Bombers, twin-engined and multi-crewed aircraft: Issues and suggestions.

[Blackdog_kt]

After posting about this topic in the recent update thread and getting positive feedback from various members, i decided to continue the relevant discussion here.

This thread aims to serves a few specific purposes:

1) To discuss all these issues in a single thread, without derailing other threads.

2) To collect and consolidate information from multiple sources and players who are willing to test things out. For example, i know quite a bit about the Blenheim because i researched it a lot, and thanks to a group of other players we got 1c's ear and they improved it quite a bit in the recent test patch. However, i don't know much about the Br.20 and most people i know don't either. Maybe someone else does and this thread will encourage them to come in and contribute their knowledge.

3) To ensure a bit more exposure for issues relating to bombers and multi-engine/multi-crew aicraft without having to "compete" for forum space with other more popular fixes, like FMs of fighters and graphical improvements.

There are two reasons for bringing this up at this point in time. The sim's performance optimization is nearing completion and the fighter FMs are getting looked at. This means that what mostly bothers a lot of players is nearing a complete status, so we can move on to other areas that need attention.
Also, now that there is a bit of scripting background and the community's mission builders have some experience under their belts, having the ability to properly operate bombers will help create much more immersive and challenging scenarios, both offline and online.
For example, think of a script that tracks fuel levels in your airfield's fuel dump. If the main fuel dump is standing, you can spawn in 100 octane versions of Spits and Hurricanes, but if the enemy bombs them you are restricted by the script to use the 87 octane versions.

As you can see, having properly modeled bombers will add a lot in terms of tactical and even strategic planning, while also bringing all the other features together in a way that creates real incentives for the players to fly in an objective-based manner.



The way this thread will work is simple. I will start with a list of known issues in the next post. From that point on, anyone can come in and post their findings. Once every few days and depending on the amount of free time i've got, i'll be coming in and appending all the information supplied into the list of issues.
For this to happen though i need your cooperation. This will take quite a bit of time to keep updated, so i need the following posts to be easy to understand and to the point.

What i mean is, please keep off-topic talk to a minimum, flaming/trolling to zero (i can't stress this enough, this is a collaborative testing effort and disruptions will result in offending posts disappearing) and use a specific posting format. In other words, let's play engineer and fix our bombers


Reports should have the following format:

Type: Suggestion, bug report (when something is implemented but doesn't work correctly or at all) or modeling error (can apply to 3d modeling, aircraft systems modeling, reversed control animations, wrong labels, etc). In some cases the boundaries between bug report and modeling error can be hard to judge, so it's ok to include both in this field.


Aircraft: State the aircraft type that the report applies to. Can contain more than one aircraft types, eg "all luftwaffe twin engined bombers" or better yet "Ju88 and He111" which explicitly states the types involved.


Description: Clearly describe the bug/issue, modeling error or suggestion.

In case of bugs and modeling errors, provide some reference (eg, aircraft manual, website, etc) if at all possible. If you don't have any sources to quote it's ok, just say why you think there's a problem. Eg, "i heard it from another user on the forums", "i saw it on a manual but can't find the link now" or "it seems reasonable to me that..." are acceptable.
It's not possible for many of us to have all the technical manuals and i don't want to limit the amount of reports by forcing users to reference sources. Better report something and have someone chip in with more information so that we can all decide if it's a bug/error or not, than not reporting it at all.

In the case of a suggestion, start by stating your reasons for thinking that it would make a useful addition to the sim.


Tested: Possible answers are Yes, No, N/A. If yes, describe the steps you took to replicate the problem. In case of a suggestion, this field should be N/A.


Workarounds: If there is a way to circumvent a bug, or get the kind of functionality that your suggestion aims to achieve, state so here and clearly describe the steps you take to achieve it. Otherwise, state "not tested" or "none found".
This lets other players know if you tested for workarounds or not, before deciding that nothing can be done on their end and waiting for a patch. It also lets users get to flying in case there is a workaround.


Additional Information: If you have anything to include that doesn't apply to the above fields, you need to add some clarification or you want to ask other users for their input, do so here. For example, after reporting a bug you could fill this field in with more verbose information, eg "i haven't tested this in the latest beta patch, but someone told me that this and this changed, is this correct?".



Finally, if you want to add a bit of information to a preceding report or answer another user's question you don't have to post using the above format, as long as you quote his original report in your post so that we all know what you are referring to.

So, let's get testing and thank you all for your participation


P.S.
Report template, so that you can copy-paste it into your posts and fill it in.


Type:


Aircraft:


Description:


Tested:


Workarounds:


Additional Information: