Developer Diary 245 - Discussion

[Heckpupper]

Any chance of making it so that landing enough machine gun hits doesn't cause decals/damage effects of cannon shells? That's one visual change I'd like to see.

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

2 hours ago, E69_geramos109 said:

Is not trolling. I just hope that the change will improve in all ways the Dm not just solving one problem at the cost of causing other. 

 

Well. I would say that mostly yes unless you are lucky. I agree with you, we need evidence and not just some combat fotage with a lot of smoke that is why there were some test done. 

You can see here what a shell can do to a wing

 

Or just a shell on the tail of a spit:

 And you have here the tail of a biguer plane. Twin engine blenheim i think

 

 

And remeber that this is a single hit... 

You can find the trials with video about the hits on internet and we have a very nice post even on the forum. 

 

 

 

 

 

The point some are trying to make (perhaps a little hamfisted), and make mention specifically of the above photos, is those are absolutely optimal shots under very controlled circumstances. Very few air to air shots are going to hit square on a wing spar or something structural and be a one hit wonder kill. Most shots will be sub-optimal at best, glancing for the most part, and if you are me, 95.4% misses. Strengthening of the main spars and more detailed progressive failures are both excellent and long awaited features. I for one am delighted and hope the end result is as good as the intended result.

[ST_Catchov]

2 hours ago, J2_Bidu said:

Just wondering if there is any impact on FC...?

 

I was hoping Jason's video would include FC footage but alas not. Maybe FC's new DM is still being worked on? 

[ShamrockOneFive]

Thanks to the team for these updates to the damage model. The video really shows off some nice improvements and I'm looking forward to the patch.

 

Wishing the team, the community, and everyone to be safe and avoid contracting this virus. Not a fun time for anyone. Be well!

[SCG_Neun]

Looking forward to the update and appreciate the upcoming improvements.  Stay safe everyone!

[E69_geramos109]

1 hour ago, II/JG17_HerrMurf said:

 

The point some are trying to make (perhaps a little hamfisted), and make mention specifically of the above photos, is those are absolutely optimal shots under very controlled circumstances. Very few air to air shots are going to hit square on a wing spar or something structural and be a one hit wonder kill. Most shots will be sub-optimal at best, glancing for the most part, and if you are me, 95.4% misses. Strengthening of the main spars and more detailed progressive failures are both excellent and long awaited features. I for one am delighted and hope the end result is as good as the intended result.

You can see the post I mention how there are more shots on more places. but looking at the damage I dont know where a hit with this round can be not as destructive for the plane as the photos. Maybe the wing tip because you will lose less wing. 

Edited March 21, 2020 by E69_geramos109

[Legioneod]

15 minutes ago, E69_geramos109 said:

You can see the post I mention how there are more shots on more places. but looking at the damage I dont know where a hit with this round can be not as destructive for the plane as the photos. Maybe the wing tip because you will lose less wing. 

Shallow angle hits will always do lots of damage, the shell has lots of time to explode inside of the airframe. High angle hits are less likley to do high damage like you see in the photos, the shell has less time to detonate inside of the structure and has a large possibility of just passing clean through before exploding.

 

The damage you see in the photos are from shallow angle hits.

 

The US did testing with the 30mm as well against the P-47 and B-25, it's lethality is less than you would think, and it certainly wasnt a one hit wonder weapon most of the time.

Edited March 21, 2020 by Legioneod

[Avimimus]

Exciting! I'm quite curious to see how the I-16 (default armament i.e. 4xShKAS) will do... same with how an IAR-80 would do under the new model... similarly, the video didn't have pictures of 37mm hits... so there is a lot to look forward to experimenting with when this comes out!

 

It is also exciting to hear that a systems rework might come after the engine rework.

 

P.S. I feel bad asking for anything - but when the fuel selectors are being put in for the drop-tanks in a few months - that might be a good time to add the gun selector for the Hs-129

[E69_geramos109]

12 minutes ago, Legioneod said:

Shallow angle hits will always do lots of damage, the shell has lots of time to explode inside of the airframe. High angle hits are less likley to do high damage like you see in the photos, the shell has less time to detonate inside of the structure and has a large possibility of just passing clean through before exploding.

 

The damage you see in the photos are from shallow angle hits.

 

The US did testing with the 30mm as well against the P-47 and B-25, it's lethality is less than you would think, and it certainly wasnt a one hit wonder weapon most of the time.

