Momentum for trains, slower sinking times for ships

[Avimimus]

See the two attached mods.

 

Changes for ships:

(1) Ships (particularly larger ships) take longer to sink. They still sink quickly, but more within what would be expected historically from a typical relatively rapid sinking.

 

Changes to trains:
1) Trains take longer to come to a halt (i.e. actually take some time to brake).
2) Damage to the locomotive will cause the crew to bring the train to a halt (something more in-line with German wartime procedures - see notes)
3) Coaches and wagons will not detach until they are destroyed and the train will keep moving. In some cases coaches will also catch fire sooner (burning while still in motion) and have more passengers escape once halted.
 

Note: Overall durability hasn't been changed.

 

I did consider making a mod that would armour the hulls of larger ships - as currently the RP-3 25lb AP rocket and the 57mm Molins gun (and AP weapons in general) are pretty ineffective (I think I've figured out how armour is defined in the ship files). However, the lack of an ability to specify custom hitboxes is a barrier. If anyone figures out how to add hitboxes to existing models - let me know. Hopefully the developers will eventually fix this - the ships are all constant draught - so it should be really easy for them to add hitboxes representing waterline hits to all of the existing ships!

 

 

Il2_Ship_Momentum.zip Il2_Train_Momentum.zip

Edited January 17, 2023 by Avimimus

[WitchyWoman]

Whats unrealistic to me is how much damage these trains can take before becoming knocked out in the stock game. I've poured both 50 and 20mm into them and it can take a few passes. Its very unrealstic when compared to old gun real life cam footage

Edited January 18, 2023 by WitchyWoman

[IckyATLAS]

Regarding trains, the problem remains that IA does not attack the locomotive and it does not take into account the motion and speed of the train. This is why IA attacks on trains are really bad. Bombing is very bad as it misses always at least in my missions, and strafing is a little better but does not aim at the locomotive.

It seems that the IA always aims to center of the train composition.

I remember that in one of the recent updates they said that now the IA was aiming at the locomotive but I have not seen any difference in the attacking IA planes behavior in my mission.

[Mysticpuma]

16 hours ago, Avimimus said:

See the two attached mods.

 

Changes for ships:

(1) Ships (particularly larger ships) take longer to sink. They still sink quickly, but more within what would be expected historically from a typical relatively rapid sinking.

 

Changes to trains:
1) Trains take longer to come to a halt (i.e. actually take some time to brake).
2) Damage to the locomotive will cause the crew to bring the train to a halt (something more in-line with German wartime procedures - see notes)
3) Coaches and wagons will not detach until they are destroyed and the train will keep moving. In some cases coaches will also catch fire sooner (burning while still in motion) and have more passengers escape once halted.
 

Note: Overall durability hasn't been changed.

 

I did consider making a mod that would armour the hulls of larger ships - as currently the RP-3 25lb AP rocket and the 57mm Molins gun (and AP weapons in general) are pretty ineffective (I think I've figured out how armour is defined in the ship files). However, the lack of an ability to specify custom hitboxes is a barrier. If anyone figures out how to add hitboxes to existing models - let me know. Hopefully the developers will eventually fix this - the ships are all constant draught - so it should be really easy for them to add hitboxes representing waterline hits to all of the existing ships!

 

 

Il2_Ship_Momentum.zip 4.63 kB · 5 downloads Il2_Train_Momentum.zip 65.25 kB · 5 downloads

I'm looking forward to trying this out. 

I love strafing rolling stock but the dead stop of the the carriages/locomotive completely defy the laws of physics. 

 

Thanks for this, now off to create more of this

 

 

 

[352ndOscar]

@Mysticpumaand @Avimimus

 

I’ve  been working on a “Operation Choo Choo” MP mission on the Normandy Map.  I’ll give the train script a try and see what happens.  

[Avimimus]

12 hours ago, WitchyWoman said:

Whats unrealistic to me is how much damage these trains can take before becoming knocked out in the stock game. I've poured both 50 and 20mm into them and it can take a few passes. Its very unrealstic when compared to old gun real life cam footage

 

I'm glad I didn't include damage model changes then! I'd generally tend to increase the durability of trains.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that the gun camera footage that gets played the most tends to be the most dramatic footage available. There was probably a lot more footage of pilots missing their targets (pilots in real life and in sims over-estimate their accuracy) and/or doing damage that has a less dramatic result: Not every penetration to a locomotive boiler leads to a catastrophic explosion - and not every railcar is carrying ammunition! Furthermore, a lot of the metal in railway equipment is quite thick and not overly brittle, so it could often absorb a significant impact without undergoing a structural failure. I personally suspect that the values currently chosen are probably pretty good.

