4.12.2 de-bugging

[Pursuivant]

Ki-43 III wing tank fires initially produce flames but no smoke, then smoke but no flame.

Additionally, fires in the wing tanks don't seem to further damage the plane's wings or cause risk of explosion, nor do they trigger a bailout by AI pilots.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Ki-43 III wing tank fires initially produce flames but no smoke, then smoke but no flame.

Additionally, fires in the wing tanks don't seem to further damage the plane's wings or cause risk of explosion, nor do they trigger a bailout by AI pilots.

I believe this is normal behavior as of 4.12. The intention is to replicate those times when there is a fire but its clean burning and there is no smoke... sometimes the fire goes out (in a dive for example) and then there is just smoke left over as the fire goes out... its not perfect but its not bad either.

If there is more damage done then the fire with no smoke turns into a fire with smoke and thats when all sorts of bad things happen

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by IceFire

I believe this is normal behavior as of 4.12. The intention is to replicate those times when there is a fire but its clean burning and there is no smoke...

That just seems strange, since a gasoline fire is normally at least a bit smoky. Also, even for a pure fuel fire there will usually be other things like paint and rubber from the self-sealing fuel tanks burning.

Originally Posted by IceFire

If there is more damage done then the fire with no smoke turns into a fire with smoke and thats when all sorts of bad things happen

I've subsequently seen this. Heavy damage to the wings plus more severe fire also triggers bailout.

[Pursuivant]

Is it just me and my crummy flying or does the P-40M seem extremely vulnerable to "critical hits"?

I've been flying a lot of 1-1 missions against the Ace AI Ki-43II (i.e., 2 0.50 caliber guns, sniper-like accuracy within 200 meters) and it seems like even a single second of gunfire will do something terrible to my plane.

If I'm lucky it's just a jammed gun, more typically it's some control surface rendered inoperative, a pilot hit or really severe engine damage which results in the engine conking out within seconds. Mind you, the actual plane never breaks apart - or even shows heavy damage, it's almost always a pilot kill, messed up controls (usually 2-3 at a time) or inoperative/flaming engine.

This seems at odds with Clive Caldwell's assessment that the P-40 "would take a tremendous amount of punishment, violent aerobatics as well as enemy action," plus the fact that the P-40 had armor around the engine and cockpit which allowed it to survive head-on passes against the Ki-43.

Mind you, I think that the game gets the P-40's basic ruggedness right in terms of light damage/heavy damage/broken damage modeling to the airframe. It's just that there seems to be something wrong about the likelihood and severity of critical hits.

Flying against another contemporary opponent, the Bf-109F, I'm getting much the same sort of damage, although the Bf-109's programming makes it much less likely to take head-on shots and Bf-109F Ace AI doesn't seem to have the same inerrant accuracy as the Ki-43.

[Pursuivant]

This is an old bug, but is there any way to make collisions with parachutes not break your plane?

Conceivably, a collision with a human could break a part off an airplane (although usually it just leaves a dead person and a big messy dent in the airplane) but there's no way that striking a parachute or its risers is going to damage a plane, much less remove a vital part.

On a larger scale, there are some ground objects that should damage a plane without breaking it. Right now, things like wires or flag poles will kill your plane, when realistically all a collision with such things should do is damage it.

[Pursuivant]

British default P-40 markings for MTO map have the fuselage roundel set too high up on the fuselage. Also, the tail flash is the Pacific theater version (navy blue and white) when it should be the typical RAF MTO/ETO red, white and blue tail flash.

[ElAurens]

As a very dedicated P40 flier I have to concur with your observation.

The P 40 has a glass jaw engine damage model, and always has, ditto the one hit damage to control functions. It is very perplexing, as other less robust allied fighters (Spitfire and Yaks, for example) do not show this.

This has been brought up many times over the years, so now I expect that:

A: The "learn to fly" excuse will be used as it often is.

B: Someone with knowledge of the DM will point out that some critical part of the engine, and or flight control system, has a big red target painted on it, or has a magic bullet magnet installed as original equipment.

C: Pilot accounts cannot be taken at face value as we all know that the men that actually went in to combat with these aircraft were just kids and knew nothing about their mounts.

