P-51 outclassed?

[Sabredog]

I can't wait to get home and try the Dora out for myself but for those you who already have, what is your opinion of player vs player in the Mustang vs Dora? It the FW 190 by far the superior aircraft or is it a fair fight?

[159th_Viper]

If I had to fight my clone, I'd choose a Dora. Those cannons hurt!

[Sabredog]

Well, there's a pretty big thread I'm sure you've seen about the .50 cal damage in DCS :music_whistling:

 

I'm sure those cannons would pack a bigger punch though :smilewink:

[159th_Viper]

Aye, if it was easier to get those .50 cal's pointed in the right direction I would have chosen the Mustang :)

[WinterH]

I flew Fw-190 vs P-51 only once, to my surprise, I was able to win on my first time, unlike how many times I was frustrated in Mustang vs Dora.

 

So, first time, nothing concrete, mostly gut feelings to be honest. That said, observations :

 

Fw-190 Cons :

- .50 cal M2 guns seem to have considerable better range & much flatter trajectory

- Vision from Dora's cockpit was more restricting than I was expecting, lost the Mustang many times under those bars. If Dora is like that I really wonder how will the 109 be in this aspect...

- When turning down on deck Mustangs seem to turn better, not by a mountain but enough to matter. Though, I obviously am not too good in turning with Dora yet.

- From my experience in DCS P-51, it felt faster and quicker to accelerate on level flight and in a dive.

- K-14 seems a bit more sophisticated than EZ 42

- Although dora feels less temperamental when maneuvring, when you approach the edge of it's flight envelope, it tends to enter a sping with little warning (well with force feedback not that little but still that warning will last quite short).

- Not something I can quantify but, P-51D feels a tad more agile.

 

Fw-190 Pros

- 4 guns, all centered around canopy, 2 of them 20mm, all with nice rate of fire, they hurt :D

- Dora feels less temperamental in maneuvring,

- Roll rate feels great, I mean Mustang rollet great too but this really feels like rolling much faster in almost all speeds.

- Loves vertical maneuvers.

- Seem to be nicely controllable even when as fast as +700 km/h.

- Full throttle + MW 50 : Just point the nose up, or down really, some really nice power here!!

- Engine management certainly is much less finicky, and even at max power + mw50 you can run for reasonable times without much fear of overheating.

 

Overall, they seem to be a nice match with my limited observation so far.

[USARStarkey]

Well, there's a pretty big thread I'm sure you've seen about the .50 cal damage in DCS :music_whistling:

 

I'm sure those cannons would pack a bigger punch though :smilewink:

 

No-one is disputing the cannons aren't much more powerful. In fact, there a bit where we mention the issue seems to also be affecting the cannons.

[USARStarkey]

I flew Fw-190 vs P-51 only once, to my surprise, I was able to win on my first time, unlike how many times I was frustrated in Mustang vs Dora.

 

So, first time, nothing concrete, mostly gut feelings to be honest. That said, observations :

 

Fw-190 Cons :

- .50 cal M2 guns seem to have considerable better range & much flatter trajectory

- Vision from Dora's cockpit was more restricting than I was expecting, lost the Mustang many times under those bars. If Dora is like that I really wonder how will the 109 be in this aspect...

- When turning down on deck Mustangs seem to turn better, not by a mountain but enough to matter. Though, I obviously am not too good in turning with Dora yet.

- From my experience in DCS P-51, it felt faster and quicker to accelerate on level flight and in a dive.

- K-14 seems a bit more sophisticated than EZ 42

- Although dora feels less temperamental when maneuvring, when you approach the edge of it's flight envelope, it tends to enter a sping with little warning (well with force feedback not that little but still that warning will last quite short).

- Not something I can quantify but, P-51D feels a tad more agile.

 

Fw-190 Pros

- 4 guns, all centered around canopy, 2 of them 20mm, all with nice rate of fire, they hurt :D

- Dora feels less temperamental in maneuvring,

- Roll rate feels great, I mean Mustang rollet great too but this really feels like rolling much faster in almost all speeds.

- Loves vertical maneuvers.

- Seem to be nicely controllable even when as fast as +700 km/h.

- Full throttle + MW 50 : Just point the nose up, or down really, some really nice power here!!

- Engine management certainly is much less finicky, and even at max power + mw50 you can run for reasonable times without much fear of overheating.

 

Overall, they seem to be a nice match with my limited observation so far.

 

Thanks for the comparison.

[SkyCaptain109]

I flew the Dora against the P-51 in a low level dogfight. Although I prefer the P-51 the Dora seems to be a better performer at low altitude, especially in the climb.

The P-51 just couldn't follow my climbing turns and I was able to dive on him and shoot.

 

The Dora gives you little stall warning just like the P-51 and I have the feeing that it is harder to recover from a stall in the Dora. All in all I think it is harder to fly the Dora to the edge than the P-51.

 

What I don't like about the Dora is the absence of a rudder trim and I feel that the Dora is more unstable, especially on landing even with her wide track undercarriage. Very good in roll, but also unstable.

[WinterH]

Speaking of weapons, as USARStarkey put out in both his thread and here, not only .50 cal is affected by lack of potency.

 

In fact, as I have stated on the thread in P-51D forum, I believe it is more about how DCS damage and how aircraft feels more like flying tanks sometimes, rather than impotency of guns themselves.

 

Of course I am not saying "X number of hits should certainly have brought down Y plane". That is, obviously not realistic, and more or less same thing as just putting health bars on planes.

 

 

Here's what it took for me to bring the P-51 down, as listed in debriefing :

13mm API 24 hits

13mm AP-T 11 hits

13mm HEI 26 hits

20mm API 6 hits

20mm M-Gsch. 20hits

20mm HEI-T 14 hits

 

61 13mm and 40 20mm hits. And even this did not just distintegrate or burn him. He was still trying to maneuver but crashed with damage.

 

Yeah, weapons on Dora definitely are more potent now, but even they are a bit anemic.

[NineLine]

I still think those findings are a little inconclusive... for example, just the other night I cut the tail off a P-51D with not so many shots... other times I can unload on an aircraft and it survives... AI aircraft skew these results as well.

 

Speaking of weapons, as USARStarkey put out in both his thread and here, not only .50 cal is affected by lack of potency.

 

In fact, as I have stated on the thread in P-51D forum, I believe it is more about how DCS damage and how aircraft feels more like flying tanks sometimes, rather than impotency of guns themselves.

 

Of course I am not saying "X number of hits should certainly have brought down Y plane". That is, obviously not realistic, and more or less same thing as just putting health bars on planes.

 

 

Here's what it took for me to bring the P-51 down, as listed in debriefing :

13mm API 24 hits

13mm AP-T 11 hits

13mm HEI 26 hits

20mm API 6 hits

20mm M-Gsch. 20hits

20mm HEI-T 14 hits

 

61 13mm and 40 20mm hits. And even this did not just distintegrate or burn him. He was still trying to maneuver but crashed with damage.

 

Yeah, weapons on Dora definitely are more potent now, but even they are a bit anemic.

[Narushima]

Keep in mind, the AI P-51 is flying without the weight of it's .50 cal ammo, so it's around 300kg lighter than it should be. This will help it in some areas (turn, climb) and hinder it in others (dive acceleration, zoom climb).

 

EDIT: You can adjust weight in the mission editor btw.

Edited August 6, 2014 by Narushima

[USARStarkey]

I still think those findings are a little inconclusive... for example, just the other night I cut the tail off a P-51D with not so many shots... other times I can unload on an aircraft and it survives... AI aircraft skew these results as well.

 

The thing is though, its not inconclusive when you have quite a few people aside from myself mentioning this issue with gun potency. Sure, sometimes stuff falls off like you said, but it is quite rare statistically. Not only do we have my testing(which is ongoing) but others are reinforcing this, and most of it is not about the AI. Even if you take 60 hits to a plane and keep going, there should be alot of damage. Fire, smoke, pieces flying off, etc. Not basically flying the same with a little listing to the side. Control cables arent ever cut, nor are the mechanisms they operate though damaged. This is a cumulative issue, not causes by one thing. its Z * Y *V = G

[NineLine]

there should be alot of damage. Fire, smoke, pieces flying off, etc.

 

 

There are two issues there, and I am afraid they get confused, there is the potency of the guns, as well there is the visual representation of the damage.

[SimFreak]

I would love to hear how it does online vs humans.

[NineLine]

I would love to hear how it does online vs humans.

 

Sounds like DoW server is open for business :)

[USARStarkey]

There are two issues there, and I am afraid they get confused, there is the potency of the guns, as well there is the visual representation of the damage.

 

You misunderstand me here. Things like fire are not just visual, that would cause other damage that might bring down the plane, especially with how DCS treats fire damage. I'm not referring to the bullet holes vs actual damage problem at all. Right now, if you shoot up a plane, unless you head the pilot, engine, or annihilate the fuselage to cause a wing to fall off or tail (which takes too many rounds btw) nothing happens except meaningless gizmo damage, like having my compass shot out. Fuel or ammo or air frame does not catch fire until after you have killed something else important like a wing, control mechanisms are never damaged, and a bazillion other things that can happen when someone pumps 50-60 bullets though a plane.

[NineLine]

But I think thats is where you are getting hung up... any visual damage we have now is just that, visual... and really very canned, it doesnt represent what is going on very well at all. The Damage model needs a revamp, this includes visual aspects as well as what happens in relation to these visual queues, such as fire killing the pilot, smoke filling the cabin, ammo exploding, any number of other things...

 

This also would cause you to have to look at the it boxes of each plane, and to render what happens when that section gets hit, such as in CloD, I took some hits and my gear dropped limp below me... gauges failing, motor smoking or leaking fluids, bits and pieces falling off etc...

 

I reported a bug with the 190, that overheating had little to know queues, now we know that its a high performance engine, and when it fails... it fails... its not gonna give you a lot of warning if you abuse it... that said, I want to see some fluids on the windscreen, or steam and smoke.... I can say whoa... pay heed to your gauges dude...

