Engine and fuel damage

[Boaty-McBoatface]

With all the great details we have modelled in the sim, especially regarding the damage detailing, I'm quite surprised I've not seen this talked about in length as it stands out as an odd arcadish effect.

The vapour from fuel leaks seems very excessive. Rifle caliber hit on a fuel tank starts emitting an enormous cloud of vapour as if it were pressurized, and lasts for a very long time.

Similarly, black smoke from 'Engine Damage' seems very excessive. I wonder since when does a 4 stroke piston engine start billowing black smoke like a chimney from the exhaust ports to that degree? In practice, some light black smoke would be from running overly rich or heavy black smoke of a fuel fire (and the fuel fires look amazing in the sim). Blue smoke would be from oil burning.

On that note, I still have no idea what 'Engine Damage' means. We see this message and then get large a large emission of black smoke from the exhaust ports, burning what I don't know, and propeller RPM becomes slightly unsteady.

Edited May 9, 2017 by B0SS

[Finkeren]

I could agree, that some of the particle effects from damage seem a bit overdone. The fuel leaks look a lot like what you see on some old phographs and gun cam footage, but that they look the same regardless of the size of the leak I agree is a bit of an issue. Likewise smoke probably could be slightly turned down and smoke from fire made less opague, which would look better. It's not something I'd have focused on a year ago, but with everything coming together so nicely, it might be something to look at.

 

On the other hand, I very much like the way "engine damage" is modeled in the sim. Actual engine damage from battle damage, mishandling or wear and tear could be hundreds, if not thousands, of different things, each producing different results. Obviously the devs have had to simplify it, creating a handful of different types of damage of different severity, progressing or stable, making the engine vulnerable to different sorts of mishandling. I like the way it's done. All of it 'feels' real and I love, that unlike some other sims throughout the years, your engine doesn't simply explode from damage or mishandling. You're never quite sure, what kind of damage you're dealing with, even with technochat turned on, and that's the point: As a pilot with limited knowledge about engines and just a few instruments to rely on, you're not supposed to know. The uncertainty is the beauty of it.

 

Apart from the visual representation (which could be better on a handful of points) and a few isolated issues, I think the DM is great and wouldn't want it changed in any major way.

Edited May 9, 2017 by Finkeren

[Finkeren]

Btw: One effect I do like is the coolant leak. This is more or less exactly what I'd expect a leaking fluid at or near boiling point leaking into freezing outside temperatures to look like.

[Haza]

Guys,

I'm happy to be corrected but the VR video that Jason did just before the VR patch appeared to have engine failure smoke on an aircraft he was following. Do you know if that effect has been included in the recent patch as that looked amazing as if the engine was spluttering before breaking up and failing!?

 

Regards

[Finkeren]

I think the video showed some new, simpler particle effects that are better optimized. I think they are meant for people who get poor performance from the smoke effects.

 

(That's off the top of my head, I might be wrong)

Edited May 9, 2017 by Finkeren

[Boaty-McBoatface]

On the other hand, I very much like the way "engine damage" is modeled in the sim. Actual engine damage from battle damage, mishandling or wear and tear could be hundreds, if not thousands, of different things, each producing different results. Obviously the devs have had to simplify it, creating a handful of different types of damage of different severity, progressing or stable, making the engine vulnerable to different sorts of mishandling. I like the way it's done. All of it 'feels' real and I love, that unlike some other sims throughout the years, your engine doesn't simply explode from damage or mishandling. You're never quite sure, what kind of damage you're dealing with, even with technochat turned on, and that's the point: As a pilot with limited knowledge about engines and just a few instruments to rely on, you're not supposed to know. The uncertainty is the beauty of it.

 

Apart from the visual representation (which could be better on a handful of points) and a few isolated issues, I think the DM is great and wouldn't want it changed in any major way.

 

 

Dude I totally agree with this. The damage is very good with the engine seizing at seemingly random intervals and seizing from overheating. In particular I'm a fan of the broken water coolers and the way you can manage the plane over long distances with careful low power settings and an eye on the temp gauges. In Clod the water cooler modelling was very crude - a 2-3 minute count-down and then pop, the engine just goes. 

