Wingless warriors

[HagarTheHorrible]

I haven't played RoF for a long time.

 

one of the things I didn't like, at the time, was the seaming inconsistency in aircraft shedding wings.  Some seemed as tough as nails others, a meat whiff of cordite and the wings would pack up and go home.  I heard mention that with later patches things had become worse but don't know if this was rectified ?

 

FM's won't change but is there a possibility of the DM models being overhauled ?  Does BoX have a more sophisticated system than RoF, I think it does but that might just be wishful thinking ?

 

It's had to find any hard data on the effect of bullet strikes on wings but, knowing how tenacious even a few strands of timber can be, I always thought the probability of a bullet destroying a wing spar to the point of destruction was a little over done.  I would have thought the cutting of structural wiring would have been potentially far more serious to overall structural integrity than having a lump taken out of a spar and the relatively slow rate of fire was such that it is highly improbable that two, or more,  bullets would hit close enough together to compromise a whole supported section that would lead to total wing failure.

[Zooropa_Fly]

In RoF I think it's more the case of a concentrated burst doing in a spar / wing strut.

In real life I would imagine hitting a wire wouldn't be that common, and most hits would likely glance off rather than cutting through.

 

2nd sentence is quesswork of course !

[=AGW=Master]

3 things here.

 

1: Some planes were just more prone to wing failure than others historically.

2: .303(7.7mm) and 7.92x57mm will both put thumb sized or larger holes in a 2x4

3: The wing strength or integrity is comprised by the whole of the wing. Any one piece failing can cause the whole wing to fail.

 

So a single bullet hitting the wing can be catastrophic or you could hit 100 times and the wing could hold. (if all you are hitting is fabric). Futhermore any bullet that hits structure does damage and that damage is amplified by the wires pulling the wing taught and the aerodynamic forces of the wing going through the air.

 

One thing I absolutely loved about the original RoF was that wing damage wasnt necessarily instantaneous. Sometimes you'd take some hits but the wing would slowly deteriorate until it collapsed based on maneuvering or just time. I hope they keep with the same damage model style.

Edited July 10, 2018 by =AGW=Master

[J2_Trupobaw]

Airstream ripping the wing fabric after it was holed was also a very real problem. Fabric holes adding to drag, and applying extra constant force on spars and struts, might make wings easier to break. Fabric cover of fuselage is just drag shield that could be holed, wing has to produce lift and hold the planes mass. In RoF it's represented by wing breaking away, because, that's how critical wing damage is visualised. If an Eindecker loses "aileron" cables, game renders the plane without the wings, because whole wing surfaces are ailerons and therefore "gone". The plane still flies and is controllable. 

There were some adjustment to wing DM in 2014 path, not sure if you were still there Hagar.

BTW, great to have these discussions again :).

Edited July 10, 2018 by LsV_Trupobaw

[Feathered_IV]

I recall the Dr1 would lose one half of the top wing as a matter of routine, and it would be a common sight in QMB to see three out of four AI zooming around and scoring kills that way.  It will be interesting to see how Flying Circus handles it, but judging from the last dev diary it is to be more of a warts and all port from Rise of Flight with any enhancements to FM/ DM being considered later, but only when there is a surplus of time and money. 

[unreasonable]

If the FC DM is the same as RoFs and is unmodable I am afraid that is the end of support from me.  RoF's DM was a joke:  in it you had to get head shots to kill a pilot because in RoF canvas fuselages do not allow bullets to pass through, while people aimed at the wings because a few MG hits often led to wing shedding.

 

In reality aircraft losing wings from MG fire was relatively rare, like fires, and probably as much due to panicking pilots over-stressing the wings as to bullet damage. The evidence for this is in MvR's after action reports, where he gives details about each of his claims. Targets losing wings were a small percentage, and almost all of these were BE types, which obviously were not designed for dogfighting.  I had a spreadsheet with all of this on it somewhere: I would dig it out but it is pointless: the team will either make a serious attempt at a WW1 simulator this time, or not.  (Channeling Arty  )  I am not paying for something that is materially worse than modded RoF as a simulator, irrespective of how pretty it is. 

 

[Zooropa_Fly]

I think a RoF pilot is probably more likely to rip a wing off than a RL one due to the way we can, and do chuck our planes around in a simulator.

Many pilots will carry on fighting with their planes falling to pieces, rather than the sensible (RL) option of trying to escape with their life.

Then there's over-diving to escape, and what I imagine to be an unreaslistic rate of fire on many planes.

Plus there's the silly gunnery accuracy of some virtual pilots with 1000's hours practice.

