Messerschmitt 109 durability

[=RvE=Windmills]

Then maybe this is a lesson in being more specific with your grievances?

 

It's funny that you get hyper defensive when the test does a pretty decent job at addressing the 'muh 109 is glass' claim.

[=EXPEND=13SchwarzeHand]

Well the test doesn’t address it...

It supports that the Dev‘s assumptions about structural strength are actually implemented in the game. Nice job...

Edited February 12, 2018 by =EXPEND=SchwarzeDreizehn

[Panthera]

The skin in a truss-constructed fuselage isn't taking any loads, is only needed for aerodynamics. A HE round exploding on its surface may not damage the load bearing structure at all. Basically, it acts like a shield on contact fused shells...

 

Maybe this supposed Yak's resilience to HE is the way it should be?

 

 

Well it's the wings which are the weak part on the Yak, not the fuselage. Also German HE shells were designed to explode some time after penetration if hitting thin objects like fabric, and to explode on contact when hitting hard objects or liquid. 

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

I think the issue with the 109's tail is because of the elevators position above the vertical stabilizer connection with the fuselage, and how the in game models brake up. I think Han told us that the planes break at determined points depending on the structure, usually when different parts connect, that's why for example the wings tend to break either at the wing root or one particular point in the middle.


This affects the 109 because losing the vertical stabilizer also means losing the elevators, even if say the damage was done in the upper part.

 

A "fix" could be to add a second breaking point above the elevators... although if the damage is done below it would still result in the entire tail being torn off. If one day we get the Korea expansion the MiG-15s would suffer from the same because of the T tail desing I guess.

 

Another case of these predetermined breaking points that could use a bit more detail is in the Pe-2, if you take the gunner and shoot at one of the vertical stabilizers you will see that the entire tail assembly falls off, taking out the elevator with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2018 by -=PHX=-SuperEtendard

[Ehret]

Well it's the wings which are the weak part on the Yak, not the fuselage. Also German HE shells were designed to explode some time after penetration if hitting thin objects like fabric, and to explode on contact when hitting hard objects or liquid. 

 

Not entire fuselages were covered in fabric - soviets used thin, but multi-layered wood panels with hard fiberglass-like finish on the surface. Unless game engine exposes more precise statistics, most claims about "what hit what part of a plane, and to what effect" are subjective, IMHO.

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

Not entire fuselages were covered in fabric - soviets used thin, but multi-layered wood panels with hard fiberglass-like finish on the surface. Unless game engine exposes more precise statistics, most claims about "what hit what part of a plane, and to what effect" are subjective, IMHO.

 

Yep, in the case of the Yak the lower sides of the fuselage were those covered in fabric

 

 

Red is fabric, brown is wood and light blue is metal.

[[110]xJammer]

And the same in reverse... from a vid posted by JG4_Karaya

 

https://gfycat.com/WideeyedWetChinesecrocodilelizard

 

 

Interesting that the yak took all of the hits centreline, i.e. mostly hitting the pilot / rear fuselage / tail surfaces. While 109 mostly took hits to the wings and tail. With only 1 of the hits penetrating through the fuselage to set the radiator leak. IMO that yak took a lot of HE damage to the tail and surprised he was still flying. However the 109 just taking 1 hit to the radiator, the rest being wingtip/wingroot damage seems reasonable, esp as its AP rounds not HE.

Edited February 12, 2018 by xJammer

[Willy__]

 

 

Interesting that the yak took all of the hits centreline, i.e. mostly hitting the pilot / rear fuselage / tail surfaces. While 109 mostly took hits to the wings and tail. With only 1 of the hits penetrating through the fuselage to set the radiator leak. IMO that yak took a lot of HE damage to the tail and surprised he was still flying. However the 109 just taking 1 hit to the radiator, the rest being wingtip/wingroot damage seems reasonable, esp as its AP rounds not HE.

 

FYI, it was a LA-5 with the full AP belt, as it doesnt have tracers 

[unreasonable]

I think the issue with the 109's tail is because of the elevators position above the vertical stabilizer connection with the fuselage, and how the in game models brake up. I think Han told us that the planes break at determined points depending on the structure, usually when different parts connect, that's why for example the wings tend to break either at the wing root or one particular point in the middle.

