Damage Model update?

Hey Folks,

does anyone know when the Damage Model from the WW2 (Mustang/Dora) birds gets fixed? Is there anything official referring to this problem?

Thanks for your answers

No timeline has been given.

Ok Thanks for the Quick answer

I wish that we got the good DMs right from the begining.

They seem too simplistic for DCS. I'd like to see this, when I fire my guns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLxI6kW7bFU

This is currently the most glaring issue.

I hope it will be a priority after edge is released.

I believe it is only fair to assume that any improvements are set for the new engine now and it would be kind of a waste of time to implament them in the outgoing one.

Yup. Improved damage models are a must if the developers are serious about the ww2 route.

Yonks ago I emailed Oleg on a damage detection method that could go down to 1mm , without too much CPU/FPU/GPU costs. - I never got a reply :)

Maybe he was to busy or the postbox got clogged up.

Would you like me to resend it to you guys ?

I must rebuild the diagrams again, but this is no problem

:)

Hey Folks,

does anyone know when the Damage Model from the WW2 (Mustang/Dora) birds gets fixed? Is there anything official referring to this problem?

Thanks for your answers

can you give some details on what the damage model problems are in DCS for ww2 aircraft ( or links to threads where this is discussed in detail), and is this a problem specific to the DCS ww2 aircraft or all of their aircraft ? (as well as buildings and ground vehicles ?)

and is this problem a lack of visually detail in the damage to the ww2 aircraft being modeled, or is it a lack of precision in location (and effect ?) to specific aircraft structure/systems and the effect it has on flight models and aircraft systems.

Much of it is visual that needs work.

I don't think it is way far off on the DM except in the case of control surfaces never seem to be affected much and there are way too many governor failures or gunsights lost instead of other visual clues to damage. It would great to see Mustangs lose tail function or ailerons instead of flying around like the 20s did nothing to them. I think the Dora's damage model seems to be alot more detailed than the Mustangs. I've lost gauges, generators, ailerons, and slowly had my engine die in the Dora.

I don't expect much on any of this until after Edge but hopefully soon after. The WWII portion of DCS seems ready to explode with just a few improvements to DM, added Ai(ground/air) and maps.

I don't think it is way far off on the DM except in the case of control surfaces never seem to be affected much and there are way too many governor failures or gunsights lost instead of other visual clues to damage. It would great to see Mustangs lose tail function or ailerons instead of flying around like the 20s did nothing to them. I think the Dora's damage model seems to be alot more detailed than the Mustangs. I've lost gauges, generators, ailerons, and slowly had my engine die in the Dora.

 

I don't expect much on any of this until after Edge but hopefully soon after. The WWII portion of DCS seems ready to explode with just a few improvements to DM, added Ai(ground/air) and maps.

++++

Visual improvements are important and needed, but the near invulnerability of the control surfaces to even sustained rear attack should be addressed. There are many accounts of aircraft surviving a ton of dead-six fire, but not with intact surfaces.

I've had several head to head off-angle passes where I was able to put a burst into the front cowling of my opponent (both player and AI), and the planes lit up instantly, or at least the engine immediately stopped functioning. I've also had plenty of catastrophic hits with very few rounds in high-angle shots against the roof or belly. It's the dead six that needs the most work.

yep, it depends but on what ?

yesterday i hit a 190 several times and it smoked dark black but flew about half an hour without any sign of engine failure or loosing power.

On the other hand it seems pretty easy to clip the wing of the 190 ! I hit one and it looses left wing...than shoot at right wing and it also fall off...lol.

here near the end of the vid....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCJkneMT5gc

i smell the DM is from my old LockOn without any changes for these WW2 dogfight battles. sure for these modern rockets or high effective guns you dont need to create a complicated DM...if a rocket hit you dead, nearly the same with new canons.

But with WW2 planes we definately need muuch detailed damage model !

Loosing fuel is implemented but loosing cooling liquid i dont know ?

I never had a damage in my cockpitglass or a gauge.

yes and as a crown on all i like to choose my own rounds in the gun belt. i know the cal. 50 has perhaps only 2 different shells ? but for the german planes there are a few more.

ok, a changeable 20mm and 30mm gun in 109 would be nice first.

