Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: hblair on May 03, 2002, 09:16:20 AM
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While I have no doubt that HTC has their numbers as close to correct in the AH gunnery lethality as they know how, many of us have been flying these simms longer than the war lasted. We have become better with the guns than the WWII aces were.
Should we turn down lethality 10-15% to more realistically simulate WWII air combat? (that is to say, to lessen the chance of a very short burst from 500 yds to inflict critical damage)
Opinions?
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Hmm ... interesting idea but "we" are not the majority. Many pilots in AH are newbies with a "bad" gunnery and therefore i think it is good as it is.
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I've been wondering about this as well HB. Especially when someone from WB tries out AH, then goes back to WB talking about the lethality. Thats not a bad thing, IMHO. There is a difference. If you're shooting reduced rounds then shoot rounds with more punch, or vice versa, of course you're going to see a difference.
Which one is right? Which one is on the numbers? Do both already have an adjustment in as a game concession? I haven't a clue.
Personally, if we had to have a concession, I would rather go with reduced instead of increased.
Man, glad I'm just a systems analyst. Attempting to please this many people would make the rest of my hair fall out, lol.
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Originally posted by Apache
Man, glad I'm just a systems analyst. Attempting to please this many people would make the rest of my hair fall out, lol.
My product has to please 10,000 engineers and 20,000 technical drafters, from Moscow to Alabama. :( (Seen my hair lately?)
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Think about how many whines HT will get if the lethality is not like the one in RL:
"Ahhmmm ... this really is not a whine (I swear) but why do i need 5x20mm rounds to blow the wing off from this bloody spit dweeb when in RL 3 rounds will make him explode"
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Too lethal?
What did Marseille use? 15 rounds per kill on average? And that was with crappy guns too.
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Originally posted by Hortlund
Too lethal?
What did Marseille use? 15 rounds per kill on average? And that was with crappy guns too.
And at what range was Marseille so famous for getting his kills? :)
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Interesting idea. As one who is, shall we say, in no danger of inhabiting the AH fighter ace elite, let me just say that some of us need every bit of lethality we can get!
I don't see any difference in lethality between WB and AH. Wings and tails still seem to come of with satisfying regularity in both sims.
I do notice a difference in round weight. The 30mm in AH, for example, seems to fly like 50 cal. In WB it has a drop so substantial you really have to be in close and aim quite high to hit. (And before someone takes the trouble to kindly look up my stats and suggest that I should become more proficient with this gunnery model before I go making suggestions--this happened last time I made this observation--let me say this is not about helping me get more kills. If anything, it would do the reverse! It's just about one little extra element of realism).
However, it may also be true that the bullet drop may only appear greater in WB. They have a pretty good connection, and arenas are virtually empty. The lag effects in AH will, I'm sure, distort my perception of the rounds' behavior. But I still have my doubts about that 30mm!
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Should we turn down lethality 10-15% to more realistically simulate WWII air combat? (that is to say, to lessen the chance of a very short burst from 500 yds to inflict critical damage)
No. While I think the lethality is in general a bit too high, I'd rather live with what we have, rather than experience the disatrous "tweaking of the gunnery model" that happened over at IMOL after the HTC folks left.
What an experience that was!
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I don't think it is to lethal at all. Have you any idea what a cannon round would do to a plane, just one?
Also, imagine a .50 cal bullet ripping into your plane, just one would do so much freaking damage it would make a mechanic cry.
Oh and btw - the idea of a cannon round is that range shouldn't matter much as long as it hits, it explodes and tears the snot out of the aircraft. Also, a .50 cal was designed to fire up to a mile so 500 measly yards shouldn't matter at all. To me HTC has the lethality modeled pretty accurately.
Note: after re-reading the above two paragraphs it sound like I'm saying a .50 cal and a cannon round are the same, I know they are not and just puked two thoughts onto the paper quickly because I'm at work and don't have lots of time. hehehe
Also, Marseille was using 15 rounds per kill and was completely devistating his opponents aircraft. I know he got in close before he fired but that was only to ensure those 15 rounds all hit, not how effective each round was. IMO.
HTC, don't change a thing.
Kuben
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Originally posted by Hortlund
Too lethal?
What did Marseille use? 15 rounds per kill on average? And that was with crappy guns too.
Marseille wasnt an ace, he was a freak of nature. Anyone else even come close to that type of accuracy? :)
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I think it would yield a more rewarding gameplay to turn down lethality 10-15%. There isnt a plane in the MA (except maybe the JU88) that can´t down any fighter with a 0.5 sec burst (so it seems). Why even have different gun-loadouts? Every plane will kill every other plane very rapidly, 20mms, 30mms or just MGs, doesn´t matter. I usually leave all the guns on ground that I can, because maneuverability is paramount, once you can hit the enemy it doesn´t matter how many rounds or what caliber you can shoot per second. In WB I used to get hit, and be able to limp home, here it very rarerly happens. If I get hit, I usually go down. Agreed, I may just be a lousy pilot, but thats my opinion.
Maybe a lot of kills in WW2 were made with very few rounds, but then many kills were made against unsuspecting targets, being surprised by the approaching foe. That also very rarely happens in the MA, with almost unlimited rearviewing ability in most fighters.
Reward the people taking the heavy, less maneuverable planes with the extra punch by turning down all guns by the same amount. Just my opinion.
Litjan
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Take up a SpitI or HurriI Janov, you'll find out that it takes a good 3 second pelting to slightly damage a plane.
The heavier caliber weapons were designed for one reason: to down enemy fighters as quickly as possible. So naturally, larger caliber weapons will do more damage in a single pass than a 8x.303 winged Spitfire.
It only makes sense... now if some other issues were looked at-> horizontal/vertical stablizers being blow off with a single 20mm on planes like the Jug.. or that you can hit only ONE side of the tail (ie: left horiz stab) and watch it fall away... then a split second later the other half comes off.... not due to lag but probably because the damage is somehow being applied to the other side....
Some planes are just too "weak", it ain't the weapons.
-SW
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hblair...why bother?
AKA: Relax its just a (insert expletive) game.