 

 

This affects the 109 because losing the vertical stabilizer also means losing the elevators, even if say the damage was done in the upper part.

 

A "fix" could be to add a second breaking point above the elevators... although if the damage is done below it would still result in the entire tail being torn off. If one day we get the Korea expansion the MiG-15s would suffer from the same because of the T tail desing I guess.

 

Another case of these predetermined breaking points that could use a bit more detail is in the Pe-2, if you take the gunner and shoot at one of the vertical stabilizers you will see that the entire tail assembly falls off, taking out the elevator with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My casual observation of watching 109s get shot down by flak is that the tail loss events did not often happen due to a break along the red line in your diagram - but from the whole tail unit coming off along a vertical line along the panel line down from the left edge of your red line.  

 

This looks very spectacular, so I may have just noticed this more often - but in practical terms from the pilot's POV I suppose no different from losing your elevators alone.

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

My casual observation of watching 109s get shot down by flak is that the tail loss events did not often happen due to a break along the red line in your diagram - but from the whole tail unit coming off along a vertical line along the panel line down from the left edge of your red line.  

 

This looks very spectacular, so I may have just noticed this more often - but in practical terms from the pilot's POV I suppose no different from losing your elevators alone.

 

Was that heavy-medium flak? I don't remember now if I have seen that kind of break, maybe it happens against high caliber fire?

 

With the straight flying 109 in the 72 AG training server one can take a Pe-2 and make it fly in formation with the 109, then fire the .50 cal at the tail and usually the tail comes off by the base of the vertical stabilizer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by -=PHX=-SuperEtendard

[unreasonable]

The flak tests were all done with either K-61 (37mm) or 37mm and 20mm German flak.  As I said earlier on I was counting the damage outcome in functional terms (shot down, smoking, superficial) rather than the specific way in which aircraft per hit, but it was clear that most of the hits were from the rear quarter and the 109 tail loss was noticeably dramatic!  

 

I expect that a rear hit from a 20mm to 37 mm shell must be doing much more dispersed damage than pin point strikes with a .50 cal, so I do not doubt your observations in that specific case: just not sure that you can generalize from it. 

 

Having said all of this I am going to have to go back and watch the 109 vs 20mm flak a few times and see if the 20mm takes the whole tail off: most of the test runs were vs 37mm, and I know they snip a whole 109 tail off no problem!

 

 

EDIT: having just watched one run of the 20mm flak test we got one 109 shot down due to tail loss - and that one broke just where you said with the red line. So perhaps the vertical break needs the heavy damage of a 37mm shell. Either way, it is academic from the pilot's POV.

Edited February 13, 2018 by unreasonable

[FTC_DerSheriff]

And the same in reverse... from a vid posted by JG4_Karaya

 

https://gfycat.com/WideeyedWetChinesecrocodilelizard

I know late comment on that. But I am confident that this was recorded on an old version of Il2, The strikes are still behind the aircraft. In the patch which fixed this the power of HE shells got increased as well. 

Furthermore this "I have footage" game can be played countless times.

 

https://youtu.be/a78KtgLeYMM?t=551

 

 

There are a issues with AP penetration but the 109 isn't made of glass anymore. Tho like commented above loses elevators a bit to easy.

That 109 in the clip above the quoted post got hit several times by 20 mm AP shells. Lucky man.

 

Tests are the way to go. To post in game clips is nice and stuff, but nothing replaces a well done test. 

 

My anecdotal experience tells me that 109s and yaks are down with a well aimed burst. 109s weakness is the tail whereas Yaks weakness are the wings.

Both aircraft can be shot down with just one/two round hits those areas (mind you I mean its possible, not that it works every time) Other aircraft are a bit more tough. Like the La Series or the Fw, but they are suffering  of incidences of spontaneous disassembly as well.

 

 

 

[JaffaCake]

I know late comment on that. But I am confident that this was recorded on an old version of Il2, The strikes are still behind the aircraft. In the patch which fixed this the power of HE shells got increased as well. 

Furthermore this "I have footage" game can be played countless times.

 

https://youtu.be/a78KtgLeYMM?t=551

 

 

There are a issues with AP penetration but the 109 isn't made of glass anymore. Tho like commented above loses elevators a bit to easy.

That 109 in the clip above the quoted post got hit several times by 20 mm AP shells. Lucky man.

 

Tests are the way to go. To post in game clips is nice and stuff, but nothing replaces a well done test. 

 

My anecdotal experience tells me that 109s and yaks are down with a well aimed burst. 109s weakness is the tail whereas Yaks weakness are the wings.

Both aircraft can be shot down with just one/two round hits those areas (mind you I mean its possible, not that it works every time) Other aircraft are a bit more tough. Like the La Series or the Fw, but they are suffering  of incidences of spontaneous disassembly as well.

 

 

 

 

 

The annoying part here is that the devs really do not provide any way to reliably test the game.

 

Simple "console" type tool, where you could have several options (like no gravity, "ghost" spectator mode, select the "ammo" for your flare gun etc. Ability to "fix" the spectator to a specific object...) would simplify the setup by so much and remove the entire anecdotal argument or poorly designed or "too specific" tests that people have tried to in the past.

 

109 nowadays does feel a lot sturdier from the back, but its engine still dies from literally 1 hit from pe2 gunner. On the contrary one can be filling a yak's engine with 7.65mm twin mg on the back of 110-g2 until the gun overheats and starts spraying in a 45 degree cone to only watch the yak fly away after you disintegrate.

 

 

Edit: My belief, however meaningless, is that the devs are not willing to provide such test tools for 2 reasons - dev time needed to implement them, however simple. And the fact that the players will then start coming to them with results that actually cannot be disputed by a simple "your test is faulty because *random reason that is easy to come up with, because of how difficult it is to setup reliable experiments*" - which in turn means more dev time needed to fix these, which they aren't willing to afford (like many other non game-breaking bugs in this game)

Edited February 13, 2018 by JaffaCake

[=EXPEND=Tripwire]

 

 

I know late comment on that. But I am confident that this was recorded on an old version of Il2, The strikes are still behind the aircraft. In the patch which fixed this the power of HE shells got increased as well.

 

I think you are right. It was posted well after the patch dropped, but it does look like older footage viewing the splash damage.

 

 

Another comment, having been on the receiving side of many attacks is that if I loose half of my horizontal stabilizer, my ability to absorb battle damage seems to increase somewhat. Almost like the game engine seems to mark that section of the plane as destroyed, and further hits do less damage. That, or additional "forces" from loosing the stabilizer controls removes 'stress' from other parts of the airframe?

 

Hard to explain, but its occurred several times to me flying a 109.

[BubiHUN]

On 2018. 02. 11. at 5:10 AM, unreasonable said:

 

Rubbish. They are marginally less durable than a Yak.  How do I know this? Because I have tested them in an airfield attack mission using identical flak opposition and flight paths.

 

When put up against the 20mm Flak 38, the 109s take the same number of hits as the Yaks. The Yaks are marginally more likely to escape from the hit without being shot down or sustaining oil, water or fuel leaks: compare lines 5 and 6 in the table.

 

sure 

 

[JaffaCake]

22 minutes ago, -[HRAF]BubiHUN said:

sure 

 

 

 

The target is  clearly auto-level straight flying, so it can't be lag or network issues that would cause durability of that level. Pe2 burst of that duration would have taken the wing clean off too...

[Nightrise]

2 hours ago, -[HRAF]BubiHUN said:

sure 

 

Pretty sure that the old DM, see how the smoke clouds are behind the aircraft. that or good old fashioned lag. 

[JaffaCake]

Just now, =FEW=nightrise said:

Pretty sure that the old DM, see how the smoke clouds are behind the aircraft. that or good old fashioned lag. 

 

Not op, but those smoke clouds are not the old-era HE clouds that were a long distance away from the aircraft - they spawned right in the model in the video. Also, whatever it may say - the upload date of these videos is in the last few days.

[Nightrise]

Just now, JaffaCake said:

 

Not op, but those smoke clouds are not the old-era HE clouds that were a long distance away from the aircraft - they spawned right in the model in the video. Also, whatever it may say - the upload date of these videos is in the last few days.

hence why i said that it might also be lag. From my experience of shooting at and being shot at in Russian aircraft they don't take that many rounds and not feel it after. 

