DM poll

[JGr2/J5_Baeumer]

Andy, with all due respect and appreciation for your work, in other posts and threads I and others have pointed out that the 4.005 DM has essentially reversed historical and expected causes of plane loss.

 

Structural wing failure was not the documented primary cause of historical plane loss or plane scores in FC prior to 4.005.   In 4.005 that is now the situation. 

 

That in a nutshell is the problem.  Your probability theory, whatever it may be, must be balanced in a proportional way with your probability theories of bullets hitting meat and metal and mechanical failures, which were the most frequent cause of plane and pilot loss, excepting pilot and plane loss due to pilot error.

 

For more, see these posts:

 

 

And this:

 

 

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by J5_Baeumer
links added

[ZachariasX]

12 hours ago, J5_Hellbender said:

Whatever conclusion you reach concerning wing strength, please base it on data and not on community pressure.

I see you regret and repent, sinner! First the Camel and the Dr.I! Then, the Pfalz! Nasty Bender! - Says me who still thinks it was in principle a good idea to neuter some of the "pre-patch" planes in good ole RoF (minus the collateral, that is...)

 

But you gotta do a little more than just asking for the obvious if you want to be of help. Nobody questions the desire to get "things according to data". But what does that mean? You cannot confuse input with output of the sim engine. Your statement as such is just asking for input and output of the FM/DM being exactly as it would be in real life. We all want that. This is not up for debate.

 

The problem is much deeper, it is that FM/DM do NOT in all cases give us a correct output upon a specific input. And changing that is incredibly hard as it does affect every entity that is processes in the sim. What we have to do is balancing the input with the output and making it such, that on the whole, it matches "data" (or whatever you like to call reality) best.

 

If we have:

 

X  -> "reality"  ->  Y

 

X ->  FM/DM ->  Y+5

 

Then we find that our simulation is not correct. You say "use data" means you will produce a certain error, in this case 5. Now, we can try what happens if I am a heretic sinner and play with those inputs and I would find that

 

X-2  -> FM/DM  -> Y+1

 

is a best approximation for both X and Y. This means, I would have to enter a wrong datum to produce as correct of a result as bottom line.

 

It is an extremely delicate affair, as ANY change to the FM/DM would produce different deviations, requiring a new balancing of input and output. I am sure this happens with any simulator and most certainly in BoX. The fudged propeller of the SE5a tells such a story.

 

That we have a DM that by its very nature does NOT work how real damage is occuring, you are compelled to deviate from data to a certain degree, that you can produce a plausible result. Also, this does not mean that you only can make your beloved data wrong to Get What Forists Want™, but you can add other cues that compensate for what you don't have in the sim but you would have in real life. Think of some?

 

Now, there are many different outputs of a FM/DM, and forists have different priorities among those, meaning the balancing of input and output precision is very much up for debate and @AnPetrovich didn't do anything stupid when he asked us what to do now. Some are just happy when the top speed matches their beloved book that they take as reference and don't mind if it also makes the plane go vertical to the moon. Some are ok with a compromise. Why shouldn't he ask for our opinion? Nobody is assuming he's not capable of deciding himself, but for delicate topics, it might be good to have an idea how the crowd react before you do something. It is still a game that has to be playable and we need to be happy enough to buy it. That and not "data" is the future of any combat sim.

[kendo]

On 5/2/2020 at 3:45 PM, J2_Bidu said:

I believe, despite their general preferences right now, most people will accept it as correct when this happens:

 

=> The statistical distribution of the ways planes are shot down roughly matches what is written in historical accounts.

 

 

I  totally agree with this. But the issue is getting accurate data/information of enough detail on the actual causes of aircraft loss in WW1.

 

So far I haven't seen anything that is unambiguous enough. People have been trying, for instance in quote below.

 

The problem is glaring though:  "23 Crashed"

 

It is too ambiguous.

 

Then all that happens is people interpret that ambiguity according to their own preference/prejudice, as is done below too. 

 

No offence, but we need to get away from wishful thinking, and having our minds made up before we even look at the evidence.

 

 

On 5/5/2020 at 7:16 PM, J2_Bidu said:

Here's the aggregated list of Ball's victories, by type of kill. This includes things he did not claim. Reference: "Albert Ball VC" by Chaz Bowyer.

"Crashed" is unspecified, but apparently does not include "driven down", "forced to land" or "out of control", which probably means either a) the pilot was killed and crashed into the ground or b) plane was destroyed in the air (but seems less likely to me).

23 Crashed

22 Forced to land

8 Driven down

6 Out of Control

5 In flames
1 Shot down (unspecified)
1 Driven down under control (!)

1 Gunner killed or forced to parachute

6 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Some are ok with a compromise. Why shouldn't he ask for our opinion? Nobody is assuming he's not capable of deciding himself, but for delicate topics, it might be good to have an idea how the crowd react before you do something. It is still a game that has to be playable and we need to be happy enough to buy it. That and not "data" is the future of any combat sim.

 

I get confused sometimes whether people's objections to the current DM are because it is not realistic, or because it makes the game less fun?

 

Maybe getting the most real simulation (of WW1 combat) will automatically make for the most "fun" experience too. But I doubt it somehow.

 

So then we need to make a choice:  "fun" or "accurate"?

 

Maybe if it's a really accurate sim, it will be so little fun that no-one would want to play it?

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, kendo said:

I get confused sometimes whether people's objections to the current DM are because it is not realistic, or because it makes the game less fun?

If the game is not fun, people won't buy it and that is the end of it.

 

Fun and "realism" do not necessarily exclude each other. Realism is the very base of a simulation. But one has to set priorities, as realism in a game is a compromise of what is possible for various reasons. For instance, our DM is not any "realism" at all, but a workable artificial model to generate what should be a realistic outcome derived from a given input. Hence just saying "use data" is meaningless. Of course one is using data, but what can you make from that data? That is the question.

 

That "wings come off" is so far nothing but the output of an artificial algorithm that is supposed to mimic the real world. It holds by no means more credibility over actual bottom line accounts. On the contrary. That algorithms shoould reproduce what you think SHOULD BE happening.

 

Reality in a simulator is always a compromise. Is is useless being high-minded about "the real thing" when that still leaves a huge room for what really could be. If you don't know what an outcome should be then you certainly are not in the position of making any model at all.

 

 

[BMA_Hellbender]

 

2 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

But you gotta do a little more than just asking for the obvious if you want to be of help. Nobody questions the desire to get "things according to data". But what does that mean? You cannot confuse input with output of the sim engine. Your statement as such is just asking for input and output of the FM/DM being exactly as it would be in real life. We all want that. This is not up for debate.

 

 

@AnPetrovich says that he's found an error in the data they're currently using and that a correction will happen which should strengthen the wings somewhat, at least for some planes, so let's wait and see about those. For the planes which we already know will not be affected by this change, the Sopwith Camel for example, all we have done so far is share our feelings, in much the same way we previously shared our feelings about certain planes being too fast according to historical reports.

 

 

By way of analogy: I've always maintained that the Sopwith Camel's top speed was around 180km/h, same as the other Clerget and Le Rhone-powered rotary scouts, as reported by the Belgians (Above Flanders Fields, Walter M. Pieters [1998]). Obviously the circumstances and accuracy of that report is questionable, but I see no reason why they should be lying. The Sopwith Aviation Company, Kingston-upon-Thames, is thankfully still around today (well, they've merged with some other companies since, but we all know that's just a front), and we still have the factory data of the Camel:

 

https://www.baesystems.com/en/heritage/sopwith-camel (117mph = 188km/h)

(yes that's an image from Rise of Flight on the BAE website)

 

Compare this to our current FC/"pre-nerf" Camel (190km/h) and to the RoF Camel (167km/h, give or take). While I'll never be fully satisfied even with it being 2km/h off, especially in that direction (I'd have been very happy with a 186km/h Camel indeed), the way the Camel was changed purely for gameplay purposes is not acceptable if your purpose is historical accuracy. Again, you've accurately pointed out who's personally to blame for the RoF Camel being so slow. And don't you forget it! Me, baby, me.

 

 

Where I'm going with this is simple: we have data now from developer tests which shows that the wings are in fact stronger than our feelings, but weaker than our expectations.

 

As many have pointed out, historical reports show that wing failure was not the primary cause for plane loss during combat. I see no reason why they'd be lying about this either.

 

And as @J5_Baeumer points out, wing failure was not the primary cause for plane loss during sim combat prior to the DM change.

 

 

So does that mean that the DM is wrong? Probably a little bit (see: 190km/h Sopwith Camel), but in all likelihood not as much as we're expecting (see: 167km/h Sopwith Camel).

 

So if the devs can fix the DM slightly, I think the rest of the disparity with historical reports can be found entirely with player behaviour.

 

On 5/6/2020 at 9:09 PM, AnPetrovich said:

This is really, really interesting, why players feel this way, and why you guys take so rare cases as a basis for your perception and conclusions. Maybe because we only memorize the most unusual cases? Maybe because we fly virtually and pull high G on these airplanes regardless of received damages, unlike a real pilot who has a real fear? I don't have an answer.. really.

 

And the reason why we're seeing way more wingshedding in-game is that we simply overstress these planes all the time, but it only becomes apparent after taking damage. It's one of the reasons why we see less wingshedding with AI and why historical reports appear to have so little reports of wing failure. Catastrophic structural failure may have been around the corner for almost every moderately damaged machine, but no one was flying their plane to the absolute extreme as we do in a bid to survive. And in the end: no, they didn't survive by maneuvering less, they just died before they could lose their wings.

 

 

From a gameplay point of view, it's probably better to have stronger wings, since it means dogfights go on for longer, there is less spray and pray, and it doesn't give a massive advantage to planes that can attack and defend easily under low G loads (i.e. turret fighters).

 

And purely from a gameplay point of view, it's probably better to have a 167km/h Camel and a 180km/h Albatros, as we have in RoF. Even if in all likelihood yes, according to the data, the Camel was indeed faster than the Albatros in level flight, but they seldom encountered them in anything but a dive, which is why the historical reports appear wrong. After all, what the Albatros pilots did was climb above their own lines as high as possible, dive in, and then run away to safety.

 

 

So what do you want really?

 

Accuracy in the simulated data and forcing a change in player behaviour, or adjusting the game to how it's actually being played to simulate historical outcomes?

 

As I've said before, I'm biased either way.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J5_Hellbender

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

1 minute ago, J5_Hellbender said:

AnPetrovich says that he's found an error in the data they're currently using and that a correction will happen which should strengthen the wings somewhat, at least for some planes, so let's wait and see about those. For the planes which we already know will not be affected by this change, the Sopwith Camel for example, all we have done so far is share our feelings, in much the same way we previously shared our feelings about certain planes being too fast according to historical reports.

Spar adjustment is not enough unfortunately , for example it won't help the  Dolphin and now this plane loose wings to easy , some even says it useles now ....

[J2_Bidu]

12 hours ago, =CfC=FatherTed said:

The hitting of the target should not be down to probability

 

Ideally. But from what I understood ideal is impossibke to achieve, as the entire structure of the plane is not modelled and is, in terms of damage, modelled by a set of "hitboxes" whose individual shape does not match the plane parts. A hitbox "hit" means the bullet entered an area where there are plane parts and empty space. So a coin is flipped to "determine" if plane or air was hit (and maybe the severity of the damage). It is a practical approximation, with obvious limitations. But better than ZX Speftrum's "Delta Wing" in 1984.

[BMA_Hellbender]

14 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Spar adjustment is not enough unfortunately , for example it won't help the  Dolphin and now this plane loose wings to easy , some even says it useles now ....

 

You're right, of course.

 

And even if we accept that the DM is 100% accurate now (after minor fixes) and that we all need to relearn how to fly these planes, much, much, much more gently, even then there are other problems with the simulation that can't be so easily fixed.

 

G-forces on gunners are still not restrictive enough (you can still fly upside down and move the guns around at 2G+), gunnery and spotting is still too easy (actually very close to real in VR, but we don't all have that, nor want that) and... well in general all the planes could do with at least a minor FM review, or at the very least engine variants. Also some of the ground looping and flipping on landing is just crazy overdone (for WWII as well). I guess I should also mention invisible planes.

 

 

But I digress.

 

I'm not going to lie or be hypocrite about this: one of the reasons I've sung the praises of FC is because wingshedding is... was a thing of the past.

 

Now supposedly the more refined DM should have included wingshedding all along. I'm glad, at least, that @AnPetrovich is openly communicating with us, but I honestly don't know where I stand anymore. Nor if I still want to come back (I've stopped playing since the Corona lockdown started here in Spain -- this is probably best left for another discussion). Or should we bring back the Bender/Darling monster, just to prove a point?

 

I don't know, you tell me.

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by J5_Hellbender

[ZachariasX]

38 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said:

So if the devs can fix the DM slightly, I think the rest of the disparity with historical reports can be found entirely with player behaviour.

 

It certainly has an impact. And I am very much in line with your reasoning there.

 

But what I would think the disparity of player behaviour vs. real pilot behaviour deserves a closer look. To me it is like the question of engine tiimers. we have those timers to enforce player behavior the hard way. Now, assuming the DM is right and the player is wrong (in ham-fisting the aircraft), is there a realistic way other than Michael Douglas waiving a club telling the player how much margin he has with his plane to enforce a more realistic maneuvering? And if the player had a way to infere his actual status, would we see less wing shedding?

Edited May 8, 2020 by ZachariasX

[US103_Baer]

48 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Spar adjustment is not enough unfortunately , for example it won't help the  Dolphin and now this plane loose wings to easy , some even says it useles now ....

 

And do we need to mention the CL2 which currently has wings made of unreinforced custard. Completely awful and it's barely getting any spar improvement.

The Camel and Dolphin get none and the SPAD bugger all.

 

So if the problem is incorrect Spar thickness it isn't solving anything for these planes which have all demonstrated wing folding issues.

Edited May 8, 2020 by US103_Baer

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

3 hours ago, kendo said:

 

I get confused sometimes whether people's objections to the current DM are because it is not realistic, or because it makes the game less fun?

 

 

In my opinion current DM model is suitable for single player and casual players.

 

For MP it removes skill gap. Random lucky spray in the wings , cheeky prop hang and suddenly you can lose a fight because your wings fall off.

 

What is also worrying that cosmetic/visual DM does not correspond with actual damage received.

 

You might thinks that couple of bullet holes in canvas should be OK and next thing you are spirraling towards the ground without wings.

 

For MP it's simply too random and removes all the skill gap there was.

 

It should be meat or metal , not spray and pray.

Edited May 8, 2020 by 1PL-Banzai-ESzk

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

Skill gap, lol.  You mean like when someone could prop hang and spray wildly hoping to land a lucky shot to black out your pilot for 20 seconds?

 

Thousands upon thousands of hours of flight time is still going to win out over a couple dozen hours of flight time; no matter what the DM is.

