 10 rounds per second, was equal to the M2 .50 bank's output, 37.5 rounds per second.
I recall a Spitfire pilot's comment after hitting a Bf109 with a snap shot from his cannons and literally blowing it apart. He hadn't flown much recently and he said he'd been momentarily surprised by the Bf109's destruction because he'd forgotten how powerful the cannons were.
That's mainly why in this thread I was focusing on having your wings (and other stabilizers) shot up affecting lift based on how much damage was inflicted, rather than internal components which can be single-pinged off. You wouldn't have the single golden BB clipping your control cable, but you would still have the accumulative effect of getting your wing, horizontal or vertical stab shot full of holes.
Lift generation doesn't really work like that though. Putting a hole in the middle of the wing would have literally 0% effect on lift generation. To affect the lift generation you'd really have to take a large chunk out of the leading edge of the wing.
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nothing done to make the game more realistic will even the power of machine guns compared to cannon.
I don't believe that's what we're asking for. :)
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I don't believe that's what we're asking for. :)
Certainly sounds like it. There is a lot of BS stressing the ROF of machine guns as some magical equalizer.
20mm cannons were simply superior weapons for air-to-air combat. Yes, .50s were adequate, and they got the job done, but they were simply not as good at it. There is very little in the pro side for .50s when compared with 20mms.
.50s do get the job done in AH too, it isn't like they are BBs.
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Nice selective reading, Karnak.
I'm not saying ANYTHING about "evening the power of machine guns vs. cannon." I'm saying that the way damage is modelled exaggerates the power disparity because effects that ALL guns would have aren't modelled, and that impacts the MGs more because cannon are more likely to take the wing off entirely, anyway, while that same plane might have still gone down from MG fire even though the wing itself was still attached.
And btw, I'll need to look it up but in one of my books there's an account of a pilot who received a hit which took a chuck out of the middle of his wing--nowhere near the leading or trailing edge. Right smack dab in the center--and he ended up having to fly home with his leg wrapped around the stick to keep the plane level.
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I simply want a more realistic damage model. I believe Karnak is right, a cannon round does more explosive damage where machine guns tend to punch holes in things and damage systems. A single 303 potentially can bring down any plane if it hits it in the right spot. Doing so is statistically less likely than a 50 cal or larger round. Them's the breaks. As long as it's reasonable, people don't have much to complain about although that won't stop them. Overall, people will still appreciate the effort in realistic modeling. Adding up 1/2 inch holes in surfaces has little value as it has relatively little influence on the total effectiveness of the surface. Having pieces of stuff torn off would affect aerodynamics.
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They have incremental damage in Il-2, and when I play that game with other humans, the sky doesn't fall. Incremental damage to lift surfaces and stabilizers doesn't need a goal or a purpose; it only needs to be a credible representation of what might actually happen when an aircraft is damaged.
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Saxman,
There you go again. You have it in your head, wrongly, that the damage model in AH unfairly favors cannons. It doesn't. You somehow think that a more realistic damage model, something I'd like to see too, will lessen the the firepower difference between, say, a Spitfire Mk VIII and a P-51D. It won't. The Spitfire Mk VIII has noticeably more firepower than the P-51D and a more realistic model will not change that.
As to your anecdote, was it a bullet hole or a gaping hole blown by a cannon round? I was referring to bullet holes. If the airstreams traveling above and below the wing remain separated then lift will still be generated.
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Firepower difference? No, no change there. Effectiveness difference? Very much so.
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Firepower difference? No, no change there. Effectiveness difference? Very much so.
Exactly. And it wouldn't even displace getting a good, tight grouping within adequate range. Rounds scattered all over from several hundred yards out might not do much, which is the case of the damage model as it is anyway, but do you really believe that pouring 100 or so half-inch rounds into a zone about a foot across from 200yds won't knock a good-sized chunk out of the wing's surface skin? With the right hit you're not talking about individual bullet holes, because even MG fire can punch out a nice hunk of metal.
Someone mentioned gun camera footage earlier in the thread, and I've seen plenty credited to US aircraft firing MGs that show pieces of debris a good 2-3ft across flying off, so it's certainly well within the capability of the US .50cal to knock holes that big in the wing.
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Firepower difference? No, no change there. Effectiveness difference? Very much so.
If there is an effectiveness difference, the firepower has changed. What sort of mealy mouthed sentence did you post?
You guys really think the machine guns should be more effective than they were?
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No, it's that they aren't as effective as they were and we would like them to be made more in line with the damage they caused.
Firepower and effectiveness are two separate things. Firepower or lethality to me is represented by the "poundage" of damage it deals in Aces High. Effectiveness is its ability to cause problems for the other aircraft.
Should the base lethality for the gun be increased? No. Should its realistic ability to wear away at a still-intact component be modeled? I say yes.
Also, realize that cannons would benefit from this too, just so much as the MGs. Hitting in the middle "open area" of the wing with a 20mm and missing the internal components while blowing the skin off the wing would be a bit detrimental to the flight characteristics of the aircraft...
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Also, realize that cannons would benefit from this too, just so much as the MGs. Hitting in the middle "open area" of the wing with a 20mm and missing the internal components while blowing the skin off the wing would be a bit detrimental to the flight characteristics of the aircraft...
And the reason that I say that MGs would benefit more from this capability is because under the current damage model cannon are more likely to just blow the wing itself off outright, anyway.
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And the reason that I say that MGs would benefit more from this capability is because under the current damage model cannon are more likely to just blow the wing itself off outright, anyway.
Agreed. Cannons will kill you, MG's will damage you, and yet you suffer no adverse affects from someone shreading your wing....
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Incremental damage to lift surfaces and stabilizers doesn't need a goal or a purpose; it only needs to be a credible representation of what might actually happen when an aircraft is damaged.
I get more kills in Il-2 from just shooting chunks out of the aircraft's wings and stabilizers than I do from shooting them off outright.
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I don't whool agree that hiting a bomb with cannon fire or 50 cals would be enough to set it off. Remember what sets off the bomb in the first place? The fuse! Bombs have to be armed to explode. Some fuses go off base don altitude others by time. Just depends. We use to cook with C4 when I was in the Marines. A little piece of C4 was a good way to heat your chow. Will high temp start a fire and then a chian reaction? Yes it is possible. But the chances of a round causinga GP bomb to explode are slim. Now torpedoes are different and it would depend on the content of the power source of the torpedo. If the torpedo was a hyrogen peroxide mixture then yes it could explode after being hit or exposed to heat. But a GP bomb the odds of it exploding are low. Did it happen yeah i will give that it probably did but we would have to research Air Force/Army Air Corps records to find out and how would we know because if the bombs exploded the plane with the flight log didnt return. Could only rely on log entries from other aircraft. Just my 2 cents worth but I do like the topic and what it addressed.
BigKev
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If there is an effectiveness difference, the firepower has changed. What sort of mealy mouthed sentence did you post?
You guys really think the machine guns should be more effective than they were?
The point at which I see is the line is the fact of this:
One party states that the MG is useless and the Cannon, and that by the all or nothing damage model we have the Cannon is favored and the MGs is left almost useless.
The other states that, well nothing happens to plane either way as long as the wing doesnt fall off. You could fire both MGs or Cannons all day and as long as the wing is still on they are both just as effective as the other.
The point Sax is making is that he IS NOT trying to lessen the power of the cannons NOR trying to up the power of the MGs. He is making the point of that when we land hits we should see noticable change to the flight dynamics of the plane, even if the wing does not fall off. With the current state as long as the wing does not fall off, nothing happens. This is not what happened in real life, chunks of wings would be shot off and the dogfight would be over.
As to the questions that brought HT brought up. What do you want out of this change?
Heres my answer:
I want a more realistic flight comabt sim, and by adding in the effect of every bullet does realistic damage to the flight dynamics of the plane, this can be easily achieved with a more realistic flight experience.
And honestly, unless we fix this damage modeling issue, this game is hard to call a "sim"
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I get more kills in Il-2 from just shooting chunks out of the aircraft's wings and stabilizers than I do from shooting them off outright.
