4.12.2 de-bugging

[sniperton]

There's a shortkey for changing icon types, default is Ctr-I, IIRC.

[idefix44]

1- At location 47000 54300 is a little village. Its name (Velke Ostratice) is located at 52500 53000.
2- The railroad is broken from Slovenska Lupca to Lucatin at location 121300 67700.

One of the most beautiful map of the game.

Thx.

[Pursuivant]

Back to abusing fighters by flying them badly against bombers. This time it's the Ki-61-II Otsu's turn.

Normally, I wouldn't complain about critical damage to the pilot, cooling systems and engine from the front, since even the best armored Japanese planes weren't armored as well as those in the West, but . . .

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1402964416

Please notice the Aileron Control hit when neither of the two bullets passed anyplace close to the aileron controls or cable runs! That's a definite error in the DM! (While it's blocked by the speech bubble, the tail end of the bullet path gets nowhere near the cable runs.)

Compare this to a 3-view of the actual airplane:

http://airwar.ru/image/idop/fww2/ki61/ki61-2.gif

You'll notice that the aileron cable runs are just ahead of the flaps towards the wing's trailing edge. Bell cranks and so forth are directly beneath the pilot and a bit ahead.

The Pilot Killed result is legitimate - no armor glass on this airplane, and the bullet would have missed the glass anyway.

Both hits were from a Ace Wellington III tail gunner, with two different bursts. Shots were from approximately 250 m against a slightly maneuvering target more or less to the bomber's 6 o'clock. Very impressive shooting, but at least it's not a 600 m sniper shot that penetrates a fuel tank or armored firewall to take out the pilot.

[Pursuivant]

More fighter abuse. This time the victim was a P-39Q-10.

What I intended to demonstrate was the relative difficulty of damaging the nose-mounted guns on the P-39 series, but what I got instead was a nice example of some weird damage modeling I'd previously missed.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1402967321

Notice the fatal bullets in the center of the picture - the first hit just ahead of the air intake, the second just a bit behind it. On the P-39Q, both would be solid engine hits (both were fired from about 150m by yet another Ace AI Wellington III gunner), but rather than showing any sign of engine damage I instead got a massive fire which started instantly after just two bullet hits!

I guess it could happen if a fuel line was severed and sprayed hot fuel on the engine, but it seems weird that there was just fire and not engine problems.

Prior bursts of fire from ahead and below managed to not hit the radiator or oil cooler systems. That was just luck, not bad modeling.

[Baddington_VA]

I guess it could happen if a fuel line was severed and sprayed hot fuel on the engine, but it seems weird that there was just fire and not engine problems.

There is a thread on this P39 problem.
Lots of fire and smoke with no real damage at all.
The P39 has been frowned upon and even banned from missions on some online servers because of this.
There have been and probably always will be pilots that game the system with it.
Using it to feign serious damage and relying on others not wanting to be kill stealers.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Baddington_VA

There is a thread on this P39 problem.
Lots of fire and smoke with no real damage at all.

Yep. But that's a different issue. As you said, the P-39, P-400 and P-63 series are notorious in the game for smoking easily, but not losing power or failing.

In this case, the P-39 was unusual in that it instantly burst into flame after just one or two rifle-caliber bullet hits for no logical reason. But, since it is a P-39, I probably could have flown it for several more minutes with no loss of power to the engine, though!

By contrast, the Alison engine P-40s, which used the same damned engine, are remarkably vulnerable to engine damage - just about any hit will kill or seriously damage them.

What I'm trying to do with my series of screen shots is clearly demonstrate places where existing DM is outright wrong or fails to adequately model armor, armor glass and self-sealing fuel tanks.

[Pursuivant]

More fighter abuse. While the early war Japanese fighters are justifiably modeled as being fragile and flammable, there are a few DM problems.

Here is a picture of some cockpit hits (Ace Wellington III gunners at ~250 m range). While the picture doesn't clearly show it, none of the bullets which penetrated the cockpit touched either the pilot's leg or any part of the joystick, bell-cranks or cable runs for the aileron controls!

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1403386593

I can accept that the DM has to have a bit of "fudging" in it to reflect hits on a moving target such as a pilot, but elevator, aileron and rudder controls mostly stay in one place, so I think that this is a clear case of how the "critical hit zones" for hits to control surfaces are far too big, or are otherwise badly modeled for many planes in the game.

And, here is Exhibit A as to why IL2 gunners are far too hard to kill. The explosion is from a 20mm cannon shell, just a foot from the gunner's head! While the game models shrapnel hits against aircraft and ground targets reasonably well, it obviously doesn't model blast concussion effects against human targets. Realistically, the upper half of the gunner's body should have been reduced to paste.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1403386891

[Notorious M.i.G.]

Originally Posted by Baddington_VA

There is a thread on this P39 problem.
Lots of fire and smoke with no real damage at all.
The P39 has been frowned upon and even banned from missions on some online servers because of this.

I seem to abruptly explode within seconds of engine damage in the P-39. Honestly, I feel much safer in a Ki-43 at this point, given how easily the Cobra becomes a fireball.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Notorious M.i.G.

I seem to abruptly explode within seconds of engine damage in the P-39. Honestly, I feel much safer in a Ki-43 at this point, given how easily the Cobra becomes a fireball.

That doesn't match with my experience. Typically, the P-39/P-400 series is damned near invulnerable to engine damage.

OTOH, I guess that once the engine catches on fire, it explodes fast. Realistically, that seems unlikely given that the fuel tanks and engine on the P-39 were separated (engine in the body, tanks in the wings), but at this point, nothing would surprise me about how crappy the P-39 DM is.

Playing with the P-39D-1, I regularly get unstoppable fuel leaks following just one rifle-caliber bullet hit (i.e., EXACTLY the sort of damage self-sealing fuel tanks were designed to cope with), fuel tank fires following just a couple of rifle-caliber bullet hits from different burst (again, EXACTLY the sort of damage self-sealing fuel tanks are designed to cope with), but near invulnerability to engine damage (despite coolant leaks and smoke) and gun damage.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1403848095

Note two shots right down the barrel of the 20mm cannon, yet the gun keeps on working!

I also get fuel tank leaks even from bullets no place near the tank:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1403847783

Notice leak in starboard side wing fuel tank despite complete absence of nearby bullet hits!

Also, coolant leaks from hits to the engine which are no place near any coolant lines:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1403847783

Kind of a crummy screenshot, but you'll notice that none of the shots is anyplace near the P-39's coolant systems, and the bullet that allegedly holed the engine is at such high deflection that it probably would have missed or ricocheted off of the P-39-D1's engine block.

Not that those coolant leaks do anything, mind you, but if they don't do anything at least TD could make them go away.

Of course, those amazing sniper AI gunners don't make things any easier:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1403847783

"Wonder Woman" view of the opposition shooting at me in a P-39. Note the Ace Wellington III tail gunners shooting and scoring hits at over 600 m range against a small and (somewhat) maneuvering target!

FWIW, I will point out that historically doctrine was for bomber gunners to hold their fire until the enemy got within about 300-500 m because fire beyond that point was ineffective.