Normal
Strong
Stongest
In your opinion the damage inflicted is most realistic when my weapons effectiveness is on....
To test this in workshops set up the weapons effectiveness and for each of the three weapons effectiveness (Normal Strong Strongest) options fly QC flight say 10 flights of turkeyshoot at each setting same craft against same craft.....
I am very interested to read your feedback - what we do with this info if anything remains to be seen but I am keen to hear it!
I'm off to test...
Bullets on Strongest, (guns on Tightest on the LAST test), sitting 50 feet behind a 2-seater and firing continually into one section of his lower wing, a constant stream of bits coming off, best I got was his engine set alight.
I tried against fighters and 2-seaters, poured it into all of them, they went down a LOT quicker, either completely out of control or in flames, but I didn't see one structural failure out of the lot of them. Total number of kills, at least ten. Bursts into them from behind and above (high, tracking, deflection shots). There should have been wing-failures from a number of them.
I think I've nailed the issue, the planes are simply too strong. Nothing I've been able to do, so far, with strongest bullets and tightest grouping, has been able to cause a structural failure of any kind.
What about the rest of you chaps, wings coming off for any of you?
I should add that the kills came a bit too easily with Strongest bullets, too hard on Weakest (Normal), so I'm going to go with Strong as most realistic.
I would like to have incendiary bullets to attack Zeppelins. I can only shoot them down with ‘normal’ ammunition by aiming for the weak tail structure just forward of the fins.
In playing BHaH, I myself, find that the strongest/tightest setting for me is more realistic based on this;
Think about the planes construction. Wood, metal tubing and fabric. Now you shoot at that structure with a weapon that puts out 600 rounds a minute of a .30 inch piece of steel at high velocity. It will penetrate all of the material above. So, ..
If I put a well placed burst of a few rounds down the top of the machine, I will hit the pilot, engine, fuel tank, and such, and instantly downing this machine, as in real life.
I find that even doing this, the plane still flies on with little effect to the hits it has taken. One cannot object that the hits from behind would not have gone through all the structure, maybe ending up in the engine but definitely hitting the pilot and fuel tank, ammo box .... etc.
Again well placed rounds should penetrate everything causing massive damage and if aimed at the pilot, one round should be enough for a instant kill.
So based on my opinion, I feel the planes DM needs to be looked at and tweaked a bit more. In some ways it still acts as if these are WW-2 machines.
I am not asking for it to be easy or arcade, just more realistic and to improve it. Based on this, it should not matter what setting the gun effectiveness is on. A hard balance to do.
Just my 2-cents on this.
Cheers,
WF2
Strong. Yes.......strong.
Oh....did I mention I voted "Strong"?
Cheers,
Parky
Just did a QC, me vs six Alb DVs on Random skill, my guns on Strong (normal spread).
I got four of them before I ran out of ammo, two that went down immediately and would be good claims, two that staggered off and went down somewhere out of sight and would not be claimed. I took a good few hits myself, but not from behind. Control was moderately affected.
If the planes had been 'realistically' fragile I would have got one definite, possibly two, before getting the hell out of the fight due to the hits I took myself (if not already folded up). If behind my own lines I would have force-landed immediately.
Players should have cause to seriously fear the consequences of hits and their potential structural implications.
I'm now going to dive a Camel from 10000ft and pull the stick back hard and fast all the way at 2000ft and see what happens. If it responds at all it should fold up.
Interesting topic. I've never used anything but Normal settings myself. I'll find some time tonight and run some tests. It'll be me in a Alb DIII early against, yep folks, you guessed it, the N17. I won't be bothering with Tight and Wide, just the strength setting.
Edit: Siggi - were you in a Camel in your fight?
Oh and hmm.
I dived from 10k at full throttle in the Camel, the fastest I could get was 123mph. Pulled out hard at 2000ft, saw a hint of black-out (very faint shade of grey at the edges of the screen) and did three or four loops before she kicked-out into a spin.
Something ain't right. I should have gone faster and faster until the wings came off before I got to pull the stick, never mind afterwards. But didn't happen even then. No force feedback to talk of either.
All the creaking is a dog without teeth it would appear.
Winder, I remember you or Pol talking about values being saved incorrectly with one of the tools you use? Maybe the same has happened here with the plane strengths? And their diving speeds (or speeds period).
Yes Geier, t'was a Camel.
Flying my DH2 v Alb D2 and E III's , useing normal ammo as I always do I find well placed shots knock the wind out of the enemy but I have never seen anything spectacular happen with reguards to bits of plane comming off , even catching fire has become a rare event in my combats of late , mostly the enemy just slowly decends into the ground .