Against AI, very much so. Against humans the effect is lessened because some are quite good at compensating, but I've still seen plenty roll into the ground after taking fire to a wing.
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Flipperk,
Machine guns are anything but useless in AH. Certain players like to say they are, but that is BS. They are quite lethal in AH.
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I agree, their not useless. But the edge cannons have is over exagerated. Were asking for damage to parts to impact flight characteristics, thats all, not saying MG's might as well be water pistols.....
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I agree, their not useless. But the edge cannons have is over exagerated. Were asking for damage to parts to impact flight characteristics, thats all, not saying MG's might as well be water pistols.....
I disagree and see no reason that the USN's numbers are exaggerated.
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Lets see, cannons: you loose a wing, MG's: your wing is damaged and nothing happens.... Thats exageration: it gives the appearance that MG's do nothing....
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Keep in mind that cannon shells frequently do not cause critical damage. So what you are complaining about in regards to machine guns is also a valid complaint about all weapons in the game.
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We acknowledged that a while ago. :) However, though it moves the "top end" up a little, it drags the "bottom end" up much higher...if you get what I mean.
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I hope Mr. Shaw doesn't mind me sharing this table from his book, but he presented a very clear definition of gun lethality in chapter 1 with the following results. I hope this helps some of you discuss the relative lethality between machine guns and cannons.
(http://332nd.org/dogs/baumer/BBS%20Stuff/ShawChart.jpg)
Since that's figured for each gun I think a rough estimate would look something like this;
- 8 x .30 cal= 13.6
- 4 x .50cal= 25.6
- 6 x .50cal= 38.4
- 2 x 20mm & 4 x .30cal= 38.6
- 2 x 20mm & 2 x .50cal= 44.6
- 4 x 20mm= 63.6
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Keep in mind that cannon shells frequently do not cause critical damage. So what you are complaining about in regards to machine guns is also a valid complaint about all weapons in the game.
Yes, but its more prevailent with MG's.
We acknowledged that a while ago. :) However, though it moves the "top end" up a little, it drags the "bottom end" up much higher...if you get what I mean.
No I don't know what you mean...or what your saying...
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Through the addition of "flight disturbance by damage," you raise the effectiveness of cannons a little and the effectiveness of MGs a lot.
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Oh, I see. should have worded that better IMO.
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Juggling the AHBBS and four threads on /b/, plus a nutter on YIM. It's tiring on the mind.
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lol, you DO multitask.
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I disagree and see no reason that the USN's numbers are exaggerated.
And on that note ill be leaving this argument
:salute gentlemen
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see ya flipp
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There is nothing unreasonable about asking that some damage effect is incurred by non critical hits however, all this has no purpose unless there is intent towards upgrading the damage model.
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Do you mean how damage is delt, how it affects the A/C or GV, or change what damage is delt to?
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I, unfortunately, must disagree with my squadie. I was flying in a P-51 today, (By the way, i haven't seen many of the squad members on) and i shot an F6F with only 50 rounds from my 50. cal and it blasted the wing away. I would prefer [2000] .303, than [850] 50., and [310] 20mm.
Why? Proof... I was flying an Mk I Spitfire and i managed to (unbelievably, i got VERY lucky not being noticed) put 200 .303's into the cockpit and engine. Plane went down, if you remember me, I'm sorry and good flying! :salute
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I, unfortunately, must disagree with my squadie. I was flying in a P-51 today, (By the way, i haven't seen many of the squad members on) and i shot an F6F with only 50 rounds from my 50. cal and it blasted the wing away. I would prefer [2000] .303, than [850] 50., and [310] 20mm.
Why? Proof... I was flying an Mk I Spitfire and i managed to (unbelievably, i got VERY lucky not being noticed) put 200 .303's into the cockpit and engine. Plane went down, if you remember me, I'm sorry and good flying! :salute
Yes, but you can do that with 20 or so 20mm rounds. And of course 200 rounds to the cocpit and engine kills something. You had to use 200rds while around 20 20mm's would have been enough unless they changed it, it takes 12 .303's to equal the damage of 1 20mm round.
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To put stuff simply I believe the damage model is in need of a small upgrade or a massive overhaul. May the gods of frames per second shine upon me when the dmg model is made anew for all to bow too and if that number be under 32 then I shall sacrifice my 512 video card to the mayan sun gods for a new 1gig amd video card!
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I hope Mr. Shaw doesn't mind me sharing this table from his book, but he presented a very clear definition of gun lethality in chapter 1 with the following results. I hope this helps some of you discuss the relative lethality between machine guns and cannons.
(http://332nd.org/dogs/baumer/BBS%20Stuff/ShawChart.jpg)
Since that's figured for each gun I think a rough estimate would look something like this;
- 8 x .30 cal= 13.6
- 4 x .50cal= 25.6
- 6 x .50cal= 38.4
- 2 x 20mm & 4 x .30cal= 38.6
- 2 x 20mm & 2 x .50cal= 44.6
- 4 x 20mm= 63.6
I think Mr. Shaw ignored the HE blast effect of many cannon rounds in his equation (unless of course those are all AP but in that case this is not a good reference) which would make significant additional damage.
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He didn't ignore the blast effect he states very clearly that the explosive power of cannon rounds is very significant, however in this equation he is not counting it. So as a baseline comparison (not counting the explosive power of the cannon rounds) you can still see that cannon rounds are much more lethal than machine gun rounds.
Think of it this way,
4 x 20mm cannons = 9.9375 x .50cal machine guns, and that's not including the explosive power of the cannon rounds.
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He didn't ignore the blast effect he states very clearly that the explosive power of cannon rounds is very significant, however in this equation he is not counting it. So as a baseline comparison (not counting the explosive power of the cannon rounds) you can still see that cannon rounds are much more lethal than machine gun rounds.
Think of it this way,
4 x 20mm cannons = 9.9375 x .50cal machine guns, and that's not including the explosive power of the cannon rounds.
Yes, but in real life, the US found that the 20mm cannon was approxamitly 3 times as deadly as the browning .50. That would make it 3 cannons + 9 .50's. IDK it its like that in the game though...
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and that's not including the explosive power of the cannon rounds.
Right, that's probably why others felt the information was wrong or misleading.
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If only some more people who wish for a more complex damage system had flown Air Warrior. :noid
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If only some more people who wish for a more complex damage system had flown Air Warrior. :noid
I've heard stories. ;)
The surprising thing is that the kind of damage aircraft can take in AH is very similar to what HT's Warbirds was 10 years ago. The difference is that the parts you can lose are divided up into smaller pieces. For example, the wing was one piece. Critical damage to one vstab on, e.g. a P-38, caused both to fall off. The elevator surfaces were one piece, so you couldn't lose one and not the other. There were no engine fires and no radiator leaks. I can't think of any more differences.
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I've said in the past, and I still think that I'd prefer a more "impactful" damage system... but the key is, what does it do to gameplay? I think the positive impact to gameplay on a more granular system would be immersion. We DO have to be careful however of not making it too complicated, or it will never get implemented, AND have to keep in mind that this method would affect not only all planes, but GVs as well.
My thought was... right now we've got 2 "states", green(0% damage) and red(100%). It might be beneficial to go to a 3 or 4 "state" system... i.e. Green(0%), Yellow(50%), Orange(75%), Red(100%). This system could actually work WITH our current system and apply ok across all "objects" if applied properly. Here are some thoughts on how this system would work :
Wing - Green = 100% lift, Yellow = 87.5%, Orange = 75%, Red = Gone.
Aerilon, Rudder, Elevator, Flaps, Gear - Green = 100% actuation/deployment speed, Yellow = 75%%, Orange = Stuck, Red = Gone.
Engine Oil / Fuel - Green = No fluid loss, Yellow = slow fluid loss+ small thin smoke (black/grey) trail, Orange = Medium leak + large black trail (similar to Red in our current damage system), RED = fluid dump, large "sputtering" trail. Of course when all oil is out it hits RED mode and starts damaging engine.
Engine (AC or GV) - Green = 100% good, Yellow = 87.5% power, Orange = 75% power and (sound change for cylinder misfire), Red = Dead as now.
