Help identifying the damage done to an enemy

[SpaydCBR]

Hello all,

 

This is my first flight sim and I'm still learning this game. So far I've just been practicing maneuvers I've learned from Requiem's channel and dogfighting with the AI ( I don't feel ready to get online yet ).

 

While fighting the AI it occurred to me that the damage model is probably pretty deep and that I've been wasting my time, ammo and most importantly my advantageous position by continuing to pursue an enemy that was probably already combat ineffective in an attempt to make sure he was out of the fight.

 

So now I'm here with a question, are there any clues to know what kind of damage he has taken to know for sure that the bandit is out of the fight and no longer a threat?

 

I started to think that once smoke started coming out of their plane then they were pretty much done, but I was wrong. Sometimes it seems that they don't lose performance at all. I assume the various smoke darkness and thickness mean something but I'm not familiar with the inner workings of aircraft to know. So DOES the intensity of the smoke tell me anything?

 

Also, I assume I'd just have to see for myself the structural damage done, but even when and I do and it looks bad the enemy sometimes seems to still be flying just fine, so what's the worst kind of structural damage I should look for to know that this guy is out?

 

Finally, how do you get a plane to set on fire, and when it is on fire, it should be out of the fight right?

 

Any other clues I should look out for?

 

I hope this isn't a silly question, I just think knowing this information for sure will help me play smarter! Any help is appreciated

[ShamrockOneFive]

Not a silly question at all. It's good to try and understand as much as possible about how the damage your doing is affecting the enemy aircraft.

 

Some you'll probably have to learn based on experience but generally speaking if you see black smoke it usually means that they will be out of the fight sooner than later. When it appears that they haven't lost performance it's usually an illusion - they just haven't lost enough yet to make a substantive difference. Wait another minute and he'll be trying to glide out of the combat zone.

 

Fire is nearly always indicative of a kill but again it can take some time. Light smoke such as a fuel leak really isn't a guarantee of anything.

 

Personally, I keep shooting but I don't waste ammo on a structurally damaged and smoking planes. You should be able to stay above them and start worrying about the other bandits.

[Willy__]

I assume the various smoke darkness and thickness mean something but I'm not familiar with the inner workings of aircraft to know.

 

Usually light grey-ish smoke is a fuel leak that you're seeing, black smoke means you hit his engine and soon he'll be losing power, and lastly white smoke means you hit his radiator and now hes leaking coolant, depending the amount the damage he took, it may take a while to his engine to start to overheat. If you set a plane of fire its pretty much done for him, unless you are really unluck and somehow he put out the fire, but usually a fire means a guaranteed kill.

 

-edit- Forgot to mention the black thick smoke from fires, but that is pretty much obvious when you see it (also you can see it from miles away).

 

 

 

Finally, how do you get a plane to set on fire, and when it is on fire, it should be out of the fight right?

 

Aim for the fuel tanks/engine and hit it with a good 1 to 3 sec burst. Make sure you are hitting with both machine guns and cannons! If the target dont get set on fire, he'll probably be out of the fight.

 

Since you said you fight with bots, one thing you can do to help to identify if a plane is out of combat or not is to turn the icons on and keep and eye for his icon, if you shoot it and his icon disappears, it means his engine is out/his pilot is killed.  

 

Also, practice your aiming and only shoot when you're certain that you will hit. Generally speaking, deflection shots if aimed correctly do more damage than shots from dead six. With time and patience you will be able to deliberately aim and land hits on specific parts of the enemy aircraft.

 

Hope that helps a little! Cheers and happy flying! 

Edited May 19, 2015 by istruba

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

I seem to think there are three colors to the smoke/leaks. Whitish is fuel, greenish is coolant and black is oil/engine. I could be wrong.

 

On fire is the only sure thing when it comes to a kill. Landing four or five cannon rounds on a fighter is usually a pretty good indication. Six to eight on a bomber is usually pretty good but ten to twelve is more of a sure thing.

 

@ Istruba, I've been flying for twenty years and have yet to do more than aim for a zone about 3 meters square. Hitting specific parts on a fighter continues to elude me but I still do alright. Toss up a B-17 and I'm pretty good about hitting two engines on the same side

 

@Spayed - when you are ready for online (it is significantly different from a tactics point of view but the FM/DM doesn't change) send me a PM. I'm looking to train people up in the basics anyway, in preparation of trying to get a training wing started.