D: Nothing will change.

[Tempest123]

The Mossie Mk. XVII when flown by AI pilots can't hit ships with the cannon, the AI will open fire very late ina dive with the .303s and the cannnon, but the cannon of course has a lower trajectory so it never hits the target. Building a Banff Strike Wing mission and this bug is a deal breaker for the Mossie, the FB Mk.IV with 60lb rockets is much more effective.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

As a very dedicated P40 flier I have to concur with your observation.

I'm glad it's not just me.

The "glass jaw" effect for the P-40 seems to carry through not just to the old "late P-40"models, but also into the somewhat newer Hawk 81/P-40C models (although the cockpit modeling is a huge improvement in the P-40C model - the P-40M's cockpit has big dark posts which really interfere with forward visibility and the gauges are hard to read).

Just now, I found myself getting shot to pieces in a P-40C by a bunch of rookie Ki-21 gunners. Single rifle caliber MG hits, usually taking hits from dead ahead so the engine block and cockpit armor is in the way of the shots, yet the P-40 consistently gets some combination of aileron, elevator and/or elevator controls destroyed, which is extremely improbable.

Additionally, I've notice that hits from head on somehow shred the rudder! Realistically, the only part of the vertical stabilizer assembly that could possible get damaged from a head-on shot is the leading edge, yet the damage model shows my entire rudder surface being shredded! Strange that a) that part gets hit as often as it does, b) that the damage model doesn't show damage to the vertical stabilizer and not just the control surfaces.

Originally Posted by ElAurens

This has been brought up many times over the years, so now I expect that:

A: The "learn to fly" excuse will be used as it often is.

I'll freely admit that I'm not a natural-born pilot. I get shot to pieces in all kinds of airplanes, so I'm something of an expert in knowing how different planes react when they got shot up.

Overall, it seems like "X controls destroyed" hits are far too common given the size of control runs relative to the rest of the plane and the fact that there were often redundant systems.

Likewise, it seems that badly damaged engines shut down way to fast. It seems strange that a machine which weighs hundreds of pounds and produces hundreds of HP of torque would instantly stop spinning, especially when the drive shaft is several inches thick and mostly encased within the engine block.

This effect is particularly pronounced in the Bf-109 where the engine will sometimes just stop when you get hit. No screech and whine from a tortured engine before it dies. It just stops.

Originally Posted by ElAurens

B: Someone with knowledge of the DM will point out that some critical part of the engine, and or flight control system, has a big red target painted on it, or has a magic bullet magnet installed as original equipment.

I wish. At least with evidence there's a chance that TD might actually fix it. I'm hoping they'll do a really close review of the P-40 series for the next patch to go with the corrected late P-40 model.

Originally Posted by ElAurens

C: Pilot accounts cannot be taken at face value as we all know that the men that actually went in to combat with these aircraft were just kids and knew nothing about their mounts.

Combat pilot's accounts will be biased by memory and lack of experience with planes other than the types they flew and fought against. I tend to trust reports by test pilots more.

But, at least we no longer have to worry about options that basically boil down to:

"This was Western propaganda; lies just put in the pilot's manual and numerous technical reports in order to give the deluded capitalist running dog stooge pilots false confidence in their completely inferior equipment."

or,

"This Soviet technical report, based on a clapped-out airplane assembled and maintained by mechanics who'd never seen the plane before, flown using 87 octane gas diluted with yak urine, is the definitive word on this plane's performance."

Originally Posted by ElAurens

D: Nothing will change.

I hope this time it will be different.

[ECV56_Guevara]

Don t know if this is a bug...
Friday nigth coop with my squad, Berlin campaign.
About 16/18 pilots online plus several AIs.
wheather: fog
Massive freeze.
We were flyng these campaing for about 20 missions or more, with 4.12/4.12.1. It wasn´t a connection issue, we all got green squares, suddendly it locks for a few pilots, then, after a few seconds, all got freeze. We guessed it was the weather and the heavy map, but it was weird, so, we have to report it, maybe it´s something related to the patch.

PD: Bomb delay not saved still present.