Damage modelling Vs Weapons strength

[Rick Rawlings]

Thanks - yes they will be more fragile in 1.3 - we are doing it now...

:amen:

WM

Very cool Winder! Is there any truth to the compressability theory? It feels a lot like that from other WWII sims. Most WWI sims allow you to shed your wings in a big dive, especially if you try to pull out at speed, like Siggi said. This of course being the big selling point of the SPAD series, as well as, if I remember, why people like Voss prefered the Pfalz over the DVa.


Also, I suppose you considered that you should probably either weaken the planes OR strengthen the guns but not both at the same time , at least as long as the Damage Model from stress and the one from rounds are linked!

 

[Fortiesboy]

Here is your post http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=12179:

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So I'm assuming if it's made more likely for the AI it'll be more likely to happen to the player. And maybe that's why the planes have been made out of concrete, as it were?

But...IF the AI's maximun range to open fire is made more realistic, and IF one then gets an AI on one's tail and takes a good burst...shouldn't one expect to die right there and then?

And in that case, if one gets a good close-range burst into an AI, shouldn't one expect to see it fold up more often than not?

A

Hello - seen this thread a bit late. I think nearly everyone knows my views on this as it is now known i have made mods to the Dm in my install.
And I do prefer the rationale above . I've always said that I envisaged RL to be a case of flying to get behind the enemy -( and keep him from getting behind you ), as a priority, 'cos if either got close enough your number was liable to be up if he pumped a reasonable quantity of bullets in you.
Something would get hit that wouldn't do your blood circulation much good, or the structure of your plane much good. Either way, you were liable to "buy it"
By changing some values in the files, wings can come off easier, fuel tanks leak and explode easier etc.- as I've mentioned in another thread.

I'm not sure whether this changing of the values can be made scaleable or not, but if it can then it is a hell of a lot of work for someone or some number of chaps. It takes long enough to do it for your own install.

An alternative to a lot of work by Winder et al is that each individual could alter his sim to his liking ( by following a not too hard set of instructions ),
and to use the best of both worlds could do this;


1. Make a backup copy of the vanilla aircraft folder.
2. Make the changes, to their own values, and then make a backup copy of that aircraft folder.
3. Then swap them as they wish to play the sim.

As most chaps play this sim as single play, it could be down to a matter of personal choice as to which level they play it at.

Do you think this would be a reasonable option, or too convoluted for most player, Winder?

It would certainly save you a lot of work. And I'm all for that.

 

[Gousgounis]

In my opinion the guns are just fine. The airplanes should get a little (not much) more fragile, and therefore, there should be implemented more "stylish" deaths. I would love to see mid air explosions and more wing clippings. I would love to see entire planes breaking apart from the center of the fuselage. I would love to see entire rudders coming off. I know that maybe I ask for too much but it would be a huge step forward. I would actually prefer these, including AI firing at closer range, instead of Gothas in the future.

 

[Siggi]

Thanks chaps, that's a load off. Nothing worse than a suspected corrupt install when everything appears to be 100%.

 

[Rooster89]

Here's my pair of pennys on the matter: It's a toss up between "normal" and "strong" weapons effectiveness (strongest is just an arcade shoot em up). If the weapons effectiveness was bumped up to strong for the player and AI alike, it could skew the results of the combat. Sure, the planes go down more realistically and it would be easier for a player to down a plane and for the AI to down a player, but the combats would be shorter, giving the AI less time to get on your tail and shoot you down. As you dispatch the first quicker, it would make it easier to turn to the next and kill him. Where as on normal, with the limitations of the AI in mind, you have to give the enemy a good plastering to bring him down and take more time doing it, and his wingies have more of a chance to get on your six and kill you. If the weapons were bumped up I'd like to see the AI skill bumped up as well (if at all possible).

I hope all understand what I'm trying to say here.

BTW, Winding Man, Im glad you resolved to make the lower wings weaker.

-Rooster

 

[Geier]

Flew six QC against each enemy plane with an Alb DIII vs N17, SPAD VII and Sop Strutter. Gun settings on Strong. Then I thought about it for a bit and went here and voted.

I went for Normal. Even if I felt that Strong "felt" more "realistic" when seen in isolation I also noted that the overall feeling was that it became too easy. I'm not a very good gunner but I am getting better and manage most low-deflection shots from the Alb. Against a two-seater it would be even more a case of going in from below and behind, cutting back throttle and fire until they burn. Also, the way the AI currently fly the SPAD VII, they would die even faster than they do now. So yes, instead of increasing gunner damage I would prefer more fragility from the planes that were fragile.

 

[Rick Rawlings]

Strong felt good to me. Not a turkey shoot, not emptying 19X lewis rounds from 30 feet off the tail to bring one plane down.

 

[Gousgounis]

From my point of view....
We have the Kill-O-Meter which takes values from 1 to 10. This meter represents how easy planes crash from enemy damage in OFF. 1 is almost impossible to kill, and 10 is a walk in the park.
In the current build, when you have "Normal" selected, the meter takes the value 5.
In "Strong", it goes to 7. In "Strongest" to 10 (like shooting with a tank cannon). I believe that the value should go to 6 with Normal weapon effectiveness in future patches. Some more spectacular damage should also be nice...(AKA more planes falling apart maybe..)

 

[Winder]

Thanks guys - keep posting!

WM

 

[Bonestorm]

Strong felt about best IMHO. Perhaps + some more plane breakup..?

 

[griphos]

As I've said, I'm a newbie, so when asked by the devs to do a test so they can tweak things based on a vote, I'm there. What fantastic support! But I am a newb, so that might color my results. I'm probably not the best shot (and you guys aiming for specific targets like the base of wings or the pilot have my awe...I'm very happy to hit somewhere on the plane!).

I've been flying strictly normal, and have no interest in strongest, so I flew a half dozen turkey shoots at strong in Pups against DIIIs (that's what I've been flying mostly lately and so am very familiar with the results on normal). At first I thought it made it too easy. But as I progressed, it seemed to me that the difference was detectable, but not huge. I flew with two wingman against flights of 5 EA mostly (just so some of the EA could be kept busy while I got the first two). I got more kills than I'm used to, and more than is realistic perhaps, but it wasn't exactly what I'd call a turkey shoot (all other settings remained the same as my usual 100 realism).

All that to say that I voted Strong, because it was fun, and didn't seem as if I just had to get a few shots into them to do damage. Some of them took a TON of hits, just like usual. Some went down easier. So I voted Strong, but really, my preference is slight, and I'm okay with either Normal or Strong as realistic....to me. :-} But Strong seemed to be a better match for the effectiveness of the AI firepower.

Thanks again for the chance to weigh in. I very much like the increased fragility promised in .3, I think.

 

[Rickitycrate]

I voted, patriot that I am. Thanks for the the poll Winder.

 

[Venator]

It's all about the occasional Critical Hits

Many of you read WWI history/fiction. Lot's of it I'm sure. Many authors who flew these biplanes in combat mention firing quick bursts in snap shots during long-odds melee and scoring critical hits to whittle down the odds in their favour, while other encounters required belts of ammo to see no kills. It's all about chance or 'luck' perhaps.

If I'm reading the general tempo of the thread:
1) improve the chances of a critical hit a bit (helps us in long odds, which I seem to get myself into quite often),
2) increase the chance of a catastrophic failure (gives us the "threatre" we crave),
3) but leave the balance of bullets to damage alone (NOT a cake walk though).

Sounds simple? Hmmm... If this became the case I would not have voted for 'Strong' as I did earlier.

RE: Nieuports... Ah! The wings come off like flies just in snap turns then, NOT a dive. Ok will change tactics till the next patch.

 

[Redwolf]

Well, for me, I'd say "strong" seems a tad too strong...and "normal" not quite strong enough...I'm sorry. Somewhere between "normal" and "strong" would seem to be the sweet spot, IMHO. But, if I am forced to choose of the 3 choices, then I would vote "normal"...which I did.

 

[James "Taffy" Jones]

Hope you like fishing, Winder, as you really have opened up a can of worms!

Seriously, I sincerely appreciate your efforts and the efforts of the entire OBD team to solicit, listen, and act upon the advice of the WWI flight sim community. Of course, determining just what is the consensus of the flight sim community is the "fly in the ointment," as they say, isn't it?

My input follows: First, I am not a very good pilot, and probably an even worse shot, so I tend to play with weapons set to strong. However, I have been playing with guns set to "Normal" since the 1.25 patch. My impressions are that normal may be a bit "light" for my taste. Although I have observed pieces come off an enemy craft, this does not seem to influence the plane textures very much, other than some holes and wrinkling of the surface of the wings. I rarely, if ever, have noticed a definable structure such as a wing being broken or entirely shot off. Crashes generally consist of the enemy plane gradually losing speed and maneuverability until it drifts into the ground. I have not recently tested on "Strong," but my impression is that it did not have much of an influence on structurally integrity, instead simply accelerating the process of shooting down the enemy craft. In summary, while upping the gun strength may have some beneficial effects, especially for the less talented "fleigers" among us, I vote for some additional tweaking of the overall damage model of the airplanes in OFF to make them more likely to suffer from occasional "catastrophic structural failures."