 

Still I don't understand why 'engine damage' results in black smoke of some sort from the exhaust ports and seemingly no other critical symptoms. 

Edited May 9, 2017 by B0SS

[Finkeren]

Still I don't understand why 'engine damage' results in black smoke of some sort from the exhaust ports and seemingly no other critical symptoms.

In experience, what you are describing here is just one of the different "engine damage" results (black smoke, small loss of power, little or no rpm oscillation, usually not progressive or fatal - meaning you can fly the rest of the mission with it) I see this as possibly being the result of a failing spark plug or slight damage to a carbuerator that might result in one or more cylinders working less than optimally. I'm not at all an expert on engines, so I have no idea, if that would actually be the result, or if there could be some other explanation, but it seems fairly believable to me.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

I was hopping for new fuel system mechanic ,and visual engine damage as was promised I DD120, but now more important is rudder issue which I agree. They finally touch that subject and I suspect together​ with visual ​and vice versa more advanced modeling will show up.

Edited May 9, 2017 by 307_Tomcat

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

As I'm guessing fuel tank damage is simplified and if fuel is leaking it do from all fuel tanks together just decrementing global amount. Visual representation is also independent if hole is big or small, plus placing could be localized more pressasly but I don't know if that would change how it is see behind flying aircraft.

[EAF51_Jimmi]

With all the great details we have modelled in the sim, especially regarding the damage detailing, I'm quite surprised I've not seen this talked about in length as it stands out as an odd arcadish effect.

 

The vapour from fuel leaks seems very excessive. Rifle caliber hit on a fuel tank starts emitting an enormous cloud of vapour as if it were pressurized, and lasts for a very long time.

 

Similarly, black smoke from 'Engine Damage' seems very excessive. I wonder since when does a 4 stroke piston engine start billowing black smoke like a chimney from the exhaust ports to that degree? In practice, some light black smoke would be from running overly rich or heavy black smoke of a fuel fire (and the fuel fires look amazing in the sim). Blue smoke would be from oil burning.

 

On that note, I still have no idea what 'Engine Damage' means. We see this message and then get large a large emission of black smoke from the exhaust ports, burning what I don't know, and propeller RPM becomes slightly unsteady.

 

Agree!

 

Feel exactly the same!

 

badly smoking planes staying in combat forever is an immersion killer for me!

[19//Moach]

smoke IRL comes in different colours depending on what is wrong with your engine:

 

blue:  oil burning - this is bad, since you normally don't want oil to burn, and if it's doing that, then something's wrong with the way oil's flowing in your engine, and/or it's leaking out over the exhaust heads (broken gasket, cracked block, bad news)

 

black:  incomplete combustion - this can result from too rich mixtures, or from fuel leaking into the exhaust (backfiring) due to some issue with the valves - usually, black smoke means fuel-related problems of some sort

 

white:  coolant leak - coolant leaking into the cylinders and/or out the exhaust will cause a white vapour-like smoke, and that means you got a blown gasket and/or broken water jacket, this is bad, for obvious reasons

 

 

 

afaik, this sim just treats smoke as a non-information-carrying visual-only effect, seriously underestimating a pilot's capability to infer the nature of his trouble from such subtle cues as smoke colours 

 

 

but most frustrating, is how not only one cannot judge the severity of a fuel/coolant leak by the apparent size of the trail, it also means that upon receiving any damage which causes the slightest leak, you completely lose any chance of having your attacker lose sight of you, due to the oversized, cartoon-style trail that comes off your plane on a vast majority of encounters

 

this alone can result in an overwhelming bias to the first attacker, beyond that which is already true of aerial combat - since even one lucky shot makes a target almost impossible to lose, and effectively seals his fate in a way which could perhaps have been avoided by skillful use of camouflage

 

 

from this, it is almost guaranteed that he who draws smoke first will win the fight, unless someone else intervenes

 

 

also, leakage trails continue to pour out even after whatever was leaking is completely gone... so not even depletion of critical resources will save you from a determined attacker - so once you start trailing smoke, one might as well bail out, unless you get lucky (or have a buddy nearby)

 

 

 

this is just one of the many seemingly-trivial things in this game which have much larger results in practice

Edited May 11, 2017 by 19//Moach

[Ribbon]

Lets not forget that with each update that we paid and that will sell later keeping il2 franchise alive devs keep bringing platform updates and improvements so i guess that will come on it's turn as well.

