Realistic Reliability? Another possible checkmark?

The biggest problem with non-damage related failures (i.e. things just failing because it's "their time") is that they are so incredibly rare that it is absolutely not worth the developer's time. The mean time between failures for most components in the thousands of hours, meaning that if you play the game 20 hours per week, it could take you several years to see a single failure. For such a small, tiny, indeed infinitesimal probability of occurrence, I would be personally offended that the developers did not spend more time developing something more immediate, such as the AI, the mission editor, and maybe even a dynamic campaign.

Try to dustblowing with dust cyclones off. You will be surprised.

After posting about that easlier, I tried to do exactly that. I've been sucking dust for 5 to 10 minutes, but the engines didn't fail. Although I think the average temp went up just a little bit.

One thing I noticed doing that is that when you set down or hover over dirt, the blown up dust eventually disappears, like the surface is blown clean! Had to move a bit to get the dust back. I thought that was neat.

Being an old il2 mission builder, and learning to be one with BS, i would say that in single player i would leave random failures outside of missions, since the failures in BS are critical, and any of them could mean a RTB loosing the oportunity to have a succesfull mission.

Multiplayer is another issue, because you usually have more "aircrafts" that those really needed, like in real life, since aircrafts, or helicopter, are subject to have failures, and that would result with the aircraft leaving the mission, but the flight can still acomplish the objective. That's one of the reasons of why you usually assign extra or back up units to the same objective.

In anyway, probability of failure should be very low, and i use no more than 3% of probability, but still think that the editor should allow failures below 1%, to become more realistic, specially for the critical failures that we have now.

Still i would love to have less critical failures, to make some missions more challenging, like loosing ABRIS, or HUD, laser, or any other instrument or avionic system.

Because i'm a very evil person, i'm drooling imagining making a mission where you have to manually enter on the ABRIS the objectives and waypoints of the entire flightplan and later on make you loose the ABRIS, so you must rely on your kneemap, printed fligh plant, and memory to acomplish the mission, like you should in real life. :D

The biggest problem with non-damage related failures (i.e. things just failing because it's "their time") is that they are so incredibly rare that it is absolutely not worth the developer's time. The mean time between failures for most components in the thousands of hours, meaning that if you play the game 20 hours per week, it could take you several years to see a single failure. For such a small, tiny, indeed infinitesimal probability of occurrence, I would be personally offended that the developers did not spend more time developing something more immediate, such as the AI, the mission editor, and maybe even a dynamic campaign.

Agree. But even DCS being a simulation, it's also a game (I know purists will not like this) and things may be "spiced up" to make it more interesting, so time between failures could be decreased. Also, the mean time between a Ka50 pilot getting to shot at a tank is very long, if it ever happens (please, no political considerations here, not the purpose of the post), and we get to kill tanks, apcs and other helos every single day.

What I was saying is that if we know that the system is going to work every time in the simulation, then checking it is useless and people will eventually not do it. The simulation becomes more a game than a simulation.

I have no idea how difficult is from the depeloping point of view to implement such minor failures and I definitely would prefer a better AI, ME, dynamic campaign and collidable trees (you missed that last one AlphaOneSix:D). But I suspect that making the laser detector, the fuel or temp needles not work, the chaff dispenser not show 990 and not dispense chaffs shouldn't be that resource intensive and will definitely add to the rigour of a study simulator as DCS is.

my 2 cents

The biggest problem with non-damage related failures (i.e. things just failing because it's "their time") is that they are so incredibly rare that it is absolutely not worth the developer's time.

While I agree with every other thing you said, in my experience there is quite often something non-mission-critical that is U/S on military aircraft. Furthermore, helos aren't hospitable environments for anything that doesn't like constant vibration. In a warzone, where aircraft are being shot at and supply lines are stretched, I imagine that it's quite common to make a value judgement before you launch to accept faults with the aircraft.

As I said, I agree that there are more important things to work on, but if any military helo went even a hundred flight hours without something lighting up or going U/S, the maintenance crews would be given medals.

So, what is your personal experience with military aviation and maintenance hours compared to on-mission-flight hours, ruprecht?

there is quite often something non-mission-critical that is U/S on military aircraft.

Absolutely (that's why I "protect" myself with the "most components" statement!). There seems to be an implication that every single item on the aircraft should be subject to breakage, and that is where I strongly disagree. There are lots of things that do break all the time, but the developers have to ask themselves what would add to the experience for a hardcore simmer, and what would just be a nuisance. I think the things that would most add to the experience are already in the game.

if any military helo went even a hundred flight hours without something lighting up or going U/S, the maintenance crews would be given medals.

I got a medal during Desert Storm for my aircraft going just 19 hours without a failure. :D

So, what is your personal experience with military aviation and maintenance hours compared to on-mission-flight hours, ruprecht?

Peacetime only, so I'm not claiming to have any knowledge of combat statistics, but I would say that every 10th sortie there would be something noncritical in the maintenance book, or we'd get a chip light or something. This is based on OH-58, UH-1H, AS350BA and S-70A-9 which, in the former two's case, are admittedly old aircraft.

Interesting. How many mission-critical failures would that be to your estimate?

I mean, if my port-wing position light fails, my tire needs to be replaced or my cigarette-lighter is broken, that wouldn't stop me from dropping a bomb.

You also wouldn't model these, of course, but your estimates of the critical failures would help setting realistic failure rates in DCS.

Ruprecht - are you still serving?

Sounds like you have spent some time in sunny Oakey.

Yeap :) Haven't flown for real in over a decade though. Miss the flying, but not the military nonsense ;)

This is certainly something I'd like to see implemented eventually (although not at the cost of something more important/useful).

I can only speak for the aircraft types I've worked with but I'd say on average there is 'something' U/S after a sortie at least 50% of the time. Most of those are minor such as a guage not reading correctly/at all or a system that while 'working' isn't working properly (radar giving false/noisey returns is a prime example). It's very rare for more vital/major systems to go down, for example we've never had a engine failure on Typhoon since it entered service nearly 4 years ago.

What I was saying is that if we know that the system is going to work every time in the simulation, then checking it is useless and people will eventually not do it. The simulation becomes more a game than a simulation.

You simulate flying back with a stuck master arm switch - more power to you. If you waste my time with this sillyness instead of combat however, I'll have you paying my wages ;)

In short ... you won't add rigor. You'll add annoyance, and even you'll find yourself turning those features off eventually, when you realise that they are waste of your time.

If you waste my time with this sillyness instead of combat however, I'll have you paying my wages ;).

Not sure what you meant. But let's leave it here...

In short ... you won't add rigor. You'll add annoyance, and even you'll find yourself turning those features off eventually, when you realise that they are waste of your time.

I disagree, but you might be right. Please note that at all times it was mentioned that this was not a high priority thing.

Keep up the good work!!

Don't take my post to be particularly hostile - just laying out my opinion on this: If I'm playing a combat flight sim, I'm not flying it to handle in-flight emergencies that are not generated by combat or my own lack of flying skill.

I can run some SP missions to learn how to handle emergencies, mostly to deal with them as they happen in combat. Flying with my buds for 1 hour to target just to find out the LRF is busted would probably have me logging out and going away for the night. It's a complete waste of time.

That's what I'm trying to say. And yes, you are correct, it is low priority and I'm saying why. :)

You're assumed to get a checked out pristine bird.

Nevermind...GG put it more concise than I could. :)

Emergencies and failures not related to combat are the realm of real pilots who get paid to fly. Unless the simulation is specifically supposed to simulate such a failure, you probably wouldn't even see this type of thing in a military combat simulation.