Game version 4.005 discussion: New airframe damage model

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

@AnPetrovich  Bug Report:   

 

1v1 QMB spawns Flying Circus planes, both factions, along with WW2 Axis planes when "Random Axis Plane" is selected as the enemy type.  

 

Maps tested:  Moscow, Winter 1941 

                         Rheinland, Spring 1945.  

                         Kuban, Spring 1943. 

 

I have not yet tried a full clean re-install.   I may do that later.  If it fixes it, I will report.   

Edited April 9, 2020 by 69th_Mobile_BBQ

[Chief_Mouser]

5 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

 

 

I have not yet tried a full clean re-install.  

 

Don't. It's a long-time known bug and has been promised to be fixed. 

[=gRiJ=Roman-]

This is my experience so far ....

I have started the JG51 Rhevz Campaign. I have made some visually beautiful kills with my FW190 A3. It is the first time that I have seen an IL2 caught in fire for instance. It seems also that the armament of the FW is now deathly against that Yaks, Lagg3, and other Soviet fighters. Finally they get some serious damage. Before, IMHO, they got some white or greenish smoke trailing and kept on turning and fighting forever. But, in the 3 missions I have done so far, this is over. They can really take some damage now.

 

Another issue I have notice is that they fight more using the vertical. I love it. My favourite kills are when you catch one in the climbing and it runs out of energy ....

I really love this new update as far as I have seen. But there is a lot to digest. It is huge!!!

We are going to have a blast discovering all the new changes.

Thanks a lot Devs! I love you guys, you've saved my Easter Holidays, of confinement.

Edited April 9, 2020 by =gRiJ=Roman-

[THERION]

35 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

@AnPetrovich  Bug Report:   

 

1v1 QMB spawns Flying Circus planes, both factions, along with WW2 Axis planes when "Random Axis Plane" is selected as the enemy type.  

 

Maps tested:  Moscow, Winter 1941 

                         Rheinland, Spring 1945.  

                         Kuban, Spring 1943. 

 

I have not yet tried a full clean re-install.   I may do that later.  If it fixes it, I will report.   

 

As @216th_Cat already said - don't reinstall the whole story because of this known bug, you won't fix it that way.

 

And, please, don't be a sissy - c'mon, fighting in a WWI crate against a WWII fighter IS a challenge! So be a man and go for it! 

 

Cheerio

[MarderIV]

7 minutes ago, -[HRAF]Roland_HUNter said:

And "sadly" hard to make all the ammunitions realistic

 

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think some folks just underestimate  how difficult it is to simulate munition effects and battle/structural damage; specially when streamed live like in a sim. There are high-end design and testing software for these kinds of things and even those don't always account for 100% of all potential situations and take a lot of time to calculate.They even have render farms for this purpose. While ours is that of a commercial combat flight sim. 

 

Not to mention the myriad of variables up in the air with regards to battle damage. Some folks experience more lethal effects, others take a while to deliver fatal blows, etc. And personally I find it hard to make claims without access to telemetry or even a view as to what's happening internally. 

 

I mean heck, the other day i was just out plinking bombers with the 262, pretty much playing with my food and trying to fire single trigger pulls at bombers and I still managed to take out wings. 

 

 

And then the next moment, aiming for the same spot, had no such luck at ripping wings off. Something else did:

 

 

 

 

But who knows what could have happened inside (or outside) this B-25 that made the difference? 

 

I don't. I just count my blessings and be glad something like this exists and is being given attention. 

[pilotpierre]

???????

[Missionbug]

Thank you very much for the update guys, really appreciated.

 

I always go down full of holes and streaming all the vital fluids no matter what I do, who has time to make judgements on whether the damage model is good or bad it all happens so quickly, best to try and stay out of reach of those guns in the first place then I can bend it on landing back home instead.

 

I will give things a go tonight and see if I can spot any of those 140 or so changes, my that is a lot, mind boggling.