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I was just wondering what you guys thought yeager. I read a thread today on AGW about the lethality in AH, and I gotta admit I had a tough time getting used to it myself. I'm not strongly opinionated either way. But from what I've read about first hand accounts, shooting a plane down from 500 yds + with 50 cals just didn't happen. Just kicking thoughts around is all.
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My reply to "high lethality" is this: Don't get yourself in that predicament in the first place!"
:D
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If you want to Model how the damage/gunnery model SHOULD be done, and then improve upon there....
Look at IL2's approach, More realistic by far.
No spraying and praying there gets you an entire empinage lopped off from D500 and out! :rolleyes:
Sorry Aces High.. but the damage system has been a problem for a while, and although aces is a Networked/Multiplayer work of art, it is starting to REALLY fall behind in the curve of modern simulations graphically along with other modes of function.
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Originally posted by jbroey3
Sorry Aces High.. but the damage system has been a problem for a while, and although aces is a Networked/Multiplayer work of art, it is starting to REALLY fall behind in the curve of modern simulations graphically along with other modes of function.
Are you comparing the lethality to real life or just other sims standards? Are you a real pilot that has first hand information that the team can use? (Didn't think so)
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It usually takes me a full clip to kill an enemy.
Reducing the lethalness would require me to fly two sorties to kill one enmey.
Reducing the lethalness at 500 yards plus would be nice.
That wont affect me at all, because I don't pull the trigger until 200 yards.
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Nothing's wrong with the AH lethality overall.
In particular I wish the MG 151's were a bit more effective, although they're bad more because of ballistics than lethality.
I fly a P-51D in the MA mostly. It takes a good solid burst to kill me; glancing shots generally do no damage at all, or at most damage a gun or that dang radiator. Even acks usually take 2-3 hits before something breaks. When I shoot an enemy plane it requires a good solid burst to kill it; in the case of some of the tougher planes (like F6F or F4U or P-47) it generally takes a couple of good bursts.
Remember that when you get shot down, particularly if there's a lot of lag, you might not be hearing a "hit sound" for all the hits you receive.
AH already massively favors the defender in that there are no LCOS gunsights (although this was a WW2 technology) and rearward vision is quite excellent due to there being very little head movement restrictions.
J_A_B
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Originally posted by J_A_B
Remember that when you get shot down, particularly if there's a lot of lag, you might not be hearing a "hit sound" for all the hits you receive.
J_A_B
Correct. One "hit" sound could actually be representing several hits.
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I don't think there is anything wrong with the leathality in AH. I'm a mechanical engineer and have done some aerodyamic computer simulations in my time (programming in fortran sucked :D).
To put things into perpective...
You can simulate a/c turn rates, climb rates, lift drag, bullet drop, bullet energy, etc etc, and that is all relatively easy with the equations.
However, there isn't a computer built (or at least not one that the average Joe can afford) that can do real time finite element analysis (FEA) on the components being hit and what damage is actually be inflicted on them. Let alone do it in a multiplayer environment.
So, what you do to accomodate the lack of computer power is apply a generic SWAG factor to the individual component of the a/c and say
If component X receives Y amount of energy from a round(s), component X falls off. The more energy a round has (i.e round size and range) determines how many it takes to make a particular part fall off. Thus making is possible to take a tail off of a jug w/ 1 20mm or 10 20 mm at 400 yards. It becomes simply a factor of energy and an educated guess. Best you can do IMO. I don't know if this is how AH does it, but that would be the way "I" would.
Don't change a thing.... I finally figgered out how to shoot :D
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I still want to be able to kill when down to a pair of .303s or 7mms. That wouldn't be possible if the lethality goes down below normal.
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It doesn't matter to me since all players will be affected similarly. The better shots will still land more rounds than I. Less effective shots will land fewer.
On a personal basis, I don't care.
Having said that, why not go with the most realistic guns?
curly
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B]Should we turn down lethality 10-15% to more realistically simulate WWII air combat?[/B]
personally i see no reason to reduce the realism of one aspect of the game supposedly to increase realism? If our ammo loadouts and the trajectories of our guns are accurate, and the damage modelling as good as it can currently be - why not leaave it alone?
I'd rather see overheating guns, so that after a 3 second burst one of your guns would go pop, with an audible damage sound.
Another three second burst - and another of your guns goes...
Similarly, guns shouldn't fire, or should jam, if you're pulling too many Gs.
I think this would reduce the spray and pray crowd, encouraging people to improve their gunnery. This in turn would increase realism and immersion for all of us. It would cut out a few other problems too, like when you rip the wings off a bomber and as it goes spiralling down the guy is holding down the fire button, spraying in every direction.
I'd like to think that anyone who can handle AH's realistic FMs and grasp the complex Strat system would be able to cope with these additions..............maybe i'm wrong?
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A reduced lethality in the CT might be worth a try...
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Originally posted by crowbaby
Similarly, guns shouldn't fire, or should jam, if you're pulling too many Gs.
I believe this only happened to early model P51s.. specifically the P51B, this was fixed in the field with an ammo canister being put underneath the gun belts. By the D model it was completely fixed.
But the gun overheating/jamming thing.. I agree with that.
-SW
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I think this is a really bad idea. By far the best aspect of AH is that the FMs, ballistics and gunnery model are as realistic as HTC can make them. Many of us have flown thousands of sorties and routinely perform maneuvers that an average WWII pilot would be extremely wary of. If I die because I routinely push the flight envelope this is no big deal to me but probably not at all representative of what real pilots did. Does this mean AH should make stalling behavior unrealistically harsh to “account” for this? I don’t think so, and making gunnery/weapons less realistic makes as little sense. If you want to be handicapped with poor gunnery skills due to little combat/gunnery experience the solution is easy. Quit the game after a hundred sorties or so, or limit yourself to 1 sortie a month to keep your skills at a “realistic” level.
Hooligan
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Gun ballistics in AH should only be modeled to most closely match reality, IMO.
This is one area that I do not want to see game concessions making them: stronger or weaker, better or worse at range, or more or less accurate than their real life counterparts.
And yes, I do think that most sim pilots are far better (virtual) shots than most WWII (RL) pilots were. We have hundreds, if not thousands times more practice.
eskimo
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Its the ICONS! Without those, your gunnery would suffer considerably. With those, we learn when to shoot, and we know exactly the orientation of the EA is. The snapshot is effective because of that.
