unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 22 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said: I was going to say something about flattening the curve. Just as well you did not - confusing a distribution for a time series is a beginner's error, leading to being shot down in flames. Excellent post, BTW, and congratulations for managing to stay objective about something you do not like very much. 13 minutes ago, US103_Baer said: Sorry but this is not about flying behaviour AT ALL. Its is purely the differences in the planes post-4.006 which forces pilots of wing-shedders to change behaviour, but not the pilots of D7s, Dr1, Pfalzs and Bristols. Therefore it is about the differences in the planes re bullet damage resistance. Sorry, it is about both, as even your own post makes clear. If the pilots of wing shedders are forced to change behaviour by the differences in bullet damage resistance, in order not to shed wings, then the result is a function of both factors. Whether they change behaviour or not. 1
Zooropa_Fly Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) If 'temporary solutions' are to be considered, I'd slow the rate of fire down. Wouldn't address all of the perceived problems, but would certainly make fights last longer, and potentially increase the fun factor. 29 minutes ago, unreasonable said: Because FC and BoX are the same game, with different planes in them. That is why the AI landing routines share the same problems. But surely a seperate landing routine could be scripted for the ww1 planes ? Excuse my thickness here a bit, but back to the DM.. Since no ww2 plane had Spad spars in them, how can any change that affects a ww2 plane have any bearing on the spars of a Spad ? Conversely : Any tweaking to the properties of a Spad spar shouldn't affect any ww2 DM's ? Obviously these DM assumptions are wrong, I just don't understand why yet ! Edited June 12, 2020 by Zooropa_Fly Damn post merging ! 1
US103_Baer Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) Rudder/elevator is the new meat/metal. Would be funny if not so sad. Edited June 12, 2020 by US103_Baer 2
SeaW0lf Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 4 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said: If 'temporary solutions' are to be considered, I'd slow the rate of fire down. Wouldn't address all of the perceived problems, but would certainly make fights last longer, and potentially increase the fun factor. Then the temporary solution becomes a permanent solution, just like bullet dispersion in ROF. Either we ask for these things to be fixed / rolled back or we will end up with the same problems we had in ROF a decade ago. Problems that we did not have before in Flying Circus, and I'm talking about a couple months ago, which is just alarming. And things are getting worse at each update, first with the D7 becoming a tank and now with planes going limp all the time, and like it was just mentioned, the tail end of the plane becoming the new golden mine? I mean, seriously.
BMA_Hellbender Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 53 minutes ago, US103_Baer said: Sorry but this is not about flying behaviour AT ALL. Its is purely the differences in the planes post-4.006 which forces pilots of wing-shedders to change behaviour, but not the pilots of D7s, Dr1, Pfalzs and Bristols. Therefore it is about the differences in the planes re bullet damage resistance. It is about flying behaviour and to a certain extent gunnery/visibility/spotting on a 2D screen (or even in 3D VR) compared to reality. The Fokkers are cantilever wing designs and were known to pull crazy antics (see Voss vs No.56 Squadron) and the sudden rise of aces with the Fokker D.VII. As for the Pfalz: it's apparently built like a brick sh*thouse. And the Bristol apparently, too, even though it wasn't before in RoF. Apparently this is a function of the wing spar. Can you prove this wrong? Please do. I don't meant this sarcastically. It SUCKS that the game has changed radically since release. This is NOT the game which many people bought and hyped up, including myself. I LIKED (if not loved) stronger wings because it made for epic scout dogfights, even if it meant that two-seaters couldn't really defend themselves through sheer firepower. Is what we have now more realistic? According to the data which the developers used and checked again and again: yes. I'm inclined to believe them. Telling people they've been flying wrong for years is not fun, and we're all going through a mourning period. I've already had my say that multiplayer problems are a combination of poor piloting habits (myself included, just ask my flight instructor) and an unrealistic planeset (a SPAD XIII encountering a Fokker D.VIIF would have been a late war rarity indeed). 50 minutes ago, US93_Larner said: It seems to me that a good solution might be, simply, decreasing the probability modifiers of spars and control surfaces being cut. I would add probability modifiers to everything. A probability for bullets to pass through without causing any damage at all, a probability for your engine to fail due to improper maintenance, a probability for your guns to jam permanently, a probability for your pilot not to be physically strong enough to perform certain maneuvers or suffer from G-LOC sooner or later, or even for his entire screen to be blurry because he is nearsighted. If wing failures happen too often, it's only because random failures of other systems don't happen enough. When people are basically scared to do anything except fly coordinated within gliding distance of a field, even before taking damage (this is how I feel when I fly my Honda Civic), then we'll have a situation that closely mimicks reality, and which pays tribute to the HUGE brass balls which WWI pilots had. People will also say it's unfair. But that's exactly what this game lacks: more unfairness. Unfairness leads to the formation of organised squadrons and to mechanical problems being tackled through tactics and numerical superiority. Edited June 12, 2020 by J5_Hellbender 2
unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 16 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said: But surely a seperate landing routine could be scripted for the ww1 planes ? Excuse my thickness here a bit, but back to the DM.. Since no ww2 plane had Spad spars in them, how can any change that affects a ww2 plane have any bearing on the spars of a Spad ? Conversely : Any tweaking to the properties of a Spad spar shouldn't affect any ww2 DM's ? Obviously these DM assumptions are wrong, I just don't understand why yet ! TBH the landing routine for WW2 planes is not very satisfactory either. They land right at one end of the strip, and the next plane is not given clearance for final until the first has taxied completely clear of the strip at the opposite end, which often takes longer than a complete circuit. I asked whether this could be changed so that the trigger for allowing a new approach could be passing the middle of the runaway, but Han replied that there were technical problems baked into the way runways work that made this tricky. Tricky = low priority. So yes - in theory it could, but do not hold your breath. The change to the DM gave all the planes spars, of dimensions according to their RL counterparts, fixing a base level for resistance, plus allowance for the other structural elements. So that you get a total undamaged G limit corresponding to historic test reports, plus a mechanism to reduce it based on the structure of the individual plane, with damage location within hit boxes based on probabilities. You could tweak a SPAD's spar dimensions without affecting the spar of any other plane - but the developers appear not to wish to do so, because, I imagine, they think the "spar" is of the correct dimension, the undamaged G limits are correct and the damage inflicted by hits is not SPAD specific: it based on the ammo type/ energy whatever. If you did reduce the damage of a MG bullet hit, it would increase the minimum and average hits to cause a break in AnP's tests: but it might make little difference to the playing experience. The wings on the SPADs and Camels would still almost always come off before those of the Dr1s and DVIIs. People would just fly around in high G manoeuvers until a wing came off, perhaps taking slightly more hits, and complain that nothing has been changed. 1 1
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) There's a bit of an assumption there that spar dimensions with some fudge factor account for both damage and load bearing whereas I don't think that's true or at least not something that is a known fact about the interlinking of the damage and flight models. IIRC some of the planes had "too many spars" which if that truly affected load bearing would have made them G-monsters whereas it merely seemed to make it easier to hit a spar. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen
BMA_Hellbender Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 57 minutes ago, Zooropa_Fly said: If 'temporary solutions' are to be considered, I'd slow the rate of fire down. Wouldn't address all of the perceived problems, but would certainly make fights last longer, and potentially increase the fun factor. Giving more options is really the way to go. You could have a slower rate of fire option to simulate the older Vickers/Spandau firing mechanism present on the Sopwith Pup and Halberstadt D.II, gunnery spread to simulate turbulence and even a few aircraft engine modifiers: early 110hp Le Rhone Camels that are limited to 1250 RPM and Mercedes D.IIIa engine overcompression (best to just add these as separate planes, but I'll take whatever). I'd also add limiting human gunner movement and firing above 2g. AI gunners already seem to do that. In that case the whole "historically accurate" problem can be laid to rest and mission builders and server operators can create their own flavour of reality, with the goal being historical outcomes rather than hardcore rivet counting. 2
No.23_Starling Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 1 hour ago, US93_Larner said: As for control surfaces jamming in their current position...I just don't see how that could happen with a WW1 biplane, given the ammo being fired at them. I cannot figure out how 7mm rifle ammunition would jam a surface, rather than simply cut it. Perhaps someone else could shed some light on this, because I really don't see it being plausible. This jamming surface piece feels odd and a bit WW2. In the light a/c I fly you need to keep constant stick pressure to keep a dive/climb attitude as the airflow will push the elevator back to neutral, that’s where my Cessna trim wheel helps me out. If a control wire in my Dv is shot to the elevator why would the surface jam at full negative deflection? Wouldn’t the airflow push against it into neutral? 1 1
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 15 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said: Giving more options is really the way to go. I think it's the logical conclusion given the lack of resources specifically to design the multiplayer experience across the board but it's also not without a cost to the developers who have to make sure all the combinations work and continue to work as they make changes. From the way things are described it seems like the IL2 development is being piloted by a pretty small team. The developers are in a bit of a bind as well as new shiny features get new people buying the game and arguably mostly in the WW2 side of things whereas balancing planes to appease the 500 or so people that fly FC online is much less important, at least in terms of bringing in money. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen
unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 12 minutes ago, slug_yuugen said: There's a bit of an assumption there that spar dimensions with some fudge factor account for both damage and load bearing whereas I don't think that's true or at least not something that is a known fact about the interlinking of the damage and flight models. IIRC some of the planes had "too many spars" which if that truly affected load bearing would have made them G-monsters whereas it merely seemed to make it easier to hit a spar. That is because the original design of the DM for each plane starts with the load limit, not the spars. This is how AnP has told us that the DM works, IIRC. The load limit - undamaged - is fixed independently by RL test reports. The dimensions of the spars and other construction details are fixed independently by looking at the blueprints. This is all RL data. The model plane is divided into hit boxes. "Spars" and "control rods" etc are not hit boxes. Hits on hit boxes may or may not hit "spars", "control rods" etc depending on probabilities calculated from the aspect of the "spar" in the hitbox. In addition hits do generic damage to the hitbox that determines the application of the 3 level damage texture. If you do enough damage in a specific location on a "spar" it's G limit is reduced, until it eventually fails. The damage per hit is a function of the projectile's properties and the materials that it hits. What I do not know is how the load limits for a plane's "spars" vary between hit boxes. I think they do - see previous graphs. The spar thickness varies - thickest in the middle for the DVII for example. The load on a RL wing is also not equally distributed, but while I do not know how much of this gets into the FM, I think it does. 1
BMA_Hellbender Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 12 minutes ago, US93_Rummell said: This jamming surface piece feels odd and a bit WW2. In the light a/c I fly you need to keep constant stick pressure to keep a dive/climb attitude as the airflow will push the elevator back to neutral, that’s where my Cessna trim wheel helps me out. If a control wire in my Dv is shot to the elevator why would the surface jam at full negative deflection? Wouldn’t the airflow push against it into neutral? I have the same feeling but I just don't know enough about the engineering of WWI control surfaces. Plus they differed widely between, for example, the basic large top and bottom ailerons found on Camels and more advanced smaller counterbalanced (?) ones found on the Fokker D.VII upper wing. 1
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 11 minutes ago, unreasonable said: That is because the original design of the DM for each plane starts with the load limit, not the spars. This is how AnP has told us that the DM works, IIRC. The load limit - undamaged - is fixed independently by RL test reports. The dimensions of the spars and other construction details are fixed independently by looking at the blueprints. This is all RL data. The model plane is divided into hit boxes. "Spars" and "control rods" etc are not hit boxes. Hits on hit boxes may or may not hit "spars", "control rods" etc depending on probabilities calculated from the aspect of the "spar" in the hitbox. In addition hits do generic damage to the hitbox that determines the application of the 3 level damage texture. If you do enough damage in a specific location on a "spar" it's G limit is reduced, until it eventually fails. The damage per hit is a function of the projectile's properties and the materials that it hits. What I do not know is how the load limits for a plane's "spars" vary between hit boxes. I think they do - see previous graphs. The spar thickness varies - thickest in the middle for the DVII for example. The load on a RL wing is also not equally distributed, but while I do not know how much of this gets into the FM, I think it does. If this is true then they are independent of one another other than damage effecting G-load. Then all the needs fiddling with is the fudge factor to account more for the strength provided by the truss in the weaker aircraft. I'd suggest this could be modeled either by making the factor reduce the volume of the spar effectively making it less likely to be hit or by reducing the damage taken by the spar reflecting the trusses ability to redistribute the forces involved or by reducing the impact of damage on the fatal G-load which again accounts for the trusses ability to redistribute forces. Depending on where this "other structural elements" fudge is actually accounted for in the model. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen 1
No.23_Starling Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 5 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said: I have the same feeling but I just don't know enough about the engineering of WWI control surfaces. Plus they differed widely between, for example, the basic large top and bottom ailerons found on Camels and more advanced smaller counterbalanced (?) ones found on the Fokker D.VII upper wing. I can think of tons of sources talking about shot away controls but none of jammed surfaces at full deflection able to push against air resistance. It makes sense in the 109 and WW2 birds. 1
unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 19 minutes ago, slug_yuugen said: If this is true then all the needs fiddling with is the fudge factor to account more for the strength provided by the truss in the weaker aircraft. I'd suggest this could be modeled either by making the factor reduce the volume of the spar effectively making it less likely to be hit or by reducing the damage taken by the spar reflecting the trusses ability to redistribute the forces involved. Depending on where this "other structural elements" fudge is actually accounted for in the model. It is yet to be established whether - from a realism POV - anything needs fiddling with at all. No amount of fudge is likely to cover up the fact that wings with 10G limits are less likely to fail after a few hits than wings with 6 G limits. Edited June 12, 2020 by unreasonable
BMA_Hellbender Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 6 minutes ago, US93_Rummell said: I can think of tons of sources talking about shot away controls but none of jammed surfaces at full deflection able to push against air resistance. It makes sense in the 109 and WW2 birds. It definitely strikes me as strange. I could find a few case reports about jammed controls... but would that mean an actual jammed control surface or the stick getting stuck? http://www.airhistory.org.uk/rfc/files/_casrep.txt Quote 5776 BE2d 468WD1831 6Sq 06.07.16 f/l on railway line NW Dickebusch village after aileron control jammed on patrol. Lt Arbon Ok/Lt Macauley Ok AIR 1/844 5804 BE2d E749 16Sq 12.07.16 Spun out of control after controls jammed on HA Patrol. 2Lt G Thompson inj/Lt WD Budgen inj AIR 1/844 6408 FE8 30354 41Sq 11.07.17 Crashed on t/o for line patrol due jammed elevator. 2Lt M Thomas slightly inj AIR 1/849 B1553 Nieuport 17 110LR 101088JB 29Sq 12.09.17 Wrecked just outside aerodrome after tappet rod broke cowl broke off and controls jammed on t/o for OP. Capt AG Jones-Williams shaken AIR 1/850 D1786 Sopwith Camel 160Cl R2284 54Sq 11.04.18 Controls jammed and crashed on t/o. Lt OJF Jones-Lloyd Ok AIR 1/854 D3535 SE5a 200HS 17561 2AFC 03.05.18 f/l Tangry due loss of oil pressure and Very pistol jammed controls during OP. Capt RC Phillips Ok [initials not shown] C781 Bristol Fighter Fal3 705WD32752 88Sq 08.05.18 Flew into ground after empty cartridge case jammed tailplane controls on landing Marquise for WT installation. Lt TE Duffy/2Lt Lewis AIR 1/855 A7589 DH4 Eag5 71WD13883 57Sq 09.05.18 Flying wire snapped and jammed aileron and crashed on landing from bombing Bapaume. Lt LL Brown Ok/21474 1AM O Shepstone Ok AIR 1/855 D8246 Sopwith Camel 140Cl 2558 148USA 09.07.18 Crashed Cappelle aerodrome after aileron controls jammed during target practice. Lt GC Dorsey Ok AIR 1/857 D7351 DH9 230BHP SD7467 98Sq 23.10.18 Dived into earth after control jammed while diving to avoid another machine while landing at 62Sq due bad visibility on bombing raid. Lt Sleigh Ok/Lt Fuller Ok AIR 1/860 A9712 DH6 90Raf 5968 SoAG Heliopolis 08.08.18 Hit ground when control lever jammed whilst on gunnery practice. 2Lt JC Edwards Ok/2Lt OH Harwood Ok [FF 23.01.18 FH299:30] AIR 1/984 B6096 Sopwith Scout 80Gn 4457 3TS Shoreham 19.01.18 Spun from 3000ft after foot jammed in controls during practice Shoreham-by-sea. 2Lt LH Wrightmeyer severely inj AIR 1/11 So many creative ways to crash a plane. The empty cartridge case and foot jams are particularly horrible.
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 9 minutes ago, unreasonable said: It is yet to be established whether - from a realism POV - anything needs fiddling with at all. No amount of fudge is likely to cover up the fact that wings with 10G limits are less likely to fail after a few hits than wings with 6 G limits. It's also yet to be established whether - from a realism POV - the current results are accurate. So YMMV with that. Also a wing that is strong to load does not necessarily imply it is better at surviving damage. The amount of redundancy and other factors play into that as well which peak G-load doesn't give any ability to infer. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen
unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 6 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said: It definitely strikes me as strange. I could find a few case reports about jammed controls... but would that mean an actual jammed control surface or the stick getting stuck? http://www.airhistory.org.uk/rfc/files/_casrep.txt So many creative ways to crash a plane. The empty cartridge case and foot jams are particularly horrible. Interesting - but jamming might just be the contemporary lingo for failed. I can see how an undamaged control could jam, if an improperly positioned cable got stuck somehow. From battle damage from blasts this could also happen - maybe even splinters from bullets could jam a cable where it goes over a pulley. But if the cable is shot through I would expect a floppy. I have only had one close shell burst which deprived me of aileron control, but they just fluttered, and hits that prevented use of left rudder. As though one cable was shot away and the wind could still recenter the rudder. No idea how frequent this will turn out to be. 9 minutes ago, slug_yuugen said: It's also yet to be established whether - from a realism POV - the current results are accurate. So YMMV with that. Of course - but since the onus of proof is on people who want changes, that does not get very far. To prove the DM is wrong you need a reasonably close in-game recreation of a real life, documented test, and demonstrate a statistically significant difference. This was possible in the WW2 case (P-47!), but even there very difficult.
US103_Baer Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, J5_Hellbender said: It is about flying behaviour and to a certain extent gunnery/visibility/spotting on a 2D screen (or even in 3D VR) compared to reality. The Fokkers are cantilever wing designs and were known to pull crazy antics (see Voss vs No.56 Squadron) and the sudden rise of aces with the Fokker D.VII. As for the Pfalz: it's apparently built like a brick sh*thouse. And the Bristol apparently, too, even though it wasn't before in RoF. Apparently this is a function of the wing spar. Can you prove this wrong? Please do. I don't meant this sarcastically. Telling people they've been flying wrong for years is not fun, and we're all going through a mourning period. I've already had my say that multiplayer problems are a combination of poor piloting habits (myself included, just ask my flight instructor) and an unrealistic planeset (a SPAD XIII encountering a Fokker D.VIIF would have been a late war rarity indeed). I can't prove that wrong, but @ZachariasX certainly made a very strong case. "Flying wrong for years" - ok that's quite possible. But the game NOW insists that only some pilots have to modify behaviour. Pilots of D7s, Dr1s, Pfalzs and Bristols DO NOT. So are you saying that those pilots are flying 'right' or would you agree that they're still flying 'wrong' but the game doesn't penalise them for it? A 200hp Spad XIII vs a D7f would have been even rarer. Edited June 12, 2020 by US103_Baer 3
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 5 minutes ago, unreasonable said: Of course - but since the onus of proof is on people who want changes, that does not get very far. To prove the DM is wrong you need a reasonably close in-game recreation of a real life, documented test, and demonstrate a statistically significant difference. This was possible in the WW2 case (P-47!), but even there very difficult. This is a poor defense that could be used to justify any change to the DM after all the change hasn't been accompanied by any rigorous supporting literature and at the outset was poorly setup even by its own merits. There is no proof either way other than the well sourced evidence that we're not seeing historically accurate results and as noted above the case argued in general terms from the structural analysis of the strength of a truss versus an internally braced wing. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen 2
unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 Those who are flying within the limits of their aircraft are doing it right, those who do not are doing it wrong. It really is that simple. The aircraft did not in fact have the same limits. No one said WW1 was fair.
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) People are complaining because they had the carpet pulled out from under them and the limits were dramatically changed without justification in a manner that isn't congruent with the model actually being more accurate versus what we know historically. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen 3
No.23_Triggers Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, J5_Hellbender said: I would add probability modifiers to everything. A probability for bullets to pass through without causing any damage at all, a probability for your engine to fail due to improper maintenance, a probability for your guns to jam permanently, a probability for your pilot not to be physically strong enough to perform certain maneuvers or suffer from G-LOC sooner or later, or even for his entire screen to be blurry because he is nearsighted. If wing failures happen too often, it's only because random failures of other systems don't happen enough. When people are basically scared to do anything except fly coordinated within gliding distance of a field, even before taking damage (this is how I feel when I fly my Honda Civic), then we'll have a situation that closely mimicks reality, and which pays tribute to the HUGE brass balls which WWI pilots had. People will also say it's unfair. But that's exactly what this game lacks: more unfairness. Unfairness leads to the formation of organised squadrons and to mechanical problems being tackled through tactics and numerical superiority. The 'bullets passing through' modifier isn't a bad idea. After all, a bullet through the fabric alone does exactly nothing to a wing structure. The Engine / Guns modifier would definitely be a more realistic touch - those were among the regular stresses for WW1 pilots. I can understand why the devs wouldn't want to implement these features though - more so the engines. I don't know about the being physically too weak to do 'certain manoeuvres'. Define 'certain manoeuvres'. G-LOC's already in the game. The nearsighted thing? No thanks. "If wing failures happen too often, it's only because random failures of other systems don't happen enough". Such as? When talking about combat, and aircraft shot down, a majority of the results from battle damage did NOT result in a plane collapsing in flight (See: All the Huns Analysed: the Larner / Unreasonable Combat Claim Analysis Co.). If you mean to say that we're seeing more wings collapsing because pilots aren't ducking out of fights with non-combat-damage engine failures and gun jams, I'd have to disagree. I don't think those factors have anything to do with wings failing. I think it's a fallacy that WW1 pilots were scared of their aircraft. How many times have you read about a pilot stunting over their aerodrome? Or contour-chasing? I really doubt there were very many scout pilots at all who were "scared to do anything except fly coordinated within gliding distance of a field". Re: Unfairness - Disagree. Unfairness doesn't lead to the formation of squadrons to counter 'unfair' elements at all. It leads to people losing interest and squadrons disbanding, or pilots joining a Squadron on the 'Easy' side. Edited June 12, 2020 by US93_Larner 1
J2_Bidu Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 1 minute ago, US93_Larner said: Re: Unfairness - Disagree. Unfairness doesn't lead to the formation of squadrons to counter 'unfair' elements at all. It leads to people losing interest and squadrons disbanding, or pilots joining a Squadron on the 'Easy' side. And others more inclined to fly Central having to replace those missing on the Entente side... 1
No.23_Triggers Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 3 minutes ago, J2_Bidu said: And others more inclined to fly Central having to replace those missing on the Entente side... Exactly. Why aren't there, just, Entente Squadrons in the first place? Edited June 12, 2020 by US93_Larner
BMA_Hellbender Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 2 minutes ago, US103_Baer said: So are you saying that those pilots are flying 'right' or would you agree that they're still flying 'wrong' but the game doesn't penalise them for it? It depends on what you define as 'right'. The Fokker Dr.I was known for its maneuverability, it could do something akin to a flat half-spin: (at around 16:45) The Fokker D.VII was known for its ability to prophang and while it wasn't as maneuverable as the Dr.I it was a forgiving machine and an acemaker. I put it down completely to the cantilever wing design which exceeded g load expectations. The Pfalz and Bristol I would definitely say that pilots are flying 'wrong without getting penalized'. For the Pfalz I have no satisfying explanation on why it can pull 10g without combat damage, other than "built like a brick sh*thouse" rather than "speed". By comparison, the Albatros D.V(a) was built for "speed", but is not significantly faster (without overcompression) and falls apart when you sneeze at it. Then again, this matches historical reports: the Pfalz was an excellent diver and the the D.V(a) fell apart during dives. The Bristol was initially built as a regular two-seater to replace the R.E.8 and was not a spectacular machine at all in that role, until pilots realised it could maneuver with scouts. For a two-seater of that size to be able to maneuver like that it must have been "built like a brick sh*thouse". There's at least one report of a Bristol Fighter taking on multiple Albatros scouts and winning. In the end: I think both the Pfalz and Bristol were overmanufactured. It may not have been the intention to make these planes so tough, but they ended up being so tough. Stranger things have happened. When it comes to the SPAD: I'm well aware that it was also considered to be tough, but perhaps not as tough as reported? Maybe the spars should have been made bigger? The Italians replaced their SPAD XIIIs with Hanriots because they found them to be better fighting machines. I don't have a satisfying answer beyond that. If AnP shows up here tomorrow saying that he's made a mistake and the SPAD should be able to take 10g just like the Pfalz, you won't hear a peep out of me. I think it's more likely that the Pfalz and Bristol are a bit too tough. Or that it's even more likely that they're correct and my understanding of engineering is just not good enough. 1
unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 7 minutes ago, slug_yuugen said: This is a poor defense that could be used to justify any change to the DM after all the change hasn't been accompanied by any rigorous supporting literature and at the outset was poorly setup even by its own merits. There is no proof either way other than the well sourced evidence that we're not seeing historically accurate results and as noted above the case argued in general terms from the structural analysis of the strength of a truss versus an internally braced wing. I do not make any defense of the DM: all I am doing is pointing out logical and empirical shortcomings in most of the criticism. I have made plenty of criticism of previous DMs myself (P-47!) But it has to be done right or it will be ignored by the developers. The developers make up their minds based on the information they have. If they can be shown to have got it wrong, they make corrections, as the spar size changes illustrate. You cannot have historically accurate results if people do not fly in a historically accurate way, using historically accurate ammunition, even if the historic records are reliable and capable of accurate analysis in the categories you want. Which is itself very difficult. I know, I did the MvR analysis. I am not going back into the arguments about the braced vs un-braced wings, except to say that they bordered on the absurd at times. I can make a strong case that the current DM, if it lacks wire hit boxes, is unduly favourable towards braced designs.
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) At this stage unreasonable I think you are mostly just trolling. 16 minutes ago, unreasonable said: I do not make any defense of the DM: all I am doing is pointing out logical and empirical shortcomings in most of the criticism. I have made plenty of criticism of previous DMs myself (P-47!) But it has to be done right or it will be ignored by the developers. The developers make up their minds based on the information they have. If they can be shown to have got it wrong, they make corrections, as the spar size changes illustrate. You cannot have historically accurate results if people do not fly in a historically accurate way, using historically accurate ammunition, even if the historic records are reliable and capable of accurate analysis in the categories you want. Which is itself very difficult. I know, I did the MvR analysis. I am not going back into the arguments about the braced vs un-braced wings, except to say that they bordered on the absurd at times. I can make a strong case that the current DM, if it lacks wire hit boxes, is unduly favourable towards braced designs. There was no contemporary evidence given to the developers that caused the small tweaks just the same sort of discussion we're having now. Then a developer actually took a look and noted that the data was wildly inaccurate (see the before and after graphs). That they haven't revisited it isn't evidence that the model is accurate now or that we need to provide data in order to have them revisit it as clearly that wasn't the case in the first instance. It's just a weak deflection tactic particularly when there is no justification for the current model. I see no evidence, just hypothesis that people are not flying in a historically accurate way. I think it has a lot of merit but again this is unknowable and as such we have only written records to go on. I also think this line of argument is mostly a red herring in terms of discussing the damage model and as a game it'd would be better if the flight models were accurate but the damage models were such that they broadly matched historical accounts. There weren't a brace of people complaining that the previous damage model was too lenient after all and I think most of us are after capturing the spirit of fighting in these machines. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen 3
No.23_Triggers Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 4 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said: (1) It depends on what you define as 'right'. The Fokker Dr.I was known for its maneuverability, it could do something akin to a flat half-spin: The Fokker D.VII was known for its ability to prophang and while it wasn't as maneuverable as the Dr.I it was a forgiving machine and an acemaker. (2) I put it down completely to the cantilever wing design which exceeded g load expectations. (3) When it comes to the SPAD: I'm well aware that it was also considered to be tough, but perhaps not as tough as reported? Maybe the spars should have been made bigger? The Italians replaced their SPAD XIIIs with Hanriots because they found them to be better fighting machines. I don't have a satisfying answer beyond that. If AnP shows up here tomorrow saying that he's made a mistake and the SPAD should be able to take 10g just like the Pfalz, you won't hear a peep out of me. I think it's more likely that the Pfalz and Bristol are a bit too tough. Or that it's even more likely that they're correct and my understanding of engineering is just not good enough. (1) You honestly think the Dr.I could do that? How it's shown on screen? ? (2) Okay - but what about when it had been shot through? The SPAD can pull some pretty intense Gs in FC...until its been hit in the spar. Would a cantilever design be so drastically different that it could still withstand upwards of 6G even after being shot through? Genuine question. (3) The Italians also never fought Fokker D.VIIs or Dr.Is. But, I don't see how the Italians replacing their XIIIs is proof of the SPAD being less durable than it was historically reported to be, anyway. I just can't see the correlation between the SPAD being hailed as being so notoriously tough and durable vs the FC-SPAD being (according to AnP's charts) the third-least durable aircraft of the game (beaten only by the two Sopwiths in terms of confetti-ability). The only logical conclusion I can reach is that damage to wing spars wasn't nearly as outcome-defining as it is in FC. Back to the 'flying unrealistically' argument - personally, I think that it's possible. But I definitely don't think that the difference is so pronounced as people have been making out. The manoeuvres specifically described by SPAD pilots sound aggressive. I mean, von Hippel tore one of his D.Va's bloody wings off in a dive!! If that's not flying past the plane's limit, I don't know what is...
unreasonable Posted June 12, 2020 Author Posted June 12, 2020 21 minutes ago, slug_yuugen said: People are complaining because they had the carpet pulled out from under them and the limits were dramatically changed without justification in a manner that isn't congruent with the model actually being more accurate versus what we know historically. It is more accurate in the eyes of the developers, which is the justification. People are complaining because they do not like the changes. I fully understand that - but that is the "fun" argument, not the "realism" argument, where so far the critics have not made a good case. 1) Someone needs to take a plane (Camel) in the air, high priority waypoint, 1G, and fire at one area of the wing at a time with the rear gunner on another plane, until it fails, about 100 times, counting the hits. Repeat many times per area of wing . 100 would be good. Make a distribution graph like AnP's for each section. 2) Then repeat, but making an effort to spread fire randomly over wing surfaces until a part drops off. 100 times. Note how often which part fails. No need to count shots here. Recalculate AnP's graph using distributions from (1) and the weights from (2). You might get something where the average hits before a part fails, is much lower than AnP's graph, in which case he might accept that there is a problem. Or you can find a contemporary document that they have not seen yet showing that the SPAD XIII limit was in fact the same as the D.VII's 8 minutes ago, slug_yuugen said: At this stage unreasonable I think you are mostly just trolling. I know what is required to get the developers' attention on DM issues, because I have done it myself. It took me several days of mission design, testing and analysis, and was done with reference to a detailed report of contemporary test firings. Your position implies that the developers are lazy, ignorant or stupid. Good luck getting any change with that attitude.
Tycoon Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 20 minutes ago, unreasonable said: Your position implies that the developers are lazy, ignorant or stupid. Good luck getting any change with that attitude. I spent years watching certain people at ROF endlessly praising the devs as hard working, brilliant and incredible. Didn't get much change either. 2
BMA_Hellbender Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, US93_Larner said: I don't know about the being physically too weak to do 'certain manoeuvres'. Define 'certain manoeuvres'. G-LOC's already in the game. The nearsighted thing? No thanks. The most obvious human factors related to flying are those linked to the vestibular system. It can make even experienced pilots very sick very fast, at least temporarily limiting their piloting ability. Resistance to g forces is also something personal and built up over time. Then there's the debilitating earpain of rapid pressure changes during a dive, to name just one more thing. Finally, perhaps most importantly, hypoxia is an important factor. Depending on overall physical fitness, you may start to experience the first effects as low as 6000ft, which reduce everything from visual acuity to mental capability and strength to move the controls. Flying these planes is something physical, akin to swimming and horseback riding. In the sim all of this is glanced over and we simply don't have the masses of inexperienced pilots who would die within mere hours before ever becoming accustomed to flying in combat. Now you might say: "But Bender! Fighter pilots had recruiting standards!" No, they didn't. Not in WWI. This is perhaps the most distinguishing factor between WWI and WWII. It was more often than not a matter of courage, position and money to become a pilot. Sometimes it wasn't really by choice (that or the trenches), since going into the military was a matter of family honour, even for the working classes. Courage changes fast under fire. Anyway, Mick Mannock was blind in one eye. Jean Olieslagers was so nearsighted he may very well have been blind. Quote "If wing failures happen too often, it's only because random failures of other systems don't happen enough". Such as? When talking about combat, and aircraft shot down, a majority of the results from battle damage did NOT result in a plane collapsing in flight (See: All the Huns Analysed: the Larner / Unreasonable Combat Claim Analysis Co.). If you mean to say that we're seeing more wings collapsing because pilots aren't ducking out of fights with non-combat-damage engine failures and gun jams, I'd have to disagree. I don't think those factors have anything to do with wings failing. I think it's a fallacy that WW1 pilots were scared of their aircraft. How many times have you read about a pilot stunting over their aerodrome? Or contour-chasing? I really doubt there were very many scout pilots at all who were "scared to do anything except fly coordinated within gliding distance of a field". Are you for real? Of course they were scared. The successful ones were those who could set aside their fears and function regardless. Yes there were natural born daredevils and fearless Prussian cavalry officers, but most pilots just wanted to do their job and live another day. You don't do that by putting yourself and your machine at risk unnecessarily. There were incredible acts of heroism and courage, but for the most part it's against human nature to want to do more than what is strictly necessary to survive. That's exactly why the Sopwith Camel failed as a fighter: it was built to be this unstable "pilot's plane" which could outfly more stable machines, and thus it killed many inexperienced pilots who likely just got scared, confused, disoriented, made a stupid mistake and died. And that's why the French favoured the SPAD: it's fast, it's stable and it gets you home. Wings collapsing, I maintain, happens far too much in multiplayer because of extreme maneuvers which players deem necessary to survive, only because they are faced with unrealistic foes. Which is to say: other human players who perform extreme maneuvers which they deem necessary to survive. It's a vicious circle. Honestly, good luck. You can't have historical accuracy in public multiplayer, people fly for their own glory, stats and instant gratification with almost complete disregard for their own life. You can somewhat mitigate it with mission building, but for the most part people will just complain that they can't fly however the hell they want. Quote Re: Unfairness - Disagree. Unfairness doesn't lead to the formation of squadrons to counter 'unfair' elements at all. It leads to people losing interest and squadrons disbanding, or pilots joining a Squadron on the 'Easy' side. Well, of course. If you don't like the inherent unfairness you can go play something else. I don't know, what do young people play these days, some other flightsim? Fortnite? Back then you could opt for the trenches. Or getting shot for desertion. If you want a fun and rewarding multiplayer experience, then it needs to be balanced. Or if you're going to go with historical asymetrical warfare, it needs to be set up in such a way that even the defending/losing side is having fun. Something like this: But every time I mention removing certain planes (D.VIIF), setting historical fuel loads and bombloads (Camel) I'm pretty much burned at the stake because that means that you can't fly the plane that you want, whenever you want and however the hell you want it. Fine, that's fair enough. There's not enough interest in WWI to begin with, Jason has told us multiple times, so we have to do everything possible to keep people interested. "Go die in an Albatros after a boring long patrol" is probably not what most people want to do on a Thursday night. Just don't expect it to be exactly like it was back then. Edited June 12, 2020 by J5_Hellbender 1
JGr2/J5_Klugermann Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, J5_Hellbender said: The Italians replaced their SPAD XIIIs with Hanriots because they found them to be better fighting machines. I don't have a satisfying answer beyond that. I would take anything an Italian says about combat with a grain of salt. I believe the Hanriots were fitted with a drop down tray mod where bowls of Linguini could be placed. Edited June 12, 2020 by J5_Klugermann 6
J2_Bidu Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) On a slightly different tone... I remember a time (in the ROF Age) when some people chose (or had?) to fly DVa's against a pack of well-flown Camels. I'll call them "1PL" because that is their name. Boy we took frequent beatings. I surely know I did. Hell, I still do, even in their current Entente-confetti planes, to quote @US93_Larner. Did it feel unfair? Yeah, sometimes, sure. We kept flying nevertheless. IT'S A GAME! In due time, things that don't benefit the game will be fixed by the developers, it is in their interest. And if we don't go berserk with every change that happens, maybe we'll all still be here to enjoy it. Anyone really unhappy with the unfairness of flying a Spad can just hop in an Albie, and blow those Spads out of the sky! Let them have it! Edited June 12, 2020 by J2_Bidu 2
Tycoon Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 25 minutes ago, J5_Hellbender said: The most obvious human factors related to flying are those linked to the vestibular system. It can make even experienced pilots very sick very fast, at least temporarily limiting their piloting ability. Resistance to g forces is also something personal and built up over time. Then there's the debilitating earpain of rapid pressure changes during a dive, to name just one more thing. Finally, perhaps most importantly, hypoxia is an important factor. Depending on overall physical fitness, you may start to experience the first effects as low as 6000ft, which reduce everything from visual acuity to mental capability and strength to move the controls. Flying these planes is something physical, akin to swimming and horseback riding. In the sim all of this is glanced over and we simply don't have the masses of inexperienced pilots who would die within mere hours before ever becoming accustomed to flying in combat. Now you might say: "But Bender! Fighter pilots had recruiting standards!" No, they didn't. Not in WWI. This is perhaps the most distinguishing factor between WWI and WWII. It was more often than not a matter of courage, position and money to become a pilot. Sometimes it wasn't really by choice (that or the trenches), since going into the military was a matter of family honour, even for the working classes. Courage changes fast under fire. Anyway, Mick Mannock was blind in one eye. Jean Olieslagers was so nearsighted he may very well have been blind. Are you for real? Of course they were scared. The successful ones were those who could set aside their fears and function regardless. Yes there were natural born daredevils and fearless Prussian cavalry officers, but most pilots just wanted to do their job and live another day. You don't do that by putting yourself and your machine at risk unnecessarily. There were incredible acts of heroism and courage, but for the most part it's against human nature to want to do more than what is strictly necessary to survive. That's exactly why the Sopwith Camel failed as a fighter: it was built to be this unstable "pilot's plane" which could outfly more stable machines, and thus it killed many inexperienced pilots who likely just got scared, confused, disoriented, made a stupid mistake and died. And that's why the French favoured the SPAD: it's fast, it's stable and it gets you home. Wings collapsing, I maintain, happens far too much in multiplayer because of extreme maneuvers which players deem necessary to survive, only because they are faced with unrealistic foes. Which is to say: other human players who perform extreme maneuvers which they deem necessary to survive. It's a vicious circle. Honestly, good luck. You can't have historical accuracy in public multiplayer, people fly for their own glory, stats and instant gratification with almost complete disregard for their own life. You can somewhat mitigate it with mission building, but for the most part people will just complain that they can't fly however the hell they want. Well, of course. If you don't like the inherent unfairness you can go play something else. I don't know, what do young people play these days, some other flightsim? Fortnite? Back then you could opt for the trenches. Or getting shot for desertion. If you want a fun and rewarding multiplayer experience, then it needs to be balanced. Or if you're going to go with historical asymetrical warfare, it needs to be set up in such a way that even the defending/losing side is having fun. Something like this: But every time I mention removing certain planes (D.VIIF), setting historical fuel loads and bombloads (Camel) I'm pretty much burned at the stake because that means that you can't fly the plane that you want, whenever you want and however the hell you want it. Fine, that's fair enough. There's not enough interest in WWI to begin with, Jason has told us multiple times, so we have to do everything possible to keep people interested. "Go die in an Albatros after a boring long patrol" is probably not what most people want to do on a Thursday night. Just don't expect it to be exactly like it was back then. A bit off topic but since you're talking about mission design could you j5 guys please make the airfields closer? Your server is the only place anyone plays and there is usually only 10-15 players on if we are lucky, the maps on right now don't really work unless there is 40+ players. 1
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, unreasonable said: It is more accurate in the eyes of the developers, which is the justification. People are complaining because they do not like the changes. I fully understand that - but that is the "fun" argument, not the "realism" argument, where so far the critics have not made a good case. 1) Someone needs to take a plane (Camel) in the air, high priority waypoint, 1G, and fire at one area of the wing at a time with the rear gunner on another plane, until it fails, about 100 times, counting the hits. Repeat many times per area of wing . 100 would be good. Make a distribution graph like AnP's for each section. 2) Then repeat, but making an effort to spread fire randomly over wing surfaces until a part drops off. 100 times. Note how often which part fails. No need to count shots here. Recalculate AnP's graph using distributions from (1) and the weights from (2). You might get something where the average hits before a part fails, is much lower than AnP's graph, in which case he might accept that there is a problem. Or you can find a contemporary document that they have not seen yet showing that the SPAD XIII limit was in fact the same as the D.VII's I know what is required to get the developers' attention on DM issues, because I have done it myself. It took me several days of mission design, testing and analysis, and was done with reference to a detailed report of contemporary test firings. Your position implies that the developers are lazy, ignorant or stupid. Good luck getting any change with that attitude. I'd never imply that. They are hardworking and obviously overstretched in what they have to support and consider on each change. Believe it or not I'm a game developer myself (for the past fifteen years working on almost exclusively multiplayer titles) and am quite used to these discussion from the other direction. I understand precisely the issues of dealing with community feedback when commercial and production pressure prevent it being addressed even if you find it compelling. Appealing to the beliefs of the developers inerrancy on the other hand is no justification for the current results being realistic just that they are as they are and there isn't any likelihood of changing them until someone can be wrangled into having time to look at it. See also the invisible planes bug and how bad medium range spotting is both of which are far more impactful and obviously 'wrong'. I don't think that test would prove anything useful and the historical evidence is more compelling that even if the AnP test is correct for the implemented damage model (which I don't doubt) it's not actually well matched to the results you witness. In my case even AI are ripping their wings off quite a bit, the last two AI Halb's I took out both ripped their wings off. The first because I killed the pilot and it went into a lazy loop before falling to bits. The second because it tried to follow me in a slow spiraling dive after the gunner disabled almost all my control surfaces including losing half my horizontal stabilizer and that was basically my only available maneuver. What would be nice for this sort of analysis is some more detailed stats coming out of the game itself so you can actually see how many bullets hit, where and what damage they did. That would be ideal for the community to help out finding bugs and inconsistencies as well as be interesting for nerds like me that wonder exactly what I hit to cause that 1.8% damage instead of 0.1%. Further these could be collected globally by the developers and used to analyse the results in larger population of fights. There is also a requirement to balance realism and fun which Hellbender is doing a great job of satirizing and a model that is more complex is not necessarily more fun or more realistic. Edited June 12, 2020 by slug_yuugen
JG1_Butzzell Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 Uhm, how about adding hypoxia above 4000 meters. After 10 minutes your FoV gets smaller and controls become sluggish. Very realistic. Obviously planes with O2 systems would be exempt. 1 1
No.23_Triggers Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, J5_Hellbender said: The most obvious human factors related to flying are those linked to the vestibular system. It can make even experienced pilots very sick very fast, at least temporarily limiting their piloting ability. Resistance to g forces is also something personal and built up over time. Then there's the debilitating earpain of rapid pressure changes during a dive, to name just one more thing. Finally, perhaps most importantly, hypoxia is an important factor. Depending on overall physical fitness, you may start to experience the first effects as low as 6000ft, which reduce everything from visual acuity to mental capability and strength to move the controls. Flying these planes is something physical, akin to swimming and horseback riding. In the sim all of this is glanced over and we simply don't have the masses of inexperienced pilots who would die within mere hours before ever becoming accustomed to flying in combat. Now you might say: "But Bender! Fighter pilots had recruiting standards!" No, they didn't. Not in WWI. This is perhaps the most distinguishing factor between WWI and WWII. It was more often than not a matter of courage, position and money to become a pilot. Sometimes it wasn't really by choice (that or the trenches), since going into the military was a matter of family honour, even for the working classes. Courage changes fast under fire. Anyway, Mick Mannock was blind in one eye. Jean Olieslagers was so nearsighted he may very well have been blind. Hypoxia should really be modelled too. It would mean that the D.VII's little snorkel thing would serve a function provide another much-needed element of WW1 fighting. I don't know how you'd implement it, though. Perhaps a very gradual blackout and a decreased G-tolerance? It would certainly be a very interesting change to have. I assume the devs have a good reason for not currently having it modelled, though. But, how are you meant to model your ears popping in a dive? Or being near-sighted or half blind? More importantly, how do you decide who 'suffers' from these conditions? Should it randomly happen that on certain sorties you're near-sighted, or your depth perception is messed up, just because that was the case for some real pilots? Or, should certain profiles just randomly always be near-sighted or half-blind? By any means - seeing as the current community focus is the aircraft DM, we can think about that stuff later on! Unless you think that some kind of simulation of these effects would play a significant part in how the DM translates into the MP experience... 1 hour ago, J5_Hellbender said: Are you for real? Of course they were scared. The successful ones were those who could set aside their fears and function regardless. Yes there were natural born daredevils and fearless Prussian cavalry officers, but most pilots just wanted to do their job and live another day. You don't do that by putting yourself and your machine at risk unnecessarily. There were incredible acts of heroism and courage, but for the most part it's against human nature to want to do more than what is strictly necessary to survive. That's exactly why the Sopwith Camel failed as a fighter: it was built to be this unstable "pilot's plane" which could outfly more stable machines, and thus it killed many inexperienced pilots who likely just got scared, confused, disoriented, made a stupid mistake and died. And that's why the French favoured the SPAD: it's fast, it's stable and it gets you home. Wings collapsing, I maintain, happens far too much in multiplayer because of extreme maneuvers which players deem necessary to survive, only because they are faced with unrealistic foes. Which is to say: other human players who perform extreme maneuvers which they deem necessary to survive. It's a vicious circle. Honestly, good luck. You can't have historical accuracy in public multiplayer, people fly for their own glory, stats and instant gratification with almost complete disregard for their own life. You can somewhat mitigate it with mission building, but for the most part people will just complain that they can't fly however the hell they want. Obviously they were scared. They were in a war. But, that's not what you were saying. I don't think they lived in constant fear of their planes just, falling apart in the sky, or doing something wildly random and killing them - as your quote about "being too scared to do anything other than fly coordinated" would suggest you believe. Perhaps a trainee might have that fear, at first - but a Squadron Pilot? I just don't see it. The Camel is an exception to the rule in the case of inexperienced pilots. Re: Wing-Collapsing - I refer back to von Hippel pulling a wing off his Albatros after diving straight vertically downward for just shy of 1000m. That is exactly an extreme manoeuvre which he deemed necessary to survive. Where his foes unrealistic, too? What I'm saying is, I just don't buy the idea that pilots wouldn't push their planes to their limits if they were certain not doing so would result in death. And, yes, nobody has the actual fear of real, legitimate death in FC - but in their respective contexts, how are the scenarios different? In von Hippel's case, we have a pilot pushing his aircraft past its limit to avoid immediate death from his opponents. In FC, as you believe, we largely see 'over-aggressive' manoeuvres for the same reason. Ok. That now raises the survivorship bias argument. Dead men can't tell you about how they lost their wings over stressing their aircraft after receiving damage. The rebuttal to that is - why aren't there more reports of aircraft's wings coming off? As in - a similar amount to FC in relation to other 'types' of shoot-down? And why aren't there more mentions of pilots witnessing their wingmen going down in pieces? Because the memoirs do mention those things when they were witnessed. One instance comes to mind of McCudden mentioning one of his wingmen falling in pieces during a dogfight vs. several Albatroses. He specifically mentions that both wings on one side (can't remember if left or right offhand) broke away. If flying over-aggressively to survive an attack was as lethal to airframes as it apparently is in FC, and FC is supposedly now accurate, would that not equate to there being many, many more cases of this appearing in memoirs, both from the scoring pilots' and victims' wingmen's perspectives? Here are some possible answers: 1) Pilots are more aggressive in attacking manoeuvres than they were in reality. 2) The current DM isn't correctly representing battle damage. 3) Pilots didn't feel the need to report how their victims / wingmen went down. 4) Many more planes fell apart than were witnessed and reported on. "You can't have historical accuracy in public multiplayer, people fly for their own glory, stats and instant gratification with almost complete disregard for their own life. You can somewhat mitigate it with mission building, but for the most part people will just complain that they can't fly however the hell they want." I also don't fully agree with this - sure, people fly for their own glory, stats and instant gratification - those are the only things really at stake in FC - but there are plenty of pilots who really enjoy the 'game within the game' of taking a V-Life as far as they can. I'm one of them, and I can tell you - I very much have a regard for my own "Life" when doing so! In fact, if you've got a really good streak that you've been building for weeks, or even months, any combat is nerve-wracking as hell. My current streak is far beyond what I ever expected to be able to achieve - and it's reached the point where I get nervous before I've even ran into any enemies. I get nervous that I'll mess up a take-off or a landing and kill myself, I get nervous that I'll be unlucky with the flak, I get nervous that I haven't seen someone who's getting ready to bounce me, I get nervous I'm being too aggressive with my manoeuvres after taking damage, etc. etc. etc. It's not a legitimate fear of actual death - it's not even remotely in the same realm - but I really, really, don't want to be killed and lose my V-Life. Surviving is way more important than scoring victories for me...but, I am actively trying to "add to my score". And a lot of guys who really enjoy the 'v-life game' are the same way. Most of the other 3rd P.G. pilots are, too. With that being said, I'm very interested to hear the thoughts of the other 'V-Lifers' in this thread - as they are possibly making considerations while flying that might be closer (obviously not the same) to what a real pilot would, or would not, do. (Not to discredit anyone that isn't v-life focused, of course!!) Edited June 12, 2020 by US93_Larner 1
NO.20_Krispy_Duck Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 Are the control cables and true control rods modeled differently in terms of hit box size and durability? A control wire might well be less durable, but should be much harder to hit. Whereas the control rod might be easier to hit but harder to knock out. There were a fair number of complaints about the Spad XIII indeed, but they focused on (1) the plane didn't turn like the earlier Nieuports the pilots had gotten used to, (2) the controls tended to be heavy at low speed and the plane did not respond as well as the Spad VII, and (3) the geared Hispano Suiza system kept breaking down and when it did, an engine rebuild could take days. The direct drive Spad VII 180 continued to serve as a workhorse well after the Spad XIII was introduced. The Hanriot was built with a design view closer to the Nieuports and the skilled Nieuport pilot could port many of his approaches to combat over to the Hanriot. Initially, the SE5 met with the same criticism - it was robust, but it was markedly different from the Nieuport 17 and later series the British had grown used to. But then we run into the issue that we don't have a substitute aircraft as you would have if the Nieuport 17 or the Spad VII 180 were available as "reserves". Hopefully we'll get more planes in the future.
slug_yuugen Posted June 12, 2020 Posted June 12, 2020 1 minute ago, Krispy_Duck said: Are the control cables and true control rods modeled differently in terms of hit box size and durability? A control wire might well be less durable, but should be much harder to hit. Whereas the control rod might be easier to hit but harder to knock out. Presumably they are modeled in a probabilistic manner in the similar manner to the spars. Hits on a hitbox essentially roll against a probability of hitting the elements that are covered by that box then also roll for damage.
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