Weapons - Green = 100% perfect, Yellow = 12.5% misfires, Orange = 25% misfires, Red = Dead as now.
Tracks - Green = 100%, Yellow = 87.5% speed, Orange = 75% speed, Red = Dead i.e. "Tracked"
Turret - Green = 100% rotation, Yellow = 87.5% rotation, Orange = 75% rotation, Red = "turreted"
This would not require changes to the current hit box structure, and WOULD make weaker weapons have an impact. In a gameplay aspect, in some ways, it could create a more "timid" style of flying, but at the same time, if you fly too timid, you could be damaged enough to the point where your only egress would be to fully engage and destroy the enemy. It would increase immersion by making every part of your vehicle/aircraft count which might actually LOWER the chances of collision and less chance of a HO attempt.
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Critical damage to one vstab on, e.g. a P-38, caused both to fall off.
FYI, this part is STILL the case. Lose one vertical stab and the other goes with it.
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FYI, this part is STILL the case. Lose one vertical stab and the other goes with it.
Not true. Most often, I'm saved by the P-38's dual engines. Second-most often is the dual vstabs. Generally both booms fall off, though...
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D'oh. Vertical stabs. Sorry, for some reason I read that as the horizontal stabs....
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So if this thread was condensed......
A). I want my MG rounds to cripple a plane and make it less effective so I can shoot it down on the next couple of passes.
B). I want my MG rounds to do more damage kind of like a cannon round does.
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A) Yes.
B) No, that's what the people incorrectly interpreting us keep saying.
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clarified :aok
Isn't that how it is currently modeled?
I.E. several passes to kill a bird with MG's
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Yes, but damage that those hits would cause before the wing pops off is NOT. While this applies to cannon as well, it has a much bigger effect on MGs since cannon are more likely to knock the wing off outright on the first pass anyway.
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clarified :aok
Isn't that how it is currently modeled?
I.E. several passes to kill a bird with MG's
While it does take several passes to kill a bird with MGs, the issue is that for all intents and purposes that other plane isn't "injured". You could light an aircraft completely up with MG fire, and it can fly away with 100% combat capability, when in reality, the possibility of coming away 100% combat ready after getting lit up with MG fire was not very likely. As it stands right now, 1 pass with cannon will likely kill a bird, and at very minimal heavily damage it, and 1 pass with MG fire can at the very minimum, do absolutely nothing. The desire is for that 1 pass to have an increased chance to do SOMETHING, even if not crippling, as would have likely happened in a real A2A combat.
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While it does take several passes to kill a bird with MGs, the issue is that for all intents and purposes that other plane isn't "injured". You could light an aircraft completely up with MG fire, and it can fly away with 100% combat capability, when in reality, the possibility of coming away 100% combat ready after getting lit up with MG fire was not very likely. As it stands right now, 1 pass with cannon will likely kill a bird, and at very minimal heavily damage it, and 1 pass with MG fire can at the very minimum, do absolutely nothing. The desire is for that 1 pass to have an increased chance to do SOMETHING, even if not crippling, as would have likely happened in a real A2A combat.
You are stating the obvious, cannons do more damage so yes 1 pass will do more damage with cannons than with MG. Changing the system will not change that fact. The only net result would be cannons would critically kill in one pass, MG would only slightly wound.
Now do not construe anything I state as being against a more fine detail damage modeling, I just want you all to think about the net effects of the changes.
HiTech
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I fly a lot of US planes with 50s. Of coarse the 20mm and 30mm kill better. I flew a Brewster some the other day with it's 4 50 Cal's. I was surprised to find the the Brewster's 4 50s kill like 20mm cannon or so it seemed to me. I have never been able to get a kill that easy with any other 50cal mounted bird except maybe the P-47 with 8 Mg's. Is the Brewster guns easier to aim or some such.
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Part of this is because the Brewster is much easier to gain a good tracking shot on a target. It's the same with the FM-2: Assuming you can catch your opponent there's only a few planes that are going to be maneuverable enough to get out of her sights again. It's a lot easier to latch your claws on and chew him up if he doesn't accelerate away.
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I fly a lot of US planes with 50s. Of coarse the 20mm and 30mm kill better. I flew a Brewster some the other day with it's 4 50 Cal's. I was surprised to find the the Brewster's 4 50s kill like 20mm cannon or so it seemed to me. I have never been able to get a kill that easy with any other 50cal mounted bird except maybe the P-47 with 8 Mg's. Is the Brewster guns easier to aim or some such.
Being a very slow but good turning bord, you are probably just getting closer and have more time to deliver your bullets in a typical turnfight.
Faster, but somewhat less maneuverable planes do end up more often with short snapshots and/or longer shooting ranges.
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Summed up you want to have MG and cannon equipped planes be able to cripple a plane/GV so it is easier to get the kill after you ping him up - got it
If everything in this game were modeled accuratly as far as damage was concerned it would make it less fun to play.
Nobody would fly Bombers
....why?
They are already easy enough to kill. If you mad it any easier then nobody would take the time to fly it.
Nobody would drive any GV's
.....why?
Same as the buffs. Imagine panzers being taken out by a few passes of .50's. As it did happen in the RW.
If this happened I would not play so often as well as gv any longer.
Damage is based upon what makes it fun enough to pay to play.
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I do have a question about updating the damage model. As I understand the current damage model there is no graduation on a components strength, so it's 100% until it's destroyed. As an example let's say the left wing on an F6F-5 requires X amount of damage before it is destroyed. I am flying along with my usual bad SA, and someone shoots my left wing (doesn't matter with what gun) doing X/2 damage. I think that the damage model should reduce the amount of loading the left wing can take before it fails, ie structural failure at 3.5g's vs 7g's for an undamaged wing.
Of course the percentages would have to be worked out and such, but it would certainly make it more interesting. Also the damage list would need to probably show the condition as well so that I know not to stress the plane so much. I think it could be as simple as having an item change color to show how badly it's damaged.
Perhaps something like this;
- Left Wing- 0% damage
- Left Wing- 1-33% damaged
- Left Wing- 34-66% damaged
- Left Wing- 67-99% damaged
- Left Wing- 100% destroyed
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I do have a question about updating the damage model. As I understand the current damage model there is no graduation on a components strength, so it's 100% until it's destroyed. As an example let's say the left wing on an F6F-5 requires X amount of damage before it is destroyed. I am flying along with my usual bad SA, and someone shoots my left wing (doesn't matter with what gun) doing X/2 damage. I think that the damage model should reduce the amount of loading the left wing can take before it fails, ie structural failure at 3.5g's vs 7g's for an undamaged wing.
Of course the percentages would have to be worked out and such, but it would certainly make it more interesting. Also the damage list would need to probably show the condition as well so that I know not to stress the plane so much. I think it could be as simple as having an item change color to show how badly it's damaged.
Perhaps something like this;
- Left Wing- 0% damage
- Left Wing- 1-33% damaged
- Left Wing- 34-66% damaged
- Left Wing- 67-99% damaged
- Left Wing- 100% destroyed
Baumer,
I'd say reduced G-loading would be more appropriate for the main spar than the wing itself.
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I understand, I was just using a component that we have on the current damage list as an example. I expect that the damage list to expand as part of the model update, but I wanted to address the current issue of "all or none" damage in a way that was clear and concise.
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The structural strength of a structure is the sum of all of the parts. Are you saying the skin, being riveted in place, does nothing to add strength to the other components? I don't think the facts back you up.
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Just as a thought, instead of a whole revamp, how about just a change in the indicator for the time being? At least to see just how a revamp as being discussed would matter? I.e. Apply Baumer's color code so we can see what kind of shape our aircraft is in, but not actually have any damage effects other than what we have now? That could help us see... just how shot up ARE we, and should the performance be impacted?
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I don't think your summary is accurate, nor is your following description of likely result. Your summary is only rational if the existing damage model was 100% destruction or nothing and that is obviously not the case. What he is asking for is incremental damage to aircraft/vehicles.
