Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[horseback]

Originally Posted by FC99

They can be "fixed" but the problem is that you think that AI gunners are insanely accurate while I think that they suck big time.

Actually, what I said was that they suck big time because they are so accurate, so you're half right. While I agree that they are greatly improved over 4.10, they have a long way to go before the proportional advantages of fighters vs bombers approaches the historical standard.

Test setup:
Planes : Ju88 and P47D
Distance: 200m
Test method:
Both planes are on the airfield, P47 engine running.
Player is in Ju88 rear gunner position.
P47 is behind Ju88 with front of the engine exposed to the gunner like in typical 6 o'clock attack.
Result:
Bullets Fired: 1200
Bullets Hit Air: 1047
P47 engine still running although at 90% and with some components damaged.
And as many times before FACTS>>>FEELINGS , P47 is one tough MOFO and for every FG guy's story about one ping kill there is a JG guy with the story about P47 soaking dozens of 30mm hits and flying away.

Sorry, but you'll never convince me that an ai plane has exactly the same damage model as one piloted by the Player, or that a human gunner can be as accurate as an ai one. We're talking about a routine that permits high deflection hits at over 700 meters and shot-out engines at steep angles changing at high speeds with considerably less than 1047 rounds fired.

Fly formation 200m behind an He 111 or Betty (both of whose gunners are traditionally more accurate than those noobs in the Ju-88A) in that same P-47 and I bet your engine loss ratio goes up significantly, along your PKs, loss of gunsight, ailerons, fuel leaks(and how could any rounds possibly get past the engine and firewall to reach the fuel tanks?), rudder and Prop Pitch. Of course, that's just my feeling, but it's based on several hours of experience.

AI vs AI contests may ultimately obtain 'realistic' results, but in those cases, the AI fighter knows that he's been fired at and exactly where it will hit if his vector remains constant at the moment it is fired and he makes the slight move that either results in a clean miss or a meaningless hit, but the ai gunner routine knows that he knows and quickly fires a burst at the corrected vector, but the fighter ai routine knows that he will, so they decide not to do that and move on to the next move/countermove several thousand times per second.

Think of the Dread Pirate Roberts' confrontation with the Sicilian 'with death on the line' in The Princess Bride.

cheers

horseback

[KG26_Alpha]

Test AI gunners

1. Offline QMB
2. Offline Campaign
3. Online Dogfight server
4. Online Coop

I know the difference, I wonder if you will notice it too.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

Test AI gunners

1. Offline QMB
2. Offline Campaign
3. Online Dogfight server
4. Online Coop

I know the difference, I wonder if you will notice it too.

As I have repeatedly pointed out, my interest is strictly off-line, and I have asked for a 'reality option' specifically for offline campaigns and missions. I would even put up with 'realistic gunnery' limitations for the fighters in exchange for a realistic change to the ai gunnery model, as long as the proportional advantages enjoyed by the fighter were put in place.

I understand that the QMB ai are a bit tougher than the 'campaign' ai, but not by orders of magnitude; a breast fed baby's diaper doesn't stink as badly as one that is fed formula, but it still stinks.

As for online, not my area of interest.

cheers

horseback

[KG26_Alpha]

Its of no interest to you online, but is for many of us that do fly that way the AI gunners are totally different.

All you need to do is change the AI bomber flights to rookie and see how you get on off line or change your attack method with normal settings.

If your complaint is for a selective part of the game to be changed you need to understand whats going on in the rest of it before requesting changes and making generalized statements.

As I already said the game has different ways to fly it, offline you can do what you like on your own, online you work differently, I just hosted a CooP mission on Hyperlobby attacking 32 Betty's with Corsairs
The only Ai gunner kills were pilots getting greedy and getting 100m off the six of the bombers, all Ai Betty's were shot down easily.
The loss of pilots was mainly due to debris coming off the bombers (wings rudders ailerons) hitting the pilots Corsairs because they were too close on the attack.
3 pilots were de-winged at the same range from the 20mm tail gunner again much to close sitting on the bombers six.
On TS we were all saying the same thing "this guys gonna die" because of the wrong attack method.

As this thread is now off topic, please see fit to start a new one relating to this particular discussion.

