Damage model of cockpit and plane in general

[kiershar]

I've put in a lot of practice shooting at AI in QMB since early in the beta and there's particular trends that I have noticed after killing a couple thousands of them, including a few hundreds in the last days.

 

Seems like the cockpit of the planes is way too solid. Pilot kills never occur in one shot, typically the only time the pilot is outright killed is from a long burst where 4-5 cannon round hit the plane. At that point the plane is invariably on fire too. Still on the subject of cockpit, I have a huge amount of experience doing snap shot pass and there's one particular trend i have noticed : a single cannon shot to the canopy will never disable the plane, it will always make the plane spew a light grey smoke. This is extremely consistent result. Same thing for the wings, one cannon round will never break the wing. You need several consecutive shot to shave it off, I kinda suspect that there is a HP system for wing damage.

 

Now, I don't have actual proof because it's pretty much impossible to gather without debugging tool. I have never been shot by a 20mm cannon round in real life, but I would hazard the guess that one should be enough to turn me into hamburger meat. Or at the very least, prevent me from operating my plane properly. In-game you will not affect the performance of the plane by shooting the canopy, it will either make grey smoke or catch on fire after being hit several times.

 

Specifically for the russian planes, the tail can never be broken off. When shooting bf109 the tail does separate but not often. However after shooting thousands of russian plane i can say for certain that the tail part will never be severed. Maybe it's because it's thicker on soviet planes than german plane, but I have a hard time believing it is able to soak up so much damage without breaking off. One time in MP I catch up to a plane that was at the apex of a climb and starting to fall back down, I was also at the apex and the target was a couple meters away from me and perpendicular. I aimed right below the radio pole and put, no joke, at least 50 cannon round in it; that is a few seconds of fire right at the same spot. The plane simply caught on fire and died in typical manner. Again, I'm no expert but I would expect the cannon rounds to do cumulative damage and destroying the metal skin and sparring instead of popping black clouds on the fuselage until it is set on fire.

 

Next issue I noticed with the DM is that the planes will invariably get the "shot down" trigger in one of the 4 scenarios :

 

1. Engine dies, either stopping right away (extremely rare) or after ~1 to 10 min when spewing dark grey smoke.

2. One of the wing is destroyed.

3. Plane is set on fire. No plane ever survive a fire, it will always die. I'd say ~70% of kills are from fire.

4. Pilot is outright killed. (Very rare, but less rare than instant engine stoppage). Usually when the pilot is killed the plane is also on fire.

 

The AI or humans are never damaged out of control. Control rods damage only occurs when the whole wing is ripped off. Massive elevator damage will never bring a plane down, a long burst in the tail will eventually make the plane catch on fire. There's a video out there of turret gunner shooting another plane on the ground. He shoots at the plane parked on the runway in the glass bubble canopy of another rear gunner and after a long burst the glass is set on fire. So, i'm pretty sure there's some kind of HP system where after X shots the plane get set on fire. I think this is the reason why people keep saying that they are always set on fire. It's simply because you can't shoot planes out of control, you have to shoot them until engine breaks or it's set on fire.

Edited October 22, 2014 by kiershar

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 The damage model is what it is, funny to see how an AI plane does not lose the slightest his turning and other abilities with 20mm shredding control surfaces and still trying to engage you even half the wing and engine are on fire etc. Easiest way is just to pump enough lead into the plane so it drops at first pass.

[kiershar]

Ah yes, speaking of control surface i forgot to mention. If you rip flaps, elevator or aileron from AI it will keep flying same. Humans are impaired from losing them but 1 aileron is enough to keep turn fighting.

 

Another notable behavior : I have often seen a single elevator being ripped off but never seen a plane lose both of them.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

 

With Your suggestions devs could made improvements in DM model. It could wait after release, but definitely yes.

[malcheus]

sounds like it needs a lot more randomness; as single bullet can take out a plane (especially one that hits the cockpit), and a hundred bullets can leave it flying.

[Y-29.Silky]

S!

