Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Widewing on February 12, 2001, 07:01:00 PM
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When I find the time, I have been familiarizing myself with the AH sim offline. Within this context, I have been following the N1K2 discussion and there's two things that I find troubling.
1) Battle damage resistance is minimal. I have been practicing by attacking the circling P-51s and I have found that is takes next to nothing to explode these with a very short, well aimed burst. These aircraft are entirely too easy to kill.
I would point to the damage resistance modeling used in EAW as being considerably more realistic.
While I'm discussing battle damage, I should comment on the incredible amount of insanely dense smoke pouring from a damaged fighter.
The damned Chicago fire didn't generate that much smoke! Could someone explain what it is that fuels such a huge plume? More importantly, what allows it to be sustained for such long durations? Geez, an entire flotilla of WWII Destroyers couldn't put down a smoke screen of that duration or density. What makes this even worse is that the smoke trail is modeled as a solid.
2) I feel that the effectiveness of the 20mm cannons are grossly over-modeled.
One final note on the N1K2: Late run aircraft were redesigned to move the engine forward about 12 inches. Why? Well, according to what I have read, this was done to shift the Cg forward to correct for an instability that caused spin troubles. Well, as anyone can find out, spinning the AH N1K2 is next to impossible. I have deliberately thrown it into an accelerated stall, only to have it flip over with nearly no loss of altitude, and I could recover in 2 or 3 seconds. Try that with a real fighter, such as the P-51D and you will need a minimum of 500 feet to recover, assuming you caught it before it began to rotate. What Ah has programmed here is a 360 mph J-3 Cub.
One other complaint... The blackout and redout effects are adequate for an 80 year-old man, but set in too soon and too severe for a healthy early 20s fighter jock. Moreover, it appears that AH has not modeled in G-suits. G-suits?! You bet. By late 1944, all American aircraft were being upgraded to incorporate the new G-suit. All aircraft arriving in combat zones were plumbed for the G-suit. This allowed the American pilots to more one or more Gs than the Axis pilot before suffering the effects of oxygen deprivation. Another factor not modeled is the Fw 190 seat, which was reclined about 10 degrees greater than typical. This also delayed the onset of G induced blackout. I feel that the G tolerance model is inaccurate for a young, well conditioned aviator.
Well, that's my observations... Comments are welcome.
My regards,
Widewing
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20 mm grossly over modeled . hmm seems like we have heard that before. beware they will flame the hell out of you.but i hope they dont thanks for a great post .
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Well Widewing, I have to say that I agree with all your points more or less. But watch out, the Pom-Pom toting cheerleaders© will shortly arrive, and verify that there is nothing, nor was there anything ever wrong with AH and you better have some data to back it up or we'll call you a whiner. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif)
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One thing to keep in mind is that when you see an exploding plane in AH it can just as easily mean that the pilot was killed, since we currently lack any kind of effect showing the pilotless plane spiral to earth.
The actual ratio between simple pilot kill or actual mid-air explosion I have no idea about.
[This message has been edited by LLv34_Snefens (edited 02-12-2001).]
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Been wondering about the damage myself. All the gun footage ive seen shows an enemy airplane taking a crapload more of bullets than an AH plane...and those shot were done at 300 yds or less.
N1k? Hehe, I know Agent K is driving it... *Men in Black Tune echoes in the background*
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AH is mainly an online game. Yes, it is very easy to kill the offline drones, but I think the game designers must allow for the vagries of online games in setting survivability of aircraft. Although many will probably disagree, I think that network lag, and the variability of network lag, makes it hard to connect with online targets. You only get updates of your targets position about twice a second, and the updates come somewhat randomnly due to variable net lags. At 250 mph your target moves six times its own length in the 1/2 second between updates. And that is in a perfect world. Whats worse, your FE must do an extrapolation of the targets position, not an interpolation. Extrapolation is fraught with error because your FE can't know, until its too late, that the target pilot jinked or changed turn rate or direction. Thus what you see on your screen is only an approximation to reality and just hitting that image is not enough. The host must receive your bullet information and check to see if indeed your bullets hit the target given the other players FE info of his actual position. I think that the end result is that a much lower fraction of your shots connect in the online world and if accurate survivability data were used for aircraft, it might take forever to bring them down. Therefore, to counteract this the game makes them easier to destroy.
Of course, then again, maybe I'm just a bad shot (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
715
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Originally posted by Widewing:
(1)...These aircraft are entirely too easy to kill...
(2)...While I'm discussing battle damage, I should comment on the incredible amount of insanely dense smoke pouring from a damaged fighter...
(3)...Moreover, it appears that AH has not modeled in G-suits. G-suits?! You bet. By late 1944, all American aircraft were being upgraded to incorporate the new G-suit. All aircraft arriving in combat zones were plumbed for the G-suit. This allowed the American pilots to more one or more Gs than the Axis pilot before suffering the effects of oxygen deprivation. Another factor not modeled is the Fw 190 seat, which was reclined about 10 degrees greater than typical. This also delayed the onset of G induced blackout. I feel that the G tolerance model is inaccurate for a young, well conditioned aviator...
Widewing
1. No. I've shot a LOT of old cars with many different rifles and hand guns. A .300 Winchester magnum will punch a hole through a 1/2 inch plate at 200yards like a drill press without even using full metal jacket rounds. I've done it. If I had full metal jacket rounds and pumped rounds into and engine block with it at 100yards I will guarantee you it would come apart fairly quickly. And we are talking about a round that is FAR less powerful compared to a .50cal. Not to mention a 20mm. A short burst to 20mm into a wing WILL take it off. A 20mm AP round will cut thru a cast iron block at 200yards easy. Not to mention the aluminum and magnesium bocks and aluminum spars on a plane. Look at the post the niklas put up on the Bf 109F-4. They have data in that that talks about the penetration of the .50 cal into the 109. A short burst of 50's into the wing or engine should do a number on a plane. A short direct burst of .50 cal at the focal point would be roughly 25X6=150 rounds into the area the size of an end table into and aluminum wing. It would rip it up.
2. It's right. I drove a 72' Toyota Hi Lux pick up around for several months that burnt a quart of oil a day through the valve guides. I had to clean the plugs ever couple days on it to keep it running. When I was going down the road at full throttle you couldn't see the car behind me in the rear view mirror and that isn't an exaggeration. It was a cop one time and he was kind enough not to write me a mechanical.
3. Your right.
Here is the report on the Bf 109F-4. It talks about the .303, British .50, 20mm HE, and US .50 on page five. They are testing at ranges of 100 and 200 yard. I'm sure you know HE round are thin walled and not intended to penetrate armor. At 200 yards the British .50 cal is punching thru the 0.875in laminated plate thru the fuel tank and thru a 0.33in plate behind the pilot 30% of the time. That's 1.2 inches of armor plate. The laminated metal is effectively thicker because of the added strength of the laminations. The bullet would have deformed after passing thru the first plate and it still did it. The US .50's were even better it sounds like. It also mentions that 20 AP will have no problem at 200yards doing it.
http://people.freenet.de/luftwaffeln/109f4_intro.html (http://people.freenet.de/luftwaffeln/109f4_intro.html)
[This message has been edited by Jimdandy (edited 02-12-2001).]
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Maybe there should be an AC testing committee.
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Online you will see alot more diversity of damage effects. Sometimes you just cant get a solid hit concentrated in one area and the guy stays intact through several hits.
The pilot kill(likely on a nice 7:30 rear quarter deflection shot) shows up alot more against the drones then in the MA. People wont hold still for it. And a supprise shot is more likey from dead six which lowers the chance of the pilot kill.
The smoke is intended to symbolize a fuel hit(white smoke) or a glycol or oil hit(black smoke) Against the drones you putter along co speed and end up in the smoke from the plane you are dismembering. In the MA the guy gets quite animated when you ping his engine and all the dweebs zoom in to try to help you with your kill..... Both smoke effects look quite convincing from 1.2k away.
