Do planes break up enough?

[Siggi]

Are you seeing planes come apart, under fire or from being over-stressed or a combination of both? If yes, does it happen enough? Do you want more, less...or just any at all?

This is from bullets, not archie.

[Winder]

I voted yes I see some but want more... for the record...as we are working on DM at this moment in time.

WM

[Rick Rawlings]

Before I vote: Are A.I. affected by stress damage on the airframe at all? I often see my N17 wingies go zipping by me at speed that would seem to shred my wings. Would this mess up the functionality of the A.I. to mess with it?

Thanks!

RR

[Siggi]

Before I vote: Are A.I. affected by stress damage on the airframe at all? I often see my N17 wingies go zipping by me at speed that would seem to shred my wings. Would this mess up the functionality of the A.I. to mess with it?

Thanks!

RR

Have you tested your Nupe? You may find you can dive as fast as them.

I'll go test it myself actually, I love a good test me.

[LeBlaque]

I read closely the other DM poll and also this poll as well. With all due respect, Siggi, this poll, too, is a bit convoluted because it lumps damage from weapon's fire AND stress. Like your Camel, I have never seen my aircraft rip apart from overstressing; lots of creaking but no N17 top-wing structure failures. Regardless, I think it is an important poll and, given my experiences voted accordingly.

There is one further point, however, I wish to bring up based on the well-articulated positions of OvS and Winder in the prior poll and that is the issue of "realism." I gather from the statements that the team is striving for an overall sense of realism in the simulation by the way everything is modelled, particularly the weapons' stength, aircraft damage modelling, ai targeting capabilities, rear gunner accuracy, etc. The general claim is that given our ability to repetitively practice compared to our real-life WWI counterparts, we have significant experience advantages (which we do) and consequently many of the aforementioned factors have been altered to reflect this-- aircraft resist damage more, bullets may be less effective, Aces are extremely accurate, rear-gunners can be extremely fatal, etc. Where I very much appreciate the overall intent to model the experience of the WWI pilot, I take a different view of realism than the project team and, perhaps, others of us do as well.

Despite the fact I am able to practice, I would prefer to fly in a WWI environment that, from a "physics" stanpoint emulates the "real world" of a WWI pilot, meaning, I think the damage models, bullets, blah, blah, blah should reflect as close to real world as practical as opposed to steroid-versions of their early-year counterparts. Indeed, I would submit that aircraft/bullets/gunners/aiming/"hard death"/fuel mixture/true flak, etc. should all be set at a baseline whereby 100% realism actually reflects what would be experienced in the WWI environment DESPITE our ability to practice. I would very much like to know, even with all my practice, if I could surpass BVR's record of 80 under such circumstances. If players desire a greater challenge to avoid OvS's example of 10-kills per flight, then via selection dial-up the realism whereby planes become more indestructable, etc.

Point in all this (long-winded diatribe) is largely this: I believe we are all not coming from the same point of view on this "realism" issue and thus may not be answering all these polls from the same perspective. OBD, if I am correct, is trying to SIMULATE a WWI pilot's overall experience of living 17 hours whereby I would rather SIMULATE the "real" physics-and-otherwise environment of WWI and see my survival rate and abilities despite my extensive PC-practice time. Ultimately, I could always dial-up the "realism" factor to make it more challenging as a pilot.

Regards,
LeBlaque

[Winder]

I read closely the other DM poll and also this poll as well. With all due respect, Siggi, this poll, too, is a bit convoluted because it lumps damage from weapon's fire AND stress. Like your Camel, I have never seen my aircraft rip apart from overstressing; lots of creaking but no N17 top-wing structure failures. Regardless, I think it is an important poll and, given my experiences voted accordingly.

There is one further point, however, I wish to bring up based on the well-articulated positions of OvS and Winder in the prior poll and that is the issue of "realism." I gather from the statements that the team is striving for an overall sense of realism in the simulation by the way everything is modelled, particularly the weapons' stength, aircraft damage modelling, ai targeting capabilities, rear gunner accuracy, etc. The general claim is that given our ability to repetitively practice compared to our real-life WWI counterparts, we have significant experience advantages (which we do) and consequently many of the aforementioned factors have been altered to reflect this-- aircraft resist damage more, bullets may be less effective, Aces are extremely accurate, rear-gunners can be extremely fatal, etc. Where I very much appreciate the overall intent to model the experience of the WWI pilot, I take a different view of realism than the project team and, perhaps, others of us do as well.

