A Modest Proposal for Engine Timers

[Mauf]

8 minutes ago, ACG_Woop said:

Hey here's a corker, why not have it like it is in reality?

Because the "proper" modelling would require building a complete logistics simulation backend to be able to track engine states and whatnot. Currently far out of scope.

 

Though it would be lovely to have. No flight sim ever approached the engine limit dilemma in this fashion:)

[CountZero]

40 minutes ago, 307_Tomcat said:

Read yak engine manual from WW2 period, those max settings are continuous workload of an engine. Only heat can interrupt it. BTW 109 WEP time limit has some randomness building in it I think. 

All combat, emergancy and boosts have random element of how long you can use them. ( yesterday 10 times i tryed P-47D at low alt max boost i got 8min, 8.5, 6, 4, 7, 4.5, 9, 6, 4.5min )

 

Tech chat messages that tell you when your timer is expired or recharged now in game work only on normal, and not on expert or when you have turn of instrument panel option in costum. Its stupid, the way engines are modeled thouse two messages are the most important to know and you cant know when you recharged any other way,. Thouse messages should be visable in any realisam settings as you cant just look at gauge and know that you run out of time or recharged your time, Especialy when your in combat.

 

Just this change would help a lot.

 

Then this strange disparity in how on one airplane you lose combat and emergancy or boost at same time but other airplanes just loose first emergancy or boost and then combat has to be same for all, or atleast someone explain to me why it works like that for some airplanes and other way for other airplanes.

 

And for time limits i dont expect to be changed, as they are taken from manual and if they change them ppl will complain why they changed them ( same like it is with DM, they change them ppl complain, they change them back pppl complain, before they started to change them not many ppl comlained )

Edited April 2, 2019 by 77.CountZero

[LColony_Kong]

I would rather have no limits at all but.......

 

An easy compromise between the two camps that would take all of 5 seconds to put in the game:

 

-All WEP/Emergency/Boosted timers set to 10min or water limit, whichever comes first. 

-Military/Combat Unlimited for all planes.

-WEP recharges at a rate of 1.5x the amount used. So 5min of WEP usage takes 7.5 min to recharge.

-Either throttle auto retards when the time is up, or a message comes up exactly 30 seconds before failure so the player is never confused about how much is left.

 

This compromise solves the problems of unrealistic advantages going to some planes and not to others, and also gives every plane a reasonable and useful amount of WEP time. At the same time, it should make the limits camp happy because it prevents everyone from flying at WEP all of the time.

[Barnacles]

How about, using the principle of K.I.S.S..

Just have it able to be enabled and disabled as a realism setting?

[JonRedcorn]

33 minutes ago, Fumes said:

I would rather have no limits at all but.......

 

An easy compromise between the two camps that would take all of 5 seconds to put in the game:

 

-All WEP/Emergency/Boosted timers set to 10min or water limit, whichever comes first. 

-Military/Combat Unlimited for all planes.

-WEP recharges at a rate of 1.5x the amount used. So 5min of WEP usage takes 7.5 min to recharge.

-Either throttle auto retards when the time is up, or a message comes up exactly 30 seconds before failure so the player is never confused about how much is left.

 

This compromise solves the problems of unrealistic advantages going to some planes and not to others, and also gives every plane a reasonable and useful amount of WEP time. At the same time, it should make the limits camp happy because it prevents everyone from flying at WEP all of the time.

I don't think there are any camps. Nobody likes the engine timers. 

Edited April 2, 2019 by JonRedcorn

[Legioneod]

I'll just repost what I had above to get the topic going again.

 

Timers need to go, simple as that.

 

They make little sense and the fact that there is a large disparity in how each aircraft timer is modeled instead of it being one set of rules.

 

-Aircraft all recharge timers at the same rate (1:1 eems to be the most logical)

-WEP and Combat power shouldn't eat into each others timers.

-WEP should recharge in Combat and lower power settings.

-Combat should only recharge in lower settings not WEP. (No more WEP/COMBAT cycle)

 

Imo aircraft with water injection (for the most part) shouldn't have such a strict timer at WEP unless it was detrimental to the engine to go any longer.

