4.006 DM Discussion

June 6, 2020

This discussion is very interesting (and getting too technical for my little waffle brain), but I'd like to ask: what about the externally braced Pfalz and Bristol?

What makes them so different from a Camel and SPAD? Is it only the spar size?

June 6, 2020

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

@Holtzauge As for alternate DMs etc: it is possible that all that needs to be tweaked - if such is required - is the properties of the weakest "spars". There is no point completely redesigning the DM if the problem, if there is one, is mostly due to the weakest elements being broken too quickly. For instance, in the Camel case, assuming for the moment that my musings about the distributions are somewhat right, if the red spars were as strong as the blue spars, and consequently failed at the same rate, the observed game failure rate for the low hit numbers would be dramatically reduced, to far below AnP's "average" line, which as I have said, may be misleading.

We can only make more progress on this analytically if we have more information from AnP - or perhaps if players were able to identify where their wings actually break most of the time. Otherwise we are just trading opinions.

Sure, I understand that we are not getting a new model so my suggestion is to tune the current one to come as close to being "fair" in the sense I suggested above. With this approach there would not be such a gap as there now is between the cantilever designs like the Dr1 and D7 and the braced designs like the Camel. I'm sure that going in that direction would not require a new DM but simply a tuning of the current. This would also mean that you in the tuned DM would have a better idea about how much g-load capability you have left by ballpark estimating how badly you have been hit and knowing the g-load capability of your undamaged plane. I think this type of DM would not only be more realistic but avoid the frustration of having the feeling that your wings fall off at random when hit.

1 hour ago, J2_Bidu said:

I have diminute knowkedge of all this, but I understand the Fokker DVII used internal bracing, which I see referred as a progress, rather than merely a variant. How does that differ from normal bracing, and did you consider this? Thanks!

Question here is what whoever wrote "internal bracing" was thinking about: They could simply mean that internal bracing means there are no external bracing wires like on a Camel but that IMHO is a misnomer because what the D7 has is a cantilever wing design. I would use the term internal bracing more along the lines to describe the 45 deg angled braces between the front and rear spar inside for example the Camel wing as opposed to the bracing wires on the Albatros that are angled back from the nose to the wings to handle drag loads.

And sure, that is part of the DM analysis I made above: It all comes down to exactly where the bullet hits and if we don't model that then I have a hard time seeing something more fair as in fair statistically and fair realistic, than simply whittling away the strength by the same factor (proportional to the undamaged wing!) on each hit box.

1 hour ago, J5_Hellbender said:

This discussion is very interesting (and getting too technical for my little waffle brain), but I'd like to ask: what about the externally braced Pfalz and Bristol?

What makes them so different from a Camel and SPAD? Is it only the spar size?

With the caveat of not having looked at the details of either yet I think they should be treated the same as the others, i.e. whittle away strength when hit, but as far as I understand the Pfalz in-game can handle 10 g (have seen no data on that but may of course be so) meaning it would take longer before the wing fell off for a certain g-load, say 3 g because it would take more hits to get there compared to the other planes. Same for SPAD: If you hit bracing, one hit may be enough, if you are lucky you can fly with hundreds of holes in the wing and pull the undamaged g load because only fabric and ribs are damaged. So again, IMHO, the only thing that makes sense unless you model things in detail is to have basically the same proportional strength deducted when hit on all planes. Again, this could of course be fine tuned somewhat between planes but IMHO its quite difficult from a structural analysis and statistical perspective to argue why a Dr1 or D7 should be 3 to 4 times as resilient to being hit as a Camel or SPAD.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Holtzauge

June 6, 2020

Make hits nibble away at the spars in proportion to their original max load, rather than according to hit KE or similar, will disadvantage "thick spar" planes enormously, since their spars are more likely to get hit. Unless you also make the p of the spar hit the same for all planes - then the combined effect is to give every plane the same wing DM. I do not see that as realistic myself, although I have proposed this for MP, but more to the point I just do not see the team making such fundamental changes to DM calculations just for FC.

The hit location on the spar is recorded, according to one of AnP's earlier posts, but probably in another probabilistic function.

From AnP's post:

By the way, to break a spar, firing, for example, from the 'dead six', you need to get a few hits at the same place of the spar, lengthwise. The minimum number of hits, placed like this, which are needed to break the unloaded spar simply depends on the spar's 'height'. What is the chance, that you put all of your hits at the same place of the spar, lengthwise? It depends on its length, obviously. Therefore, the average number of hits for breaking some section of the spar, also depends on its length. If the section is long, you need to make a good number of shots, untill at least few of them will reach the same spot. But sometimes it might happen occasionally faster. Or, instead, longer. This is how the probablity theory works.

Certainly, if the spar is loaded (because of aerodynamic forces) then it needs less number of hits at the same place of the spar for breaking it. The most damaged place of the spar breaks the faster the higher G-load is.

June 6, 2020

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

I know the value of training as a continuous process.

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

As I have repeatedly said, I am not sure if the current effects of damage on G loads is right, either from an engineering standpoint, which I am not qualified to judge, or statistically.

You know, in principle I agree on the numbers that are used in this game to represent damage to structure.

I said a bit lightly that the system was "inherently wrong" and I think I do owe you guys a short explanation why I think the numbers used mathematically introduce a bias in damage tolerance against braced wing designs as opposed to box spar designs.

As I understand the damage model (I might not have gotten things right then my point is moot) it works the following:

We take a hypothetical aircraft and define the number of HITS on the spar that prove fatal. That we might add some probability is inconsequential to the systemic error that I see later on.

Example:

We have a braced wing aircraft with a spar of 10 cm height, we define 40 hits as sufficient for structural collapse.

We have a box spar wing aircraft with a 20 cm height spar and define 80 hits for kaput.

