Flak

[SvAF/F16_WhiteMoose]

Why is the flak so small in this game. For the immersion it would be so nice to se the flak pounding all around the plane. 
Maybe the flak guys don’t have to be so freakin good and multiply them by x10. What do you guys think?

[cardboard_killer]

Only if I get to aim the guns. Otherwise, they are an annoying reality that has to be modeled but will never be loved.

[RedKestrel]

7 minutes ago, TheWhiteMoose said:

Why is the flak so small in this game. For the immersion it would be so nice to se the flak pounding all around the plane. 
Maybe the flak guys don’t have to be so freakin good and multiply them by x10. What do you guys think?

It would be nice for sure, but the question is would the game engine handle it well, and indications point to no. Not without a revamp, anyway.

[Yogiflight]

In Netscape's He 111 mission there was quite some more Heavy Flak around Stalingrad.

What I find especially annoying with heavy Flak is, they are shooting all around, but rarely in the area in which the aircrafts, they should be shooting at, are flying. Something like, the enemies are east of the Flak and the Flak is shooting to the north.

[danielprates]

5 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

In Netscape's He 111 mission there was quite some more Heavy Flak around Stalingrad.

What I find especially annoying with heavy Flak is, they are shooting all around, but rarely in the area in which the aircrafts, they should be shooting at, are flying. Something like, the enemies are east of the Flak and the Flak is shooting to the north.

 

You see that in period movies though. More or less anyway. Not when you see big formations of heavy bombers, which were more predictable I think, but often when there are smaller, sassier airplanes closer to the ground. Just dozens of flak explosions all over the place but too far to cause damage, and the aircraft just flying inbetween them in a straight line.

[ROCKET_KNUT]

I´m fine with the settings servers such as Combat Box use for the AAA. It gives me a tiny window to get out before the gunners awake and I get shot up from all directions.

If AAA will be set back to "Super-Duper-Ace-Deathstar-on-speed-mode" then I demand my A-20 to be equipped with AGM-86 Cruise Missiles, two at least... ?

 

Relax, moaning about AAA is sort of a running gag in IL2GB and I´m exaggerating... Not by much though... ?

[Yogiflight]

2 minutes ago, danielprates said:

 

You see that in period movies though. More or less anyway. Not when you see big formations of heavy bombers, which were more predictable I think, but often when there are smaller, sassier airplanes closer to the ground. Just dozens of flak explosions all over the place but too far to cause damage, and the aircraft just flying inbetween them in a straight line.

This is not what I am talking about. Like I wrote above, the aircrafts are in a completely different direction, than the direction the Flak is shooting at. Heavy Flak guns were not shooting on their own, their fire was led by the battery staff, which gave the direction, together with the other important informations to the guns. So all guns should at least shoot roughly in the direction, where the aircraft is.

[Avimimus]

In Rise of Flight there were two mechanisms... one generated a box of flak around an aircraft formation (largely cosmetic I think... blasts far from the aircraft in a cube)... and then there were the actual ballistic calculations for the guns themselves... because of the high traverse speed and lack of ranging errors the latter could be exceptionally accurate at some altitudes (which was a problem). Looking at the files BoX now seems to have fuzing ranging errors which might be an improvement...

[zdog0331]

 

This should explain everything

[IckyATLAS]

Punkt Schluss ! ? 

[Yogiflight]

Another thing about heavy Flak, that is quite odd is, when you fly an escort mission for bombers, the enemy Flak will, when the bombers approach the target, shoot at the escort fighters, instead of the bombers, which doesn't make sense, as the Flak would want to make the duty for the bombers as hard as possible. Plus the chance of hitting the slow bombers, flying straight in tight formation, is much higher, than hitting the small fast turning fighters above the bombers.

[zdog0331]

2 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Another thing about heavy Flak, that is quite odd is, when you fly an escort mission for bombers, the enemy Flak will, when the bombers approach the target, shoot at the escort fighters, instead of the bombers, which doesn't make sense, as the Flak would want to make the duty for the bombers as hard as possible. Plus the chance of hitting the slow bombers, flying straight in tight formation, is much higher, than hitting the small fast turning fighters above the bombers.