I'm not speaking for any other but I'm saying that an effort to increase the level of reality in the damage model would be in everyone's interest. This can be done by identifying more subsystems and by adding incremental damage to current ones. All of these actions increase immersion and the general credibility of the game. If done correctly, I don't see how this would materially effect gameplay on the larger scale. Sure, each fight might have somewhat different outcomes but overall, as long as the damage incurred is reasonable, there will be little negative side effect. The current system seems somewhat reasonable but just significantly lacking in realism.
My basic point being that changes would have some impact since things will be somewhat different but it's an irrelevant argument if the new damage model is at least as realistic as the current one. This is not a difficult hurdle to overcome.
Summed up you want to have MG and cannon equipped planes be able to cripple a plane/GV so it is easier to get the kill after you ping him up - got it
If everything in this game were modeled accuratly as far as damage was concerned it would make it less fun to play.
Nobody would fly Bombers
....why?
They are already easy enough to kill. If you mad it any easier then nobody would take the time to fly it.
Nobody would drive any GV's
.....why?
Same as the buffs. Imagine panzers being taken out by a few passes of .50's. As it did happen in the RW.
If this happened I would not play so often as well as gv any longer.
Damage is based upon what makes it fun enough to pay to play.
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Nobody would fly Bombers
....why?
They are already easy enough to kill. If you mad it any easier then nobody would take the time to fly it.
Just because nobody knows how to use the guns any more or how to fly doesn't mean bombers are easy to kill.
Nobody would drive any GV's
.....why?
Same as the buffs. Imagine panzers being taken out by a few passes of .50's. As it did happen in the RW.
I'd like to see this one backed up. In cases of rounds that actually did kill tanks (Il-2 guns, 40mms), sure. .50s? Not so sure about that on the tanks we have in-game. A Panzer II or III, maybe.
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I do have a question about updating the damage model. As I understand the current damage model there is no graduation on a components strength, so it's 100% until it's destroyed. As an example let's say the left wing on an F6F-5 requires X amount of damage before it is destroyed. I am flying along with my usual bad SA, and someone shoots my left wing (doesn't matter with what gun) doing X/2 damage. I think that the damage model should reduce the amount of loading the left wing can take before it fails, ie structural failure at 3.5g's vs 7g's for an undamaged wing.
Of course the percentages would have to be worked out and such, but it would certainly make it more interesting. Also the damage list would need to probably show the condition as well so that I know not to stress the plane so much. I think it could be as simple as having an item change color to show how badly it's damaged.
Perhaps something like this;
- Left Wing- 0% damage
- Left Wing- 1-33% damaged
- Left Wing- 34-66% damaged
- Left Wing- 67-99% damaged
- Left Wing- 100% destroyed
So, If I did catch a squirt of cannons in the wing on my way to a big fight, I'd need to RTB and get a new plane, just to make sure I didn't rip my wings off in some high-G maneuver later. I'm not sure I like that idea. Not to mention that as a pilot, you'd have almost no idea what the condition of your spar is since its buried under the skin. If there's a hole big enough for you to see your spar, its probably time to land anyway. A lot of these planes had multiple spars as well, how would that be addressed?
That being said, I do like the color coding for the damaged components, although I think green/yellow/red would be more than adequate.
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Just because nobody knows how to use the guns any more or how to fly doesn't mean bombers are easy to kill.
Also I didn't say they were easy. I said they are easy enough to kill. Meaning there is some skill to it.
I'd like to see this one backed up. In cases of rounds that actually did kill tanks (Il-2 guns, 40mms), sure. .50s? Not so sure about that on the tanks we have in-game. A Panzer II or III, maybe.
Besides their bomb and rocket payloads, the P-47 and the Typhoon both boasted powerful gun armaments. The Typhoon had four 20mm Hispano cannon. The P-47 carried eight .50 cal. machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, and it proved "particularly successful" against transports. The machine guns occasionally even caused casualties to tanks and tank crews. The .50 cal. armor-piercing bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricocheting around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating ammunition storage. This seemed surprising at first, given the typically heavy armor of German tanks. Yet Maj. Gen. J. Lawton "Lightning Joe" Collins, Commander of First Army's VII Corps, was impressed enough to mention to Quesada the success that P-47s had strafing tanks with .50 cal. machine gun fire.
Further more the M3 is the main culprett for my statment. They are as hard to kill as a M8. My tank rounds bounced off the sides 3 times yeesterday at 800. WTF...he was sitting still. The shermans that were spawning in got one shot and boom.
Another sortie I was 10 feet from a M3 and shooting him right in the drivers compartment with .50. Nothing happened. I put atleast 150 rounds into him before he drove away through some trees. This occasion he wsa also sitting still.
Back to my point if M3's were as vulnerable to fire as they really were in RL nobody would bother to up them. I'm certain that these two guys were rolling on the floor as they were sneaking away.
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if the new damage model is at least as realistic as the current one. This is not a difficult hurdle to overcome.
I do so love how the people who do not need to create new items like to judge the difficulty it is to create. Let me know when you have it written, and all the tools written to implement the change, and all values new damage values filled for all the planes. Then send me the code & data, or at least send me a cost of estimate since you have such a large knowledge of ease of implementation.
HiTech
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For some reason, I was under the impression you were the one getting paid to put together a product. If you don't feel up to it, I'm sure it could be sub contracted out. By modern standards, the current model isn't particularly realistic. That doesn't mean it wasn't put together with good intent nor does it mean it did not take considerable effort. All systems of this magnitude will obviously take substantial effort but improving the product increases business. Deciding where to employ the resources one has is part of business.
If you want to take arrogant jabs at others don't be surprised when they return the favor. It would be easier on everyone if all refrained from such action since it serves no ones best interest. My comment had nothing to do with how you chose to interpret it.
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Too funny. :lol
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Hm, the latest update specifies FUEL fire times have been changed. I wonder if there's a potential for airframe or engine fires in the future..
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The .50 cal. armor-piercing bullets often penetrated the underside of vehicles after ricocheting off the road, or penetrated the exhaust system of the tanks, ricocheting around the interior of the armored hull, killing or wounding the crew and sometimes igniting the fuel supply or detonating ammunition storage.
This is, 100%, absolute myth and any basic physics proves it is impossible. A .50 cal round striking at a 90% angle, without having lost velocity, been deformed, tumbling and hitting at a very shallow angle from ricocheting off of the ground, would be unable to pierce the belly armor of a Panzer IV.
In British examinations of German tanks destroyed by aircraft they found that almost all of them were destroyed by bombs, some by rockets and a very, very, very few by 20mm cannon fire. None were destroyed by anything lighter that.
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Karnak is correct. That is a disproved History channel myth.
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I agree
POWER TO THE BB GUNS.
The 303 in ww2 had hollowpoint explosive ammo. This tore through 109s and Heinkels good enough but it barely scratches ANYTHING in AH2. We need to power up the 303's and the 50's so we dont have to RTB when we run out of cannon :P
:airplane: :old: :airplane:
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Im also sick of being helpless when Ive only got my BB's.
I would love this because instead of running from a beautiful dogfight I can turn and rengage.
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O.K. you guys must be thick. My main rant is for m3's. Also what are you saying that this guy is a liar? .50 ammo does alot of kenetic damage. To say that it can't happen is just silly. My point is that if everything in this game were accuratley modeled for damage it would hinder people from paying to play. If you can't wrap your brain around that then......................... .make a better game :bolt:
While you may not get an explosion you may get a mobility kill. Same darn thing IMO. Wanna risk getting out while being straffed to fix a track. Then im 100% IN on this. .50cal straff and come back in on 2nd pass for kill. :aok
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:rolleyes:
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If a regular (read:common) gun could pierce the armor on a tank, there'd be no need to antiarmor/antimaterial rifles, antiarmor rockets, high-caliber antiarmor weapons (Il-2), or tank destroyers. M8s would be considered a Main Battle Tank.
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HiTech, the only thing that bothers me about the damage model is how for example, a 50 cal plane can spray an enemy plane and hit every single plane part but cause absolutely no damage and then someone else, say, Grizz, comes in and taters off the left wing and gets an assist. It doesn't seem fair that the player who incapacitated the aircraft in no shape or form gets credit for the kill and the player who dislodges the left wing for the kill shot gets an assist. So my question is one of principle, do you think kills are rewarded fairly in this situation?
