Pilot kills

[oc2209]

22 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

We don't even know if concussive effect from ground explosions is applied in the same manner as from High Explosive shells or if it's even applied uniformly over different types of HE shells.

 

Well, I can tell you that neither concussion nor shrapnel killed the pilot here:

 

Spoiler

 

 

When an AI pilot is seriously injured, it will easily pass out under the lightest Gs. It'll also generally crash easily. This plane flew for several minutes. He only spun out and crashed when he tried to shoot at me.

 

Whatever injuries he had, weren't serious.

[Enceladus828]

12 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

Because this is a video game, where pilots have finite 'hit points' or the equivalent.

 

10 paper cuts doesn't kill us in real life, but in a video game, yeah, 10 paper cuts can be fatal.

You know what, I'd rather have it that things in regards to the Pilot DM were a bit on the forgiving side (but keep it that one hit to the head and you're dead) as this is just a game, yes, but having it where the pilot is more susceptible to getting injured or dying in combat or in collision than in real-life is just wrong.

[R33GZ]

I find this whole argument kind of ridiculous really. A .50 hit to anywhere on a human would at best incapacitate that person, mostly likely it would dismember them. A 7.62 round would in most instances kill very quickly, possibly seriously injure. In nearly all cases it would incapacitate the pilot to the point of the aircraft crashing.

 

I mean seriously... a .50 AP round will make an absolute unrecognizable mess of anything comprised of flesh... they are anti anti materiel rounds for crying out loud

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

I feel like the issue might be a convergence/lack of dispersion problem. All of the rounds do tend to concentrate more than they should historically and consequently, pilots get hit very frequently.

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

21 hours ago, oc2209 said:

 

Because this is a video game, where pilots have finite 'hit points' or the equivalent.

 

 

People have finite life in reality too.  Resilience and luck are hard to quantify.

 

 

22 hours ago, oc2209 said:

 

So you're saying you don't actually know what the damage radius is for a 20mm HE shell? Nobody really does, except for the developers who put it all together.

 

 

OK, you got me.  What I do know is that in both multiplayer and singleplayer, I get hit by 20mm on the wingtip or rudder, my pilot gets injured more often than not.

 

 

21 hours ago, oc2209 said:

 

Whatever injuries he had, weren't serious.

 

I never qualified to what degree the injury is, you did.  This video does not rule out pilot injury at all.  Still doesn't disprove my original comment that started our little tiff.

[RossMarBow]

Read the manual for the p47
the p47 has the strongest armour of any plane in the game
and the manual states
it can only stop 7.7mm from certain angles 


also the DVD is graphical only
it doesn't actually have anything to do with the underlying engines damage calculations
it just looks good 

I just don't know how anyone can seriously suggest that a pilot can take more than one 50cal hit to anywhere and keep flying. 
Maybe you want to spend more time playing as a pilot missing a leg or worse, but I don't. 
 

Edited December 5, 2022 by RossMarBow

[the_emperor]

On 12/4/2022 at 5:36 AM, drewm3i-VR said:

I feel like the issue might be a convergence/lack of dispersion problem. All of the rounds do tend to concentrate more than they should historically and consequently, pilots get hit very frequently.

and accurate high deflection shot the game allows us to take, since we have always the perfect sight picture no matter how hard we are rolling/pulling Gs, never losing focus an our reticle.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

 Back in the  days I thought that the ease of aiming in 2d is there because the important element is missing in art of accurately aiming present in  the real world -  align eye to two different 3d objects at different distances.  Something that can't be done in 2d monitor, since you head movement is inrevelant.  That what I though before I try VR and realized that it is easier to aim , do to depth and scale and align is not a issue in 3D. Now I think things like  turbulences behind AC should be modeled.  Vibration of airframe, guns etc. should be modeled in separation since it might vary not just added to gun dispersion. Turbulent and dynamic air would also change things, not that random thing what can be added in mission design. Read account when shell passing below airplane causes it to balloon up or depress when flown above, air shock wave cause by near by explosion turn plane sideways.

Edited December 5, 2022 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[Dragon1-1]

1 hour ago, the_emperor said:

and accurate high deflection shot the game allows us to take, since we have always the perfect sight picture no matter how hard we are rolling/pulling Gs, never losing focus an our reticle.

This is not actually a problem with most sights we have in the sim. You can't "lose focus" on a collimated sight, which is one reason they're used (and their successors, HUD and holographic sight). The reticle is projected at infinity, you look through a collimator sight, not at it.

 

The only concession the sim makes for deflection shooting is that we can practice it far more than real WWII pilots could. Ultimately, in those aircraft it's solely a matter of practice, unless you have a gyro sight (and even then, high deflection shots are often not possible because the target would be under engine the cowling, can't aim at what you can't see, except by blind luck).

[the_emperor]

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

ou can't "lose focus" on a collimated sight, which is one reason they're used (and their successors, HUD and holographic sight)

True, and was actually not really what I meant. Apologies for my choice of words. what I ment was, that the way we still have our head fixed behind the revi does feel very game like. Wouldnt mind heaving my head thrown a bit more left and right or pressed back while beeing subjected to hard rolls and higher Gs. the Cliffs of dover Series does a decent job in that regard and engagement ranges seem to be a lot closer in that game (just my subjective feeling).https://youtu.be/HZ1IQ9XBij4?t=666

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by the_emperor

[Dragon1-1]

I'm in VR anyway, so I wouldn't know about that. If you're flying on pancake, then yes, but I think you could brace pretty well in a real cockpit, too. What actually throws you around is sideslip, not vertical Gs or rolling. You shouldn't be sideslipping when shooting anyway, since this will make bullet trajectories weird. IRL, you'd instinctively balance that with the rudder pedals. 

[oc2209]

21 hours ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

 

People have finite life in reality too.  Resilience and luck are hard to quantify.

 

 

Which totally doesn't change the substance of my original statement. All you did was sidestep my point that the pilots in this sim can't take repeated hits from any damage source.

 

One of the reasons I come off as a prick, is that I get extremely frustrated when I go to the trouble of forming a logical, cohesive argument, based on observational evidence and/or objective reasoning--

 

--and then people totally ignore all of it. Or they twist it, and spin it, to fit their viewpoint. You did a bit of both in this example.

 

I'm not attacking you for it, right now. I'm merely pointing it out, and how much it bothers somebody like me, who prefers to argue strictly on the point.

 

I don't care if the pilot physiology is unrealistically low, in your opinion. That's not the point here. The point is that the pilot can't take repeated exposure to shrapnel/concussive/whatever damage. Logically, if he were damaged by, say, 5 out of 10 impacts, he would be dead. It only takes one 'good' hit to seriously injure or kill. There is no reason at all to argue that the pilots in these examples are being hit multiple times, yet surviving. Therefore, since they're not being hit multiple times, then the damage radius of a 20mm HE doesn't work the way you think it does.

 

21 hours ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

OK, you got me.  What I do know is that in both multiplayer and singleplayer, I get hit by 20mm on the wingtip or rudder, my pilot gets injured more often than not.

 

The rudder's impossible. It is 100% impossible.

 

Watch from 3 minutes on:

 

Spoiler

 

 

If 20mm HE--shrapnel or concussive force, the latter of which I don't even believe is a factor--if either damage type could bypass seat armor, that pilot would be liquefied*. Period. Full stop.

 

For reasons I already showed, I don't think wingtip injuries sound plausible either. Some video showing a wingtip 20mm impact causing pilot injury would be much more helpful than simply claiming it happens all the time. If it does happen that frequently, it shouldn't be hard to reproduce.

 

*Edit: I mean liquefied by the first or second impact that was inches behind the pilot's head. I'm not referring to the hit to the tail, or the 3 hits to the starboard wing, or the hit to the engine.

Edited December 5, 2022 by oc2209

[LukeFF]

[Wardog5711]

[69th_Panp]

Ah come on !!  somebody post or somebody push the button, the suspense is killing me !!!?

[SCG_motoadve]

Before this topic get locked, in the past no one complained when the pilot was not as easy to kill as it is now.

The way it is now, because of the great amount of easy pilot kills, there are many people that just stopped playing IL2, because it just ruins immersion.

 

Just viewing the larger picture here.

[357th_KW]

29 minutes ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Before this topic get locked, in the past no one complained when the pilot was not as easy to kill as it is now.

The way it is now, because of the great amount of easy pilot kills, there are many people that just stopped playing IL2, because it just ruins immersion.

 

Just viewing the larger picture here.

 

There were plenty of us who complained.  It was extremely frustrating to pump literally hundreds of MG rounds into an enemy fighter and watch it continue to fight as if nothing had happened.  And then you would look at the damage log and see that you had wounded the enemy pilot multiple times.  

[Charon]

56 minutes ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Before this topic get locked, in the past no one complained when the pilot was not as easy to kill as it is now.

The way it is now, because of the great amount of easy pilot kills, there are many people that just stopped playing IL2, because it just ruins immersion.

 

Just viewing the larger picture here.

Yeah, I've got to agree with @357th_KW. I remember many heated discussions of the damage model prior to 5.0; a common belief was that the anemic performance of 0.50 cal was driving allied players away from the game. For instance, these comments from Reddit last year:

 

Quote

I’ve heard anecdotal stories a lot of people have left over the damage models. Maybe that’s the case?

Quote

Can confirm that I want to fly US aircraft and just haven't been playing Il-2 because .50s are shit.

I'm bad enough of a player without the guns being useless too

What Happened To Combat Box?

 

The 5.0  damage model has been a huge breath of fresh air. There are so many planes that are enjoyable to fly now.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Charon

[SCG_motoadve]

4 minutes ago, Charon said:

Yeah, I've got to agree with @357th_KW. I remember many heated discussions of the damage model prior to 5.0; a common belief was that the anemic performance of 0.50 cal was driving allied players away from the game. For instance, these comments from Reddit last year:

 

What Happened To Combat Box?

 

The 5.0  damage model has been a huge breath of fresh air. There are so many planes that are enjoyable to fly now.

So the developers solved the .50s problem by making the pilot kills a lot more common? Because .50s does not destroy the airplane?

Part of .50s problem is that IRL it would be hitting lots of vital parts that are not modeled in game, so in game are just empty spaces, so instead its easier killing the pilot to make people happy.

[LukeFF]

If a 0.50 cal round is striking the cockpit section, then there isn't a lot there to keep it from hitting something soft and squishy inside the cockpit. ?

[Charon]

1 minute ago, SCG_motoadve said:

So the developers solved the .50s problem by making the pilot kills a lot more common? Because .50s does not destroy the airplane?

Part of .50s problem is that IRL it would be hitting lots of vital parts that are not modeled in game, so in game are just empty spaces, so instead its easier killing the pilot to make people happy.

Pilot kills got more common, but also wing-spars fail much more readily now -- I've been on both sides of that. I think engines are also a little easier to stop or to ignite, and no longer trivial to extinguish by side-slipping. Radiators got a little easier to damage. The net effect is that HMG armed planes are finally combat effective, and rifle-caliber armed planes can sometimes score kills. That all seems reasonable to me. The damage model feels right in a way it never felt before.

 

Could it be improved? Perhaps. But would I ever want to go back to <5.0? No, absolutely not.

 

The DM changes in 5.0 were, for me, the single best thing to happen to the game since I started playing during 3.X. The AQMB is the second.

 

(And, before anyone accuses me of "Allied bias"... I'm 12 real-life months in to a co-op Bf 109 campaign. It's my most flown type by far, and still I say the damage model revisions were a great thing).

[357th_KW]

42 minutes ago, SCG_motoadve said:

So the developers solved the .50s problem by making the pilot kills a lot more common? Because .50s does not destroy the airplane?

Part of .50s problem is that IRL it would be hitting lots of vital parts that are not modeled in game, so in game are just empty spaces, so instead its easier killing the pilot to make people happy.

Written by Han in the 5.001 update announcement:

   “26. Aircraft DM: the several years old ‘crew health cheat’ (they required four point-blank 7.62 bullets in the torso or two in the head to be killed) has been removed. Now their ability to sustain damage is much more close to reality.”

 

[Charon]

One other thought: a lot of the unhappiness in this thread seems to be coming from bomber pilots who feel they're dying too readily. While I'm generally of the view that the current lethality is fine, I think an aggravating contributing factor may be the changes to the gunner AI (in 4.707?).

 

Anecdotally, I find gunners are now so weak that it's reasonable to attack bombers from dead six without much fear, even against planes like the B-25 that should have a potent tail gun. There's little reason to bother with anything but zero-deflection shots, which means far more rounds hitting bombers, and doing so more accurately. Thus, more dead pilots.

 

Bombers were vulnerable in real life, true... but my perception is that even so, fighter pilots did respect their guns and try to attack from blind spots, that they didn't generally engage by just dueling with the rear gunners (aside from night-fighters, which are a special case).

Edited December 6, 2022 by Charon

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

7 hours ago, oc2209 said:

 

Which totally doesn't change the substance of my original statement. All you did was sidestep my point that the pilots in this sim can't take repeated hits from any damage source.

 

One of the reasons I come off as a prick, is that I get extremely frustrated when I go to the trouble of forming a logical, cohesive argument, based on observational evidence and/or objective reasoning--

 

--and then people totally ignore all of it. Or they twist it, and spin it, to fit their viewpoint. You did a bit of both in this example.

 

I'm not attacking you for it, right now. I'm merely pointing it out, and how much it bothers somebody like me, who prefers to argue strictly on the point.

 

I don't care if the pilot physiology is unrealistically low, in your opinion. That's not the point here. The point is that the pilot can't take repeated exposure to shrapnel/concussive/whatever damage. Logically, if he were damaged by, say, 5 out of 10 impacts, he would be dead. It only takes one 'good' hit to seriously injure or kill. There is no reason at all to argue that the pilots in these examples are being hit multiple times, yet surviving. Therefore, since they're not being hit multiple times, then the damage radius of a 20mm HE doesn't work the way you think it does.

 

 

The rudder's impossible. It is 100% impossible.

 

Watch from 3 minutes on:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

If 20mm HE--shrapnel or concussive force, the latter of which I don't even believe is a factor--if either damage type could bypass seat armor, that pilot would be liquefied*. Period. Full stop.

 

For reasons I already showed, I don't think wingtip injuries sound plausible either. Some video showing a wingtip 20mm impact causing pilot injury would be much more helpful than simply claiming it happens all the time. If it does happen that frequently, it shouldn't be hard to reproduce.

 

*Edit: I mean liquefied by the first or second impact that was inches behind the pilot's head. I'm not referring to the hit to the tail, or the 3 hits to the starboard wing, or the hit to the engine.

 

I'm not assigning any "prickishness" to you, nor have I reacted in any way to indicate such.  You are who you are.  

 

Your OPINION was that (to paraphrase) "It is a game 10 papercuts IRL won't kill you, in-game 10 papercuts being fatal is fine."  My response sidestepped nothing.  

 

The videos you show are all external view.  That does nothing to assess the injury state of the pilot inside as the only state that can be ascertained is alive or dead. 

Perhaps capturing multiple examples of being the one getting hit and showing shot placement + pilot state and seeing which way the compiled results skew would aid your cause.  (I know, I know.....  Ain't nobody got time for that.)

 

 

____

I have not made any statements or reactions in the course of my participation in this thread that would warrant a lock.  Even though I know I've kept the bargain -so to speak - I'm off as I don't want to get the "Have you ever considered that maybe it's you?" speech when provably I haven't misbehaved.  (Funny how that works...)

[oc2209]

12 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

 

I'm not assigning any "prickishness" to you, nor have I reacted in any way to indicate such.  You are who you are.  

 

 

Sorry, I'm referring more to the peanut gallery that likes to taunt and jeer most of what I say now. I wasn't accusing you in particular.

 

14 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

Your OPINION was that (to paraphrase) "It is a game 10 papercuts IRL won't kill you, in-game 10 papercuts being fatal is fine."  My response sidestepped nothing.  

 

No, see, I wasn't arguing that 10 paper cuts being fatal was a good idea. I'm just saying that's how pretty much all games work. You shoot somebody in the toe 5 times, and they die. You shoot them in the head once, they die. That's how most games work.

 

So, as that point relates to my general assertion: when 10 or more 20mm HE shells impact near the cockpit, the pilot should die, if shrapnel/concussive force damage was consistent and measurable out to a set distance.

 

That's all my point ever was. If the pilot does not die after having multiple impacts right beside/behind/in front of him, then there must be a variability factor in the damage modeling of explosive shells. Some significant number of impacts must completely miss the pilot and fail to do damage to him; or else 10 hits near him would be automatically fatal after the 2nd or 3rd.

 

Whereas your assertion is just the opposite. That far-flung hits in the tail and wingtip, more often than not, cause injury.

 

21 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

Perhaps capturing multiple examples of being the one getting hit and showing shot placement + pilot state and seeing which way the compiled results skew would aid your cause.  (I know, I know.....  Ain't nobody got time for that.)

 

It's not a matter of time as much as frustration. It'd be extremely repetitive testing.

 

22 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

I have not made any statements or reactions in the course of my participation in this thread that would warrant a lock.  Even though I know I've kept the bargain -so to speak - I'm off as I don't want to get the "Have you ever considered that maybe it's you?" speech when provably I haven't misbehaved.

 

Nope, you haven't done anything wrong. I mean that 100%.

 

I reacted to your initial post with excessive hostility because I had just painstakingly detailed most of what I've told you recently, over the course of the thread. And somebody already made the 5.7 meter claim on the 20mm HE damage radius, which I disputed, and then you come along and say it's 7+ meters, and I had little patience left by then. Especially since the number grew. It's just reminding me of an urban myth at this point. 

