ZaltysZ

Different fuel levels?

Take offs and landings with Dora requires subtle corrections and overcorrection quickly leads to disaster. Nothing to difficult, however this is true only for high FPS. I have successfully taken off from second try in SP, but crashed first 8 or so times in MP just because I had 25 FPS at runway. 40 FPS takeoffs are very relaxing, 25 FPS take offs feels like old school undercontrol/overcontrol mess created by flying with keyboard. I wonder if others having problems with take off also suffer from low FPS.

Mostly no. Trim is like a little helping hand which adds a force of desired direction to control surface. It can help you pull/push more once your hand strength (virtual one) becomes a limiting factor and nothing more. This translate to smaller turn mainly in cases when aircraft controls become very heavy at high speeds, then nose up trim allows to pull a bit more Gs. No point to use that with P51/FW as they have light controls: you can't even fully pull the stick in turn without stalling them. Adding nose up trim would only make it stall with less deflected stick, and turn radius would still be the same.

No one is going to use raytracing in game. 0.3 FPS just won't do it. For now. :) The point is there is 3D model, and it can be used in 3DS MAX (or whatever ED uses) to get the image how the bar looks from cockpit when refraction is taken into account. No need to run around museums asking permission for getting into cockpit and taking photos. Just take the already modeled cockpit, add refractive material to windscreen, put a camera in front of it and render. :)

There is an easy way. Most large 3D modeling/rendering software products have an ability to do raytracing rendering. Ask ED's 3D artist, who created Dora cockpit, to do few renders with correct geometry, but with windscreen having refraction index of 1 and refraction index of 1.5 (glass) or so. That should not take lots of his time. Then the effects of refraction can be easily observed.

I wonder if the same was true for Antons. Maybe lack of nose up trim is Dora specific, due to different engine and longer nose. After all Dora wasn't designed from scratch.

"Files are still being uploaded. Wait a few hours."

That was shot with wide angle camera, which has large FOV and crunches more visible stuff into a frame. Same effect (better sense of speed) can be achieved in game by increasing FOV (zooming out).

Indeed, it is funny. If I wanted to avoid it, I would simply skip that. :doh: I marked it red, because I wanted to highlight the part where the exception/biggest difference would be achieved (according to authors) by changing the method. "Little effect" isn't synonym for "boost". :smilewink: How they would use that is irrelevant. They didn't ask me, and I didn't tell them. You asked for an opinion, and you got one. Nor do I. However, there is a problem with the reasoning chain in this thread. It is taken that X German shells of 20mm is required to down a fighter, and then this number is used to calculate the amount of .50 bullets required by using ratio validated in that book/site. The problems: 1) 20mm ammo type is unknown 2) power of shells, which has lots of explosives is understated in that book/site. This means, that one must be very careful with such conversions. Then begin differentiating ammo types. Stop using just 151/20, because there is huge difference what different 20mm shells for that gun can do. If it is API or HEI-T, then maybe 3.5 ratio is OK, but if it is Minengeschosspatron, which has x8 more explosives than 20mm HEI-T, then such ratio is hardly believable, because it not just about larger caliber anymore, but about lots of explosives too. As I said before, Minengeschosspatrone was designed to penetrate the skin and then explode causing damage to skin and internal structure. If target is of stressed skin/monocoque design, skin carries lots of structural load and punching large holes in it can be fatal.

I don't like such broad comparisons in context of "of how much it takes to down a fighter", because they tend to treat aircraft as monolithic target with hitpoints. In addition, there are different ammo types involved, which can make it look like comparing apples to oranges. I.e. even if it is possible to treat MG151/20 API round as upsized M2 round, what to do with Minengeschosspatrone, which is basically a small grenade (18g of PETN) designed to explode under the stressed skin of aircraft? The only reasonable thing without going into very complex modelling, is comparing statistical data, i.e. pilot accounts or ammo spent per target downed. I have opinion, which is based on memoirs, that steady 1-2s burst with 6x.50 was enough for a kill. It is a lot of bullets, but such amount is "enough for a kill", and not necessary "needed for a kill". Note that this site http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm belongs to the same Williams and it says: Their ducks might be in a row, but that row is still unordered and they acknowledge that.

That site is brought up once in a while on various WWII sim forums, but the problem is it contains data obtained through very crude calculations. They were done on the basis of: muzzle velocity, diameter, mass of projectile, and percentage of HE/incendiaries. Such things as projectile shape, penetrator material, explosives used, incendiary compounds used, fusing were not taken into account. Authors agree that shells with high HE content have understated destructive power.

Despite lots of people complaining about superskinned FW, I find concentrated fire easily causing fatal structural damage to it. Structure is probably divided into blocks whose integrity is expressed via hitpoints. The problem might be that single .50 takes only fraction of hitpoints, and there is no much difference between blocks having (let's say) 100% hitpoints and 5% hitpoints left. So, if you spread the damage, you just end up with target, which has soaked lots of bullets, but still flies like new. AI FW is simplified, it might get finer damage modeling once flyable FW is released, however I don't think things will change revolutionary. In fact, my experience with P51 in MP tells me, that you can't hope crippling the target via structure damage. It either fatal damage via concentrated fire or damage to systems (i.e. damaged engine and so on).

3D artists often do not understand such issues well. Producers too. They usually pull the blueprints card and declare that geometry is correct, however there are more things than geometry to consider here. In this case, the refraction, which changes how that correct geometry looks. Unfortunately, even if explained extensively such things are often brushed off as minor issues. These issues might look minor at first, but once you get a descent opponent, they begin imposing obvious limits on how you do the combat. FW does not have much luxury to get on the tails of more maneuverable Spitfires or Soviet fighters, and do steady G shooting. In fact, it is dangerous for FW to do that, as it might cost too much energy. Instead, FW's workhorse are high speed, high angle slashing attacks. FW is kinda built for that: good control response at high speeds, heavy armament. However, one must predict the trajectory of target pretty well, and his success depends heavily on how well he can track the target. Let target slip into blindspot and it easily ruins whole attack. Issues with framing and the "bar" unrealistically add even more blindspots, and people hate that, because the way they have to fight is affected directly. Lots of people get big huff, because the "bar" issue has something like a decade long history. There was a "bar", which obstructed lower part of view through Revi in old IL2. People went on crusade explaining this to devs, then went on crusade for getting a fix, but it was only fixed past the peak of sim by mods and TD team. Some veterans even have PTSD, and have ugly flashbacks when they hear about the "bar" now. Unfortunately, history likes to repeat itself. Lots of people had pretty painful facepalm as they got the "bar" in IL2: Battle of Stalingrad last week (http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/uploads/monthly_07_2014/post-7693-0-29729100-1406287299.jpg). It is understandable after decade long crusades. It is also understandable they they feel anxious when they see any hints about getting it wrong in DCS too.

Judging by screenshots we are not going to get yet another submarine. :pilotfly:

Nah, they won't care about running ponies, unless they run out of bombers to shoot at. :D

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=125452

1) learn moving stick quickly, but smoothly. Avoid jerking it or moving in steps. Concentrate on "smoothly" part, and the "quickly" will come in time. 2) Don't let your hand aggressively chase your mind. I consider air combat to be a slow game due to lots of inertia. You usually already know that you did something wrong even before it turns out badly for you. I.e. you bounce the enemy and you see that bounce will fail because the angle is wrong, speed is misjudged, target reacted and so on. Mind of novice sees something is wrong, but it misses the point that it is already too late, so it lets the hand to correct what it thinks is wrong (i.e. angle). This causes aggressive last minute corrections involving energy loss and even stalls. If you think something will be wrong, it is already wrong, so resist the urge for aggressive correction and begin planning what you will do further. 3) practice sharp turns at varying speeds. Remember tip #1. If you do it smoothly, you will have opportunity to get visual stall warning. In time you will build memory of how much you can safely pull. 4) learn the elevator reversal phenomenon of P51. You need to recognize the moment P51 begins to pull more Gs than you want and you need to ease on the stick. Minimize the time you are flying slowly. More airflow = better cooling. P51 cools quickly in a dive. 1) Gyro sight have huge constraints. It needs a cooperative target as it only tells truth at matching Gs in the same motion of plane. It was titled the "ace maker", but the truth is even mediocre pilot mind is superior to it for snap shots in out of plane maneuvers. If you are pulling you hair when using gyro, try a fixed sight - it is not so hard as you might think. 2) Don't walk the tracers to the target. Cease fire if your aim is off greatly, correct, shoot again. 3) It is better to aim too much in front of target in a turn, when too much in back of it, if you are attacking a better turner. In the first case you will fire, ease on the stick and allow the target to fly into the stream of bullets. In the second case you will have either pull while firing or cease fire and reaim - all of that can become impossible once a better tuner reacts to your first missed shots.

Probably the point is to move CoG forward as quickly as possible.

Stick good enough engine to the brick and it will eat aerodynamic wonders for breakfast. :D

If you stop after the turn, you will need to apply opposite rudder and give a brief surge of power, then lock the wheel after the aircraft jumps forward a bit. Don't be afraid of going to sides of taxi way, because you will soon have opportunity to correct that with steerable tailwheel.

770 OC 4GB

It doesn't. Don't forget that there is no bilateral integration of ABRIS. ABRIS knows about satellites and can read helicopter systems, but nor helicopter systems know about ABRIS, nor ABRIS can affect them. INU isn't corrected by satellite data, it is corrected by using preset correction points. There would be some interesting consequences if INU drift was modeled and pilot did not do correction: a) autopilot would drift away from correct route in route following mode b) if targets were received via d-link, Shkval would be autopointed to them with errors, same would happen with preplanned or newly created target points. c) there can only be 4 correction points and they can only be set in mission editor. You can't do corrections wherever you want, and this means that you may need to retreat considerable distance from targets just to do coordinate correction. d) Drift is proportional to rate and duration of motions. Aggressive flying would probably make the need for corrections more frequent.

This was sad thing in BS1, and it is even sadder in BS2, because this lack of drift takes away some things which would be mandatory in MP with human ground commander/FAC.

Works fine here.