Friday, September 28 - Patch...First Impressions

[epoch]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Snapper

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

It sure was of the highest standard!

Originally Posted by Kupsised

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.

Hmm I guess the hit sound issue may be plane specific? I definitely heard nothing last night. I was also shot down in a Blenheim over Oye Plage - I don't recall hearing any hit sounds then either.

[Kupsised]

Originally Posted by epoch

Hmm I guess the hit sound issue may be plane specific? I definitely heard nothing last night. I was also shot down in a Blenheim over Oye Plage - I don't recall hearing any hit sounds then either.

I was thinking the same thing when you said that. I'll go an give it a try in a different AC (Blenheim makes most sense) then report back in a few minutes.

EDIT: Weird, I just went up in a Blenheim against Hurricanes (to make sure it was machinegun fire I was hearing and not cannon) and still got the very loud banging hit sounds. This was all offline though, so maybe it could be the difference between online and offline? Again, I'll try and do a test and trawl around on ATAG begging people to come and shoot me down

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by AT AG_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?

I'm not on COD's staff to see how and what priorities they gave their testing staff. Contrary to some schools of thought, I don't think its possible they aren't doing alot of testing. Thankfully the devs are intelligent enough to use the expertise in the forums to find issues, especially with the engine management changes they appear to have made. They would have to be clairvoyant to list the issues found by the community in the read me.

[bw_wolverine]

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 from me too, Snap.

The only explanation I can come up with is that they're just not bothering to test because they're so busy with the other stuff for the sequel. They're coding what they think'll fix it and throwing it into the beta patches. Then we get the patches and test them and see what sticks and what breaks.

There's no reason a patch that prevents half of one side's aircraft from starting engines for 9-15 minutes should have ever reached beta status let alone Release Candidate status.

[Bounder!]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Snapper

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.

This ^^

I've not tested the 2a yet but the 1a 100 Octane, depending on where I take off from I hit a wall - air start at Eastchurch it was ~18K and ground start from Manston it was ~20K - where the rpms jump wildly. I managed to punch through it by using high rpms (low rpm didn't help, nor did changing mixture). Above his wall you can stabilise the rpms a little but the climb rate drops off massively. I had no damage, engine temps were normal and dropping back down resulted in return of normal engine power. I repeated this from these two airfields with the same results each time.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by bw_wolverine

+1 from me too, Snap.

The only explanation I can come up with is that they're just not bothering to test *everything* because they're so busy with the other stuff for the sequel. They're coding what they think'll fix it and throwing *other partially untested fixes* into the beta patches. Then we get the patches and test them and see what sticks and what breaks.

There's no reason a patch that prevents half of one side's aircraft from starting engines for 9-15 minutes should have ever reached beta status let alone Release Candidate status.

regretfully i think i have to agree with you (subject to my bold edits being added)

letting some of these glaring errors into the patch shows those elements simply have not been tested in-house

the good news however is that there are many important fixes in that latest RC patch as well, which have had extensive work and effort (and testing). for ex, overall improvements in the new gfx engine etc... (see other posts listing them). very frustrating however to have these red side plane startup issues

[Kupsised]

Originally Posted by Kupsised

I was thinking the same thing when you said that. I'll go an give it a try in a different AC (Blenheim makes most sense) then report back in a few minutes.

EDIT: Weird, I just went up in a Blenheim against Hurricanes (to make sure it was machinegun fire I was hearing and not cannon) and still got the very loud banging hit sounds. This was all offline though, so maybe it could be the difference between online and offline? Again, I'll try and do a test and trawl around on ATAG begging people to come and shoot me down

Right, sussed it. Just went on ATAG and got shot up by a G-50 (so it was definately machinegun fire too) and absolutely no hit sounds. So, yes they are working offline, but not online. I'll post it to the bugs thread.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by Chivas

I'm not on COD's staff to see how and what priorities they gave their testing staff. Contrary to some schools of thought, I don't think its possible they aren't doing alot of testing. Thankfully the devs are intelligent enough to use the expertise in the forums to find issues, especially with the engine management changes they appear to have made. They would have to be clairvoyant to list the issues found by the community in the read me.

Agree. I tend to think that they have 100K's of lines of code to wade through, adjust, whatever it is code developers do. They no doubt have in depth testing of the codes, etc., that is all internal within the software. To me, it's sort've like brilliant meteorologists using cutting edge instrumentation to evaluate weather patterns, shifting weather systems, global and local trends, etc. etc. etc.....but forgetting to look out the window when they release their weather forecast!

[steppie]

Originally Posted by klem

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

Boost figures??

hi Klem
i had trouble getting above 25000 feet but looking the fig in climb trial, apart from the RPM after 16000 feet everything look similar.
The boost drop like they did in the trail to about the same figure.

[trademe900]

sea level:

Spit 1a 100 octane, 260mph/280mph full boost.

Hurricane 100 octane 255mph/275mph full boost.

Still hot hand grenades, still slow as hell, still the hurricane that turns like a jumbo jet; as for the so-called research they have been doing... outright lies.

109 rudder and spit roll is only good thing.

Given up, looks like we will just have to make do. So disappointed as this is essentially the final patch.