We now have put robot planes to fly 100 m behind those two aircraft and let them fire. The bot always hits of course and result is that indeed, the braced wing goes after 40 hits, and the box spar wing goes after 80 hits. This is essentially your graphs minus probabilities on top.

Where is the error? It happens just now when I apply this hit probability to a larger DM box, that is (for practical purposes of this example) equal in size in both aircraft. Right now, I made an error giving rather unjustified twice the strength to the box spar wing.

Why did that just happen? It is because the intercept theorem applies to shooting accuracy required vs. shooting distance. (I know you know.) This means that at 100 m distance, the bot shot with twice the aim to land 40 hits on the thin spar than it had to aim for the thick spar. If however the bot could just barely hit the 20 cm target over 100 m, it would de facto miss with every second bullet on the 10 cm spar. Hence, those graphs should not be “# round hit vs. kaput” but much rather “#rounds fired vs. kaput”. In process, the bot was required to fire 80 bullets to land 40 hits. In sum, both cases, the thin as well as the thick wing would require 80 rounds fired to fail. Thus, they are identical in tolerance of you firing at it when you map them on a larger DM box.

If you do not compensate that way for distance, you automatically include an aim that is assumed (in this example) twice as good when shooting the smaller spar. It is that assumption that makes Camel wings go. Not the fact that it takes half the bullets to shred them.

This is why I am so adamant that as long as you do not include firing distance, the math applied in game is wrong. The system is incomplete. We see with our plain eyes that the math is wrong as we do get a wrong bottom line. This is only masked if you use bots that do not behave in a way that would make them suffer from the introduced bias in a way a player would.

So no, it is not fine what we have. The braced wing aircraft are treated wrongly and need to be significantly strengthened in comparison to thick wing aircraft.

Now, where did I make my mistake(s)?

1 hour ago, J2_Bidu said:

I have diminute knowkedge of all this, but I understand the Fokker DVII used internal bracing, which I see referred as a progress, rather than merely a variant. How does that differ from normal bracing, and did you consider this? Thanks!

Well, internal bracing in the sense that in each wing there is a construction of two hard pieced of wood separated and held in place by a spacer. Using @Holtzauge's example, it is like the box spar is a whole braced wing biplane. The upper wing is the top section of the box spar with strong, laminated wood, the lower wing is the floor of the box spar, also made of laminated hard wood. The sides of the box are just spacers, holding roof and floor in place and preverting then shifting laterally as Holtz explained. This vertical section corresponds to the bracing wires. This section is made of lighter wood, as it distributes loads such that load is distrubuted more over area. There are however no internal wires to hold it together.

But the box spar is essentially what what you refer to as sandwich construction. There are may ways to do that, you even use it in light flooring that is used in airliners or surf boards. You can also make stressed skin very light because it is generally a great way to create a light structure that resists torsional load:

The box is the same, it is just a smaller space, but it is still to face sheets held in place by bracing, here a honecomb core. You can combine all that to make even better, stronger structures. Here it is evident that damaging the face sheets will make the structure collapse, while the honeycomb core is very redundant.

40 minutes ago, unreasonable said:

The minimum number of hits, placed like this, which are needed to break the unloaded spar simply depends on the spar's 'height'.

And this is wrong. The box spar consists of a roof and a floor that are sensible to bullets and a spacer that is far less sensible to bullets. You CANNOT compare a box spar with a braced spar as it were two-by-two and two-by-four lumber.

But as said, I a fine with the general assumption of wood resilience. You just have to make sure that you apply chances evenly. Right now, we don't.

June 6, 2020

Only have time for short answer: The DM should simply count the number of hits per hitbox (i.e. when the whole wing hitbox is hit, not the spar per se) and whittle away from the undamaged g-load capability based on that based on the probability that an important part in the wing element is hit (i.e. a low probability). Rough explanation: Hit probability on the important elements is the same for a huge box spar with 4 spar elements in the corners of size A/4 joined by plywood and a solid spar of size A in cross section. How this can be translated into the spar model DM AnP has I have no idea but should be possible by tuning size, hit probability and vulnerability of each spar. So no, a large spar should not be at a disadvantage but neither should it be much more resilient.

June 6, 2020

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

You know, in principle I agree on the numbers that are used in this game to represent damage to structure.

I said a bit lightly that the system was "inherently wrong" and I think I do owe you guys a short explanation why I think the numbers used mathematically introduce a bias in damage tolerance against braced wing designs as opposed to box spar designs.

As I understand the damage model (I might not have gotten things right then my point is moot) it works the following:

We take a hypothetical aircraft and define the number of HITS on the spar that prove fatal. That we might add some probability is inconsequential to the systemic error that I see later on.

Example:

We have a braced wing aircraft with a spar of 10 cm height, we define 40 hits as sufficient for structural collapse.

We have a box spar wing aircraft with a 20 cm height spar and define 80 hits for kaput.

"Thus, they are identical in tolerance of you firing at it when you map them on a larger DM box." No they are not - as I will explain.

If you start with incorrect assumptions you will get the wrong answer. (Usually!) The DM is not defining some total of hits as being sufficient for collapse - or rather it might be, but this would be observed extremely rarely since it is the limit case.

From AnP's description, and the observed distributions, I think what is happening is that the number of hits required to break is defined as n hits "in the same place". Both the height and the length of the spar are taken into account. (And for all I know details of construction and materials). Hits that do not break also nibble away at the limit for higher Gs.

Below is an imaginative reconstruction: the "locations" are the columns of cells within the boxes. To break the spar at 0G let's assume you have to get hits in all of the cells in one column. The thick spar will take proportionately more hits for a given spread of shots, but needs more hits in a full column of vertical cells to break. Each hit is allocated at random to a cell. I am assuming cells can be hit more than once but with no extra effect.

Note that you do not actually have to note physical locations for successive hits to calculate the probabilities here, although that might be the easiest way of doing it. Although the double thickness spar takes twice as many hits from a given burst, it will usually take much more than double the number of hits to fill a whole column. (TBH I have forgotten how to calculate that exactly - although I do remember it involves lots of shrieks).