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Another note on the capability of a 20mm cannon. This is an excerpt from VIII Fighter Command at War 'Long Reach'. Capt. Robert S. Johnson shot down 28 AC in his P-47:
Capt Robert S. Johnson
62nd FS/56th FG
"...Never let a Jerry get his sights on you. No matter whether he is at 100 yards or 1000 yards away, 20 mm will carry easily that far and will easily knock down an aeroplane at 1000 yards..."
And he's talking about knocking down a P-47 one of the toughest fighters of WWII.
[This message has been edited by Jimdandy (edited 02-13-2001).]
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As in real life, spin entry from an accelerated stall is difficult to achieve. There are plenty of anectdotes of guys recovering from accelerated stalls under 500' AGL.
Take a Yak-9U, do a vertical zoom and chop the throttle. Keep the nose pointed up as long as you can, then let the spin develop. If you can recover within 500' of initiating recovery procedure I will eat my hat. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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PS Towd and Raubvogel, you guys are pathetic. You can't argue with facts, so you just pre-flame anybody who might disagree. Sad.
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Accelerated stall with a spin entry follwoing a horizontal vector = Snap roll ... not too hard to reover from that.
Regards
DW6
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I just want to point out one thing:
Widewing said:
I have been practicing by attacking the circling P-51s and I have found that is takes next to nothing to explode these with a very short, well aimed burst.
AFAIK, the damage model on those offline drones is not proper. I am not sure that they are the same as what you would find online. I reccomend you try the same thing online. The results will be different if my suspicion is correct. If you need somebody to shoot at, let me know. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Lephturn - Aces High Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com (http://www.flyingpigs.com)
Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome! (http://users.andara.com/~sconrad/)
"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know." - Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne. (1533–1592)
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Widewing,
our squad discovered that you need at least 5-6 full TOD's of whining and moaning before making yourself immune against Hispano-Nikis' anger. Grab a Mauser armed kite and shoot down those Spitfire/Niki/C-Hog dweebs (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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** Pulls out the flaming Pom Pom's and dons HTC Cheerleader outfit** < So Towd and Raubvogel can feel good about themselves and blame it all on the "porked UFO hispano laser capitalist opportunists">
Widewing, I will happily acknowledge your expertise in aircraft history, but I have to disagree with you on those points.
1.) Battle Damage: First realize as Lephturn said, the offline damage model is not the same as the online model. The offline model is greatly simplified allowing for very easy kills. Plus the drones fly in a very easy to follow pattern that allows quite easy tracking shots, thereby causing concentrated damage. In the arena, the enemy is usually twisting and turning, and actively evading you, so its much harder.
Even online though you will see cases where the x4 cannon aircraft will disable you with a single burst.
Is this realistic? In my opinon, yes. From watching guncamera footage, I tend to notice that once the attacker starts to get actual hits on an enemy fighters, it is usually just a few strikes before some catastrophic damage occurs. There are just way too many critical systems packed into a very small tight space. Yes, there are many accounts of fighters coming home with bad damage. But there are just as many cases of pilots coming home with kills to discover that they expended just a few rounds from their cannons, and less than a hundred MG rounds.
If you would like to spend some time in the Training Arena with me, I will show you that its much different in actual virtual combat, than against the drones offline.
2-a.) Smoke: All I can say here is to repeat what was said earlier in the thread. Due to the way that you engage the drones offline, you will tend to stay in the thickest of the smoke for long periods, thereby enhancing the visual effect of the smoke trails. Is it right or wrong? *shrugs* I honestly don't know.
3.) 20mm Cannons Grossly Overmodeled: Now here is a point I will have to disagree with you on totally, as its an issue that I have done quite a bit of reading and research on, and its something that we have debated on this board ad nasuem.