To hit a plane with a high angle you would need a very big deflection shot. Most of the hits on a combat are from shallow angles. But lets see how the Dm change afects before complaining

[SCG_motoadve]

1 minute ago, E69_geramos109 said:

To hit a plane with a high angle you would need a very big deflection shot. Most of the hits on a combat are from shallow angles. But lets see how the Dm change afects before complaining

Please can you let the developers even finish the new DM,? You are already arguing and is not even done yet.

[unreasonable]

Jason, thanks for the video - an interesting and fun way to present us with the changes coming up.  A welcome distraction! 

 

With the roll out of structure, engine and systems DM changes we all need to be patient and see where this goes. Looking very plausible to me.

 

    

[SOLIDKREATE]

Outstanding work!!!! BTW you shoot better than I do.

[Boomerang]

Thank you for all the continued improvements, wishing all are safe and well.

[6FG_Big_Al]

8 hours ago, catchov said:

 

I was hoping Jason's video would include FC footage but alas not. Maybe FC's new DM is still being worked on? 

Petrovich gave you an answer to this:

Quote

Our engineering team carefully collected all this data for all 59 aircraft in the simulator.

When you count all the aircraft there is no other possibility than including also the FC planes. And we also didn't saw any footage from the tanks, that doesn't mean they are excluded^^

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Good humour on that video ? And nice to see the DM is finally getting a revision.

[Kurfurst]

@Jason_Williams, since this update brings so radical changes to the damage model, is it possible to have some kind of demonstration of the new DM at works, 'behind the scenes', in the fashion your team showed improved ground handling etc.? I mean some kind step-by-step demo that would demonstrate along the lines the difference between AP and HE hits, their effects and how the structural elements like skins, vital systems and load bearing elements suffer from a hit at the same location, so we better visualize the changes. 

 

Please do not take this in a wrong way, its not a sort of criticism in any way, I am very much excited about this update, and would like to learn more how it works. I think it would be also a nice demonstration to potential new customers. Also, I understand that your team may have other, more pressing priorities.

[AtomicP]

10 hours ago, ACG_Onebad said:

Any chance of making it so that landing enough machine gun hits doesn't cause decals/damage effects of cannon shells? That's one visual change I'd like to see.

If I recall correctly, this is coming too. Have a look in Developer Diary entry 243. Here's a snippet:

 

Quote

It is important to mention that this work is about the calculations of damages, and the visualisation of the DM (textures and 3D-model) has remained unchanged. As you know, all our planes have three fixed levels of visualization of external damage for each part of the airframe. There are “light” damage (bullet holes and small holes from shells), “medium” damage (larger holes) and “heavy” damage (big holes on the airplane). Each of these three levels, switched in sequence. They have been painted by our artists as well as our community enthusiasts with attention to detail for each aircraft. The new calculations in the DM will now switch these three levels of visual damage, taking into account all the features of the action of various types of ammunition and the damage they cause to the skin, which I mentioned above. Thus there is some improvement of DM visualisation too. Because of this new DM fine-tuning the variety of our existing damage textures has improved. They were not properly being expressed in the past. Because of some bugs and errors, parts of the airframe would fly off or fail and a level of damage it should have shown prior to that was skipped or rarely seen.

 

[E69_geramos109]

10 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Please can you let the developers even finish the new DM,? You are already arguing and is not even done yet.

Did you read the last part of my sentence?

"But lets see how the Dm change afects before complaining"

 

• "

[Dutch2]

@Jason_Williams  I noticed only WW2 planes, is this improvement also counting for the WW1 planes? 

[Jade_Monkey]

14 minutes ago, Dutch2 said:

@Jason_Williams  I noticed only WW2 planes, is this improvement also counting for the WW1 planes? 

Yes

[HerrBree]

Lol so multiple videos and pictures of the 30mm arent enough for some people yet because we have 2 or 3 completely random pictures of heavily damaged p47s it should be a flying tank?

[Dagwoodyt]

39 minutes ago, Jade_Monkey said:

Yes

If so please elaborate.

[Jade_Monkey]

19 minutes ago, Dagwoodyt said:

If so please elaborate.

What is there to elaborate? They said they reviewed the DM of all planes and that includes FC.

[ShamrockOneFive]

27 minutes ago, Dagwoodyt said:

If so please elaborate.

They said 59 aircraft were included in the update. That includes Flying Circus in the aircraft count.