[Willy__]

@ Istruba, I've been flying for twenty years and have yet to do more than aim for a zone about 3 meters square. Hitting specific parts on a fighter continues to elude me but I still do alright. Toss up a B-17 and I'm pretty good about hitting two engines on the same side

 

I'm not saying I always land shots where I want, but its doable, mainly with the 109 with its centerline weapons, which excels for precision shooting. I usually aim for the cockpit/engine, if not possible, I try to shoot the tail, it seems to work well for me. Its all a matter of practice, but the setup for the pass is everything, if you mess up on the approach, you'll most likely miss.

 

About mp... I guess that situational awareness is everything, knowing what to do and when to do and staying alive is more important, if you do these things right, the kills eventually will come.

Edited May 19, 2015 by istruba

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

Agreed, I do pretty well overall. Unless the enemy pilot is pretty raw, most shots are gonna be crossing or deflection shots anyway. I often surprised by a guy who is so focused on one of my teammates that he lets me set up on his six long enough to really hit him. Most pilots, even in the Normal servers, are really experienced. Bots will help you with the basics but is like going from high school sports to the big leagues.

 

And Spayed, Check six for cryin out loud. Every three or four seconds even if you have a guy dead in your sights. That is the best combat advice anyone can ever give you.      

[Finkeren]

Welcome to the wonderful world of flight simming I'm sure you'll have a great time.

 

A couple more indicative signs in the DM:

 

Structural damage is indicated by a cloud of debris flowing from the target. Don't let this fool you into thinking, that his wing or tail is about to come off at any moment though. He might just as well have been losing one of his landing gear covers, which has neglible impact on his flying.

 

Sudden changes in flight attitude at the moment you hit (especially a sudden pitch down) is usually an indication that the pilot has been wounded, which means that the effectiveness of his controls is reduced and thus he propably can't pull as hard maneuvers (this goes for both human an AI opponents) For human opponents it also means, that their vision is restricted and has lowered his situational awareness (plus he'll propably have a harder time aiming his guns) At that point most humans will try to leave the fight or at least be at a significant disadvantage.

[SpaydCBR]

Usually light grey-ish smoke is a fuel leak that you're seeing, black smoke means you hit his engine and soon he'll be losing power, and lastly white smoke means you hit his radiator and now hes leaking coolant, depending the amount the damage he took, it may take a while to his engine to start to overheat. If you set a plane of fire its pretty much done for him, unless you are really unluck and somehow he put out the fire, but usually a fire means a guaranteed kill.

 

-edit- Forgot to mention the black thick smoke from fires, but that is pretty much obvious when you see it (also you can see it from miles away).

 

 

 

 

Aim for the fuel tanks/engine and hit it with a good 1 to 3 sec burst. Make sure you are hitting with both machine guns and cannons! If the target dont get set on fire, he'll probably be out of the fight.

 

Since you said you fight with bots, one thing you can do to help to identify if a plane is out of combat or not is to turn the icons on and keep and eye for his icon, if you shoot it and his icon disappears, it means his engine is out/his pilot is killed.  

 

Also, practice your aiming and only shoot when you're certain that you will hit. Generally speaking, deflection shots if aimed correctly do more damage than shots from dead six. With time and patience you will be able to deliberately aim and land hits on specific parts of the enemy aircraft.

 

Hope that helps a little! Cheers and happy flying! 

 

Thanks for that info. So I guess any smoke will eventually force the plane out of combat, but I should wait for black smoke before completely ignoring it. Does that sound good?

 

I know that the icons disappear when they're out of the fight but I mostly play in expert mode to get used to playing without icons. I like things to be realistic

 

 

@Spayd - when you are ready for online (it is significantly different from a tactics point of view but the FM/DM doesn't change) send me a PM. I'm looking to train people up in the basics anyway, in preparation of trying to get a training wing started.

 

I will definitely do that! I think I know a lot of the basics though. I can take off just fine and land without breaking anything most of the time. I watched pretty much all of Requiem's videos and practiced the maneuvers. I've watched a bunch of videos on tactics (boom n zoom, energy fighting, some evasive maneuvers). I think I just need to get some actual combat experience, but I don't feel ready yet (I don't want to be completely useless when I get online ). I was going to ask later if someone wanted a new wingman to take under their wing, but not for a while.

Welcome to the wonderful world of flight simming I'm sure you'll have a great time.

 

A couple more indicative signs in the DM:

 

Structural damage is indicated by a cloud of debris flowing from the target. Don't let this fool you into thinking, that his wing or tail is about to come off at any moment though. He might just as well have been losing one of his landing gear covers, which has neglible impact on his flying.

 

Sudden changes in flight attitude at the moment you hit (especially a sudden pitch down) is usually an indication that the pilot has been wounded, which means that the effectiveness of his controls is reduced and thus he propably can't pull as hard maneuvers (this goes for both human an AI opponents) For human opponents it also means, that their vision is restricted and has lowered his situational awareness (plus he'll propably have a harder time aiming his guns) At that point most humans will try to leave the fight or at least be at a significant disadvantage.

I see! Good to know. Thanks.

[LukeFF]

 

 

So I guess any smoke will eventually force the plane out of combat, but I should wait for black smoke before completely ignoring it. Does that sound good?

 

It's a good rule to go by, yes. 

[Finkeren]

Thanks for that info. So I guess any smoke will eventually force the plane out of combat, but I should wait for black smoke before completely ignoring it. Does that sound good?

 

It's a good rule to go by, yes. 

 

Personally I'd caution against this. Even black smoke can be decieving and to some degree it depends on the type of aircraft that's damaged.

 

The thin black smoke that indicates engine damage might not actually kill the engine at all. Especially the radial engines on the Fw 190 and La-5 are highly resilient to damage and can fly on trailing black smoke forever without more than a small drop in performance. In online fights, I've often been 'counted out' by my opponent when trailing smoke in the La-5 only to turn around and shoot him down.

 

An oil leak however, which looks almost identical in terms of smoke, is always fatal within minutes (though the amount of time varies depending on the size of the leak, the size of the oil tank and the type of engine) The DB 601 of the Bf 109s is especially vulnerable, in particular in head on attacks because the oil tank is placed in front of the engine right behind the spinner, and the engine usually dies within a couple of minutes after starting to spew black smoke.

 

If you are using external views, you can identify an oil leak by going to external view of your target and look at the canopy. In case of an oil leak you'll see oil spatter on the windscreen quite clearly.

 

The one secure way of knowing, whether a plane trailing black smoke is out of the fight, is to look at the smoke itself. Once the engine begins to cut out it will stutter leaving noticable 'marks' on the smoke trail. If you see these, you'll know, that the engine has at most a minute left.

 

Also: I don't know if it's just me imagining things, but it seems to me, that Bf 109s can fly on for a long time trailing white 'smoke' (coolant leak) compared to other inline engined planes. This would make sense, since the Bf 109 had a system, where you could close one radiator off, if it got punctured to prevent the leak from draining the other radiator as well. This allowed the 109 to keep flying but with half the cooling and therefore obviously lower throttle setting. I have no idea, if this is actually modelled in BoS DM, or I'm just imagining things.

[SpaydCBR]

Ah, thanks for those tips Finkeren!

[Finkeren]

Personally, on the flip side, if I start 'smoking' any colour after receiving hits I consider it time to disengage and RTB.

 

This may not be everyone's practice, but I like to always get back and land.

 

Generally this is my way of thinking as well. The one exception I make is in case of fuel leaks. Generally the fuel drains very slowly and for some reason seem to pose no increased risk of fire. In online flights, where home base is never far away, I generally keep fighting if I have a fuel leak. The only problem is, that in fighters with wing tanks (which is all of them except the Bf 109s) a leak in one tank can throw off your planes CG and make the aircraft feel unbalanced as the fuel leaks and one wing becomes lighter than the other.

[-TBC-AeroAce]

All points mentioned are valid in predicting if a plane will out of the fight but I highly advise u to only consider a plane out of the fight if it is out of the fight!!!

 

The DM can work in werid and mysterious ways!! Iv seen no visual damage and seconds later they r in pieces, iv emptied a whole clip into a plane with every leak possible and seen it to my amazement zoom back up and tag me.

 

The point I'm making is Trying to predict damage can be dangerous as it only serves to lower ur guard

[Livai]

Whitish   = coolant

greenish = fuel

black      = oil/engine

 

If you notice the greenish you need to follow him to finish him! The time where he run out of fuel take to long time.

[=EXPEND=Capt_Yorkshire]

is it possible to put out fires and if so how? by diving?

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

And remember, much of this guesswork happened in real life as well. It accounts for much of the overclaims on both sides. The ahistorical part is most pilots would disengage at the earliest sign of mechanical trouble. Not so much in simming as the walks to base are much shorter.

[Finkeren]

...and we only have our virtual lives to lose.

 

Back then, they all played DiD.

[-TBC-AeroAce]

Diving works to put out the fire but u have to have a set of balls on you

[Blooddawn1942]

If Your hull is incinerated, slipping may extinguish the flames. At least it was said so in one of the last changelogs. I never tryed it.

[Finkeren]

Engine fires can be put out by diving at max speed with radiators open.

 

I have never been able to put out a fuel tank fire though.

[SpaydCBR]

Man! I guess there was more to this than I initially thought. Thanks for the tips guys.

[Finkeren]

The BoS DM is one of the best I've ever seen, even if the graphics effects aren't all spectacular.

 

You can also damage the rods that control the different control surfaces and even trim tabs. Also the oxygen system can be knocked out leaving you slowly suffocating above 2500m. Etc etc.

[SpaydCBR]

Oh wow! I once got my oxygen system knocked out and thought "Hmm...I wonder if this bad for my pilot". I guess it is haha

[Willy__]

The BoS DM is one of the best I've ever seen, even if the graphics effects aren't all spectacular. You can also damage the rods that control the different control surfaces and even trim tabs. Also the oxygen system can be knocked out leaving you slowly suffocating above 2500m. Etc etc.

 

Hell yeah, BoS DM is the best on the market. One of the memorable moments that I had is the one I was dogfighting against a yak at 4000m of altitude, I managed to shoot him in the wings and he started to leak fuel, then he decided to flee diving. I went after him and as soon as he saw me at his six, he made a really tight turn before I had any chance to shoot. His right wing was damaged and broke off just as he pulled, what a sight to see! Never seen anything like that in any other flight sim apart from RoF (for obvious reasons).

Edited May 19, 2015 by istruba

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Hell yeah, BoS DM is the best on the market. One of the memorable moments that I had is the one I was dogfighting against a yak at 4000m of altitude, I managed to shoot him in the wings and he started to leak fuel, then he decided to flee diving. I went after him and as soon as he saw me at his six, he made a really tight turn before I had any chance to shoot. His right wing was damaged and broke off just as he pulled, what a sight to see! Never seen anything like that in any other flight sim apart from RoF (for obvious reasons).

 

I have seen that happen as well and was equally amazed

[Finkeren]

Here BoS really benefits from an engine that was originally developed for a WW1 flight sim. The dynamic effects of stress on the airframe are so well modeled, even if the breaking of the rigid metal/wooden structures in BoS looks less impressive than the bending and crumbling of the wood/canvas structures in RoF.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Finkeren

[Livai]

even if the graphics effects aren't all spectacular.

 

Reduced for better performance?

 

I remember where it was allowed to spot airfields from far after the new winter texture released. Maybe the allowed part work here the same way?

Edited May 19, 2015 by Superghostboy

[Finkeren]

Honestly, the specific parts of the DM that look unimpressive in BoS (damage decals, breaking and tearing of different parts of the aircraft and some of the particle effects) have always looked like that. I don't think anything's been altered to enhance performance.

 

The 2 things I really wish they'd do something about are:

 

1. Make the decals a higher resolution. It doesn't have to look like ClOD, but at least not have them look pixelated.

 

2. Tone down some of the smoke effects to make them less opaque. The smoke from a fuel fire looks like an impenetrable black caterpillar. It's ironic, that often the clouds in BoS appear a little too 'fluffy' while the smoke and vapor effects are a bit too 'rigid' and 'solid'.

[SpaydCBR]

I kinda disagree with point 2. Smoke (especially dark smoke) is pretty opaque. Smoke from a fuel fire would definitely be very dark and thick I think

[Finkeren]

I kinda disagree with point 2. Smoke (especially dark smoke) is pretty opaque. Smoke from a fuel fire would definitely be very dark and thick I think

But not so much, when it is 'stretched out' behind a plane going several hundred km/h, I'd think.

 

Looking at original gun cam footage, there seems to be great variation in how thick and opaque the smoke from a burning plane appears. Perhaps introduce a bit of variety?

 

Let me be clear: The adjustments I'm calling for should not be severe. I don't want it to look like RoF, where the smoke is just barely visible, just a slight downgrading.

[Blooddawn1942]

The only thing I'm missing, regarding smoke-, vapour- or fluidtrails, is the effect of leaking oil out of the aircraft like it is done in CloD. This is amazingly modeled as you can clearly see, that a fluid drains out of the AC.

But I won't complain, because I like the DM and effects very much in BoS. Overall they've done a great job!