Wear, faults and damage systems

[markturner1960]

Hi, I am intersted in how the system will work, with components & things failing after time and wear cycles etc......Does this mean that the jet we start to fly will be persistent and age over time and according to the hours  etc we put on it? Or will it be like the forge system and you get a randomized snapshot aged jet each time you spawn. I think the former would be really cool, kind of like the air to air simulations aircraft did in FSX way back when. 

If not then it strikes me as a whole lot of work and system modelling that wont be used in the real way it is supposedly modelling? 

[razo+r]

Maybe this is what you are looking for.

[markturner1960]

Thanks, it was ! 

[badger7966]

To be honest im not sure exactly they are talking about..if an electronic module fails,it fails...it does not degrage...same for every other system on an aircraft,,,if a part is l timexed  .....and hits bthe hours its changed.....there is no degradation .

 

the part has done its licenced hours....has done its job...there is no degradation in hydraulic,pneunatic or avionic parts...it works,or it does not.

 

Edited February 19 by badger7966

[=475FG= Dawger]

16 minutes ago, badger7966 said:

To be honest im not sure exactly they are talking about..if an electronic module fails,it fails...it does not degrage...same for every other system on an aircraft,,,if a part is l timexed  .....and hits bthe hours its changed.....there is no degradation .

 

the part has done its licenced hours....has done its job...there is no degradation in hydraulic,pneunatic or avionic parts...it works,or it does not.

 

 

I don’t get the idea of “wear and tear” either except for tires, paint, turbine temps and eroding leading edges or domes. 
 

You might fly a jet with multiple items “inop” if they aren’t mission or safety critical but even the ancient, clapped out, zero maintenance freighters I flew way back in the last century were basically binary. 
 

Worked or it didn’t. 

[LorenLuke]

3 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

I don’t get the idea of “wear and tear” either except for tires, paint, turbine temps and eroding leading edges or domes. 
 

You might fly a jet with multiple items “inop” if they aren’t mission or safety critical but even the ancient, clapped out, zero maintenance freighters I flew way back in the last century were basically binary. 
 

Worked or it didn’t. 

It might be a thing, for lack of more apt analogy, like brake pads. Yes, eventually you're going to reach a point where your brakes don't work because... there's no brake left. That's a binary status-- they work or they don't. But, if I were to show you two sets of brakes that worked, but one only had 50 miles of road usage versus a set that had 30k miles of road usage, they're very different looking despite both satisfying the 'they work' binary. 

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, LorenLuke said:

It might be a thing, for lack of more apt analogy, like brake pads. Yes, eventually you're going to reach a point where your brakes don't work because... there's no brake left. That's a binary status-- they work or they don't. But, if I were to show you two sets of brakes that worked, but one only had 50 miles of road usage versus a set that had 30k miles of road usage, they're very different looking despite both satisfying the 'they work' binary. 

Having changed brake media myself for 40 years, I am familiar. 
 

However, all you are doing is proving my point. Brake media is subject to wear, yet, until that media is worn beyond limits, performance is not affected. 
 

Long before they reach that point, normal pre-flight inspection and routine maintenance will drive replacement of the affected component with no discernible performance impact from the pilot point of view. 
 

The simulated brake media is going to be scattered across the simulated landscape or at the bottom of a simulated smoking hole long before it is necessary to simulate replacing them. 

[Stackup]

 

7 hours ago, badger7966 said:

To be honest im not sure exactly they are talking about..if an electronic module fails,it fails...it does not degrage...same for every other system on an aircraft,,,if a part is l timexed  .....and hits bthe hours its changed.....there is no degradation .

 

the part has done its licenced hours....has done its job...there is no degradation in hydraulic,pneunatic or avionic parts...it works,or it does not.