Despite the fact I am able to practice, I would prefer to fly in a WWI environment that, from a "physics" stanpoint emulates the "real world" of a WWI pilot, meaning, I think the damage models, bullets, blah, blah, blah should reflect as close to real world as practical as opposed to steroid-versions of their early-year counterparts. Indeed, I would submit that aircraft/bullets/gunners/aiming/"hard death"/fuel mixture/true flak, etc. should all be set at a baseline whereby 100% realism actually reflects what would be experienced in the WWI environment DESPITE our ability to practice. I would very much like to know, even with all my practice, if I could surpass BVR's record of 80 under such circumstances. If players desire a greater challenge to avoid OvS's example of 10-kills per flight, then via selection dial-up the realism whereby planes become more indestructable, etc.

Point in all this (long-winded diatribe) is largely this: I believe we are all not coming from the same point of view on this "realism" issue and thus may not be answering all these polls from the same perspective. OBD, if I am correct, is trying to SIMULATE a WWI pilot's overall experience of living 17 hours whereby I would rather SIMULATE the "real" physics-and-otherwise environment of WWI and see my survival rate and abilities despite my extensive PC-practice time. Ultimately, I could always dial-up the "realism" factor to make it more challenging as a pilot.

Regards,
LeBlaque

Yes there is no one solution I am afraid - we will see where the Polls go but I suspect that as in the 10 years + of FM/DM mods in RB there will always be room for changes and at no stage is everyone happy... and yes perspective differences are an issue too.

However I can say that the DM is directly related to for instance a Noop losing its lower wings as the strength of the wings affect is ability to take damage and to sustain forces....and Siggi I have already explained that the P1 DM models that modelled lower wing rip-off were not liked so we beefed them up - personally I prefer the fragile model that we had.
Even the DR1 skin shedding on upper wing (upper wing weakness) was there.

But this is not about me any more this is about folks being happy with their expenditure!

However getting Polls to slice up the individual components into boxes is hard and becomes a futile exercsie as it the overall feeling that counts - IMO hence very generalised Polls are probably best - i.e happy with it or not? works well.


HTH

WM

[Winder]

I read closely the other DM poll and also this poll as well. With all due respect, Siggi, this poll, too, is a bit convoluted because it lumps damage from weapon's fire AND stress. Like your Camel, I have never seen my aircraft rip apart from overstressing; lots of creaking but no N17 top-wing structure failures. Regardless, I think it is an important poll and, given my experiences voted accordingly.

There is one further point, however, I wish to bring up based on the well-articulated positions of OvS and Winder in the prior poll and that is the issue of "realism." I gather from the statements that the team is striving for an overall sense of realism in the simulation by the way everything is modelled, particularly the weapons' strength, aircraft damage modelling, ai targeting capabilities, rear gunner accuracy, etc. The general claim is that given our ability to repetitively practice compared to our real-life WWI counterparts, we have significant experience advantages (which we do) and consequently many of the aforementioned factors have been altered to reflect this-- aircraft resist damage more, bullets may be less effective, Aces are extremely accurate, rear-gunners can be extremely fatal, etc. Where I very much appreciate the overall intent to model the experience of the WWI pilot, I take a different view of realism than the project team and, perhaps, others of us do as well.

Despite the fact I am able to practice, I would prefer to fly in a WWI environment that, from a "physics" stanpoint emulates the "real world" of a WWI pilot, meaning, I think the damage models, bullets, blah, blah, blah should reflect as close to real world as practical as opposed to steroid-versions of their early-year counterparts. Indeed, I would submit that aircraft/bullets/gunners/aiming/"hard death"/fuel mixture/true flak, etc. should all be set at a baseline whereby 100% realism actually reflects what would be experienced in the WWI environment DESPITE our ability to practice. I would very much like to know, even with all my practice, if I could surpass BVR's record of 80 under such circumstances. If players desire a greater challenge to avoid OvS's example of 10-kills per flight, then via selection dial-up the realism whereby planes become more indestructable, etc.