[FC99]

Originally Posted by Jumoschwanz

If the best simulation IL2 can do right now with the P47 is to have it's tail fall off with X number of 20mm hits, then that is okay, it is just funny how you can set yourself up in the qmb behind a bunch of Friendly p47s and go down the row and get the same result on one after the other, almost like you are breaking the tails off of frozen lobsters.

Of course in real life the location and number of hits from an enemy aircraft would be so random it would take a supercomputer to model the different effects of each, I am sure no two kills in WWII looked exactly the same the way they can be reproduced in IL2.

Tail coming off is relict of the past when average player's PC were much weaker than what we have now and it is best viewed as crude visual representation of catastrophic damage. Paradoxically you will experience such damage most often on very tough planes, weaker ones will usually suffer some other types of damage sooner.

Originally Posted by horseback

Sorry, but you'll never convince me that an ai plane has exactly the same damage model as one piloted by the Player, or that a human gunner can be as accurate as an ai one.

It does but I can do the same in coop mode with human controlled plane. Fact is that even 1000+ hits in the engine area is not a guarantee that you will destroy P-47 engine. In addition I can check exact damage of each bullet and if I really want to be anal about this I can generate hits at any part of the plane with whatever parameters I want.

You are very wrong about human gunners too, they are way better than AI, obviously you don't fly online much.

Fly formation 200m behind an He 111 or Betty (both of whose gunners are traditionally more accurate than those noobs in the Ju-88A) in that same P-47 and I bet your engine loss ratio goes up significantly, along your PKs, loss of gunsight, ailerons, fuel leaks(and how could any rounds possibly get past the engine and firewall to reach the fuel tanks?), rudder and Prop Pitch. Of course, that's just my feeling, but it's based on several hours of experience.

Is it surprising that cannon will do more damage than MG bullets?

AI vs AI contests may ultimately obtain 'realistic' results, but in those cases, the AI fighter knows that he's been fired at and exactly where it will hit if his vector remains constant at the moment it is fired and he makes the slight move that either results in a clean miss or a meaningless hit, but the ai gunner routine knows that he knows and quickly fires a burst at the corrected vector, but the fighter ai routine knows that he will, so they decide not to do that and move on to the next move/countermove several thousand times per second.

You are over-thinking it a bit and you are very wrong, not 100% wrong but close.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by FC99

Tail coming off is relict of the past when average player's PC were much weaker than what we have now and it is best viewed as crude visual representation of catastrophic damage.

That might explain wings coming off B-17 or B-24 due to damage, too.

Is there any way to better model that catastrophic damage so that very tough planes don't lose parts in unrealistic ways?

Originally Posted by FC99

You are very wrong about human gunners too, they are way better than AI, obviously you don't fly online much.

Then you've got a decent way to calibrate AI gunner skill. Get a bunch of very skilled human gunners in coop, ask them how many hours they have flying online as gunners, then determine their hit percentage against a variety of targets and a variety of deflections.

Use the hit percentage by your very best and most experienced humans as your "Ace" quality gunner standard and adjust AI skill from there.

Whether or not it's historically realistic, synching AI gunner skill to top human skill has the following benefits: a) It means that nobody can bitch about the AI being "better than human", b) means that offline AI gunners will be good training for people who are practicing before they go online. By definition, if you can beat Ace AI, you can do pretty well against human gunners online.

Likewise, if TD feels like revisiting fighter gunnery accuracy (which went from "lasers o' death" prior to 4.11, to just about right in 4.11, to "nerfed" in 4.12) you could base Ace gunnery standards on hit percentages for the very best human players.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Then you've got a decent way to calibrate AI gunner skill. Get a bunch of very skilled human gunners in coop, ask them how many hours they have flying online as gunners, then determine their hit percentage against a variety of targets and a variety of deflections.

Use the hit percentage by your very best and most experienced humans as your "Ace" quality gunner standard and adjust AI skill from there.

Whether or not it's historically realistic, synching AI gunner skill to top human skill has the following benefits: a) It means that nobody can bitch about the AI being "better than human", b) means that offline AI gunners will be good training for people who are practicing before they go online. By definition, if you can beat Ace AI, you can do pretty well against human gunners online.

Likewise, if TD feels like revisiting fighter gunnery accuracy (which went from "lasers o' death" prior to 4.11, to just about right in 4.11, to "nerfed" in 4.12) you could base Ace gunnery standards on hit percentages for the very best human players.