Keep in mind that this system includes things like lightbulbs that aren't the same brightness.  Some other part of the electrical system could have a failure that reduces the voltage input to a specific bulb, but it's still enough to power the bulb albeit dimmer than the others.  Or some contacts could get dirty or loose causing intermittent power, it depends on how good the maintenance on the jet is.  Motors definitely have this sort of degradation and they have said this applies to the Pave Spike motors.  One motor could be faster than the other since it is less worn out.  Partial failures and wear are definitely not out of the ordinary for various electrical components.

As for hydraulics, they've already showcased the sticking landing gear piston that causes judders during gear extension.  That would be a degradation even though the component is still serviceable.  Problems can always develop between maintence checks, not everything lasts till it times out, especially on a fighter aircraft in active use.

If you want to talk instruments, just watch the latest video.  They showcase various part failures of the altimeter, e.g. a stuck needle or barrel causing a partial failure of the instrument.  Not every part that could break is only licensed to do a specific number of hours.  The altimeter gets a check, it doesn't get replaced after x number of hours.  Same for the electrical stuff.  You wouldn't swap out a G1000 system after x hours because that's not a consideration or limitation on that system.  You do checks on it at intervals and repair/replace when things break or go out of tolerances.  Bearings on an instrument are another example.  The F-4 is analog, which means lots of mechanical and less digital.  Older more worn out gryoscopic instruments will not perform identical to brand new parts due to wear in the internal components.  That doesn't mean they can't and aren't used until they actively break or go out of tolerances.

It either works or it doesn't is true, but degradation is still present even in a system that functions within tolerance.  This is one of the reasons why tolerances exist in the first place.

Edited February 20 by Stackup
added more

[Dragon1-1]

6 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

However, all you are doing is proving my point. Brake media is subject to wear, yet, until that media is worn beyond limits, performance is not affected. 

I'm not quite sure about that. There's a noticeable difference between brand new brake pads and ones that are worn out (mostly felt right after they're replaced). Yes, they still work, but they're less snappy. Even better, it might happen that they're worn asymmetrically for some reason, and the plane will pull to the side when standing on the brakes.

Also, we need a button for punching a malfunctioning altimeter in hopes of unsticking the needle, complete with a pilot model animation.  This will especially come in handy later on, in the A-6 module for the BN.  

[Zabuzard]

Id like to add to the topic of maintenence and "swapping out" worn parts, that this is up to the mission designer and scenario to decide.

What if your Phantom was created in a factory very late in a long war where the enemy shut down your supply of new parts and the tolerance for the jet has been reduced heavily. What if the jet was captured and used by a country that can't just replace tiles and has to work with what they got.

The wear/tear system also tries to capture this aspect to give mission designers more options. And it might for example be highly relevant beyond fictional scenarios if we decide to perhaps make a WW2 prop plane in the future (just an example).

Ultimately, no two Phantoms are absolutely identical. There are very subtle differences and you can feel that.

Im aware that the wear and tear system and it's exact effects are vague and hard to grasp at the moment. Thats why we want to explain it later in more depth, for example in a video.

[Stackup]

1 hour ago, Zabuzard said:

And it might for example be highly relevant beyond fictional scenarios if we decide to perhaps make a WW2 prop plane in the future (just an example).

Not that you guys have any time whatsoever for the foreseeable future, but the Pacific theatre seems to be heating up.  Maybe we eventually see something multicrew like the TBM Avenger to fit the 1944 time period most of it seems to be.  Jester as a navigator/bombardier and/or tailgunner would be very interesting, plus we don't yet have any WWII bombers much less torpedo bombers in general.  Just an off topic thought.

[Omega417]

26 minutes ago, Stackup said:

Not that you guys have any time whatsoever for the foreseeable future, but the Pacific theatre seems to be heating up.  Maybe we eventually see something multicrew like the TBM Avenger to fit the 1944 time period most of it seems to be.  Jester as a navigator/bombardier and/or tailgunner would be very interesting, plus we don't yet have any WWII bombers much less torpedo bombers in general.  Just an off topic thought.

Avenger would be LIT, buuuuutttttttttttttt SBD Dauntless would be much better.

