Flying through trees... cheating?

[vdomini]

Everybody knows that flying close to the ground make your plane less visible to enemy foes.

But sometimes i discover myself flying through trees branch by mistake or wrong manouver, and not recieving any damage. That's happen because the vegetation system on IL 2 Sturmovik use a well kown real time rendering technique, named "billboarding" to achieve best performance and fair good visual effect on plants. ( I have used that technique many time developing real time 3D application, if you want to know a little more on billboarding click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5D or just google it )

In game, collision computing can't be tested for every "leaf" and a good compromise is just to test collisions at least over the main tree trunk. ( or...maybe.. randomly if you fly trought a forest area below certain height ) Fair enough, it's just a game.

BUT ( :rolleyes: )

I've noticed that some players intensively flyes through trees or through the upper leaf part of the tree, knowing that plane would not take damage, specially during turns, having one wing buried into vegetation, making their plane very hard to spot, using the ...mmh.. let's call.. "billboard side effect" to hide their planes and not recieve collision damage.

Personally i fly simulator mode and i tend to fly very low but always ABOVE three, because i tend to think that even a small branch would damage my wings or plane structure if collided at 400Km/h. I know no real pilot would fly his bird trough a bush ;)

I think that using a "game bug" or a technical issue to perform better during fly is like using a cheat, but it's just my opinion and very few player master this technique so... it's okay :-) But forum are made for talks ehehe

So i turn the question to you....

...what you think about that?


HAVE FUN!! CLEAR SKY!!

[dkwookie]

Well I have done a lot of tree top buzzing and the collision detection on trees seems ok to me. I expect to be able to fly through the upper leafy area away from substantial branches and trunk and come away still flying. It's a good observation though so I will do some test runs to see how far into the tree I can get before a crash. I only really play realistic and arcade though so this tactic is new to me but I can see your point in sim if it hides your aircraft

[Mage_016]

At Berlin you can fly through some rooftops also. I know it's not the point of this topic.

I have to admit that sometimes I use woods for cover. Not flying through tho, just circling around at low level. I don't do that so often anymore, if I'm hit, and nothing else works to get rid of my tale.

[olife]

I have to admit that sometimes I use woods for cover. Not flying through tho, just circling around at low level. I don't do that so often anymore, if I'm hit, and nothing else works to get rid of my tale.

same here ,i like to fly at low altitude to surprised the ennemies but i don't use the bug as a fight tactical,sometimes when a guys follow me i take a lot of risks to escape and i fly in the wood by mistake(in fact all the time it finish with a crash)

i think this bug is the only thing of the game(maybe with the disconnexion problems)which is not good.but il 2 stay very good

[vdomini]

At Berlin you can fly through some rooftops also. I know it's not the point of this topic.

I have to admit that sometimes I use woods for cover. Not flying through tho, just circling around at low level. I don't do that so often anymore, if I'm hit, and nothing else works to get rid of my tale.

i take cover too! Is part of the game and lot of fun :-)

i like flying low on the river between buildings line in berlin and under bridges ehehe

[MACADEMIC]

Good post.

I sometimes descend below the highest treetops to zig zag between them when being pursued and there is no other escape. I would do the same in a real plane if that's my only chance of survival.

If I do this I do everything to avoid a collision with any part of a tree, but of course it sometimes happens. I don't like it but if my plane keeps flying I consider myself lucky.

I remember an old pilot telling me the story of how he nearly crashed into a hillside in fog in Papa-Newguinea in a DC-3, and how they later picked up a few branches from the undercarriage. He lived to tell the story...

MAC

[Robotic Pope]

Yeah its a bit cheap if you do it on purpose. I told Squirrel last night it was cheating when he was flying in a turn with half his plane in the trees. Planes crash when they come in contact with any ground object, even leaves. It should be imposible for a plane to hide in trees, just like it should be impossible in a FPS to hide in walls. If you find you can and continue to do it for your gain, you are kind of exploiting the games flaws. This tree hiding is obviously nowhere near as bad cheating as wall hiding though.

[bobbysocks]

well it happened in real life a lot...not too much during dogfights but usually on straffing runs. but you will be amazed how much damage those planes can take...like the example below..which is from this thread:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/tree-trimming-army-air-force-style-24161.html


P-47 flown by Lt. Richard Sulzbach of the 364th Fighter Squadron, 350th Fighter Group, 12th Air Force. Lt. Sulzbach had a little run-in with some trees while on a strafing run over Italy. He was able to fly the plane 120 miles back to base.

[Zatoichi_Sanjuro]

I think it's the forests on Stalingrad or one of those winter maps where it is most blatant and pretty cheap imo. Especially as the individual who's pretty infamous for doing it also uses trees to cheat kills when he's been shot up by clipping his wing off them.

Deaths aren't punished enough in this game which is part of the reason so many dogfights take place on the deck. Hopefully the devs realise some parts of the mp need an overhaul for the sequel.

[olife]

Good post.

I sometimes descend below the highest treetops to zig zag between them when being pursued and there is no other escape. I would do the same in a real plane if that's my only chance of survival.

If I do this I do everything to avoid a collision with any part of a tree, but of course it sometimes happens. I don't like it but if my plane keeps flying I consider myself lucky.

I remember an old pilot telling me the story of how he nearly crashed into a hillside in fog in Papa-Newguinea in a DC-3, and how they later picked up a few branches from the undercarriage. He lived to tell the story...

MAC

agree with u bud

a neighbour of my parents who fly in dc3 dakota during the indochina war tell me the piece of trees were in the wheel of tail of his dc3 when he drop a supplies for the frenchies troops at dien bien phu...at the end of the indochina war the frenchies crews must take o lot of risks(fly at the top of the trees)to escape to the viet minth air-air guns...

[Zatoichi_Sanjuro]

I think there's a big difference between buzzing the treetops and flying in between trunks like you're riding a speeder-bike on Endor.

[MACADEMIC]

I think there's a big difference between buzzing the treetops and flying in between trunks like you're riding a speeder-bike on Endor.

Lovely comparison. Perhaps we can turn this idea into a new game in the Club?

:grin:

MAC

[winny]

I think there's a big difference between buzzing the treetops and flying in between trunks like you're riding a speeder-bike on Endor.

Bang on.

It's a pretty cheap exploit.. there's low and there's low. Lag may exagerate it online, I've seen planes dive into the sea and the come flying out as if nothing happened.. one guy flying said from his POV he'd just skimmed the surface.

Maybe the Dev's can put tripwires in the next game as an anti aircraft weapon...

[Lost Apiarist]

"During the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, German Field Marshal von Rundstedt had hidden a munitions dump in the woods of the Ardennes. P-47s were called upon to destroy it, but they couldn't find it because of the thick trees. What did the frustrated pilots do then? They flew through the tops of the trees!

Pratt & Whitney's representative in Europe, Martin Graham, was there not long afterwards. "You could see by the shattered trees and the torn branches where the P-47s had gone through. You'd have to see it to believe it. Those crazy kids couldn't see what was hidden from above, so they went right into the forest to find out. They cut a path right through the top of the woods. They said every plane that went in and chewed out the tunnel came out — flying, too." (— The Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Story)"

[SEE]

Someone has planted different trees on my maps.....I always seem to get killed when I get too close... anyway, I don't like flying that low habitually and your foe have to come up sometime so keep altitude, spot them and kill em!......:grin: You wan't to stop people flying low just set the game with poor weather and and let the tree dwellers spend the entire match lopping trees while the true flyers compete at altitude using cloud cover as the correct means of hiding..........