Friday, September 28 - Patch...First Impressions

[jamesdietz]

Mirror still no-go....

[RedToo]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Snapper

One thing that puzzles me is, do the devs actually FLY their own sim? I'm dead serious on this, and not being facetious whatsoever. My reasoning?

1) First thing I did after installing the new beta patch was to run some quick (VERY quick) tests on the Spitfire 2a and 1a 100 octane. Went into Quick Mission, selected Cross Country Flight.....and took off and climbed. Easy peasy. In this case I noted it took 20% throttle to start both aircraft. Take off roll at 9 lbs/6.25 lbs (full throttle resp), 3000 rpms, 100% rad (full open). On wheels up I held to level flight, coarsening pitch to 2850 rpms and closing rad to 50%. Watching oil & glycol temps, increased climb to maintain 185 mph IAS. All fine temps-wise, maintaining this combat climbout. At 18K feet (2a)/22K feet (1a 100 octane) the engine began sputtering, losing power, with rpms jumping wildly between 2400 and 3000. No damage reported in Damage Window; temps OK (ie oil < 95, glycol < 110 for both aircraft). The only way to smooth the engine vibrations and get partial climbing power back was to go Fine Pitch -- 300O rpms, but temps climbed with rad fully opened. Aborted climb, engine resumed normal operation below 16K feet with no apparent damage.

Each test here took about 10 minutes, but clearly no dev has done this, otherwise why wasn't it fixed OR reported in the readme? Sloppy.

2) I didn't do any tests on the Hurricanes. But how long would it take a dev to jump in the cockpit and discover the wretched thing wouldn't start? (Especially when the same problem had occurred in beta 1.07 and fixed in beta 1.08 ). Again, sloppy.

I'm baffled by the testing protocols, or rather, the lack thereof. If such ridiculously simple performance issues such as these are missed, how on earth are more complex issues dealt with?

+1

RedToo.

[Stirwenn]

+10 unfortunately but usual casual till 18 months...

[steppie]

for me the new patch works well

I have been reading about some of the problem that some people are have and i dont have them.

I test the spit IIA today and manage to get to an altitude of 25300 feet.
I had no over heating in the climb using 2900 rpm to about 16000 feet then drop it to 2300 rpm and keep the climb to 25300.
yes the indicated airspeed drop as low as 130 mph but this is expected as the higher you get the lower the air density and a drop in the indicated air speed is expected.

what i did find is when you get above 17000 feet drop your rpm to between 2200 & 2400 rpm and trim your rate of climb to try and keep an indicated air of about 150 mph in the climb, the climb rate above 17000 feet is slow and this is to be expected.
also make small change to the rpm to keep them in control.
as for mixture I don't change.

[klem]

Originally Posted by MadTommy

No no no.. once that happens we are left with what we have until the supposed sequel.

There is room for significant improvements in this patch. Its good but not ready.

Absolutely. Last chance. Especially for the unnique CoD aspects (some others will be fixed by sequel.... "it says here")

Put some convincing CoD test data together guys, not just "Its better but I think its too slow/fast/etc".

[klem]

Originally Posted by steppie

for me the new patch works well

I have been reading about some of the problem that some people are have and i dont have them.

I test the spit IIA today and manage to get to an altitude of 25300 feet.
I had no over heating in the climb using 2900 rpm to about 16000 feet then drop it to 2300 rpm and keep the climb to 25300.
yes the indicated airspeed drop as low as 130 mph but this is expected as the higher you get the lower the air density and a drop in the indicated air speed is expected.

what i did find is when you get above 17000 feet drop your rpm to between 2200 & 2400 rpm and trim your rate of climb to try and keep an indicated air of about 150 mph in the climb, the climb rate above 17000 feet is slow and this is to be expected.
also make small change to the rpm to keep them in control.
as for mixture I don't change.

How does that compare with this:
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-II.html

Boost figures??

[epoch]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Can you now hear that your aircraft has taken damage?

Not that I could tell. When my Blenheim was fiendishly riddled with lead by ATAG_Snapper last night the only sounds I heard was the laughing coming from my 2 Spitire escorts on Teamspeak. I heard no impact or firing sounds. The first I knew about it was the screen going red (whereupon it was difficult to read the red damage text).

[Insuber]

Are the "quick flashes" of the bullet impacts on the enemy a/c back?

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by epoch

Not that I could tell. When my Blenheim was fiendishly riddled with lead by ATAG_Snapper last night the only sounds I heard was the laughing coming from my 2 Spitire escorts on Teamspeak. I heard no impact or firing sounds. The first I knew about it was the screen going red (whereupon it was difficult to read the red damage text).

Well, to put a positive spin on the friendly shooting thing....I thought my marksmanship was quite good......

[Kupsised]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Can you now hear that your aircraft has taken damage?

I've not had time to try anything other than the Su26 yet, but in that, yes you definately can. Machinegun fire makes a loud, nasty bang when it hits you now. I was so used to it being quiet or non-existant that the first few times getting hit I thought I'd taken serious damage.