Horizontal/vertical convergence

[FTC_Zero]

Any chance we can change horizontal, vertical convergence separately in the future? Or do it for individual weapon groups? Or is it out of question? It saddens me, that I can't try out historical convergence settings on various planes. ?

[CAFulcrum]

I'd think it would change things up quite a bit if we could have multiple convergence settings for pairs of .50 cal wing guns and properly spread the pattern out instead of all 6 meeting at a single range.  Could have near and far settings or just use it to give more of a shotgun spread as opposed to lazer beams.  The 50s are all about statistical wounding so more shots on target would make them deadlier at a wider range I'd think.  With cannon you're hoping for a few hits, and convergence becomes much more about placing shots accurately and convergence would be more akin to setting a point of reference for shell trajectory.

[LukeFF]

The thing is, convergence is convergence - this gamey nonsense of there being horizontal and vertical convergence throws too many people off. When you're aligning the guns to converge at a given distance, you're automatically setting it both horizontally and vertically. You can't have one without the other. 

Edited December 14, 2021 by LukeFF

[Bert_Foster]

Luke I agree for Point harmonisation, but not for pattern harmonisation

[FuriousMeow]

Wouldn't the pattern just be dictated by setting each gun pair at different convergences? Inboard to 200 meters, middle to 400, outboard to 600 (using P40/P51 6gun config as example) would provide a "shotgun effect" around 400 meters which some seem to want.

 

I'd be interested to read that pilots requested their crew chiefs aim each individual weapon in different elevations and directions for a truly bizarre "shotgun effect."

Edited December 15, 2021 by FuriousMeow
werds

[[CPT]Crunch]

Now imagine a server with eighty players who each have individual pairs of guns set with a unique custom convergence having to be calculated and tracked by the server.  Somewhere way down in the future when wildlife roam the map grazing the grass.

[FuriousMeow]

I'd be surprised if the server is tracking gun solutions. Most likely it's front end/client based. The shooter's side detects the hits on the target "You hit the target here and here and here and here and here," those hits get transmitted via UDP to server and then to the target's client, and the target's side client goes "ok, I was hit here and here and here and here and here."

 

or in case of poor connection quality, the target's side client goes "ok, I was hit here and... .... ... here."

Edited December 15, 2021 by FuriousMeow

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Wouldn't this just overly complicate things, for a feature that maybe 1% of all people would actively use? Also note the US aircraft already have some kind of box pattern, which is more or less equivalent to having different convergence settings per gun.

[JG27*PapaFly]

19 hours ago, LukeFF said:

The thing is, convergence is convergence - this gamey nonsense of there being horizontal and vertical convergence throws too many people off. When you're aligning the guns to converge at a given distance, you're automatically setting it both horizontally and vertically. You can't have one without the other. 

To the contrary. By default, machine guns and cannons had different horizontal and vertical convergence settings in the complete FW190 series. I've requested realistic convergence settings years ago, because the game has a real, significant gap here.

[Rjel]

After several weeks of flying the new convergence patterns of the P-47 and P-51, I quite like the setup. At 300-400 yards, I can really pepper single engine fighters. Not always an immediate kill but they are definitely badly damaged even with a quick crossing shot. It also seems to generate more PK for me. 

[FTC_Zero]

Why not current conversion as simple configuration, and additional "advanced conversion" settings. Just assuming people are stupid and are not interested to try historical settings in a simulator. Playing around with settings is part of the fun, but instead someone forces a pacifier. Some might argue that there are no individual settings, but just linking every gun with the same horizontal/vertical seems not right according to given data.

Like in that datasheet example, i cant make use of a quite high vertical convergence(to keep tracers more in line of sight in a turn) without setting the horizontal convergence to a unreasonable long range. 

1 hour ago, JG27_PapaFly said:

To the contrary. By default, machine guns and cannons had different horizontal and vertical convergence settings in the complete FW190 series. I've requested realistic convergence settings years ago, because the game has a real, significant gap here.

On 1/2/2017 at 8:42 AM, LukeFF said:

Fw 190 convergence values, per the book values, changed wildly as time went on:

 

For the A-6, quite large horizontal convergence values:

 

 

And then the A-7/A-8:

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by ZeroCrack01

[Eisenfaustus]

22 hours ago, LukeFF said:

The thing is, convergence is convergence - this gamey nonsense of there being horizontal and vertical convergence throws too many people off. When you're aligning the guns to converge at a given distance, you're automatically setting it both horizontally and vertically. You can't have one without the other. 