Thats my experience to date , I think I would like to see a little more aircraft damage and or aircraft falling out off the sky now and then .
cheers
P.S. Love this game to bits :woot:
Siggi I dont want this to turn into a bashing thread - we are now at 1.3 stage and I promised everyone we would look into the tweaks stuff.
Now my reasoning is that I actually need to take a break but only will do so once I am happy that folks are having fun with OFF - even with settings scaled back - thats what this is all about.
We made the craft 'strongish' to avoid the scenario of multiple kills and Ace status with ease - but you know it comes down to two main issues:
1) This ain't real lol never will be
and so taking that into account the two issues:
2) Folks on average are way better pilots than the average in WW1 (even if only on PC) - we have many more hours to practice and 'play' we are more easily likely to become aces.
3) Folks do not die and so no need to fear their death....
This immediately skews any real possibility of it being uhhh 'real '.
So the purpose of this thread is to gauge where folks want the DM to be and we will factor this in after taking into account our own team feedback .....as we want to finish up 1.3...
I forget how many FM and DM mods RB2/3D went through - can anyone remember?
These things can so easily be skewed and debated forever.
We are not doing that - we prefer to simply see a Poll as part of our equation.
Ta
WM
I'm feeling like a bit of a sap.
Has anyone broken their own plane yet?
Just my two cents on this whole subject speaking from years of RB3D experience of the same issues.
FM/DM issues are, and always will be, subject to debate for all eternity. Mainly for 1 important aspect. Human interaction.
Keep in mind something, we fly this game 1000's more times than a real WWI pilot ever had the chance to. We practice 1000's more times than what is realistic. We can attempt all kinds of different tactics that work, and fail, and test them to perfection. They couldn't. It was a one-shot deal. You make a mistake, you die. If your training did not include counter-action, you died... etc.. etc. Instinct killed you as well.
So what does that mean? It means that no matter how we tweak the FM/DM it will never fit what we expect, because we are all infact, aces. We know what they are going to do, before they do it. We have favorite planes that we know how to fly really well for YEARS... they had months, sometimes only weeks with a far less time in each plane than we get.
So if we weaken the DM, the kills will mount like crazy. If we tighten the FM, we'll be flying like the Blue Angels. This is a subject that for even this day, on many RB3D mods that are OVER 10 years old now, is still debated and tweaks are still offered.
It's a road that I hope is a short one for OFF, because honestly, it will never be solved they way anyone expects, myself included. Trust me on this. We have to compromise on the FM/DM. The only way to get an accurate DM is to create hit boxes for EVERY piece of the plane. And that simply won't happen. What we have is major boxes that accumulate points until failure is reached, like most Flight Combat games.
Personally, I'd like to see more visual damage on the planes, wings failing, etc... but not a kill on my first burst. I agree that it's taking too many bullets to bring down a kill, but at the same time, I don't want to rack-up 10 kills a mission either, which is what I was doing in RB3D.
I like the balance we have now, it's hard work to get a kill. Like I said, we've been doing this for years now, of course we're all good flyers. So we need an FM/DM that challenges us, not feeds our hunger.
Make sense?
All the best,
OvS
Good God Winder... were you reading my mind, or was I reading yours!! LOL!
That was wierd!
OvS
We have been in sims too long James!!Originally Posted by ovs
Cheers
WM
from MvR's book,
Before I knew what was happening both the Englishman and I rushed by one another. I had fired four shots at most while the Englishman was suddenly in our rear firing into us like anything. I must say I never had any sense of danger because I had no idea how the final result of such a fight would come about. We turned and turned around one another until at last, to our great surprise the Englishman turned away from us and flew off. I was greatly disappointed and so was my pilot.
Both of us were in very bad spirits when we reached home. He reproached me for having shot badly and I reproached him for not having enabled me to shoot well. In short our aeroplanic relations, which previously had been faultless, suffered severely. We looked at our machine and discovered that it had received quite a respectable number of hits. On the same day we went on the chase for a second time but again we had no success. I felt very sad. I had imagined that things would be very different in a battle squadron. I had always believed that one shot would cause the enemy to fall, but soon I became convinced that a flying machine can stand a great deal of punishment. Finally I felt assured that I should never bring down a hostile aeroplane, however much shooting I did.