For aircraft like the P-47 there is an absolute maximum WEP time that exist unlike in aircraft without water (15 min total) Once the P-47 runs out of water that's it, no more WEP.

 

The P-47 should be able to go it's full 15 min without having to rest, this is shown to be possible in combat reports and test. Couple with the above rules of not eating into each setting, the P-47 should have a decent chance at defending/attacking before having to go back to nominal settings to reset power. (In this case only the military power would be reset since WEP boost can no longer be attained due to the loss of all water (if used to full 15 min).

 

Id prefer timers to be simply done away with, they have little basis in reality and don't represent what is actually possible. Instead they handicap some aircraft while giving others great advantages.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Legioneod

[JtD]

Five years have come and gone without improvement, and where a more detailed engine stress model was a simple fix when the game had two aircraft, now it's a huge task to rework all aircraft and engines accordingly. Imho, the chances for substantial improvement were never lower.

[CountZero]

and thats why expectations should not be to high, some small changes to inprove situation that is now are posible but rework of whole system hard to belive is posible they are good and fast when something needs to be fixed or adresed but not magicans

[=621=Samikatz]

I think my main issues with the timers system are that it's inconsistent across aircraft, and that there's no feedback from the plane itself. I often turn off all HUD for immersion's sake, especially in VR, and you get absolutely no warning when the engine is close to having an issue. A temperature spike or power fluctuation or something before the plane becomes doomed would be nice. I'm not a real pilot and don't know what kind of feedback you'd get before a real engine failure, but I'm going to assume it isn't an instant cutout with no prior warning? If you turn off technochat there's almost no way to know if your engine is damaged from overuse or not. With coolant failures you can watch the temperature gauges and obviously you can look behind you and see the big white trail behind you and get some warning, and making a plan and trying to run to the front line when you know you have damage is fun and exciting, but the failures from staying in combat mode too long are without any warning

[CountZero]

43 minutes ago, =621=Samikatz said:

I think my main issues with the timers system are that it's inconsistent across aircraft, and that there's no feedback from the plane itself. I often turn off all HUD for immersion's sake, especially in VR, and you get absolutely no warning when the engine is close to having an issue. A temperature spike or power fluctuation or something before the plane becomes doomed would be nice. I'm not a real pilot and don't know what kind of feedback you'd get before a real engine failure, but I'm going to assume it isn't an instant cutout with no prior warning? If you turn off technochat there's almost no way to know if your engine is damaged from overuse or not. With coolant failures you can watch the temperature gauges and obviously you can look behind you and see the big white trail behind you and get some warning, and making a plan and trying to run to the front line when you know you have damage is fun and exciting, but the failures from staying in combat mode too long are without any warning

You only get warning on Normal realisam settings, even on expert you dont get it, and like you say there is no way to know how many time you have , when it expired or when it start to recharge or when its recharged, so you can fight with someone then finish df and go back then by accident go over in emergancy and blow your engine for nothing... info for this is crusial, more important then most info you get in tech chat

[Mauf]

6 hours ago, JtD said:

Five years have come and gone without improvement, and where a more detailed engine stress model was a simple fix when the game had two aircraft, now it's a huge task to rework all aircraft and engines accordingly. Imho, the chances for substantial improvement were never lower.

 

Improvements have come to the DM after user complaints went on long enough (and I would say, consistent enough). Problem is, user feedback should be constructive and not the usual "This dumb, make goodz naoh". Point is, they gave reasons for their decisions, whether one agrees or not is not the point.

 

I think, for those who wish to see change, we need to work from where they stand:

• Don't abolish the timers (at least not until such a point that the sim has ripened enough to model the logistics behind engine life time)
• Better feedback (or a form of feedback to begin with) for the timer state. Right now, we have nothing to go by except running 1-2 stop watches. Pilots didn't face that with their planes in real life. I suggested the knock for pseudo-immersion reasons but other mechanisms could be good too. Just give us something to work with that isn't "Your engine will blow in 1.356 minutes" messages.
• More consistent rules for all planes. Aka, the MW50 issue.