Fact they are limited on resources it had to be done that way otherwise working alone on those things without further income could be nail in the coffin.

I can wait for that, BoK and PTO are more important to me, detail will follow it as seen so far.

And for me bigger immersion would be improved weather features bringing CB's so we must avoid certain heights and ice rain clouds, or weather changing with incoming storms (just me dreaming).

[SCG_Slater]

Lets not forget that with each update that we paid and that will sell later keeping il2 franchise alive devs keep bringing platform updates and improvements so i guess that will come on it's turn as well.

Fact they are limited on resources it had to be done that way otherwise working alone on those things without further income could be nail in the coffin.

I can wait for that, BoK and PTO are more important to me, detail will follow it as seen so far.

And for me bigger immersion would be improved weather features bringing CB's so we must avoid certain heights and ice rain clouds, or weather changing with incoming storms (just me dreaming).

 

I totally agree with this, weather features are much more important to me than engine damage visualization. I haven't seen any video footage from WW2 where you can see how it actually looked.

[Herne]

I don't know much about fuel leaks, but here is a glider dumping water ballast. I don't think that the fuel leaks are over done at all TBH

Edited May 16, 2017 by herne6210

[Boaty-McBoatface]

 

I don't know much about fuel leaks, but here is a glider dumping water ballast. I don't think that the fuel leaks are over done at all TBH

Cool pic man but I don't understand what you mean. That is dumping of a large quantity of water and yet a rifle caliber fuel leak effect here appears to be gushing even more. By that pic alone you can see there is a problem.

Edited May 17, 2017 by B0SS

[Finkeren]

Picture of an actual fuel leak:

 

 

Doesn't look too far from what we've got.

[Herne]

It's not as much as you might think. Glider wing ballast tanks hold about 40 litres each iirc correctly depending on the glider. One on each wing. It takes 5 minutes to dump the tanks through small drains in the lower wing. It actually looks damn impressive when you see 60 gliders finishing a competition crossing the line dumping water within minutes of each other. Bit of a flight safety nightmare in the circuit lol. Seen a few prangs on landing. The drains are small though iirc correctly. Will try to dig up some exact information for you.

[Boaty-McBoatface]

Hey that's interesting. So actually that's what 40 liters being released over 5 minutes looks like. I misunderstood 'dump' for something dramatic and instant.

 

It looks like a tremendous amount of liquid being released. Surprising.

Edited May 17, 2017 by B0SS

[Finkeren]

Hey that's interesting. So actually that's what 40 liters being released over 5 minutes looks like. I misunderstood 'dump' for something dramatic and instant.

 

It looks like a tremendous amount of liquid being released. Surprising.

 

When you release a liquid into the slipstream it comes out more or less as vapor. What you're seeing is more akin to a cloud than a sprinkle of water. The same thing goes for leaking fuel and (especially) leaking coolant at or near boiling point.

[Herne]

 

This is a picture of a wing drain, probably not a great deal larger than a bullet hole

 

Edit: I looked up the ASW 20. A 15 meter sports glider. It can hold a total of 26 imperial gallons, which is about 118 litres, although it wasn't specific about how this was split. I suspect it's 40 liters in each wing and the rest in the fuselage.

5 minute drain time still applies though. 

Edited May 17, 2017 by herne6210

[JaffaCake]

snip

 

 

https://mgrim.nl/_downloads/asw20l/asw20-flight-manual.pdf

 

It is all in the wings - there is no fuselage tank.