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Currently, no, because in the situation you describe, the "sprayer" didn't do anything to incapacitate the enemy (hence the wish in this thread) while the tater disabled the aircraft.
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Ya, obviously everyone else is messed up and you're right. :rolleyes:
O.K. you guys must be thick. My main rant is for m3's. Also what are you saying that this guy is a liar? .50 ammo does alot of kenetic damage. To say that it can't happen is just silly. My point is that if everything in this game were accuratley modeled for damage it would hinder people from paying to play. If you can't wrap your brain around that then......................... .make a better game :bolt:
While you may not get an explosion you may get a mobility kill. Same darn thing IMO. Wanna risk getting out while being straffed to fix a track. Then im 100% IN on this. .50cal straff and come back in on 2nd pass for kill. :aok
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yup :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :lol
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HiTech, the only thing that bothers me about the damage model is how for example, a 50 cal plane can spray an enemy plane and hit every single plane part but cause absolutely no damage and then someone else, say, Grizz, comes in and taters off the left wing and gets an assist. It doesn't seem fair that the player who incapacitated the aircraft in no shape or form gets credit for the kill and the player who dislodges the left wing for the kill shot gets an assist. So my question is one of principle, do you think kills are rewarded fairly in this situation?
Yes . Your choice to fly a cannon plane or a MG plane just like every other person, so it is 100% with out a doubt fair.
If you pepper a plane with MG's and do not strike anything critical, the plane would not fly a lot differently.
But under your premis is it fair that an MG kills a pilot with 1 bullet , and a cannon completely removes 1/2 the pilots body , but still only gets 1 kill?
HiTech
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.
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Your choice to fly a cannon plane or a MG plane just like every other person, so it is 100% with out a doubt fair.
If you pepper a plane with MG's and do not strike anything critical, the plane would not fly a lot differently.
But under your premis is it fair that an MG kills a pilot with 1 bullet , and a cannon completely removes 1/2 the pilots body , but still only gets 1 kill?
HiTech
Well yeah, you can only kill a plane once, doesn't matter how much you mutilate the plane, it's 0 or 1, killed or not.
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)
I'm not saying a pilot should get credit 100% of the time for simply shooting off the critical component but imo there should be some balance. Perhaps a bonus should be credited to the pilot that gets the kill shot and that bonus is added to his total damage points. I might be off base here as I am making an assumption as how the damage model works, but this seems a little more fair to me.
Say you had Pilot A shoot off an elevator, an aileron, oil leak, pilot wound, and then Pilot B shoots off the left wing. I don't think Pilot B should get the kill just because he landed the fatal shot, but should get a small damage bonus for doing so. I'm assuming it could be coded to where Pilot A would still get the credit for inflicting so much damage prior. Balance would be key.
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Would you agree that while you may get the short end of the stick one time you might get the long end another? In the long run would you not have your balance even if it wasn't as equitable as you would like each time?
If you want to fix something it would be helpful to understand how it works. Beyond Hitech I don't think any of us really understands how the damage system currently works beyond observations.
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Would you agree that while you may get the short end of the stick one time you might get the long end another? In the long run would you not have your balance even if it wasn't as equitable as you would like each time?
I was flying an F4F the other day and completely sprayed up a spitfire, shot his left wing up, then shot his tail section up, and then his right wing up, no damage, was terrible aiming. I ended up getting the kill. I did nothing to deserve the kill and would have been completely satisfied with the player who actually killed the guy being rewarded the victory.
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I would think turning his plane into a sieve would be doing something. Why did the other guy necessarily deserve it more than you?
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I would think turning his plane into a sieve would be doing something. Why did the other guy necessarily deserve it more than you?
Because I didn't cause any plane part to fail. He was just as much of a threat after I shot him as he was before. Now, if I had taken out an elevator and caused a radiator leak, then I might deserve the kill. The act of ending an enemy threat i.e. kill shot should be worth something.
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Guys can we keep the thread on the damage model itself and not bring kill recording into it?
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I'm curious to see how many more times this thread is going to cycle through enthusiasm for an updated damage model and hitech poking his head in to try to dampen it, only for the enthusiasm to continue. Such irreverence is uncharacteristic for the AH boards.
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At least from my perspective I wasn't seeing hitech as trying to dampen it, but is playing devil's advocate by reminding us that there's a lot more involved in updating the damage model than just slapping on effects, especially if we want something that strikes the usual balance between playability and realism.
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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
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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.
Perhaps you have misunderstood what I am asking for. Am I wrong in assuming that in when the system decides who gets a kill, it compares the total number of damage points Plane A inflicted compared to the total number of damage points Point B inflicted and is completely blind to which plane actually caused plane parts to fail? I am missing your point how I am wanting MGs to be more lethal because that is not the case. What I essentially want added in the coding world is a damage point bonus added on to the total number of damage points of the plane that lands the final kill shot (Per your new update defining a kill shot: Full wing, full stabilizer horizontal or vertical, tail section, or fuel fire). So lets say Player A sprays up a plane and tallies 200 total damage points on the enemy. Player B comes in and shoots off the left wing for 160 damage points. Since Player B got the kill shot, he is rewarded a 50 damage point bonus for a total of 210 damage points and will get the kill over Player B. What percentage of the total damage the bonus would be worth would be up to you on what you think would be fair (assuming you see where I'm coming from here) but I think there should be some sort of additional reward in a multi planed engagement for ending an enemy threat. Pilots in general get much more frustrated when they put the kill shot on a guy and are rewarded an assist rather than a kill. It's nice to randomly get a kill after you peppered a guy a little bit 30 seconds ago, but it's more of just a pleasant surprise, not an expectation. You then hear on range soon after, "Assist? I shot that guy in half how do I get a gosh darn assist!"
Sure this would still happen with my request but it wouldn't happen as frequently and would be a little better in balancing the two sides of the coin. I hope this cleared up what I'm asking for.
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Well, I am glad to hear a revised damage model is in the works. I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
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Indeed.
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grizz: Yes I miss understood what you are asking. I am not against a crit hit bonus as you describe, but I would have to make the bounces very small, because the bigger the bonus the more it promotes kill stealing.
I.E. look at the extreme case of you spent 1 min going around with the guy have a wing 99% damaged. You would not want the damage great enough to case some one to swoop in, put 1 303 on the target and get the kill.
HiTech
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If only some more people who wish for a more complex damage system had flown Air Warrior. :noid
I actually liked the system in AW, except when someone hit my hydraulic lines then it really sucked :furious
ack-ack
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I actually liked the system in AW, except when someone hit my hydraulic lines then it really sucked :furious
ack-ack
Won a duel that way once. First shot I took about 5 seconds into the fight severed his elevator cable.
:D
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grizz: Yes I miss understood what you are asking. I am not against a crit hit bonus as you describe, but I would have to make the bounces very small, because the bigger the bonus the more it promotes kill stealing.
I thought the latest patch got rid of the kill stealing problem? As I suggested, once a player causes a critical part to fail per your definitions of 'critical part', no more damage can be done to that aircraft. I don't see how the bonus would change gameplay because the intent of gameplay is to always shoot the airplane down, nothing would change gameplay wise.
I.E. look at the extreme case of you spent 1 min going around with the guy have a wing 99% damaged. You would not want the damage great enough to case some one to swoop in, put 1 303 on the target and get the kill.
Very true. You'd have to find a way to balance it so the borderline damage point cases sway in the favor of the pilot who actually dealt the kill shot. As far as coding it, you'd have to decide on a method of how to add a bonus. Say Player A caused the kill shot but had done a little less overall 'damage' than Player B. Say you want to give the kill to Player A if the differential between the damage was less than 15%(Again this would be your percentage as what you deem fair and small).
int differential = PlayerADmg/PlayerBDmg;
if(differential <= .15)
{
Blah Blah Blah;
}
I am obviously simplifying the coding aspect, but I am not totally ignorant on the subject matter either.