[BubiHUN]

10 minutes ago, =FEW=nightrise said:

hence why i said that it might also be lag. From my experience of shooting at and being shot at in Russian aircraft they don't take that many rounds and not feel it after. 

if you are right, why that plane didnt popping backwards and forwards? 
Just asking. Could it be netcode? Maybe server issues?

[FTC_DerSheriff]

Yeah looks weird. Its the current DM. But after flying 3 months of reds I recently switched back to blue and in most cases 3-5 hits are enough. And i am sure that the guy in the footage was factually shot down. maybe even lost parts after a few manevuers. Sometimes it takes a bit of manuevering. And he looked pretty wrecked in all other regards.

edit:
maybe i should make a short montage. Just of the last few days, to have a different perspective . I have at least one clip because it was beautiful:

 

Edited March 5, 2018 by DerSheriff
added video and stuff

[Nightrise]

Just now, -[HRAF]BubiHUN said:

if you are right, why that plane didnt popping backwards and forwards? 
Just asking. Could it be netcode? Maybe server issues?

It doesnt do it all the time, from my experience what happened their is in no way the norm and is more than likely the server not registering the hits properly. 

[JaffaCake]

My belief is that the damage dealt by aircraft in this game is on the side of the shooter. And is not confirmed by the server or the other client. (i.e. client-side or client-trust based networking)

 

That is, if someone has a terrible connection, but on their screen they are able to shoot you - you will take damage, even if on your side the bullets are off by a mile. This has happened to me several times in the previous patch, when one of the players had incredible lag and packet loss to the server.

 

So if what I said is actually the case, the damage dealt to that aircraft should be based on what the shooter has observed.

 

 

Edit: Just to clarify - my belief is that the shooter provides the calculated damage to the server, which then redirects that to the victim, who then "confirms"? the damage. For this reason you can have invulnerable hack, as you can just dismiss any damage reports coming from the server.

 

2nd Edit: Even if I am wrong, and the victim is the one to take the damage, he was clearly flying auto-level with no lag. The 2 possibilities are broken synchronisation, which is unlikely as we see no stutter or jumps (usually full update after desync was detected). OR that indeed stalinium is still in the game full-force.

Edited March 5, 2018 by JaffaCake

[Stig]

My observations from SP is that I'll sometimes see the same as the OP's video; seemingly the target is absolutely wrecked, but flies on smoking and leaking fluids and apparently in control. To me it seems that sometimes the visual effect of the rounds hitting the airframe is spectacular, maybe even overdone but the damage is not catastrophic. Other times it's like Sheriff's video, a tap of the firing button and the the enemy is destroyed. There also the odd occasion when I can't understand how I'm missing my deflections shots pass after pass on an Il2, not seeing any hits at all; then suddenly it drops out the sky and crashes. 

[unreasonable]

Since that video was posted in response to a post by me a while ago and I missed it - still finding new forum hard to use - here is a late response.

 

My conclusions on the relative durability of Yak and 109 are based on observing and documenting what happens when 46 aircraft are engaged by 8 LAA guns,  each test run being repeated ten times. This means about 115 aircraft hit in the cumulative tests for each scenario of Yak and 109 vs 20mm Flak. 

 

BubiHUN posts a single cherry picked example of a Yak seeming to take an unreasonable amount of damage (from online) - and appears to believe that this constitutes a refutation of my conclusions.

 

I have nothing more to say except that BubiHUN needs to learn some statistics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Willy__]

13 hours ago, unreasonable said:

BubiHUN posts a single cherry picked example of a Yak seeming to take an unreasonable amount of damage (from online) - and appears to believe that this constitutes a refutation of my conclusions.

 

Its a LaGG3 on the video he posted.....

[unreasonable]

1 hour ago, Staiger said:

 

Its a LaGG3 on the video he posted.....

 

Fair point - but his posting of the video along with my table is intended as a refutation on my table or why bother to post them together? The base test mission is still available in Custard's thread. Anyone who wants to can edit it to replace the planes with LaGG3s or anything else, and set the flak to 20mm, then spend several hours running ten test runs and counting the results. (I have no intention of doing it).  I doubt that the results for LaGG3s would be significantly different than for Yaks, but anyone is free to try and prove otherwise.