 

 The damage model is what it is, funny to see how an AI plane does not lose the slightest his turning and other abilities with 20mm shredding control surfaces and still trying to engage you even half the wing and engine are on fire etc. Easiest way is just to pump enough lead into the plane so it drops at first pass.

Reminds me of War Thunder. During the 190 campaign, I got this IL-2 smoking pretty good, and he was actually trying to dogfight me xD .. but I think the devs know the AI need some tweaking.. "One Bullet", I hear that a lot when in actuality, it's "One Burst", but I highly doubt one 20mm would be enough to shred an aircraft, but "burst" will definitely be enough to put him out of action to be a threat if placed well. Which in reality, I think is how it is (read below).

 

 

My main observation over the past 3 months, especially on multiplayer; It used to be, you make 1-2 passes on an enemy, hit their engine, they're not combat effective anymore, you know they won't make it home, and you would be credited with the kill (if they chase you, just climb and let them finish themselves off), and on to the next target... Now people are making 3-5 passes on one guy, which I don't think needs to happen.

 

 

Also, I've experienced this with both Russian and German aircraft (except the 109 paper wings, and He-111), half my wing would be blown off and I kept flying (not easy by any means), and took me over 30 minutes just to land (which was even more challenging). Whatever they do to the damage models, I hope they don't take that away because that is just makes you feel like you're the best damn pilot ever.

 

Edited October 22, 2014 by Silky

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Well, looks like I got a couple pilot kills today in the Fw190A-3, both Yak-1 from 6oc. Shame the game crashed before I could land my victories

[BeastyBaiter]

BoS uses the same pilot kill system as RoF as far as I can tell. In RoF, the pilot is modeled as a single hitbox rather than being broken into head/torso/limbs. To make it so getting shot in the foot wasn't immediately fatal, they set it to require 4 (or is it 5?) hits on the pilot with a light MG.

[kiershar]

BoS uses the same pilot kill system as RoF as far as I can tell. In RoF, the pilot is modeled as a single hitbox rather than being broken into head/torso/limbs. To make it so getting shot in the foot wasn't immediately fatal, they set it to require 4 (or is it 5?) hits on the pilot with a light MG.

 

That would make a lot of sense. Maybe the fragmentation of cannon rounds is not implemented, i would think that a cannon round exploding right on the glass above the pilot head would incapacitate him in real life.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Pilot would be wounded at least and stunned to some degree. Anecdotal evidence, but when Hans Wind(75 victories) was wounded, it was because of 20mm shots exploding in his cockpit shattering the intrument panel. The head armor saved his life, the Yak-9 ammo could not penetrate it. He flew back to base and landed. The plane was repaired overnight and flew the next day. That particular Bf109G-6 was shot down a bit later.

[Descolada]

You can definitely effectively kill them in one hit, but usually it doesn't happen. I remember quite clearly shooting a 109's canopy from above and having his pilot die. Naturally though that would be the 1 20mm round+associated mg burst.

[Finkeren]

You can definitely effectively kill them in one hit, but usually it doesn't happen. I remember quite clearly shooting a 109's canopy from above and having his pilot die. Naturally though that would be the 1 20mm round+associated mg burst.

Tbh it's practically imposible to achieve only 1 single hit with the LMGs in BoS, because the rates of fire are so high. The twin ShKAS on the Yak spew out 60 bullets per second.

[FZG_Merlin]

as far as damage model, il2 BOS has a LOAD of progress to do, compared to Clod/team fusion, for example.

[Leaf]

as far as damage model, il2 BOS has a LOAD of progress to do, compared to Clod/team fusion, for example.

 

Sure, but give them time. Rome wasn't built in a day. And CloD definitely wasn't!

[FZG_Merlin]

BoS uses the same pilot kill system as RoF as far as I can tell. In RoF, the pilot is modeled as a single hitbox rather than being broken into head/torso/limbs. To make it so getting shot in the foot wasn't immediately fatal, they set it to require 4 (or is it 5?) hits on the pilot with a light MG.

 

they could rather make it a one shot one kill with a hitbox limited to torso/head.

 

 

would make more sense