As an example: for the thin wing after the first hit, with 10 cells, the p of breaking the wing with the second hit is 0.10 If you survive two hits, the probability that the next one will break the spar is 0.20 since there are now two cells that, if hit, break the spar. If you survive 5 - which is unlikely, the 6th will get you.

The thick wing needs 4 hits in a column and there are twice as many locations. The whole distribution will shift dramatically to the right - a bit like the blue (thick) vs red (thin) spars in my earlier example. It will be much harder to break using this mechanism.

So I disagree completely that the graphs should all be rounds fired rather than rounds hit. Targets do not "care" about rounds that miss since they have zero physical effect and neither does the DM. (More importantly, AnP disagrees too).

edit - finished editing!

Edited June 6, 2020 by unreasonable

June 6, 2020

Just to note: we have all been talking about how many "hits" are needed to break a spar etc because this is convenient, and because AnP's examples for FC were all with a specified weapon and range. Given what we have been told more generally about the IL-2 DM, of which FC is a part, what is being measured at impact is something more like transferred KE plus some AP characteristics for ball rounds.

June 6, 2020

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

Just to note: we have all been talking about how many "hits" are needed to break a spar etc because this is convenient, and because AnP's examples for FC were all with a specified weapon and range. Given what we have been told more generally about the IL-2 DM, of which FC is a part, what is being measured at impact is something more like transferred KE plus some AP characteristics for ball rounds.

Will have more time tomorrow but for now a short question: Does this really matter for a wood spar? The KE? For "soft" targets like us humans the so-called temporary wound channel is important (800-900 m/s wounds are nasty) but is it so for a 2 x 4 "" wood spar? Does it care if the hole was made at 300 m/s or 800 m/s? The pilot for sure will react differently but would a wood spar? Will it splinter differently on the exit side dependent on speed? If it does not then it does not matter what the KE is as long as it cuts the spar. Have seen people shooting wood blocks on YouTube and it just looks like the bullet punches a hole in X number of blocks so no difference between the blocks really but I'm willing to be proven wrong if this is not the case and the KE is important. In that case what is the turning point because I'm pretty sure a wood block getting shot at 200 m/s or 400 m/s reacts the same (there will be a hole no more no less) so at what speed does KE become important for wood?

Edited June 6, 2020 by Holtzauge

June 6, 2020

Wouldn't the holes from a 400 m/s be more clean through than one from 200 m/s?

June 6, 2020

Yes Holtzauge range matters in this case, because depending upon the velocity of impact, more energy may be imparted into the target when it hits, provided sufficient resistance.

To give an example, we were testing .50AP-resistant glass panels, trying to see how many shots would be required to get penetration at different ranges, using lesser calibers. The temporary frames for these glass panels were at first constructed from lumber. During the tests tests of 7.62mm and 5.45mm, those frames used for short range testing were damaged and broken, just from the rounds striking the glass. Meanwhile those frames used for the long range tests held just fine.

The temporary cavity that you get when shooting flesh is a result of this energy, and a similar thing happens when hitting rigid objects, to a certain degree; in the case of wood potentially causing splintering. The flip side of this however, is that once you reach a certain velocity for a given material, the round will just punch through cleanly.

Edited June 6, 2020 by US63_SpadLivesMatter

June 6, 2020

7 hours ago, unreasonable said:

From AnP's post:

By the way, to break a spad, firing, for example, from the 'dead six', you need to get a few hits at the same place of the spad, lengthwise. The minimum number of hits, placed like this, which are needed to break the unloaded spad simply depends on the spad's 'height'. What is the chance, that you put all of your hits at the same place of the spad, lengthwise? It depends on its length, obviously. Therefore, the average number of hits for breaking some section of the spad, also depends on its length. If the section is long, you need to make a good number of shots, untill at least few of them will reach the same spot. But sometimes it might happen occasionally faster. Or, instead, longer. This is how the probablity theory works.

Certainly, if the spad is loaded (because of aerodynamic forces) then it needs less number of hits at the same place of the spad for breaking it. The most damaged place of the spad breaks the faster the higher G-load is.

I have a theory too. That "spar" all along has been a typo throwing us all down the damn rabbit hole. The real story is far more sinister and appears somewhat obsessive.

June 7, 2020

Before changing my college degree to flying I went to school for Programmer/Analysis. We were taught, for efficiency, to create core "modules", then all data would be fed into this core. The data could change, but the core, the "meat" of the program remains unchanged. Again, for efficiency, the "DM" could be a core module. Not truely attached to any specific aircraft, but attached to all aircraft. This makes more sense knowing that the DM upgrade, upgraded across the board, WWI, WWII, and Tank Crew. This means that to make this work across the board, there MUST be shared variables, in this case perhaps the Spars. Seeing that this was, and is primarily a WWII sim, the primary focus would be on WWII. The "DM" module works brilliantly for WWII wing designs and materials, but seemingly struggles with WWI designs and materials. The closest thing we have in WWII wing designs and materials is the PO-2, but as a professional pilot degree has a very limited course on aeronautical engineering, I know next to nothing on how to decipher the PO-2 wing design compared to a WWI wing design.

June 7, 2020

14 hours ago, Holtzauge said:

Will have more time tomorrow but for now a short question: Does this really matter for a wood spar? The KE? For "soft" targets like us humans the so-called temporary wound channel is important (800-900 m/s wounds are nasty) but is it so for a 2 x 4 "" wood spar? Does it care if the hole was made at 300 m/s or 800 m/s? The pilot for sure will react differently but would a wood spar? Will it splinter differently on the exit side dependent on speed? If it does not then it does not matter what the KE is as long as it cuts the spar. Have seen people shooting wood blocks on YouTube and it just looks like the bullet punches a hole in X number of blocks so no difference between the blocks really but I'm willing to be proven wrong if this is not the case and the KE is important. In that case what is the turning point because I'm pretty sure a wood block getting shot at 200 m/s or 400 m/s reacts the same (there will be a hole no more no less) so at what speed does KE become important for wood?