We did not lack courage. Zeumer was a wonderful flier and I was quite a good shot. We stood before a riddle. We were not the only ones to be puzzled. Many are nowadays in the same position in which we were then. After all the flying business must really be thoroughly understood...
i like it as it is. you hit important spots, your enemy is instantly falling down. you empty all your ammo into unimportant spots, nothing fatal will happen. the same with your own plane.
so far i saw wild spins, parts of the plane flying off, broken wings, aircraft exploding in midair, enemies behind me, shooting and missing a lot, veterans, novice pilots, unbeatable aces, scared rookies, and most important, an AI who wants to survive and has a lot of human factor programmed, and who wants to see you burn all the way down.
i like it as it is.
Not bashing the sim Winder, just want to see it being the best it can be, given what's available in the engine.
OvS, good points. But not seeing planes fall apart is a rather significant issue in my book. Given the existing FMs and DMs isn't it possible to have a plane fall apart with just as much likelihood as seeing one set on fire? Assuming of course that fire is A result of a trigger?
It should also be possible to break one's own plane. I have to admit I'm a little bit dismayed to discover I can dive my Camel at full throttle, 100% vertical, and not only not break it but be unable to get above 123mph (which is why it won't break I suppose). That, to me, is a significant issue and not one that is applicable to the points you raise above.
yes, you're 100% right Siggi. Those points alone, disregarding damage from shooting up an EA is something we should look into. Maybe something random: EA burst into flames, wings break... whatever. Other than that, I don't see a need to tweak much as it will only open a can of worms anyway.Not bashing the sim Winder, just want to see it being the best it can be, given what's available in the engine.
OvS, good points. But not seeing planes fall apart is a rather significant issue in my book. Given the existing FMs and DMs isn't it possible to have a plane fall apart with just as much likelihood as seeing one set on fire? Assuming of course that fire is A result of a trigger?
It should also be possible to break one's own plane. I have to admit I'm a little bit dismayed to discover I can dive my Camel at full throttle, 100% vertical, and not only not break it but be unable to get above 123mph (which is why it won't break I suppose). That, to me, is a significant issue and not one that is applicable to the points you raise above.
I know Winder is reading this, so I'm sure he's taking notes.
Best,
OvS
To give you an idea of the history of FM and DM alone in OFF the craft in P1 would break as you describe especially in high G moves and folks complained......Not bashing the sim Winder, just want to see it being the best it can be, given what's available in the engine.
OvS, good points. But not seeing planes fall apart is a rather significant issue in my book. Given the existing FMs and DMs isn't it possible to have a plane fall apart with just as much likelihood as seeing one set on fire? Assuming of course that fire is A result of a trigger?
It should also be possible to break one's own plane. I have to admit I'm a little bit dismayed to discover I can dive my Camel at full throttle, 100% vertical, and not only not break it but be unable to get above 123mph (which is why it won't break I suppose). That, to me, is a significant issue and not one that is applicable to the points you raise above.
I can see only one real solution coming about and that is scalable damage models - and trust me that is not a small amount of work.
Already we see in this thread folks happy with it folks unhappy with it - there is no one size one fit solution we all know that lol!
The only thing I can learn from this Poll is what % are happy and what % not and try to keep the majority happy?
Or make it scalable.........P4?
Anyway the idea of the Poll is to see where we lie on the happiness factor across the audience we have here in SOH, which does not even take into account all the lurkers and non forum users, - but so be it that the reason for my Poll
Yep James making notes that's why I made the Poll.
WM
However easy you make it to kill the AI, so long as the changes are reciprocal the AI will be able to kill the player with equal ease.
Given that it's next to impossible not to suffer a number of hits in a fight vs ten enemy AI, it should be impossible to get ten kills in a mission. If you're alone you're going to die (or run out of ammo anyway), if you have wingies they're going to get some of the kills. The "ten kill mission scenario" just doesn't add up.
But all this is getting rather involved. Me, all I'm after is seeing planes come apart, at least as regularly as seeing them set on fire (which itself is nicely rare).
a) Scalable damage models.
b) A trigger-event (break up as well as fire).
I'll make the offer again, if the scalable option involves grunt-work to text files I'm up for the job. Tell me which files, the ranges of values available, how many for each plane, whatever, I'll get it done within a week.
a) I hear ya.a) Scalable damage models.
b) A trigger-event (break up as well as fire).
I'll make the offer again, if the scalable option involves grunt-work to text files I'm up for the job. Tell me which files, the ranges of values available, how many for each plane, whatever, I'll get it done within a week.
b) There are many trigger events already in DM - CFS3 has a great DM model.
c) There is more to it than just text work....
anyway we are jumping the gun I will wait for the Poll results first and see!
HTH
WM
Normal.
