Going the distance

[HagarTheHorrible]

Should there be a multiplier for the number of hits required to inflict significant damage the further out a target is ?

 

In RoF it seemed to be possible to get a game changing hit, if not nessecarily a straight kill, with some regularity, from quite far out, even with the primitive gunsights and weapons available. This led me to changing my tactics from not firing until I was in close to plinking away on the merge, the less angle off the better, because I found that I could often get wounding shots from quite far out. I wouldn't say there was any great skill involved over and above general shooting and it would mean I had a real advantage before a fight even really began. I'm not suggesting it always worked but it worked often enough to change my tactics from what I considered to be realistic to something that worked in game.

 

With better sights and weapon systems in BoS it might also be the case that combat, or the chances of game changing shots being taken at unrealistically long ranges, are also present. I'm not suggesting that it isn't possible for a well aimed bullet to kill or damage from 10 billion miles away, it's just seems that it was the extreme exception rather than the rule.

 

If it is found that crippling hits can be achieved from long range that maybe skew the game for the average player, exceptional skill should always be a possibility, then maybe a multiplier could be included to increase the number of bullets required to inflict anything other than superficial damage the further out a target is. This is not to suggest that certain things aren't possible in real life, but that probabilities should be skewed to reflect likely out comes that gaming factors might reduce such as a preponderance of spray and pray for example.

[FuriousMeow]

There should already be the range factor decreasing round velocity which in turns reduces round pentration, and thus already reduces the damage done.

 

I vote no to artificially reducing damage based on range just because there are individuals that spray and pray when other factors should come into play to already reduce damage.

 

I have RoF since day 1, and I have been wounded from spray and pray but that's more due to myself flying straight and level in addition to the fact that the pilot wound model is just one hit detection that increments from 1 shot wound to death rather than actual hit points on the body. So head shots don't occur, and neither do slight wounds to the toes being grazed.

[Pupo]

this opens a pandora box, we, online flyers, with unlimted experience, training and lifes, vastly outnumber this kinds of stats when compared to real pilots. The average il2 player can shoot accuratly from far greater distances, and achieve far better results. I remember reading that the luftwaffe estimated their pilots accuaracy to be in the order of 2%, in a campaign in il-2 my entire squad would average 10%, raising to 15-20 % if the targets were fighters only. When it comes to distance, we've all read the accounts of aces sayung to "fill the entire gunsight", or the 100 meters rull of tumb. In il2 most of us were good enough to shoot all the way from 250 to 400 meters, not because the game was poorly made, but because i have shoot down well over a 10.000 planes before i got to be that good.

 

this to say, i think limiting the game with unnatural bonds to mimic real life statistics is not a good idea, since it does not had realism, it simply takes challenge out of the game.

[BeastyBaiter]

I dislike artificial limits. RoF has an artificial gun accuracy limit on it. It didn't used to but experienced pilots were running around with 30% gunnery accuracy while shooting at 500m. Thus they dropped the maximum accurate range against a fighter from around 700m down to about 200m (even that is pushing it). It's actually pretty funny looking, the tracers fly off to the side instantly, it's like shooting a non-rifled musket with the wrong size ball. Guys are still running around with 30%+ accuracy, they're just shooting at 50m instead of 500m.

[Jaws2002]

Have a look at balistics data when you think about damage weapons can do at longer ranges.

Even for ww1 aircraft weapons, long range doesn't mean the bullets can't kill you, it only means it's harder to hit anything with ww1 aircraft weapons at those ranges. All machine gun rounds used in ww1 fighters, carry enough energy to kill you dead at 1200+ meters.

In ww2 things are a bit different. Now aircraft are made of stronger materials and even have armor installed. But in the same time, rifle caliber machineguns become secondary weapons and then replaced, in the vast majority of fighters. Heavier rounds ( .50cal, 20mm and so on) carry significaltly more energy. If you get hit directly this things can kill at miles away. On top of that, now we have cannon shells loaded with high explosive. This shells will loose some kinetic energy with range, but the destructive effect of the high explosive grenade remains the same. Again, for this weapons effective range means ranges you can hit your target, not range your guns can kill what they hit.

 

Any artificialy introduced limit is just silly arcade game crap.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Jaws2002

[HagarTheHorrible]

Have a look at balistics data when you think about damage weapons can do at longer ranges.

Even for ww1 aircraft weapons, long range doesn't mean the bullets can't kill you, it only means it's harder to hit anything with ww1 aircraft weapons at those ranges. All machine gun rounds used in ww1 fighters, carry enough energy to kill you dead at 1200+ meters.

In ww2 things are a bit different. Now aircraft are made of stronger materials and even have armor installed. But in the same time, rifle caliber machineguns become secondary weapons and then replaced, in the vast majority of fighters. Heavier rounds ( .50cal, 20mm and so on) carry significaltly more energy. If you get hit directly this things can kill at miles away. On top of that, now we have cannon shells loaded with high explosive. This shells will loose some kinetic energy with range, but the destructive effect of the high explosive grenade remains the same. Again, for this weapons effective range means ranges you can hit your target, not range your guns can kill what they hit.

 

Any artificialy introduced limit is just silly arcade game crap.

 

 

I don't disagree with what you are saying, apart from the last sentence.

 

You presumably are quite happy with hit boxes ?  True they may not be perfect and they certainly don't reflect the very fine and complex nature of differing amounts of damage etc but you accept them as a useful compromise (arcade game crap) in order to play the game without the need for a Kray type computer.  Things have certainly improved but they are still hit boxes with limited damage complexities.

 

I don't dispute that bullets, shells, rounds, whatever you want to call them are capable of killing, damaging or destroying at great ranges, far further than humans can usually guide them without some sort of artificial assistance. That discussion is not really the purpose of this thread.