 

 

Take care and be safe.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[56RAF_Roblex]

Here is the result of the new damage model.  I was badly hit by cannon shells but instead of automatically losing a wing I was still in the air.   It was behaving very erratically but I was able to turn 180 and head back towards the land.  Strangely,  as soon as I throttled back to preserve the damaged engine I just fell out of the sky like a leaf. I wonder if perhaps the modelling of loss of lift due to holes was a little overdone and only my high speed was keeping me in the air (or perhaps that was accurate).  Still it was nice to have more ways to limp home and with a chance of doing it with even bigger problems ?

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by 56RAF_Roblex
spelling

[SJ_Butcher]

I don't know if this is related with the current patch or visibility bug, but as soon as you zoom in, the objects dissapear, and if you zoom out it appear again

[Tipsi]

20 minutes ago, SJ_Butcher said:

 

I don't know if this is related with the current patch or visibility bug, but as soon as you zoom in, the objects dissapear, and if you zoom out it appear again

 

I think this was also present during the last patch and is somewhat related to the new visual spotting distances update a couple months ago.

 

I believe they are aware of the issue and working on possible solutions, with a time of TBC.

[-DED-Rapidus]

25 minutes ago, SJ_Butcher said:

I don't know if this is related with the current patch or visibility bug, but as soon as you zoom in, the objects dissapear, and if you zoom out it appear again

I need a track with mission.

[Guest deleted@134347]

I have an observation and an FM question for the devs:  Dramatic loss of lift on the side of the damaged wing. I've experienced this with Il2, 109G6, P39..

 

pre 4.005: 

• you get couple of hits in to a right wing (or left, doesn't matter)
• there are 'holes' in the right wing
• the right aileron falls off, but i can still maneuver more or less, even sometimes i can even continue fighting
• the lift in the right wing is affected, but may be 5-10% max. I.e. it banks to the right a little and I can easily counteract it with moving the joystick to the left 5-10%.

 

4.005

• you get couple of hits in to a right wing (or left, doesn't matter)
• there are 'holes' in the right wing. The amount of small/big holes in the wing is pretty much the same as in pre-4.005 version (by the looks of it).
• the right aileron is shredded but I can still see that it's still moving and controllable.
• the lift in the right wing is affected more than 50-70%, it banks to the right dramatically, I have to move my joystick almost to the maximum to the left in order to maintain the horizon and landings are a complete circus with 45 degree banking, touching down with the right wheel, etc..

 

Question:  is this simply a damage decal issue, i.e. wing damage decals don't reflect the true level of the damage to the wing? Meaning that the ammunition has affected the wing surface more dramatically with 4.005 DM, however the amount of decals is still the same?

 

 

[=KG76=flyus747]

Anyone have any initial impressions on how the bombs work in the new patch? They seem to have been heavily nerfed particularly against buildings. I understand their effectiveness against tanks was reduced to better reflect real data but what about its effect against the other ground targets?buildings/dugouts/ships?

 

Tested this flying Blue aircrafts. Placed a 1000kg bomb within 5m of a building and it survived. Concurrently the 20mm is still killing buildings within a few shots (under ~60 I'd say).

 

In short, from the testings I did yesterday, 200 rounds of 20mm Cannon can kill more buildings than 2x1000kg in the same heavily dense target area.

 

 

[Tipsi]

4 minutes ago, Count_de_Money said:

Question:  is this simply a damage decal issue, i.e. wing damage decals don't reflect the true level of the damage to the wing?

I believe that this may be the case, the devs did mention that they may look into it further down the line

[Guest deleted@134347]

Just now, Tipsi said:

I believe that this may be the case, the devs did mention that they may look into it further down the line

 

yup, I feel that's what it is, but still wanted to ask an obvious question ?

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

2 hours ago, -=-THERION said:

 

And, please, don't be a sissy - c'mon, fighting in a WWI crate against a WWII fighter IS a challenge! So be a man and go for it! 