 

Whew... long story short... you might be damaging something and not getting the proper visual queues, but also you might be getting strange visual queues from something that isnt damaged... again all leading back to a damage model revamp of sorts... its not as cut and dry as bullet A needs to do X amount of damage.

 

 

 

You misunderstand me here. Things like fire are not just visual, that would cause other damage that might bring down the plane, especially with how DCS treats fire damage. I'm not referring to the bullet holes vs actual damage problem at all. Right now, if you shoot up a plane, unless you head the pilot, engine, or annihilate the fuselage to cause a wing to fall off or tail (which takes too many rounds btw) nothing happens except meaningless gizmo damage, like having my compass shot out. Fuel or ammo or air frame does not catch fire until after you have killed something else important like a wing, control mechanisms are never damaged, and a bazillion other things that can happen when someone pumps 50-60 bullets though a plane.

[Kwiatek]

I think to be fair P-51 should have now higher WEP/BOOST - 72 or 75 inch instead 67 inch.

 

D-9 in DCS got MW50 which make it one of the fastest D-9 version which was in service.

 

Dont have D-9 in DCS only P-51 but after few dogfigts i see noticable difference in power - D-9 is very fast. P-51 to be more competetive need rised WEP/BOOST system.

 

BTW i like how D-9 fly even if im only P-51 competitior. It looks for me that it is the first sim which make it like should be :)

 

I think BOS developers should learn how to make historical accurate planes.

[Belphe]

Let's not make DCS another MOBA game that needs tweaking and nerfing every unit to make them "competitive".. Let's make the units historically accurate and extremely difficult to master so that it is down to their pilots to win or lose.. So far, ED is spot on on their path...

[Konrad Friedrich]

I think to be fair P-51 should have now higher WEP/BOOST - 72 or 75 inch instead 67 inch.

 

D-9 in DCS got MW50 which make it one of the fastest D-9 version which was in service.

 

 

Hmmm...

Today I've dogfighted repeatedly the AI P-51 and did not even use MW-50 and downed the Pony literally at will.

:joystick:

 

The funny thing is: I've never used WEP when flying the Mustang.

 

To me it's more like an 'emergency exit'.

[Konrad Friedrich]

Let's not make DCS another MOBA game that needs tweaking and nerfing every unit to make them "competitive".. Let's make the units historically accurate and extremely difficult to master so that it is down to their pilots to win or lose.. So far, ED is spot on on their path...

 

Good point.

And I totally agree.

[Konrad Friedrich]

I can't wait to get home and try the Dora out for myself but for those you who already have, what is your opinion of player vs player in the Mustang vs Dora? It the FW 190 by far the superior aircraft or is it a fair fight?

 

Oh - no.

Not outclassed - not superior.

 

But I think the pony riders need to recalibrate their flying when competing to a human Dora pilot.

Both planes are outstanding.

And I think both are outstanding hard to master... :joystick:

[USARStarkey]

But I think thats is where you are getting hung up... any visual damage we have now is just that, visual... and really very canned, it doesnt represent what is going on very well at all. The Damage model needs a revamp, this includes visual aspects as well as what happens in relation to these visual queues, such as fire killing the pilot, smoke filling the cabin, ammo exploding, any number of other things...

 

This also would cause you to have to look at the it boxes of each plane, and to render what happens when that section gets hit, such as in CloD, I took some hits and my gear dropped limp below me... gauges failing, motor smoking or leaking fluids, bits and pieces falling off etc...

 

I reported a bug with the 190, that overheating had little to know queues, now we know that its a high performance engine, and when it fails... it fails... its not gonna give you a lot of warning if you abuse it... that said, I want to see some fluids on the windscreen, or steam and smoke.... I can say whoa... pay heed to your gauges dude...

 

Whew... long story short... you might be damaging something and not getting the proper visual queues, but also you might be getting strange visual queues from something that isnt damaged... again all leading back to a damage model revamp of sorts... its not as cut and dry as bullet A needs to do X amount of damage.

 

Im not getting hung up on the visual aspects. When I say fire, I mean the effects of fire, which doesnt happen at all except in the conditions I mentioned. Everyone knows the visual isnt in sync. There are things that just arent happening at all. This has nothing to do with the visuals man, which I am not hung up on. I am quite capable of telling the difference between something that isnt happening and a disconnect between visual and non-visual. This is why I am far from the only person saying this.

[NineLine]

Let's not make DCS another MOBA game that needs tweaking and nerfing every unit to make them "competitive".. Let's make the units historically accurate and extremely difficult to master so that it is down to their pilots to win or lose.. So far, ED is spot on on their path...

 

There wont be an balancing like that, these are study sims of each of these aircraft, they wont alter them unrealistically to suit a play style.

[Belphe]

There wont be an balancing like that, these are study sims of each of these aircraft, they wont alter them unrealistically to suit a play style.

 

Amen! ;)