Daidalos Team's Room -QUESTIONS AND REQUESTS ONLY on IL2 Authorized Addons

[Eldur]

Originally Posted by Billfish

So I'd like to request the "Fire Weapon 4 (Drop Bombs) & Drop External Tanks" controls be combined

So, I'd like to request that either one side at a time be dropped rather then both........OR........ that it could be made selectable (utilizing the unused button from above)

I'd welcome that. I hope we'll see the hardcore version of this (each single button does what it is supposed to). German planes also have selecton systems which don't work in Il-2. A lot of them can be seen here:

http://www.cockpitinstrumente.de/ins...haltkasten.htm

The ASK 190 as found in the FW-190F series is *very* interesting.



You can put the center switch to the left which drops all *selected* ordnance at once. The selection can be done by pressing the 8 buttons. The upper ones are for wing stations (so each of the 4 SC50 you have can be selected separately), the lower ones are for the fuselage rack, also 4 for the case you've got that 4x SC/SD 50/70 /AB24t loadout.
When the center switch is set to the right, you can do the Reihenabwurf, which means it will drop the bombs one after another. Again you have to select which ones like above, but there's also a second switch to the right. Up position is automatic, which probably will release them with a single trigger press and the lower position is Einzel, which supposedly drops them one-by one either when the trigger is held or pressed multiple times (rather the latter one, but I don't just know it).

There are other devices that could be modelled as well, like the ZSK 244 which is used to "program" the bomb fuse. I don't know what it exactly does though, but there should be information availabe.



I'd be glad to have at least a very simple setup in Il-2 to make use of bomb selection, for all planes that had such feature IRL.

1. Select the bomb type if there's a mix in the loadout (e.g. 1 SC500 + 4 SC50), or all together
2. Select the drop count, either 1, pairs or all of the type
3. Select whether they're dropped at once or slightly delayed with a fixed time interval like 50 or 100ms

I'd let the really complex modeling of all these switch boxes go in SoW, but this simple setup as suggested above would make Il-2 a lot better for ground attack actions.

I'd also like to propose a similar control for the guns, as many planes like the German ones (SKK224 in 109E for example) or the US ones (P-39 has 2 selector switches on the left dashboard for activating wing guns, fuselage guns and hub cannon) had the option IRL. I'd go for a single gun trigger and some selector switches (3 should probably enough for all planes + 4th for external gondolas which Il-2 already has, though it's pretty useless).

That all would leave us 2 triggers, one for guns and one for ordnance with the possibility to select which weapons are triggered by them. I know some planes like the Il-2 have a split trigger which is basically 2 triggers (most probably the reason for the current trigger system), but selecting a gun setup and then firing would also simulate the press of just one of these. Most planes did not have separate gun triggers, but selection switches. You could also keep the split triggers and model the above suggestions jsut to the planes that had such. Would probably be the best solution.

I've also found the loadout sheet I once made out of various sources that were spread around at several Il-2 forums. Would be great if that one could be used and expanded for other planes to be incorporated into further development, especially new bomb types like the AB24t.

loadouts.zip

While searching the above, I've come across some good research work done on the 109 performances (by wastel). I thought it might be useful, if you don't have it already.

bf109analyse.zip

Originally Posted by mkubani

3. And let's be reasonable. How often do you look at the loadouts from such a close distance to even appreciate such high fidelity? This sim is intended for virtual flying, not for taking screenshots. I am 110% for historical accuracy and quality (trust me, maybe even more than you are!), but I am also against wasted HW/SW resources. I dare to say you could do a very similar quality job on your loadouts with 30-40% reduction and most people wouldn't even notice the difference.

Good point. Especially "full real" pilots won't even see their loadout, only when it's haning on their close flying wingmens' planes. I'd say a little bit more of graphical quality wouldn't hurt though. But such a fidelty like in LOFC where the Su-25 alone has 50k polys and the bombs are modelled very fine in a sim where the biggest planes don't exceed 1/10th of the polycount just is off. I don't want to carry bombs around that have more polygons than my plane . Most bombs look OK already, some could need rework, especially the AB thingies...

Originally Posted by ramstein

that's right with lots of weapons, if you don't have a direct hit, they will not even scratch the paint..

I think there are 2 problems. First is the damage itself. I remember Oleg telling that it's done by 2 things, the explosion itself and fragments hitting other things. Some bombs seem to do a lot of explosion damage (Russian an US are pretty good) while other hardly do, but have some fragments doing some. BUT: The fragments have to hit, otherwise nothing happens. And there are not so many fragments actually, because of limited CPU power. I've seen FAB-5000 (the Pe-8 thingy) exploding on a parking field of an airfield full of trucks, tanks, static planes and such and it barely did any damage to most of them (some close to the impact point were unharmed, but others 50m away were destroyed, quite randomly), and no damage at all to the tanks. The detonation wave alone should have destroyed everthing.

And the second point I don't just think, because I know. And this is the *major* issue with ground objects DM. The only objects where this not applies are ships and of course active (piloted or AI) planes. Their behaviour in terms of damage is extremely simple. Basically, all you have to do is do damage until it reaches 100% and the target is dead. Some have damage resistances in form of armour (tanks and ships), some have target areas that can be taken out separately (guns on ships). But every "destroyable" part (or whole object in most cases) shares the problem. Any damage done is lost - forgotten after a short time. You can try this out with a Ju-87G, shooting T-34s. You need to hit it in a 30° dive at the back 2 or 3 times to kill it. Try hitting just *once* and redo the whole thing. You will do that until you run out of ammo, and apparently without doing any damage. Just because it resets to 0% after each pass. This seriously needs to be fixed, as it would make things a lot more realistic and easier. What If I drop a bomb for example that visually did no damage? Actually it did, but not enough - and it's being resetted. If it wasn't, I could easily finish the targets off even with short bursts of MG17 where I would need some 5-10 MG151/20 hits normally.