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Just to add to what the guys have been saying about us having more practice...
I've been playing air combat games since... well Red Baron... pretty much atleast an hour a day for close to.... 9-10 years now?
That's well over 4 times the practice (and being able to do whatever manuever/risky thing I want without worry of dying) than any WWII combat pilot ever had.
As time goes on, you'll find guys becoming more and more "elite" as they get years of non stop practice.
But to make a concession for the few who are good (shots), while the majority are bad (shots) seems more like a handicap to the majority.
Just my opinion.
-SW
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Originally posted by -ammo-
Its the ICONS! Without those, your gunnery would suffer considerably. With those, we learn when to shoot, and we know exactly the orientation of the EA is. The snapshot is effective because of that.
Not true, it just requires a more realistic approach... well by WWII standards.. you have to close in till they fill your windscreen and then let your bullets fly.
Right now we know what ranges they are and can snap a burst without care.
I fly Il-2 (I know I know... just hear me out) on servers with both icons on and off. With them on, I find it easier to get a bead on them at certain ranges because I know about the right lead I need at those ranges.
But when I play servers with icons off (either melee or coop), I find myself have to get in a LOT closer to make those shots count.
Of course, these are for the most part in turning dogfights. In planes like the 190 with it's 4 cannons, I can still be pretty far out (I estimate 500yards or meters.. whatever they go by there) and land shots that will result in a severed wing.
But it's all relative, I've got the experience to know if I missed before the bullets hit the plane.
-SW
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I thought about this as I drove to work and I was able to reach only one conclusion: HBlair has a carpet bagger in his family tree! Bah!!
curly
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Eskimo where you been?
This is a game. You guys need to understand its just a friggen game. The ballistics lethality is designed to perform how pyro and dale think it should perform in order to be as much fun as a game can be.
IL2 gunnery when set to realistic is far more difficult than AH and theres the rub. Most people currently gaming in AH would NOT be happy with IL2s realistic ballistics settings.
AH s designed to be FUN damnit!
Do you hear me? Fun! Yeah! thats right FUN.......
FUN FUN FUN!!!!!
FUN HAHA FUN ARGHHH !!!!!.......
HAHA
HAHAHAHA
FUN
Fun
hehehe
fUN
hahaha
FuN
hohoho
fUn
ok ok
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Originally posted by Yeager
Eskimo where you been?
This is a game. You guys need to understand its just a friggen game. The ballistics lethality is designed to perform how pyro and dale think it should perform in order to be as much fun as a game can be.
IL2 gunnery when set to realistic is far more difficult than AH and theres the rub. Most people currently gaming in AH would NOT be happy with IL2s realistic ballistics settings.
AH s designed to be FUN damnit!
Do you hear me? Fun! Yeah! thats right FUN.......
FUN FUN FUN!!!!!
FUN HAHA FUN ARGHHH !!!!!.......
HAHA
HAHAHAHA
FUN
Fun
hehehe
fUN
hahaha
FuN
hohoho
fUn
ok ok
Am I reading betwixt the lines here correctly? Are you saying AH gunnery is not modeled "realisitically"? I don't know if it is or not. Just worndering if you know something the rest of us don't.
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Originally posted by Yeager
Do you hear me? Fun! Yeah! thats right FUN.......
FUN FUN FUN!!!!!
FUN HAHA FUN ARGHHH !!!!!.......
HAHA
HAHAHAHA
FUN
Fun
hehehe
fUN
hahaha
FuN
hohoho
fUn
ok ok
This image crossed my mind as I read Yeagers post...
(http://www.contrabandent.com/cwm/s/cwm/big/Duhard.gif)
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Ripsnort: Correct
Apache: From everything that I know AH has a damned good ballistics model. It has been designed to (among many things) allow lethality to be adjusted within arenas (or H2H sessions).
It is the MA lethality settings that I was referring to in comparrison to IL2 realism settings. The MA lethality is set for what HTC consider maximum playability (gameplay). Not maximum realism. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive but might as well be imo.
I love IL2 but for online play AH has it beat for pure easy fun.
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Funny thing is I read all these comments about "laser guns" in AH and I get the same (or worse) hit percentages here than I did in WB.
As far as real world lethality, I really have no idea. There is not sufficient experimental data to make a useful quantitative comparison. Numbers of hits required to get kills seem to be pretty close to what I've read and heard from WW2 pilot anectdotes. Certainly in WW2 a quick bounce and a kill was much more common than a prolonged dogfight. So AH seems about right.
Remember, if you decrease weapon effectiveness you increase the effectiveness of maneuver warp tactics. And since WB 2.6 came out that's what most WB fights have become. He with the best microwarps wins.
I think the big difference in player perception is that WB models only half the bullets and ammo load and half the rate of fire. So all the guns in WB are a bit crippled.
Reasons it's easier to kill in sims than in real life:
1. No physiological effects.
2. Easy to see if you hit (hit sprites).
3. Range Icon.
4. Many of us have thousands of times more trigger time than any fighter pilot in history.
And for AH there is an additional cheesy factor: You can see hit sprites through the instrument panel. I get kills all the time on planes that are hidden under my nose. The bug has been here since the inception of hit sprites, so I assume it is one of those bugs that Dale views as a feature.
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About Il-2:
I get kills at the same ranges and deflections in Il-2 as I do in AH. It just took a while to get used to the fact that you can't see your tracers or hits as clearly. Once you learn how to spot your rounds, shooting in either sim is very similar.
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Originally posted by Yeager
Eskimo where you been?
This is a game. You guys need to understand its just a friggen game. The ballistics lethality is designed to perform how pyro and dale think it should perform in order to be as much fun as a game can be.
IL2 gunnery when set to realistic is far more difficult than AH and theres the rub. Most people currently gaming in AH would NOT be happy with IL2s realistic ballistics settings.
AH s designed to be FUN damnit!
Do you hear me? Fun! Yeah! thats right FUN.......
FUN FUN FUN!!!!!
FUN HAHA FUN ARGHHH !!!!!.......