It's my understanding that the basic CFS3 engine is, like the vast majority of flightsims, unable to model bullet penetration. IOW, your bullet's all go splat like a bug on the 1st surface encountered, even if it's only a piece of canvas. Damage is only scored if that area of surface is covered by a hit box.
NOTE: I could be wrong about this, but if I'm not, this is a limitation we should keep in mind in this discussion. If I am wrong, then just ignore the rest of this wall o' text because it is all based on this assumption.
There are several implications to this lack of penetration. The most important in terms of getting quick kills is that you have to have a clear line of fire to the vitals. Consider the pilot. From the upper forward arcs, he's shielded by the upper wing. From below, he's protected by the fuselage. In real life, of course, this canvas and plywood wouldn't do him any good at all, but it's an absolute defense the way the underlying game engine operates (not OFF's fault).
Thus, no matter how high you set your bullet strength, you're not going to hurt the pilot if all your bullets hit some part of the plane before they reach his hit box. OTOH, I would assume that the whole damage system was designed with "normal" bullet strength in mind as realistic. Thus, if you set your bullets on strong, you will do disproportionate damage to the parts you hit per bullet than you really should. Thus, it seems that setting bullets above "normal" is a bad idea. We just have to live with the limitation of the game engine.
I also believe that the reason badly shot-up planes keep on flying more or less straight ahead is because they're so stable. I have yet to encounter any plane in OFF that falls out of the sky hands-off, even without setting the trim. This includes even the Camel. Thus, even with a dead pilot at the controls, the plane might go on straight and level for miles. There's a famous incident where this actually happened to a Quirk, which made a perfect and literally "dead"-stick landing far behind German lines after being shot up badly by 2 entire Jastas.
I think this is something that might need looking into. Maybe make it so that when a pilot dies, he almost always spawns a "ground-seeking" AI pilot to take his place. Maybe later look into the inherent stability of such notorious cranks as the Camel and RE8.
On the subject of structural failure from direct gunfire, shooting wings right off doesn't appear to have happened very often at all in real life, so I have no trouble with it being rare in OFF. Bear in mind that to do this you have to hit the important structural part of the wing, which is a tiny fraction of the whole. And if the hit box for this is aligned along the main spar, I doubt strongly that you can hit it from behind, due to the aforementioned inability for bullets to penetrate. All your rounds stop on the canvas near the trailing edge, leaving the spar intact.
As to indirect structural failure, I define this as overstress, either before or after damage. I have broken quite a few of my own airplanes from too much G, too much speed, or getting too close to angry clouds (which appear to inflict both). The breaking point of my airplane appears to decrease as it gets damaged, too. I have seen AI squaddies dive steeper than I could survive and appear unharmed afterwards. So I'm not sure that AI planes can suffer overstress damage at all, let alone this becoming easier for them after I shoot them up.
HOWEVER, I will say that the vast majority of the hits I inflict on the enemy are from good rear hemisphere tracking shots, because I can't shoot well enough to hit them in high deflection
If bullets can't penetrate, then the traditional killing shot from astern is about the worst position from which to inflict fatal damage. You are very unlikely to get bullets into the vitals of pilot, motor, and fuel. The majority of your rounds will splatter harmlessly on the rear fuselage and wing trailing edges. About all you're likely to hurt is the functionality of the rudder and elevators.
OTOH, high-deflection shots usually present the target's entire planform. This enables you to get rounds into the hit boxes for the upper wing spar and aileron control wires, the Albatros radiator, etc. And the engine itself and the pilot are exposed in whole or in part during the pass as the angles change. You'll probably get some hits on the horizontal tail's inner boxes, too, at the end of your burst.
Anyway, these predictions are matched very well by my observations. I sit behind the enemy and hose him down to little apparent effect, while the enemy knocks me out of the sky with quick snapshots. I believe this is all due to the inability of bullets to penetrate. RB2/3D was exactly the same in this regard.
I'm not sure the poll, as you've put it, applies particularly well to the issue I originally raised. On "Strongest" I've not been able to make a plane come apart. They go down easier, for sure, but personally that wasn't what I was after in particular (though I do feel they go down more realistically in regard to ease on "Strong").
The poll should ask "Do you want to see planes come apart?" No point asking that one, because I suspect the answer would be 100% "yes".
Yes its true that the CFS3 DM does not allow for penetration - but I reinvented the way the DM boxes are placed such that you can hit boxes pertaining to items likely to be hit by 'penetration' from that angle of attack and thus from behind you can hit a large number of items ditto side and front based on the craft construction and layout of vitals.Normal.