 

My point stands - given that we do not have the details of the construction of the DMs, you can only make valid generalizations about them from statistically significant sample sizes. 

[Willy__]

I would account that as bad ping/bad netcode. I had similar issues, even worst ones, where I was diving on a IL2, shot him up to bits, only to see all the smoke puffs and he literally, and I mean literally stopped in the air, he was neither going forward nor upward/downwards, after I was almost 1km away from him his plane just exploded and a few seconds later my plane just desintegrated... very weird.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Staiger

[JaffaCake]

4 hours ago, Staiger said:

I would account that as bad ping/bad netcode. I had similar issues, even worst ones, where I was diving on a IL2, shot him up to bits, only to see all the smoke puffs and he literally, and I mean literally stopped in the air, he was neither going forward nor upward/downwards, after I was almost 1km away from him his plane just exploded and a few seconds later my plane just desintegrated... very weird.

 

 

Its easy to account all mistakes on netcode, but you have to have some evidence of net being the issue - which are not present in the video. There is no stutter, no lag or jumps. Everything is super smooth with no indication that net could be the issue.

 

Its frustrating how all of these discussions boil down to our inability to perform reliable tests on the aircraft (I do not consider the AAA test as reliable. even for a simple lack of assurance that AI-only unit is using the identical damage modelling to player-controlled weapons).

 

 

Edit: We have too many variables, too many people with their own biases and agendas and interpretations. And worst of all, inability to produce repeatable tests (non-random) that would indicate potential problems. I really wish the devs would just provide us with some ways or tools to be able to test these things. I suggested this several times in the past - console to remove gravity, weapon spread, change weapon types, be able to "fly" with a spectator and shoot with a mouse click with a weapon. Anything that would eliminate lengthy setups and make testing easy and reliable.

Edited March 7, 2018 by JaffaCake

[unreasonable]

You cannot produce repeatable non-random tests if the game includes a RNG within it's damage calculations.  I am not sure if it does or not - I do not recall seeing any developer comment - does anyone?

 

As for the AAA tests - I also tested what happens when an individual plane was designated the "Player" plane in the ME, but then switched immediately to autopilot in the mission. It then flies the same waypoints as it would if it were AI in the ME.  Then I looked at what happened to it during the the test runs.  Since we are now looking at a specific aircraft in the formation, we have to compare the outcomes to those affecting an AI designated aircraft in the same position in the formation, since it is possible that the incidence of hits varies according to the position. In other words, rather than getting a sample of 46 aircraft per run, we are only getting a sample of one. This makes testing to get a valid sample size particularly tiresome, but I managed a series of about twenty runs for each of AI only and Player. After which I gave up, since I could not see any meaningful difference in the results. The player plane was hit about as frequently as I expected, and there was no obvious difference in the damage inflicted.   Again: feel free to run the tests to demonstrate that my conclusion is wrong.

 

Given also that the idea that entering "Player" in the ME rather than "AI" should change the damage model affecting that one aircraft seems - while logically possible - to be ridiculous, I decided that I was not going to waste my time anymore,  since I knew that even if I persisted and did a hundred runs for each of test and control there would still be people who would rather poo-poo the tests:  since as you say too many people have their own biases, agendas and interpretations.

 

The basic fact invalidating every single claim backed up by these one off videos is that if you have a large number of incidents you will get a range of outcomes, with the most extreme - in this sort of DM related case - being one shot kills and aircraft appearing to take a large number of hits and still be under control at least for a while. The only thing single case examples can prove is that that particular outcome is within the range of possibility.

 

edit: I will leave the whole netcode issue to those who understand those issues - I just note that AFAIK the developers have told us that the DM is the same for player and AI, SP and MP. 

Edited March 7, 2018 by unreasonable

[=RvE=Windmills]

1 hour ago, JaffaCake said:

Its easy to account all mistakes on netcode, but you have to have some evidence of net being the issue

 

The evidence is that this is clearly not 'normal' in any way, unless you are being intentionally dishonest or have no experience with the DM. This is even assuming the plane wasn't critically damaged and lost control/bailed/disintegrated the next second. All I see is it making a lazy turn and the video cutting out. We have no good view to see the damage, let alone the view from the target plane.