[Stackup]

9 hours ago, Omega417 said:

Avenger would be LIT, buuuuutttttttttttttt SBD Dauntless would be much better.

I agree, though the Avenger fits better since everything else we are getting/have and Marianas WWII is gonna be 1944 as well by which time the Dauntless was pretty much phased out.  Could also go with the Helldiver.  Now if we get a Midway map at some point...

Edited February 21 by Stackup

[Omega417]

18 hours ago, Stackup said:

I agree, though the Avenger fits better since everything else we are getting/have and Marianas WWII is gonna be 1944 as well by which time the Dauntless was pretty much phased out.  Could also go with the Helldiver.  Now if we get a Midway map at some point...

 

In all fairness it shouldnt be that hard to make a massive midway map. A few small islands in the middle and a massive expanse of water in all directions.

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, Omega417 said:

In all fairness it shouldnt be that hard to make a massive midway map. A few small islands in the middle and a massive expanse of water in all directions.

If DCS had user map capability, this would be a fun one time map. It certainly would not be something worth paying money for, even if the period appropriate assets were available. 
 

I have flown Battle of Midway in 200 player PvP events a few times. They were fun events but by the time DCS has a complete set of assets for that battle, WWII will not hold interest for anyone still alive. 
 

It would be easier and much faster to resurrect an old WWII MMOLG and stage all those Pacific events on the maps they did decades ago. Probably more fun, too. 

[markturner1960]

Circling back to my original question ( as we seem to have gone a little OT here!) am I the only one thinking that while it all sounds amazingly detailed and cool, I kinda question exactly how its going to make the sim experience better.....? Perhaps I am just querying the no doubt huge amount of work thats gone into this, but what will the average user notice? Just asking......To my mind it would be "better" if we had a simulated aging and wearing out persistent jet, which really would be something new.... In fact more persistence full stop in DCS would be good!! You could have different jets allocated to you for each theatre for campaigns etc.....obviously this would not be a feature for instant action, or training, but it would be cool in certain scenarios....

[Stackup]

4 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

but what will the average user notice?

Well, there's going to be a slider in the mission editor to determine the initial wear on the jet with an option to start at the reference(brand new) aircraft.  So depending on what the mission designer sets it to, nothing or a whole lot.  The system also is involved in increased fidelity of damage to the aircraft or components due to forces/damage sustained during the mission.  For example, Zabuzard mentioned over-Ging the pave spike because you didn't store it properly.  The targeting pod suddenly not working will be very noticeable to the average user.

8 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

To my mind it would be "better" if we had a simulated aging and wearing out persistent jet, which really would be something new.... In fact more persistence full stop in DCS would be good!! You could have different jets allocated to you for each theatre for campaigns etc.....obviously this would not be a feature for instant action, or training, but it would be cool in certain scenarios....

Idk... I for one don't want full persistence anywhere outside of a campaign. And even then, a lot of damage should be repaired by maintenace before the next flight as some damage could be airworthiness issues that prevent the safe flight of the aircraft.  Maybe you make it back and land with one of the horizontal stabs missing.  You don't want it missing at the start of the next mission and no commander in their right mind would let that plane fly until it was repaired.

Or say you bent the landing gear and it can no longer retract.  It would be really stupid to break the jet on landing the day before and then come back to do the exact same mission file again the next day(or the next campaign mission) and find that the jet persisted in being broken and I now have to wait hours/days(or the standard 3 minutes) for a realistic repair just to fly the plane again.  This isn't Flight Sim, this is DCS.  I'm not flying from airport to airport with the goal of simulating owning and maintaining a plane in real life.  I'm flying to and from one airport, through AAA and SAMs to bomb a target or shoot down the enemy.  It's a different day, a different jet and a different kind of game. 