Point in all this (long-winded diatribe) is largely this: I believe we are all not coming from the same point of view on this "realism" issue and thus may not be answering all these polls from the same perspective. OBD, if I am correct, is trying to SIMULATE a WWI pilot's overall experience of living 17 hours whereby I would rather SIMULATE the "real" physics-and-otherwise environment of WWI and see my survival rate and abilities despite my extensive PC-practice time. Ultimately, I could always dial-up the "realism" factor to make it more challenging as a pilot.

Regards,
LeBlaque

Yes there is no one solution I am afraid - we will see where the Polls go but I suspect that as in the 10 years + of FM/DM mods in RB there will always be room for changes and at no stage is everyone happy... and yes perspective differences are an issue too.

However I can say that the DM is directly related to for instance a Noop losing its lower wings as the strength of the wings affect is ability to take damage and to sustain forces....and Siggi I have already explained that the P1 DM models that modeled lower wing rip-off were not liked so we beefed them up - personally I prefer the fragile model that we had.
Even the DR1 skin shedding on upper wing (upper wing weakness) was there.

But this is not about me any more this is about folks being happy with their expenditure!

However getting Polls to slice up the individual components into boxes is hard and becomes a futile exercise as it the overall feeling that counts - IMO hence very generalised Polls are probably best - i.e happy with it or not? works well.


HTH

WM

[gimpyguy]

I do suppose it's a case of wanting to have your CAKE, and eat it as well, not sure that's even possible. The aircraft themselves, look outstanding however in Phase 1, there were more fluttering wing sections, even the possibility of cutting a DR1 in half lengthwise with machine gun fire

You had to be much more careful, when returning home from an 'action' that you didn't lose part of Nieuport's lower wing ( if you got that far )

[LeBlaque]

If I may respectfully caution the OBD team-- despite all your customer's observations, stick to YOUR vision of the simulation. If I am accurate in your intent to simulate the 17-hour experience of a WWI pilot and you made design decisions accordingly, do not embrace my position that the simulation should specifically reflect "real world physics/capabilities." The reason I say this is if you continue to tweak to try to make a lot of us happy, you may inadvertenly lose the vision you had for the simulation thereby creating a whole slew of new problems. The issue may not be software fixing, it may just be expectation fixing and sharing your design intents.

Probably didn't need to be said but the bottom line is I think all of us out here trust the OBD teams' final judgements.

[Siggi]

Yes there is no one solution I am afraid - we will see where the Polls go but I suspect that as in the 10 years + of FM/DM mods in RB there will always be room for changes and at no stage is everyone happy... and yes perspective differences are an issue too.

However I can say that the DM is directly related to for instance a Noop losing its lower wings as the strength of the wings affect is ability to take damage and to sustain forces....and Siggi I have already explained that the P1 DM models that modelled lower wing rip-off were not liked so we beefed them up - personally I prefer the fragile model that we had.
Even the DR1 skin shedding on upper wing (upper wing weakness) was there.

But this is not about me any more this is about folks being happy with their expenditure!

However getting Polls to slice up the individual components into boxes is hard and becomes a futile exercsie as it the overall feeling that counts - IMO hence very generalised Polls are probably best - i.e happy with it or not? works well.


HTH

WM

I'm absolutely with LeBlaque on this. Give us the proper goodies please, with P1 wing-shedding Nupes and Dr1s, and put options in to scale it back or forwards.

The baseline should be 100%.

[Winder]

If I may respectfully caution the OBD team-- despite all your customer's observations, stick to YOUR vision of the simulation. If I am accurate in your intent to simulate the 17-hour experience of a WWI pilot and you made design decisions accordingly, do not embrace my position that the simulation should specifically reflect "real world physics/capabilities." The reason I say this is if you continue to tweak to try to make a lot of us happy, you may inadvertenly lose the vision you had for the simulation thereby creating a whole slew of new problems. The issue may not be software fixing, it may just be expectation fixing and sharing your design intents.