Looking at available lethality data and historical research into this subject, such as the data presented at the Joint Fighter Conference, where they go into length concerning the lethality of the Hispano 20mm versus the Browning .50's, I think the guns in AH are pretty close.
If you compare static testing within the game, where you fire at a static target such as a hanger, then count the number of shells expended before it destroys the target for each gun type/caliber, you will see that relative lethality in the game follows the historic data.
We have also done the same using theoretical engineering calculations to compute kinetic energy and explosive energy per gun, using the theory that applied energy to an airframe is directly proportional to relative lethality (Robert Shaw's Book Chapter 1).
So either all the guns in AH are pretty much off, or none of them are.
There is a reason that x4 20mm cannons became much more common as the war went on (and experimentation with bigger guns such as the Russian 23mm or 37mm, and the German 30mm.) (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
4.) Spins: All I can relate in this area is my own experience, which is admittedly quite sparse. A couple of years ago, I got to fly a AT-6 Texan down in Kissimmee FL (I have it all on video tape, from the cockpit, tail, and wing). In one manuever, an immelman, the instructor told me as we hit the top that turned the aircraft over that I was gonna stall it. He was right. It stalled, dropped the wing, and spun around about one full turn before I could recover, and I was suprised at how easy it was to recover. I figured that from all the talk over the years, that a stall and spin would be vicious, and very difficult to recover from.
5.) G Limitations: Here I can probably agree with you that its probably slightly too sensitive, but not totally unrealistic. G tolerances seem to vary widely from person to person. HTC had to decide what "average" was and apply it too the sim.
Again from my own experience, when I flew the Texan, I pulled around (and maybe over) 5 G's without a suit, with little to no problem. But I was in my late 20's, in good physical health, and worked out regularly. But a friend of mine took the same flight (same general age and physical conditioning), and he had alot of problems with the G forces and seemed to have a very low tolerance. On the other hand, the instructor told me that I seemed to have fairly high G tolerance's, and he was suprised that it didn't seem to effect me at all.
In regards to the comments about G-Suits, and reclined seating in the Fw190, this is a very difficult issue to address. Remember that AH is suppose to simulate the entire war, not just 1944. So how do you implement features such as G-Suits without unbalancing the arena's, or introducing something that would be anachronistic? It is certainly an area that could be improved upon in AH, but I'm just pointing out that its not as easy to address as some may think.
A converse point is that currently AH does not model progressive pilot fatigue. In AH you can pull the same number of G's until your aircraft stalls and plummets into the ground. In the real deal, pilots get tired, and the more you pull sustain G's the more sensitive you become to them. Actually this is something I hope to see in the future. It will cut down on the turnfighters that pull hard 7-9 G turns for the better part of a 10 minute fight with little to no cumulative effect.
** Hands flaming Pom Pom's to Towd & Raubvogel, "How was that Boys for a great big HTC rah rah?" **
And Widewing, (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) Please realize I am just debating the issue with you, nothing personal involved. Anything between the ** symbols is just a blatant attempt to needle other players who don't want to hear an honest debate on the issues.
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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
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funked-oh no, you've wounded my inner child. Whatever shall I do?
Vermillion, I enjoy a good debate as much as anyone, but too many times I see people on this board jump all over anyone who questions game details. It the person happens to mention the N1K or the hispano cannon, they are sure to bring on the wrath of the cheerleaders. I think objective critical review of anything is a good thing, but it has seemed that most can't admit that it could be anyway but their way.
I still say Widewing has some good points. Concerning the 20mm, I would point to the combined ammo types as being the culprit there. When you combine the penetrating power of an AP round with the explosive power of a HE round, bad things are going to happen.
Regarding the N1K, we've heard that there is something off on the flight model, so not sure what the argument is there.
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Raubvogal if you look above on one of my replies has actual data in it on the British 20mm HE round penetration data, I think it's on page 5. It's a brief summary of the test done on the armor of the Bf109F-4. Also I posted the comment from that pilot. Anyway check out the Bf109 one I think you will like it.