While your idea has its merits, I fear it would lead to gunners close to 4.09 standards. I do think gunnery in IL2 is easier than it was in real life, no vibrations, no force needed pulling the gun anywhere, extensive training possible without any risk, no recoil etc.
I still like the gunners the way they are now.

[jameson]

The laser sighted, 40mm, power assisted, zero-g, cannon operator in the back of the IL-2 appears to have strangely missed any "improvement". A de-winged IL-2 tumbling and spiralling towards the deck still has the "terminator" firing his weapon as he hits the water/ground. Any human would have been, lol, over the side somewhat earlier I feel. Perhaps this could be addressed?

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by jameson

The laser sighted, 40mm, power assisted, zero-g, cannon operator in the back of the IL-2 appears to have strangely missed any "improvement". A de-winged IL-2 tumbling and spiralling towards the deck still has the "terminator" firing his weapon as he hits the water/ground. Any human would have been, lol, over the side somewhat earlier I feel. Perhaps this could be addressed?

Inertia dampers. You forgot to mention the inertia dampers.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Originally Posted by FC99:
Tail coming off is relict of the past when average player's PC were much weaker than what we have now and it is best viewed as crude visual representation of catastrophic damage

That might explain wings coming off B-17 or B-24 due to damage, too.

Is there any way to better model that catastrophic damage so that very tough planes don't lose parts in unrealistic ways?

Originally Posted by FC99:
You are very wrong about human gunners too, they are way better than AI, obviously you don't fly online much

Then you've got a decent way to calibrate AI gunner skill. Get a bunch of very skilled human gunners in coop, ask them how many hours they have flying online as gunners, then determine their hit percentage against a variety of targets and a variety of deflections.

Use the hit percentage by your very best and most experienced humans as your "Ace" quality gunner standard and adjust AI skill from there.

Whether or not it's historically realistic, synching AI gunner skill to top human skill has the following benefits: a) It means that nobody can bitch about the AI being "better than human", b) means that offline AI gunners will be good training for people who are practicing before they go online. By definition, if you can beat Ace AI, you can do pretty well against human gunners online.

Likewise, if TD feels like revisiting fighter gunnery accuracy (which went from "lasers o' death" prior to 4.11, to just about right in 4.11, to "nerfed" in 4.12) you could base Ace gunnery standards on hit percentages for the very best human players.

There seems to be an ongoing campaign to conflate my comparison of the off-line ai gunners to the human beings that actually manned the guns of WWII bombers, attack aircraft and heavy fighters with the in-game mouse aimed guns.

Two entirely different things. Both criminally bogus of course, but two different things.

The in-game player's mouse gunner model is vastly simpler and less complicated than the operation and aiming of machine guns from a constantly bobbing and rolling gun platform like an actual moving aircraft of that era. You are on a rail smooth, predictable platform and you can easily control your guns; no engine vibration, no jammed or sticky rings or turrets, no gunshake or recoil making that three-to-six round burst scatter across a two or three degree range, and only an occasional (and buttery smooth) change in direction or angle of your platform to potentially spoil your aim.

This differs very little from the all-ai aircraft gunners offline model, except that they enjoy absolutely perfect awareness of their human target's range, speed and direction; they know precisely how fast they are going, they know how fast you are going and to the millimeter how far away you are and where you will be when they fire their guns at ranges well beyond the average player's convergence ranges. They can perfectly compensate for their 'aircraft' turning, banking and diving. And they consistently manage to hit critical components of target (Player) aircraft moving at high speeds from ridiculous angles in microsecond wide firing windows, and they still seem to victimize some aircraft types more consistently than others.

None of that compares remotely with the actual capabilities of the real-life gunners on WWII era aircraft. For the offline fighter campaigner the difference is critical. The 8th Air Force awarded the title of 'ace' to over 300 bomber crew gunners; I would be amazed if any two of them actually destroyed a combined total of five enemy aircraft in flight, and the late war US bomber defenses were the heaviest and most sophisticated of the war. Their gunners were arguably the most extensively trained of the war. If their efforts were so futile, what does that say about the gunners on the lightly armed, less stable types that everyone else fielded?

cheers

horseback