 

The double standard of 'the AA test means nothing' and 'this one random video is good evidence' is pretty telling though.

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Windmills

[JaffaCake]

11 minutes ago, Windmills said:

 

The evidence is that this is clearly not 'normal' in any way, unless you are being intentionally dishonest or have no experience with the DM. This is even assuming the plane wasn't critically damaged and lost control/bailed/disintegrated the next second. All I see is it making a lazy turn and the video cutting out. We have no good view to see the damage, let alone the view from the target plane.

 

The double standard of 'the AA test means nothing' and 'this one random video is good evidence' is pretty telling though.

 

 

It is very common for games to use simplified AI procedures versus real player modelling. Especially for units such as AAA, which are much more numerous on the servers than the player controlled entities. If you rely on such a test you are hinging all of your experiments on an unverified assumption that AAA == player.

 

With regard to net issues, as I have already stated - you see no evidence of lag, hops or stutter. But it is indeed a very common trend on these forums to completely dismiss any such videos as "netcode is bad".

 

While this one may be a single video, these forums are starting to accumulate such videos over time, making the sample size sufficient to be significant.

 

Edit: If dev were to come around and state that AAA gunfire is identical to player gunfire and can be used as a reference, then we may get a good testing method. Until then its just another attempt at easily falsifiable misinterpreted experiment.

Edited March 7, 2018 by JaffaCake

[=RvE=Windmills]

19 minutes ago, JaffaCake said:

While this one may be a single video, these forums are starting to accumulate such videos over time, making the sample size sufficient to be significant.

 

While it is accumulating videos of nothing particularly egregious happening at a 100x the rate?

 

How often exactly does something comparable happen to you that this seems to be a real issue?

 

I'm not really buying the statistically relevant argument, there are tons of videos showcasing the DM working just fine. This is not even accounting for the fact that people would be much more likely to post videos of odd situations, than they are for the thousands of uninteresting kills that are made without issue.

 

19 minutes ago, JaffaCake said:

dit: If dev were to come around and state that AAA gunfire is identical to player gunfire and can be used as a reference, then we may get a good testing method.

 

Is there a real reason to believe it is not?

 

Besides, it doesn't even really matter whether the AAA is equal to plane weaponry or not (however unlikely that seems to be), since the test shows the relative resilience of the planes to the same weapon. Unless you are suggesting that there are hidden variables which give defensive bonuses to red planes when fired at by blue aerial armament, I don't see how this is an interesting question.

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Windmills

[JaffaCake]

8 minutes ago, Windmills said:

 

Is there a real reason to believe it is not?

 

Besides, it doesn't even really matter whether the AAA is equal to plane weaponry or not (however unlikely that seems to be), since the test shows the relative resilience of the planes to the same weapon. Unless you are suggesting that there are hidden variables which give defensive bonuses to red planes when fired at by blue aerial armament, I don't see how this is an interesting question.

 

 

 

Its just a matter of how AI weaponry is implemented. If every bullet is a simplified AOE healthbar damage, instead of correct penetration simulation that would be done with player bullets then you would be unlikely to see any difference. There is just too much uncertainty to consider AAA experiment to be of any value, without clarification from the dev.

 

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating that there is some sort of bias. I am simply concerned that there is significant evidence of damage sponginess (with apparent higher frequency on the red side? I would expect red pilots to counter-post an equal number of videos, which does not happen as far as I have seen).

 

My main concern is actually the rampant opinion bias, misrepresentations and accusations on these forums with regard to any tests or anecdotal videos. I'd like to get more people involved in pushing the devs towards enabling the community to test and debug their damage and flight models. Because instead of the constant in-fighting that we have here, we could instead provide easy to replicate experiments that show evidence of broken DM/FM in aircraft. 

 

Look for the 190 engine armour plating complaints - it took quite a lot of effort to get it verified and still a lot of people were disqualifying the claims.

