Dead Pilot

[Falconin42]

Good morning..... i've a question.

In SP (scripted campaign for example) when i kill an enemy pilot, he disappear (only the pilot into cockpit not the plane) after 10-15 seconds and the plane crash without him... It's normal? It's possible to see the killed pilots all the time? thx 

[DD_Arthur]

9 minutes ago, Falconin42 said:

Good morning..... i've a question.

This is normal. The only way to see the dead pilots is to visit a clairvoyant.

[Stonehouse]

Stock despawn delay for gunners and pilots is 15 secs. 

 

See here:

Gunners and non-pilot crew (nav or 2nd pilot) for human flyable aircraft are covered by the AI Gunnery mod but the AI Gunnery pilot despawn delay mod covers AI pilots and can be run separately by itself if you want to keep stock gunnery. You aren't required to run AI Gunnery to run the despawn delay mod.

 

Boosts the delay before despawn of the pilot to 120 secs which is usually enough as the aircraft likely crashes well before that.

 

[Falconin42]

Thx but can i change the delay manually in a specific file?

[Trooper117]

Why on earth do you need to see dead pilots?... what's the point?

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

Why on earth do you need to see dead pilots?... what's the point?

 

Maybe because he just wants to? Maybe he's making a video or a series of screenshots and wants a certain camera angle? There was nothing wrong with his question. 

[Trooper117]

No, and there is nothing wrong with mine... I'll wait to see his response if you don't mind.

[Yogiflight]

4 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

Boosts the delay before despawn of the pilot to 120 secs which is usually enough as the aircraft likely crashes well before that.

Is the 120 seconds also for the gunners, when using the AI Gunnery mod? It looks quite strange when you return with an empty rear cockpit in the Bf 110, after your gunner was killed.

[Enceladus828]

I’ve always thought that dead pilots and other crewmen disappear to reduce the GPU load — when the pilot and or crewmen are dead their body movements are no longer necessary so why continue to have this unnecessary load.

[RedeyeStorm]

Well dead pilots and gunners do no longer move so I did not see nor have ever experienced an extra load on my computer (they remained visible in the very beginning of the series). For me I would like dead crewman to stay visible until mission end. Wheather that is done trough a mod or by GB I  do not particulary care.

[Enceladus828]

Alright then. But keep in mind that it’s a developers decision to have dead pilots stay visible or disappear. The GBs game engine is completely different from the IL-2 1946 and CloD engine (has its roots in Rise of Flight) and just because 1C Maddox elected for dead pilots visible doesn’t mean that every other combat flight sim developer has to follow suit. The original developers of RoF, Neoqb, elected for dead pilots to disappear, thus this carried into IL-2 GBs. For the devs to make dead pilots visible would likely require lots of coding to the point that this should be saved for something much more important. There are some things that would be good to have but because they weren’t added during the development of RoF or BoS it becomes difficult to add them later and it all boils down to “is it really that important?” 

Edited January 7, 2024 by Enceladus828
Typo

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Enceladus828 said:

The GBs game engine is completely from the IL-2 1946 and CloD engine (has its roots in Rise of Flight) and just because 1C Maddox elected for dead pilots visible doesn’t mean that every other combat flight sim developer has to follow suit.

 

The engine used for the original IL2 and CloD is entirely separate and has no connection to the RoF & GB one. In fact, for GB, it was developed into Digital Warfare and according to Jason is considered a separate engine from RoF's Digital Nature one. 

https://il2sturmovik.com/news/360/announcing-battle-bodenplatte-flying-circus-tank-c/

[Enceladus828]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

The engine used for the original IL2 and CloD is entirely separate and has no connection to the RoF & GB one.

Yes, sorry I meant to say “ The GBs game engine is completely different from the IL-2 1946 and CloD engine“

[Stonehouse]

11 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Is the 120 seconds also for the gunners, when using the AI Gunnery mod? It looks quite strange when you return with an empty rear cockpit in the Bf 110, after your gunner was killed.

 

The gunner bots have to be included in AI Gunnery as I've tweaked some of their values other than despawn delay so you have to use this mod to get the despawn delay increased from 15 to 120 secs for gunners. I also added the AI crew to AI Gunnery that you could see from the pilot seat in multi position flyable aircraft at that time as I felt it was weird to have your co-pilot's body disappear after 15 secs.

 

I guess you could argue for even longer than 120 secs for positions such as co-pilot type ones and certain gunners like the Bf110. Mind you there is no way to differentiate between your aircraft and a similar AI aircraft in what I can access. So, for example if you are flying a Bf110 and your gunner is killed, and I give Bf110 gunners some very large delay it also impacts any other Bf110 in the mission where the gunner is killed. 

 

I created the AI Gunnery Pilot despawn delay mod sometime after the release of the AI Gunnery mod as I realised that it is useful to have the bodies of pilots of AI flown aircraft - particularly fighters - remain for a bit longer after they get killed. 

 

Like Enceladus828 mentions I also figured that the 15 sec stock delay was a dev compromise between having the body vanish instantly and wanting to remove unnecessary 3d shapes from being rendered to save resources. After some experimentation I ended up with 120 secs for my choice for the delay in the mod. My observations were that usually that was more than sufficient as very often aircraft with dead pilots crashed within that time frame. If the gunners were killed, then often the aircraft became less well defended and again were shot down and crashed within 120 secs. I made the AI Gunnery Pilot despawn delay a separate option mod as I didn't want to force it on people by including it in AI Gunnery when it might impact performance.  It was definitely made with people making videos or screen shots in mind, but I also particularly find at certain times having the body of a gunner remain adds to immersion. 

 

Possibly I should have named AI Gunnery Pilot despawn delay just AI Pilot despawn delay. I chose to name it as I did to try to conceptually group it with AI Gunnery as despawn delay was altered in both. I may attempt to rethink how I package the two mods in future.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2024 by Stonehouse

[Trooper117]

Unless you are making videos, I can't see the point... I'd rather see resources saved, and let's face it, if you shoot a plane down you are unlikely to see the pilot all the way down to the ground, plus, if you want to stay alive, you had better be checking the surrounding air space for any other threats.

[SYN_Vander]

13 minutes ago, Trooper117 said:

Unless you are making videos, I can't see the point... I'd rather see resources saved, and let's face it, if you shoot a plane down you are unlikely to see the pilot all the way down to the ground, plus, if you want to stay alive, you had better be checking the surrounding air space for any other threats.

 

True, unless you are flying a biplane in Flying Circus where you are actually aiming at the pilot -which you can see very well, particularly in VR- and suddenly the pilot disappears. I also don't understand the performance gain of deleting the pilot so quickly.

[Trooper117]

I fly WWI sims a lot... I do like to get in close if possible, but I don't stay with it on it's way down, and if I do watch it go down so I can identify where it crashed for the claims form. But once it starts to spiral down you soon loose site of the cockpit anyway... 

[RedeyeStorm]

I like watching AI planes duke it out. This is often possible in career missions. So I got plenty of time to watch what happens. But each his own. Mayby I will increase the pilot despawndelay in Stonehouse’s mod myself.