As a practical matter you may be right - when looking at one type of ball round, unless, perhaps, we are looking at damage to engines. But hits by an 11mm would usually have a greater effect than standard rifle caliber bullets, and if we add phosphorus incendiaries then there is another factor to consider. Also splinters from Archie near misses.

The DM already uses these kinds of factors across the board. So we can talk about "how many hits" are required to do x,y,z as a shorthand but just need to remember that this is only valid for one particular scenario. The DM does not work that way.

Edited June 7, 2020 by unreasonable

June 7, 2020

13 hours ago, unreasonable said:

If you start with incorrect assumptions you will get the wrong answer. (Usually!)

Yes, absolutely. But thanks for the detailed response. I still think that some assumptions for our DM are off. I‘ll try to writ that a bit more structured once I‘ve finished my coffee.

June 7, 2020

Was planning to post some more on this fascinating subject today but then I realized I have already made the points I wanted to make about this in earlier posts so I would just be rehashing old arguments which I will spare you. In addition, my wife has this strange idea that mowing the lawn and spending some time with her is more important than WW1 DM modeling.....

June 7, 2020

6 minutes ago, Holtzauge said:

my wife has this strange idea that mowing the lawn and spending some time with her is more important than WW1 DM modeling.....

Women! It's always about me me me over things that really matter!

Please don't tell her I said that Holtzy.

June 7, 2020

Tell me about it......And the talking, never about interesting stuff like turn rates and spars being shot off but things like "Do I look fat in this?" and we all know the answer to that one don't we.....

Edited June 7, 2020 by Holtzauge

June 7, 2020

54 minutes ago, Holtzauge said:

Tell me about it......And the talking, never about interesting stuff like turn rates and spars being shot off but things like "Do I look fat in this?" and we all know the answer to that one don't we.....

I have always answered "Yes" to that. Only ever get asked that question once per female.

June 7, 2020

The way I see it, the spar size/wing loading define the damage resistance, and the wing size defines the size of the spar, for DM purposes. I see very little, if any, evidence to suggest that different methods of rigging confer anything extra to the damage model. Can anyone show evidence to suggest otherwise ?

It of interest that the Pflaz D.III, in game, is considered to be “tougher” than the Spad XIII, or any Allied Scout for that matter, and yet when it came to the Pflaz XII, on recommendation, Pflaz used a copy of the Spad wing, instead of the, according to the game, stronger, less complicated, less draggy, D.III wing. Surely that speaks volumes as to the difference between what was and what we have.

June 7, 2020

Ok, here now a more detailed description of why I think some the current parameters for FC DM parameters are off. In order to mend the current DM in FC to a more plausible, realistic one that also should make the game a better, one has to understand how the structural design works. This is going to be long; hence, I will not talk about DM probabilities and such. I'll pester the thread with such later on.

First, as @unreasonable said, we have to get the assumptions right, else we certainly will fail.

As I understand him in his post, AnP assumed hit tolerance according to spar dimensions. If that is indeed the case, then this is clearly a wrong assumption. To see that, we have to take a look at how WW1 aircraft are built and most importantly how they would collapse in overstress.

TL;DR: Fokkers and Sopwiths (etc.) should be modeled with equal size spars and equal resistance to damage. It also matters where on the spar you hit, this bothe for the Camel where middle section of left and right top wing is the most sensible point and in the fokker it would be the center third of the upper beam inside in the box spar that receives most load.

Let's first have a look at our dear Camel. Luckily, there are some guys that have both time and money at hand to just build one. From them we have nice pictures of their design principles and I conveniently borrow some images.

This is an attempt to explain the static principle of braced biplanes to give an idea of where such designs can fail, be it through excessive loads or due to damage.

Starting with the Camel.

Did you know the Camel had 5 wings? Not like a Dr.I after a skirmish in RoF, but it has five wing sections that are latched together giving you the biplane layout. The Camel doesn’t have a wing spar that goes from wingtip to wingtip, but it has two spars in each section that go from wingtip to center section or fuselage respectively. Then you have two beams inside the upper center section as well as in the airframe, connecting the lower wings. Both upper and lower wings are latched to the center sections by a simple flange.

Here you see the individual outer wing sections:

Spoiler

You see both spars. You also see that the spars are thinned out in the center section to save weight. These spars in the upper, outer wings will in case of applied g load be compressed. The resulting compression vector pointing inward starts at the aerodynamic pressure point of the wing. All aerodynamic load vectors of an airfoil go from there. This pressure point is probably (my guess here) about a bit more than half way out and about one third of the wings depth behind the front of the wing. This results in the wing being compressed inwards behind the front spar. This means if the wing didn't have a rear spar, the wing would collapse backwards in case of excessive g loads.

See here, showing three out of five sections, as the right top and lower wing are mirrored copies of the left ones:

It is obvious from that drawing that the aerodynamic pressure point (it shifts position a bit over different AoA) of the profile is right in between the two spars, meaning that both spars share equal compressive force. That is why the spars are of identical dimensions.

The ribs are just spacers, holding the spar in place and serve as attachment for the skin:

Spoiler

They are thin and light and carry little load. They are also very redundant, as it takes more of them maintaining the airfoil than structural integrity.

When you assemble the aircraft, it is obvious that the flange that connects the spars does structurally nothing but just holding the spars in place. There is almost no torsional force on the flange. It could not take any.

Spoiler

The lower wing assembly shows you that inside the fuselage, we have the same spars as we have in the center top section:

Spoiler

Now, I was only talking about compressive loads in the top spar. That is not the full story yet. The sharp eyes reader might have noticed something. The spars... the way they are thinned out gives them sort of an H section. They are not just drilled out if there just was excessive wood:

Spoiler

The wing spars do indeed absorb some torsional load. First, the whole idea of the braded design, it is to create a box consisting of top and lower wing with bracing wires as the sides.

In simple terms, what you have is this:

Upon g load, the upper spars are compressed and pressed against the upper center section. You have essentially a centerpiece with two boxes (dashed line) attached to it:

Both of these boxes are statically rigid and are attached at hinge points on the upper center section and at the lower center section. Under load, the upper center section will be receive compression laterally, the lower one will receive force pulling it apart.

As the two wing boxes are individual elements the top and bottom wing of each box will however act like a cantilever wing. This means it will receive a bending load that will bend the wing between inner and outer attachment hinge points, like this:

You see that the wings will flex most in between the inner and outer attachment hinge points, making the wingtips go down slightly. This torsional load is the reason why you lighten spars such that they give you something like an H shape. It is almost a miniature version of a box spar.

Where would the wing fail from over g? We know from anecdotes that usually wings would fold up due to overstress. The only way the wing can fold up is when the flying wires, the wire low inside up outside snaps. It can do so at the joints or it can be that the cable itself snaps. This shows you that the wings themselves have some reserve in strength, but that there are individual, small parts on the wing that collapse with one or few hits. The spar is not the main concern.

It is also of note that due to the bending force in each box arrangement, it matters where the wing gets shot. It will me more suceptible to damage at the top, center section of the box, as there compressive and torsional force is the strongest.

Here the different types of spars:

The Camel has A and B type spar in the wings, while Fokker used C type spar. B and C type spars are less different than you might think.

While A is just your regular 2x4 timber, B is much stronger for its weight. Hollow structures are known to be very tolerant to torsional load. The requirements is a hard wall. You find this in Bamboo and grass in general.

This brings us to the Fokker.

The Fokker wing features a C type spar. It has no bracing but the lighter wood on the sides connecting the upper and lower spar going through the whole wing. It seems like those two parts are timber such as used in the Camel spars.

The spacer wood connecting the two beams is the bracing and can be imagined as cables in an “X” arrangement, connecting top and bottom in a 45° angle plus vertical struts in 90° that hold upper and lower beam. The sides of the box are cable and strut in unison. It becomes clear now that this section is very redundant and thus damage resilient.

This means, if I wanted to increase torsional load tolerance, all I had to do is stack upper and lower beam farther apart, as it makes it easier for the spacer to absorb load. The wings thingness sets a natural limit to this, but you take what you have. You then add as much lumber to the beams to give you the strength you need.

Logically, this means that the design itself certainly does not give more bullet resistance than a braced wing. The material that manly hold your wing is just the upper and the lower beam:

We can see that in this example, the box spar in this example is even thinner than the braced spars, as when you add upper and lower spar in that box, it has less Z dimension than the other spars. Yet it is not necessarily weaker. In the Fokker, the whole construction would be about twice the eight if the spar of the Camel, yet it is evident that what makes the spar is no larger than what is used in the Camel.

Taken together, it is a wrong assumption when you are saying that a box spar twice the height as a braced wing spar can take twice the damage. The box spar has material not distributed equally and the Fokker certainly has no more "wood that matters” when shooting at it from dead six. The more sophisticated your lamination of top and bottom wing spar is, the less resistant it will be for tranversing bullets. Yet if we assume all designs using the same lumber for spars, damage resilience should be identical per same dimension. Also it matters which wing and where on the wing section you sever the spar. Upper center section being the most delicate part.

Both designs, Camel and Fokker have some redundancy by the second spar and by the bracing/struts. This means in both cases the wings are less ready to go than if they were cantilever.

Edited June 7, 2020 by ZachariasX

June 7, 2020

@ZachariasX Small correction. In the photo, the nearest section is actually the centre section. You can see that the innermost two ribs are not as long as the others: there are 10 ribs (at least on the FC model as well as this photo ) - the outer section has 11 including one small outer rib.

" Taken together, it is a wrong assumption when you are saying that a box spar twice the height as a braced wing spar can take twice the damage. "

Perhaps, but as I never assumed that I remain unmoved. I have been trying to analyse how I think the DM works, not how it should work.

We know not how, if at all, material and construction affect the calculations, except that they do in BoS as a whole. It may be the case that the devs have not taken into account anything about the spar construction in FC, given the module's marginal importance, but you would have to ask them.

What I said, is that if it takes more than one hit on a given location on a "spar" (the DM's virtual spar) to break it, which is AnP's description of how the DM works, a "spar" twice the height could take more than twice as many hits, on average, before it takes enough hits in the same location to cause a break, before considering differences in materials, spar types etc. This is not an assumption, it is a calculation. It depends on the hits doing a sufficiently small amount of damage that a cumulative effect is required. This appears to fit the way the DM behaves.

"The sides of the box are cable and strut in unison. It becomes clear now that this section is very redundant and thus damage resilient."

So some proportion of bullets passing through the a spar, taken as a whole, will not even touch the load bearing parts. This is not true for the Camel's spar. So let us say half the bullets passing through the 4 height spar miss the load bearing portion altogether. In this case the number of hits on the spar would still need to be double for the 4x5 vs the 2x5 to get two in the same location on the load bearing portion. The number of hits needed on a wing (of the same area) would be the same, since the 4x5 spar would be hit twice as often.

My principal assumption is that the developers are not completely clueless and that we should give them the benefit of the doubt unless we have very solid reasons.

I do think that it is possible that the devs are overestimating how many shots are needed to weaken wings in playing conditions, even leaving aside behaviour issues, due to looking at a misleading average, given the analysis of the distributions posted earlier. This is just a hypothesis.

If you are sure the developers have their calculations on spar damage resistance etc all wrong, send AnP an email. No point trying to convince me.

Edited June 7, 2020 by unreasonable

June 7, 2020

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

This is not an assumption, it is a calculation.

It is an assumption as the box spar consists of two beams, an upper and a lower spar, both shorter in height (seen from the rear) than the solid single Camel lumber sticks serving as spars.

AnP assumes the box spar being a single 2x4 style lumber as the Camel spar is. If you take the box spar as a single piece of lumber, then in fact the whole biplane arrangement of the Camel is one single lumber.

If those equal structutally for your DM model

then I can be mean and say that those equal as well:

Now that would have some good bullet tolerance, huh?

In this, AnP's assumtion that the box spar is twice as high and can take twice the punishment is not at all correct. It matters greatly where you hit. Any hit in the center section of the upper beam in the box spar will lead to quick demise of any Fokker duringmaneuvers. Conversely, all you need to do is place one lucky bullet in the joint of the diagonal flying wires of the Camel. If that connection goes, your wing will hardly be good anymore for anything. This wiring is redundant, but this makes just for two bullets instead of one and down you go. If you miss these places however, it takes A LOT of hits too.

I do like the new DM for the WW2 birds, as those wings are far more redundant in structure. Hence, any mapping of probabilities to larger areas will not show up negatively in gameplay. Yet for FC crates, BOTH Fokker and braced wings are EXTREMELY sensitive to hitting the right places.

You do have a better understanding of the DM, and my previous post was not directed at it. It was just to point out that the basic assumption of "Fokker -> thick spar -> STRONK" is actually not true as if you say that "Camel -> thin spar -> REKT".

As for the DM itself, I'm still struggling with it, but I am only a molecular biologist. And the better you are as one, the better you know that you have to ask someone capable if it comes to numbers. I do need more time the numbers part.

In the meantime, what concerns the game, I think the effin Fokkers are fun to play in the game If you just make the braced wing aircraft somewhat more similarish then you didn't do anything against realism (as the basic assumtion making braced wings weaker is flawed in the first place) But when you do make them stronger, with good reason detailed above. then it would make the game A LOT better for everyone involved. You can even let the rest of the DM as is. Whatever it does, it's ok on the Fokkers. If the rest of the crates are a tad more like them, then:

(Old German humor.)

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

If you are sure the developers have their calculations on spar damage resistance etc all wrong, send AnP an email. No point trying to convince me.

That is actually the last of my intentions. I'm simply asking you to prove me wrong. Then I will go back to field one. But If you cannot prove me wrong, the next forist can try. If that proves to be difficult as well, THEN we might consider pestering AnP. They do a lot of updates now and constantly pulling their legs won't help there.

Prove me wrong, that's how you do science. Only in the productive argument we find a solution that works. Today, lay people are puzzled how virologists are quarreling about what corona virus does and how it does, thinking they know nothing because "they don't agree". Yet that quarrel is how science is done. The lab is only half the work.

Now, if that argument could make us understand how things really work inside this DM, then that would be cool. And we could pester AnP in a more channeled way rather than just making him spit out his breakfast cereal.

Edited June 7, 2020 by ZachariasX

June 7, 2020

You do science by making hypotheses that can be shown to be false by experiment or observation, not by asserting something contentious and saying "prove me wrong".

There are only two ways anyone could prove you wrong about your hypothesis that a Camel's spars are as damage resistant as a Fokker's.

1) They can shoot at lots of said spars themselves.

2) They can find well attested contemporary documentation of someone doing same, or at least something similar. (Which is already straying beyond proof into maybe land).

(1) is clearly impractical, and AFAIK we have nothing much like (2).

I expect AnP thinks he is using a reasonable approximation, given that he cannot practically reduce the DM into ever finer parts. If you want him to change his mind you will have to convince him, or at least ask whether and how box vs solid spars are taken into account. Or perhaps one of our resident testers could do this, perhaps they are more likely to get a reply than us humble cannon-fodder. While they are at it, they might ask for AnP's data before he averaged his distributions.

June 7, 2020

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

You do science by making hypotheses that can be shown to be false by experiment or observation, not by asserting something contentious and saying "prove me wrong".

That will do.

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

If you want him to change his mind you will have to convince him, or at least ask whether and how box vs solid spars are taken into account.

You already helped to explain some of the DM aspects better. To me at least.

While not engaging directly in making a critisism of the DM as such, my argument goes toward cutting braced designs some slack. My argument is that by by sheer logic of the designs (as detailed above), the devs should not risk changing something because certain properties are not liked by some folks here, and then risk the „the patch fiasco“ all over again. But an increase in strenght (going more Fokker for braced wing designs) would both increase plausibility as well as playability. This way, there is no need to touch any basic assumptions on material strenght, bullet efficiency, or hitbox changes.

With writing a lot, I am in fact asking for little. For now.

June 7, 2020

Hmmmmmm ! Camel campaign; I had a wingman GENTLY bump into my tailplane, damaging the right hand elevator, aircraft pitch became a little twitchy, but nothing drastic. I recieved no enemy fire and the wings were without any visible damage ( I used the extenal view to check over the aircraft after the bump). I continued with the mission but on the return trip home a fellow Camel was being attacked by an Albatros, some 500 feet below me, I steered a course to intercept and began an initial diving turn onto the Albatros, nothing radical or daring, it was A.I after all, and hey presto my wings part company. No shots, no flak, nothing but a minor bump on my tail and part damaged elevator, I couldn't have been pulling more than about 2 - 2.5 G at the time.

June 7, 2020

9 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

We can see that in this example, the box spar in this example is even thinner than the braced spars, as when you add upper and lower spar in that box, it has less Z dimension than the other spars. Yet it is not necessarily weaker. In the Fokker, the whole construction would be about twice the eight if the spar of the Camel, yet it is evident that what makes the spar is no larger than what is used in the Camel.

