Damaged planes, write-offs, and credited kills.

[oc2209]

As a preface, I want to clarify this issue isn't a big deal. But I do think it could be improved with hopefully a minimal effort.

 

Without further ado, I'll present some comparison pictures:

 

 

I land in a friendly field (just not my takeoff field), with this amount of damage. Yet after the sortie, it's declared a forced landing, and the plane is written off. Even if it was a wheels-up landing, it'd still be repairable.

 

 

I crippled this 109's engine; he bellied in right over the target area (he was escorting ground attack planes). Yet, I'm not credited with a kill.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assumed that most nations considered downing an enemy plane over friendly territory (resulting in an automatic loss of the plane, if not the pilot) an official kill.

 

Now, I'm aware of the fact that the game is overall much more generous in awarding kills than real life. I realize we're given kills with no witnesses, if a plane we damaged later crashes and breaks up enough to register as a kill. So by and large, we probably get credited with more confirmed kills than a real pilot would; even taking into account lost claims like the one above.

 

To clarify for people who may be unaware: I've studied a lot of my kills, and it's clear a kill is only registered if the pilot is dead, bails out, or the plane catches on fire, or the wing(s) breaks, or the tail breaks off. Any damage less than the above described, fails to count as a kill. Broken elevators and ailerons, missing rudders, don't count as enough. Even entirely missing vert./horiz. stabilizers don't count.

 

I think the situation could be remedied by simply counting a bent prop or dead engine as a kill, if the enemy plane goes down anywhere in your territory. If the enemy plane is over its own territory, then the old standards of a kill remain.

 

Likewise, if you land in one piece without breaking up, anywhere in your territory, your plane should be counted as damaged, and not a loss/crash. This is critically important, in my opinion, for Russian careers where planes like the Yak-9 and 9T are issued in small numbers that are easily depleted.

[40plus]

Any airfield that isn't set up as an active airfield in the mission is indistinguishable with random dirt, as far as mission assessment goes. Doesn't matter that you landed at a "friendly" airfield.

[oc2209]

2 hours ago, 40plus said:

Any airfield that isn't set up as an active airfield in the mission is indistinguishable with random dirt, as far as mission assessment goes. Doesn't matter that you landed at a "friendly" airfield.

 

And? Does that make it any more logical to call an airplane 'crashed' when it's clearly not?

 

I'm talking about how, during the Battle of Britain, for instance, the British would routinely recover planes the Germans likely claimed as destroyed.

 

The point is that any time a plane lands, intact, in friendly territory, it should not be written off. When an enemy is forced down in your territory, their plane can't be recovered. Therefore, it's a kill.

 

The current system is reversed. If you touch the ground anywhere other than your field, the records show you may as well have just crashed through a forest. If an enemy crash lands in your territory (without breaking up), its destruction is ignored. It's not even registered on the post-sortie map as a downed plane.

 

In game terms, it doesn't reward a human pilot for saving their plane instead of just bailing out or landing rougher. In historical terms, it runs counter to what I assume were pretty vigorous plane recovery efforts practiced by most nations where applicable. Especially since we're talking distances (of where a plane lands versus where it's based) in the tens of kilometers. Not hundreds or thousands. A mechanic could drive over from your home base and get the plane running enough for anyone to fly it back to where it belongs the next morning. Or it could be fixed by ground personnel already present.

[Eisenfaustus]

3 hours ago, 40plus said:

Any airfield that isn't set up as an active airfield in the mission is indistinguishable with random dirt, as far as mission assessment goes. Doesn't matter that you landed at a "friendly" airfield.

Doesn’t make his point any less viable - even if you landed your plane intact on random dirt on the right side of the front logic suggests it would be retrieved and reused. 
 

As the game knows on which side of the front you are (bail out pow consequence) this seems doable. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

I know that in the real war on the East Front the VVS vigorously recovered their downed aircraft, and if possible repaired them to flight worthy condition.  Faster than waiting for new planes to come from factories far behind the front.  Many aircraft that the Germans chalked up as "kills" were flying again in a matter of days or weeks.  Necessity, as they say, is a mother...

[PatrickAWlson]

I seriously doubt that the game distinguishes between degrees of "destroyed".  In the logs I get a destroyed event.  There is no distinction between belly landed and obliterated.  I get what is being asked but given the stack if stuff on the developer's plates I am guessing that this is not going to rise to the top of the priority list soon.

 

if I was going to to it without writing all sorts of new code, I would evaluate the pilot status to discern plane status.  Pilot dead, bailed out, or seriously wounded = plane destroyed.  Pilot slightly injured or not injured = plane survived.  Not perfect since belly landing the plane as a badly wounded pilot would not be evaluated properly, but it would be a 90% solution.  And it's still not going to happen any time soon  

[cardboard_killer]

Shoot, if I get guns on target I count it as a major victory

[oc2209]

5 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

if I was going to to it without writing all sorts of new code, I would evaluate the pilot status to discern plane status.  Pilot dead, bailed out, or seriously wounded = plane destroyed.  Pilot slightly injured or not injured = plane survived.  Not perfect since belly landing the plane as a badly wounded pilot would not be evaluated properly, but it would be a 90% solution.  And it's still not going to happen any time soon  

 

I've landed planes with serious injuries before; like screen-almost-greyed-out with very little stick control. Don't make me mention how far Saburo Sakai flew with .50 fragments in his skull. Serious injury therefore shouldn't be an automatic destruction.

 

Taking your idea and amending it slightly (so that pilot alive=plane damaged in forced landing; pilot dead/bailed=plane destroyed) would work for us and our plane recovery, but it still wouldn't fix the issue with kills being credited to us.

 

Going by technochat, the game does in fact know when we've suffered structural breakup and engine failure. I think, if memory serves, a bent prop triggers the 'structural breakup' message.

 

Point being, even if the game doesn't bother to register degree of damage after the fact, it is somehow aware of specific damage states regardless.

 

If, for example, you have severe surface wing damage and you're spiraling into the ground, you can pause and quit the sortie one foot above the ground. Your plane will not be counted as destroyed (if you're over friendly territory; try this over enemy territory, you'll be counted as captured).

 

If your plane breaks up mid-air, and you attempt the same, your plane will be counted as crashed (but your pilot will live).

 

That's why I think it'd be relatively simple to 'write-off' an enemy plane any time it has a bent prop or destroyed engine over hostile territory.

 

4 hours ago, cardboard_killer said:

Shoot, if I get guns on target I count it as a major victory

 

Get thee gone from my thread, you filthy casual!

 

It's not my fault I'm a kill-hoarder. It's probably a generational thing.

Edited February 18, 2021 by oc2209

[Mandoble]

Historically accurate for all the air forces or not, I think assists should be accounted, as well as maneouver kills as well as the number of times you were downed to start with (ditches included). I think the statistics of this game are extremelly extremelly poor. And of course I do agree, landing on friendly territory is not a ditch, it is just an emergency landing.

[oc2209]

8 hours ago, Mandoble said:

Historically accurate for all the air forces or not, I think assists should be accounted, as well as maneouver kills as well as the number of times you were downed to start with (ditches included). I think the statistics of this game are extremelly extremelly poor. And of course I do agree, landing on friendly territory is not a ditch, it is just an emergency landing.

 

I'd welcome assists/shared, at least for stat tracking if not for 'official' use. For the Luftwaffe, it wouldn't be part of your official record anyway.

 

Personally, when I see my wingmen attacking a target, I generally stay away. Both to avoid collisions, and to avoid wasting bullets on a target my wingmen might manage to shoot down on their own. My point is that I rarely damage a plane that's already damaged.

 

Now, maneuver kill claims would be nice. There is historical basis for them. However, I don't see how the game could credit them fairly. Just any enemy plane that crashes within a certain (small) radius of your plane, and that wasn't first damaged by another plane or friendly AAA?

 

Otherwise, if the plane was already damaged and then crashed while chasing you because it was impaired, that'd be a shared and a maneuver kill. Which is just too messy to calculate.

[Mandoble]

13 hours ago, oc2209 said:

 

I'd welcome assists/shared, at least for stat tracking if not for 'official' use. For the Luftwaffe, it wouldn't be part of your official record anyway.

 

Personally, when I see my wingmen attacking a target, I generally stay away. Both to avoid collisions, and to avoid wasting bullets on a target my wingmen might manage to shoot down on their own. My point is that I rarely damage a plane that's already damaged.

 

Now, maneuver kill claims would be nice. There is historical basis for them. However, I don't see how the game could credit them fairly. Just any enemy plane that crashes within a certain (small) radius of your plane, and that wasn't first damaged by another plane or friendly AAA?

 

Otherwise, if the plane was already damaged and then crashed while chasing you because it was impaired, that'd be a shared and a maneuver kill. Which is just too messy to calculate.

 

Assists might happen in the opposite direction, first you hit a plane but then a wingmen finished it getting the kill credit (your would receive an assist), this doesn't apply only when you hit an already dagamed plane.

 

About maneouver kills it should be rather easy as the game knows pretty well if the plane that crashed was engaging pursuing you or defending from you.

[Angry_Kitten]

The game has some lag in when it says i have killed a plane. Still just in single player offline fun time. 

 

Sometimes i only get the green kill message AFTER the plane hits the ground, sometimes ONLY after i see the message from ground control saying good job on the left hand bottom of screen. 

 

Sometimes I get the message before it hits the ground, sometimes BEFORE i get that ground control message. 

 

Sometimes have the first plane slowly doing a 10 minute circle/belly flop into the ground while parachutes slowly drift to the ground,  at the same time im pumping shells into the next plane that spawned.   Sometiems i have had to wait till the messages arrive before the next plane spawns,  other times the next plane has spawned on the map BEFORE the message arrives, and sometimes the next plane is spawning BEFORE the first plane has finished its mid air explosion, to the point that ive had two planes in the last 12 hours of game flight time, spawn at the same exact spot where the last one was when i blew it out of the air.