 

Also... we have 59 aircraft in IL-2: Great Battles. That's getting up there again!

[Dagwoodyt]

11 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

They said 59 aircraft were included in the update. That includes Flying Circus in the aircraft count.

 

Also... we have 59 aircraft in IL-2: Great Battles. That's getting up there again!

Exactly and IDK either.

[Sybreed]

Will engines be more resistant as well? Sometimes a single machine gun bullet is enough to shut down one. I'm not asking for terminator levels resistance, but perhaps a bit more...?

[Jade_Monkey]

2 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

Will engines be more resistant as well? Sometimes a single machine gun bullet is enough to shut down one. I'm not asking for terminator levels resistance, but perhaps a bit more...?

The video says that engine damage will be the next piece of work. In this patch they are only covering the airframe damage (plus many other improvements that are not DM related, I assume).

[Sybreed]

4 minutes ago, Jade_Monkey said:

The video says that engine damage will be the next piece of work. In this patch they are only covering the airframe damage (plus many other improvements that are not DM related, I assume).

Missed that part. Thx

[216th_Jordan]

29 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

Will engines be more resistant as well? Sometimes a single machine gun bullet is enough to shut down one. I'm not asking for terminator levels resistance, but perhaps a bit more...?

 

Also, don't get your hopes up too high, sometimes all it takes is one lucky MG round, especially on inline engines. without protection.

[Blitzen]

This is very very slightly OT, but kinda sorta applies;It has bothered me since the very beginning of BoS and may go back even further to I’ll-2 Sturmovik.Why don’t pilots and/or crews abandon ship sooner ? Even with the entire plane smoking heavily or completely on fire the crews often loyally stick with their aircraft...not always of course but often.Fighter pilots stay and fight well after real pilots would have abandoned their aircraft. Years ago I read something about Spitfires and hits in their vulnerable glycol tanks.As I recall pilots had a very short time to make a decision , jump or put it down on the ground. Stick around and fight was not an option.Combat films also show pilots leaving their planes almost as soon as they are heavily hit. I’m sure crews of twin engine bombers got the bail out bell when one or both engines were on fire. -in our game play not so much ...Heinkels  et al fly on & on perhaps loosing altitude, but with crews intact.I’m pretty sure in real life it did happen, but rarely> I figure an engine fire or with smoke pouring from every surface I’d be first out the door.

  Maybe someone can tell me why this is? I figure parachuting figures particularly a lot of them at once might eat up precious FPS.To see the sky filled with parachutes ( I’m now thinking of descriptions of B-17 raids like Schweinfurt now,) would slow frame rate.Maybe not ? Maybe it’s simply the averages for bailout built into the game engine? All I’m saying is that severely damaged planes that stick around maneuvering violently , still in the fight ,still capable of killing me, takes a bit away from the sim I love most!

[Turban]

This was an amazing dev diary. Great work ! Can't wait !

 

Good luck to you all stay safe

[216th_Jordan]

4 minutes ago, Blitzen said:

This is very very slightly OT, but kinda sorta applies;It has bothered me since the very beginning of BoS and may go back even further to I’ll-2 Sturmovik.Why don’t pilots and/or crews abandon ship sooner ? Even with the entire plane smoking heavily or completely on fire the crews often loyally stick with their aircraft...not always of course but often.Fighter pilots stay and fight well after real pilots would have abandoned their aircraft. Years ago I read something about Spitfires and hits in their vulnerable glycol tanks.As I recall pilots had a very short time to make a decision , jump or put it down on the ground. Stick around and fight was not an option.Combat films also show pilots leaving their planes almost as soon as they are heavily hit. I’m sure crews of twin engine bombers got the bail out bell when one or both engines were on fire. -in our game play not so much ...Heinkels  et al fly on & on perhaps loosing altitude, but with crews intact.I’m pretty sure in real life it did happen, but rarely> I figure an engine fire or with smoke pouring from every surface I’d be first out the door.

  Maybe someone can tell me why this is? I figure parachuting figures particularly a lot of them at once might eat up precious FPS.To see the sky filled with parachutes ( I’m now thinking of descriptions of B-17 raids like Schweinfurt now,) would slow frame rate.Maybe not ? Maybe it’s simply the averages for bailout built into the game engine? All I’m saying is that severely damaged planes that stick around maneuvering violently , still in the fight ,still capable of killing me, takes a bit away from the sim I love most!