OTOH, since realism is the overall goal of BHaH, shouldn't we aim for that, both in terms of the overall gun strength and the structural strength of the various aircraft in the sim? In other words, if "normal" is designed to reflect the actual characteristics of the real-life bullet (weight, size, muzzle speed, damage), and "strong" and "strongest" represent bullets of comparatively greater weight, size, speed, and damage, then I say leave the bullets alone and focus on the hitpoints of the various structural components of the aircraft until they are more in line with the performance and observations of contemporary aircraft of the period.

Of course, some compromise between the two may be required in order to meet the limitations of the game engine. However, I trust you and OBD will make the correct choices. Still, I don't envy your position! Thanks for listening to your purchasers input!

P.S. If you need somone to help with making text changes to the hitboxes of the various aircraft, I would be glad to help.

P.P.S. You might also consider making any changes to the structural strength of the various aircraft as a mod that can be installed or not based upon the player's preferences. There are several programs such as JonesSoft JSGME which allow the player to easily do this with just the click of a button.

 

[77Scout]

I didn't vote because I agree with James 'Taffy' Jones above. The bullet characteristics should be based on real life physics, not on a vote (IMHO). If the damage being done is less than realistic then the proper solution would be to weaken the DM, but I realize this is a lot of work.

Most everything else James said I would exactly echo. More kills that are not the ubiquitous 'slow glide to the ground' would be nice, and some facility for occasional lucky quick kills, providing it is kept reasonably historical and not overly 'Hollywood'.

Great support by the OFF team, BTW. You guys deserve that 'break' Winder mentioned.

 

[catch22]

Normal gun setting is fine and the most realistic to me. And that's how I voted. But I agree that planes should break up more after taking considerable damage.

 

[rabu]

..snip
My point is that after testing in over ten QCs with Strongest bullets AND tightest grouping, and in the last test targeting one wing, one section of that wing, on a non-maneuvering 2-seater, I failed to get a single wing to detatch from any plane.

..snip

Siggi:

Are you playing with "Invincible" pilot setting? I don't think you will get any damage to your own plane with that setting. You had mentioned trying a series of steep dives and turns with no results. Try pilot never dies instead.

I've done some experimenting in QC flying the N11, N16 and N17 and I got all of them to shed a lower wing through a steep dive where I got the speed up to just under 200mph and then started seeing speed warnings and damage notices and with further loops and hard turns, finally a wing would rip off and the QC would end quickly. This has not happened with just a dive though, I had to work at it awhile with some hard maneuvering.

 

[DMW_NZ]

I voted strong, but in reality I guess I'm somewhere in between normal and strong.

I often feel a bit cheated that the EA hasn't gone down when I've thumped a good whack of bullets into him at 100 yards, BUT then I think, I probably should feel cheated. Haven't it be just a bit harder to knock em down than you like is probably a good compromise to make. Making something too easy is almost always a mistake for your enjoyment.

And I know my marksmanship is not yet where it should be, so being frustrated just that bit more is an inducement to me to work harder on getting closer before I shoot, and aiming with more care. And this is good.

That said, there remain times when I think, "no way, he was toast". It may just be my poor marksmanship, but it seems to me that on average, I'd expect a few more "quick" kills than I get. Not all the time, but every four or five missions, when I've clobbered an EA good and proper, I'd expect a quick flamer, or pilot death. Mostly I get the slow death where he ends up losing height, while manourveing, and eventually crashes into the ground.

But hey, I know I'm not shooting straight enough right now so it's probably just me.

But either way, when you're pitching and turning trying to shake an EA off you butt and look round and see another plane spiraling down in a plume of smoke - which I've seen a few time snow - you just think, "damn, this is good".

 

[cptroyce]

WM- Just a thought..is a Damage Editor ala RB3 an option with OFF? Likewise an FM Editor? Although I know that Airwrench is avaiable, is that what was used to create the flight model? If specific Editors were available, those so inclined could "tweak away" to their own sense of reality.

Regards,
Royce