Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: klem on November 25, 2004, 04:20:55 AM
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Let me say three things up front:
1. I hope this will generate an exchange of constructive opinions without flaming or rants - and most importantly a response from HTC.
2. I openly admit that a fundamental point of reference is IL2 Forgotten Battles (FB) where things differ from AH2 with much more 'believable' feel and effects. I would be interested to hear from others who fly FB.
3. I will try to avoid the 'R'(ealistic) word :) I hope any regular RL warbirds pilots will not (if we have any). My own reference as far as 'feel' and 'believable' is concerned is limited to prop trainers (chipmunk), gliders and trips in light to medium prop aircraft (4 to 20 seaters). I don't think the ride in the old Canberra (PhotRecon at 100 feet) and many commercial jets count in this discussion.
Flight Models:
When AH2 was first in beta the FMs were touchy to say the least. They were quickly changed and moved on to something more believable (and much more believable than AH1). I can't quantify this, it was a matter of 'feel', expectation and, more recently, comparison with FB. However, they very soon appeared to change and began to feel little different from AH1 apart from touchdown and ground handling. I know others who have that opinion. Anyone who flew Air Warrior will know that it was like running on rails compared with AH. Now AH seems to be running on, well, flexible rails compared with other simulations. With the coming version 2.02, or later, is there to be any change to FMs?
Damage models:
One of the greatest disappointments for me is the DM. Better visual effects (spars and struts) would be nice, however the most frustrating thing for me in AH2 at the moment is the 'one ping - no wing' syndrome. OK, maybe two pings but the airframes, especially the wings and tail, appear to have no strength or resilience to a few hits. Also, total wing loss seems almost the norm with rare half wing failures (always neatly sliced off with a modelling knife). An example: last week I plastered the mid to outer tip of a P40 with 2 x 7.62 on the A6M2. I couldn't get near the wingroot due to the turn. How come the entire wing fell off at the wing root? Tail feathers are the same. A couple of hits and the whole lot disappear - it's rare to lose one elevator etc. This is the one area of AH2 modelling that seems to me to be far too arcady. Is there any work being done to improve the DM?
regards
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I agree that the biggest thing missing in AH is damage modelling. This has always been this game's weakest point.
AH uses a binary status for plane components: "ok" and "gone". This also means that a plane will go down only after some major component is "gone", not because control has become so bad that you cannot fly the plane any longer. There not gradual damage.
cannon hits to the wing mean nothing unless it comes off - no decrease in lift, no added drag. small caliber rounds raining on the plane are extremely uneffective since they are unlikely to cause catastrophic failure to a major component. They were meant to hit small components - cabels, fuel lines, instruments, the pilot and slowly render the plane "unflyable" - not breaking it in half. This is almost un-modeled and so they are useless.
In the FM department AH is the best I've played. Yes, better than IL2 where every turn starts with lowering flaps. This doesn't mean that it's flawless, but it is ahead of the competition. Looking at HTC's history, I know they will keep it that way - and this is the most important factor for me.
Bozon
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Originally posted by bozon
I agree that the biggest thing missing in AH is damage modelling. This has always been this game's weakest point.
AH uses a binary status for plane components: "ok" and "gone". This also means that a plane will go down only after some major component is "gone", not because control has become so bad that you cannot fly the plane any longer. There not gradual damage.
cannon hits to the wing mean nothing unless it comes off - no decrease in lift, no added drag. small caliber rounds raining on the plane are extremely uneffective since they are unlikely to cause catastrophic failure to a major component. They were meant to hit small components - cabels, fuel lines, instruments, the pilot and slowly render the plane "unflyable" - not breaking it in half. This is almost un-modeled and so they are useless.
In the FM department AH is the best I've played. Yes, better than IL2 where every turn starts with lowering flaps. This doesn't mean that it's flawless, but it is ahead of the competition. Looking at HTC's history, I know they will keep it that way - and this is the most important factor for me.
Bozon
im not sure thats totaly true there, because ive had many moments where my plane has loads of holes in it (lets say 303 hits and the odd 50cal) and while no "damage" shows on the list, the visable damage on lets say the left wing, makes that wing "drag" or just not create equal lift. CT balances that out most the time but.....
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I don't get upset with the DM of the wings.
They have come a long way & I believe they are still in the process of refining a LOT of this.
However, what I'd love to see is engine damage causing reduced power.
It should sound different, it should not rev up to the same point. As oil drains away you should hear the engine getting ready to sieze up. Putting out less & less power.