Or do as they normally did and create area flak for the bombers to run into.  Perhaps 1C could code that in as an option.  would work well for those missions giving a more realistic feel.  I have seen some good flak out there.  There have been some good flak experiences, but currently they just aren't right. 

 

some good flak

 

But right now it isn't nearly that dense or accurate.  Don't know why.  There was a time where the flak seemed to have sniper accuracy that would pick planes out of the sky with crazy precision.  I cannot seem to find the video showing this, but I'm sure a lot of us remember it  Hopefully they will fix this.  

 

edit: found it

 

Also not sure how realistic this is, but i would like to hear the flak when it goes off around me.  its just not as fun when the flak is a silent poof of smoke even when it blows up just a few yards from your head.  It just seems a little quiet.  

Edited January 7, 2020 by zdog0331

[danielprates]

10 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

This is not what I am talking about. Like I wrote above, the aircrafts are in a completely different direction, than the direction the Flak is shooting at. Heavy Flak guns were not shooting on their own, their fire was led by the battery staff, which gave the direction, together with the other important informations to the guns. So all guns should at least shoot roughly in the direction, where the aircraft is.

 

Maybe there was a plane there which you did not see.

 

Hey wait. In BoS will the AI flak target parachutes? 

[unreasonable]

15 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Another thing about heavy Flak, that is quite odd is, when you fly an escort mission for bombers, the enemy Flak will, when the bombers approach the target, shoot at the escort fighters, instead of the bombers, which doesn't make sense, as the Flak would want to make the duty for the bombers as hard as possible. Plus the chance of hitting the slow bombers, flying straight in tight formation, is much higher, than hitting the small fast turning fighters above the bombers.

 

I fairly sure the flak will target a particular plane, starting with the first one that comes into it's "Attack Area - Air" command, which is a cylinder,  so fighters could enter it first even if they are actually further away in a straight line from the guns.   It will then stick to firing at that plane until it is out of range or shot down, then look for the next target.  If the escorts were at some point ahead of the bombers, as they often are in career flying their racetrack pattern, then they could trigger the flak first which could still be firing at the escorts when the bombers are overhead.  I could be wrong about that mechanism,  but I have seen flak target the bombers, scoring hits, while on escort missions in career.

 

It would be better if the flak could give priority to bombers, I agree.  

13 hours ago, zdog0331 said:

Or do as they normally did and create area flak for the bombers to run into.  Perhaps 1C could code that in as an option.  would work well for those missions giving a more realistic feel.  I have seen some good flak out there.  There have been some good flak experiences, but currently they just aren't right. 

 

 

What was not right was the old style laser guided flak, even on low AI settings.  You may find it immersive to have lots of flak bursting very near, but if it is you are likely to be hit.  Careers are unplayable if probability of death or capture per sortie gets ridiculously high.   If you want more close bursts set your SP mission flak to "High" and lobby your favourite server to do the same.  

 

I do agree that a box barrage option would be good: instead of the guns tracking individual targets they would fire as fast as possible into a defined area as long as any enemy was in it. LAA guns currently stay facing in the direction of their last target after it has moved out of range: I would rather they reverted to their original heading: think of it as a priority arc.

 

Flak has improved greatly in plausibility over the last year or two but there is still more that could be done.

[MikhaVT]

21 hours ago, zdog0331 said:

 

This should explain everything

 

Really good video, thanks for sharing it!

 

23 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

It would be nice for sure, but the question is would the game engine handle it well, and indications point to no. Not without a revamp, anyway.

 

I dont know about you guys, but i'd personally be in favor of the game throwing up a bunch of cosmetic effects for the flak and then having occasional shots which are actually simulated right. So maybe you throw 10 guns worth of flak into the air around an aircraft, but then 1 gun is reasonably accurate to score near-hits and hits.

[RedKestrel]

8 minutes ago, Kataphrakt said:

 

Really good video, thanks for sharing it!

 

 

I dont know about you guys, but i'd personally be in favor of the game throwing up a bunch of cosmetic effects for the flak and then having occasional shots which are actually simulated right. So maybe you throw 10 guns worth of flak into the air around an aircraft, but then 1 gun is reasonably accurate to score near-hits and hits.