 

 

It was the opposite.  I was trying to see what I could do with the La5-FN vs. other WW2 planes. I don't think it takes too much to imagine what HE and AP 20mm will do to a WW1 era plane.

If I wanted that level of smug self-superiority,  I'd just go to Combat Box and saddle up a 262.

[I./JG1_Baron]

22 minutes ago, Count_de_Money said:

Question:  is this simply a damage decal issue, i.e. wing damage decals don't reflect the true level of the damage to the wing? Meaning that the ammunition has affected the wing surface more dramatically with 4.005 DM, however the amount of decals is still the same?

 

Yes plus - minus. Damage decals will improve later. 

Edited April 9, 2020 by I./JG1_Baron

[Guest deleted@134347]

8 minutes ago, I./JG1_Baron said:

 

Yes plus - minus. Damage decals will improve later. 

 

thank you for the confirmation!

[343KKT_Kintaro]

9 minutes ago, I./JG1_Baron said:

Damage decals will improve later. 

 

 

Damage decals are HORRIBLE in this game.

 

However… I'm a simmer for almost 30 years now (I started in the early 90s with "Their Finest Hour" and "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat")… and this is definitely my favourite air combat sim ever.

[Danziger]

The more I play the more I am liking this update. When using the big cannons like the 30 and 37s, you can actually see a plane being pushed around by the kinetic energy of the rounds. It's freakin awesome.

 

Can't wait for that Yak-9T now!

Edited April 9, 2020 by Danziger

[=TU=flynvrtd]

I have noticed that the insta PK from 50 cal hits seems to have been toned down.

I was able to keep a couple Mustangs and a Spitfire from outright shredding me with out of plane maneuvering until I had to bail from catching fire in one encounter last night on Combat Box.

 

[216th_Jordan]

1 hour ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

Here is the result of the new damage model.  I was badly hit by cannon shells but instead of automatically losing a wing I was till in the air.   It was behaving very erratically but I was able to turn 180 and head back towards the land.  Strangely,  as soon as I throttled back to preserve the damaged engine I just fell out of the sky like a leaf. I wonder if perhaps the modelling of loss of lift due to holes was a little overdone and only my high speed was keeping me in the air (or perhaps that was accurate).  Still it was nice to have more ways to limp home and with a chance of doing it with even bigger problems ?

 

 

Please submit a bug report with the track attached. This is not a physically possible reaction IMO.

[ATAG_SKUD]

1 hour ago, ATAG_SKUD said:

Bombsight Angle pointer nonfunctional in 4.005. Stuck on 0 degrees does not respond to speed or alt changes in view mode

Never mind tried 3 times and I can't get it to do it again. It worked fine.

skud

[Jason_Williams]

45 minutes ago, Count_de_Money said:

 

thank you for the confirmation!

 

No, there is no concrete plan or promise to change the damage textures. I have only said I will try.

 

Jason

[Stoopy]

41 minutes ago, Danziger said:

The more I play the more I am liking this update. When using the big cannons like the 30 and 37s, you can actually see a plane being pushed around by the kinetic energy of the rounds. It's freakin awesome.

 

Can't wait for that Yak-9T now!

 

This comment put a wicked evil grin on my face.  It's really cool to read about all the new observations of the damage changes.

 

Very coincidentally, I broke down and pre-ordered the 9T a week ago.... can't wait either!

 

48 minutes ago, 343KKT_Kintaro said:

 

 

Damage decals are HORRIBLE in this game.

 

However… I'm a simmer for almost 30 years now (I started in the early 90s with "Their Finest Hour" and "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat")… and this is definitely my favourite air combat sim ever.

 

As a fellow longtime simmer I've gotten very used to not depending on damage textures (decals) to give an accurate assessment of actual damage, but instead I depend on the feedback from the aircraft.  In real life you could have damage to the underside of the wing structure that, like much of the airframe, isn't visible from the cockpit   And we just have much more fidelity now in the gradient of damage done than can be visually represented by the textures.   I'll gladly take that tradeoff.