HAHA
HAHAHAHA
FUN
Fun
hehehe
fUN
hahaha
FuN
hohoho
fUn
ok ok
Yeager,
I've got to agree with Apache on this one...
How do you know what is accurate?
Game-play concessions should be and are geared toward removing the hours, days, weeks, months and even years of tedium and boredom that most fighter pilots experienced in WWII. The RL danger, horror and fear are also inherently removed. I think most folks want realistic physics minus the RL problems such as: mechanical breakdowns, impossible weather and perhaps issues such as engine management (I.E. carb heat, mixture etc.) and so on... IMO, most sim pilots also want better and more information as a game-play concession in order to promote engagements (communication, radar, etc).
If an AH plane had a ROC, top speed or turn rate that was not realistic, I think most folks would want it "fixed" toward reality. IMO, the same can be said about the damage model or gunnery.
If realistic gunnery means that we can only kill a maximum of 3 planes per sortie instead of 10, so be it. We will adjust how we fly and shoot and still have plenty of fun.
eskimo
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What are you guys talking bout. I kill stuf all the time with the MG's on a 109E. I aim for the.........well im not telling its my secret:D
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No, I think its a bad idea. Just because most of our pilots are better shots than real WWII pilots, its because we have thousands and thousands of more trigger time.
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Let me wade here being a newbie, and my comments are on AGW concerning gunnery..
WB models only half the bullets and ammo load and half the rate of fire. So all the guns in WB are a bit crippled.
Funk, where ya been, that was changed last release. Marked improvement in the fifties and smaller MG rounds, but that's another story.... ( you know how it goes over there ;) )
Damage model and gunnery lethality is a scale that no one is sure is right. It's objective, and has alot to do with what can be done in a sim.
My observations in the this game so far ( a whole week :D ) is that the lethality setting combined with the damage model favor bang bang your dead here. I'm not saying that is bad.
I am saying that bang bang your dead isn't what I strive for. Hell I like putting butts up on my wall as much as anyone as I've stated in one of my first posts.
In my little world, where a flight sim becomes MORE than just a game is when you get into a white knuckled fight with a con, or cons that lasts 5 minutes. From 5km to the deck, flyin on the edge the bag of tricks on the table....all out FIGHT.
So far I don't find that possible here. It's ping and your looking a sheep.
Who's accurate ?? Who knows.
The ability to decide to wade in, 1 on 1 coalit, do the ACM thing, break into a sweat, get tense, fly the edge and have a GREAT FIGHT regardless of outcome is what get's my juices flowing.
And so far, I don't think that's possible here. I might be wrong, wouldn't be the first time :)
I kill and die WAY to easily here. In my meager score of kills there is only one, that I KNEW I killed. The rest were on the score card when I ended the flight. That doesn't make sense to me.
I see endless limited engagements, but no real "fights"
The great fights I've had are in my memory bank. They are special and don't happen that often. Prolly a 50 50 mix of wins and losses.
I hope there are some here. But so far, I don't think it's possible.
But it ain't a bad thing. I understand people liking the current settings and really don't have a problem with it.
Ain't gonna change because it doesn't fit "my" preferences :)
nopoop
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Poopy I'm going home in about 15 minutes. Grab a 202 and I'll grab a Hurri I and we'll have one of them fights. :)
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"Just because most of our pilots are better shots than real WWII pilots, its because we have thousands and thousands of more trigger time."
My playing a computer game doesn't make me a better shot than a fighter pilot. I hope you don't honestly think it does.
J_A_B
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Originally posted by funkedup
Poopy I'm going home in about 15 minutes. Grab a 202 and I'll grab a Hurri I and we'll have one of them fights. :)
You aren't dueling unless you both take 202s equipped with two machine guns. If that fight doesn't end with one or the other of you augering before someone is shot down, you're doing something wrong. :)
-- Todd/Leviathn
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I think the answer lies in just damage modeling.
Effects of various cannon-hit results on various parts of the plane, rather than just 'hit point up = structure failure'
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Originally posted by AKSWulfe
I believe this only happened to early model P51s.. specifically the P51B, this was fixed in the field with an ammo canister being put underneath the gun belts. By the D model it was completely fixed.
But the gun overheating/jamming thing.. I agree with that.
-SW
IIRC it was also a problem with the earlier mountings of Hispano cannon on Spitfires etc...perhaps even for the same reason as the early probs in the 'Stang, ie, the guns where mounted 'tilted' to one side so as to allow them to fit in a small space??
This made ammo feed unreliable when pulling G.
Of course, I could be way wrong, but I just have this vague memory of reading about that somewheres.
Blue
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Yer kidding right JAB?
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I can see there's a lot of guys here that never spent (wasted?) many of their youthful afternoons shooting .30-06 caliber rifles loaded with surplus military ball ammo at old abandoned cars at ranges up to 300-500 yards.
I assure you, an old 50's Chevy has MUCH thicker steel than the thin aluminum on a WW2 aircraft. .30 Military ball would whistle right through car doors, in one side and out the other. Hydraulic lines, control cables, fuel lines, fuel tanks.. like wet tissue paper.
... and this is rilfe caliber ammo.
A .50 BMG is like superman on steroids in a 'roid rage compared to a rifle caliber round.
Basically, some folks think it's too easy to shoot things down in AH. They want the fight to "last longer" and are apparently willing to pork any data necessary to achieve this end.
Stick to what the rounds actually did in trajectory, energy, velocity and all the related "known" factors.
Then, as Modas said, you do the best you can with the damage model.. and as I just said, I personally believe there's a lot of you folks that don't know what military ball ammo will do to a lightly built WW2 fighter that's primarily aluminum and lighter metals.
My brother-in-law just shot a bolt action .50 loaded with old military AP ammo at a 1" steel plate hanging from chains at 100 yards. One inch steel plate. He aimed fired and the plate did not move at all.. nothing.. thought he missed. He shot again.. same thing. He's a proficient rifle shot, so he walked out to the plate. Two .50 holes clean through it. Went through so easily, they didn't even make the plate move (bout 100lbs of steel in the plate). He said the holes were "clean".. no slag, no rips, tears, edges.
Will heavy MG crack any engine block in any WW2 fighter? Yep. Will it go through hardened armor plate at close ranges? Yep. Will it go through plexiglass? Yep, form a long, long, long range.
Don't underestimate the pentration of even rifle rounds on thin aluminum.. even at long ranges.
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So funked, you believe you're more skilled in A2A gunnery than actual pilots just because you play a computer game?
J_A_B
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JAB
IMHO, most of us are far better shots at our simulated craft than WWII pilots were in real life. Those who have been playing awhile have shot down thousands of planes and have fired millions of rounds. No one in WWII had the opportunity to practice as much as we do, not even a fraction. A few articles and books that I have read cite pilots who first fired the guns in their planes ever, at enemy aircraft during their first combat experience. A few firing attacks at tow sleeves and a few straffing runs on ground targets was all the practice that many pilots ever had, and some never had practice.
How would real WWII pilots do in AH? They would probably kick our butts if they had some practice, they were the cream of the crop after all. Only the best of tons of applicants made it through flight school and were assigned to fighters.
We are better than RL pilots only because we have a ton of practice. Because of our constant drilling and practice we ordinary folk can do extraordinary things somewhat consistently.
eskimo
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Sorry Jab but I gotta disagree. Yup its a game, but its awful close to what your gonna see in real life.
You ever flown a WWII plane? I have.
3 Dimensional wing shooting is a skill developed thru practice. You telling me someone who skeet shoots won't be able to hunt geese? not the same, but awful damn close.
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So by the same line of thought, since I'm good at GPL, I'm a better racecar driver than Mario Andretti?
Cool!
So not only am I a better pilot than any real ace, I'm also a better driver than any racecar driver.....and so on and so forth
Um, don't you see a problem with that line of thought?
Sorry Verm, but the only thing being good at AH does is make you good at AH. Eskimo got it right on--we have more experience in AH than real pilots had in the real thing. However, experience in one doesn't translate into being automatically good at the other.
The farthest I'd go is I'd say being good at AH might be an indicator of HOW good a fighter pilot you'd be, given enough practice in the real thing. But being an "armchair ace" doesn't mean you could just hop into a F4U and kill anything.
J_A_B
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Originally posted by poopster
Let me wade here being a newbie, and my comments are on AGW concerning gunnery..
Funk, where ya been, that was changed last release. Marked improvement in the fifties and smaller MG rounds, but that's another story.... ( you know how it goes over there ;) )
Damage model and gunnery lethality is a scale that no one is sure is right. It's objective, and has alot to do with what can be done in a sim.
My observations in the this game so far ( a whole week :D ) is that the lethality setting combined with the damage model favor bang bang your dead here. I'm not saying that is bad.
I am saying that bang bang your dead isn't what I strive for. Hell I like putting butts up on my wall as much as anyone as I've stated in one of my first posts.
In my little world, where a flight sim becomes MORE than just a game is when you get into a white knuckled fight with a con, or cons that lasts 5 minutes. From 5km to the deck, flyin on the edge the bag of tricks on the table....all out FIGHT.
So far I don't find that possible here. It's ping and your looking a sheep.
Who's accurate ?? Who knows.
The ability to decide to wade in, 1 on 1 coalit, do the ACM thing, break into a sweat, get tense, fly the edge and have a GREAT FIGHT regardless of outcome is what get's my juices flowing.
And so far, I don't think that's possible here. I might be wrong, wouldn't be the first time :)
I kill and die WAY to easily here. In my meager score of kills there is only one, that I KNEW I killed. The rest were on the score card when I ended the flight. That doesn't make sense to me.
I see endless limited engagements, but no real "fights"
The great fights I've had are in my memory bank. They are special and don't happen that often. Prolly a 50 50 mix of wins and losses.
I hope there are some here. But so far, I don't think it's possible.
But it ain't a bad thing. I understand people liking the current settings and really don't have a problem with it.
Ain't gonna change because it doesn't fit "my" preferences :)
nopoop
WHile the guns on AH AC are certainly more lethal than the WB's AC, ACM does matter:) Yankin and bankin iksnt the answer as is its more about managing your energy. Same in WB's I am sure (at least it was when I flew there). In WB's you didnt mind so much getting pinged in a furball, or in a 1 on 1, because you knew that you had a good chance of reversing the roles and being the guy behind your opponent. In AH, the goal should be more to stay out of those situations:)
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the goal should be more to stay out of those situations
Ammo I couldn't agree with you more. Many a tour doing just that, being the "Souless Dix" :)
But as a steady diet, it does get....well....boring.
Nuthin better than strappin it up and seein what you can do. But in a very lethal envirement that option is not there. Is that bad ?? I don't know one way or the other.
For me, it takes away options. As I said before there is only a couple of kills I've had the last week that I KNEW I HIT HIM GOOD. The rest are surprises when I land. I'm killin and not even knowing it :confused:
I enjoy flying smart, but I also like getting into it when the urge strikes. A tat for tat is pretty hard to find when the tat is a TAT ;)
It's all in what one is looking for, as always.
Had my first "fight" tonight. Me in a La7 for the first time and my opponent in a 190. :)
In a "fight" I'm finding that the ability to fly with the blackout hole very small is a requirement..
Every game has it's "quirks"
;)
Gave me a Salute', gave him one back.
It was a fight :D
nopoop
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no
its already hard enough to get kills w the 202
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I had no problems hitting enemies at 1000yards when flying my first sorties in AH.
It's not about practice as much as you think. Ah gunnery is so freaking easy!
Ofcourse i've flown WB before but it's really different thing. In AH i found it's not wasting ammo to shoot from 800yards with 190. And did it quite regulargly. In WB i allways go under 100yards before i open fire. Only in nice deflection shots i open up from 400-500yards.
AH is great sim imo, with best FMs ever. But do you really think DM is such realistic? In any case i see DM in AH as very simple one. You can rip off wings with high deflection shots with 50cal. Explain to me how it happens real life.
Also with Hispanos same should mostly result little 2cm hole in wing and explosion outside airframe because of slow fusing which enables better penetration for clean 6 shots. How usual it is to see wing/tail being ripped off in guncam of .50cal real birds? Imo AH DM feels just simple "energy" based. Hit 1 part with enough energy and it falls totally off. If not enough hits there is no damage at all.
