Gun strength or is it target boxes?

W

womenfly2

Guest
With WM doing a poll on gun strength, last evening I tried something to test gun strength, but the out come was very different..

A D.vII vs Sopwith 1-1/2 strutter.

I flew under him in the D.vII and raised my nose for a slight climb to intercept him, I was not within the gunners effective fire zone being below him. As he came with in my gun sight, I fired a volley into the bottom of his belly from nose to tail. A flurry of pieces came flying of him, then some black smoke puffed out which then stopped. I wait for a few seconds to see if she would spin in or veered off and go down but, she kept flying straight and level. I then inched closer to see the belly hits, looked like black stitches completely down the bottom of him.

So I pulled up along side him to see what was going on, now with us only a wings span apart .... it happened! I saw the rear gunner turn at me and open fire, tearing me to pieces.

Now this should have been a kill of the Sopwith, the rear gunner and the pilot should have been dead, the rear gunner without question. I tried this again from different angles, but the same out come. Seems any fire into the rear section of a two seater does not take out the Rear Gunner. Did not try the other two-seaters, may or may not be an issue with them.

Would you guy's please look at the target boxes for this and see if there is a fix for it. Just does not seem correct to me.

Thanks,
WF2

FYI: Everything was on realistic and no parts came off the Sopwith.
 
womenfly2 said:
With WM doing a poll on gun strength, last evening I tried something to test gun strength, but the out come was very different..

A D.vII vs Sopwith 1-1/2 strutter.

I flew under him in the D.vII and raised my nose for a slight climb to intercept him, I was not within the gunners effective fire zone being below him. As he came with in my gun sight, I fired a volley into the bottom of his belly from nose to tail. A flurry of pieces came flying of him, then some black smoke puffed out which then stopped. I wait for a few seconds to see if she would spin in or veered off and go down but, she kept flying straight and level. I then inched closer to see the belly hits, looked like black stitches completely down the bottom of him.

So I pulled up along side him to see what was going on, now with us only a wings span apart .... it happened! I saw the rear gunner turn at me and open fire, tearing me to pieces.

Now this should have been a kill of the Sopwith, the rear gunner and the pilot should have been dead, the rear gunner without question. I tried this again from different angles, but the same out come. Seems any fire into the rear section of a two seater does not take out the Rear Gunner. Did not try the other two-seaters, may or may not be an issue with them.

Would you guy's please look at the target boxes for this and see if there is a fix for it. Just does not seem correct to me.

Thanks,
WF2

FYI: Everything was on realistic and no parts came off the Sopwith.
Click to expand...


Its strange what you report I have been killing 2 seater gunners no problem and pilots

In 1.26:

Gun strength will now be scalable (affects all guns - AI and Player)
Its also split: main guns and rear guns.

AI gunnery range is now scalable (range at which AI will open up)

DM boxes have been revised where necessary - as in my sticky thread above

Player guns strength is also still scalable - affects only player guns.

Sesquiplane G forces are now more accurate where required.


HTH

WM
 
Sweet! Will see how it works out when released and flown.

Will see if I can take out the rear gunner as a kill in 1.26 release.

Thanks again for the support and feed back.

Cheers,
WF2
 
Not knowing for sure, but based on my little experience with RB2/3D, I'd say it was hit boxes.

BTW, my inability in that game to kill 2-seater crews from under the tail was what led me to play with hit boxes in that game.

Anyway, see the attached pic. The red box is the fuselage hit box, the blue is the pilot/gunner hit box. The green lines define the arc where bullets in real life would penetrate the fuselage and strike the crew.

In the version on the left, the crew box is drawn around where the pilot would really be sitting, with his head sticking up above and his feet above the floor. It's impossible to hit the crew from below the tail because the bullets 1st encounter the fuselage box, and bullets stop in the 1st box they meet.

In the version on the right, the crew box has been stretched to protrude very slightly below the fuselage box, thus creating a very small target area on the bottom. Thus, it's possible to hit the crew from below the tail in this case. This is shown by the maroon lines. Note, however, that the target area is very small, especially when seen at an angle from behind like this, so it's difficult to get a bullet into it. Also note how it's further forward than real life would lead you to expect.

I'm sure OFF has set it up as on the right. It's not perfect, but it's about the best solution there is given the game engine's non-penetrating bullets. If you play with the pilot and fuselage hit boxes too much to optimize the under-the-tail attack, you create major problems for other situations, such as killing the pilot by getting a shot in the tail from above.

So, due to a limitation of the game engine (not OFF's fault), under-the-tail attacks are going to be of marginal effectiveness.
 
Should have added to my last:

In addition to stretching the pilot box below you fuselage, you can also stretch it left/right out beyond the sides of the fuselage. Then bullets that just barely miss the fuselage from below the tail will still hit the pilot throughout all the range of angles you'd expect in real life (apart from the left/right thing). But of course, this makes the pilot extra vulnerable from the rear and above. So like I said, the whole hitbox system has limitations that we just have to learn to live with.
 
If that is the case BH, its very disappointing. Then one has no advantage to down a two-seater if the target boxes are as you said. I did not know the first TB stops the bullet, to bad it works that way. Really limits the realism.

I would also assume? it interferes in other types of fire/kills too.

Since we really do not know how OFF has them setup, maybe they can do some tweaking to them, at least give us fighter pilots a chance ..... LOL!

That was very informative. Thanks!

Cheers,
WF2
 
Bullethead said:
Not knowing for sure, but based on my little experience with RB2/3D, I'd say it was hit boxes.

BTW, my inability in that game to kill 2-seater crews from under the tail was what led me to play with hit boxes in that game.

Anyway, see the attached pic. The red box is the fuselage hit box, the blue is the pilot/gunner hit box. The green lines define the arc where bullets in real life would penetrate the fuselage and strike the crew.