Much of it is visual that needs work.

It seems 50/50.

Visual representation needs much work. What is needed:

1. Sparks and scraps of metal when the plane is hit with MG and HMG.

Explosion and more scraps from hits of 20mm and 30mm cannons.

2. Hit animation should be smooth and effects should dissapear quite quickly, instead of lingering in the air.

3. There should be a visual represenation of coolant, fuel and hudralic leaks. and loss of all of them should have effects.

4. Fire should come from places that were actually lit on fire. Right now you can overspeed and loose a wing in P-51... when it does you "catch" fire on the wing tips. It should only occure in fuel tanks and engine. Not from wing tips.(and only from GUN FIRE) Dora looks better, but P-51 still is just... ughhhh...

5. Fire textrue should be smaller and more smoke should be visible, less fire. Now it looks like a Rocket plane that got through atmoshere.

But there are other DM issues:

1. Weapons cannot damage control surfaces. You can damage them by hitting the ground or overspeeding, but never by MG or Cannon bullets from another plane. (at least in the P-51, I saw some stabiliser parts fly off Dora, but never an alerion or elevator or rudder)

2. Whole feuselage seems as a body that has some Health Points. After enough number of hits it will start burning. It doesn't matter if you shoot at the fuel tank or just the tail.

3. Weapons system failures are just too frequent. Everytime you get hit somewhere near your guns you loose them.

4. You cannot feel the impact the guns are making on the plane. They seem to just hit its FORCE FIELD and do damage to component HP instead of actually hiting the airframe with physical impacts.

Those are some things that I have observed.:joystick:

++++

 

 

I've had several head to head off-angle passes where I was able to put a burst into the front cowling of my opponent (both player and AI), and the planes lit up instantly, or at least the engine immediately stopped functioning. I've also had plenty of catastrophic hits with very few rounds in high-angle shots against the roof or belly. It's the dead six that needs the most work.

Just a few days ago i put 8 20mm, and 8 13mm into a Mustang's engine in a head-on pass. (checked it in the mission log, and also in the replay). IRL one of those 20mm would have definitely killed the engine (not damaged - killed!), in game the Mustang didn't even have visual damage on the engine, nor had it any performance setbacks. Kept flying like nothing had happened. Haven't seen a worse/more unrealistic DM behavior in any "Flight Sim" from the last 15 years..

I really hope this gets adressed in the not-to-far future...

Otherwise you just can't take the WW2 part of the DCS "Sim" serious. :noexpression:

Just a few days ago i put 8 20mm, and 8 13mm into a Mustang's engine in a head-on pass. (checked it in the mission log, and also in the replay). IRL one of those 20mm would have definitely killed the engine (not damaged - killed!), in game the Mustang didn't even have visual damage on the engine, nor had it any performance setbacks. Kept flying like nothing had happened. Haven't seen a worse/more unrealistic DM behavior in any "Flight Sim" from the last 15 years..

I really hope this gets adressed in the not-to-far future...

Otherwise you just can't take the WW2 part of the DCS "Sim" serious. :noexpression:

AI?

AI?

yes, why? Are you telling me next, that they don't use the same model? :ermm:

yes, why? Are you telling me next, that they don't use the same model? :ermm:

Correct. AI cheats.

fighting AI is complete nonsense, you hit them and they fly away like rockets back home...now chance to reach them even when heavy damaged and smoke all around; forget AI planes ! they maneauver at speeds were your own stall.

Fighting human players is the only way to go and compare the DCS flight and damage model.

I don't care for any visual damage at this moment.

I do care about the DM specially the penetration model that I think is the problem on this engine.

But as someone said, I don't think this should addressed if the simulator is moving to a newer one.

Guys, during the Kickstarter campaign Yo-Yo (of ED) stated that he would like to get on with serious overhaul or a rewrite of the DM. So it seems it's all a matter of resources.

Here's a link to his post

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1743991&postcount=2

:thumbup:

3. There should be a visual representation of coolant, fuel and hudralic leaks. and loss of all of them should have effects.

