Engine damage from running 100% too long...

[Mister Fork]

Just as in real life, run your engine to the stops all the time, your engine will get hot and start overheating... how about a simple damage model that starts reducing horsepower if you run your engine too hot, and if you keep it up too long ignoring all the warning message the system throws at you, you essentially blow your engine and start burning oil as if you received an oil leak hit.

The way it would work is like this...(just an example of how it would work, not actual times)

Run your engine at 100% for 20 minutes
- 1st warning message engine is overheating
- 1 minute later, 2nd warning message, engine power 90%
- 4 minutes later, 3rd warning message, engine power 80%
- 4 minutes later, 4th warning message, engine power 75%
- 1 minute later, engine blown message and you're spewing oil


What times are:

a) reasonable for running your engine at 100%?
b) time before your engine starts experiencing damage?
c) time before you blow your engine?

Admin options:
a) Turn on/off engine overheating messages
b) Turn on/off engine overheating damage
c) Turn on/off engine blown (means you just run at reduced power)

Fork

[Karnak]

Is the player base not shrinking fast enough?

The complaint I have gotten from everybody I've gotten to try AH is that it takes too long to get to the fight.  The fights they acknowledge are fun, but given how fast they can be over the time to get back into the fight is the killer.

This would make it even longer and while doing so would not be a realistic implementation of engine use and limits.

I see loss for no gain.

[artik]

It does not work this way.

- First of all WEP limits are already implemented...
- For some engines run all the time at 100% causes faster wear of rather than "death" in fact Merlin could run for more than 5 min on its WEP... problem you don't know when it dies
- Some engines could run at 100% without hand book limits (La-5's engine)
- German MW-50 actually cooled the engine

Bottom line your assumptions are wrong.

[DubiousKB]

Is the player base not shrinking fast enough?

The complaint I have gotten from everybody I've gotten to try AH is that it takes too long to get to the fight.  The fights they acknowledge are fun, but given how fast they can be over the time to get back into the fight is the killer.

This would make it even longer and while doing so would not be a realistic implementation of engine use and limits.

I see loss for no gain.

Agreed.  If this was in place, there would NEED to be air spawns behind friendly lines. Combat is great, climbing out is boring. (it makes for a better simulation, but game-aspect it's bland.)

Real World Simulation <-------- * --------> Gaming Entertainment     We have to keep the pendulum in the middle to extract the most players.   

Great wish for more intense realism (perhaps in a special hardcore arena...)

[Volron]

I can see something like; staying at 100% for too long your engine over heats to the point were you can't use WEP and you won't have full power (maybe 70% max).  To "fix" this (if you want to keep your plane) would be to throttle back to let the engine cool.  If you flew at cruise from the get go, you'd be perfectly fine.

[Oldman731]

The complaint I have gotten from everybody I've gotten to try AH is that it takes too long to get to the fight.  The fights they acknowledge are fun, but given how fast they can be over the time to get back into the fight is the killer.

The solution to this is to make the bases closer.  I've yet to hear the rationale for HTC's insistence that bases be as far apart as they are on MA maps.

Fork's suggestion isn't some radical proposal.  Air games from the early and mid-1990s had something similar, where you simply had to keep track of engine temperature or you suffered a loss of performance.  The "gain" is in a moderate amount of realism, without having to duplicate the madness of the Il-2 system.

- oldman

[Karnak]

The solution to this is to make the bases closer.  I've yet to hear the rationale for HTC's insistence that bases be as far apart as they are on MA maps.

Fork's suggestion isn't some radical proposal.  Air games from the early and mid-1990s had something similar, where you simply had to keep track of engine temperature or you suffered a loss of performance.  The "gain" is in a moderate amount of realism, without having to duplicate the madness of the Il-2 system.

- oldman

How is it realistic when it doesn't match anything historical?

[alskahawk]

 A game is a fine balance between realism and playability. I like it when my damaged engine gets me back to base.....On the other hand that other guys engine is too robust in my opinion.