[unreasonable]

40 minutes ago, JaffaCake said:

 

 

Its just a matter of how AI weaponry is implemented. If every bullet is a simplified AOE healthbar damage, instead of correct penetration simulation that would be done with player bullets then you would be unlikely to see any difference. There is just too much uncertainty to consider AAA experiment to be of any value, without clarification from the dev.

 

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating that there is some sort of bias. I am simply concerned that there is significant evidence of damage sponginess (with apparent higher frequency on the red side? I would expect red pilots to counter-post an equal number of videos, which does not happen as far as I have seen).

 

My main concern is actually the rampant opinion bias, misrepresentations and accusations on these forums with regard to any tests or anecdotal videos. I'd like to get more people involved in pushing the devs towards enabling the community to test and debug their damage and flight models. Because instead of the constant in-fighting that we have here, we could instead provide easy to replicate experiments that show evidence of broken DM/FM in aircraft. 

 

Look for the 190 engine armour plating complaints - it took quite a lot of effort to get it verified and still a lot of people were disqualifying the claims.

 

 "rampant opinion bias, misrepresentations and accusations on these forums with regard to any tests or anecdotal videos."

 

The point is that any anecdotal evidence or one off videos about a subject such as DMs where there is a range of outcomes will always be subject to the argument that they are a biased selection. There is no getting round that - because they are in fact a biased selection. This is not a psychological point about the people that are selecting and posting them - it is just a statistical fact: you cannot have an unbiased selection unless it is done randomly, which is obviously not the case.

 

The misrepresentation is when people pass off extreme results as being average results. Again, this might be in good faith and not deliberate misrepresentation - but it is still misrepresentation. I understand that relatively few people have had any training in statistics, and even those that have make mistakes in application. It is not easy: but do not expect those of us who have had such training to roll over and accept your standards of evidence.

 

Tests that use statistically useful sample sizes are as rare as hens' teeth on these pages - but when you do get one that demonstrates what the developers have been clearly stating - that the Soviet planes are somewhat but not bizarrely stronger in construction - what happens? Oh, it is of "no value" because the game mechanisms "might" be different for the player. Talk about opinion bias.

 

My working assumption is that the DM is the same whether you are AI, player, or player on autopilot, firstly because I seem to recall the developers stating that this is the case (do not ask for a link - we have been at this for years) and secondly because it is the most reasonable. There is no logical reason why the player inflicted damage should be modeled in more detail: if anything it should be less detailed, given that MP dogfight servers often have far more players involved than we see aircraft in any SP scenario. It also corresponds to my observations when testing the LAA using a player plane on autopilot. Unless you think that turning on autopilot also switches the DM!

 

Even if the developers come out and confirm that the DM, like the FM, is or is not different for the AI and the players, there will be people who choose not to believe them, because Russia.  But it could not do any harm and might put and end to some of this speculation, so one thing I do agree with you on is that I wish they would do this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by unreasonable
spelling as usual

[JaffaCake]

23 minutes ago, unreasonable said:

...

 

 

 

The only point you made (besides explaining what the terms I used mean) is that AAA experiment relies on the assumption, which I already stated and questioned.

 

While there was statement that AI aircraft have the same FM as player aircraft, I question the interaction of AI AAA installations (there were no statements regarding authenticity/modelling of those) with player or AI controlled aircraft. It would make sense to me for the developers to use a simplified version of weaponry on such numerous unit in the game. But at this point the discussion will devolve into who's thinking is better, as we have no way of knowing other than a dev coming around and confirming.

 

 

Beyond this point, a lot of arguments on reds vs blues arises from 2-fold concern - red ammo vs blue damage resilience and blue ammo vs red damage resilience. For majority of the videos these two factors go hand-in-hand, which your AAA experiment eliminates ( which is nice, as, if it was a valid test, would allow us to focus on the hypothetical "why is blue ammo so much weaker than red ammo" question).

 

I would recommend against diploma-flinging, as it proves nothing but the fact that you think having gone through education means you learned something. I have seen plenty of people who were educated still making the very same mistakes as people with no qualifications. However your approach and methodology is more than enough to show that indeed you have done your tests well 

Edited March 7, 2018 by JaffaCake

[unreasonable]

No diploma flinging -  although In fact I have learned something from my education, although I never really expected to be applying it to a PC game.   I hope you learned something from your education too.  But it is just a brute fact that single examples can only show that the demonstrated outcome is possible. It should not take formal qualifications to grasp that.