Agreed. I do not think I have ever seen an aircraft fail to loss of coolant or oil- unless, perhaps, those are represented by one of those damage states where the engine instantly dies. But of those times that the engine eventually dies after damage, there was no discernible fluid leaks leading up to it.

4. Fire should come from places that were actually lit on fire. Right now you can overspeed and loose a wing in P-51... when it does you "catch" fire on the wing tips. It should only occure in fuel tanks and engine. Not from wing tips.(and only from GUN FIRE) Dora looks better, but P-51 still is just... ughhhh...

Absolutely. And not just the visual model, either... you should have fire (and the damage resulting from it) if you hit a location that bears fuel.... or, in the case of cannon ammunition, a hit should have a decent chance to detonate the ammo.

1. Weapons cannot damage control surfaces. You can damage them by hitting the ground or overspeeding, but never by MG or Cannon bullets from another plane. (at least in the P-51, I saw some stabiliser parts fly off Dora, but never an alerion or elevator or rudder)

Kind of. I have seen visual representation of damage on ailerons (on the Mustang, anyhow), to include loss of an entire aileron. Thing is, anything short of the loss of an entire control surface seems to have next to no effect.

2. Whole feuselage seems as a body that has some Health Points. After enough number of hits it will start burning. It doesn't matter if you shoot at the fuel tank or just the tail.

This isn't true; the fuselage in the Mustang (and I'm sure the Dora is very similar) is broken into an empennage (tail), left and right mid-fuselage, canopy, and engine bay... possibly also broken into left and right sides. The spinner is another section, as are each propellor blade.

HOWEVER, the fact remains that the aircraft is broken into "hit boxes", rather than actual components. This is actually an important enough part of the problem that I will make a separate post in detail.

3. Weapons system failures are just too frequent. Everytime you get hit somewhere near your guns you loose them.

Yes and no. Keep in mind that if a bullet or fragment hits EVEN ONE cartridge in the ammo belt, it will bend/ deform the cartridge case, which will then jam in the breech of the gun. HOWEVER, the gun shouldn't actually jam until it GETS to that round. If the damaged round is the 153rd in the belt, you should still be able to fire 152 rounds before it jams. That's not how it works now; it INSTANTLY jams.

4. You cannot feel the impact the guns are making on the plane. They seem to just hit its FORCE FIELD and do damage to component HP instead of actually hiting the airframe with physical impacts.

I very much doubt you would feel anything smaller than a 30mm HE impact. Keep in mind that you're flying a 5-7,000 pound aircraft with a LOT of airflow over the control surfaces. a 1/14th of a pound .50 isn't going to deliver very much inertia transfer compared to the inertia of the airframe... particularly if it just goes in-and-out through thin aluminum skin that offers very little resistance to penetration. That bullet is only depositing a small fraction of it's energy into the aircraft.

Just a few days ago i put 8 20mm, and 8 13mm into a Mustang's engine in a head-on pass. (checked it in the mission log, and also in the replay). IRL one of those 20mm would have definitely killed the engine (not damaged - killed!), in game the Mustang didn't even have visual damage on the engine, nor had it any performance setbacks. Kept flying like nothing had happened. Haven't seen a worse/more unrealistic DM behavior in any "Flight Sim" from the last 15 years..

I really hope this gets adressed in the not-to-far future...

Otherwise you just can't take the WW2 part of the DCS "Sim" serious. :noexpression:

It's not limited to one side: I cannot count the number of times I have hit the Dora in the engine bay with .50 cal (which should ALSO kill the engine with a single hit to the engine block) only to watch it pull away from me easily at 350-400 mph.

Or, for that matter, the amount of times that I have put a sustained (2-4 second) burst into the cockpit area of a Dora, particularly from the side or beneath, that did not kill the pilot.

yep, it depends but on what ?

yesterday i hit a 190 several times and it smoked dark black but flew about half an hour without any sign of engine failure or loosing power.

On the other hand it seems pretty easy to clip the wing of the 190 ! I hit one and it looses left wing...than shoot at right wing and it also fall off...lol.

here near the end of the vid....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCJkneMT5gc

 

i smell the DM is from my old LockOn without any changes for these WW2 dogfight battles. sure for these modern rockets or high effective guns you dont need to create a complicated DM...if a rocket hit you dead, nearly the same with new canons.

But with WW2 planes we definately need muuch detailed damage model !

Loosing fuel is implemented but loosing cooling liquid i dont know ?

I never had a damage in my cockpitglass or a gauge.

yes and as a crown on all i like to choose my own rounds in the gun belt. i know the cal. 50 has perhaps only 2 different shells ? but for the german planes there are a few more.

 

ok, a changeable 20mm and 30mm gun in 109 would be nice first.

I think the Dora engine damage is pretty well modeled. I don't have an instant engine death usually but depending on the damage a quick or slow death. I've lost coolant pressure, oil pressure, and engine governors which led to a dead engine. If you notice that the Dora pilot isn't climbing anymore or pulling sharp turns his engine is probably dying. They last longer in straight lines or in a dive.

Player Mustang engines seem to be modeled pretty well also and its definitely my preferred way of bringing down a pony. Keep doing those head-ons Mustangs. Tip for Dora pilots-approach from slightly higher and at a offset angle to the right or left. Put your sight on the tip of the nose of the Mustang and let her rip all the way down the side of the aircraft. Usually you will kill the engine in less than a minute and sometimes get a pilot kill. The hardest way to currently kill a Mustang is to shoot at its wings or from behind. If your a good gunner on an unsuspecting Mustang you can finish them in one run but like someone else said it seems to have a hit point thing going on with the tail and body of the plane.

I've never had gauges crack but I have had them stop working(Dora). For some reason you can sometimes see windscreen damage on the outside or bailing out but never during normal flight.

Ok, so, here's what I see as the biggest problem with the damage model: it only tracks hits versus the SKIN of the aircraft, not against internal components.

That is to say, it appears to track the trajectory of the projectile right up until it makes contact with the hit box of the aircraft (which seems to be tied to the skin of the 3D model).

Different areas of that skin are tied to different damage effects... but not very well.

The problem is that what this results in are hits that SHOULD result in more damage, but do not. This is particularly true for AP/ API/ solid shot projectiles; it's not so bad for HE. An example: I am on dead-astern of a FW190D9, and fire a API bullet. The bullet strikes the rudder. In DCS, that bullet does damage to the rudder, AND STOPS. It does damage only to the rudder. In reality, at the angle I shot, that bullet should go through the rudder, go through the tailplane, go through the top of the rear fuselage behind the canopy, go through the pilot seat, and stop in the fuel tank or 20mm ammo bin. The failure to track penetrating damage is a major failure. It means that hits which SHOULD go through major key components, instead are adjudicated as minor hits. This has screwed me over many times, I have put shots into the fuselage in the belly area just below the cockpit, or hit the side of the cockpit, just beneath the canopy rim. Since DCS adjudicates those hits as a "fuselage" hit rather than "cockpit" hits (which appear to be tied only to the canopy itself), it makes it almost impossible to kill the pilot.

Also, the "hit box on the skin" method misses on internal trajectories that don't always give the same effect, dependent on angle of entry. For example, if I fire at a 90-degree angle-off-tail (directly above) an aircraft, and hit the wing root near the rear with an AP round, that bullet will pass in-and-out of the wing leaving no damage worse than a half-inch hole on either side. On the other hand, if I am shooting a 5-degree angle-off-tail (almost dead astern), and the bullet hits at that exact same point of entry, the bullet will instead pass through the wing lengthwise, likely blowing right through the main wing spar (possibly snapping it), and the entry and exit holes will be long, oblique tears, rather than clean round holes.

Angle of impact matters. Interior trajectory matters

SO. DCS needs to track bullet damage not by where it hits the skin, but rather, where the bullet goes through the interior of the aircraft. They NEED to track at least the location of major components: fuel tank, ammunition bins (particularly for HE cannon weapons, whose ammunition had a tendency to detonate when hit), pilot, engine, radiators.