Probably didn't need to be said but the bottom line is I think all of us out here trust the OBD teams' final judgements.

Thank you that means a lot and yes we are not rushing into any of these 'fixes' but we do want to draw 1.3 to a close soon.

Expectations however are different when folks pay money.... and another reason why there are so few sim companies left - its basically a no win situation!

Cheers

WM

[Bullethead]

Shooting major components off airplanes was apparently very, very rare in WW1. So to me, seeing this happen a lot would be a downer in what is already a very realistic sim.

The vast majority of aircraft break-ups in the normal course of business were apparently due to poor design or shoddy workmanship at the factory. N28 wing fabric, Dr.I fabric, Alb D.V spar design, etc. Remember, however, that the strength of a piece of wood or a layer of glue is not a uniform quantity across all aircraft, so there shouldn't be a hard line where all planes of a given type break up.

Otherwise, aircraft seem to have mostly broken up due to exceeding their strength in dives. But apparently this mostly happened after the pilot was dead and he was going well steeper and faster than anybody would do even by accident.

[Siggi]

Thank you that means a lot and yes we are not rushing into any of these 'fixes' but we do want to draw 1.3 to a close soon.

Expectations however are different when folks pay money.... and another reason why there are so few sim companies left - its basically a no win situation!

Cheers

WM

Winder, I absolutely understand where you're coming from mate. But here's the thing...as soon as you declare that your interpretation is based upon a balanced game rather than a realistic sim, that's where you leave yourself open to the most criticism.

Because an interpretation of the best balance doesn't carry the same authority as an interpretation of the most realistic. It's a base-line that's already skewed.

If you say "this is the most realistic", and THEN also give scalability via options buttons, the argument is over before it's begun.

[Winder]

Winder, I absolutely understand where you're coming from mate. But here's the thing...as soon as you declare that your interpretation is based upon a balanced game rather than a realistic sim, that's where you leave yourself open to the most criticism.

Because an interpretation of the best balance doesn't carry the same authority as an interpretation of the most realistic. It's a base-line that's already skewed.

If you say "this is the most realistic", and THEN also give scalability via options buttons, the argument is over before it's begun.

Well I dunno about that we have always said historically accurate as far as possible - realism is another thing entirely and we would never state that - MS said "as real as it gets' - on a PC? lol

But I think hang about, as I have looked at what can be done guns wise and I believe that its possible to scale the guns (will remain balanced) without resort to major DM mods.

And if our team agrees we can re-implement the classic weaknesses of craft, as well documented, into the DM models - not selectable but possibly as an alternative install DM 'pack' that's has to be optionally downloaded.... in the shorter term.... and maybe selectable in P4 - if we ever get there..??

Cheers

WM

[Rick Rawlings]

Winder, I absolutely understand where you're coming from mate. But here's the thing...as soon as you declare that your interpretation is based upon a balanced game rather than a realistic sim, that's where you leave yourself open to the most criticism.

Because an interpretation of the best balance doesn't carry the same authority as an interpretation of the most realistic. It's a base-line that's already skewed.

If you say "this is the most realistic", and THEN also give scalability via options buttons, the argument is over before it's begun.

I don't think this is true, Siggi. People will complain whether or not they go for most balanced or most realistic. Yes, the flight sim community and, in particular, the WWI flight sim community, is a small, strange bunch of people. Yet we often follow the trend of the larger gaming community in our love of complaint.

At the end of the day, going for balance is usually better than going for realism because you can at least say you were going for balance. If you say you were going for realism, what does that really mean? From people who were not alive at the time and who have never flown these planes in their original form. Remember the difference in opinions on the Eindekker flight model in that thread? Who knows who was right? I can't believe that the real Eindekker would crash with no aileron control in a medium turn like it does now, but, then again, I wasn't there. Remember the endless RB3D threads about the various flight models and damage models. As many people have said, 10 years later they are apparently still going on! All in the endless pursuit of confusing realism! We have already had in these last two poll threads a debate over how much planes really did break up "back in the day". Many accounts from real pilots and aces were also very vague in their language. When Albert Ball fires a "burst", how is that similar to or different from a Charles Nungesser "burst"? The best we can do is give our input and realize that some of us are going to be working at cross-purposes based on our own point of view.