Taken together, it is a wrong assumption when you are saying that a box spar twice the height as a braced wing spar can take twice the damage. The box spar has material not distributed equally and the Fokker certainly has no more "wood that matters” when shooting at it from dead six. The more sophisticated your lamination of top and bottom wing spar is, the less resistant it will be for tranversing bullets. Yet if we assume all designs using the same lumber for spars, damage resilience should be identical per same dimension. Also it matters which wing and where on the wing section you sever the spar. Upper center section being the most delicate part.

Both designs, Camel and Fokker have some redundancy by the second spar and by the bracing/struts. This means in both cases the wings are less ready to go than if they were cantilever.

The Fokker spars are more robust than the single box in picture C. The Fokker spars are more of a double box. I don't know if it should be as strong as modeled, but they are good spars.

If you clip the flying wires in a Camel, the wings will collapse. Likewise, if you clip a single wire, their G tolerance will decrease.

Doesn't wood handle compression better than tension? I was thinking a more critical hit would be on the bottom wing spar? I suppose it would only take a little bit to do an analysis on it if we knew the wood properties...I'll see what I can find.

Also, I think people are flying their planes too hard. I fought in the Camel today on Flugpark, and only pulled the wings off once, after a LOT of damage. I'll try to get screen shot of it, but they looked like swiss cheese and I yanked it on one pass. During the fight though, I kept an eye on my Gs and held them to 4 or less. Dominated every airplane that came at me....Dr.I, D7, AlbD5. Turn rate kills, and the Camel dominates everything else with only 3-4 Gs. It also has a super high G onset rate, so it takes VERY little effort to over G the plane. This means you have to throttle down during your dogfight! You cant just whip it around the whole time at full throttle and yank on the stick at your whim.

My recomendation: fly the plane easy. Don't treat it like an F16.

June 7, 2020

It seems to me that the DM now equates wing strength with spar strength and ignores the contribution of the bracing wires in a "traditional" biplane configuration. If we assume that the box-spar and simple-spar-braced-wing designs are roughly structurally equally strong IRL, then we can see why such a DM will hugely favour the former construction. This would explain why only "one or two" hits are required to fold the Camel or Spad - their structural integrity is provided purely by a puny spar. The Fokkers have a much stronger spar and are thus able to survive more hits.

June 7, 2020

Funny thing here is you have a RL pilot who flies this stuff, telling you how to fly this stuff, but thats not apparently good enough for you. Keep whining and complaining until you get your way and break the whole damn game.

June 7, 2020

48 minutes ago, II./JG1_Kliegmann said:

Keep whining and complaining until you get your way and break the whole damn game.

Too late.

June 8, 2020

2 hours ago, II./JG1_Kliegmann said:

Funny thing here is you have a RL pilot who flies this stuff, telling you how to fly this stuff, but thats not apparently good enough for you. Keep whining and complaining until you get your way and break the whole damn game.

His combat experience means almost nothing until he met a real camel with loaded machine guns in flight, who wants to kill him.

3 hours ago, Chill31 said:

Also, I think people are flying their planes too hard. I fought in the Camel today on Flugpark, and only pulled the wings off once, after a LOT of damage. I'll try to get screen shot of it, but they looked like swiss cheese and I yanked it on one pass. During the fight though, I kept an eye on my Gs and held them to 4 or less. Dominated every airplane that came at me....Dr.I, D7, AlbD5. Turn rate kills, and the Camel dominates everything else with only 3-4 Gs. It also has a super high G onset rate, so it takes VERY little effort to over G the plane. This means you have to throttle down during your dogfight! You cant just whip it around the whole time at full throttle and yank on the stick at your whim.

Probably you flew with newcomers who can’t even scratch their ass. I have 2 times out of 10 when the visual DM shows damage, but the wings hold G. This is not a game of competition of the mind, this is a lottery and shit. As long as there was no hot fix, it was just bad, and after its appearance, it became a catastrophe. Just look - these columns mean the chances of winning, other things being EQUAL

June 8, 2020

I'm trying to get a fresh perspective on the new DM at the moment and I'm coming to some conclusions. Tonight I did a bit of SPAD XIII testing (and a little Alb testing) and found some interesting results. I still haven't figured out a way of turning this into hard presentable data, though, so I'll just have to give my thoughts.

1) The 'weak' aircraft can actually be pretty tough - but, only when flying at low Gs. No new news there, of course.

2) I am almost certain now that airspeed has a drastic effect on how many Gs an aircraft can withstand after taking damage. Earlier tonight I was diving into a gang of eight AI Halberstadts, all with twin parabellums and Spandaus, and essentially letting them all shoot me up before attempting to 'escape' in typical SPAD fashion. I discovered that, dependent on wing damage, the SPAD can lose its wings trying to recover from an 'escaping' dive in as little as under 3 Gs - and that the effect was instant - I.E, the second I tried to recover from the dive, the wings came off.

Obviously, if this is the case, this will be most evident for SPAD and S.E. pilots, who rely massively on high speed (and are more capable than most of reaching high speeds in quicker order)

At lower speeds, and with comparable damage, I was able to aggressively loop a considerably damaged SPAD XIII twice at over 5G, but at much lower speed (around 200 - 230 km/h). Other tests saw the wings coming off very quickly at around 4-5G at higher speeds, and at high speeds (going north of 300 km/h) the wings would fold with any kind of aggression whatsoever.

3) Gameplay-wise, this translates to the SPAD being unable to maintain any kind of positional advantage when fighting in its typical style - and I wouldn't be surprised if more SPADs broke up in the air while being offensive, rather than trying to escape. In fact, this has already been somewhat evident in the 3rd P.G, where the last two instances of broken-up SPADs I've seen have been pilots attempting to attack an opponent, only to break up while trying to recover from the dive. This is because, unless the BnZ pilot wants to end up below his opponent, he has to pull up fairly sharply from a dive. I'm fine with that - but similar handicaps just don't apply to the 'tough' aircraft.