 

The best pilots will adapt to this and still be the best pilots.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

'That's just like your opinion,man.' ?

[HagarTheHorrible]

2 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

Skill gap, lol.

 

Thousands upon thousands of hours of flight time is still going to win out over a couple dozen hours of flight time; no matter what the DM is.

 

The best pilots will adapt to this and still be the best pilots.

The New DM WILL widen the gap between shooting and manoeuvring.  Aircraft performance will take a back seat to shooting skill and the games shooting parameters.  ( No Parachute -  We fired at 200 yards, with no expectation of success, and were very surprised to see our bullets hit...., not verbatim).  When was the last time anybody fired at 200 yards, in FC, thinking that it was spray and pray ?  In FC, it would not surprise me, if 200 yards was the average range for shooting and more over, probably at a manoeuvring target to boot. 

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

24 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

Skill gap, lol.  You mean like when someone could prop hang and spray wildly hoping to land a lucky shot to black out your pilot for 20 seconds?

 

Thousands upon thousands of hours of flight time is still going to win out over a couple dozen hours of flight time; no matter what the DM is.

 

The best pilots will adapt to this and still be the best pilots.

You don't get it because you are not dogfighter, a  turn and burn person. When skilled pilot is in thigh phone boot fight against 4 or 5 , his wings will receive some damage as quick break which save his body or engine make wing register some  hits. He would then executive skill and perhaps shoot them all  and RTB, now with   that kind of unknown damage and glass wings he surly not as   he can't use his plane as he would before the patch.

Edited May 8, 2020 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[BMA_Hellbender]

17 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

Skill gap, lol.  You mean like when someone could prop hang and spray wildly hoping to land a lucky shot to black out your pilot for 20 seconds?

 

Thousands upon thousands of hours of flight time is still going to win out over a couple dozen hours of flight time; no matter what the DM is.

 

The best pilots will adapt to this and still be the best pilots.

 

Yes, thousands upon thousands of hours will make you the best at this game, it will not necessarily make you the best WWI pilot.

 

If the DM heavily favours an unrealistic approach to dogfighting, then you'll end up with the best gamers at the top. And even if the DM is accurate, other parts of the simulation can still heavily favour an unrealistic approach, which is then exacerbated by fragile wings.

 

 

Again I'm very cautious in questioning the accuracy either of the new-old DM (wingshedding) or the old-new DM (no wingshedding). I certainly preferred less wingshedding, even if with my modest flying experience, I would never be comfortable with the kind of stresses we casually put these old machines through. Well, I say old, but they were the F-22 of their day, obviously. By comparison I fly a Honda Civic with wings in real life.

[emely]

I was told that everything is absolutely correct here, all parameters are taken into account correctly, in reality it was just that.

But if everything is in order with the game, then the problem is in my personal perception, because I am not able to believe in the reality of what is happening. 

Tell me those who believe in the realism of such situations - how do you do it?  I also want to play the only ww1 simulator on the market with pleasure, but I can’t do it.  Share with me your recipe for belief in the unreal!

 

 

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

34 minutes ago, HagarTheHorrible said:

The New DM WILL widen the gap between shooting and manoeuvring.  Aircraft performance will take a back seat to shooting skill and the games shooting parameters.  ( No Parachute -  We fired at 200 yards, with no expectation of success, and were very surprised to see our bullets hit...., not verbatim).  When was the last time anybody fired at 200 yards, in FC, thinking that it was spray and pray ?  In FC, it would not surprise me, if 200 yards was the average range for shooting and more over, probably at a manoeuvring target to boot. 

 

This comes back to what I believe is the greater culprit for many "unrealistic" scenarios we find in this game; our laser accuracy with these machineguns.

 

In RoF a person could out-pilot someone elses' gunnery.  Here, not so much.  The skillset in FC was already heavily weighted toward gunnery.  This hasn't changed.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli

[Zooropa_Fly]

30 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

 

This comes back to what I believe is the greater culprit for many "unrealistic" scenarios we find in this game; our laser accuracy with these machineguns.

 

In RoF a person could out-pilot someone elses' gunnery.  Here, not so much.  The skillset in FC was already heavily weighted toward gunnery.  This hasn't changed.

 

This might have something to do with RoF's horrible bullet dispersion fix. Zoom-in when shooting and watch your bullets fly in every direction.

Lack of 'weather' on most maps helps our gunnery too. It's unfortunate that introducing weather into a map can have catastrophic performance effectsd.

 

Apples and Pears of course, to an extent.. but I don't think there's much complaint about the ww2 DM's.

And you see wings blasted off in split seconds there.

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

47 minutes ago, emely said:

I was told that everything is absolutely correct here, all parameters are taken into account correctly, in reality it was just that.

But if everything is in order with the game, then the problem is in my personal perception, because I am not able to believe in the reality of what is happening. 

Tell me those who believe in the realism of such situations - how do you do it?  I also want to play the only ww1 simulator on the market with pleasure, but I can’t do it.  Share with me your recipe for belief in the unreal!

 

 

This  video is a cruelty to our Central friends.

 

You will give them flashbacks to Bloody April X.