I don't think these points are unreasonable and could go a long way. It's a matter of how much you demand and in what tone.

 

[Legioneod]

7 minutes ago, Mauf said:

 

Improvements have come to the DM after user complaints went on long enough (and I would say, consistent enough). Problem is, user feedback should be constructive and not the usual "This dumb, make goodz naoh". Point is, they gave reasons for their decisions, whether one agrees or not is not the point.

 

I think, for those who wish to see change, we need to work from where they stand:

• Don't abolish the timers (at least not until such a point that the sim has ripened enough to model the logistics behind engine life time)
• Better feedback (or a form of feedback to begin with) for the timer state. Right now, we have nothing to go by except running 1-2 stop watches. Pilots didn't face that with their planes in real life. I suggested the knock for pseudo-immersion reasons but other mechanisms could be good too. Just give us something to work with that isn't "Your engine will blow in 1.356 minutes" messages.
• More consistent rules for all planes. Aka, the MW50 issue.

I don't think these points are unreasonable and could go a long way. It's a matter of how much you demand and in what tone.

 

 

I posted this in another thread and I think it would help improve the game until we get a more accurate simulation.

 

There needs to be rules.

-Aircraft all recharge timers at the same rate (1:1 eems to be the most logical)

-WEP and Combat power shouldn't eat into each others timers.

-WEP should recharge in Combat and lower power settings.

-Combat should only recharge in lower settings not WEP. (No more WEP/COMBAT cycle)

 

-Water injection is a special case and should be considered. With aircraft that have water injection WEP should be allowed for the whole time the aircraft has water (if this was possible in the real aircraft (P-47 as an example). Once water runs out WEP isn't available anymore at the same power if at all, so the short advantage of having WEP longer is short lived due to a finite amount of water.

 

Having these standard rules would go a long way in improving a poor game mechanic.

[Ehret]

58 minutes ago, Legioneod said:

-WEP and Combat power shouldn't eat into each others timers.

 

I'd like only to add this mechanics have some buggy behaviors. If you are on the emergency and the combat timer got depleted then you may not be able to switch to the nominal without damaging engine.  The engine reaction to MP/RPM levers is not instantaneous thus will touch the depleted combat timer for a moment. That's enough to induce the damage penalty...

[Legioneod]

2 minutes ago, Ehret said:

 

I'd like only to add this mechanics have some buggy behaviors. If you are on the emergency and the combat timer got depleted then you may not be able to switch to the nominal without damaging engine.  The engine reaction to MP/RPM levers is not instantaneous thus will touch the depleted combat timer for a moment. That's enough to induce the damage penalty...

One way to solve this is to have a lag between engine setting and engine damage occurring (10-20 sec for instance). This way you can adjust to the proper setting without fear of damaging your engine. 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Legioneod

[Mauf]

2 hours ago, Legioneod said:

-WEP and Combat power shouldn't eat into each others timers.

-WEP should recharge in Combat and lower power settings.

 

Could you tell your reason for these? If the whole timer mechanic is there to track and punish abuse of the engine, WEP should be even more of an abuse than combat, logically speaking. So it should eat into your combat timer, even faster than normal combat would. Exception of course being the water injection types as you mentioned.

 

Only max continuous and below should recharge the timer.

[Legioneod]

1 hour ago, Mauf said:

 

Could you tell your reason for these? If the whole timer mechanic is there to track and punish abuse of the engine, WEP should be even more of an abuse than combat, logically speaking. So it should eat into your combat timer, even faster than normal combat would. Exception of course being the water injection types as you mentioned.

 

Only max continuous and below should recharge the timer.

 

Well the main reason I say it like that is because there is no rule or regulation on what you can and can't use first. Since the devs are adamant of using manuals to set engine limits, it only makes sense to have the timers separate from each other and not eat into each other.