 

One can simulate the conditions of this and that, but it's never going to play out the same as in RL.

 

All you nay-sayers will be buying FC.. you know you will be. ?

[bzc3lk]

28 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

 

All you nay-sayers will be buying FC.. you know you will be. ?

 

[J2_Steve]

What has always struck me about the flight sim community,  Is that our governments will spend millions building training simulators both in software and hardware, but we expect the same fidelity for a couple of hundred quid.

 

One thing I've learnt over the 20+ years I've played Combat Flight Sim "games" is that no matter what devs do in terms of FM/DM, there will always be a very vocal crowd that disagrees.

 

I'll just take what they produce and wring out the fun from it regardless.

 

 

[BMA_Hellbender]

From what I've learned extensively flying one of the planes most prone to wing shedding — the Bristol Fighter — is that it's very much a product of excess speed and maneuvering with wing damage. You'll seldom see a fast plane with wing damage shed its wings as long as it doesn't maneuver much (e.g. the SPAD XIII), and a maneuverable plane won't shed its wing all too quickly as long as it's not flying at excess speeds (e.g. Halberstadt CL.II). The Bristol being almost as fast as an SE5a and almost as maneuverable as an Albatros makes for a lethal combination. It does force you to fly more conservatively, pick your fights carefully, and either flee in a straight line or slow right down to continue dogfighting with damage.

 

Obviously certain planes are flown in certain ways by most pilots. Albatros fighters are usually tossed around the place, even though their sesquiplane wing structure really doesn't allow for it. They are essentially energy fighters designed to destroy earlier Nieuport types, but by late 1917 are completely outclassed by newer Entente types in that role, and so people tend to push their envelope. Ever since they received a speed boost in the 2014 patch, it's become even easier to force an Albatros pilot to overstress his own wing structure after taking only moderate damage. Even in real life they were notorious for it. The Pfalz D.IIIa is actually a much better option by that point in the war, at least before the introduction of the late Fokkers — but we ate the last person to fly that plane only last week. Camels and Pups got the other end of the stick during said patch, and the opposite happened. Wing shedding was rampant before they were slowed down. Now even a Pup can remain airworthy with wing damage, in spite of the tremendous stresses those wings have to endure in full elevator deflection turns, simply because it does its turning at lower speeds.

 

The Fokker Dr.I and D.VII are different animals, though. Their wings are cantilever, and can endure far more stress. The Dr.I with its short stubby wings is the prime example of that. Then there's the Fokker D.VIII, who I've never seen shed its wing. It did happen with the earlier E.V prototype, but that was because of faults during the construction process, not structural issues.

[J2_Trupobaw]

Knowing how much your wings can take is RoF equivalent of knowing how far you can push your engine in BoX :).

The DM was modable in RoF, right? Gavs RoF refined included adjustments that went really well with improved gunnery. BoX became recently moddable, too. 

Since devs are likely to go improved gunnery way (I'm not fan of the idea, but I know they are), I hope they will adjust the DMs. Telling them about Gavs mods may be a good start. Otherwise planes will be disintegrating when we sneeze in their general direction.

(Since I've never unlearned aiming for meat or metal, I'll be happy to see the glass wings and armoured cockpits go. And glass rudders, if Nieuports ever get ported).

@ Plank - you can feel the structural damage when you use FFB stick. You can also feel and missing damaged ailerons and elevators. (Sadly, FFB does not work at all for rudder axis - otherwise I'd be converting a FFB steering wheel into homemade pedals. But you feel that's something is very wrong on other surfaces when rudder is damaged).

@ Bender - D.VIII wings are solid furniture, covered in plywood rather than fabric. Nothing to rip or pull apart in airstream, only clear bullet holes. Machine gun would have to saw through that, and D.VIII pilot would overrev his engine before reaching speed where he stresses the wings.

Edited July 11, 2018 by LsV_Trupobaw

[HagarTheHorrible]

Liked this article even if not directly related to battle damage.

 

DR1- Thoughts on wing failure

 

I would have thought that, purely from a battle perspective, fabric stripping is really only likely to occur from blast damage from archie rather than bullet holes.  Bullet holes are unlikely to be grouped close enough together, given all the variables, to have a machine gun effect and I would consider them to have no more power than the firing of several individual bullets if indeed all, or even the majority, hit the target or something structurally important in a typical burst (maybe 20-30 bullets).

[Feathered_IV]

1 hour ago, Plank said:

How about "creaking" or other startling noises that alert you to impending rapid disassembly?

 

Lets say a wing kinks, or canvas tears, struts fly off.  ( Or wiggle in the air stream )

 

That sort of thing would ad much more depth to the situation. 

 

* tat tat ta * oh hecking darn they missed! yey!

 

* CREAK! *  or maybe not... better put it down as son as possible. more creaking...

 

We have quite good wind noises.. so if we had "damage noises" ... that would be jolly good.

 

Spars snapping

Canvas flaaaping.

wire twanging

Struts grinding etc.

 

Just a idea... what I thought of.

 

Salute!

 

Planky.

 

 

 

It's an interesting idea, although I'm not sure how much creaking you would hear, sitting less than six feet behind a roaring aero engine. 

[HagarTheHorrible]

1 minute ago, Feathered_IV said:

 

It's an interesting idea, although I'm not sure how much creaking you would hear, sitting less than six feet behind a roaring aero engine. 

 

Sometimes a little bit of "Blue Sky" thinking is required to overcome other deficiencies in our perception of what is happening around us

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

8 hours ago, J2_SteveF said:

What has always struck me about the flight sim community,  Is that our governments will spend millions building training simulators both in software and hardware, but we expect the same fidelity for a couple of hundred quid.

 

One thing I've learnt over the 20+ years I've played Combat Flight Sim "games" is that no matter what devs do in terms of FM/DM, there will always be a very vocal crowd that disagrees.

 

I'll just take what they produce and wring out the fun from it regardless.

 

 

I agree we need to have as much fun as we can with the sim, But to compare what the government spends to what we sped is a little unfair don't you think. When the government buys a training simulator they are buying way more than just a computer game, Those millions go towards a fully functional cockpit. we get just the game and have to buy all the extras our selves' like computer and joy sticks pedals headtracking and what ever else. So you can't compare the two.

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

3 minutes ago, grahamshere said:

-snip-

 

what we sped is a little unfair don't you think.

 

-snip-

 

 

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

3 hours ago, Space_Ghost said:

 

 

Ok spelling bee master, that was good. Whew thanks for catching that. Hate to see the world end because of it.

[DD_Arthur]

28 minutes ago, grahamshere said:

Ok spelling bee master, that was good. Whew thanks for catching that. Hate to see the world end because of it.

 

graham, I don't think its the spelling so much as you might have missed the point SteveF was making......

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

3 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

graham, I don't think its the spelling so much as you might have missed the point SteveF was making......

I didn't disagree with Steve F with having fun with what we get in FC, But how can you compare what the Gov spends on for training simulators compared to a game. It's not just the program they spend all that money on it's also the cockpit with all the hydraulics, electronics and what ever goes into those machines. You also have to have maintenance crews and so forth.

So some one who fly's FC or any other sim would like it to be as close as posable, what's the harm. Do we all just shut our mouth and not ask for a little more. And by the way I'm fine with what we got in ROF and don't expect a whole lot more in FC. I just don't think anyone should compare 2 different takes on a flight sim.

 

Plus if it wasn't the spelling error then why point it out. Just saying.   

[Dakpilot]

I think the point is that 1C/777 sell the software not the hardware so comparing or even introducing hydraulic rigs and cockpits etc. Into the convo is besides the point (and for the most part military training sims are fairly simplistic and not hardware heavy anyway) 

 

When only comparing the software to what governments (contracts) spend BoS/RoF/FC will come across as a bargain. 

 

The meme should have been something flying over your head not a face-palm.. 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[Zooropa_Fly]

4 hours ago, Plank said:

Will they ever make turbulence an MP feature? 

 

Just to clarify, turbulence can be set by the mission maker, though it's little used in my experience.

If you want to feel some take off from the Hilltop AF on Shooting Stars, that server has the most I've noticed in MP... strangely enough.

 

You were I think referring to the previously mentioned 'wake' effect which we've found out apparently isn't modelled in -game.

 

Q: In RL would there be any slipstream effect in the right place close behind another aircraft ?

 

S!

 

 

 

[HiIIBiIIy]

2 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

Q: In RL would there be any slipstream effect in the right place close behind another aircraft ?

There would be some, depending on size and weight of aircraft. Prop-wash would the most noticeable at take-off then diminishing with airspeed.

[J2_Steve]

15 hours ago, grahamshere said:

I agree we need to have as much fun as we can with the sim, But to compare what the government spends to what we sped is a little unfair don't you think. When the government buys a training simulator they are buying way more than just a computer game, Those millions go towards a fully functional cockpit. we get just the game and have to buy all the extras our selves' like computer and joy sticks pedals headtracking and what ever else. So you can't compare the two.