 

It was raining Halbs, Allelujah...?

[emely]

9 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

 

This might have something to do with RoF's horrible bullet dispersion fix. 

This is a common misconception.  In RoF, any machine gun fires as if it were in a turbulent zone.  Even if you turn off the shaking of air in the settings, the machine gun barrel still conditionally still experiences displacements in space according to the laws that the turbulence model in the game gives.

[JG1_Butzzell]

We have concentrated on the Spars because an error was found there.

 

Could it be that there is more than one error?

 

Wing failure is probably a combination of hit boxes?

 

Could some of the other hit boxes be contributing more than their fair share. Is their contribution being exaggerated?

[emely]

17 minutes ago, 1PL-Banzai-ESzk said:

 

You will give them flashbacks to Bloody April X.

We must pay tribute to them, even in such conditions, they steadfastly continued the battle.  Of course, firing at bots on your computer is much more effective than fighting on a server located on the other side of the globe.  During this event, I alone on SeVa attacked three guys on CL2.  Only one of them lost wings in the end, and two with injuries returned to their airfield.  I could not stop them from destroying our tanks.  What can I say, they almost killed me in this battle :-))

But this is a special case.  Bad ping subtracted part of my bullets, and the position of the enemy aircraft did not always correspond to the correct one.  As a result, realism was achieved using the flaws of the online ?

[1PL-Banzai-1Esk]

54 minutes ago, emely said:

We must pay tribute to them, even in such conditions, they steadfastly continued the battle.  Of course, firing at bots on your computer is much more effective than fighting on a server located on the other side of the globe.  During this event, I alone on SeVa attacked three guys on CL2.  Only one of them lost wings in the end, and two with injuries returned to their airfield.  I could not stop them from destroying our tanks.  What can I say, they almost killed me in this battle :-))

But this is a special case.  Bad ping subtracted part of my bullets, and the position of the enemy aircraft did not always correspond to the correct one.  As a result, realism was achieved using the flaws of the online ?

Agreed. I have a lot of respect for all who took part in BAX.

 

Just some friendly banter. I for sure felt safer in SeV.

 

Takes a lot of dedication to fly Halbs under current DM. They did a great job destroying many targets.

[Flashy]

23 hours ago, AnPetrovich said:

Quick answers:

 

 

Not exactly in the same spot but at the same part of the wing. Thus, the length of spar also does matter.
110 is an average number as a most likely result. In a specific situation, this number may vary.
See my explanation here.

 

 

Just a quick thoughts that I havent seen anyone else mention (it might have been - apologies if I missed it, and apologies also for my crude drawings, but they'll do to illustrate my points ?

1. ) Does the DM make any assumptions about the likely spread of the hits on a part of the wing? If we have a spar with 5 hits for example, then this scenario:

Is entirely different from a "spar damage and likelihood to fail" point of view than this one:

 

But the first one is far less likely in a fast dogfight where the planes are twisting and turning all the time and pilots are shooting with inaccurate machine guns.. I know you did answer a similar question in your response, but maybe the probability calculation is giving too high a probability to the first case when it should be practically 0% for 5 hits in the same place? 

 

 2.) Are all "hits" to the spar treated equally in the DM? I.e does it make any distinction (or assign a probability) between a direct hit (red in the picture below) and a glancing blow (yellow in the pic)?:

 

3.) does it take into account the construction of the spar at all? So if a spar has holes in it for example does it give a probability that even a "hit" might have actually missed the spar based on the % of the spar area that the holes occupy? i.e. 5 "hits" to this spar, but only 3 of them are actually hits because 2 passed through the holes:

 

thats all for now

 

EDIT: also, what about combinations of the above? Here is an edge case where there are 5 "hits" in the same place, yet spar durability is hardly affected ?:

 

granted, this is incredibly rare, but can this situation theoretically happen in the DM?

Edited May 8, 2020 by Flashy

[HagarTheHorrible]

There is, of course, a simple solution.  It requires no great analysis, no particular amount of work and is fair to all,   

 

A damage model for the wings, to judge between different designs, is just too complex an issue, with far too many elements, far to many imponderables that, without serious study and even then hampered by a lack of prima facia evidence or reliable first hand post crash investigation, on which to judge results, is difficult, to impossible,  to arrive at any solid conclusion.

 

What everyone can probably agree with is that, pre patch, the game was, if imperfect,  reasonably realistic to our expectations of outcome and everyone was as happy as can be expected.  That said it is not improbable that a damaged aircraft will lose it’s wings and might be considered realistic, it is simply a question of frequency.

 

The simple solution is to give all aircraft the same wing damage model/strength. It doesn’t preclude the chance of wings folding up and it doesn’t try to ponder the uncertainty of what happens when a bullet, or 5,  strikes any particular wing style or design.   Wings might still fall off, but it is as likely to happen to player A as player B   The only question is frequency and what seems to accord with historical account (not often, but not unheard of). 

 

After all the game is just a game, it has to seem fair to all sides, not artificially load the dice but not reveals the score until one player or another is out.

[JG1_Vonrd]

This!