There are no such clues currently.
If your engine gets hit it runs at full power till it quits.
Obviously there would have to be a difference between just an oil line shot up & a cylinder head blown off.
Last, I don't see how you can compare AH with a boxed game. Even if they both ARE WWII. Apples & oranges to the max.
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I noticed last night flying an F4U-1 that it really makes ya have to trim out if you get 1/2 your gear shot off. I lost my left gear and until I trimmed out the plane was almost uncontrollable while trying to manuever.........
when engine gets hit and leaks oil or water, if you shut off engine and let it cool down you prolong the life of power......
on the other hand if you let it peg out in the red, it is all she wrote ........
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Hmm..
On several occasions I have lost only the outer protion of a wing.
I've found some planes can still fly in this condition but wow what a fight to keep the plane in the air. And landing em is .... well lol.
Also lost portion of elevator several times.
Can't recall ever losing part of the rudder though.
Other things lost are 1 gear or 1 flap.
If i've got to have something on the engine damaged I'd prefer the oil, rather then the radiator.
Hmmm... engine gradually getting worse as oil goes? If the leak is external rather then into say a cylinder I would think it would run fine and then stop rather suddenly. Might be a short time where it made noise but would think it would go quickly when it went. No slick 50 or tribotech here.
The radiator going the engine might be noisy for a slightly longer period of time but....
Near as I can tell actual engine battle damage does not appear to be modeled yet. As in a cylinder getting holed, or the head getting cracked, or a spark plug getting blown out, or the wire getting cut/broken. These things IMHO would be hard to properly model in any sim. Think it would involve actually creating a virtual aircraft engine with all it's parts, then deal with projectile trajectory, angle of incidense, richocet's, mass, velocity, density.
Hmmm a mini screen freezes? While the cpu figures actual damage to the virtual aircraft engine or engines?????
Dang too early in the morning for me lol
My Spellins sux anie waies .
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Thanks for the contributions guys.
Ref IL2 being a boxed game, that is how it is sold but it is an online game too in a similar sense to AH. The communiy provides it's own servers and although they tend to be set up with era-correct aircraft (no Spit1s and La7s together!) there are no 'scenarios' which IMHO is the greatest strength of AH. You can find MA style fighting anywhere - even in CFS (although it was dire there when I tried it). IL2 at Aces Expansion Pack and now Pacific Fighters level is very popular on line. Most access is through Hyperlobby where there are frequently over 900 players feeding to 30+ servers. These servers are now moving towards 128 players and the future is fairly predictable, limited mainly by server connection bandwidth I think. (I'm sure that HT knows this.)
I didn't go into engine modelling too much. Oil damage and radiator damage do have different effects. Engine Management (as in IL2) may be a no-go due, possibly, to the paying community's lower level of interest in aircraft management. Personally I like it. It makes you manage in terms of boost, radiator and rpm and if you wall the throttle too long it will overheat and eventually seize up if you let it.
As far as introducing some of these things goes, I think HT may have a difficulty balancing his market with the 'R' word or, at least, some basic aircraft management. There's no doubt that if full management were introduced (engine start up etc) I would find it an unnecessary chore but managing it to some extent in combat or just on the fly is a different matter.
I am looking forward to seeing what patch 5 "Changed how drag works when parts of wings are destroyed. " is like.
And, of course, I will continue to fly AH. The scenarios and the community are second to none.
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I really don't see why a boxed sim is different .
A boxed sim does have a lot of extra AI to calculate.
And btw IL2 series now supports 128 players.
A bad excuse to not compare to a boxed sim.
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About engine damage...
Engines that are losing oil make no or very little indication of it. No special sounds, no warbling of power, nothing. In rare cases you might get a slight drop in oil pressure, but not much of one. When the oil quantity finally drops too low the main crankshaft bearings contact the support rings and the engine barks to a halt. This almost always jerks the entire airframe hard to one side. It is a very sudden, and highly alarming occurance. If the aircraft has an oil quantity gage you'd see a very pronounced drop. How many did have this? I honestly don't know. For gameplay I can see the reason for a drop in oil pressure; otherwise folks wouldn't know they're losing oil.
The same goes for coolant leaks, with a twist. As coolant quantity drops, the engine temp goes through the roof. Something that can be noticed easily by eyeballing the coolant temp gage. But there's no drop in power unless the pilot throttles back. Eventually the engine gets so hot the oil will become like glue, and a piston burries itself in a cylinder wall. This usually breaks the knuckle, causing a heavy vibration throughout the aircraft. Very shortly afterwards the engine will seize up.
