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#1
09-25-2014, 03:32 AM
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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:
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. 
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#3
09-25-2014, 09:57 AM
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Gotta love those round engines. I was going to argue that crankcases (I would include nose case and rear accessory section) were not necessarily the "weaker" component. But, considering that a lot was packed into a small space, it's hard not to hit something important. On the other hand, a hole, by itself, is not like a hole in an oil pan. Dry sump oiling (and large oil tanks) are a different animal when you consider that the often-reported survival despite the loss of a "jug" was definitely a hole in the crankcase.
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#4
09-25-2014, 10:10 AM
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 ^Definately not modelled in IL2 1946 ^ All combat aircraft have their stories of survival and getting home against incredible odds, but there's more that didn't make it home and we shouldn't want to model the aircraft to represent the "few" but the many. Perhaps some engines need "balancing" as the damage modelling seems strange when you start to compare engine v engine hit for hit, some were tougher than others but some seem unbreakable where others have a glass jaw.
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#6
09-26-2014, 12:38 AM
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Bug: the P-39 has FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red). Fly a P-39 during a night mission and turn on the cockpit light to see what I mean.
Similarly, pushing the stick forward until you start redding-out from negative G's gives all pilots a brief moment of infra-red vision.
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#7
09-26-2014, 04:59 AM
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Quote:
Since all my bad tactics in the QMB often results in the mission ending with my plane in pieces after a collision with a bomber (e.g., control cable taken out, PK or wounded, or just overtaking too fast and misjudging distance on the breakaway) I've gotten a good sense how often your plane dies due to a collision. Usually, you die horribly, but sometimes you get away with just a dead engine or a missing tail, while the other plane breaks up (especially if you hit a wing or tail that's already shot up). But, occasionally, even after a solid hit, the other plane survives, like the Me-410 in Alpha's picture. The main reason that it <i>seems</i> like planes do or don't survive damage or collisions as well as they should is due to the damage textures. Those are based on the artist's whim, and are more representative of what "looks cool" than the sort of damage that would really kill or damage a plane. For example, planes like the P-40, P-47 or Corsair could get back to base after suffering wing damage equivalent to what the IL2 damage textures considered to be "destroyed." If you're a connoisseur of bullet-shredded aluminum as I've become, that's a bit of an immersion killer, because you say, "Why can't I fly this damned thing! There's a picture in Osprey/Squadron/Mushroom/Whatever book No. X which shows a plane with the exact same damage that got back to base!" But, once you learn to sort of overlook the damage textures and think in terms of "light," "heavy" and "destroyed" the damage modeling to the airframe and collision results make more sense.
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#8
09-26-2014, 06:24 AM
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By request, last night I was able to test the La-5.
This is actually a good airplane to test, since it's one of the models from the original IL2 game, so the damage model is likely to be crappy. It's also Soviet, an outstanding design, it was well-liked by pilots and mechanics alike, and was one of Ivan Kozedub's favorite planes, all of which might have made the damage modelers a bit generous. What we've got is a lightly-built mid-war plane with an excellent engine and pair of excellent cannon, but short range and some other quirks the game can't model. In terms of mass, it's about 60% the loaded take-off weight of a P-51, 15% lighter than a Spitfire Mk V, and 20% lighter than a Fw-190A. Targets were the usual Ace AI Wellington III squadron, this time wearing German colors. Altitude started at 5,000 meters, which didn't exactly favor the La-5. Airframe damage absorption seems to be quite good, the the plane registering about a dozen small caliber bullet hits before the light damage textures appear on the wings or fuselage, and virtually unlimited ability to absorb damage from small caliber bullets before the heavy damage textures appear. But, I didn't get much of a chance to test this, since other types of hits took out the plane first. If anything, airframe damage models might be too generous for such a lightly built plane, especially for early models which had the typical Soviet production problems. Engine damage absorption also seems to be quite good. The plane can consistently take 2-3 bullets to the engine at moderate to long range (300-600 meters) without loss of power. It can absorb about half a dozen bullets at medium to short range with some loss of power, and maybe about a dozen with severe loss of power and eventual engine failure. For a small radial engine, this is pretty good, but not quite as good as the SBD Dauntless, perhaps because the engine is twin row. In any case, it "seems right", and there are no anomalous results like the engine stopping instantly or losing massive amounts of power after just one hit at long range. Control Hits: Like many early game DM, I think the La-5 is too vulnerable to critical hits, especially control hits. Remember, a rifle caliber bullet basically has to intercept a control cable or bell crank to sever it, and they're not likely to tear the aluminum skin of an airplane up sufficiently that they'll jam something. Even so, in the 20 or so missions I flew, I picked up something like 4 control cable hits, mostly due to hits to the wings. Also, while it's just a damage texture issue, the light damage texture for the wings is "burned canvas on the aileron" which seems out of place since almost all the wing damage was to the inboard wings, and none of it was to the ailerons. Another item for the IL2 wishlist: Separate damage texture modeling for the control surfaces. Fuel Fires: Another issue is the vulnerability of the wing tanks to fuel fires. I've worried that topic to death elsewhere, but to recap. 1) Unless it's explosive, it's the second or later bullet that starts a fuel tank fire. 2) There needs to be time between bullets to start a fire since fuel has to leak and vaporize. 3) Even Incendiary or tracer bullets can't ignite liquid gasoline. 4) Self-sealing fuel tanks prevent fuel from escaping, minimizing the chance that subsequent incendiary hits will start a fire. They work almost instantly and almost perfectly against bullets of up to 0.50 caliber (except for 0.50 caliber HE bullets). Additionally, the La-5 had a unique system that vented exhaust gasses into the fuel tank to act as a fire extinguisher. So, the La-5 should basically be fireproof, especially against small caliber bullets. As it is, just 2-3 closely spaced bullet hits in a single burst was enough to start a fire in the fuel tanks. This was the main way that I died. As another damage modeling bug, fuel fires continue long after the fuel is exhausted! But this seems to be a consistent bug for all the planes in the game. Remember: No fuel, no fire! Gun Hits: A final damage bug seems to be a high proportion of cannon hits. In part, this is because the cannons are near the engine, and the engine is the gunner's target of choice when aiming at an incoming attacker. Even so, most of the vital parts of the guns and ammo runs were behind the engine and should be somewhat protected. I did get a few gun hits which were quite fair, though, with the bullet going straight down the barrel! Pilot protection: Pilot protection seems good, with a relatively low number of pilot kills or injured results. Those that occur seem fair, since the La-5 didn't have armor glass. Mostly, the very low percentage of PK results come from the very low profile cockpit. The engine absorbs most of the damage. Typical engine damage required to get the engine to really start slowing down. The engine lost about 50% power and died about 2 minutes later: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1411712499 Cannon hit, maybe a bit weird since the bullet hit runs exactly parallel to the barrel and might just miss the breach or ammo feeds (need a better 3-view to be sure): http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1411712499 Weird burned aileron light damage texture (note: not all damage to wing shown, the wing had previously a few more hits, but all inboard of the aileron). http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1411712499
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#10
09-26-2014, 09:57 AM
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 PS: Im going to have to put you on spamming alert, unless you clean up your posts, and start paying attention. 
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