Well..just my opinions. Also laser range finder type icons in AH really ease gunnery at range.
Also why MG/FF M is less powerful (per hit) as MG151/20 in AH?
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Originally posted by hblair
I was just wondering what you guys thought yeager. I read a thread today on AGW about the lethality in AH, and I gotta admit I had a tough time getting used to it myself. I'm not strongly opinionated either way. But from what I've read about first hand accounts, shooting a plane down from 500 yds + with 50 cals just didn't happen. Just kicking thoughts around is all.
Well, Chuck Yeager reported killing a 109 at 600 yards while flying a 4 gun pony. So yes, it did happen.
curly
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No No No i am already a bad shot
I mostly have to fly the crap out off myself to get a shot.
And than i don't get sudden blow ups like the FW and other cannoned two ping wonder planes.
so gunnery is the most frustrating part already for me
yeah and i fly AH from 1.02
still once a badshot always a bad shot
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Bug,
Don't complain about LW gun Lethality.
The .50's ARE very lethal in AH. I flew P38, f6f, f4u, p51 also and I'm always astonished (delighted) about there lethality even on buffs.
You and your lazer guns can take out a con at 1k (LW planes hardly ever, we HAVE to get close).
Practice off-line on drones, it helps.
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i repeat i'm a bad shot
always will so practise offline won't do any help
it's not real to and offline is easy
ever blown up by two .50 rounds ?
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Close maybe but hell one ping and it's done HO is the best way for a FW
Yesterday i was behind some FW's i had to follow them for "hours" to shoot it down and it took more than two hits too
speakin about flying tanks :)
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I prefer something about someone kill me when 700 yds+ distance (i fly f4U) and i saw lots ponies, nikis, f6, f4u, p47, p38, la, spit, hurries or Zeros shooting my bellybutton down when i m 1k or more distance. It's more pathetic when they kill you with only a ping (la, nikis, spits, f4uc or p38 do it). Only guys usually didn't shoot are LW pilots because they know they wasting ammo.
What about reduce damage with distance??
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Why are you guys assuming that AH has it "right"?
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We aren't.
We're assuming no one does it better in a MMOL WW2 ACM game.
Beyond that, I personally got fed up with the "neutered guns so we can have a good long fight" policy when I used to dump most of a SpitIX 20mm load into a con at 250 yards and still not kill him.
Just do the physics.. muzzle velocity, ballistic coeficient, resulting trajectory.... as close to "real" as you can get with the data. Which I believe HTC does as well or better than ANYONE.
Then do your damage model.. which in any game is going to be subjective and open to argument.. as best you can.
And for those of you that don't think a heavy MG will crack an engine block or go right through a wing at 1000 yards, I suggest you do a little study on firearms and their effects.
The cam cover on my WW2 Ranger engine is magnesium and very light, just a few pounds.. drop it from waist high on a hangar floor and you'll probably crack it. What do you think a heavy MG would do to it at 1000 yards? (And when the cam cover goes, there goes all the oil.. at the minimum.)
Now.. hit sprites, range inside of 1000 yards.. stuff like that we could fool around with.
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Personally, I think it is more of a damage model issue, anyway, no matter what sim we are talking about.
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Not sure if I agree or not with you JAB, but you took a discussion about gunnery and expanded it to a discussion about all-round pilot skill. AH would probably do very little to improve actual flying abilities in real life, but in the specific area of gunnery...dealing with sighting, lead, dispersion, etc. it might. It's a speciality that really has nothing to do with flying. Maybe think of it in terms of the gunner on a bomber.
bowser
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You can go round and round and..
First question is do the hit sounds accurately represent the number of rounds you've been hit with ?? If it is a "canned" sound file with out parameters, well then there you go. The old 1 ping death raises it's head when in reality you were lit up..
Lethal guns favor the new guy, who in a short time can kill somethin. Tamer guns don't help him, he's in the middle of an ACM learning curve. So out of the box, a new guy is up to speed.
Tamer guns favor the vet. He can shoot, he kills.
Why are you guys assuming that AH has it "right"?
That's the rub, and why it goes round and round. Everyone has there idea of what "feels" right.
And we have nothing to base it on other than "feel"
You can get it close with charts and graphs and weights and kinetic energy tables but..
With those in place, "feel" must be part of that equation. And "feel" is subjective.
Should I be able to kill a plane on a 400 yard crossing snap shot ??
After the homework is done, you work on that kettle of fish.
Or.. you don't :)
nopoop
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When people makes these claims of getting popped from 1,000 yards etc, is that referring to the distance you see from the icon when you get shot?
I was always under the impression that you should subtract 200-300 yards off the icon range to account for net lag.
Similarly, I thought the ping sounds we recieve were supposed to be a warning, "hey you're getting shot better move your ass", rather than an audio representation of each round hitting home.
So "1 ping" kills from 1k is an incorrect understanding of what's going on in-game.
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Data is scarce but AH "feels" pretty good to me. I've looked into this quite a bit and this is about all I can find.
If memory serves: Approximately 5-10 20mm hits would be enough to kill a single engined fighter. Approx 20 x 20mm hits within a small area would kill a 4-engined US bomber. Heavy machineguns should be about 1/3 as effective as 20mm cannons and LMGs should be about 1/3 as effective as HMGs. Also, fighters tend to be very compact with critical components taking up a large portion of the whole: therefore it is unlikely that they can take many hits from HMG or bigger projectiles without suffering some sort of crippling damage.
The AH damage model does a better job of reflecting this than any other game I have played. When I last played WB a couple of years ago, aircraft could shrug off large number of hits with no ill effects and this was clearly bogus.
Hooligan
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I think the P38 quallifies better for "Flying Tank" BUG, ;)
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http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/8217/fgun/fgun-an.html
The characteristic of this phase is that the goal no longer was to destroy an aircraft by hitting the crew of vulnerable parts of its equipment. Especially the larger cannon were intended to destroy the structure of the aircraft itself: A 30mm hit could cut a fighter in two, and put a large hole in a heavy bomber
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Its a friggin leofockepardwulf 30mm smoothbore gyroscopial laser aimed flying panzer tank.