 

If your using a certain engine setting (WEP, Combat, etc.) you should have to go one step lower in order to recharge the the timer. When you use all your WEP and go into combat to recharge (if you have any left) technically you are giving your engine a rest since combat power is at a lower boost than WEP, so imo no reason for WEP to eat into combat timer and vice versa.

 

Also, when your in a fight the first thing you usually do is slam the throttle full forward to gain speed and some advantage, if WEP ate into the combat timer then you'd run into a situation where you're forced to go nominal instead of lowering it to combat. This can put you at a significant disadvantage in combat and could end up costing you the fight.

 

On a side note, the whole reason the timers exist is because the devs didnt model an accurate engine model and instead chose the manual limits. If they took the time to model a realistic system then it's unlikely you'd ever even kill your engine by running it in combat or WEP for prolonged periods. 

 

If they had a realistic system then players would push their engines far harder than they do now.

[Venturi]

The maximum total compression ratio...

 

(intake charge pressure, plus cylinder compression ratio between Bottom Dead Center and Top Dead Center of piston stroke)

 

...that a engine produces at maximum power is what determines, along with valve timing and other variables like spark plug temp ranges, the octane rating required to prevent detonation.

 

I do think that any supercharged aircraft like we are discussing will benefit from using higher PN fuels. If nothing else, it raises the threshold for detonation at a given total compression.

 

The downside is that high octane fuels are pricey and more time-consuming to produce. And in Germany, in the 1930s, the decision was to standardize on a then-high octane rating fuel, 87oct B4. This decision was largely done because rightly, it turned out, the calculus was that a engine with larger displacement and equal power (but lower total compression ratio than the Allied equivalents), was sufficient to power a very light fighter.

 

Let us not forget the USSR had a severe dearth of high-octane aviation fuel due to having to move its industries to the Urals, and was highly reliant on imported high-test fuels to sustain the Red Air Force. Most domestic production was 70s octane until the the later war.

 

1 hour ago, Legioneod said:

On a side note, the whole reason the timers exist is because the devs didnt model an accurate engine model and instead chose the manual limits. If they took the time to model a realistic system then it's unlikely you'd ever even kill your engine by running it in combat or WEP for prolonged periods. 

 

If they had a realistic system then players would push their engines far harder than they do now.

 

I would say the players would rapidly learn that managing their mixtures, engine temps, and matching their RPMs to their Boost levels is critically important to maintaining their sortie longevity.

[Legioneod]

11 minutes ago, Venturi said:

The maximum total compression ratio...

 

(intake charge pressure, plus cylinder compression ratio between Bottom Dead Center and Top Dead Center of piston stroke)

 

...that a engine produces at maximum power is what determines, along with valve timing and other variables like spark plug temp ranges, the octane rating required to prevent detonation.

 

I do think that any supercharged aircraft like we are discussing will benefit from using higher PN fuels. If nothing else, it raises the threshold for detonation at a given total compression.

 

The downside is that high octane fuels are pricey and more time-consuming to produce. And in Germany, in the 1930s, the decision was to standardize on a then-high octane rating fuel, 87oct B4. This decision was largely done because rightly, it turned out, the calculus was that a engine with larger displacement and equal power (but lower total compression ratio than the Allied equivalents), was sufficient to power a very light fighter.

 

Let us not forget the USSR had a severe dearth of high-octane aviation fuel due to having to move its industries to the Urals, and was highly reliant on imported high-test fuels to sustain the Red Air Force. Most domestic production was 70s octane until the the later war.

 

 

I would say the players would rapidly learn that managing their mixtures, engine temps, and matching their RPMs to their Boost levels is critically important to maintaining their sortie longevity.

 

Sure but there would be nothing preventing players from pushing their engines unlike now with engine timers. Engine failure could always occur but if managed properly not much would prevent the player form pushing their engine more than they can now.

 

I know if timers were removed I'd certainly push my engine when needed. I'm not the type of person to abuse my engine needlessly but I do like to have the option to in an emergency situation, currently I don't have that option because f engine timers and the fear of killing my engine when I desperately need it to perform.