Why don't either coolant loss nor oil loss cause a drop in power? Simple, you're not reducing the fuel or the air entering each cylinder. Plus, there's no appreciable drag on the pistons until the last moment. When the pistons stop, the engine stops. I didn't post this to say what should be done, simply as a reference to what actually happens. Gameplay considerations should be made in situations where the pilot wouldn't normally know what is going on. And yes, I do agree the damage model needs to be expanded at least from a visual standpoint.
Engines that seize up should jerk the airframe around rather violently. If cylinders are shot out the engine should run very rough, complete with cockpit vibration. Damaged wing sections should produce a reduced amount of lift. Shot-up control surfaces should flutter, work at reduced effectiveness or lock up both in the flight model and from a visual standpoint. Combat damage should be displayed on all surfaces visible to the pilot, not just the wings, and should have transparency. Looking through a cannon hole in the aileron as it flutters, or many holes in the rudder, would really get the blood pumping.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/end_net.gif)
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ok, this is bout damage model, the visuals you see.
was in a P51D and noticed only showed up damage or bullet holes in the wings or canopy, no bullet holes or scratches were showing on any part of bottom side of plane, no damage to the fueselage or vertical stabilizer........ if you can shot the aft section off a plane you would think it would show bullet holes or scraps/sratches too on the fuselage that is..........someone has probably already mentioned this and I just never saw it....
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Te damage model is predictable, especailly regarding ack.
Try using an F6F/Tiffy to deack a field I'll guarentee 80% of the time the first thing to go is 1 gun.
Makes you wonder about air to air hits doesn't it?
We all know the Tiffy is usually the oil, Pony is radiator - what is strange is that this seems to be irrespective of where the shots came from.
Pilot wounds - Happen regulary from long distances from the rear. So a round has to travel 800-1000yrds, pass through the airframe and armoured seat. The AH2 "magic bullet".
Mossies - VERY VERY rarely caught fire despite being made of wood. Regular occurence in AH2.
Overall I feel that there is somewhat unrealistic feel to damage modelling as it stands.
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Ive been shot off various parts of my plane...
- Ailerons (left or right)
- Flaps (left or right) - if they are shot off while down, they stay in position and cant be retracted anymore - dont know if this qualifies as a bug, but its annoying flying with one flap down, one up
- rudder
- stabs
- wingtips
- entire wings
Also, i do believe that a holed wing goes off easier due to stress.
And sometimes i have the feeling the plane gets 'funny' to handle when its covered in holes, but no damage listed. Might just be the psychological effect though.
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Mossies - VERY VERY rarely caught fire despite being made of wood. Regular occurence in AH2.
that always had me puzzled.
what catches fire in planes is almost always the engine area. Even leaking fuel from the fuel tanks have very little chance of blowing up the plane. If the plane is made of wood it will make fires damage the plane more, but it's not supposed to increase the chance of catching fire.
Bozon
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Originally posted by Kev367th
Te damage model is predictable, especailly regarding ack.
Try using an F6F/Tiffy to deack a field I'll guarentee 80% of the time the first thing to go is 1 gun.
Makes you wonder about air to air hits doesn't it?
We all know the Tiffy is usually the oil, Pony is radiator - what is strange is that this seems to be irrespective of where the shots came from.
Pilot wounds - Happen regulary from long distances from the rear. So a round has to travel 800-1000yrds, pass through the airframe and armoured seat. The AH2 "magic bullet".
Mossies - VERY VERY rarely caught fire despite being made of wood. Regular occurence in AH2.
Overall I feel that there is somewhat unrealistic feel to damage modelling as it stands.
Take an LA7 and fly it through a LANC. You will get oil damage or lose your left aleron, but you will fly away.
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The dm that always gets me is I get hit in the tail and my Motor quits.......I agree wings should be able to withstand a ping or two
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Hmm intersting bout the Lala.
Starting to wonder if the damge model itself is far too simple.
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Is the damage model any different looking related to net lag on H2H with a 10base or 100base hub in your house on 2 PC's than over an internet connection? We know netlag will cause us to see things differently than our opponent from time to time.
Can Hitech COAD a damage log file that can be reviewed later for each session which would tell you what was damaged and how you died?
You are still looking at the time overhead of you and your opponents game clients processing all of the "eye candy" you want and the round trips through the internet of your packets.