4) Again, purely gameplay-wise - this is going to result in the SPAD being incredibly frustrating to fly - even if you don't care about dying. The SPAD already requires more patience than some are willing to expend, so in terms of the game offering a well-rounded, enjoyable experience, I think this is rather limiting.

5) The Albatros was largely comparable to the SPAD - it stayed together surprisingly nicely at higher G / lower speeds, and it came apart at lower G / higher speeds.

6) Again, the 'gameplay' perspective talking - I'll admit, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that the 'tougher' aircraft (Pfalz, Dr.I, D.VII, Bristol) can continue to fly very aggressively with impunity, while other aircraft have to totally switch up their approach with even minimal damage. I don't care if some types are tougher, but it just seems like too big of a difference...that high amounts of wing damage apparently have no effect on some aircraft, while having a drastic effect on others. I'll also out and admit that it makes me bitter that the vast majority of 'tough' aircraft happen to be Central planes, whereas the majority of 'weak' planes are Entente. It's not an objective way to look at the new DM, but I'm admittedly having a hard time overcoming the 'Us vs Them' mentality. (Shame, because I think that mentality does stifle more objective opinions from being vocalised, myself being no exception).

Overall, I could live with 4.006, but I'd be happier to see the weak aircraft 'toughen up' in the future.

Edited June 8, 2020 by US93_Larner

June 8, 2020

4 hours ago, Chill31 said:

My recomendation: fly the plane easy. Don't treat it like an F16.

1. Except that doesn't apply to D7, Dr1 (and probably Pfalz) pilots. They can continue to F16 all day after damage. Why do people find that acceptable?

2. One off anecdotes are interesting and can lead to investigation, but to determine actual trend I'll stick to larger data numbers like 100 controlled tests and dozens of MP reports with parser and video.

June 8, 2020

In real world aviation we have something called Va, or maneuvering speed. This is the MAX airspeed that full and abrupt control movements can be applied without damaging the aircraft. Va is also effected by weight, but in most things I've flown its negligible (couple knots here and there). This would have effected WWI airplanes too. What Va is in any WWI aircraft I couldn't tell you, and that speed would only apply to undamaged aircraft. Now just as in real life, if an aircraft has been damaged, Va would be at a much lower airspeed. Now if you can pull up your magic historical books and give the V-speeds of these aircraft that would be most helpful.

June 8, 2020

16 minutes ago, II./JG1_Kliegmann said:

Now if you can pull up your magic historical books and give the V-speeds of these aircraft that would be most helpful.

Oh look, another form of "you weren't there"...

June 8, 2020

17 hours ago, Holtzauge said:

Tell me about it......And the talking, never about interesting stuff like turn rates and spars being shot off but things like "Do I look fat in this?" and we all know the answer to that one don't we.....

Women, women .. unknown, incomprehensible universe)

I remembered one song in Russian. You probably won’t like the music, but maybe the video will be understandable ?

"I wanted to sing like the wind and fly above the ground, but she told me that these are stupid dreams"))

Okay, I'm stubborn, I will fly with such a DM. Let my dolphin fall 1000 times, I will just take off again and again. But there is one problem . I recommended to one of my friends to buy FC as a good product (up to the new version) To another friend, I bought this game as a gift. Now I don’t know how to explain to them - why I give bad advice and give crappy gifts? ((

June 8, 2020

@emely what's the feeling about the FC DM in the Russian forum? Has Andrey participated at all? Has he indicated any future changes? Or are our Russian comrades more interested in WWII?

@US93_Larner Always interesting observations and testing from you Larner, and others!

But is any of this stuff going to be presented to Andrey for consideration at some point? And will he act on it? That is the question.

I think there's general agreement (particularly for MP gameplay enjoyment) that the weaker wings be strengthened a bit and the stronger be weakened a bit. It's just that simple to me.

But then, I am just a simple Camel pilot with the prerequisite large balls who frequents Madame Fifi's establishment on a regular basis, so what would I know. Just don't tell Nurse Gladys. I always use a frenchie by the way.

June 8, 2020

18 minutes ago, catchov said:

@emely what's the feeling about the FC DM in the Russian forum? Has Andrey participated at all? Has he indicated any future changes? Or are our Russian comrades more interested in WWII?

As far as I know, two people fly from the Russians to the FC on an ongoing basis. It's me and Mauser. The rest come from time to time, mainly for flights on FiF. They probably banned me there forever and will Mauser talk to himself there like a madman in solitary confinement? ? Maybe there are still pilots from ours who play online, but I do not know them, and they do not write on the forum. All I can say is that the topic is dead there, like a fish in a tin can.

p.s. Please do not ask me anything about Andrey)

Edited June 8, 2020 by emely

June 8, 2020

17 minutes ago, catchov said:

I think there's general agreement (particularly for MP gameplay enjoyment) that the weaker wings be strengthened a bit and the stronger be weakened a bit. It's just that simple to me

I think there is an agreement about the wings needing fixed on the entente side but not so much on the central side.

6 minutes ago, emely said:

All I can say is that the topic is dead there, like a fish in a tin can.

If the topic is dead then I'm guessing they're in an agreement with the new DM, If they do fly FC would be interesting to know on which side of the lines they choose.

June 8, 2020

5 minutes ago, NO.20_W_M_Thomson said:

If the topic is dead then I'm guessing they're in an agreement with the new DM, If they do fly FC would be interesting to know on which side of the lines they choose.

To talk to such silent people, you need to put them in the gloomy basements of the KGB, and connect the wires with electricity to their eggs))) I don’t give a damn what they think, those who are silent do not have an opinion.

June 8, 2020

Jesus you make me laugh emely! Okay, so we can discount the Russian side of things for any support due to lack of interest. That is clear.

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