Interesting snippet of information

[Leaf]

Taken from Mike Spick's "Luftwaffe Fighter Aces":
 

Emergency power caused a lot of smoke from the exhausts, and often caused allied pilots to believe that a German fighter was badly hit and going down.

 

Didn't know this was the case, might be an interesting little effect to model in-game. 

[DD_Arthur]

Now I'm willing to be shot down in flames here for talking nonsense but didn't the Luftwaffe on the Ostfront discover they could add parafin to the engine oil to help keep viscosity during winter temperatures without ill effects but this would make the engines smoke heavily too?  

[Finkeren]

In any case: Most WW2 fighter aircraft emit visible smoke at high power settings (or wrong mixture setting) It can be seen clearly in modern videos where the planes aren't even using WEP.

 

It would be a nice feature to have, and shouldn't be too hard to do, considering that RoF already has this feature looking fine without noticeable performance hit.

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Yep I'd like to see exhaust smoke as well

[MiloMorai]

Now I'm willing to be shot down in flames here for talking nonsense but didn't the Luftwaffe on the Ostfront discover they could add parafin to the engine oil to help keep viscosity during winter temperatures without ill effects but this would make the engines smoke heavily too?  

 

By the time the engine warm up had been completed, the 'thinner' had been 'burned off'.

[unreasonable]

In any case: Most WW2 fighter aircraft emit visible smoke at high power settings (or wrong mixture setting) It can be seen clearly in modern videos where the planes aren't even using WEP.

 

It would be a nice feature to have, and shouldn't be too hard to do, considering that RoF already has this feature looking fine without noticeable performance hit.

 

It does look great in RoF but I am not sure about the performance hit. If I sit in my cockpit and look back through the exhaust haze my frame rate drops enormously - from 60 (max on my rig) to 30 something. Looking at other planes at a distance does not seem to do this, but the haze over the front in RoF is another big frame rate eater. So I suspect there are issues with transparencies.

 

I would like to see it though, especially in people's movies. It could be a graphics option if there are performance issues.

[unreasonable]

Edit to above: although since my machine is usually trailing about seven different kinds of vapours and smokes once the fighting starts it is hard to see what difference another one would make....

[Finkeren]

I'm not disregarding what you're saying unreasonable, but I have a hard time imagining, that the performance hit of adding a very slight, barely visible exhaust smoke that dissipates almost instantly and can hardly even be seen from the cockpit could be worse than adding for instance contrails (chemtrails?   ) at high altitude. I've noticed no major performance drop when having lots of planes flying at high alt, and those effects are much more drastic than a little exhaust smoke. 

[unreasonable]

I am just going on what I see in RoF based on my rig and graphics settings: and TBH I was surprised too at how much difference it makes, if you are already pushing your graphics card.

 

When I play the Western Front map (in Career mode, so without huge numbers of extra modded in objects), my underlying frame rate is so high that looking back through the exhaust drops FPS from 60 (max on my TV) to high 40s or so: in other words you would only notice if you were paying attention.

 

Using the Channel Map, which has far more objects, the base frame rate is lower - mid 50s, IIRC. Looking back through my own exhaust drops this into the 30s, at which point the stuttering effect is immediately obvious.

 

Looking at the exhausts of other aircraft does not seem to have a detrimental effect, but if I am close enough to notice it I probably have other things to worry about! So the issue might arise if you were looking back over your shoulder at someone trying to kill you, which I seem to do quite a lot....

 

I think the point is that the exhaust in RoF, while visible as a smoke trail, is also transparent, while the damage smokes in BoS are not (?), but I am not technically proficient in this area (or anything else really).

 

Anyway as I said I would love to see this in the game: with optional graphics settings, problems, if any, are easy to solve.

Edited September 14, 2015 by unreasonable