It has no gear but retractable tracks.
The Focke Wulf a frigginly amazing flying vechile.
Designed by Kurt hhhhhhhhm TANK ??
:eek:
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Take your medicine BUG, and stay of the joints, :)
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I smell a conspiracy
:p
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I think AH has not a lethality problem. The problem why people hit at 1000y is a hit area that is larger than the real wing and/or bullets which are larger than 0.5inch or 20mm.
The enlargement of the hit area makes hits much more often happen than in real life.
But i tell you something: Once we played old wb over a network, when a guy who never tried flightsimulator so far wanted to fly. I flew in front of him, to allow him a shot, just for fun.
At the beginning i did some little turns. He had a lot of problems to follow me, loosing sight. Then i hit autolevel and watched him closing up.
To make it short: He wasn´t able to hit me, a straight flying target.
So a realistic small hit area is possible to do in AH, for sure, but it will be very frustrating for newbies.
niklas
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The problem why people hit at 1000y is a hit area that is larger than the real wing and/or bullets which are larger than 0.5inch or 20mm.
I believe this is incorrect and I have no reason to suspect that AH models projectiles or airframe components at anything other than their real size.
At 1000 yards the cone of gunfire is very large and this is why you can get hits. I've hit things at 1000 yards before in AH but to the best of my knowledge I've never actually done any significant damage by doing so, although often when I ping a target at long range they turn and allow me to get close enough to kill them.
Hooligan
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Originally posted by niklas
I think AH has not a lethality problem. The problem why people hit at 1000y is a hit area that is larger than the real wing and/or bullets which are larger than 0.5inch or 20mm.
The enlargement of the hit area makes hits much more often happen than in real life.
niklas
I also believe this is a totally incorrect statement and a misrepresentation of the situation in AH.
I base this belief on telephone conversations with both HT and Pyro.
Like Hooligan, I have seen hit sprites out to 1.0 and perhaps even 1.1, on my FE, the 1.1 while in a buff. I have not, however, EVER caused the target aircraft any serious damage at that range.
I have been hit at 1.1 on my FE by trailing attackers.. so given the difference due to the internet it was probabl more like 700-800 on the attacker's FE. I have rarely suffered any serious damage at those ranges.. unless I held still like a dunce and let him continue to hit me.
For all the tales of "one ping 1000 yard kills, one rarely if ever sees a film showing it. Sorta like most "urban legends".
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Heya poopster, those long, white-knuckled, battles happen. I told a tale about one I was in. It was a while back (I don't get to fly as much as I would like to), but they do happen.
Hehe, mine was not a one on one though. I was alone and surrounded by 7 other bad guys. Managed to RTB after going bingo on ammo and fuel. No kills on either side, but I was shaking for 10 minutes after I landed.
They happen. You been here for a week,....get some more air time under your wings and they will start happening to you.
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"It's more pathetic when they kill you with only a ping (la, nikis, spits, f4uc or p38 do it). "
If you're repeatedly getting killed in one ping from long range, I can promise you that you're losing sound packets and the game's lethality has nothing to do with it.
J_A_B
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Jab here is what I meant before:
Assuming that all the physics are modeled perfectly in the game, the best players will be able achieve better results than WW2 pilots simply because the players can get thousands of times more "trigger time" than the real pilots.
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So in other words, we're better at AH than real pilots were at the real thing?
That I can agree with. Sometimes the nature of the internet makes it tough to get the "point" someone is trying to make.
J_A_B
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Lethality seems fine to me, IMO leave it alone.
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Originally posted by funkedup
Jab here is what I meant before:
Assuming that all the physics are modeled perfectly in the game, the best players will be able achieve better results than WW2 pilots simply because the players can get thousands of times more "trigger time" than the real pilots.
I would go as far as to say that most experienced AH players are exceptionally good shots compared to real life WWII fighter pilots, because of our experience.
eskimo
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OMG....
No please... don't cut lethality...
When you are like me and live in Roosterpoot USA. You get dialup connections that remind you of the 9600 baud days...
With the lethality we have today, I still have to fly something with 30mm's to get kills... :(
When I was in the Army I fired 50cals a number of times... 6 rounds will tear the watermelon out of a 55gal drum of water :)
BOOT
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JAB, what Funked said.
But I will say that flying "virtually" gave me a very good base when I got up in the air with the real thing. Not exactly the same, true. But my Instructor pilot thought I was joking with him, and after the flight asked me how many flight hours I REALLY had, and when I told him I had a total of a half hour in a Cessna 172 when I was about 12 years old, he called me a liar to my face.
I keep hearing tales of "killed at 1k or more" all the time, but why doesn't anyone every get a film of it??? Its like Bigfoot stories. Lots of hype but no proof.
You might get an odd MG ping at 700 or so (and I don't think I've been hit at even that range), but rarely does it do any damage, and then its only if you are flying straight and level. Even the slightest bit of out of plane movement and its almost impossible to get hit. Most people get killed when they get a ping, panic, and turn around to fight from an inferior position
Yes, if your coming from WB's, the guns here are lethal as all hell. Which is right? Thats hard to get a definitive answer, but I'd personally bet on the AH side.
In WB's you knew you could "take a few pings" and not worry about it. This lead to long drawn out fights where you had to stick to the enemies six and hose him down for extended periods. Which further lead to long conga lines of planes following each other down to the deck. Which typically favors the turnfighters who can get in position and stay there longer. Admittedly this leads to longer fights.
This is no "definite" answer to this question, until we all have computers that can accurately perform real time FEA analysis on every portion of every plane component that your modeling. I mean every strut, every wing panel, every fuel line. Every little thing. And I'm talking a whole hell of a lot more complicated than what Hotseats claiming too do.
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Cant say whether gunnery is right or not, but, for sure, it is designed for a perfect connection netplay. The most "unpleasant" factor is the rate of fire when u are fighting against mircrowarps or packet loose. Lower ROF means that you have less chances to hit when the plane in front of you just "warps" some dozens of pixels, you also have less bullets in the air and so, more chances to do little or no damage due loosing some packets.
Planes with hi roll rates were degraded to a playable condition to prevent roll warps (were the rest of planes degraded proportionally?), but planes with low ROFs were not improved to fight against net lag and lose of packets.
