VIDEO - Some DM tests

[philstyle]

[Northstar98]

Awesome tests! It's nice to see something more in depth :thumbup:

 

System damage is definitely much improved, the whole system is miles better than the previous system. Overall I'm very impressed, fantastic job ED.

 

There are a few things I will say though, it is an early release and most of these are minor.

 

Surprised at the ineffectiveness of the 25mm HE in some cases, it looks like DCS isn't quite there yet with the modelling of ammunition, especially when compared to RL tests of 30mm minengeschoss, where single rounds would create very large holes and extensive damage (though it might be something to do with non-WW2 ammunition not being updated to work with the new damage model, or maybe it's something exclusive to the 25mm rounds).

 

Not sure what to think about some of the 12.7mm tests, whereby moving closer improved the damage (it should've still penetrated and done similar damage at both distances, maybe it's just a matter of aiming) again, some more tweaking is needed.

 

The effects are much improved (at least from the air). One thing that did strike me, is that while stationary and on the ground, some of the effects seemed to be kinda glitching, spraying in random and rapidly changing directions. The fires were also a little weird in that they'd almost always start and then immediately stop again - to me it seems that if a fire is started it should stay burning (maybe start with something small and then build it up, keeping the effect the same, but maybe scaling it progressively upwards - idk just my thoughts).

 

The graphical representation of damage still maybe has some way to go, particularly with the older aircraft modules like the Bf-109 and P-51D. For individual bullet holes, the damaged textures seem a little bit on the low resolution side (though this is aircraft dependent, and mostly on aircraft with older 3D models and textures), and sometimes they're even reflective as if it isn't really a hole, but again, it's hugely variable, some are basically perfect as is.

 

I think the damaged textures and the localisation could do with some upgrading/tuning as sometimes it isn't representative of the rounds hitting, particularly for larger calibre HE, though in some cases it's not a problem at all. I don't expect the localised 3 damage texture tiers is going to change any time soon.

 

One thing I'd also like to mention are things like damaged parts (at least larger ones like components) being the same as they always were, i.e no progressive damage and mostly just instantly disappearing without retaining any collision model with the ground (either they disappear from existence, fall through the ground, or even float above it).

 

There also doesn't seem to be any progressive breaking or bending (though this probably more applies to crash-landings), it seems that it just goes from the texture tiers and then once it reaches a threshold the component disappears in an instant, which looks less natural - this isn't the case all the time, but it seems that the vast majority of the time this is what happens. Damage components also seem to maybe break away too cleanly, particularly with the 25mm HE shot to the Fw 190 A-8's tail, when it broke off it was in a very clean line, as if it had been CNC'd off instead of blown off by an exploding round. Some cases are certainly better than others, but IMO there's still a way to go and personally the other sim does a better job in this aspect. Being fair to ED, doing this would probably mandate significant overhauls to pretty much every aircraft out there (especially the older releases) which sounds like an awful lot of work. I also guess that what I'm talking about is probably more applicable to things like crash-landings. But I'll keep this point here as it is still applicable for the damage modelling.

 

One thing I will say, is maybe it might be a good idea to test firing at the rear of the aircraft, to better simulate what would happen in a dogfight.

 

It is an early release and in some cases my point above aren't much more than nitpicks. The new damage model is definitely a step in the right direction.