Input and Opinions needed

[_486_Col_Wolf]

I was always under the impression that Med Flight Model was more realistic and that Hard Flight Model was there to keep you interested in the sim when things got too easy. Hard F/M also gives you harder to fly conditions when damaged but seemingly too hard. However, it does seem that using Med F/L with normal guns produces hard to kill AI (we've all been shot down by the dreaded fireball that won't crash) and Player A/C that seem too easy to fly when hit. Thinking that "Normal" gun strength was realistic, it produces a problem between normal to fly and hard to kill. Then, I read a reply to a recent post by Shadow Wolf in which he stated "Hard setting is for "tournament play and additional challenge." Medium f/m is the most realistic (except for 1% planes) and you will have better, more realistic handling". This went along with my previous notion about Med and Hard F/M. I also remembered reading somewhere that when using 1% A/C "strong or strongest" guns were indicated.

Now, leaving 1% A/C out of the equation, I began an experiment using Med F/M and "Strong" guns. All other realism settings were left on or at max producing a 90% realism according to the sim. What I found is that this gives you a realistic handling A/C but it also takes more realistic but not devastating flight control damage when hit. Also, enemy A/C take enough damage to not chase you when they are hit bad or are on fire.

My conclusions are that Med F/M along with Strong guns give us the best realism experience for CFS 2. But I would love to see other opinions on this subject.

[Sarg Willy]

Well my own prefferance , is medium for campaignes that I haven,t flown before , but that includes reduced armour settings from all Dp,s , 3-4 second burst of a selected weak area , should produce effect , guns set to normal ,

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Hi:

I read some time ago that MS set up Hard F/M "for additional challenge and [on line] tournament play." I always use Medium F/M as the most "realistic." With my weapons set at the lower setting, I find my bombs, rockets and guns have a more acceptable effect against shipping and ground targets.

[Sarg Willy]

There are options available , to cure the flying fireball , and I bumped into that quite by accident , some one did a great dp
for the B-17-Ai low polley , aircraft , who ever it was , I thank them , testing Frans Von Barron , defence of Bremman ,
boxed formations 15,000 to 20,000 ft of mass bomber formations , using a 109 aircraft intercept , I got 2 for sure , and set 2
on fire , but got riddled by 50 cal , surfaces shot away , went down in a spin , recovered about 2,000 ft and headed back to the airfield , some distance away , the bombers were gone , some four minutes of nursing a damaged 109 , I get window prompt ,
you shot down , B17_Conners, followed by you shot down B17_Able , The 2 I set on Fire , had crashed , now that was an unexpected
bonus , Not by one of the wing men , credits 4 aircraft , Looking at the dp , the engine,s and fuel tank,s , were a repeat ,
type double damage entrée , I still can,t wrap my head around why it took so long , or how the delayed action was arrived at ,

The Zero , I hate a sky full of burning aircraft , and smoke trailers of black every where , Eats up processer , and turns to a slide show , below medium comp , So I reset fire 1 fx to Gas tank , and 1 to engine , and remove all the rest , then reset
the fx_fire to 90 % damage , using less intensive graphics , below that point , Basically your not chasing a zero on fire
at 30 % damage , who can and will shoot you down ,

[_486_Col_Wolf]

Shadow Wolf,

I also remember hearing or reading somewhere about Hard F/M being there for a greater challenge in both CFS 1 and 2. I asked a programmer friend about it and he explained it to me like this: If a sim or any game is too easy, people get bored with it quickly. And if it gets too easy too fast, sequels of the sim or game don't sell as well either. So, it would make sense that MS would make their sims more challenging with the option to use a harder than realistic flight model.

Also, I was unaware that using a stronger gun setting affected bombs and rockets. I always assumed that they had a set strength according to their object DP files and that the gun strength setting only affected machine guns and cannons. Can you confirm this?

I'd like to keep this conversation going guys so please keep the opinions and findings coming. I think we are all interested in getting the most realistic and immersive experience possible. Hell, some of us even get offended when someone refers to CFS as a game instead of a sim LOL.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

_486_Col_Wolf:

"...Also, I was unaware that using a stronger gun setting affected bombs and rockets. I always assumed that they had a set strength according to their object DP files and that the gun strength setting only affected machine guns and cannons. Can you confirm this?..."

I can;t confirm it, I just have observations. When attacking a capital ship - carrier, BB or CA -, they seem to go down easily with as few as 1 hit with weaps set on strong or strongest. Set to normal, it takes more hits, which I feel is more realistic. Imay be wrong, but that is the impression I got.

SW07

[_486_Col_Wolf]

Shadow Wolf,

You may be correct. The setting tab does say "Weapons Effectiveness" not "Gun Effectiveness" indicating that guns as well as bombs and rockets will do more damage if the setting is increased. This means the sim engine is doing one of two things. When either strong or strongest weapons is selected the sim engine is either increasing the damage dice setting across all weapons DP files or lowering the damage effect entries across all DP files. It 's almost impossible to know which without the CFS 2 source code.

However, because I'm still in search of the most realistic settings, I would be OK with bombs and rockets being slightly stronger. So many times I've escorted on bomb runs only to have the bombers destroy only trees because they don't hit the buildings or infrastructure directly. Maybe with stronger bombs hitting close enough will do more damage unless CFS 2 doesn't take blast radius into account.

I'd still like to keep this thread going since so much info is out there. I realize there's probably a lot of people out there rolling their eyes thinking "we've been over this issue of realism time and time again, if you want more move on to IL 2." but please understand my reasons for doing it. I have invested thousands of dollars and hours into my simpit to be used with CFS 2. Moving on to IL 2 with all it's incarnations would not only cost $2000-3000 to update my PC to run it but would also cost so much more money and time to update the simpit.

[TheBookie]

[QUOTE=_486_Col_Wolf,

However, because I'm still in search of the most realistic settings, I would be OK with bombs and rockets being slightly stronger. So many times I've escorted on bomb runs only to have the bombers destroy only trees because they don't hit the buildings or infrastructure directly. Maybe with stronger bombs hitting close enough will do more damage unless CFS 2 doesn't take blast radius into account.
[/QUOTE]

Are these buildings in infrastructures or part of the GSL scenery?It makes a difference what the bombers will attack.

TheBookie

[_486_Col_Wolf]

TheBookie,

Most of the targets are Ettico_EuroTargets and the ones which I created all use destroyable infrastructure elements. Either way, I use a certain building(s) as the attack way point not just the current point.

[TheBookie]

I have been making missions for about 20 years and my bombers have always hit their targets if they are infrastructures,but if they are part of the GSL scenery they will fly by and attack somewhere else.Talon (RIP ) did find a way for the bombers to attack GSL scenery and made a post about it years ago.This is why I asked if the targets were in the GSL Layer.

TheBookie

[Sarg Willy]

Col Wolf , Pen 32 did remake all the bombs and if I,m not mistaken , the rockets too , back when he was a perminant poster ,
here , A bomb blaster pac , that greatly increased blast radious effects , and is certainly worth tracking down , may be 10 years back , the later released weapons , may not be , but Us Jap , Gc, Brit , German , and D-bolt were done , and I think he did a
flack version , but I know I moded that after , to disappear , from screen a bit faster , wind -98 back then ,
The 500 lber skip bomb was another of his usefull creations ,

[The B24 Guy]

Here is part of Pen32Win's read me on his bomb blast package it may be of interest.

AF=Midway Bomb Blast Pak Plus


It’s been awhile, again, since I’ve released anything but sometimes working out the problems in CFS2 takes a lot of time. This one should keep you busy for awhile, it did me. When I began working on this package it started out with the single goal of making the stock Infrastructure harder to destroy with machinegun/cannon fire. By the end of first day I had a bunch of test DP’s for buildings that withstood gunfire realistically but now bombing attacks were totally ineffective! A couple of the buildings took dozens and dozens of bomb hits but were still standing!


Here’s why:
CFS2 creates ground bomb damage in two different ways.
1. A direct hit on the infrastructure item’s DP.
2. A near miss with the bomb striking the ground.


In case 1 the damage value in the bombs DP Gunstation section is used.
A 1000lb bomb looks like this:


([GUNSTATIONS]
gunstation.0=3,21,8,0.00,0,0,0,0,0,0,1d1*10000,0,0 ,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,16000


It delivers 10000 Hit Points to the DP of the object it hits. Pretty simple and straight forward so far. If the bomb/rocket makes a direct hit it acts just like a bullet as far as the target DP is concerned.


Case number 2 is were things get messy. First off there are 4 different “weapon_type”s that cover all of the different bombs. Type 1 is the lightest, like the 30 & 60kg and 250Lb’ers. Type 2 covers the 250kg and 500lb bombs. Type 3 is for the 1000lb bomb and Type 4 is used by the 800kg and 2000lb bombs. Now that that’s clear let’s make mud. When a bomb strikes the ground in CFS2 the program selects one of 3, yes 3 and not 4 FX to trigger. You’d think there would be 4 FX since there are 4 different weapons types, right? Nope. Here’s how things work out. The 3 Effects are the fx_gndexpl_s, m & l. Type 1 bombs use the “s” FX. Type 2 uses the “m” FX and Types 3 & 4 both use the “l” FX. Why does this matter? In CFS2 the AI aircraft do not hit their targeted objects DP unless it is a very large object like the Factories or Hangar Type A Large. They even miss those sometimes. So 97+% of the time when an AI Aircraft is attacking with bombs the resulting damage is caused by the 3 grndexpl FX. And that is what was making CFS2’s ground bomb damage act so erratic and why the ground objects DP were set so low in the number of hit points required to destroy them.


The Stock FX numbers relating to damage they cause look like this:


Small:
Hitpoints=500.00, 600.00
Range=100.00, 200.00


Medium:
Hitpoints=150.00, 200.00
Range=100.00, 200.00


Large:
Hitpoints=2000.00, 2200.00
Range=100.00, 200.00


No, I didn’t paste them out of order and Yes the above numbers match of weapon type is correct. I know this for certain because I added different colored smoke to each of the FX for testing. Just ask my Beta testers how much that freaked them out…LOL OK, these FX are the root of the problem. They don’t match the damage numbers in the weapons DP’s as they should. CFS2 is very good at reproducing a bomb blast radius but they dropped the ball on the FX end and ended up creating wimpy DP’s for the Ground Infrastructure to compensate.


Now the solution! Here are the numbers for the new FX:


Small:
Hitpoints=1000.00, 1500.00
Range=50.00, 75.00


Medium:
Hitpoints=5000.00, 5500.00
Range=90.00, 100.00


Large:
Hitpoints=10000, 20000
Range=100.00, 150.00


Notice how they match up with the different weapon types better? I had to do some fudging with the Large FX because of the lack of a 4th FX for the Type 4 Weapons but it works out well. What these FX do is allow the creation of more realistic Ground Object DP’s without making them indestructible to bombs. BTW, this will also fix the damage done by the AF=Midway Arty Shells and any aircraft that crashes near a building.

Regards,
B24Guy

[_486_Col_Wolf]

I'll definitely look into the bomb pack. Does sound like something worth exploring. In the meantime I would like to bring the discussion back to it's intended purpose. That is, flight model and gun settings that would give you the most realistic feel.

I've done some more mission flying with Med F/M and Strong guns and have found this:

1) Short to medium bursts can down most fighter A/C, bombers take a bit more. If you watch gun camera footage you'll notice it doesn't take a long continuous burst to down A/C in the real world.
2) These settings also make it harder for enemy A/C to continue to fight when badly hit.
3) Moderately damaged player A/C can still make it home but you have to fight it and maybe bug out sooner. Again this is the closest to real as it gets IMHO.

Please experiment on your own and let me know what you find.

[Sarg Willy]

I find using the RDF Tool to modify , wing and wing tip , to neg is a benift to player aircraft , when using reduced armour levels , but the Eai remain , stock , as a hinderance to handeling when shot up , The utilty does not address , the nose damage area , and I address that fact by changing the nose value = 0 to -0 on player aircraft ,
The end result is the player aircraft will still fly effectively , with 10 to 15 bullet hole,s , as long as the damage is spread across different boxes , but 5-to 10 bullets to a specific box , will put you in limp in mode , if not bail out ,
Cannon,s of course is a different pitch , 1 in a weak spot , any control cable , pilot , is termination , The dead pilot ,
will end with break ,#elevator , break #rudder ,

[_486_Col_Wolf]

I've just finished editing all of my A/C dp files to reflect the correct gun parameters laid out in the DPED121's ARMSDAT file. This is bringing everything closer to the real world feel. Still using Med F/M and Strong Guns.