[Stonehouse]

I've got no idea of the validity of the explosive or shrapnel equivalents given for each projectile, but I assume there are armorer's or similar manuals from WW2 available. I can only give you the values from the game which I reasonably assume the developers have spent time and money researching to get as correct as possible. Not really interested in the arguments here, simply thought it time to provide some data from the game files.

 

 

20mm German projectile gun MG 151/20, calculated from TNT = 20g, bullet weight 92g, caliber 20mm

// Parameters of Sphere Hit, external explosion

Radius=5.7    // The radius of the sphere of impact of the explosion, which determines the selection of objects
TNT_equ=0.02    // TNT equivalent for atmospheric shock wave simulation

// High explosive impact: range, (-1 not used), pairs (armor, damage behind armor)
ArmorFoug=0.0, -1, 2,899,    0,1798
ArmorFoug=0.6, -1,                0,455
ArmorFoug=1.2, -1,                 0,127
ArmorFoug=1.9, -1,                 0,50

// Fragmentation effect
ShrapnelQuantity=41
FragmentMass=0.0007 //Individual change in the ratio of quantity to mass
// Single shard: range, speed, pairs (armor, damage behind armor)
ArmorShr=0.0, 1069,      4,40,    3,101,    0,162
ArmorShr=2.8, 964,        3,33,    2,82,    0,132
ArmorShr=5.7, 861,                      2,26,    0,105

 

So, I believe the above means that you get explosive damage at range zero such that 899 points of damage is transferred through 2 levels of armour (I don't know if this value is mm or some representation of a certain armour level), similarly 1798 points is transferred through 0 level armour. Same story at 0.6 range and 1.2 range and 1.9 range but with different points and different armour levels. I assume range is probably meters. Note that if an armour/damage pair is not given then I believe there is no damage. So, at 0.6m or more the HE explosion doesn't transfer through armour > 0. 

 

Then shrapnel damage as well. So, 41 bits of shrapnel from the shell exploding. At range zero the shrapnel has 1069 m/s(?) velocity and transfers 40 points through 4 level armour, 101 points through 3 level armour and 162 points through 0 level armour. Similarly at the other ranges. At 5.7 m the shrapnel will transfer 26 points through 2 level armour and 105 through zero level. I don't know but assume logically that each of the 41 fragments can do this damage. I have no idea of how each fragment is treated and how the parts of the aircraft are chosen to hit. It is quite possible that it is some sort of weighted random application based on point of impact and that more than a single fragment can hit any one part of the aircraft. I'm including the pilot as part of the aircraft here. I believe that if the range is less than 5.7 then it will probably use the next set of values ie the 2.8 m set. 

 

The Hispano and Shvak are set up in a similar fashion with obviously different values. Ditto other HE projectiles.

 

So taking a P51D as an example the armour is as follows:

 

SphereHitProtection=0    //Armor protection gunner/pilot from fragments with a closed cabin

[SphereProtectionBoxOpen]    // If this block exists, then the pilot's armor against fragments is set on the sides, if there is no block, then the general parameter SphereHitProtection= is used
    FovH=90                    // The full angle of the horizontal opening of the pyramidal bell of the angles of the normal to the cladding, according to which the cladding face is determined as ArmorFront
    FovV=90                    // The full angle of the vertical opening of the pyramidal bell of the angles of the normal to the cladding, according to which the cladding face is determined as ArmorFront
                            // The remaining 5 bells are determined automatically by the central symmetry with respect to the front
    ArmorFront=6
    ArmorBack=7
    ArmorTop=0
    ArmorBottom=2
    ArmorRight=0
    ArmorLeft=0
[end]

[SphereProtectionBoxClose]    // If this block exists, then the pilot's armor against fragments is set on the sides, if there is no block, then the general parameter SphereHitProtection= is used
    FovH=90                    // The full angle of the horizontal opening of the pyramidal bell of the angles of the normal to the cladding, according to which the cladding face is determined as ArmorFront
    FovV=90                    // The full angle of the vertical opening of the pyramidal bell of the angles of the normal to the cladding, according to which the cladding face is determined as ArmorFront
                            // The remaining 5 bells are determined automatically by the central symmetry with respect to the front
    ArmorFront=6
    ArmorBack=7
    ArmorTop=2
    ArmorBottom=2
    ArmorRight=2
    ArmorLeft=2
[end]

 

I don't know for sure but guessing this is canopy open or closed. So, the cockpit has 2 levels of armour at the sides with the canopy closed. I do not know if the armour once penetrated is regarded as zero or not (degraded with damage) but you can see that >2.8m up to 5.7 m 26 points of damage will be transferred into the cockpit if a single shrapnel fragment hits the side armour. If <=2.8m but greater than 0 m, I believe you will have 82 points of damage transfer ie 82 from a single fragment. If I have this wrong, then the next most likely is that just 82 points transfer to the pilot.

 

The pilot bot for a P51 is mostly the botpilot_p47_usa44 definition (it can change based on date or nationality the main difference the g suit becoming available).

 

The definition of this bot for damage is:

// Damage model
Armor=0 // armor thickness
LifeRate=250 // The scale of bullet and high-explosive damage
LifeRateFrag=500 // Shrapnel damage scale
HeadConvexPrefix="Head" // Prefix for Convex Head Size
HeadArmor=0 // thickness of the head armor
HeadLifeRate=50 // The scale of bullet and high-explosive head injuries
HeadLifeRateFrag=100 // The scale of shrapnel injuries to the head
Firing=1 // Minimum ignition value of the means of destruction to ignite the object
DestroyDelay=15 // задержка на удаление объекта после смерти
MinEjectAlt=10 // ограничение на минимальную высоту выпрыгивания
OxygenMaskType=2 // тип кислородной маски: 0 - нет (так же "нет" если кислорода нет в самолете), 1 - мундштук Fokker D.7, 2 - маска WW2

 

So as HeadLifeRrateFrag = 100 and  LifeRateFrag =500. At greater than 2.8m up to 5.7 m 26 points per piece of shrapnel can transfer to the pilot if the explosion is to the side and the shrapnel hits what is deemed the cockpit. At >0m up to 2.8m 82 points can transfer to the pilot. I assume this means at 2.8m or less two fragments to the head will kill the pilot and about 6 pieces hitting the body will also kill them. Alternatively, if I am wrong about the 33+82 then it is two fragments to the head and about 6 to the body out of the 41 available.  At >2.8m out to 5.7m it's 4 bits to the head and about 19-20 to the body. So, if 10% of the shrapnel of a single hit on the wingtip (P51 has about a 11.3m wingspan) from this shell hits the pilots head they'll die.

 

As I said I've no idea of whether the values are correct or not or how the 41 fragments are allocated to different parts of the aircraft. This is per shell exploding. So, two hits with 20mm doubles the fragments etc.  

 

For interest's sake I think from my AI Gunnery mod work that all pilots have the same bot damage definition as the one above although some gunners have armour. A 109G6 late has slightly less cockpit armour at the front, a bit more at the back and the same at the sides compared to a P51. A P47 D28 has a bit less front cockpit armour than a P51. Same on the sides and more at the back. Again, I have no idea whether the armour levels represent mm of metal or an abstraction of the armour effectiveness nor do I know about the projectile values. I tend to lean towards the abstraction of armour effectiveness guess as I've seen posts over in DCS forums that provide diagrams from USAAF references giving the P51 headrest as 11mm and the back plate as 8mm which doesn't seem to correlate to the value of 7 given in the IL2 BOX definition. The same post gives the P47D30 seat values as 9.5mm for head armour and 6.35mm for body. 

 

0.50 cal values for comparison. No fragments only penetration and damage. Any head hit from the side at less that 1000m is lethal and even 1 body hit is the same assuming a side armour of 2.  

 

Armor=0,895,    28,191,    11,381,    0,762
Armor=100,852,    26,172,    10,345,    0,690
Armor=500,689,    19,113,    8,226,    0,452    // посчитано по референсной точке по бронепробиваемости для данной пули 500м-19мм
Armor=1000,512,    12,62,    5,125,    0,250
Armor=2000,301,    6,22,    2,43,    0,86

 

Anyway, for what it is worth hope the above clarifies some things that seem to be a source of dispute. On the whole lacking any knowledge of how the game allocates the fragments to aircraft parts and what the armour values represent etc it seems very much a subjective thing and so at best people's opinion. I imagine if the devs feel there is enough angst about it they may change things to make people happy. Ironically, the vulnerable gunners mod used to do the same thing in reverse ie reduce the life values of gunners as gunners were too hard to kill. If you only do single player, then it would not be that hard to create a mod of the pilot bots to have higher life values while you wait for the devs to consider the situation.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Stonehouse
added .50cal for comparison plus typo; fix misinterpreted armour/damage pairs

[Stonehouse]

Just a PS - I believe the arcs are all 90 degrees. So, in the horizontal you have 4 - front, rear and either side. In the vertical you have 4 - front, top, rear and bottom. So I think that anything above or below 45 deg of the target horizontal plane is regarded as top or bottom otherwise it will be front, side or rear. Similarly, in the vertical plane anything more than 45 deg forward or back is front or rear. I believe this is what is meant by "pyramidal bell" ie each corresponds to a hit sector with the point of the 6 pyramids centered on the middle of the target aircraft creating a cube of 6 pyramids with the aircraft in the middle. Other components like engine or instrument panel have their own armour set up as well. Hope I'm explaining this ok. 

 

Also - on reflection I think it is actually at range 0 use the zero set values, at range >0 up to 2.8 m use the 2.8m set of values, at ranges > 2.8 up to 5.7m use the 5.7m set of values. So therefore 4 bits of shrapnel to the head are required to kill the pilot with armour level 2 with the hit impacting more than 2.8m from the pilot. Please keep this in mind reading my prior post. I'll try to correct it but apologies for any confusion caused.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Stonehouse

[Talon_]

 

I had a very frustrating time flying blue last night but I wasn't instantly pilot sniped on any occasion. While being chased by a Spitfire XIV I was wounded several times before being killed including receiving 10+ Hispano rounds.

 

This problem exists in your minds.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Talon_

[ssn650]

3 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

0.50 cal values for comparison. No fragments only penetration and damage. Any head hit from the side at less that 1000m is lethal and even 1 body hit is the same assuming a side armour of 2.  

 

Thanks so much for this in-depth analysis of the game's parameters.  Would it help if we reduced lethal head shots to less than 500 rather than 1000 m?  I find myself routinely being picked off by sharpshooters at well beyond the range of 500 m when flying a BF109F-4 against .50 calibre equipped P40 fighters.  Which file would we need to modify?  Or would we need to modify individual LuaScript (or other) files for each aircraft with these weapons, e.g. "caeroplane_p_40e_1"?  I'm not at all familiar with any of these but would like to give it a try for my own personal single player use.

Edited December 6, 2022 by ssn650

[Stonehouse]

Simplest way would be to boost the pilot life values in each bot file for pilots, essentially undoing the part of the patch where the devs reduced them. Altering damage and penetration affects all sorts of things so I would not go there.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Stonehouse
clarification

[Talon_]

3 minutes ago, Stonehouse said:

Simplest way would be to boost the pilot life values. Altering damage and penetration affects all sorts of things so I would not go there.

 

Now that's what I call ubermensch. I eat .50 BMG in a bowl with milk for my breakfast cereal!

[ssn650]

11 minutes ago, Stonehouse said:

Simplest way would be to boost the pilot life values. Altering damage and penetration affects all sorts of things so I would not go there.

 

Since I have no idea what I'm doing here, I'll just leave everything as-is and simply refly the single player mission if I'm killed!  

[Stonehouse]

53 minutes ago, ssn650 said:

Thanks so much for this in-depth analysis of the game's parameters.  Would it help if we reduced lethal head shots to less than 500 rather than 1000 m?  I find myself routinely being picked off by sharpshooters at well beyond the range of 500 m when flying a BF109F-4 against .50 calibre equipped P40 fighters.  Which file would we need to modify?  Or would we need to modify individual LuaScript (or other) files for each aircraft with these weapons, e.g. "caeroplane_p_40e_1"?  I'm not at all familiar with any of these but would like to give it a try for my own personal single player use.

Just reread your issue a bit more. If getting picked off by aces at 800m is the issue in SP perhaps try the AI gunnery mod I put together. It doesn't fiddle with life values or weapon values but changes how the different skill levels work both pilots and gunners. Judging by user comments and feedback it seems to improve things so possibly it may help you offline. 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Stonehouse

[ssn650]

Amazing!  Thanks Stonehouse, I'll be glad to give your AI Gunnery Mod a try!

 

Cheers

[BlitzPig_EL]

I think a lot of the angst, and questioning in this thread comes basically because of the general lack of understanding of firearms and ballistics in the community.

 

It's probably a fairly safe assumption that the majority of players have zero experience with real firearms of any kind, much less heavy machine guns, and their lethality at range.  Most people's "experience" with weapons comes from their viewing of media, and let's face facts here, Hollywood is utterly clueless about firearms, and the fragility of the human machine.  We are fragile sacks of fluid.  We don't react well to bullets of any size, much less those in the 12mm to 13mm diameter range.  A hit from any of the WW2 HMGs will either kill outright, or be so debilitating as to cause total loss of control of the aircraft.  Period.

 

Debating the ability of the pilot to absorb damage is not the correct argument. It leads down the path to arcade gameplay.  The only argument that holds up at all is weapons accuracy at range, or more to the truth, the sniper like abilities of us armchair pilots, with tens of thousands of "combat" hours being able to make perfect gun solutions at will.

 

In our little digital world, we have a sky chock full of Hartman's, Gabreski's, Sakai's, Tuck's, etc...

Ace's are the rule here, rather than the exception, like it was in the real world of combat aviation.

 

There is no way you can fiddle with settings, or numbers, to change that reality.

 

[[DBS]Browning]

54 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I think a lot of the angst, and questioning in this thread comes basically because of the general lack of understanding of firearms and ballistics in the community.

 

That might be a factor, but I suspect perception bias is a bigger factor.
There are a few reasons I think this, but the one that stands out the most is the long history of posts (not especially in this thread, but in many others) claiming that either the AI is PK'd less than the player is, or that someone's favourite plane is subject to PK's far more than all other planes.

This suggests to me that something is going on that causes players to over-focus on how often they are being PK'd, underestimate how often their opponents are being PK'd, or both.

 

Another reason that I suspect there is a perception bias at work is that people tend to work backwards when they post about PK's.

By this, I mean that they start with a conclusion and then look for evidence, rather than starting with evidence and then looking for a conclusion.

They start with the conclusion that there are too many PK's and then look for reasons why that might be. Where did the conclusion come from?

A better way might be to find out the average number of rounds it takes to PK someone ingame (already done I believe) and then compare that to how many raycasts fired at random directions at a 3d model of plane intercept the pilot. Not a perfect test by far, but this might be a good start.

[SCG_motoadve]

Lets say pilot kills are realistic, .50s are realistic now,  you can talk ballistics for ages, what is not realistic is how easy is to shoot and fly in IL2 compared to real life, if you are going to simulate something realistic and something easy, you need to balance things or else the results are not realistic.

We have almost not torque modelled compared to real life, no wake turbulence, no recoil, no cockpit workload (trak IR, mouse views, deploy flaps with a key stroke etc) now that we are at it landings and take offs are super easy too, so in IL2 it is super easy to shoot and aim (sorry to disappoint some of you  )

 

So now that the .50s got better, and the pilot lethality normalized, we get a ton of pilot kills = No fun, not a challenge at all and gives an unrealistic feel when you go against AI and get 6 pilot kills one after the other. Or in MP you get sniped first bullet pilot kill even when flying bombers.

 

In Il2 it is just too easy to aim and shoot, it is like we have lots of aids in game to make it easy when all those challenges are not modelled, so not a surprise now why we get so many pilot kills.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by SCG_motoadve

[Oyster_KAI]

sorry for digressing...
I really don't like seeing a lot of careless takeoffs and landings in MP without accidents or damage to the plane.
Good mid-air torque modeling will certainly help us solve some of the problems of take off / landing or shooting too easily.

[oc2209]

5 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I think a lot of the angst, and questioning in this thread comes basically because of the general lack of understanding of firearms and ballistics in the community. It's probably a fairly safe assumption that the majority of players have zero experience with real firearms of any kind, much less heavy machine guns, and their lethality at range.

 

I've fired a wide range of guns, and I don't really feel it gives me any kind of authority in speaking of matters like these.

 

Where the problem lies, is that people want to be that 'charmed life' pilot they read about, who was saved by his parachute harness, which a .50 bullet lodged into after passing through the seat's armor.

 

Or the Saburo Sakai story where he flew for hundreds of miles with .30 fragments in his skull, periodically losing consciousness and waking up, flying upside down.

 

Everybody here wants to be that special guy. Not the 'poor dumb son of a b***h' whose brains are painting the interior of the cockpit on the first burst he takes.

 

[Dragon1-1]

IRL, the first burst you took was more often than not your last. However, pilots were much less trigger-happy than our AI, they didn't do deflection shooting and pretty much needed to saddle up on your deep six in order to have any chance of their target actually taking that burst. The gyro gun sights were such a revolution because they allowed for accurate deflection shooting by something other than pure feel (nobody has the time for precise calculations in a dogfight, you either do it by instinct, or a machine does it for you). The AI should do no deflection shooting unless fitted with one of those, and then, they should only shoot as long as the reticle is actually on the glass, and the target visible above the cowling.