I don’t know how other airforces handled it but the Luftwaffe certainly had it differently in their manuals…

 

From memory:

Bf109 E:

machine guns no horizontal convergence but vertical (crossing the line of the sight the second time) 400m

Wing canon horizontal 200 yet vertical 400m

 

Fw 190 a-5

mg 17 v / h 400 

mg 151/20 v 300 h 400(?)

mgff v 200 h 400

 

Fw 190 D-9:

mg 131 v / h 400

mg 151/20 v 400(?) h 600

*edit

oops

 

should have read further

Edited December 15, 2021 by Eisenfaustus

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, ZeroCrack01 said:

Why not current conversion as simple configuration, and additional "advanced conversion" settings. Just assuming people are stupid and are not interested to try historical settings in a simulator. Playing around with settings is part of the fun, but instead someone forces a pacifier. Some might argue that there are no individual settings, but just linking every gun with the same horizontal/vertical seems not right according to given data.

Like in that datasheet example, i cant make use of a quite high vertical convergence(to keep tracers more in line of sight in a turn) without setting the horizontal convergence to a unreasonable long range. 

 

You can't have one thing without the other with wing-mounted weapons. If you're setting your cannons to converge at, say, 300 meters, then there is going to be a fixed vertical height at which they cross the gunsight each time. Visierschuss is just a fancy way of saying "this is the range at which the rounds will cross the sight when you set the guns to this horizontal convergence ("kreuzung").

1 hour ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Bf109 E:

machine guns no horizontal convergence but vertical (crossing the line of the sight the second time) 400m

Wing canon horizontal 200 yet vertical 400m

 

The MGs in all the 109s were set to fire straight ahead, so yes, that's the only place where vertical convergence makes sense (fuselage-mounted weapons). My mistake for overlooking that, sorry. ?

Edited December 15, 2021 by LukeFF

[Eisenfaustus]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

You can't have one thing without the other with wing-mounted weapons. If you're setting your cannons to converge at, say, 300 meters, then there is going to be a fixed vertical height at which they cross the gunsight each time.

Only if you really want the projectils to actually cross the sight. What the germans did was to have theoretically cross the sight at a given distance horizontally and at another distance theoritically vertically which means it never really crosses the sight but travels conveniently along the sight - so technically you might be right (language nuances are sometimes hard to grasp for non native speakers ^^) - there is no real horizontal and vertical convergence - but german wing guns never converged at all...

 

So following your argumentation convergence setting should be abolished completely in favor of a "point where the sight would be thearitically crossed horizontally" and a "point where the sight would be thearitically crossed vertically" for each gun or at least each gun pair ^^

 

In spite of all it's faults - CLOD has this done quite perfectly

[FTC_Zero]

5 hours ago, LukeFF said:

You can't have one thing without the other with wing-mounted weapons. If you're setting your cannons to converge at, say, 300 meters, then there is going to be a fixed vertical height at which they cross the gunsight each time. Visierschuss is just a fancy way of saying "this is the range at which the rounds will cross the sight when you set the guns to this horizontal convergence ("kreuzung").

"Schnittpunkte mit der Visierlinie" is the distance where the projectile are at same high with the line of sight, not where they cross horizontally, "Kreuzung" cross over or under the line of sight, one thing has nothing to do with the other. Having wing mounted without minimum "vertical" convergence (crossing the line of sight) would make no sense for a gunnery point of view, but that does not validate the way it is implemented now.  I mean you can have vertical convergence without horizontal convergence, which was or is done

 
"Visierschuss(ß)" =  2nd crossing point with the line of sight
"Kreuzung" = Horizontal convergence
"Kreuzung: parallel" = no horizontal convergence

Ingame we have "Visierschuss" = "Kreuzung" and that for all weapons which is very simplfied. I would prefer for e.g. a FW190A5 with the outer low velocity MGFF with horizontal converge of less than 300m but the inner mg151 to a much further crossing point or no convergence because the are close to the center line. Now I can choose between mg151 being useable at longer ranges 400 -600m, but MGFF wich i would only use at shorter range being not effective between 100m to 300m. Or all cannons being effective at short range, but mg151 being not effective at longer ranges than 400m, instead of making use of the small proximity of the inner guns to the center. Vertical convergence  should be where the surface under each vertical diagram curve have most coverage to each other but having a minimum difference between 0 and maximum of a curve. 

Edited December 16, 2021 by ZeroCrack01