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After rereading my post it sounds like I'm trying to tell you how to do your job, that's not the case, was just offering a possible implementation if it interests you. :lol
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After rereading my post it sounds like I'm trying to tell you how to do your job, that's not the case, was just offering a possible implementation if it interests you. :lol
I did not take it that way at all, we are just speaking about ideas.
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Speaking of ideas.............. What's up with a pilot on the runway getting the credit for my kill when I clearly was closer and should have gotten the Proxy? :headscratch:
I did not take it that way at all, we are just speaking about ideas.
(http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/908/1232317377405.gif)
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Well yeah, you can only kill a plane once, doesn't matter how much you mutilate the plane, it's 0 or 1, killed or not.
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)
I'm not saying a pilot should get credit 100% of the time for simply shooting off the critical component but imo there should be some balance. Perhaps a bonus should be credited to the pilot that gets the kill shot and that bonus is added to his total damage points. I might be off base here as I am making an assumption as how the damage model works, but this seems a little more fair to me.
Say you had Pilot A shoot off an elevator, an aileron, oil leak, pilot wound, and then Pilot B shoots off the left wing. I don't think Pilot B should get the kill just because he landed the fatal shot, but should get a small damage bonus for doing so. I'm assuming it could be coded to where Pilot A would still get the credit for inflicting so much damage prior. Balance would be key.
Sorry for the late reply...been away a bit.
My thoughts are pilots shared kills in RL. So how would it be if somebody did more than 33% damage then nobody got the kill and both pilots got an assist? 3 assists = 1 kill ? There is nothing more frustrating than killing somebody who is showing no visible signs of damage and getting an assist, but wouldn't be so bad if I knew the first guy to shoot him got an assist on it as well.
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Sorry for the late reply...been away a bit.
My thoughts are pilots shared kills in RL.
Not in all airforces. Germans for example didn't. One plane, one kill. No shared stuff.
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Sorry for the late reply...been away a bit.
My thoughts are pilots shared kills in RL. So how would it be if somebody did more than 33% damage then nobody got the kill and both pilots got an assist? 3 assists = 1 kill ? There is nothing more frustrating than killing somebody who is showing no visible signs of damage and getting an assist, but wouldn't be so bad if I knew the first guy to shoot him got an assist on it as well.
Well it certainly wouldn't bother me as much as putting the kill shot on a seemingly very healthy aircraft and getting zero credit.
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Nemisis,
There's FAR too many variables. Could it happen? Maybe. But it's probably a one in a million shot. My post is aimed at ways to increase the robustness of the damage model WITHOUT resorting to random chance, which this would require.
Hmm one in a million thats how my Great Uncle was killed. I have the letter that was sent to his mother. It basicly says German plane hit the bomb load just before drop and the plane vaporized. He was the navigator plane was B17.
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Scan and post pleasse..... :pray
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The letter is at my Grandmothers house I will try to get a picture of it next time Im there.
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I.E. look at the extreme case of you spent 1 min going around with the guy have a wing 99% damaged. You would not want the damage great enough to case some one to swoop in, put 1 303 on the target and get the kill.
Slight punt here...
On the topic of crit bonus - why not make it a multiplier instead of an additive bonus?
That way in this extreme case, you would be multiplying 1 303 hit. At 1.5x multiplier, somebody who does 40% of the damage but gets the critical hit will have exactly the same damage points accumulated towards the kill as someone who has done 60% of the damage. Sounds fairly reasonable to me, but of course you could tweak this.
IMO, multiplicative bonus would make the balancing far easier.
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Well.
Here is what I see happening,
MG aircraft not only have lighter guns, they have alot longer times of fire.(more rounds)
If small hits from MGs degrade the performance of the aircraft they strike, we can expect that spraying at 1k with 50 cals will be alot more relevent game activity.
The planes have the ammo. They have the balistics to hit a few and the enemy will have to respond or take a real chance to have their aircraft degraded.
So expect 50 cal fire to open at 1.3k, expect the target to have to start jinking at 1k.
Cannon birds, with less ammo, will of course have to hold off their harassing fire like they do now. The cowl mgs on some cannon birds will get a real work out though.
Formations of bombers will also be degrading enemy fighters flight performance at much longer ranges, those pings will slow you down now.
Similarly, mgs will force performance problems with bombers that only now happen with dead engines, formations will fall apart way quicker.
"that pouring 100 or so half-inch rounds into a zone about a foot across from 200yds won't knock a good-sized chunk out of the wing's surface skin? With the right hit you're not talking about individual bullet holes, because even MG fire can punch out a nice hunk of metal."
when I see arguments like this in defense of upping the capability of mgs, I wonder what version of history or the game people are playing. Are they really saying that they can or anyone could achieve this kind of accuracy in combat, and if they did, are they really saying that the current game wouldnt 100 percent of the time take of the wing with a hit like that?
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I can see two arguments coming against you; "Good, it'll stop people from running from fights so much" and "Good, people will learn how to properly attack bombers instead of hovering dead aft for ten minutes."
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Not only is your observation totally based on social engineering instead of realism, it seems to want to encourage lame unhistoric game play instead of rewarding historic game play.
Unless the level of damage we are talking about is so trivial as to be mostly undetectable, in which case why bother.
I would think that the damage model as it is, with its abstractions might be better then what has been proposed here. Making incidental holes from mg fire degrade target capability, without makeing crazy long bursts of mg fire degrade(melt) the mgs that take them, is really not improving the overall gunfire, hit, damage resolution system of the game. IMHO
Destroying automatic weapons through overheating is not a "random" effect, any more then overheating an engine is a random effect.
Similarly, destroying the integrity of a spar or the skining of a wing through maneuver alone, is not really a random thing. The wing can be damaged to write off level without failing. Ie damaged to the point where it can no longer take its rated stress, but it can still get you home or take some amount of stress less then its factory spec. Will this proposed system make the manuver damage to an aircraft more incremental as well?
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Those aren't my observations, that's why they're quoted. Seeing the future.
Then you broke out into some other entirely different piece of the discussion that I haven't been taking part in...so I have no reply.
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Not only is your observation totally based on social engineering instead of realism, it seems to want to encourage lame unhistoric game play instead of rewarding historic game play.
Unless the level of damage we are talking about is so trivial as to be mostly undetectable, in which case why bother.
I would think that the damage model as it is, with its abstractions might be better then what has been proposed here. Making incidental holes from mg fire degrade target capability, without makeing crazy long bursts of mg fire degrade(melt) the mgs that take them, is really not improving the overall gunfire, hit, damage resolution system of the game. IMHO
Destroying automatic weapons through overheating is not a "random" effect, any more then overheating an engine is a random effect.
Similarly, destroying the integrity of a spar or the skining of a wing through maneuver alone, is not really a random thing. The wing can be damaged to write off level without failing. Ie damaged to the point where it can no longer take its rated stress, but it can still get you home or take some amount of stress less then its factory spec. Will this proposed system make the manuver damage to an aircraft more incremental as well?
Pongo,
Scattering hits across the wing from 1000yds out probably still wouldn't cause much damage even under this model. As pointed out, individual holes wouldn't do much. Additionally I imagine the energy of the hit would STILL factor into even the incremental damage, so yeah, you may ping him up, but the lack of concentrated fire and the loss of energy would minimize the effect.
But putting a nice concentrated burst into the wing at close range can take out a significant amount of material.
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Your right, 8 .50's firing at 800rpm for a solid 3 secs DON'T put a lot of lead on a target. Plus cannon shells only fragment so much. 1000 fragments the size of a grain of sand won't do as much as 20 quarter sized fragments.
Somewhere on the internet (also in a book I have) is a picture of a B17 which, unbelieveably, landed after being hit by a 30mm shell.
The inner wing was absolutely shreded. The "carve out" was easily 10-12 feet across and 5-6 feet deep into the wing. No idea how the guy landed it.
The authors caption beneath the photo? "Damage consistent with a single hit from a Mk108 30mm HE shell."
Its not the shrapnel so much as the blast.
.50's cant do that, relying on kenetic energy alone (exception given for incendiary ammunition).