RR

[Siggi]

I don't think this is true, Siggi. People will complain whether or not they go for most balanced or most realistic. Yes, the flight sim community and, in particular, the WWI flight sim community, is a small, strange bunch of people. Yet we often follow the trend of the larger gaming community in our love of complaint.

At the end of the day, going for balance is usually better than going for realism because you can at least say you were going for balance. If you say you were going for realism, what does that really mean? From people who were not alive at the time and who have never flown these planes in their original form. Remember the difference in opinions on the Eindekker flight model in that thread? Who knows who was right? I can't believe that the real Eindekker would crash with no aileron control in a medium turn like it does now, but, then again, I wasn't there. Remember the endless RB3D threads about the various flight models and damage models. As many people have said, 10 years later they are apparently still going on! All in the endless pursuit of confusing realism! We have already had in these last two poll threads a debate over how much planes really did break up "back in the day". Many accounts from real pilots and aces were also very vague in their language. When Albert Ball fires a "burst", how is that similar to or different from a Charles Nungesser "burst"? The best we can do is give our input and realize that some of us are going to be working at cross-purposes based on our own point of view.

RR

Well, if you provide the sim at "100% realism" (P1 apparently), and then provide options to make it easier, the complainers are soon put silent.

But if you put the sim at "75% realism", and then provide options to make it easier...but none to put it back up to 100% (P1)...you see where I'm going with that?

So I've discovered today that the sim is at 75% and can be optioned down. When I thought it was at 100% and could be optioned down.

Well, on the upside...it's already as good as it is but can be still better?!:woot:

Winder, that DM-Pack sounds like a perfect idea. A bit of a bugger for you work-wise I suppose...damn, I wish you chaps had gone at this the other way around.

Much as I and others want it NOW...argh...maybe save it for P4, new sales and all that. I'll be buying it, regardless.

[Rick Rawlings]

But if you put the sim at "75% realism", and then provide options to make it easier...but none to put it back up to 100% (P1)...you see where I'm going with that?

Sure, but where did you come up with 75%. I agree that planes that could break up, should. I already know that the N17 and N11 can, I haven't lived long enough to test the others. And then how frequently should it happen? You mentioned that it should occur with a frequency somewhat similiar to that for engine fires. I have never read anywhere that planes broke up at nearly the same frequency as they caught fire.

RR

[Siggi]

Sure, but where did you come up with 75%. I agree that planes that could break up, should. I already know that the N17 and N11 can, I haven't lived long enough to test the others. And then how frequently should it happen? You mentioned that it should occur with a frequency somewhat similiar to that for engine fires. I have never read anywhere that planes broke up at nearly the same frequency as they caught fire.

RR

Well, 75% is just a 'ball-park' figure. I could have chosen 80% or whatever, but for the purposes of contextual clarity regarding the point I was making...

Ditto engine-fires vs break-ups, as a generalisation it seems reasonably fair to say each should occur with some sort of similarity, in the absence of per-pixel damage. The area of a wing needing to be badly damaged such that it fails could be the same sort of size as the gas-tank (fire) or engine (fire) or pilot (loss of control). Control-cables much much smaller of course (loss of control).

[ftgc]

If the team's goal is to simulate the difficulty of surviving long enough to amass 17 hours of flight time then that's fine. If the goal is to as LeBlaque stated to make a sim that is the most realistic in terms of physics then that's fine too. I personally would like to see the sim reflect reality as much as data can support and let the survive ability rely on other factors beside just artificially "hardening" the enemy AI. I've always felt the the AI in a flight sim should have to follow the same rule of physics as I do. A level playing field is what I'm looking for. As for making it difficult to survive/not being able to rack up ten kill sorties, that has to come down to AI coding. I think the closest you get to a real life fight is in the multiplayer online scenario where everyone is playing with the same physics rules. As anyone who has had any success in those will tell you winning the fight comes down to three things.