I don't know. In old AW it was alot eisier flying 2D. Then you could really focus on your con and nothing else. I guess when this game gets jacked into the back of our heads and we sit around drooling for 2 hours of cyber nirvana, someone will still be complaining it isn't real enough.:)
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The FM's were a bit shaky when AH2 was released; that I will give you.
However, the FM's in Il-2 are very "light". The P-47's a good example. It rolls too quickly and retains "E" too well. It feels as light as a Zero with the roll performance of an Fw 190.
That's not saying that the FM's aren't as detailed in Il-2. There's fuel mixture, engine cut-out, and many other things that we don't have in AH2 (yet).
You're right about the damage modeling. However, AH2 is still being developed. We haven't even seen weather effects, so we have a very long way to go.
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However, the FM's in Il-2 are very "light". The P-47's a good example. It rolls too quickly and retains "E" too well. It feels as light as a Zero with the roll performance of an Fw 190.
IMO the largest difference between AH2 and IL2/FB FM would be the total lack of torque forces in the latter.
The planes in IL2/FB does have pitch response to different speeds (ie. a plane going faster having a tendency to pitch upwards more and more), but it completely lacks torque response. All the planes fly like they have combat trim on. Personally I've never had to use aileron trims at all.
In AH2, it is impossible for a high-torque plane like the 109 to go 90 degrees straight vertical and hold its position there. The torque will take over around 100mph and force the plane to roll out to one side. In IL2/FB, all planes react like the P-38L.
Granted, there are some weird stuff in AH2 - like, for some reason, you can't get any of the planes into a real "immelmann" or a "tailslide". Some planes will sort of "lock up" during the vertical stall phase and just slip into a unrecoverable free-fall.
Also, some parts of the FM in IL2/FB were better when compared to AH1.
In AH1 a Spitfire was a Spitfire and a 109 was a 109. You could just slam down the stick in the former and go into a super tight turn instantly. Not so in IL2/FB. Overall in general cases the IL2/FB FM felt a lot more "light", but much more harsh than AH1 in tight maneuvering.
It could be said that how well a plane could handle sudden, harsh instantaneous turns, was much more important than true, sustained turn performance, in AH1. I've had a lot of great fights in IL2/FB where even Hurricanes couldn't just hold down the stick and plain outturn 109s.
Ofcourse, that's changed in AH2, and now currently sustained turn performance gains much more importance than sudden, instantaneous turns. A Spitfire in AH2 will stall out when you pull the stick like you did in AH1.
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Probably the most significant upgrade in DM will come when they actually model more specific parts, with full internal and external modelling.
One thing IL2/FB is good, is that the combat conditions upon expecting a kill is very different with each plane according to armament. A cannon armed plane would usually achieve kills in FB like it would in AH - by knocking out entire surfaces and causing fatal structural damage.
However, .50 armed planes are very different in IL2/FB in that they require a concentrated burst over a certain period of time - they rarely inflict structural fatalities, but very often cause internal damages.
The most likely cause of death by .50 armed planes in IL2/FB would be fires and engine seizures. A plane might withstand a burst or two from .50 armed planes, but usually on the third or fourth hit something is bound to be destroyed - a high probability of oil and fuel leaks, pilot wounds, and fires.
In AH2, with an exception of few planes that is notorious for catching fires, it is actually very rare thing to catch fire at all. Usually it is a plane that has already sustained fatal structural damage and going down in flames. It is very rare for a plane to catch fire first, and that become the cause of being shot down.
Also, a full internal damage modelling has some very interesting types of damages available. The most interesting case I've experienced in IL2/FB was a machine gun burst damaging my throttle systems. I don't know what the heck happened, but maybe the AP round snagged a throttle floodgate or something. I've found out that the throttle won't respond anymore! The only way I could reduce speed during the landing was to shut down the engine completely - and sometimes even that doesn't work!!
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So, I think there would be two large fields in which AH2 could be upgraded in DM.
One would be a full overhaul in the DM itself, where damageable parts are redone, so the plane has fully depicted internal and external parts, with different damage levels.
Like flakbait wrote, a plane with engine damage would leak just fuel or oil, but would be able to pull full power until the lubricant/fuel runs out. However, a plane famed with tough and durable engines such as the P-47 might get a piston head shot out, with rough handling and vibrations and etc., not pulling full power, but the engine still operational and stable, nonetheless.