 

 

33 minutes ago, 352ndOscar said:

@Mysticpumaand @Avimimus

 

I’ve  been working on a “Operation Choo Choo” MP mission on the Normandy Map.  I’ll give the train script a try and see what happens.  

 

Just to be clear - this is definitely an 'experimental' mod without any guarantees (especially in multiplayer). It modifies the configuration files for the objects to change their physics (both momentum and braking) as well as changes the damage thresholds where they show fire SFX, are considered too damaged to keep fighting, or come to a halt.

 

Let me know if it works at all!

 

2 hours ago, Mysticpuma said:

I'm looking forward to trying this out. 

I love strafing rolling stock but the dead stop of the the carriages/locomotive completely defy the laws of physics. 

 

Thanks for this, now off to create more of this

 

Let me know what you think. I could probably create a custom version if you'd like.

 

Note that the train will come to a complete stop if the wagon/carriage/locomotive is catastrophically destroyed (i.e. gets replaced with a static 'destroyed' mesh). Hopefully the new settings mean that the train may have come to a halt first (if being strafed) - which should look a bit better. Similarly, if the coaches become detached they won't stop instantly but will glide for a bit. So it is far from perfect, but still an improvement (something I'll keep working on if I get time).

[Mysticpuma]

It's a shame the rail stock can't derail, carry momentum off track and blow up (I know, outside the realms of a mod), or if the locomotive is destroyed, the carriages derail.... just stuff like that :-

 

 

[Avimimus]

1 hour ago, Mysticpuma said:

It's a shame the rail stock can't derail, carry momentum off track and blow up (I know, outside the realms of a mod), or if the locomotive is destroyed, the carriages derail.... just stuff like that :-

 

 

Yeah, they could definitely do it. The physics is all there in the game engine. They could also add a flooding mechanic for ships (there is already a fire mechanic where the ship will try to put out fires over time!)... just a matter of their priorities I suppose. I do really wish they'd add waterline hits to make the RP-3 25lb and 57mm Molins useful though... even a simple damage multiplier against ships or a waterline hitbox of some sort... anything really would be welcome.

[WitchyWoman]

I remember my grandmother telling me how she once opened her pressure cooker while making dumplings before it fully cooled down an how she got burned when the cover blew off upward and the pressure shot upward as the contents of the cooker hit the ceiling. She got burned bad but she was lucky she was not burned a lot worse. Now think of just a few 50 caliber bullets put through a big steam engines tanks. its going to be pretty catastrophic even with the least amount of damage so Im more apt to believe that it did not take much for those trains to go up even if the gun cam photage was hand selected for more drama and I have no doubt it was but steam pressure is nothing to mess with.

 

I was very disappointed on my first mosquito passes on trains in game, Thats for sure. LOL If people are having better luck then maybe one of these gunnery mods I am using is screwing with damage.

Edited January 21, 2023 by WitchyWoman

[Stonehouse]

4 hours ago, WitchyWoman said:

maybe one of these gunnery mods

If you're talking about the AI Gunnery mod, then no it doesn't touch damage or damage effects. 

[Avimimus]

13 hours ago, WitchyWoman said:

I remember my grandmother telling me how she once opened her pressure cooker while making dumplings before it fully cooled down an how she got burned when the cover blew off upward and the pressure shot upward as the contents of the cooker hit the ceiling. She got burned bad but she was lucky she was not burned a lot worse. Now think of just a few 50 caliber bullets put through a big steam engines tanks. its going to be pretty catastrophic even with the least amount of damage so Im more apt to believe that it did not take much for those trains to go up even if the gun cam photage was hand selected for more drama and I have no doubt it was but steam pressure is nothing to mess with.

 

I agree with the general point about steam pressure being very dangerous.

 

I am curious about how catastrophic a failure it would be though: I know a lot of boiler explosions happened when the steam pressure rose to well beyond the designed limits - and poking a small hole in the boiler might not lead to an immediate structural failure - especially if the metal is relatively soft/ductile. Note: 12mm-14mm thick is reasonable for a boiler. So I think there are a lot of unknowns.

 

Another observation: A Luftwaffe unit equipped a He-111 with no less than six (6) 20mm cannons for strafing trains, while a Soviet Lisunov Li-2 was modified to carry two 45mm cannons for the same purpose. So clearly there was a demand for a lot of firepower in this role. That said, it isn't necessarily proof that you are wrong - since a lot of that firepower could be there for destroying the cargo rather than the locomotive.

[Gl-l0st]

Steam-train boilers contain lots of tubes or pipes running from end to end, there could be 30 or more pipes inside the boiler so for the boiler to explode there would have to be a lot of damage to a large number of the pipes inside. The way the stock game simulates the locomotive spewing steam from bullet holes from various hit locations seems fairly realistic from what I have observed during train strafing attacks.