+1

 

(Though I'm not sure if it's do-able considering the current DM mechanics).

Edited May 8, 2020 by JG1_VVS_Vonrd

[No.23_Triggers]

7 hours ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

Skill gap, lol.  You mean like when someone could prop hang and spray wildly hoping to land a lucky shot to black out your pilot for 20 seconds?

I think he means like when someone would practice their gunnery so that when they hit the pilot they got a KO, then a kill. In the old DM, a fight between someone who sprayed wildly vs someone with good aim would have a largely different outcome - the 'sprayer' might get a handful of hits into the wings, tail, etc, but if he didn't get that 'lucky shot' and the other guy got a good shooting angle then it would be lights out. 

Now, the 'sprayer' can fire as wildly as he wants, and the other guy will probably fold up while manoeuvring against him. There's much less skill involved in gunnery with the current DM, to the point that it feels like having the skill to hit pilots barely even dictates the outcome of a fight.

 

 

5 hours ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

We have concentrated on the Spars because an error was found there.

 

Could it be that there is more than one error?

 

Wing failure is probably a combination of hit boxes?

 

Could some of the other hit boxes be contributing more than their fair share. Is their contribution being exaggerated?

This is what I'm starting to think. Spar toughness IN ADDITION to overall toughness is a combo that creates the current wing shedding as we see in-game. I've had plenty of times where I've shot the wings off an Alb that's been in a hard bank away, hitting the flat of the wing at a 70-90 degree angle, where hitting the spars should be highly improbable (supposedly). 

Edited May 8, 2020 by US93_Larner

[BMA_Hellbender]

1 hour ago, HagarTheHorrible said:

What everyone can probably agree with is that, pre patch, the game was, if imperfect,  reasonably realistic to our expectations of outcome and everyone was as happy as can be expected.  That said it is not improbable that a damaged aircraft will lose it’s wings and might be considered realistic, it is simply a question of frequency.

 

The simple solution is to give all aircraft the same wing damage model/strength. It doesn’t preclude the chance of wings folding up and it doesn’t try to ponder the uncertainty of what happens when a bullet, or 5,  strikes any particular wing style or design.   Wings might still fall off, but it is as likely to happen to player A as player B   The only question is frequency and what seems to accord with historical account (not often, but not unheard of).

 

No, I don't agree there. Purely for gameplay purposes we could consider a "Realistic Wings" server option that could be unchecked, much like we had "Realistic Gunnery" (no spread) unchecked in RoF.

 

As it stands we have certain wing designs which we know are sturdier than others, most notably the cantilever wings of the Fokker Dr.I, and to a slightly lesser extent the cantilever wings of the Fokker D.VII (and hopefully at some point the Fokker D.VIII). Those should be sturdier by definition than the externally braced wings of all other machines.

 

 

I think where most of the frustration comes from is that WWI dogfighting has always been treated as a boxing match of sorts, where blows are exchanged, TKOs happen often where an opponent must retreat with a disabled or damaged machine but an actual KO is relatively rare occurance. By comparison, WWII dogfighting is closer to fencing: there is an even heavier emphasis on maneuvering and sudden death.

 

The question is: is this really accurate?

 

It's something I've often wondered about, especially considering how feared two-seaters were by the end of the war, and how they are not quite as deadly anymore in FC compared to RoF. That is not to say that you can't do completely unrealistic maneuvers with them and that gunners should be able to shoot and move under unrealistic G loads, but the damage they cause through "spray and pray" (and some skill involved) may very well be more realistic than we care to admit.

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

39 minutes ago, US93_Larner said:

There's much less skill involved in gunnery with the current DM, to the point that it feels like having the skill to hit pilots barely even dictates the outcome of a fight.

 

And this is where I disagree, because to my perception there is barely any skill required to do those things anyways.  With the right convergence settings you could reliably snipe pilots at 400m in this game.  Fire the burst and wait for the plane to pitch and roll as he blacked out.  Add "zoom way in" to the start of that procedure for some guys (I swear it only makes you see what you would have seen in "real life"!)

 

People said it is because of the puffs, but I believe it is because of our perfectly steady heads behind the sights, and the super soaker stream of bullets we fire.

 

But yes, the upper echelon gamers will always want the skill gap to be as wide as possible.  That is understandable.  They complain that the new DM is too unrealistic; yet perhaps they just prefer a different flavor of unrealistic?

Edited May 8, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli

[No.23_Triggers]

4 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

 

And this is where I disagree, because to my perception there is barely any skill required to do those things anyways.  With the right convergence settings you could reliably snipe pilots at 400m in this game.  Fire the burst and wait for the plane to pitch and roll as he blacked out. 

Really? Is that what you've been doing? Killing pilots from 400m out?  I can think of just one occasion, out of hundreds and hundreds of kills, where I've nailed a pilot at anything near 400m range. And I'd consider myself a pretty decent shot. 

I can think of many more occasions where I've had a D7 or an Albatros all over me, at near point blank range, only for the guy to be a lousy shot and for me to end up killing them when they give me a good firing angle. In all of those fights, I likely would have lost my wings with the new DM. 

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

28 minutes ago, US93_Larner said:

Really? Is that what you've been doing? Killing pilots from 400m out?  I can think of just one occasion, out of hundreds and hundreds of kills, where I've nailed a pilot at anything near 400m range. And I'd consider myself a pretty decent shot.

 

Estimated range of course, because that is where I set my convergence; But you would encounter it more if you flew central more often.  When a SPAD or SE is diving away from you toward the deck they most often don't maneuver too much for fear of busting their wings.

 

I have heard that apparently the DVII can follow the SPAD in a dive, but I have always been too worried to break my engine, so catching up for a closer shot was not in the cards.

 

Edit;  the 400m convergence is not so that I can take shots at that range so much as it is because such a convergence puts my trajectory reasonably flat out to that range.  The high point of the trajectory is (estimating here) only about 15 inches above point of aim at 200m, which when aiming at the meat and metal portion of an aircraft is not much; and I never really have to bother accounting for bullet drop when shooting long distance.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli

[J5_Gamecock]

 

7 hours ago, JG1_Butzzell said:

We have concentrated on the Spars because an error was found there.

 

Could it be that there is more than one error?

 

Wing failure is probably a combination of hit boxes?

 

Could some of the other hit boxes be contributing more than their fair share. Is their contribution being exaggerated?

 

 I wonder about this also. From the chart it looks like the Alb will get a significant improvement but the CLII not so much. Those are the two aircraft that I noticed seeing the biggest change in and yet they seem to be getting very different amount of strengthening.

 

  How much did the SPAD actually change after the patch? I ask because I really don't know.  SE's did lose their wings pre-patch, (more so than others IMO), but it does happen much more frequently now.  The Bristol seems like it's already able to take incredible amounts of damage, and yet it looks like it will also benefit even more from the fix. I hear that DVII is much weaker than before, but I must admit, I've flown it a lot since the patch with no issues.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J5_Gamecock

[No.23_Gaylion]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

 

WE'VE GOT OUR OWN TRAINING SERVER WHERE WE FIGHT EACHOTHER. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER

 

 

OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

 

 

Just because you don't see our names on the J5 parser flying other planes doesn't mean we don't fly them!

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by US93_Talbot

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

Then stretch out your zero.  Our guns are a foot and a half apart.  Sniping people with our laser hoses is trivial.

 

This really, really helps when attacking two seaters because you can stay further back from the danger zone.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli

[J5_Gamecock]

8 hours ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

You don't get it because you are not dogfighter, a  turn and burn person. When skilled pilot is in thigh phone boot fight against 4 or 5 , his wings will receive some damage as quick break which save his body or engine make wing register some  hits. He would then executive skill and perhaps shoot them all  and RTB, now with   that kind of unknown damage and glass wings he surly not as   he can't use his plane as he would before the patch.

 

  This is what bothers me the most. Flying the Alb, you need to get fairly good on defense. One of my best moments was vs. a very well known squad from Poland  I was shot down in the end, but afterwards I found that I gave and took shots on/from all of them before my end.    You just can't do that now.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J5_Gamecock

[No.23_Starling]

1 minute ago, J5_Gamecock said:

 

  This is what bothers me the most. Flying the Alb, you need to get fairly good on defense. One of my best moments was vs. a very well known squad from Poland  I was shot down in the end, but afterwards I found that I gave and took shots on all of them before my end.    You just can't do that now.

I found the same thing flying vs Sahaj and KJ last week in the Albi. Saw one Dv shed the wings in a head on with a Camel after receiving a handful of rounds. If you start scissoring or even flat turning with a few wing hits they shed pretty quick. If you don’t go evasive the Camel has you, so either way it’s a tough match (but not impossible). 

[No.23_Triggers]

37 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

 

Estimated range of course, because that is where I set my convergence; But you would encounter it more if you flew central more often.  When a SPAD or SE is diving away from you toward the deck they most often don't maneuver too much for fear of busting their wings.

 

I have heard that apparently the DVII can follow the SPAD in a dive, but I have always been too worried to break my engine, so catching up for a closer shot was not in the cards.

You might be surprised how many D7s try to straight-line-dive away once they're really in trouble...at 200m, sure I could probably land a good pilot hit - at 300m, it would have to be a good shot...anything past that and, in my own personal experience, you need a lucky shot. At those ranges, you'll be wasting way more bullets than you'll be landing. But sure, if they stay in a straight line for long enough you can dial them in within a few bursts, or even just spray at them until you eventually get them. 

I'm talking about more of a dogfight, rather than firing at someone running in a straight line, when I talk about 'skill'. Someone with good marksmanship will be able to hit a manoeuvring pilot far more consistently than someone who sprays and prays. To my way of thinking, which is informed generally by pilot accounts of the day, that level of marksmanship should dictate whether or not you make the kill.

How that ties into the new DM discussion is simple: it's now more a case of who can shoot the other's wings first, which is far more rewarding for Spray n Pray pilots and almost totally negates the ability to shoot a pilot. NOT because you might blow his wings off while trying to get the pilot, but because the reason you'd even bother to train your gunnery to hit the pilot / engine is because hitting the wings or the fuselage with the odd burst isn't (wasn't) going to be good enough bring the other guy down. I hope I'm explaining my logic well enough. 

With the old DM, I feel that the individual's marksmanship was infinitely more of a defining factor than it is now. 

Re: "Laser Hoses" - yes, the guns are more accurate in FC. It's a double-edged sword. In FC, your bullets go where you aim them. If your aim is on, you get hits. If it's off, you miss. Just because the guns are deadly accurate, it doesn't mean the pilot is as well. It's the ability to manipulate your machine to get the firing angle that constitutes the skill, in my eyes. 

 

34 minutes ago, J5_Gamecock said:

How much did the SPAD actually change after the patch? I ask because I really don't know.  SE's did lose their wings pre-patch, (more so than others IMO), but it does happen much more frequently now.  The Bristol seems like it's already able to take incredible amounts of damage, and yet it looks like it will also benefit even more from the fix. I hear that DVII is much weaker than before, but I must admit, I've flown it a lot since the patch with no issues.

Short answer: After testing it, taking even a single hit makes me sweat.

Long answer: 3rd P.G's general consensus is that a short burst into a SPAD wing renders it useless. You might be able to get up to speed in a dive with that much damage, provided you aren't loading the wings at all, but you'll be pretty damn lucky to come out of it. It can be fairly tanky if it fights in the horizontal though...but we all know what happens to SPADs who try and flat-turn with German planes. 

The worst example we had in the training server was when Biddle (SPAD) and myself (Pfalz) went into a vertical head-on...him diving, me prop-hanging. I fired a short burst at him and didn't see any more than 3 or 4 hits on the right wings. The SPAD's wings collapsed a second later, before it had even started pulling out of the dive. 

I'd put it just a little bit more durable than an S.E. Certainly not as atrociously bad as the Alb or Halberstadt, but still unsettlingly weak. Combine that with its proper style of fighting, and the new DM is absolutely lethal to SPAD pilots. 

Edited May 8, 2020 by US93_Larner

[HagarTheHorrible]

53 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said:

 

No, I don't agree there. Purely for gameplay purposes we could consider a "Realistic Wings" server option that could be unchecked, much like we had "Realistic Gunnery" (no spread) unchecked in RoF.

 

As it stands we have certain wing designs which we know are sturdier than others, most notably the cantilever wings of the Fokker Dr.I, and to a slightly lesser extent the cantilever wings of the Fokker D.VII (and hopefully at some point the Fokker D.VIII). Those should be sturdier by definition than the externally braced wings of all other machines.

 

 

I think where most of the frustration comes from is that WWI dogfighting has always been treated as a boxing match of sorts, where blows are exchanged, TKOs happen often where an opponent must retreat with a disabled or damaged machine but an actual KO is relatively rare occurance. By comparison, WWII dogfighting is closer to fencing: there is an even heavier emphasis on maneuvering and sudden death.

 

The question is: is this really accurate?

 

It's something I've often wondered about, especially considering how feared two-seaters were by the end of the war, and how they are not quite as deadly anymore in FC compared to RoF. That is not to say that you can't do completely unrealistic maneuvers with them and that gunners should be able to shoot and move under unrealistic G loads, but the damage they cause through "spray and pray" (and some skill involved) may very well be more realistic than we care to admit.

 

There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the present wing DM, is any more realistic than it was prior to the patch, maybe more complex but that doesn't mean the results are more realistic.  The developers have taken a simple variable, spar size, applyed a value to it and then applyed that to a hit box, more or less in line with the size of a wing section. The "notional" strength of a hit box is then reduced in value, each time a bullet hits it according to a formula, depending on several criteria, such as angle of penetration. There is no way on God's earth to know if an unsupported cantilever spar is any more resistant to battle damage than a supported and braced spar. It is certainly true that a traditional biplane might have MORE critical elements that might lead to failure if damaged, but often as not they are very small and where critical, and considered at risk, or vulnerable, to damage then often they have fail safes , such as doubled up flying wires. Without rigerous scientific testing re-inforced by field trials with phorensic investigation of the results we cannot say what is realistic.  We might be able to test the strength of a design for an undamaged aircraft and then compare it to see if it accords with the records from the time, but all cards are off the table once someone starts putting bullets in things, there are just way too many possibilities and the records from the time are way to vague as to why what happened, happened as it did when things went pear shaped

 

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

@US93_Larner But is hitting the wings in a dogfight really easier than hitting the fuselage?  In my experience, it is much easier to make hits with your aim centered on the fuselage because firstly, you are pulling through the target directly in line with their travel, rather than being offset; and secondly, because even if your lead is incorrect, you have a good chance of hitting engine, cockpit, or fuel tank.  If you target the wings, in a twisting, turning dogfight, having your lead be off likely means you likely hit air in front of or behind the wings you're trying to aim at.

 

In any case, Petrov's data seems to suggest that it takes more than a few errant shots to collapse a wing in most cases.  So something's up.

Edited May 8, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli