Modelling engine wear and WEP limitations

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Seadog

I beg to differ:




from:
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...on-1july40.pdf

In real life pilots would risk all for a kill or to stay alive.

Mate, fly like you want to, i'm not here to tell you how to enjoy the sim. I just don't want to do things the same way you do, so i'm asking for a difficulty/realism option that allows us both to get what we want by deciding if we will toggle it on or off.

Again, this is not a thread about what, it's a thread about how: how do we impose some kind of limit on the gamer-pilot's ability to exceed published limits in a way that's not totally artificial and detracting from immersion, while at the same time giving a realistic amount of inconvenience for those of us who choose to overstep the boundaries.

I'm not asking for an artificial limit the likes of "5 minutes plus 1 second of emergency power, sorry your engine's toast". It's exactly what i disliked most about the IL2 engine management in the previous series, with it's resettable overheat timer of 5 minutes: run around at full power, overheat message comes up and you now have 5 minutes before damage occurs, chop throttle and open rads to rapidly cool the engine, the 5 minute timer is reset without damage to the engine, rinse and repeat.

It's too cut and dry, too artificial, completely unrealistic and since it's 100% predictable behaviour it allows us to game the game.

I'm just saying there needs to be a drawback that attempts to simulate what actually happened: it was perfectly possible to exceed the limits with no consequence for a lot of times, then have it bite the pilot in the behind one time out of many.

A good way to do this is Kurfurst's suggestion, because it provides some sort of "continuity of airframe" between sorties. It won't magically prevent me from running +12lbs all day long, it will just make it easier for my engine to suffer damage in subsequent sorties if i do. Throw in a 5% randomization for the relevant parameters and we got a good solution: i can exceed the limits but there's no cut and dry consequence every time, instead there's uncertainty and this enhances gameplay through a heightened sense of thrill and the need for improved tactics that will mitigate the risk of having to engage WEP.

Roll it into a nice option in the realism settings, let server admins chose an accelerated wear and tear model to give us a condensed snapshot of possible engine issues without having to fly a thousand sorties before something interesting happens and we're good to go. If people don't want to use it they join a different server and everyone's happy again.

So please, can we get back on the topic of how to achieve something like this?