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Verm yanno you've never addressed the given armor penetration value of both the .50 and Hispano given in the JFC report in respect to AH. If that isn't a far cry off then nothing is. It is a viable, universal source right? That several of us have used to prove how effect the Hispano was vs aircraft and the .50 right?
All data MUST be universal! (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
- Bess
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Yeah the Offline drones.... I know 'em... They are UFOs... They dont even have engines runing and still keep circling... and if you switch bases they are being beamed by a orbiting space cruiser to your new location (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) I wouldn't care about them... Online killing is something CoMpLeTeLy different... (But often I feel as a drone myself (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif) )
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MB
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Originally posted by Vermillion:
4.) Spins: I figured that from all the talk over the years, that a stall and spin would be vicious, and very difficult to recover from.
Don't forget that the T-6/SNJ is a trainer designed with the intent that it be easily recovered from unusual flight attitudes and manuevers by low time pilots. High performance fighters nearly always have more "bite" in their handling characteristics than a trainer. (The one significant exception I can think of concerns the F6F. It is constantly praised by pilots in print, in interviews and in person for its well behaved flight characteristics.) Sounds like it was a fun flight Verm!!
The blackout and redout effects are adequate for an 80 year-old man, but set in too soon and too severe for a healthy early 20s fighter jock.
With regards to G tolerance, Widewing: This is highly subjective and can vary greatly even in one individual. My last hop with Fighter Combat USA was against a friend with an ex-Marine IP in the right seat. This Harrier driver was in his 20's, 5'4" in height and in top physical condition after leaving the military a few weeks prior. He should have been able to handle well over 6G's if the above statement were absolutely true. He was graying into tunnel vision at a little over 4G's on only his second flight of the day and G meter in that airplane never topped 5.4 that day. My friend in the left seat lost consciousness for several seconds during the last of six fights. Fatigue had already set in after only 20 minutes of fighting.
The assumption that the average 20-something person should be able to always pull more than 6 positive G's with no or very low ill physical effects is optimistic.
re: negative G's - Not only are negative G's instantly uncomfortable and downright painful, it can take days for the burst blood vessels to heal inside of your eyes after you've experienced a red-out.
WW2 pilots were not highly conditioned like modern aerobatic stunt or military flyers. Many were thin kids that performed minimal weight training/physical conditioning, had poor diets (especially in the Pacific) and drank when alcohol was available. We are also lucky in sims to be pulling only a few ounces of pressure on the joystick rather than the highly fatiguing stick forces a pilot would experience in a maneuvering fight. All of these factors are not condusive to G tolerence. What we have in AH for ultimate G tolerence may not be right for everybody but it evens the playing field - this regardless of your physical condition compared to another player's. It puts a higher burden on skills of the individual players to work within a defined limit that we all face.
BTW, great job on the Johnson interview Widewing.
MiG
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Originally posted by 715:
Thus what you see on your screen is only an approximation to reality and just hitting that image is not enough. The host must receive your bullet information and check to see if indeed your bullets hit the target given the other players FE info of his actual position.
This is not the case. Your front end decides wether you hit or not, if the rounds pass through the target on you screen you hit it, end of story.
Unfortunately, until someone gets network infrastructure to send data at faster than light speeds, there isn't a better way of doing this =)
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Graywolfe <tim@flibble.org>
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"PS Towd and Raubvogel, you guys are pathetic. You can't argue with facts, so you just pre-flame anybody who might disagree. Sad "written by funked. just couldent resist the flame huh silly man
now im a pre flamer lol i love it. you did exactly what i knew you would do . you realize you come down on the side of htc being perfect every time, every single time. and you flame the people who disagree every single time.
i love wildwings posts and just hope to keep him from being driven away from the community as you reactionarys have done to many others , as far as your opinion you get it issued to you anyway.
pre flamer your killin me. get a little less predicatable and then you will really suprise me.
till then lay off on the insults.