Gunnery Lethality

[hblair]

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.

[Kweassa]

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...

[AKSWulfe]

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

[Kweassa]

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.

[Gadfly]

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.

[Gadfly]

Here, this is what I mean:




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.

[AKSWulfe]

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

[Gadfly]

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.

[AKSWulfe]

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

[Gadfly]

Agreed

[SKurj]

100...

just sayin...

Btw lethality is fine A-A if ya ask me ...


SKurj