Also, it'd be good to see damage levels depicted differently in control surfaces. Like, it'd be really cool to see an aileron that is not just cleanly "snipped off", but ragged and tattered by enemy fire, with reduced levels of efficiency. It wouldn't lose its function totally as it is now.
Ofcourse, the damage itself could be different. A non-functioning aileron is not the same thing as a missing aileron or a tattered aileron.
In effect that'd bring out also some very interesting tactical differences in planes - ie. if a cannon armed plane would strike an aileron with cannon shells it'd be much more likely that the entire aileron be ragged and tattered, perhaps fall off with a few hits. However, if a .50 armed plane would hit an aileron it'd be more likely the penetrated shells damage the aileron control cables, rather than the aileron surface itself be damaged.
Looking by the end result, a damaged aileron, destroyed aileron, aileron that fell off from its joints.. all could be the same in result. Perhaps the developers might not feel a need to model three different status of a control surface when essentially the result is the same. But however, the gamers like detail. God is in the details, too. Small and insignificant it may be, but such small differences with unique 'twists' in how the damage is dealt, would increase the feel of the game greatly.
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The second field of possible DM upgrade would be a full, cosmetic makeup. Initially people expected a lot from HT's comments that 'bullet holes will appear exactly where shells landed', but I guess a lot of people were disappointed with it.
The damage itself doesn't look bad, but it is way too limited. It only appears on the upper surfaces of the wings. The fuselage, sides, and underbellies show no damage at all. A simple 'textured method' would suffice, as seen in IL2/FB.
There are a lot of small but cool ideas to be shown off in this field. Like for instance, "hydraulics damage". This would be really cool to watch. A plane underfire gets its gears damaged. You could just handle it the way it is now in AH2, but it would really be something, if in some cases the damage to the gears relieve hydraulic locks and the gear droops down from the damaged plane. Man, the immersion would be unbelieveable if we see something like that.
Many small ideas can be tried out. Like, the way we 'perceive' damage by hits. Shoot a cannon shell, see it connect, explode on the target surface, throwing up a ball of smoke, flame, powdery debris.. that visual alone would make it really feel good.
I've recently noticed that on some four engine-bombers, the oil leaks on the engines would be also be perceivable from the externals. I think something like this is a step in the right direction.
So let's keep the ideas coming :)
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What do you mean by
I've recently noticed that on some four engine-bombers, the oil leaks on the engines would be also be perceivable from the externals.
?
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Sorry for the long-windedness. It's an habit.
Simply, you can see the oil leaks on the engine from the outside, on some bombers! Go near a B-17 leaking oil, observe his engine, and it has black streaks. (Or was it the B-24?)
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Supercharger and turbo damage would also be nice, not to mention one-of-a-kind. One 56th pilot over western Germany had an air duct punched through by an Fw's 20mm shell and couldn't pull full manifold pressure. If HT can model specific parts to that degree, he could model cylinder heads being shot off, punched out air ducts, ruptured intake manifolds... the ideas are endless. Imagine a jug driver getting caught, and hit, at 25k or more by a 109 and his turbo gets damaged. He can't pull full power anymore. Ammo box explosions for cannon-armed aircraft would also be great to include.
Another important aspect is pilot immersion. Simply having parts shot up isn't enough. Hard jolts, vibrations both light and heavy, see-through holes in aircraft surfaces from enemy fire, hefty bumps from AA exploding really close, airframe shuddering from stalls or near stalls. Currently all we have is a vibration when we over-speed the airframe, which is hardly enough. To the best of my knowledge, no other game/sim models things to that degree. WBs does have a nice "bump in the road" when AA explodes really close, but not much else.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/veggie.gif)
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Trying to stand back and let the ideas come in but just thought I'd reply to this:
The planes in IL2/FB does have pitch response to different speeds (ie. a plane going faster having a tendency to pitch upwards more and more), but it completely lacks torque response. All the planes fly like they have combat trim on. Personally I've never had to use aileron trims at all.
I've found different and although torque is modelled in AH I just wanted to say, take off in a Brewster in FB. Nurse that throttle through the power up or you'll be torque'd onto your back. Also, I notice in the 109s for instance that there isn't an aileron or rudder trim and I spend a lot of time holding on a little stick or rudder to counteract the torque. It does depend on speed of course.
Great comments guys, I'm sure HT is watching. Some of the thoughts go beyond what I had in mind but there's nothing like customer feedback :)
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The take-off/landing part in IL2/FB is another story.