I wouldn't be against it, as long as the rendering wasn't too brutal on system performance.

[LLv44_Damixu]

49 minutes ago, Kataphrakt said:

 

Really good video, thanks for sharing it!

 

 

I dont know about you guys, but i'd personally be in favor of the game throwing up a bunch of cosmetic effects for the flak and then having occasional shots which are actually simulated right. So maybe you throw 10 guns worth of flak into the air around an aircraft, but then 1 gun is reasonably accurate to score near-hits and hits.

You mean like making war ambience in a same manner I'd like to see artillery round hit flashes and ground weapons fire on the ground near battlefield. Not necessary inflicting any damage but giving suspension of disbelief (as they say in movie business).

 

[Ribbon]

On 1/7/2020 at 5:09 PM, Yogiflight said:

In Netscape's He 111 mission there was quite some more Heavy Flak around Stalingrad.

What I find especially annoying with heavy Flak is, they are shooting all around, but rarely in the area in which the aircrafts, they should be shooting at, are flying. Something like, the enemies are east of the Flak and the Flak is shooting to the north.

Imagine all that flak set on ACE lvl!

[Requiem]

On 1/7/2020 at 9:08 AM, TheWhiteMoose said:

Why is the flak so small in this game. For the immersion it would be so nice to se the flak pounding all around the plane. 
Maybe the flak guys don’t have to be so freakin good and multiply them by x10. What do you guys think?

There is a script mission editors can add to flak which can increase their firing rate by 10x. I used to use it Rise of Flight to create huge flak bursts around airplanes using Low AI setting to compensate. It looked awesome as you could make 4 entities act like 40 were shooting.

[Ribbon]

13 minutes ago, SYN_Requiem said:

There is a script mission editors can add to flak which can increase their firing rate by 10x. I used to use it Rise of Flight to create huge flak bursts around airplanes using Low AI setting to compensate. It looked awesome as you could make 4 entities act like 40 were shooting.

And how about performance?

It sure would be quite immersive to have that, flak like in Catch 22!

[Gambit21]

 

4 hours ago, LLv44_Damixu said:

You mean like making war ambience in a same manner I'd like to see artillery round hit flashes and ground weapons fire on the ground near battlefield. Not necessary inflicting any damage but giving suspension of disbelief (as they say in movie business).

 

 

Easy to do - I’ve done this in a few of the Jug missions. I made an explosion generator basically.

[[CPT]Crunch]

Flak in this game is simply the realism freaks icon.

[ImAnAussie_]

On 1/9/2020 at 5:05 AM, Requiem said:

There is a script mission editors can add to flak which can increase their firing rate by 10x. I used to use it Rise of Flight to create huge flak bursts around airplanes using Low AI setting to compensate. It looked awesome as you could make 4 entities act like 40 were shooting.

Where do i go to find this?

 

[Requiem]

40 minutes ago, ImAnAussie_ said:

Where do i go to find this?

 

Wish I could remember where...I don't even remember how to do it anymore.

[Gambit21]

Our CPU’s are catching up. I can put more flak in a mission than I could a few years ago. 

 

Being able to place say 5 guns, but adjust the rate of fire on a single gun to “really fast” would be a most excellent option. That plus ambient (fake) flak that isn’t tied to any ‘brain’...we could really do a lot with this. 

 

I’m putting together a small “wish list” for Daniel. l’ll add this. Great idea.

[Vishnu]

On 1/8/2020 at 11:05 AM, Requiem said:

There is a script mission editors can add to flak which can increase their firing rate by 10x. I used to use it Rise of Flight to create huge flak bursts around airplanes using Low AI setting to compensate. It looked awesome as you could make 4 entities act like 40 were shooting.

Please Obi Wan. Tells the ways of the flak force!

[Requiem]

31 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

Our CPU’s are catching up. I can put more flak in a mission than I could a few years ago. 

 

Being able to place say 5 guns, but adjust the rate of fire on a single gun to “really fast” would be a most excellent option. That plus ambient (fake) flak that isn’t tied to any ‘brain’...we could really do a lot with this. 

 

I’m putting together a small “wish list” for Daniel. l’ll add this. Great idea.