[bustr]

In overload(WEP) testing of a production merlin 66, it took 27 hours before cracks in the crank case were observed. No burn out, or oil leaks, or anything of that nature. Just mechanical failure and fatigue. The merlin engine's endurance time is 100 hours at Mil or full throttle.

A combat engine is tested for none stop full throttle and over load failure, specifically so your aircraft are not falling out of the sky because the engine burns out during combat. Flying on engine management in ww2 was to preserve fuel for long flights and to some degree engine life. Otherwise, they could be pushed at Mil and WEP for the short pittance of time we do for our arena sorties.

The only thing this would accomplish is maybe place a leash on ACM monsters and HO-n-Run artists. Or is that the real purpose the OP won't present. 

Since the overload failure time for the merlin 66 is 27 hours. Hey!! Hitech please give us unlimited WEP in the spitfires, HurrII and P51's. We get a new plane with a new engine every time we spawn on the runway anyway.

[pembquist]

Noooooo! Somebody used the term "madness of IL-2", well AH2 is a madness of a different kind and that kind does not waste our time with worrying about undamaged engines blowing up because we want to get somewhere in our limited play time. People already whine about ENY which has some purpose, this engine attention thing will be very underappreciated. If there were unlimited development resources I would say having IL-2 madness would be great, if it was the way icons are in the MA, That is to say that if you want more realism have at it but don't make everybody else suffer.

[Busher]

It does not work this way.

- First of all WEP limits are already implemented...
- For some engines run all the time at 100% causes faster wear of rather than "death" in fact Merlin could run for more than 5 min on its WEP... problem you don't know when it dies
- Some engines could run at 100% without hand book limits (La-5's engine)
- German MW-50 actually cooled the engine

Bottom line your assumptions are wrong.

Seriously? Wanna look back at the reliability of the Wright 3360 on the B29 or even the supposed bullet proof R2800? I have personally had R2800's eat pistons, connecting rods even when they were treated like glass.

[Oldman731]

How is it realistic when it doesn't match anything historical?

It makes you pay attention to your motor.  That is more historical than the present design.

- oldman

[guncrasher]

It makes you pay attention to your motor.  That is more historical than the present design.

- oldman

i have yet to fly a ¡plane. here that has a motor.

semp

[bustr]

It boils down to not outright making the wish about putting a leash on ACM monsters and HO-n-Run artists. Both skills would be adversely affected by having to worry about toasting their engines in the middle of combat. This might suggest the impression that air combat and it's outcomes would shift in favor of a different group. More mature, anlaretenative to technical minutia, and historical reenactment. Versus raw eye hand coordination and puerile chest thumping on ch200.

All engines during WW2 that I could find continuous run time testing info on, were not rebuilds like so many today in restorations. They were new engines with only break in time on them, well within the best part of their short 100-120 hour life expectancy. When we spawn, Hitech issues us a new low time engine with everything adjusted to spec with no fat fingering or over, or under torqueing by sleepy ground crew. One R2800 test of 150 octane failed because of fat fingering. The subsequent test, all torqueing of bolts was addressed by order, referenced to the Chief of the AAF, since 150 octane fuel use was top priority for the ETO in 44. That test ran fine, finding no issues with the continuous run time test.

Why not first try and get him to implement a random issuing of long time engines first, for random real life failures which can be partially mitigated with engine management in the MA. Kind of sounds like much of what came from the factories by the end of the war for our enemies as new equipment. See how that fly's with the general community for a tour. How many of them will pay $14.95 to be randomly punished? Oh I forget, the OP and company get off scott free by making Hitech the bad guy, with him imposing the punishment on the community for their hard earned money.

Now the AvA CM's could try and get Hitech to program something along those lines where you signed up for a given plane. Then ran it for 100 hours with all of the attendant aging problems and possible break downs eventually requiring an engine swap out. More like a game of hanger gas monkeys and their engines with an aside of getting shot at thrown in.

We get well veiled requests to make AH like WT or like IL2 or like DCS. Or some how merge parts of them into AH with no thought to how that would look to the competition. We never get requests to make AH like AH to stand on it's own from them.

[pembquist]

I request AH to be like AH.