why is dcs explosions so small?

[lidor]

as you all know mk84 in real life makes a huge smoke cloud (will be attached as image)

and in dcs it looks like a big grenade explosion.. i would really like to give up for some fps during explosions for this beautiful scenes.

(couldnt make this post in core game wish list if an admin sees this please move it their)

[draconus]

19 hours ago, lidor said:

in dcs it looks like a big grenade explosion

Exaggeration.

Why? Because they didn't make it better yet and because of performance. But afaik they want to revise and improve explosions.

[Tippis]

I'm not entirely convinced we “know” that.

What your photo is showing isn't an Mk84 explosion — it's the aftermath of an Mk84 exploding in a built-up area, creating and throwing dirt, debris, and dust into the air but most likely also smoke rising form the house collapsing and/or being on fire. The bomb isn't doing all the work, and even if it's a huge contributing factor, it wouldn't look anywhere near that big without the buildings providing all the material to create that cloud.

That doesn't mean that your sense of lack-lustre explosion effects is wrong, just that it might not be the bomb that is to blame. Rather, it's that targets don't really blow up all that spectacularly in the game, with a rare few exceptions. You might get a small fire effect and a friendly block vape party, but buildings don't generally contribute to the spectacle as much as they probably should. Compare what happens if you drop even a tiny firecracker on a “warehouse” building, and if you drop a MiG-21 nuke on some generic houses. One creates a spectacle because the building generates its own secondary-explosion effects; the other just creates instant ruins with little to no extra decoration.

Basically, yes, DCS explosions could probably use a bit more oomph, but it's quite likely that a better way of going about it is by addressing the object destruction part of the equation rather than the actual bomb effect. Same end result — different ways of going about it.

[Czar66]

The special particles effects are work in progress in DCS. For now they are sometimes underwhelming yes, but we must be careful about exaggerations.
 

ps: I don't know how is the allowance of real war footage here so I won't link other videos, but there are plenty of 1000lb and 2000lb demonstrations on youtube.
 

This is a capture I made a while ago on the Hornet. GBU-24 Paveway III 2000lb. The blast is quite big. This effect is also present on Mk-84 blasts (90% sure).

Edited April 29, 2024 by Czar66
Gif added.

[Dragon1-1]

It highly depends on what the bomb hits, exactly. The fireball it self will be quite small, with most of the "explosion effect" being smoke and dust raised by the blast. A bomb exploding on a asphalt surface will raise relatively little dust, and its own smoke won't be that great in volume, either. OTOH, one that buries itself deep in a bunker buried under a layer of sand, that one can be expected to raise a lot of dust, both from powdered concrete and sand.

Importantly, fuze settings will matter, a delay fuze will, as a rule, make a bigger crater and a bigger dust cloud (since the shockwave propagates directly through the material being impacted), while an instant fuze will make a much smaller one, dealing damage via concussive force and fragmentation.

[SkateZilla]

75% of that explosion in the OP is dirt and concrete and not pyroclastic.

[Furiz]

Its just dust from a collapsing building on OPs image,

in DCS buildings hit do not produce that kind of debris, but imo bomb blast in DCS is very well made.

[draconus]

Fact is IRL most explosions and damage do produce much more dust and smoke which DCS lacks so a more realistic effect based on target and surface is a valid request.

[upyr1]

On 4/28/2024 at 10:14 AM, lidor said:

as you all know mk84 in real life makes a huge smoke cloud (will be attached as image)

and in dcs it looks like a big grenade explosion.. i would really like to give up for some fps during explosions for this beautiful scenes.

(couldnt make this post in core game wish list if an admin sees this please move it their)

When comparing real-world and DCS explosions it is important to ask not only what sort of bomb was used but also what was the target? If a massive explosion in a video could be an ammo dump exploding or it could be the DCS explosion is too small

[Gunfreak]

DCS has very odd explosion effects.

3kg warheads of HVAR rockets make bigger explosions than WW2 500lb bombs.

You'd think it would be quite simple, just scale the explosion down (a lot) 

Same would be for 2000lb bombs. Just  scale them up and make the dust linger longer. And if you are talking about performance. DCS can't handle cluster bombs, carpet bombing etc. A bigger longer 2000lb explosion isn't gonna effects performance more than 10 cluster bombs going off or 200 500lb bombs going off.