Carrier/Ship Damage Model

[Legioneod]

I know Midway is a long way off but I thought it would be interesting to start discussing and giving idea about the damage model of ships.

 

In most games ships are just made up of health points and once you deplete it's health points it sinks, but I think it would be much more immersive and accurate if ships had a damage model similar to aircraft or maybe even a more dynamic damage model.

 

 

Instead of ships just being made up of hp why not use a hitbox type system that can simulate ship durability and random events. For instance, if a bomb hits a carriers flight deck it could damage it and prevent aircraft from taking off or it may start a fire and ignite fuel or the magazine, etc.

 

Things I would like to see if possible.

 

-Damage control teams: Ships (especially carriers) should have damage control teams that help to keep the ship in working order and help to make repairs, put out fires, etc.

 

-The ability for fires to spread and effect other things (flight deck, magazine, aa, etc.)

 

-Ability to damage the flight deck and prevent aircraft from taking off (should be able to be repaired for gameplay reasons)

 

-Torpedoes causing the ship to flood in a realistic way and cause it to list to the side that was hit or to the side that has more water in it.

 

-engine damage, engines can be damaged and cause the ship to lose power and stop thereby making it an easier target.

 

-hanger damage, if a bomb hits the carrier hangar it could effect the amount of planes available to spawn in (simulating aircraft damage and loss)

 

-internal systems simulated to help keep the ship alive (bulkheads, watertight doors, etc that the ai can simulate closing off in order to keep the ship from sinking etc)

 

-listing, if a ship list too much it can capsize or cause the flightdeck to be unusable.

 

-visual destruction: ship pieces blowing apart, ships splitting up, burns/soot on places that fires have been, etc.

 

 

Ships aren't easy to kill or sink, and hp system is too simple and would make gameplay kinda boring imo. I want killing a ship to be a challenge (aiming for vital things like the flight deck, hangar, engine room, magazine, etc.)

 

 

 

[56RAF_Roblex]

In an ideal world then yes, but I suspect that they will have their hands full just making two sets of Carriers in the first place then making it possible to land on even when the deck is moving.  It is possible,  IL2-46 had big carriers & escort carriers and they operated in big seas quite happily.  The only issue they had was that planes spawned onto the flight deck so sometimes there were conflicts and someone would spawn on top of another plane killing both.  What it needs is set of spawn points to the rear then no more spawns allowed until one is free.  Automatically moving the next aircraft to a 'launch position' may help otherwise a sluggish player from the first wave may find new planes spawning in front of him. If they had huge amounts of time & money it would be nice if we had elevators to bring the aircraft up & put them away after landing (even if they only take 5 seconds to operate) to stop collisions and add realism but I would be happy to just have IL2-46 style carriers for now.  1CGS say that it is not quite as easy as copying the IL-46 carriers though because we all expect so much more eye-candy and detail and functionality.

Edited September 16, 2017 by 56RAF_Roblex

[BlitzPig_EL]

Some of your points make sense, though having high definition DMs for ships will be a heavy load, not only on our computers, but also on the dev team.

 

As to damage control parties, this is a GIGANTIC can of worms.   Being a simulation, are you willing to accept that a proper simulation of DC Parties will mean that Japanese ships will effectively have none, and that Allied ships will be VERY tough to sink?  It might be viable for single player, but absolutely will not be greeted well in multiplayer.  Also given the length of most game sessions, on or off line, realistic sinking and damage control times would pretty much mean that we would almost never see a ship sink.

[Royal_Flight]

RE: Sinking ships, there could be a combined approach of hitpoints + more realistic sinking mechanics.

Each ship has multiple areas feeding into an overall hitpoint tally which is dynamic to an extent - multiple small bomb hits can chip away at overall health, maybe with a percentage chance to cause more damage (to simulate hitting a magazine or fuel tank etc) while a torpedo below the waterline takes off a much greater chunk off the health bar.

 

When the shop gets past the predetermined value it begins to sink, which it does in a way that matches the most recent large bit of damage incurred (torpedoed - heavy listing to the side of impact before capsizing, bombs to the deck - fire breaks out, magazine hit - explosion and straight to the bottom).