If I cant find the picture online, Ill bring the book into the office and scan the page. Youll be floored.
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OOZ, you gotta be kidding, say what you think then, Who cares what you think others will think. lol
Sax,
If the only damage you are looking for is a hole in the wing, that will certainly happen at X times farther then current damage is happening, you pick X.
What I described is probably the truth, people will fire MG batterys at much much farther then they currently do, because that small incremental damage will matter. So instead of long range fire being the sign of someone who doesn't understand how WW2 gunnery works, or the game works, it will become the sign of someone who knows how the game works.
Its not that it will drop the target out of the sky, its that it will force you do lose E to respond and that will get you caught or dictate the fight to you from an range that has nothing to do with what was possible in WW2. That happens now depending on the weapons at 600 yards. It will happen at way way farther then that with what you are proposing.
Its self evident right?
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I don't really have any commentary on it any more. I said all my thoughts earlier on.
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I think a lot of people are missing the point... (or at least what I want the point to be :P )
It's not to make machine guns more effective.
It's not to make XYZ plane/playing style more or less effective.
It's to improve the feel of the game and make our simulated vehicles perform more similarly to their RL counterparts under all conditions, not just at 100% integrity... and as a result improve the experience of flying a damaged aircraft (at least to me it would). If you think about it, the characteristics of our aircraft rarely change other than having aileron or elevator authority halved, or the aircraft being reduced to a coffin, with (most of the time) not much in between.
HiTech asked three question's
More like, Rolling on the floor in laughter, thinking people do not really think much about the consequences of what they ask for.
Step 1.
Do you wish planes to die more quickly or less quickly, or the same.
Step 2.
Do you wish to be at more of a disadvantage with 1 bullet hit so fights will tend to be, who ever lands the first bullet wins.
Step 3.
How will any damage model change, change the tactics used in the game.
HiTech
These are very interesting questions and I will try to explain how I think about them a little on... let me just say that I had these specific in mind when I was thinking about this.
Now the original feelings of the thread seemed to split in a couple of camps;
A 25/50/75/100% piecewise deal, where once you reach the 25 (or whatever) threshold you lose 25% of efficiency, or
A 1% of total damage = 1% of efficiency lost, linear function
Now the first one helps to sidestep question two a bit, as a single round probably won't result in any advantage. However this also retains some of the 'if you don't reach x threshold, nothing happens' that is the main thing that most (or I at least) attest in the current damage model. Even at that, once you do reach 25% damage, which is a relatively small amount, your wing is now operating at only 3/4 efficiency.
The linear damage model gets rid of the thresholds, however it does introduce a pretty large factor of 'he who shoots first lives', even if it is by a small amount, and increases the lethality of machine guns considerably.
My goals were;
Completely get rid of incremental damage (with thresholds)
Keep the relative effectiveness of guns more or less where they are now.
Don't fundamentally change the way is played while improving the immersive experience of flying a damaged aircraft.
So, I didn't think of a piecewise or linear function, rather a square one.
What does this do?
Well...
A stray round or two is practically inconsequential; a small, scattered machine gun burst isn't going to be game changing, although it may give you a slight edge; a solid hit that doesn't quite knock the wing off is going to hurt; and once your wing reaches 70-80% of it's capacity it's time to start looking for an exit (or probably past that).
I'm defining 100% of damage as the wing falling off under +,-0G's force at that point. With this definition 100% damage isn't really a meaningful measurement since you're almost always going to be at at least 1G. For the sake of example I'll say that under practical conditions 1.8G's is breaking point (you'd have to be ridiculously careful, but at this point you could still theoretically nurse it back home). Assuming the standard wing can withstand 12G's of force (I don't remember any numbers here I just pulled on off of the top of my head :uhoh ), and that the function of structural integrity of the wing is y=x^2, where y is the structural integrity of the wing, and x is the % of total damage points the wing can have before breaking at 0 G's. This would mean the wing would have to be at just under 92% total damage points possible to be at 85% structural integrity, meaning it would break under the force of 1.8G's.
The same thing can be applied to lift and drag, although these functions would be modified so that the wing still produces lift until it is absolutely gone. In this case, y (the equation unaltered for the sake of example) is % of lift subtracted from the wing at full efficiency (x is the same as it is in SI formula), and drag is % added compared to the drag the wing produces undamaged, with x again being the same.
I'll have more on this in a bit, better explained, more visual, situational, less confusing and help to not try to make you think to Middle School math.... with graphs! :D
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Motherland: Nice right-up, I agree a squared approach might be good in many areas.
I am also impressed how you actually read and thought about what I wrote in the context it was meant. You took the leap from a vision of what you see in your head to thinking about what the real out come in the arena will be.
HiTech
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Little nerdy are we, Bubi? :lol j/k, I'm also the type to bust out formulas.
Pongo - people already spray from rather far out. I do it, especially with RCMGs. That's because RCMGs are bad enough under this damage model that they are practically useless unless you have about 8 of them ala Spit1/Hurri1.
Under the current damage model, there's no harm in wasting your RCMG rounds - they won't do anything in close in the first place, so why not use them to prod your opponent into turning?
A similar situation occurs with planes that have an overabundance of HMG rounds. With so much firing time and relatively less lethality, what harm is there in firing the rounds from farther out? It's a good prod.
I really doubt this change to the DM will affect firing tactics very much. Since the kinetic energy damage from MGs is modeled, long range fire from MGs would still produce very little damage.
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int differential = PlayerADmg/PlayerBDmg;
if(differential <= .15)
{
Blah Blah Blah;
}
Sounds like someone knows how to code in 'C' including the semi-colons at the end of each statment...
Only one suggestion, your using an intiger type and comparing it to a double number you might consider fixed point, the comparison might work then :)
int differential = (PlayerADmg *100 ) / PlayerBDmg;
if(differential <= 15 )
{
Blah Blah Blah;
}
or
int differential = (PlayerADmg <<16 ) / PlayerBDmg;
if(differential <=(int)(0.15f * 65536) )
{
Blah Blah Blah;
}
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Motherland,
Something to be clear should also be that a wing 25% of the way to failure is not a wing generating 75% of the lift the wing generated when it was at 100%.
For ease I will use arbitrary numbers. Let's set the complete wing failure at 50% lift. Meaning that just prior to the wing falling off at your 0 G point the wing would still be producing 50% of the healthy wing's lift. Under that consideration a wing that had taken 25% of the damage to the failure point would be down 12.5% lift to 87.5%, not 25% lift to 75% lift.
I suspect the lift generated at the failure point would actually be higher, probably much higher, than 50% though. A more realistic number might be 75%, so a 25% loss of lift from a wing would be the worst case scenario.
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Motherland: Nice right-up, I agree a squared approach might be good in many areas.
I didn't initially understand what the benefit of the squared approach would have been, but now I see it.
The squared function would result in less reduction in performance relative to the amount of damage sustained. The closer a component is to being fully operational, the less relative performance loss it suffers. After all df/dx (0+delta) ~ 0 for f(x) = x^2 and delta a small number. As damage accumulates towards 100% of the total possible damage, the squared function would get steeper so each subsequent round counts more. This seems to make sense in a real life context as well.
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Boomerlu.
So your answer to question 3 is.
This will not make any change to in game tactics.
I think that you are incorrect. The MG planes can already take advantage of their ammo load outs to start harassing an enemy long before they can really threaten them. This would increase that range.
I think its a good idea though, just also needs to be coupled with burn out for sustained fire and incremental maneuver damage.
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Boomerlu.
So your answer to question 3 is.
This will not make any change to in game tactics.
I think that you are incorrect. The MG planes can already take advantage of their ammo load outs to start harassing an enemy long before they can really threaten them. This would increase that range.
Yes, that is what I think so far.
To respond to your refutation: as I understand the current weapons/damage model, hitting power in MGs falls off dramatically as the MG round travels a longer distance (this is due to drag reducing the kinetic energy of the MGs). With a squared damage system, the reduction in performance from small damage will be MUCH less than the damage number itself. So, couple these two things together, and I think long range pings from MGs will remain just as inconsequential as before. Psychologically, this may not be the case because not everybody will know the details of the damage model, but the well informed player will know that long range pings won't degrade his performance significantly.