 

In assuming (initially) that the  DM and LAA targeting generally is indifferent to player vs AI status I am simply using the principle of parsimony: assume the simplest explanation unless you have a good reason not to. What you appear to me to be doing is making up hidden variables to explain away results that you do not like. 

You question the interaction of the AAA with player vs AI aircraft. Short of a developer statement it is impossible to prove that these are the same, since you might get the same results with different mechanisms.  But if they are not the same, and that difference leads to a materially different average or range of results,  that difference should be visible in systematic tests designed to look for it. 

 

If there is a large difference in the incidence of hits by flak or in their effects depending on whether the plane is AI or player designated it did not show up in a run of 20 tests looking at what happened to a specific player aircraft versus a control of 20 tests, using my base airfield attack test. This is rather a small number to be completely sure - the main tests give 46planes*10runs = 460 sorties to average, while in the AI vs player tests I am only getting 1*20 and have to run it against a 1*20 control.  This is a rather small sample, simply because it is so time consuming.  There is probably a way to build a simpler test mission that can make this determination more elegantly and quickly, so if you can come up with a test that demonstrates a difference using a reasonable sample size and publish it so that we can all see the methodology, results and run the test ourselves I will be happy to take the time to look at it.

 

[JaffaCake]

You misunderstood what I said. I believe its a fair assumption to say AI aircraft are == player aircraft for the purposes of DM and FM, especially as we have dev statement on that.

 

What I am questioning is AAA weapons vs player/airAI weapons in the view of the DM. It is reasonable to consider the possibility that devs could implement a simplified version of the damage in the view of the number of such units. I do not know, personally.

 

If your assumption is correct, we would be able to eliminate one part of the argument (Stalinium). We will still be left with the HE vs AP and red vs. blue ammo argument though.

[Ehret]

Until logs are more precise then (IMO) most of it is a speculation. In a game, graphics might not translate 100% what is actually happening. I have seen both - fighters tanking 9 rounds of AP 20mm, and others going down after 1-2 hits of 50 cal.

[unreasonable]

2 hours ago, JaffaCake said:

You misunderstood what I said. I believe its a fair assumption to say AI aircraft are == player aircraft for the purposes of DM and FM, especially as we have dev statement on that.

 

What I am questioning is AAA weapons vs player/airAI weapons in the view of the DM. It is reasonable to consider the possibility that devs could implement a simplified version of the damage in the view of the number of such units. I do not know, personally.

 

If your assumption is correct, we would be able to eliminate one part of the argument (Stalinium). We will still be left with the HE vs AP and red vs. blue ammo argument though.

 

If what you are saying is that perhaps the DM calculations on taking a hit from a LAA 20mm shell run a different model from taking an hit from a plane mounted 20mm shell, I still do not see why it is reasonable to make that more limited assumption. Although it could possibly be true it seems unlikely, since the number of AAA guns in either SP scenarios or MP servers is usually fairly low compared to the number of AI or human planes, and why make a second DM? It seems to add complexity for no real benefit.

 

Whatever - impossible to prove one way or the other, we would have to be told. Even if it was different, why assume that it would lead to more - or less - toughness than the full DM? It is all just supposition.  

 

As to the ammo points - I make no claim one way or the other about the modeling of the various ammo types vs RL results, except to note that I have not noticed much consensus among the engineer types as to the realism or otherwise of the modeling.  Anyway, that is not really about durability as such - although it certainly will affect peoples' perception of durability.

 

2 hours ago, Ehret said:

Until logs are more precise then (IMO) most of it is a speculation. In a game, graphics might not translate 100% what is actually happening. I have seen both - fighters tanking 9 rounds of AP 20mm, and others going down after 1-2 hits of 50 cal.

 

The lack of logs is why individual events yield little information. But if you can get a lot of events where you are looking at fairly simple categories of damage it is possible to make good estimates for the average and spread of the outcomes, since the errors and discrepancies like graphics =/= damage should tend to even out or at least be counted in a consistent way. Unfortunately this is hard to do in a controlled fashion in air-air scenarios. Planes vs AAA is much easier.