 

What I am trying to suggest is, if historical records indicate that most successful air combat outcomes took place at a certain distance, at ranges from X-Y, then the game should reflect this.  Putting in artificial impediments might seem gamey, but are they really any more so than Hit boxes and there ilk, which if you play combat flight sims you accept.  If what is possible in a simulation is not, as far as the developers are capable, true to historical references then it is equally pointless to get picky about flight models and performance statistics is it not, because both are equally important in a combat flight sim, the flying bit is really nothing more than getting the bullets into the right place at the right time, nothing more nothing less?  Guns and shooting are about so much more than ballistics and power.  You have to be able to hit the target first.  RoF went some way to resolving sniping, but many were unhappy with the method used which, as far as I know, was to use greater dispersion. 

 

Requiring a greater number of hits to do the same damage the further out a target is, is no more than a simple, invisible method to recreate the real life complexities that a computer display, zoom, hit boxes and digital joysticks might not fully reflect.  It is no more a gamey device than red outs or grey outs that recreate a pilots ability to withstand "G" forces, it is a method of imposing real life limitations on what we can do sitting in front of a computer monitor.

 

Good pilots with excellent shooting ability should still be able to score hits but doing significant damage should be the exception rather than the rule.

 

The other factor to take into account, as has been alluded too, is practice and opportunity.  In the sim world we have a far greater number of opportunities to test our skills, without the fear of losing our lives if we do things our real life forebears would have considered rash or downright stupid.  This makes us far more effective than historical reality and therefore, it might be argued, makes something like BoS or RoF more of a game and less a historical simulation (although it still has to be above all else, fun)   Maybe this should be reflected in the effectiveness of shooting and consequently it should be harder to shoot down an enemy rather than try to accurately replicate real damage with every hit.  Kill shots maybe should be restricted to very small percentages, hit boxes or a larger number of hits to inflict fatal damage.  What are we trying to recreate, the feel or the technicalities of air combat ?

[Karost]

[imho]

the difference "distance" effected to  3 major element to  inflict significant hit (moving) box :

-velocity loss rate
-trajectory curve
-dispersion

 

then for each  of hit in the box which  generate inflict significant damage depend on

- external ballistics

- structure+material  of the box(target)

 

but "multiplier for the number of hits required to inflict significant damage" which @Hagar point out 

That made me seem to agree same way with @Jaws 

 

It will turn one of best combat flight sim become arcade game....

 

5 month will prove that The Dev.Team will "recreate" or just "re-used"  for this point

in next 5 month we  still have to read some kind like  this post again and again .... I'm sure.

 

S!

[HagarTheHorrible]

 

but "multiplier for the number of hits required to inflict significant damage" which @Hagar point out 

That made me seem to agree same way with @Jaws 

 

It will turn one of best combat flight sim become arcade game....

 

 

Maybe explain why it would turn it into an arcade game, it could be argued that hit boxes do that, but you accept them.

 

I'm certainly not suggesting the method I have mentioned is the only way or even a good way,  However it would be interesting to know what the community think, as expressed above, about getting the combat and weapons systems side of the game to be within realistic expectations, if anything needs to be done at all.

 

In flight sims we, or at least some of us, demand an FM to be as realistic as possible to the real aircraft, it seems however that we are far less concerned about accuracy (no pun intended) or fidelity when it comes to the combat side of things.  Certainly we like the technical side of things to be correct, by the numbers, and we like our graphic effects, but beyond that we don't tend to think about it too much.  I suppose it might be like comparing RoF/BoS's feeling of flight compared to that of other flight sims, it's less about the numbers and more about the feel.

 

There are two things that might make a combat less than authentic, when it comes to weapon deployment, from what I can see.  They are, firstly the whole sim, joystick, monitor thing does not necessarily reflect the difficulty of actually shooting down another aircraft (this element does not include the flying part in any way)  and secondly the amount of practice that sim pilots get compared to that of real pilots.

 

If these two things skew the combat side of the sim then you end up not accurately portraying what you intend, it negates the whole accurate FM thing, does it not ?  You essentially end up with a high fidelity flight sim with a combat GAME attached. 

 

Every effort should be made to try and have the combat side of the game match the high fidelity of the FM's and maybe, as with RoF and BoS, not just the fidelity but also the feel.  If this means that slight of hand needs to be employed to produce that and from the sim pilots perspective it is invisible then should the Dev's not utilize every device within their grasp to bring that about ?

[FuriousMeow]

The LaGG is already unstable, I can't imagine long range shooting being very easy.

 

The fact of the matter is, long range shooting is very possible and using a method to adjust it to make it impossible is going the opposite direction of high fidelity for the combat side.

 

Pilots held their fire until in close in order to make sure every round counted, not because it was impossible to hit from long range but some rounds may not while others do, and additionally it allowed for ammo to be conserved. More damage with less rounds, means you have more rounds to do more damage as opposed to wasting them all on long range spray and pray doing questionable amounts of damage.

 

The true problem I see is that too many individuals fly straight and level while extending away, and of course there are several who will sit back and spray and pray because they need that kill rather than disengaging and hunting down another target where they have a higher chance of success. So if rather than staying in a straight line while extending away, one were to fly a lazy weaving pattern the hit percentage of long range spray and pray goes down even further.

 

There are several factors that contribute to hitting at long range, but literally dumbing down accuracy because the one on the receiving end extends in a straight line is an artificial reduction to a scenario that could be prevented by a little manuevering.

 

I do not agree that artificially altering weapon accuracy makes for a higher fidelity, I think it compromises it.