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by =[TIA]=Stoopy

[Danziger]

9 minutes ago, Jason_Williams said:

 

No, there is no concrete plan or promise to change the damage textures. I have only said I will try.

 

Jason

Come now, Mr. Williams... You should know by now that you even admitting to liking an idea of something equals a personal pinky promise to get it done at any cost. 

 

 

 

 

 

Joking of course. I just find it funny still that people keep interpreting things that you say would like to do some day into things you have sworn an oath to make happen soon.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Danziger

[Guest deleted@134347]

34 minutes ago, Jason_Williams said:

 

No, there is no concrete plan or promise to change the damage textures. I have only said I will try.

 

Jason

 

no problems, Jason. I thanked I./JG1_Baron for confirming the visual discrepancy in decals only (and not the possible improvements). If they come later that'd be great, and if not then I'm not picky. The amount of work your team puts in is tremendous enough.

[=621=Samikatz]

2 hours ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

Here is the result of the new damage model.  I was badly hit by cannon shells but instead of automatically losing a wing I was till in the air.   It was behaving very erratically but I was able to turn 180 and head back towards the land.  Strangely,  as soon as I throttled back to preserve the damaged engine I just fell out of the sky like a leaf. I wonder if perhaps the modelling of loss of lift due to holes was a little overdone and only my high speed was keeping me in the air (or perhaps that was accurate).  Still it was nice to have more ways to limp home and with a chance of doing it with even bigger problems ?

 

 

Not sure it'd be quite that extreme but the thrusted air from your propellor passing over your wings should generate a bit of extra lift, and cutting power can cause a slight drop in lift? It's sometimes noticable in tight turns or on landing if you mess with your throttle, you feel the plane shudder a bit before your speed has actually dropped

[216th_Jordan]

15 minutes ago, =621=Samikatz said:

 

Not sure it'd be quite that extreme but the thrusted air from your propellor passing over your wings should generate a bit of extra lift, and cutting power can cause a slight drop in lift? It's sometimes noticable in tight turns or on landing if you mess with your throttle, you feel the plane shudder a bit before your speed has actually dropped

 

It should, but please take a look at the second screenshot he attached and the path of the fluids the plane leaks. The fligth path just folds.

Edited April 9, 2020 by 216th_Jordan

[Voyager]

11 hours ago, US103_Baer said:

Wing shedding seems to have moved from WW2 to WW1.

 

In Flying Circus the new engine and pilot DM seem to work really well, but a few shots in the wing can see it break off easily.

This was one area that FC pilots really liked after RoF. With 4.005 we seem to have reverted back.

Not saying its the same mechanics, it's probably hugely more sophisticated, but the in-game result is the same.

 

Hope this can be investigated. Thanks

 

9 hours ago, peregrine7 said:

 

I've just spent a while testing this and I can't replicate it. Wings do break off (unlike before) but they take a lot of rounds.
So far tested with camel and se5 vs Dr.1, Alby DVa, pfalz, D7, Halbstd.

 

 

8 hours ago, US93_Larner said:

We tried it in our server earlier. At one point I was in a SPAD and was hit by exactly 3 rounds in the wing while at the apex of a loop...the wings shed at the end of the loop. 

In level flight the wings will still take a lot of punishment - but it feels like almost any damage past 3-5 bullets' worth renders the plane unable of doing any kind of fast vertical manoeuvres. 

 

So from the WWI Flying I've been doing, and re-watching the tracks people have posted, and it looks like the wings are failing after guide wires and braces have been shot away. 

 

So first question is, what sort of G-loads should we expect to be able to handle with missing struts and guide wires? I do recall stories about wings failing in steep dives, as well as a modern description of the amount of damage a hard landing did to a Bristol Fighter. Apparently the whole airframe flexed and broke many of the internal guide wires; they pretty much had to take the whole thing apart to fix it. He talks about the risks of landing here: 

 

 

The things I'm wondering are

 

1) In FC, is material flex modeled? I.E, does it handle bending, or is the structure considered a ridged body?