 

So the damage is calculated by hitpoints but they in turn triggers the visual appearance of the ship loss. And after a ship kill, it could slowly sink over a period of minutes or hours as appropriate.

It would be much more visually immersive to torpedo a ship, RTB and rearm and when you come back for a second run to see destroyed ships listing, burning or surrounded by oil slicks and lifeboats, rather than to have them all sink instantly they are destroyed and vanish from sight.

[56RAF_Roblex]

  Also given the length of most game sessions, on or off line, realistic sinking and damage control times would pretty much mean that we would almost never see a ship sink.

 

Back in the original IL2-46 (or was it further back in Warbirds?)  someone ran a 'Midway' scenario ie it started at a set time and lasted 3-4 hours then stopped.  It was great fun.   It started with two Carriers per side 'somewhere' in the Pacific then we had to send out (unarmed?) SBDs in all directions trying to find the enemy fleet. Once we had found them we came back with the location and launched our strikes.  Obviously the IJN team was doing the same.  It was a 'One Life' scenario so just to add interest for any pilots shot down,  you could have one more life once the US carriers had been found as a kamikaze pilot operating from a land base.

It modelled 'listing' as I remember trying to land on a tilted deck after the IJN had hit it badly.

 

 

EDIT:  I found some pics in an ancient folder labelled 'WB' so it was Warbirds way back in Dec 2000.  Here is my SBD heading out for the search.

 

Edited September 16, 2017 by 56RAF_Roblex

[JtD]

A reasonable damage modelling including damage control party mechanisms would pose a heavy load on the dev team, yes, but not on the computer. The great Great Naval battles series was reasonably detailed (for a naval sim back then, for a flight sim today) and it ran on computers that were less powerful than a modern sound chip.

 

I don't want hitpoints, I want structural integrity, buoyancy, stability. It's not that hard to do.

[Stig]

No matter how realistic the DM, it would not mitigate the much higher bombing accuracy of sim pilots compared to the real life pilots, I would think the amount of damage done per sortie would make it 'look' unrealistic anyway.  

[Guest deleted@30725]

Everything you write is an ideal world situation. I think if there was the money, time and resources this would be a thing and who knows... maybe something similar will happen. At some point in developing anything you have to draw a line on what you want and what you can achieve with the time and budget you have.

[Legioneod]

RE: Sinking ships, there could be a combined approach of hitpoints + more realistic sinking mechanics.

Each ship has multiple areas feeding into an overall hitpoint tally which is dynamic to an extent - multiple small bomb hits can chip away at overall health, maybe with a percentage chance to cause more damage (to simulate hitting a magazine or fuel tank etc) while a torpedo below the waterline takes off a much greater chunk off the health bar.

 

When the shop gets past the predetermined value it begins to sink, which it does in a way that matches the most recent large bit of damage incurred (torpedoed - heavy listing to the side of impact before capsizing, bombs to the deck - fire breaks out, magazine hit - explosion and straight to the bottom).

 

So the damage is calculated by hitpoints but they in turn triggers the visual appearance of the ship loss. And after a ship kill, it could slowly sink over a period of minutes or hours as appropriate.

It would be much more visually immersive to torpedo a ship, RTB and rearm and when you come back for a second run to see destroyed ships listing, burning or surrounded by oil slicks and lifeboats, rather than to have them all sink instantly they are destroyed and vanish from sight.

I like this idea and it could be a good compromise.

 

The main thing is that I don't want ships to just sink and then it's game over. I want there to be some skill involved with sinking ships.

 

Another thing I'd like to see is ships being disabled but still afloat, ships wont sink unless they are damaged below the waterline or they start taking on water somehow so I think it would be interesting to be able to make ships unusable while still achieving the same affect as sinking the ship.

 

 

I'm really just hoping for the basic things like ship listing, damaging the flight deck, weapons, magazine, etc. and dynamic sinking time based on damage and if the ship is hit below the water or not. I'd also like to see damage spread and potentially cause other types of damage.

 

EDIT: I know these things take time and money but they are nowhere near impossible and can always be added later.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Legioneod