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We are all dealt the same hand...what difference does it make regarding acurate this or accurate that....it is close enough and imo better represented than anything else out there within this genre.
If you have troubles killin or being killed, then work on it....whinin won't help your gunnery....if it did, then Ram would have been the best shot in the sim:)
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Mandoble wrote:
Planes with hi roll rates were degraded to a playable condition to prevent roll warps...
Where do you come up with these gems? You make me think of what RAM would be like if he had a lobotomy.
Hooligan
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This thread was kept civil to this point. It probably won't be after Mandobles last post. It'll likely take a nosedive. Thanks for all the input guys. I look forward to all the early war planes coming out.
Originally posted by MANDOBLE
Planes with hi roll rates were degraded to a playable condition to prevent roll warps (were the rest of planes degraded proportionally?), but planes with low ROFs were not improved to fight against net lag and lose of packets.
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The lethality seems a bit high, but that's probably got to do more with the damage modelling. However, the 'chance to hit' seems also a bot high too..
Only thing I've ever heard of about the hit models is "There is no hit box". Come to think of it.. would 'no hit box' necessarily mean accurate bullet-surface representation? Maybe HTC has some other sort of way of calculating 'hit-or-miss'. HT ain't much of a talkative guy in giving out infos...
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Some people are such simpletons.
Yes, AH has a simplified damage model. I'll take it one step further, ALL computer simulated or otherwise computer driven games have simplified damage models.
It's all based around numbers. Whether it be Il-2, AH, WB, or the next best thing just waiting around the corner... it's just numbers.
7.7mm= 1
13mm= 3.8
20mm=10
and so on, numbers being modified to accomodate a different war head.
Each component that can take damage has a point system.
Rudder=5
Elevator= 4.5
Pilot=2.2
and so on, numbers again being modified based on armor thickness, size, and other things that have to be accounted for.
So in the end, every game is taking these numbers and adding 'em up. Once they hit a certain point, something happens.
In Il-2, as the points tally up, different damage bitmaps or alpha channels... whatever... are applied to the model. The damage may or may not be representative of how much damage there actually is.
In AH, the points add up until the part breaks off. The only difference between AH and Il-2 are the incremental steps taken... and Il-2 still uses the fudge factor when assuming loss of lift and addition of drag due to the "damage".
So argue all you want about how this game does that... they all do it the same way.. with numbers.
-SW
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:) That is 'IF' we ever get our hands on any numbers, which I'm pretty convinced HTC or even 1C:Maddox will never do...
So until then, everyone's guess is as good as any other's, and any sort of speculation is still a go. ;)
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When you take a single 20mm ack shell through the wing, and it affects your control characteristics, to say nothing of allowing you to look at the ground though the hole, I would say that there are numbers and then there are numbers.
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Here, this is what I mean:
(http://www.lizking.com/il2damage.jpg)
The hole in the wing, and the bite from the starboard tail are from 20mm. The other wounds are from 88 shrapnel, bursting above me. She was pulling hard to the right, beyond trim's ability to correct.
I do not care how they are making that sausage, as long as it tastes so good.
edit-note how that panel in the middle of the hole is there, bent upwards, but still there. That is not a simple applique.
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Are you so sure Gadfly? Regardless of what you think you see, that's not the actual damage. It's designed to mimic what the computer is feeding you, but it's just a generic damage decal that is really fancy looking to make you believe visually. Therefore you believe what the computer is saying the plane should behave like.. it's pulling to the right, you see a big ol' damage decal there... so you believe that's the actual damage.
In the end, they still use the same basic prinicpal. In Il-2's case they added incremental steps to it to make it seem more complex than it really is.
It's still the same underlying concept. In between the point you lose a structure in AH, and you lose a structure in Il-2... have you really counted to see the difference? They offer that cool arcade mode thing that shows you exactly where your rounds hit in Il-2, so you can count 'em.
I found that AH and Il-2 were pretty close in what they considered the point a structure would fail.
-SW
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Well, I have run the same gauntlet many times, and each time it is different. I will say that there are points where parts fall off-the airlierons do not get damaged for instance, they are all there or all gone.
However, as noted, the plane reacts with increasing damage, rather than an either/or type method. Flying that mission from the outside, I can watch as the damage is applied, and it correlates to the hits, and the controls deteriorate, they don't just give up.
Sausage my friend-It is good, but I don't want to know how or from what it is made.
edit-I can't disagee with your last statement, I just don't have the expereience in AH, but I would say that you are probably right-it is just those intermediate stages that are lacking both graphical and in the FM effects.
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Yeah, I know how Il-2's damage is applied incrementally.. which I've been saying all along. :)
I mean, yeah, it's neat. I like the effects, it's something new and interesting.
But, my point is that neither of these damage models are anything beyond "simple". One adds in what it figures to be the correct amount of drag and loss of lift when parts are damaged while the other has it 100% or nothing.
But this is still nothing ground breaking that Il-2 is doing. Red Baron 2/3D had this type of damage model, although the parts damaged would crumple the 3D model rather than applied a damage decal (although with recent modifications this has been added), but it still figured in a fudged drag and loss of lift and/or flight control.
It was still numbers then, and it's still numbers now.
A complex damage model would be something along the lines of a round doesn't stop doing damage (ie: can pass through the tail fin and still have enough energy to continue through it and hit the rear gunner in the chest) until it's run out of energy. Or say, the ability to damage a control cable rather than blowing off an entire aileron..
See, this is what I mean by simple. Parts were rarely blown off in their entirety... especially ailerons and elevators. The control cables were more likely to get shot out and send the plane down out of control or the pilot bail out long before his plane could get that damaged... either way, all damage models will be "simple" until computing power is very well advanced (maybe 20 years- or 10- who knows).
That's all my point is, all games are using numbers they believe to be more representative of what each type of round would do when it hit a structure. Not whether or not it would travel through the skin on the fuselage, fly through the gas tank and take out the left elevator control cable.
So they're all simple, stripped down versions of the real thing.
-SW
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Agreed
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100...
just sayin...
Btw lethality is fine A-A if ya ask me ...
SKurj