2) If a round hits a taut guide wire, should the guide wire snap, or deflect?

3) What should the G limits be on the airframes before and after loss of support struts and bracing wire?

4) What are the maximum G loads the plans should be able to generate at a given speed?

 

My suspicion, as yet unproven, is that in FC we're able to generate more G's than we should be, and putting the aircraft routinely into overstress conditions, and that the damage model may be treating things as purely ridged bodies, making them more susceptible to being cut by gun fire than they would otherwise be. When combined, it would be one way to generate frequent catastrophic structural failures.

[Max_von_Wuthenau]

fantastic job!

[Roland_HUNter]

TAW:
Floating truck, bullets went through:

[Guster]

Did a fresh reinstall and immediately noticed much smoother action and far less stutters, even over larger cities. The new DM does not seem to cause stutters either with all the new calculations and what not going on.

 

AI is very nice and seem a lot more creative when up close and personal, and somewhat keen on taking the fight into the vertical as well.

 

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

1 hour ago, =[TIA]=Stoopy said:

As a fellow longtime simmer I've gotten very used to not depending on damage textures (decals) to give an accurate assessment of actual damage, but instead I depend on the feedback from the aircraft.  In real life you could have damage to the underside of the wing structure that, like much of the airframe, isn't visible from the cockpit   And we just have much more fidelity now in the gradient of damage done than can be visually represented by the textures.   I'll gladly take that tradeoff.

 

 

 

To Stoopy: no problem, bro, I do agree with you.

 

To Danziger: I don't depend on damage textures neither, but visual realism is spoiled because of them. Everything is visually realistic at the same level in that sim: the sun light at dawn, the far layers of the atmosphere, the planes' textures, the drop shadows inside and outside the cockpit, the mirroring reflexions on rivers and lakes, the clouds… everything is as fake or as real as is everything else in the sim… but not the visual damage on my wings and plane structure. That's all. I think it's an old problem of "Rise of Flight", not intended to depict metal planes.

 

But it's ok,  I love that sim, it's my fav'.

[Mad-Moses]

Just curious...

 

Is damage to propeller blades directly from enemy fire modeled? If yes is there differing effect between wood & aluminum materials?

 

Regards,

Mad-Moses

[IckyATLAS]

(A) Okay after some testing I have found the origin of what causes such a radical crash.

It lies in an active train. I had an active train set. The train is made of a g8 locomotive. But inside the Carriage table I have put an e locomotive with an et tender.

Here we have a conflict between the train loco definition and the detailed train carriage list. I had corrected this incoherence in one mission out of 8 so one worked and seven crashed.

What is strange is that this conflict was there in the previous versions of the game and never did cause a crash, and the train did perform as expected very well. Why in 4.005 it create a crash? Code has been changed related to trains for sure.

The best way if there is a conflict between the selected locomotive and its carriage specification it is to have the selected locomotive supersede the other one. Or better take the locos out of the list in the carriage table. It would have made sense to have them there only if multiple locos are allowed in a train which is not the case ("unfortunately" ?).

 

(B) There is still an issue with the static trains which do not cause any problem but which are visually bad/wrong. To be sure that it was not a problem of my mission, I created a simple mission with just an empty Kuban summer map. I put on this map a series of static train objects and a camera looking at them, and as you can see  in the picture below it is a weird result:

 

 

This was not so in 4.004. I have many static train objects in lots of places it was perfect and not like this.

Please Devs fix this bug !! Thanks!!

 

 

[SJ_Butcher]

3 hours ago, -DED-Rapidus said:

I need a track with mission.

 

I will try do it it as soon as I can, but I am not alone, my cousin yesterday saw the saame bug on the same spot, let me record the mission please

[Legioneod]

10 hours ago, Mad-Moses said:

My first impression of the patch... just a microcosm of 5 online sorties on Combat Box dogfight server.

 

If you are a P-51 pilot you will be unhappy...

 

Kills: Took 90x 0.50 hits to bring down my first K-4. Took 64 rounds to bring down my 2nd K-4. No major engine damage to them just white smoke. Had a A-8 dead to rights on my next kill gave up shooting him from behind and just went for a deflection shot in the canopy and it worked well with a PK.

 

Downs: first 2 times hit from the rear lost elevators on first hit. Also got flamed on a belly shot which was actually pretty cool.

 

I also kept blacking out suddenly (no grey out)... that is the one tool you had in your pocket as a defense against a '6', to be smart and keep you speed you could make a high g turn on the edge of blackout and get some separation from you pursuer, that seems to been nerfed as well... not 100% sure on this but it seemed that way tonight.

 

From a dogfight server perspective its bad news now to fly US Allied planes, it's going to be a case of how many passes do you want to make to get a kill to expose yourself to instant death from an Axis cannon blast. Flying with energy and making tactically smart decisions won't get you much in the kill column anymore.

 

I honestly I don't mind getting downed with one good volley of enemy fire (one either side) because that is exactly what happened 9 times out of 10 in real life. The P-51 took too much damage from the rear before the patch, glad that is fixed (hope the instant elevator loss the first 2 rear hits was an anomaly)... P-38 & P-47 seems to go down to easy before (haven't been shot hit in those yet, hope that is a little better)... all planes too easy to have pilot kills directly form the rear, hope that is better, not enough seat time yet to give an opinion. Having to put 50-100 rounds of 0.50 to knock out a single engine fighter is ridiculous, those rounds went straight through everything, one good squirt was totally devastating shouldn't take 3 to 5 squirts/passes.

 

Initial impression.. you guys 'dropped the ball' on this update in regard to realism.

 

I do highly approve of some of the sound and visual upgrades.

 

Regards,

Mad-Moses

Devs and Testers went over this again and again in the beta. .50s just aren't as damaging to aircraft as you might think (structurally anyways). .50s are good at damaging internals and pilots but this damage usually isn't visible to the player doing the shooting. Another thing to remember is that you could be shooting the aircraft but missing vital internals like wing spars, control rods, fuel/oil/coolant, etc. so while it might look like it's taking too many hits in reality you just arent hitting the vitals.

 

Hitting at convergence is very very important with .50s, you want as much firepower on one point as possible, peppering the aircraft flap with 100 hits isnt going to bring it down.

Reality is sometimes a little less dramatic/exciting as fiction, imo this shows in the update. .50s are much closer to reality than you might want.

 

 

[Mad-Moses]

3 hours ago, flynvrtd said:

I have noticed that the insta PK from 50 cal hits seems to have been toned down.

I was able to keep a couple Mustangs and a Spitfire from outright shredding me with out of plane maneuvering until I had to bail from catching fire in one encounter last night on Combat Box.

 

Yes, the same impression from my limited experience last night on the other side.

 

I only down planes (on the spot) by deflection shots into the canopy area killing the pilot. Reviewing the stats I did wound one from behind... there's that moment when they stop maneuvering and you thinking "Is he dead?... should I pull off?" then they wake up and start jinking again.

 

On the receiving end I got mildly wounded twice from rearward fire and heavy wounded once by a sexy deflection shot from a K-4 that I already pumped some rounds into streaming white fluid then promptly extended then climbed over me, well done by him. Clearly the performance of his aircraft wasn't effected in the short term... maybe he would run out of fuel if he didn't go straight home? It appears they modeled the protection from behind (armored seat/headrest) well which is cool.

 

Mad-Moses

[Lusekofte]

Something very wrong, I fought Migs and got shot down , Did I install the patch wrong?

Because this used to happen before the patch