 

I'm sure that will see some love in the future, seeing that the team has a dedicated AI programmer now. The programming of such a decision making process is harder than you might think but I'd agree that a fire should be an immediate bailout cause in almost all cases.

[IckyATLAS]

Excellent, finally I am the 1'000th. !!!!

Besides that, I am so happy about this so much needed correction to the damage model is now there. Now becoming an ACE means what it is: not an easy task.

 

Thanks to Jason and all the dev team for this coming update.

[LuftManu]

2 hours ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

 

Also... we have 59 aircraft in IL-2: Great Battles. That's getting up there again!

 

And more to come in just a few months. Things getting better!

[III/JG52_Otto_-I-]

21 hours ago, E69_geramos109 said:

Couple of mk108 hits should be capable of dewing any fighter. 

In acording with German wartime reports, one MK-108 hit, was enought for shootdown a fighter, and 5 hits were enought for shootdown a four-engines bomber, such as B-17, or B-24.

 

 

[Lord_Strange]

1 hour ago, Blitzen said:

This is very very slightly OT, but kinda sorta applies;It has bothered me since the very beginning of BoS and may go back even further to I’ll-2 Sturmovik.Why don’t pilots and/or crews abandon ship sooner ? Even with the entire plane smoking heavily or completely on fire the crews often loyally stick with their aircraft...not always of course but often.Fighter pilots stay and fight well after real pilots would have abandoned their aircraft. Years ago I read something about Spitfires and hits in their vulnerable glycol tanks.As I recall pilots had a very short time to make a decision , jump or put it down on the ground. Stick around and fight was not an option.Combat films also show pilots leaving their planes almost as soon as they are heavily hit. I’m sure crews of twin engine bombers got the bail out bell when one or both engines were on fire. -in our game play not so much ...Heinkels  et al fly on & on perhaps loosing altitude, but with crews intact.I’m pretty sure in real life it did happen, but rarely> I figure an engine fire or with smoke pouring from every surface I’d be first out the door.

  Maybe someone can tell me why this is? I figure parachuting figures particularly a lot of them at once might eat up precious FPS.To see the sky filled with parachutes ( I’m now thinking of descriptions of B-17 raids like Schweinfurt now,) would slow frame rate.Maybe not ? Maybe it’s simply the averages for bailout built into the game engine? All I’m saying is that severely damaged planes that stick around maneuvering violently , still in the fight ,still capable of killing me, takes a bit away from the sim I love most!

Well since the physiology update a few months ago pilots can be knocked unconscious by serious wounds, so sometimes this could be the case. Also some canopies won't open at high speeds and don't have an eject function, so often pilots are trapped until the plane either slows down or hits the ground.

[Legioneod]

1 hour ago, III/JG52_Otto_-I- said:

In acording with German wartime reports, one MK-108 hit, was enought for shootdown a fighter, and 5 hits were enought for shootdown a four-engines bomber, such as B-17, or B-24.

 

 

Take this with a grain of salt. It really depends on the location of the hit and at what angle/direction you hit the aircraft.

US did testing against the B-25 with the Mk 108 and with 10 random hits the probability of a shootdown was around 70% iirc.

With the P-47 the probability of a shootdown from a single hit was only around 30-40%.

 

You could certainly bring any aircraft down with a single hit but don't expect it to happen every time. Well placed hits matter even with a Mk 108, don't think that just because it's a 30mm cannon that you don't have to aim.

Not saying you think this way, just saying that alot of people have this misconception that any hit with a 30mm will bring the aircraft down.

 

EDIT: Added the report.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a800394.pdf

Edited March 21, 2020 by Legioneod

[HerrBree]

20 minutes ago, Legioneod said:

Take this with a grain of salt. It really depends on the location of the hit and at what angle/direction you hit the aircraft.

US did testing against the B-25 with the Mk 108 and with 10 random hits the probability of a shootdown was around 70% iirc.

With the P-47 the probability of a shootdown from a single hit was only around 30-40%.

"Yes take it with a grain of salt, but fully believe these numbers I am now showing you"

[Legioneod]

1 minute ago, HerrBree said:

"Yes take it with a grain of salt, but fully believe these numbers I am now showing you"

 

Here's the report.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a800394.pdf

[HerrBree]

2 hours ago, Legioneod said:

Here's the report.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a800394.pdf

You're missing the point