That was my point, some people just don't get that.

They expect that same fidelity! 

 

 

[unreasonable]

8 minutes ago, J2_SteveF said:

That was my point, some people just don't get that.

They expect that same fidelity! 

 

 

 

No they do not: (or at least I do not).   They just do not want to see obvious absurdities, like bullet proof canvas or skeet shooting AA guns,  especially when these issues are treated with less fidelity than in much older games.

 

 

[J2_Steve]

I never said all. Just some.

And I'm not talking about obvious absurdities, it's when FM/DM discussions start to get granular.

 

[unreasonable]

I think most of us accept that the CLOD vision of simulating every atom in every plane was a serious mistake. What I think we all want is fairly plausible outcomes, done by models that can run efficiently on our PCs.

 

But there is nothing wrong with "granular" discussions, if they are appropriate to the level of abstraction of the models.  One issue comes when there really is inadequate empirical data on which to make those choices, and I agree that in WW1 in particular, lack of documentation, especially on the German kites, can make things difficult

   

Anyway, games like this are always going to attract people who are interested in the history and the science, they are inevitably going to do some reverse engineering, it is part of the interest. People who just want to fly and have fun are not prevented from so doing by having more rather than less accurate FMs/DMs.  There is as much use complaining about FM/DM obsessives as there is about toxic adolescents in MP: both are aspects of the human condition.  

[J2_Trupobaw]

I'm sure Steve used goverment-issue sims as benchmark of how costly the quest for realism can become IRL, and remind us there are hard financial limits on what can be commercially archived. 

@ unreasonable: I think CloD is a perfect example of devs following the forum mentality, and trying to give the players every bit they might want. (The fact that the  mundane heart of simulation, flight physics engine, was ported from obsolete 1946 only hammers the nail deeper). 

[unreasonable]

33 minutes ago, LsV_Trupobaw said:

@ unreasonable: I think CloD is a perfect example of devs following the forum mentality, and trying to give the players every bit they might want. (The fact that the  mundane heart of simulation, flight physics engine, was ported from obsolete 1946 only hammers the nail deeper). 

 

Not sure about that myself: no-one forced the developers to take a reductionist approach rather than a probabilistic one. By which I mean that if you hit a wing with a burst from your weapons, as a simmer, you want to see observable results over a number of occasions that broadly reflect your understanding of what would have happened in RL, but you do not care how the model generates those outcomes.  I think it was the engineers' fault not the forum's that they tried to simulate damage down to a scale unnecessary for a flight sim. 

 

People in sim forums complain about lots of things for years and more often than not nothing happens. The developers choose their own priorities. 

[J2_Trupobaw]

What I meant, CloD looks to me as if the devs have unleashed their inner hobbyists and took the route normally reserved for forum wishlisting when setting their priorities. Good illustration on why the two worldviews should not be mixed. (Daikatana is another).

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

12 hours ago, Dakpilot said:

I think the point is that 1C/777 sell the software not the hardware so comparing or even introducing hydraulic rigs and cockpits etc. Into the convo is besides the point (and for the most part military training sims are fairly simplistic and not hardware heavy anyway) 

 

When only comparing the software to what governments (contracts) spend BoS/RoF/FC will come across as a bargain. 

 

The meme should have been something flying over your head not a face-palm.. 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

 

Nah, I think the face palm was pretty fitting for the nonsensical implication that we pay an unfair amount for what we get in return for the product.

 

To put it frank, [edited]

Edited July 12, 2018 by SYN_Haashashin

[Feathered_IV]

19 hours ago, LsV_Trupobaw said:

What I meant, CloD looks to me as if the devs have unleashed their inner hobbyists and took the route normally reserved for forum wishlisting when setting their priorities. Good illustration on why the two worldviews should not be mixed. (Daikatana is another). 

 

I suspect a lot of CloD "features" were honed over a number of years by enthusiast contractors and contributors as they waited for management to pull their heads out of their arses.

[J2_Trupobaw]

Quote

Wingless warriors

How do they do it?

I almost forgot :).

 

[jollyjack]

On 7/10/2018 at 1:37 PM, HagarTheHorrible said:

I haven't played RoF for a long time.

 

one of the things I didn't like, at the time, was the seaming inconsistency in aircraft shedding wings.  Some seemed as tough as nails others, a meat whiff of cordite and the wings would pack up and go home.  I heard mention that with later patches things had become worse but don't know if this was rectified ?

 

Nope, just installed it 1st time, this immediately annoyed me ...