WW2 AI Damage Model

[Flootsch]

Hi,

i recently started flying the BF 109 with friends against the AI and we are having a blast dogfighting in the warbirds.
But we are a bit unsure about the amount of damage we have to do to a AI plane in order to get the kill.
I get that it will highly depend on where the bullets land on the Ai plane, but in general it seems we have to put an extensive amount of bullets into an AI plane to make it crash.
We then also tried hitting them with jet missiles..and again it takes 2!!!! 120c to kill a WW2 AI warbird...that can`t be right, can it?

I also have a question about the Battle Damage Assesment.
I used to get a notification for every single hit that did damage to an enemy plane.
Suddenly I only get the kill message but not the individual hits anymore.
Is there any setting that I have changed by mistake other than the global On/Off setting in the options?

[peachmonkey]

welcome to the forum, @Flootsch

1) search up the "AI behavior when damaged" or similar and you'll quickly find out why it's happening. In short:

- AI flight characteristics don't match those of a human operated aircraft. The AI follows a 'simple' FM that either disregards or reduces a lot of variables affecting human pilots, such as vertical speed, acceleration, damage (to some extent), etc.

- if you pepper an AI with bullets, it's full of holes, and it's still flying, don't assume that it's undamaged. The reason it continues to fly is because of the simple FM (point above). However, the systems damage has indeed happened and the aircraft is pretty much out of combat effectiveness, however it will continue to evade your shots like as if nothing happened. Give it time and the AC will go down either due to coolant/oil/fuel leaking out, overheating, and other system failures. But even when it "goes down" it can still continue to glide for an unimaginable distance  

- ED is currently trying to rectify the above points, however it's not exactly clear when we will see those improvements materialize. Maybe this year,.. maybe.

2) There's a global "battle damage assessment" setting in Options -> Misc (if I remember correctly), it enables/disables the overall BDA window in the cockpit. You can also assign it to the joystick button if you want, search for battle damage assessment in Controls. However, I don't know why it's not registering individual hits, maybe it's a bug introduced with the latest release.

cheers.

[Mike_CK]

Lol…found this thread googling DCS Warbird damage. I had to when -during my WW2 liberation campaign- I came upon an enemy JU-88 at about 5,000 feet flying (gliding) around with propellers not spinning. Made since when I pulled along side and noticed that it looked like Swiss cheese. I mean, this thing had been shot to hell, neither engine worked and you could see a dozen huge chunks of daylight through both wings and fuselage. No one else around.

So, I eased my spitfire about 150 meters behind and slightly above the Junkers, dropped the nose a tad and proceeded to unload 6 seconds worth of 20mm and 303 fire into this thing from the time I started at 150 meters until I pulled off about 30 meters away. Pieces flew off everywhere with a dazzling array of flashes as damn near every round struck it….. And nothing.

that thing continued gliding around with no power and -basically- 2 hollow wing frames. It still showed up on the F-10 map so it was still living. I watched it continue on for a bit -not losing altitude or speed- and got bored.

Not 6-7 minutes later, I come across another JU-88 JUST like it (the other one was still on F-10 flying). Gliding with propellers not spinning and shot to hell. I returned to my base around 30 miles away and landed. Checked F-10 and BOTH of those little f***ers were STILL gliding around.

id say there was an issue with AI warbird damage modeling 

 

[peachmonkey]

yeah, ju-88 has the worst invincibility case, unless it's on-fire it will glide forever.

You can't even kill the pilots/gunners in it, regardless the amount of led you unload into them.

[Tree_Beard]

On 4/12/2023 at 3:02 AM, Flootsch said:

We then also tried hitting them with jet missiles..and again it takes 2!!!! 120c to kill a WW2 AI warbird...that can`t be right, can it?

Supposedly the warbirds damage model is not "tuned" to modern weapons. Why the same explosives and bullets don't have the same level of effect across all modules is anyone's guess.