FWs Durabillity

[Furio]

Originally Posted by IceFire

My perspective on this has changed over time but I honestly think that everyone is making some good... no... excellent points! But this may be a case of missing the forest for the trees. The damage model has been adjusted a half dozen times over the years in an attempt to make things work. The FW190 has been one of the harder ones to get right - for whatever reason.

I suspect a variety of reasons but I think the big one staring us all right in the face is that the simulation is just not complex enough.

I think it's pretty good right now - having seen some of the worst adjustments over the years. It's not super or even great but its ok and maybe mucking around with it would only make things worse.

Or, possibly, a simplification could be the answer. Generally speaking, all WWII types were very susceptible to battle damage. Yes, I know: rifle calibre machine guns were largely ineffective, and some types were able to absorb a lot of damage and return home, but that’s exactly the point: they returned home, being unable to press on combat and reach their target.

Any fighter, not just the FW190, with a 20 mm. shot in a wing or in the engine became unfit for combat.

A possible improvement (I don’t dare to say “solution”) could be to use a single damage model, with simple tweaking. An armoured engine (Il2) should resist more than an unarmoured radial, a radial engine more than a liquid cooled one. A metal wing should resist a little more than a wooden one. An unprotected fuel tank should catch fire more easily than a self-sealing one. Pilot protection with armour plates and glass should be taken in account, but that’s all. Three, four variables at most for airframe, fuel tank, engine and crew.

It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would avoid seriously “porked planes”.
To complement this simplification, an effective “return to base” routine for damaged planes should be implemented. Here also I’m not talking of complicated calculations. Any plane with serious damage should immediately quit combat and RTB.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Furio

Any fighter, not just the FW190, with a 20 mm. shot in a wing or in the engine became unfit for combat.

Generally, this is already the case. In a dogfight a single 20mm shot in the wing or engine will put you at enough of a disadvantage that it's time to find a way to disengage.

Originally Posted by Furio

A possible improvement (I don’t dare to say “solution”) could be to use a single damage model, with simple tweaking.

I'd love to see this, since it would simplify DM production and would settle a number of arguments about whether a particular plane is "nerfed" or "uber".
Maybe it's already in place, and we peasants don't know about it.

Base "hit points" for airframe parts on aircraft empty mass, minus mass of engines and fuel tanks, divided by surface area of that part. (Surface area is easily determined in a 3D modeling program.) Modify as necessary.

Similar formulas could be used to get basic HP for engines/coolant/turbocharger systems & fuel tanks/lines.

Damage modeling to humans would be a bit more complex, but unless you get hit by shrapnel or a 3.03/.30 caliber/7.62 mm bullet you're going to be seriously wounded at best, most likely dead. That simplifies things a lot!

Originally Posted by Furio

Pilot protection with armour plates and glass should be taken in account, but that’s all.

IL2 already does a great job of modeling armor/armor glass. And, I believe that it actually works on real ballistic calculations of bullet energy vs. armor thickness, which makes it more accurate than any simplified model based on "hit points."

Originally Posted by Furio

To complement this simplification, an effective “return to base” routine for damaged planes should be implemented. Here also I’m not talking of complicated calculations. Any plane with serious damage should immediately quit combat and RTB.

In Arcade Mode, a "speech bubble" pops up over the damaged aircraft when it takes enough damage that it should RTB. It actually reads "RTB". For the life of me, I can't understand why that calculation hasn't yet made it into the AI programming!

So simple. Enough damage to trigger RTB message in arcade mode = actual freakin' AI RTB routine!