Practical Suggestion for Ground Unit Damage

[B25Mitch]

This isn't strictly Combined Arms, as it's relevant to all DCS ground units, and it's not exactly a wish list item either. It's a suggestion of a very simple way to improve the ground combat experience.

 

I'm proposing a method for vehicle destruction as follows:

 

 

Note that even while the vehicle is burning, additional hits would continue to lower its hit points.

 

This would be an improvement on the current system because it removes the bland and predictable 10-second cookoff period for all vehicles (they will now explode after a period dependent on the damage they have taken). It would also allow for more interesting action - firing 20 rounds at a vehicle may cause it to catch fire, but 40 rounds might make it explode immediately. I believe this would be a worthwhile and simple system for ED to implement, since it does not involve creating any additional art assets and utilizes the existing "hit points" and "health bar" system.

Edited February 28, 2014 by B25Mitch

[Slazi]

Like it!

 

Basic component damage would be the next step.

[esb77]

Well you can already finish off a burning vehicle by hitting it with more damage.

 

Not sure if the cookoff time (in the absence of additional weapons hits that take hp to zero) is really set to a fixed timer or not. I've never done controlled experimentation to measure.

Edited February 28, 2014 by esb77

[VincentLaw]

Not sure if the cookoff time (in the absence of additional weapons hits that take hp to zero) is really set to a fixed timer or not. I've never done controlled experimentation to measure.

It is defined in the lua scripts.

 

(GT_t.lua)

generic.time_agony = 4

[NeilWillis]

Followed by a huge explosion. turret flying 150 ft into the air, and subsequent random explosions as the propellant and warheads ignite!

[Phantom453]

It certainly would add to the ambiance if we could have a greater variety of damage modelling. For example:

No cook-off for minor damage -some smoke.

Limited visible physical damage - e.g. thrown track/ blown off components.

Mobility only kills.

Different amounts of smoke depending upon type of vehicle/ level of damage etc. (difference between a fully burning fuel truck vs a vehicle with heavy engine damage blowing smoke).

No doubt there are plenty of other things more important for the devs to apply their efforts to at the moment, but this sort of detail would be nice to see one day.

[Home Fries]

Great idea.

 

Personally, I would like to see some fragmentation damage modeling, as frag damage tends to be a much more effective damage mechanism for unarmored targets than the blast or direct hits that are currently modeled.

 

If modeling each frag is too much for the engine to handle, then just do it the way it's done by the military: model an oval (oriented longitudinally with the length and shape based on impact angle of the bomb) and X% of the targets in the area will take a certain level of damage (pretty much how weaponeering is done for area targets). While fairly low fidelity, it would at least be better than not modeling it at all, especially with the focus on soft targets with the Huey, Mi-8 and upcoming Cobra.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Home Fries

[B25Mitch]

Well you can already finish off a burning vehicle by hitting it with more damage.

 

Not sure if the cookoff time (in the absence of additional weapons hits that take hp to zero) is really set to a fixed timer or not. I've never done controlled experimentation to measure.

 

This is not true. Currently you cannot finish of burning vehicles by hitting them with more rounds, no matter what those rounds are. Vehicles will always burn for 10 seconds before cooking off, which is why I am proposing this new system.

 

NeilWillis, Phantom453 and Home Fries, these are all suggestions that do require a lot of additional content creation and coding. The reason I am proposing this system is because it could (or at least should) be able to be done by altering a couple of lines of code.

[Home Fries]

Understood, Mitch. I piggybacked my idea because like your idea, it can provide more functionality with comparatively little work. While my idea requires a new damage mechanism (albeit one that really should already be there), its implementation requires no more than linear calculations and geometry.

[McBlemmen]

What would also be nice is if vehicles didnt always explode when they "die". Kill the crew or disable the vehicle without it catching fire and blowing up

[Berndt Mangler]

I'd like one of those man pads to be dead after one round from the a10 cannon in the stead of the 8 that trac-view tells me why he managed to survive, after the 2 CBU97s took out all the vehicles who managed to shoot me down as I stoopedly(that is a word) flew straight over.. DCS has Modeled Marcus Luttrell and gave him a manpad. ahahah.