Not saying some persistence isn't needed or that it's not a cool addition, but it depends how and to what it is applied.  If the next campaign mission requires a targeting pod, but you broke yours last time, do you get a new one?  If there are none left, do you get to switch to dumb bombs?  Scrub the mission while you wait for a replacement?  Most campaigns right now are way too scripted to allow major components to stay damaged.  I could see maybe some instruments staying damaged forcing you to navigate differently or rely on other instruments to make up for what got damaged.  Or the wear on the landing gear tires and hydraulic pistons.  Or a dimmer bulb. 

And how do you balance fatigue damage?  Say you're just flying along quite happily when an hour into the mission your wing suddenly falls off for "no apparent reason."  Sure you had some hard landings and pulled a lot of G's throughout the campaign previously, but should that really matter in DCS?  And do you then fail the mission just because you flew the plane not quite right a week ago when you did the last mission?  Not sure about you, but to me that would be seriously frustrating because I may not have time to just start the mission over and I think a failure like that, while realistic, would be stupid in terms of the game.  And then if I did start it over, would my wing fall off again or would I get a brand new aircraft?  Am I just stuck at that point and it requires a full restart of the campaign to fix it?  What's to stop people from just doing the DCS ground crew repair function at the beginning of each mission?

If you never close the mission or respawn the jet(like on a MP server), my understanding based on what has been said is that it will persist unless repaired.  So you have that although most servers reset at least once a day.

[Oesau]

Well midway will be a different sim but we should get back on topic 

[markturner1960]

14 hours ago, Stackup said:

Well, there's going to be a slider in the mission editor to determine the initial wear on the jet with an option to start at the reference(brand new) aircraft.  So depending on what the mission designer sets it to, nothing or a whole lot.  The system also is involved in increased fidelity of damage to the aircraft or components due to forces/damage sustained during the mission.  For example, Zabuzard mentioned over-Ging the pave spike because you didn't store it properly.  The targeting pod suddenly not working will be very noticeable to the average user.

Idk... I for one don't want full persistence anywhere outside of a campaign. And even then, a lot of damage should be repaired by maintenace before the next flight as some damage could be airworthiness issues that prevent the safe flight of the aircraft.  Maybe you make it back and land with one of the horizontal stabs missing.  You don't want it missing at the start of the next mission and no commander in their right mind would let that plane fly until it was repaired.

Or say you bent the landing gear and it can no longer retract.  It would be really stupid to break the jet on landing the day before and then come back to do the exact same mission file again the next day(or the next campaign mission) and find that the jet persisted in being broken and I now have to wait hours/days(or the standard 3 minutes) for a realistic repair just to fly the plane again.  This isn't Flight Sim, this is DCS.  I'm not flying from airport to airport with the goal of simulating owning and maintaining a plane in real life.  I'm flying to and from one airport, through AAA and SAMs to bomb a target or shoot down the enemy.  It's a different day, a different jet and a different kind of game. 

Not saying some persistence isn't needed or that it's not a cool addition, but it depends how and to what it is applied.  If the next campaign mission requires a targeting pod, but you broke yours last time, do you get a new one?  If there are none left, do you get to switch to dumb bombs?  Scrub the mission while you wait for a replacement?  Most campaigns right now are way too scripted to allow major components to stay damaged.  I could see maybe some instruments staying damaged forcing you to navigate differently or rely on other instruments to make up for what got damaged.  Or the wear on the landing gear tires and hydraulic pistons.  Or a dimmer bulb. 

And how do you balance fatigue damage?  Say you're just flying along quite happily when an hour into the mission your wing suddenly falls off for "no apparent reason."  Sure you had some hard landings and pulled a lot of G's throughout the campaign previously, but should that really matter in DCS?  And do you then fail the mission just because you flew the plane not quite right a week ago when you did the last mission?  Not sure about you, but to me that would be seriously frustrating because I may not have time to just start the mission over and I think a failure like that, while realistic, would be stupid in terms of the game.  And then if I did start it over, would my wing fall off again or would I get a brand new aircraft?  Am I just stuck at that point and it requires a full restart of the campaign to fix it?  What's to stop people from just doing the DCS ground crew repair function at the beginning of each mission?