 

It feels a lot shorter to dump all of the ballast than the 5 minute quoted, could just be me.

 

Wonder how large the coolant tanks are in ww2 aircraft. I do not feel they would be larger than 5-10L.

Edited May 17, 2017 by JaffaCake

[BlitzPig_EL]

It's not just the header tank on a WW2 aircraft, it's the content of the entire cooling system.

 

A hit on a radiator, which on aircraft are typically the lowest point of the system would potentially drain the entire system.

 

I'm on my way out the door right now, but I'll try to find some typical coolant capacity numbers later.  For the P40 I expect it to be several gallons.

[Herne]

I was thinking ahead to the pacific theater, googled which aircraft were in battle of midway, and started reading up on some of the aircraft, I was surprised that the F2A Buffalo had self sealing tanks, so started to read up about that 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sealing_fuel_tank

I thought some of you might find it interesting in this thread, because they were saying that its not so much the entry into the fuel tank that's a problem, as the exit, because the bullet tumbles causing a larger exit hole.

I had no idea that this tech had been around since the first world war, but not all aircraft had them because they were heavier and had less fuel capacity.

[Finkeren]

And by the middle of WW2 they had become a lot less consequential, because the self sealing aspect only really works against smaller caliber projectiles.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Regarding vapor/smoke visibility.

Real engines emits black smoke when run on to reach mixture at high altitude. This was implemented in Rise of Flight, i would like to see this as part of exhaust smoke implemented in BOX. Plus misuse engine or quick change of engine load would be visible to. It would add to situation awareness and reveal clearly what enemy intends to do.

Edited May 17, 2017 by 307_Tomcat

[BlitzPig_EL]

OK gents, this is the one I could find...

 

Page 24 of the P51 pilot's operating manual lists the coolant capacity of the V 1650 Merlin powered P51D as 16.5 US Gallons.  It was a high pressure system operating at 30psi. when at normal temps.

 

A hole in the radiator will end your day quite quickly.

[HagarTheHorrible]

I always understood coolant leaks to appear as a thin, white stream, if memory serves that's what attacking pilots normally describe. Also bare in mind that coolant/glycol is basically antifreeze so shouldn't form a cloud stream when released, unlike water as with the glider photo.

 

Just because a fuel cell has been holed doesn't mean it will escape to the outside. Air pressure from the slipstream would quite possibly stop some/most fuel from escaping outside the aircraft if only to slosh around elsewhere, not necessarily a whole lot more appetising for the pilot if less dramatic to the onlooker. Fuel would presumably also have an antifreeze element making it less likely to condense, cloud like, maybe not to the same extent as coolant but still apparent.

 

Smoke seems to be a one size fits all. No allowance for type, size or accelerant of fire or if extinguished by the crew. Do we assume that fuel tank fires are probably only from catastrophic damage and that most are probably "other", the most likely being engine fire from oil or fuel pipe, both of which could reasonably be expected to be contained.

 

Of course anything is possible given the right circumstances, the question is prevalence.

 

Hopefully there will be a Mod for it in the near future.

Edited May 21, 2017 by HagarTheHorrible

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

I always understood coolant leaks to appear as a thin, white stream, if memory serves that's what attacking pilots normally describe. Also bare in mind that coolant/glycol is basically antifreeze so shouldn't form a cloud stream when released, unlike water as with the glider photo.

 

Just because a fuel cell has been holed doesn't mean it will escape to the outside. Air pressure from the slipstream would quite possibly stop some/most fuel from escaping outside the aircraft if only to slosh around elsewhere, not necessarily a whole lot more appetising for the pilot if less dramatic to the onlooker. Fuel would presumably also have an antifreeze element making it less likely to condense, cloud like, maybe not to the same extent as coolant but still apparent.

 

Smoke seems to be a one size fits all. No allowance for type, size or accelerant of fire or if extinguished by the crew. Do we assume that fuel tank fires are probably only from catastrophic damage and that most are probably "other", the most likely being engine fire from oil or fuel pipe, both of which could reasonably be expected to be contained.

 

Of course anything is possible given the right circumstances, the question is prevalence.

 

Hopefully there will be a Mod for it in the near future.

 

Having anti freeze doesn't mean that it wouldn't form a "cloud" when released, it just decreases the freezing temperature to less than 0°C. The clouds you see (and actual clouds as well) are just lots of tiny droplets together, which the liquid forms when dispersed into the air, or when water vapor condenses as humid air rapidly cools off (like engine exhaust gases at high altitude).

 

There are some good guncam footage videos showing fuel leaks and fires:

 

(this one has rather bad audio effects, so you would like to turn down/off the volume)

 

 

A picture of a 109 leaking coolant from the right wing radiator, you can see the damage in the wing just above the radiator.

 

 

And this gif showing a 109 getting shot with what appears to be mg fire, piercing both radiators and maybe even the central fuel tank

 

[Yogiflight]

The air streaming along your aircraft does not cause high pressure, but low pressure around your aircraft, it really sucks the fuel out of an open fuel tank.

What I always wonder, shouldn't the fuel be more yellow- brownish, instead of green? Green would be more likely the glycole in the water coolant.

[Finkeren]

What I always wonder, shouldn't the fuel be more yellow- brownish, instead of green? Green would be more likely the glycole in the water coolant.

Actually I'd expect fuel leaking out as a spray or a vapor cloud to form pretty little rainbows, the same way leaked fuel on the ground does.

[=EXPEND=CG_Justin]

The air streaming along your aircraft does not cause high pressure, but low pressure around your aircraft, it really sucks the fuel out of an open fuel tank.

What I always wonder, shouldn't the fuel be more yellow- brownish, instead of green? Green would be more likely the glycole in the water coolant.

 

Modern 100LL avgas today is tinted blue. I don't know what it was colored as back then, though I think US avgas had multiple colors depending on grade. As for the other factions, no clue.

 

Also, when it comes to hot coolant/glycol, if you have ever had a coolant leak in your automobile you know it most certainly makes a good amount of steam and vapor, especially when the engine continues to run and the water pump is pushing the fluid out rapidly. Imagine the same coolant at colder temps aloft. It would most certainly make a pretty big stream behind the aircraft with both the propwash and slipstream around the aircraft. I think what we have in the game is very believable currently.

[Yogiflight]

I absolutely agree, that it looks quite believable, what we see in game, I only was wondering about the green colour of the fuel vapor.

[HagarTheHorrible]

In that last guncam clip, do you think that is possibly DeWilde rounds hitting the airframe, with the little puffs of smoke ?

[deWaardt]

I've always wondered about the black smoke.

 

I thought it indicated an oil leak or something, but the amount of smoke/vapor was insane.

But most of the time, the tech chat just says "First engine damaged", and that's it.

 

Following that I fly half a hour home on full throttle and full rpm. Other times, thick black smoke and the engine quits within half a minute. Even on idle.

 

 

I do absolutely love the engine damage modelling, thanks 1C-777! It's some of the best I've ever seen!

It feels very alive and realistic. When trying to limp my damaged plane home with no coolant and an oil leak, barely making it to the runway before the engine sputters out and slowly seizes up.

 

 

I do love to see some more improvements, maybe some more different kinds of damage, and like this thread suggests, more realistic smoke representation.

And sound.

 

I don't know how noticeable knocking/ticking sounds will be in an aircraft this noisy, but anyone who has ever heard rod knock will never forget that sound.

It's loud, hard and terrifying.

[SCG_motoadve]

Smoke and fuel leaks very overdone, gun sounds not realistic at all.

 

The team gets so many amazing details in this sim,hope they make more realistic smokes and fuel leaks, less its better than more (if you are trying to simulate as real as possible)

[ShamrockOneFive]

I don't know about the effects being overdone... some of these from this old AP video are dramatic.

 

 

Perhaps more dramatic than what we see sometimes although I can certainly see the devs trying to recreate the effects at least reasonably closely.