 

I like to have options, but unfortunately engine timers put a huge restriction of my aircraft.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Legioneod

[Mauf]

7 hours ago, Legioneod said:

 

Sure but there would be nothing preventing players from pushing their engines unlike now with engine timers. Engine failure could always occur but if managed properly not much would prevent the player form pushing their engine more than they can now.

 

I know if timers were removed I'd certainly push my engine when needed. I'm not the type of person to abuse my engine needlessly but I do like to have the option to in an emergency situation, currently I don't have that option because f engine timers and the fear of killing my engine when I desperately need it to perform.

 

I like to have options, but unfortunately engine timers put a huge restriction of my aircraft.

 

Problem is that without limits, people would zip around on WEP all the time. It really is the missing logistics aspect. We have unlimited replacement engines, unlimited fuel reserves at the field, unlimited ammo reserves at the base. Even if some flyers would stick to regulations, there will always be some who game the system. And the more game the system, the more people start doing the same.

 

Therefore I get the implementation of the timers. And I accept them until such a point where reckless behaviour as I stated above gets punished through in game mechanics.  When people can't fly the hottest rides anymore because "replacement parts are out, you guys wasted them all" or people can't take the biggest bombs anymore because they got used up. When they have to fly economic because they only get half a fuel tank filling due to shortage because some people farted it all away in black chemtrails 80 miles behind the front lines.

 

On the topic of split or different timers: I prefer a unified timer that gets used up differently by the different power settings (maybe even within combat settings itself, not going to the top end of combat should be rewarded). If the timer is to be a representation of engine stress, it must be. It makes no sense to me that you would push an engine to its limit in combat and then put even more stress with WEP on it and combat regenerates because "it got abused even more". Makes no sense to me at least. On the topic of manual limits, they could fit in there as well, they just need to be relaxed a bit to make it more manageable. Let's say a plane has a WEP of 5 minutes and 15 minutes at combat as per manual. That gives it a timer resource that would tick away for roughly 15 minutes (I would add some generous tolerance, 5 min?, there because we know the manuals were very conservative in this regard). So that timed resource would get eaten up in 15+x at combat or 5+x minutes at WEP (technically, combat and WEP would have different tick rates for the resource that is represented by the timer). If you already spend your 15-18 minutes at combat and the engine is reaching its limits, going to WEP would only quickly make it go over the edge and fail on you. I would hope that upon reaching that point, we get some feedback mechanism that tells the pilot "Oh, engine at limits, I better not push it to WEP now or else bad things happen".

[Legioneod]

16 minutes ago, Mauf said:

On the topic of split or different timers: I prefer a unified timer that gets used up differently by the different power settings (maybe even within combat settings itself, not going to the top end of combat should be rewarded). If the timer is to be a representation of engine stress, it must be. It makes no sense to me that you would push an engine to its limit in combat and then put even more stress with WEP on it and combat regenerates because "it got abused even more". Makes no sense to me at least. On the topic of manual limits, they could fit in there as well, they just need to be relaxed a bit to make it more manageable. Let's say a plane has a WEP of 5 minutes and 15 minutes at combat as per manual. That gives it a timer resource that would tick away for roughly 15 minutes (I would add some generous tolerance, 5 min?, there because we know the manuals were very conservative in this regard). So that timed resource would get eaten up in 15+x at combat or 5+x minutes at WEP (technically, combat and WEP would have different tick rates for the resource that is represented by the timer). If you already spend your 15-18 minutes at combat and the engine is reaching its limits, going to WEP would only quickly make it go over the edge and fail on you. I would hope that upon reaching that point, we get some feedback mechanism that tells the pilot "Oh, engine at limits, I better not push it to WEP now or else bad things happen".

 

Yes but this has no basis in reality, there is nothing saying you can immediately go to WEP after being in combat power for 10-15 min. These engines were made to last far longer than the specified times (much much longer in some cases).

 

Time limitations should not be tied together since there is no regulation on any such thing in the manuals. Players have a hard enough time remembering there timers and how long they've went. We don't need even more unrealistic restrictions by combining the two timers or by allowing them to eat into each other.