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Motherland: Nice right-up, I agree a squared approach might be good in many areas.
I am also impressed how you actually read and thought about what I wrote in the context it was meant. You took the leap from a vision of what you see in your head to thinking about what the real out come in the arena will be.
HiTech
Does that mean we get a new damage modle in the MA's :banana:?
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Little nerdy are we, Bubi? :lol
I needed something to do when I was supposed to be learning about graphing polynomials... I hate math :lol
Well that's not so much true I just can't stand doing problem after problem of a concept I can't apply to anything.
Motherland: Nice right-up, I agree a squared approach might be good in many areas.
I am also impressed how you actually read and thought about what I wrote in the context it was meant. You took the leap from a vision of what you see in your head to thinking about what the real out come in the arena will be.
HiTech
Thank you very much.... it's very easy to say 'I think xyz would be cool' and not think about what the actual repercussions would be... it's fun, too though :)
I really think that a damage system that depends on a formula as opposed to meeting thresholds would improve the game experience, at least for me, so I decided to put some thought into it.
Motherland,
Something to be clear should also be that a wing 25% of the way to failure is not a wing generating 75% of the lift the wing generated when it was at 100%.
For ease I will use arbitrary numbers. Let's set the complete wing failure at 50% lift. Meaning that just prior to the wing falling off at your 0 G point the wing would still be producing 50% of the healthy wing's lift. Under that consideration a wing that had taken 25% of the damage to the failure point would be down 12.5% lift to 87.5%, not 25% lift to 75% lift.
I suspect the lift generated at the failure point would actually be higher, probably much higher, than 50% though. A more realistic number might be 75%, so a 25% loss of lift from a wing would be the worst case scenario.
I never intended for the calculation of lift and the structural integrity of the wing to be based on the same function. I'll try to make it more clear...
OK so now I'm going to try to verbalize some more of this. The graphs will help but even with that I'm very bad at explaining or comprehending any kind of mathematical jargon especially through text (and especially through the terrible format in which you have to write stuff...) so bare with me.
I'm going to use these formulas. (just examples but they should give you a better idea of what I mean, and I can use them to give better situational exmples)
First I'm going to try to explain how the graphs are set up and my thought process.
The graph goes from 0 to 1 on both the y and x axis. The values of the x axis represent the percentage of total damage points before the wing fails at 0G's. So 0 is no damage points, .25 is 25% of the possible damage points, .7354 is 73.54% of possible damage points, etc. The y axis represents whatever you're trying to get, structural integrity of the wing, drag produced, lift produced. This is also expressed in % from the decimal although the meaning of the % will vary.
In examples the x axis representing percentage of the total damage points before the wing fails at 0G's will simply be called damage.
Structural Integrity- y represents the the percentage of G's the wing can withstand compared with a fresh wing.
y=x^2
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t5/AK_Comrade/stinsq.jpg)
Example Values
5% damage means 99.75% structural integrity.
10% damage means 99% structural integrity.
25% damage means 93.75% structural integrity.
50% damage means 75% structural integrity.
75% damage means 43.75% structural integrity.
80% damage means 36% structural integrity.
90% damage means 19% structural integrity.
95% damage means 9.75% structural integrity.
As you can see small amounts of damage don't really do much, however once you pass 50% damage you really start to hurt, and hurt quick. This IMO would reflect the real world where, once something is already weakened, you need less and less additional force to break it.
Drag could probably be defined in a similar way if it were factored in- y represents the percentage of the wings drag that would be added to the normal 'clean' wings drag.
y=x^2
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t5/AK_Comrade/stinsq.jpg)
5% damage means 100.0025% drag.
10% damage means 101% drag.
25% damage means 106.25% drag
50% damage means 125% drag.
75% damage means 156.25% drag.
80% damage means 164% drag.
90% damage means 181% drag.
95% damage means 191.25% drag.
Again starts out small and then gets very disruptive. I think this is especially intuitive for drag. It also shows that how many G's you can sustain will be only part of your worries. This may need to be throttled back a bit like lift though.
Lift uses a different formula in my example. Still essentially the same but with another part, so that the wing always produces lift while attached to the airplane. Lift is like structural integrity where y is subtracted from the amount of lift a healthy wing puts out. Structural integrity function is included for perspective.
y=(9/10)x^2
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t5/AK_Comrade/liinsq.jpg)
This time I'll start at 25% and include SI figures for perspective.
25% damage means 94.3% lift and 93.75% structural integrity.
50% damage means 77.75% lift and 75% structural integrity.
75% damage means 49.375% lift and 43.75% structural integrity.
80% damage means 42.4% lift and 36% structural integrity.
90% damage means 27.1% lift and 19% structural integrity.
(practical breaking point is somewhere in here)
95% damage means 18.775% lift and 9.75% structural integrity.
I have work to do so I'll explain how I see this affecting gameplay and 'real world' situations later.
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how would the plane be affected when the pilot gets wounded? how would this impact the performance of the plane? :headscratch:
semp
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Bubi, the short answer to why you don't have anything to apply your math to is this:
Algebra is easier to teach than physics. Plug in numbers into formulas and voila you have a graph. High school math is just about learning a set of rules and following them. Coming up with the right formula (which is what physicists do)... now that is something else entirely.
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More proof Bubi is the smartest kid on these bulletin boards. His ideas make good sense and are well presented.
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I find motherland’s sober thought rather refreshing on these boards.
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Motherland :aok
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how would the plane be affected when the pilot gets wounded? how would this impact the performance of the plane? :headscratch:
semp
In WW2OL, if the pilot gets hit in the arms the stick of the plane would loose some of its ability. IE: Rolling and pitching of the plane would be decreased due to the wounded arms. Same with the legs, the rudders would be effected by the wounded legs.
On paper this sounds like a great idea to add to a combat sim, but however it is a great headache to the person wounded.
It takes alot of the fun out of flying when this happens, while yes it does make it more realistic but however your flight can be really short and frusterating because of this.
The way AHII has it setup now is a great balance, you do get effected by the wound, but it does not take you out of the fight.
I would like to have the option to turn this on or off just like the auto combat trim though.
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More like, Rolling on the floor in laughter, thinking people do not really think much about the consequences of what they ask for.
Step 1.
Do you wish planes to die more quickly or less quickly, or the same.
Step 2.
Do you wish to be at more of a disadvantage with 1 bullet hit so fights will tend to be, who ever lands the first bullet wins.
Step 3.
How will any damage model change, change the tactics used in the game.
HiTech
1 .The same. There is nothing wrong with the 'death rate' of an aircraft currently modeled.
2. No.
3. It depends both for the flying pilot and the aggressor. If you make the damage model too realistic, it could change how the game is played - players may just bail if a damaged aircraft is too hard to fly or let it thunder in. Damage model has to have a purpose in the game - in my opinion, from a tactical purpose, if I'm attacking a bomber, if the damage model lets me set it on fire, I'll just leave it alone knowing it'll blow up shortly. If the damage model will reduce the impact of the damage (making it harder to shoot down) so they can 'attempt' to land, it may increase immersion but upset pilots looking for kills. It also depends on the 'game model' you're attempting to replicate - more simulation or more gameplay. The balance has to be where it makes sense for a game like Aces High.
It's COOL that I can blow half a wing off a fighter - but how realistic that a pilot can land a plane with half a wing? The more complex time you spend on the damage model, you have to ask what value is it bringing to fighting tactics and what impact its going to have on how players engage one another. The more systems you can simulate damaging an aircraft, reduce the fly-ability of an aircraft, needs to be balanced against players who don't really care how the damage replicates in the sim, but whether or not they can destroy the enemy fighter/bomber/vehicle/ship.
In today's complex gaming industry, more complex physics allows greater damage modelling. If HTC went towards a more realistic and engaging damage model, but put the effort into the looks rather than the 'physical impact' of the damage, I think is a better approach. You appease the realists with the view, and reduce the complexity of the impact so that it's unplayable.