1. Knowing the capability and limits of your aircraft verses those of the E/A.
2. Being the pilot in the fight that makes the fewest mistakes.
3. Surprise.

The AI in OFF don't do either #1 or #2 very well. First let me say this is not a dig at the developers, it may be extremely difficult/impossible to code, but in 90% of the fights I've been in the AI does not use whatever advantage his aircraft has over mine. For instance I'm flying an SE5 and the AI is flying a DR-1. The DR1's advantage in this instance is/should be manuverability and climb, it's disadvantages are/should be speed and roll rate. However in almost all cases the first maneuver after the merge will be for the DR1 to dive giving up his advantage and playing into mine. Number 2 above should always be squarely in the AI's corner. ACM is a three dimensional chess game where the moves must be thought out several moves into the future ie I'm going to do X to force him to do Y to set for Z. In this area the AI should excel as it's brain is a pretty powerful computer that can evaluate hundreds of scenarios per second. So in theory if you can program the AI to understand the advantage/disadvantages issue and then make it's decisions based on that and the fact that it couldn't make a mistake plus the fact that the AI should be able to fly the plane with perfect precision you should wind up with a scenario where the player could never win. Then you would be in a position to modify the AI to randomly make mistakes or not use it's advantages to the fullest based on whether you were fighting a rookie pilot or and ace. That is where the difficulty of surviving would come into play.

I don't know if any of the above is possible but if it was you could give player and AI the same guns, the same stress tolerance, same damage effects and it would, in my opinion be the closest to reality as your going to get in a computer simulation.

Scott

[Bigfish]

Thanks this is a very good question; I'm particularly interested in the "coming apart under fire" bit; my own experience based largely on Quick Combat is that flying say a Camel against an Albatros or Fokker I can usually get on its six - provided I don't lose sight of it, which happens a lot without labels on! - and blast away at it, and almost always it just seems to run out of steam, smoke, lose altitude, and lose manoeuvrability until it it does a sort of forced landing and then explodes - bits fly off, fireball etc. I've never hit a fuel tank and shot one down in flames. Nor have I seen pilots getting killed/injured so that control is lost and the plane dives into the ground, or structural failure occurs. If you read first-hand accounts of WW1 air battles there's plenty of this. I quite accept though that I may not have enough experience with the sim. I note btw that if a plane gets hit by Archie there is generally a spectacular mid-air explosion and the plane falls apart, but not when I shoot them. I assumed all this was some limitation in CFS3 but if not I would welcome any moves to change it, IF it gets nearer to the "historical realism" ideal, and ONLY IF the development team in whom I trust absolutely think it ought to be done. Hope that helps.

[griphos]

What a fascinating discussion. I don't have much to add, but a lot to learn. However, for what it's worth, I think I died in a Spad XIII the other day from structural failure. I've always found the Spads to be the most difficult planes to fly (I've not flow for the Germans yet). Very unforgiving stall characteristics, and murder in a spin. I DO VERY MUCH like the way these planes have distinct FM and DM. I very much like having to learn the limits of my crate, as ftcg encapsulated above as one of the keys to success. The other day I was trying the Spads again in QC and throwing one about the sky in the way I can, say, a Pup or an SE5, and from what I can tell, she just folded on me. Hadn't taken any hits from EA.

Anyway, I'll be following this conversation closely, and very interested to see the outcome for the sim.

[womenfly2]

I voted yes I see some but want more... for the record...as we are working on DM at this moment in time.

WM

..... works for me.

Cheers,
WF2

[quoth]

Hi All

Voted for see some but would like more But on a related subject, it seems to me that when one does shoot a plane down, too many of them seem to go in a shallow dive/glide before crashing/landing. I would have expected more planes to go into a spin etc and falling out of the sky than more than currently seems to be the case.