It's my understanding that the basic CFS3 engine is, like the vast majority of flightsims, unable to model bullet penetration. IOW, your bullet's all go splat like a bug on the 1st surface encountered, even if it's only a piece of canvas. Damage is only scored if that area of surface is covered by a hit box.
NOTE: I could be wrong about this, but if I'm not, this is a limitation we should keep in mind in this discussion. If I am wrong, then just ignore the rest of this wall o' text because it is all based on this assumption.
There are several implications to this lack of penetration. The most important in terms of getting quick kills is that you have to have a clear line of fire to the vitals. Consider the pilot. From the upper forward arcs, he's shielded by the upper wing. From below, he's protected by the fuselage. In real life, of course, this canvas and plywood wouldn't do him any good at all, but it's an absolute defense the way the underlying game engine operates (not OFF's fault).
Thus, no matter how high you set your bullet strength, you're not going to hurt the pilot if all your bullets hit some part of the plane before they reach his hit box. OTOH, I would assume that the whole damage system was designed with "normal" bullet strength in mind as realistic. Thus, if you set your bullets on strong, you will do disproportionate damage to the parts you hit per bullet than you really should. Thus, it seems that setting bullets above "normal" is a bad idea. We just have to live with the limitation of the game engine.
I also believe that the reason badly shot-up planes keep on flying more or less straight ahead is because they're so stable. I have yet to encounter any plane in OFF that falls out of the sky hands-off, even without setting the trim. This includes even the Camel. Thus, even with a dead pilot at the controls, the plane might go on straight and level for miles. There's a famous incident where this actually happened to a Quirk, which made a perfect and literally "dead"-stick landing far behind German lines after being shot up badly by 2 entire Jastas.
I think this is something that might need looking into. Maybe make it so that when a pilot dies, he almost always spawns a "ground-seeking" AI pilot to take his place
On the subject of structural failure from direct gunfire, shooting wings right off doesn't appear to have happened very often at all in real life, so I have no trouble with it being rare in OFF. Bear in mind that to do this you have to hit the important structural part of the wing, which is a tiny fraction of the whole. And if the hit box for this is aligned along the main spar, I doubt strongly that you can hit it from behind, due to the aforementioned inability for bullets to penetrate. All your rounds stop on the canvas near the trailing edge, leaving the spar intact.
As to indirect structural failure, I define this as overstress, either before or after damage. I have broken quite a few of my own airplanes from too much G, too much speed, or getting too close to angry clouds (which appear to inflict both). The breaking point of my airplane appears to decrease as it gets damaged, too. I have seen AI squaddies dive steeper than I could survive and appear unharmed afterwards. So I'm not sure that AI planes can suffer overstress damage at all, let alone this becoming easier for them after I shoot them up.
HOWEVER, I will say that the vast majority of the hits I inflict on the enemy are from good rear hemisphere tracking shots, because I can't shoot well enough to hit them in high deflection
If bullets can't penetrate, then the traditional killing shot from astern is about the worst position from which to inflict fatal damage. You are very unlikely to get bullets into the vitals of pilot, motor, and fuel. The majority of your rounds will splatter harmlessly on the rear fuselage and wing trailing edges. About all you're likely to hurt is the functionality of the rudder and elevators.
OTOH, high-deflection shots usually present the target's entire planform. This enables you to get rounds into the hit boxes for the upper wing spar and aileron control wires, the Albatros radiator, etc. And the engine itself and the pilot are exposed in whole or in part during the pass as the angles change. You'll probably get some hits on the horizontal tail's inner boxes, too, at the end of your burst.
Anyway, these predictions are matched very well by my observations. I sit behind the enemy and hose him down to little apparent effect, while the enemy knocks me out of the sky with quick snapshots. I believe this is all due to the inability of bullets to penetrate. RB2/3D was exactly the same in this regard.
In OFF instead of the DM being an approximation of the fuselage shape as in CFS3 etc they are actually a group of boxes allowing exposure of internal items/components depending on incoming bullet direction.
These componnts also have a fuselage component of course.
In fact WW1 craft are nearly always penetreted to exact damage on theinternals - and so the DM allocation allows for this - it was a major change and improvement from P2.
However once the bullet has hit one component it stops - but instead of it being only the rear fuse from behind for example it can now be:
Assuming a bullet hits the craft from behind into the rear fusealge
1) Rear Fuselage
2) Rear control wires
3) Pilot
4) Fuel Tank (location dependant)
5) Engine (small %)
HTH
WM
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