[19//Moach]

the feeling of oversized effects is not actually based on comparisons with live footage of this stuff

 

what seems to me as being "off" is how the damage decals and the apparent size of the damage in game, does not necessarily correspond to a matching size of the smoke trails coming from them

 

 

so often you get struck with what appear like holes which would not justify the size and density of the smoke trails coming out of them - and that is what looks weird

 

it may be so that it's not the smoke that is too big, it's the holes that are too small for them

 

 

it is hard to tell from most gun camera films just how big those impact holes are, and that makes it impossible to establish a relationship between surface damage and the resulting smoke

 

 

 

now, if someone can find film in which the target is close enough that both the surface damage and smoke trails are clearly visible - then we'll have a really good lead to go by

 

 

 

but for the most part - while fuel particles would scatter into a puffy cloud, and become more visible in the airstream than they'd be on a stationary leak, it still does not make sense that once whatever is leaking has exhausted completely, the trail still remains (there's nothing left to leak, so what are we looking at?) -- it should eventually stop

 

 

the black smoke from the engine is the most "wrong" aspect in my opinion... this is because oil burns to a whitish-blue smoke, not black -- unburnt fuel is black/brown, but it does not look like "smoke from a ship's  coal furnaces" like the game shows

 

oil is much a much thicker liquid also, and if leaking it would probably not create a black "plume" like we have here - the oil (and fuel) leak effects from CloD are vastly more believable in this sense, see:

 

 

 

apparently, this has been brought up before - as I only had to google it to find that picture already made with the captions in place - I did not check where it came from, but evidently, it was meant to demonstrate the exact same point being made here (edit:  it came from this thread)

Edited May 24, 2017 by 19//Moach

[Riderocket]

Smoke and fuel leaks very overdone, gun sounds not realistic at all.

 

The team gets so many amazing details in this sim,hope they make more realistic smokes and fuel leaks, less its better than more (if you are trying to simulate as real as possible)

Believe it or not, the gun sounds were changed after the P40 was released because people couldn't hear their Browning's.

It was at a realistic volume before (like a deep soft muffled sound), but i guess you can't please everyone!

 

So after that they made the gun sounds more audible, then people started complaining *AGAIN* about how they shouldn't be able to hear it (after complaining they couldn't hear it)

 

People need to stop complaining.

 

 

Edit: Check Under Announcements/Game Updates/2.003, under Features added, #6 says;

6. New gunfire sounds added.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Riderocket

[19//Moach]

people will complain - but I find it absurd that a team who is allegedly devoted to realism would cater to please those asking for "hollywood style effects" without at least offering the option to select a realistic alternative to the many others who expect it (realism is the underlying premise isn't it? if not - please let us know asap, so that we may direct these expectations elsewhere)

 

this is the exact kind of thing that is perfect subject for a checkbox in an options menu -- you cannot please both with the same solution - so the best alternative is not a compromise, nor is it a "democratic" choice -- the best alternative is really two alternatives in such a case

 

 

I would very much like to see a selection box for "realistic gun sounds" as well as for "realistic effects scaling" - it's very likely the ONLY way everybody will get a solution that they can agree on

 

this is easier to implement for gun sounds than for visual effects, since audio playback volume is one single almost-independent parameter, whereas particle sizing can easily affect the end result if other emitter settings (such as spacing) aren't adjusted to match

 

I can only strongly recommend that this is done, anyways - as no single compromise solution is likely to be accepted in consensus

Edited May 24, 2017 by 19//Moach

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

I don't think they are too much overdone as some people think... maybe a correlation between the damage size and the leak could be adjusted (rifle cal damage leak < 20mm cannon damage leak), but other than that in regards to fire (fuel fires specially) the effect can be quite dramatic IRL as well:

 

Some images below of planes on fire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One fire effect we don't have currently but would be a nice addition is this kind without smoke (or very thin/ transparent one):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In regards to water radiator leaks imho it isn't far away from reality:

 

 

 

 

The last frame of one of the gifs I posted earlier