In Rise of Flight when I used to do it in my missions it was super impressive seeing so much flak around with only a few guns. I don't know if the ability to script it has been removed so you may have to ask in the beta forum

[CAFulcrum]

The flak could also shoot out a single 'shot' that turns into a randomly spaced series of explosions in a given volume, to free up ai and trajectory computation.  Would be especially useful with ships where you have batteries consisting of tens of guns.

[Livai]

On 1/7/2020 at 4:08 PM, SvAF/F16_WhiteMoose said:

For the immersion it would be so nice to se the flak pounding all around the plane. 

 

• Flak pounding all around the plane - who wants more ???

 

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by Livai

[Vishnu]

2 hours ago, Livai said:

 

• Flak pounding all around the plane - who wants more ???

 

 

I call "shopped" 

[Monty_Thrud]

Would be good to hear the clatter of shrapnel on the Aircraft too.

 

[Tuna_Lead]

On 3/30/2022 at 12:17 PM, Monty_Thrud said:

Would be good to hear the clatter of shrapnel on the Aircraft too.

 

Hearing the occasional bang and pop of fragments hitting the airframe from afar would really add to it tbh, maybe just make it so there is an additional radius much farther around the center point of the burst where there is a 1/10 or something chance of hearing an impact noise.

[RyanR]

Run PWCG. Plenty of Flak!

 

-Ryan

[Gambit21]

Main problem still is getting the 88’s to properly target and fire. They fire a shot, then spend a while scanning/moving “thinking” before finally, at long last firing another shot. This means you need too many guns to approximate the effect that should be attainable with fewer guns.

 

 

[Letka_13/Arrow_]

I suggest to test the AAA MOD by Stonehouse, it definitely improves the amount of heavy FLAK and general experience with FLAK in the stock careers/missions:

 

 

[[TWB]80hd]

Area flak would be easy, awesome to see, and scary in its own right... could model multi-gun emplacements, or simply consider each in-game 88/90mm model as a 4/6/8 gun battery (not 100% sure how these were organized by either side)

 

But have a blanket-area semi-simultaneous burst (say all shells from one battery detonate in a 1-2 second window) fired with some kind of realistic lead - that would be fantastic.  It would be more dangerous for bombers (or, potentially, fighters flying straight and level too long),  sure, but that's supposed to be what the 37s/40s are for down low.  

 

Right now, the rapid-fire proximity-fused heavy AA is obnoxious as modeled.  People act all scared of the Bofors, you can solo-dodge multiple Bofors if you try to and aren't bounced while doing it... not so much with the AIM-9 Flakwinders.

[[CPT]Crunch]

The Bofor's with VT fusing should be frightening, they're in a class all by themselves, especially radar directed.  They eliminated the need for setting a range on each shell, so faster firing rates and they are going to detonate in proximity no matter what, the fuse failure rate was very low.  The German 88's demanded accuracy in ranging, thus required actual visual contact with an optical range finder and than the crew had to calculate and set the fuse.  That slowed things down considerably and the further slant you had the less accuracy in fusing distance, because the mathematics were changing to quickly.

 

A VT shelled gun had no such restraints or requirement.  It was within 1.1 mills accurate fired blind off a radar out to maximum range.  All you had to do was stagger the elevation a bit within your battery and whatever was out there was a gonner inside the box.  And the fill you pants part is the intended target will never see it coming, because the shells that miss won't detonate anywhere near, hence no warning they're being targeted, the fuse only set off when they make close enough proximity or reach their fusing maximum range.  It should appear you got plinked by one shot if they're modeled correctly.

[Hook_Echo]

I have played around with Stonehouse's AAA mod, and upped the fire rate while decreasing the accuracy to try to get that sky filled feel. The problem is, and I think this is the core issue, the AI will never over calculate lead. The result is the flak always explodes alongside or behind the player. Even with ridiculous amounts of flak you hardly notice becuase it's never in your field of view.

 

Flying over the mulberry harbors on beachhead defense missions is the best place to test flak adjustments, also system performance. The AI will focus all batteries on one target until it is dead. They always start behind the target and increase lead until they match up. Ideally each gun, especially the MGs, would pick their own target and over compensating lead would be nice. The wall of flak in front of a formation would be great, but that's asking more than I expect we could get.