Just some thoughts

Cheers

Q

[Rick Rawlings]

If the team's goal is to simulate the difficulty of surviving long enough to amass 17 hours of flight time then that's fine. If the goal is to as LeBlaque stated to make a sim that is the most realistic in terms of physics then that's fine too. I personally would like to see the sim reflect reality as much as data can support and let the survive ability rely on other factors beside just artificially "hardening" the enemy AI. I've always felt the the AI in a flight sim should have to follow the same rule of physics as I do. A level playing field is what I'm looking for. As for making it difficult to survive/not being able to rack up ten kill sorties, that has to come down to AI coding. I think the closest you get to a real life fight is in the multiplayer online scenario where everyone is playing with the same physics rules. As anyone who has had any success in those will tell you winning the fight comes down to three things.

1. Knowing the capability and limits of your aircraft verses those of the E/A.
2. Being the pilot in the fight that makes the fewest mistakes.
3. Surprise.

The AI in OFF don't do either #1 or #2 very well. First let me say this is not a dig at the developers, it may be extremely difficult/impossible to code, but in 90% of the fights I've been in the AI does not use whatever advantage his aircraft has over mine. For instance I'm flying an SE5 and the AI is flying a DR-1. The DR1's advantage in this instance is/should be manuverability and climb, it's disadvantages are/should be speed and roll rate. However in almost all cases the first maneuver after the merge will be for the DR1 to dive giving up his advantage and playing into mine. Number 2 above should always be squarely in the AI's corner. ACM is a three dimensional chess game where the moves must be thought out several moves into the future ie I'm going to do X to force him to do Y to set for Z. In this area the AI should excel as it's brain is a pretty powerful computer that can evaluate hundreds of scenarios per second. So in theory if you can program the AI to understand the advantage/disadvantages issue and then make it's decisions based on that and the fact that it couldn't make a mistake plus the fact that the AI should be able to fly the plane with perfect precision you should wind up with a scenario where the player could never win. Then you would be in a position to modify the AI to randomly make mistakes or not use it's advantages to the fullest based on whether you were fighting a rookie pilot or and ace. That is where the difficulty of surviving would come into play.

I don't know if any of the above is possible but if it was you could give player and AI the same guns, the same stress tolerance, same damage effects and it would, in my opinion be the closest to reality as your going to get in a computer simulation.

Scott

Man, if you didn't already have a medal, I'd award you one for this post! I think reasonable A.I is stil a ways in the future. This sim is so far the best I've seen. As I mentioned in another thread, your wigmen will help you out, sometimes to the point of crashing into you in their eagerness!

Yes there is a lot of similar strategy on the part of the enemy AI, but as I fly mostly against Germans in Albatrosses, this really is what they are supposed to be doing anyway!

I dunno, maybe you could reintroduce rookie AI into the campaign to mix it up a little more, probably make planes slightly weaker both to gunfire and stress, and maybe throw in a small random element for those "amazing Rene Fonk" shots that the DM may not be able to handle for whatever reason. For a while, at least, realism will always have to be tempered with balance. To my knowledge, no tests were done to determine exactly how much stress you would have to load an N17 or a Fokker DVIII before it would shed wings. Proabably due to lack of volunteers. All we know is someone cracked up and someone saw it and everyone was careful after that, until they weren't, because they forgot while trying to save their life by evading the enemy. And then their wing tore off. Or it didn't.

And don't forget that Boelcke still managed to make a fairly controlled landing despite losing most of his top wing. How do you model that?

Truth be told, if they walked away now, I would still be thrilled with this sim, but since Winder made the mistake of asking, keep the cool posts coming!



RR

[griphos]

...and maybe throw in a small random element for those "amazing Rene Fonk" shots that the DM may not be able to handle for whatever reason.

Actually, the other night on a mission when my plane was in a bad way and I was just trying to make it to friendly lines, four DIIs came at me. I turned on one and sent maybe a 20 shot burst into him, maybe less. He flamed and crashed.

Usually, my experience is the hang behind them at all costs and empty at least 1/4 of my magazine before seeing them succumb, but this one experience suggests there is already something like your desire in DM.

Also, I've found that it takes a lot less bullets when I'm a lot closer before I shoot them.

But ditto on the accolades for that excellent post, and on the appraisal of the sim just as it is.