In the version on the left, the crew box is drawn around where the pilot would really be sitting, with his head sticking up above and his feet above the floor. It's impossible to hit the crew from below the tail because the bullets 1st encounter the fuselage box, and bullets stop in the 1st box they meet.

In the version on the right, the crew box has been stretched to protrude very slightly below the fuselage box, thus creating a very small target area on the bottom. Thus, it's possible to hit the crew from below the tail in this case. This is shown by the maroon lines. Note, however, that the target area is very small, especially when seen at an angle from behind like this, so it's difficult to get a bullet into it. Also note how it's further forward than real life would lead you to expect.

I'm sure OFF has set it up as on the right. It's not perfect, but it's about the best solution there is given the game engine's non-penetrating bullets. If you play with the pilot and fuselage hit boxes too much to optimize the under-the-tail attack, you create major problems for other situations, such as killing the pilot by getting a shot in the tail from above.

So, due to a limitation of the game engine (not OFF's fault), under-the-tail attacks are going to be of marginal effectiveness.
Click to expand...

No we have it even better than that.

I am not going to go into details as its our mod but we paid specific attention to how the DM boxes - lots of them in one craft (clue) - are laid out in P3 - yopu can hit pilot gunner guns engine fueltanks oil tanks cables etc etc all depending on your angle but with the ability to hit them without one component completely masking another.
HTH

WM
 
Just get above the two seater and shoot the observer. Simple. Or shoot him from the side. But always from a distance smaller than 100 yards.
 
Gousgounis said:
Just get above the two seater and shoot the observer. Simple. Or shoot him from the side. But always from a distance smaller than 100 yards.
Click to expand...

.... yes I have done that, very, very dangerous! Even MvR would not do it that way.

.... low, slow and from the bottom is where its at.

Cheers,
WF2
 
womenfly2 said:
If that is the case BH, its very disappointing. Then one has no advantage to down a two-seater if the target boxes are as you said. I did not know the first TB stops the bullet, to bad it works that way. Really limits the realism.
Click to expand...

I hasten to emphasize that I don't know how the boxes are set up in OFF (the above was on RB2/3D experience), and that in any case it's not OBD's fault, it's MS's :). But WM did say in another thread that the 1st box encountered stops the bullet.

WM has said he's put a great deal of effort into arranging hit boxes to allow hits on the vitals (pilot, engine, fuel) from all directions as realistically as is possible. I'm quite sure he has, and I'm not criticizing his efforts. I'm just saying that the whole underlying system has its limitations that OBD has to work around as best they can, and we have to learn to live with.

BTW, I'm glad you brought this subject up, because I'm sure few folks are really aware of it. Thus, they're criticizing gun effectiveness in OFF when probably their problem is the bullets just aren't reaching the vitals due to the hit box thing. So while this whole subject is a buzz-kill for immerision, especially if you consciously try to compensate for it while flying, it's very important IMHO for us all to keep it in mind, so we can separate this issue out of discussions related to the guns and apparent plane toughness.
 
I presume it's a bunch of small boxes instead of a big one. If you have a target hit box, a fuel tank shaped like a cube you break it up for example into three layers each with 9 smaller boxes, makes 27 small boxes with spaces between them and all in all it is still a cube. Then you have the chance to hit it and a chance that bullets pass through between the boxes to the next bunch of boxes being the pilot for example.

At least I would do it this way :engel016:
 
Bullethead said:
BTW, I'm glad you brought this subject up, because I'm sure few folks are really aware of it. Thus, they're criticizing gun effectiveness in OFF when probably their problem is the bullets just aren't reaching the vitals due to the hit box thing. So while this whole subject is a buzz-kill for immerision, especially if you consciously try to compensate for it while flying, it's very important IMHO for us all to keep it in mind, so we can separate this issue out of discussions related to the guns and apparent plane toughness.
Click to expand...

Yes, I fully agree, the two can be mistaken for each other, an a bit confusing.

Would not want to waste WM's or the OFF teams time, trying to shoot down shadows!

Thanks again for the input BH. Awesome.

Cheers,
WF2
 
Gousgounis said:
Just get above the two seater and shoot the observer. Simple. Or shoot him from the side. But always from a distance smaller than 100 yards.
Click to expand...

Hmm, I always get the message that I "hit a allied airman" but he is still gunning, looks to me some Terminator is gunning at me.:Banane36:
So I give up these tactics.
 
You can hit the pilot from below we allowed for that - we allowed for an awful lot tbh but hey ho.. there are parts there on the way that could stop bullets, or maybe you only wound him. The fuse and other misc parts metal bars, seat, fuel tank etc whatever will absorb at least some from below. A lot less from above :)
 
Oke, so I'm not hitting an airman, the text on the screen is not what it seems to be.
 
i have killed the TG of a CII while flying a N11. I boomed (as much as you can say that with the N11) in behind and under the CII, zoomed up from underneath and opened up on its belly while in my zoom. I set up for a next pass and noticed the TG was silent. So instead of BnZing again, i parked myself on her 6 and finished the pilot.
 
Winder said:
No we have it even better than that
Click to expand...

I'm sure you do. I know for a fact that you all labored long and hard over this, trying your absolute best to make it as perfect as can be, not so much to make a buck but because you all are really committed to the era and the project. I greatly appreciate that and am sincerely thankful for your efforts.

But even so, the system will always have occasions when results won't be as expected from real life. This will make some people think they need stronger bullets, or weaker planes, or both, when in reality they've just come up against a limitation of the underlying system, no matter how carefully worked around by OBD. So people do need to be aware that this issue exists, so hopefully they'll take this into account before swamping you with a bunch of what are really spurious complaints and polls :).
 
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