Quote:
Originally Posted by gaunt1
Hmmm, P-47 returning home with several shot-off cylinders? Or similar story with Fw-190? Both happened in ww2, their engines were very tough, just like other radials.
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I think you're right. IMO, all radial engines should be pretty damned tough to knock out, although the PW R-2800 was notably tough. That said, I think that they should be toughest against blown out cylinders. Bullets, especially big ones, through the crankcase should be much more effective at stopping the engine.
I think that the best way to create DM for engines is to base the amount of damage an engine can absorb on mass. Lighter engines can take less damage, larger ones can take more. The exceptions might be if you've got an engine with a radically different design which makes it more or less vulnerable to damage - like the early jet engines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gaunt1
BTW, please, do some tests with La-5/7 and Yak-9U too!
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This isn't a closed shop! You can do DM testing, too.
1) Set Arcade Mode = 1 in Conf.ini.
2) Go into QMB, choose a flight of early war bombers or attack planes with .303, .30 or 7.62 mm defensive guns as your targets, give them Ace AI and enough altitude that you can maneuver above and below them. Choose your plane and start flying.
You want Ace AI because it makes the tests go quicker, and also helps pick out bad DM modeling because the Ace AI will start hitting you at 600+ meters, when most rifle caliber bullets are going to seriously lose energy. (For example, a .30 caliber M2 ball round is going to lose about half its energy at about 400 yards.)
You want small caliber guns shooting at you to eliminate the possibility of getting hit by HE rounds or big bullets which can mess up experiments.
0.50 caliber or larger bullets do enough damage, even at range, that any hit from them is likely to be realistic in its effects, especially if it's a HE bullet.
3) Deliberately use stupid tactics like slowly overtaking the formation from 6 o'clock level.
Ideally, you're looking for hits at long range (~400+ meters), where armor plate, armor glass and even a thick plate of mild steel should be able to defeat a rifle caliber bullet.
4) Use the pause function and external view to periodically take a look at the damage you've collected. Take screenshots of any damage result that seems weird.
5) Try to keep track of how far away you were from the guns when you got hit. Some planes have unrealistically accurate gunners. That's a bug report, too.
6) Repeat 10+ times to see if you can get repeated results for the weird damage results. You're looking for "critical hits" that seem out of place - things like a very high percentage of control surface hits, loss of engine power, engine inoperable, fuel leaks, fires or pilot killed/wounded.
7) Once you've gotten a sense of the trends, and/or you get tired of being an aluminum clay pigeon/flying pinata, hop onto the internet and find a good cutaway drawing of the plane you just flew. Compare your screenshots to the drawing.
Sometimes a hits that "seem weird" turn out to be valid. For example, some planes really did have gaps between armor plates and armor glass to the pilot's front, or an oddly-shaped fuel tank in front of the pilot (e.g., F4U Corsair).
8 ) Once you've gotten a sense of the trends, start looking at similarities between planes. For example, look at how the same engine takes damage when mounted in different planes. (e.g., Alison V-1710 - immortal in the P-39/P-400/P-63, less tough in the P-38, substituted for something made of crystal and tissue paper in the P-40/Hawk 81/Tomahawk).
9) Post your results to this list and make Team Daidalos's lives harder.