If you never close the mission or respawn the jet(like on a MP server), my understanding based on what has been said is that it will persist unless repaired.  So you have that although most servers reset at least once a day.

You raise many good points , , but mostly confirm what i was saying.....it would need thought as to how it is implemented of course....but if its just some more accurate damage modelling and system interlnking, my thought was its a whole <profanity>load of work for not a lot of actual things people are going to really notice.......seeing as we already have an option for random system failures

Edited February 22 by markturner1960

[Trooper117]

I'm happy if my aircraft is 'all systems go' when I take off... anything that gets affected or damaged during the flight would be out of my control, so I'd have to deal with that at the time... I'm not bothered about persistent wear and tear, if the crew chief and team haven't found any problem, and all systems check out before take off, that will suit me just fine  

[Stackup]

7 hours ago, markturner1960 said:

my thought was its a whole <profanity>load of work for not a lot of actual things people are going to really notice

If we as users could control the scope creep, the F-4E, A-6 AI, and early F-14A would already be released and everyone would be talking about the Eurofighter, A-6, and Naval F-4.  But we can't so whether it was a waste of time or not is irrelevant now since they've already done it.  

7 hours ago, markturner1960 said:

seeing as we already have an option for random system failures

But you missed the point with that comment because these failures aren't going to be random.  It's going to be based on what happens to the jet, not x component fails at x time because  the mission editor says so.  The only randomness will be what is broken if the slider isn't set to 100. 

So it's way more realistic in terms of damage modelling which is kinda the whole point.  This is a good thing, DCS is a game yes, but it's also marketed as a simulator so if we get better simulation of the jet, that leads to increased development time and a better product assuming the performance is decent.

I was more responding to your statements on full persistence of the jet between missions, since that's not something I really want and it seemed you did.  Campaigns are fine for this in my opinion, so long as it only applies to minor damage and not major damage.  But cross mission damage doesn't sound like it will be implemented on launch in any case.

[markturner1960]

Sure, and I was just stating my opinion, for a discussion, and of course, I expect other people to have a different opinion. Thats why we have a forum, to have interesting discussions! Fully agree, persistence would probably only be sensible in a campaign ( think I said that above anyway)and Heatblur are of course going to model their product as they see fit.

[NoodI]

in short wear and tear simulation is cool af and we're all excited

[Kalasnkova74]

On 2/17/2024 at 6:00 AM, markturner1960 said:

Hi, I am intersted in how the system will work, with components & things failing after time and wear cycles etc......Does this mean that the jet we start to fly will be persistent and age over time and according to the hours  etc we put on it? Or will it be like the forge system and you get a randomized snapshot aged jet each time you spawn. I think the former would be really cool, kind of like the air to air simulations aircraft did in FSX way back when. 

If not then it strikes me as a whole lot of work and system modelling that wont be used in the real way it is supposedly modelling? 

The good thing about component wear is it permits simulation of the most important airpower dynamics: logistics.

Having high tech aircraft is all well and good, but the capabilities are just one ingredient in the warfighting soup that is air power. Choosing an F-4 over an F-5 is a no brainer in a static environment. But if half your F-4s are broken for different reasons but 80% of your F-5s are ‘up’, now the dynamic is different. Next layer in situations like all your ‘cheaper’ F-5s are mission capable but your F-4s are flyable with degraded capability - say, no dive toss or PAVE Spike  - and the choices get even murkier. Suddenly, other options you’d just disregard (like using less capable aircraft)become useful.
 

Then there’s good old Murphys Law. You launch 4 F-4Es but two got over-Gd in the last sortie because they dodged SAMs after going off route to avoid interceptors. Now you’re down two jets and your campaign needs four - how do you solve this? 
 

 

[Q3ark]

Nobody ever thinks about Log, it just happens.