Rockets....seriously?

[Fudd]

I'm not 100% sure about that one, Evil. I have on several occasions put my own aircraft within the blast radius of a bomb I was dropping in LO--and paid the price for it.

 

Try doing a low run with a Su-33 and Fab-500's...

[bogusheadbox]

You should use them in the same way they are used in real life - as area weapons against soft-skinned targets. They are not designed to be effective against pin-point targets, such as a vehicle. But if you have a swath of vehicles or a concentration of troops, you are likely to score a kill against something in there.

 

Only if you get a direct hit. THere appears to be no splash damage from rockets in game.

 

Rockets as they are at the moment are very poor area of effect weapons. Unless one actually hits a target of course. Tested against soft vehicles and squishies

[EtherealN]

Only if you get a direct hit. THere appears to be no splash damage from rockets in game.

 

I think he actually mentioned that already:

 

Vehicles will often take partial damage that is not visible to the player, but which affects their aiming accuracy.

 

So the operative word would be "appears to be no splash damage".

[Distiler]

Well, I'm having no major trouble with rockets. I see splash damage, it's almost instantaneous to non armored vehicles (a truck for example). For light armoured vehicles it may take a little more time to see them burning, but it seems ok to me.

[EvilBivol-1]

So the operative word would be "appears to be no splash damage".

That's correct. Proximity damage does occur, but is usually not easily detected by the player. In beta testing, we had a function that allowed us to see a unit's "life points" and the amount by which they were reduced as the unit took damage, whether direct hit or not. Unfortunately, the visual presentation of the unit itself is either alive or dead with nothing in between to indicate partial damage.

I'm not 100% sure about that one, Evil. I have on several occasions put my own aircraft within the blast radius of a bomb I was dropping in LO--and paid the price for it.

Yes, there is a blast effect, but I believe it's not as dangerous as it should be against own/AI aircraft that deploy A-G weapons. I should not have said, "no self-fragging," but "undermodeled self-fragging." :)
Edited May 26, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

[MBot]

Regarding that subject I made some interesting observations some months ago. I set up a dense 155mm artillery strike aginst my hovering helo. The game did log hits/splash damage from the exploding rounds to my helo as to be seen in the debriefing. While flying however I could not notice any damage to my helo at all. So the splash damage of a 155mm round going off right next to you seems to be present (tracked by the log) but it innoticeable small.

[EtherealN]

What was your altitude?

 

I've actually been toying with the idea of trying to set up an artillery strike that is sufficiently dense to have me shot down by a direct hit, but never got around to it.

 

It should also me noted though that there's a lot of ways to damage the bird that will not cause a deterioration of flight characteristics or avionics damages. One good example is AAA batteries that have on several occassions left my chopper pock-marked with holes - but not holes that allowed the projectiles to cause serious damage. Blast damage might be similar in that since it is "spread out" and doesn't have it's energy focused on one singular location it might not be enough to cause real damage - given enough distance, that is. If you are 5 meters from a 155mm shell landing and still not being noticeably hit I would be a bit more skeptical.

Edited May 26, 2009 by EtherealN

[EvilBivol-1]

Regarding that subject I mode some interesting observations some months ago. I set up a dense 155mm artillery strike aginst my hovering helo. The game did log hits/splash damage from the exploding rounds to my helo as to be seen in the debriefing. While flying however I could not notice any damage to my helo at all. So the splash damage of a 155mm round going off right next to you seems to be present (tracked by the log) but it innoticeable small.

That's another fold to the problem... the effect of S-S munitions again own aircraft. Regarding artillery, I've seen ED post that a 152mm munition will cause damage to a BMP-type vehicle in-game at 5 meters and outright destroy it at 2.5 meters. Chizh had also commented on his trip to a Russian military exercise, during which he was told the expected effectiveness (destroyed/immobilized vehicles?) of artillery against armored targets would be about 2% - 5%. But of course this is a very vague number. Furthermore, as you said earlier, reality includes many factors that are difficult to simulate. For example, the effect of suppression, which is the next best thing to destruction, is completely missing in the simulation (yup, cool mission ;)).

Edited May 26, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

[EtherealN]

Eb1, that just gave me a new wet dream.

 

Multiplayer where one side flies a flight of Ka-50's, and the other player runs groundforces in RTS style with morale/suppression/etc detail at least on par with the good old Close Combat series. That would be sooo awesome. And probably not feasible as a product, but still... :D

 

A question though - am I correct in assuming that it is actually possible to suffer a direct hit by an artillery shell when you are airborne in DCS:BS?

[EvilBivol-1]

A question though - am I correct in assuming that it is actually possible to suffer a direct hit by an artillery shell when you are airborne in DCS:BS?

I don't see why not. :) Sounds like a fun test. <opens Black Shark to set his Ka-50 hovering right over an SPA unit>

[EtherealN]

Leaves me wondering how many of the "wtf I suddenly just died WTFlol broken game?" posts are due to people being hit by artillery... :P

[MBot]

A question though - am I correct in assuming that it is actually possible to suffer a direct hit by an artillery shell when you are airborne in DCS:BS?

 

I tried very hard to do that but I have yet to see it, even MLRS cluster munition has so far missed me on every attempt :)

 

 

What was your altitude?

 

Distance to the detonation of the shells was very close. Distances that would otherwise take out BMPs as EB describes.

Edited May 26, 2009 by MBot

[EvilBivol-1]

There are no clusters. ;)

[MBot]

There are no clusters. ;)

 

Well that explains it then. It's still nice for show though :)

[EvilBivol-1]

Indeed. Loved the arty response in Ambush.

[TangoRomeo]

Just had a look at the config. Appears damage can be adjusted in the warheads.lua file. Every warhead/bomb has a explosive mass value with modifiers against different objects. As already been stated, fragmentation as such appears to be non present, however, for this purpose a value is added to the explosive mass.

I.e. the S-8 entry gives a value of 2.0 (kg) for explosive mass - 0.855 kg actual filler + 1.15 kg "frag power".

A typical entry looks like this:

warheads["KAB_500Kr"] =

{

expl_mass = 300.0,

other_factors = { 0.2, 1.0, 1.0 },

concrete_factors = { 1.0, 1.0, 10.0 },

concrete_obj_factor = 5.0,

obj_factors = { 0.2, 1.0, 1.0 },

cumulative_factor= 5.0,

};

 

In this case, if i understood correctly, for computing the damage output if detonating on the ground, calculation would go something like:

 

Ex.Mass. (300) x other_factors (0.2) = 60

 

Guess that's a point of impact, or max value, delivered to the exact location the impact occured?

 

That's not all there is to it, as it gives no clue about the kill/damage radii, and probability of damage/kills occuring within.

Edited May 26, 2009 by TangoRomeo

[bumfire]

There are no clusters. ;)

 

I have seen MLRS warheads strike the ground and explode and at other times explode in mid air and pepper the ground with explosions.

 

Is that just airburst frag type or is it airburst with multiple explosive projectiles ? because ingame, when the MLRS does airburst it sure does look like cluster type explosions, although on a smaller scale than the cluster bombs that are available in lockon.

[EvilBivol-1]

There are no actual clusters. The ground explosions resulting from a cluster munition are just randomized over a defined area.

[SUBS17]

That's another fold to the problem... the effect of S-S munitions again own aircraft. Regarding artillery, I've seen ED post that a 152mm munition will cause damage to a BMP-type vehicle in-game at 5 meters and outright destroy it at 2.5 meters. Chizh had also commented on his trip to a Russian military exercise, during which he was told the expected effectiveness (destroyed/immobilized vehicles?) of artillery against armored targets would be about 2% - 5%. But of course this is a very vague number. Furthermore, as you said earlier, reality includes many factors that are difficult to simulate. For example, the effect of suppression, which is the next best thing to destruction, is completely missing in the simulation (yup, cool mission ;)).

 

A direct hit from a 155mm round on a T72 tank at 1km would pick the entire vehicle up and throw it in the air.(because thats what one did to a centurion which is 10 tons heavier:smilewink:) A near miss would be hard to calculate its damage though.

[SUBS17]

Leaves me wondering how many of the "wtf I suddenly just died WTFlol broken game?" posts are due to people being hit by artillery... :P

 

Is there a log for DCS to show if things like that happen?

[Safari Ken]

Is there a log for DCS to show if things like that happen?

 

It should show up at the end of your mission debriefing, in the line-listing of events. One of the last entries should show your death and the weapon that caused it. If you don't see it, change the "Initiator" drop-down box to your name, to declutter the display.

 

There's also a third-party program called TacView that records your mission and gives you a really nice, very detailed 3D graphical debriefing.

 

I have TacView, and it's very well done, but I don't use it too often. I figure I don't need some fancy program to tell me that I died because I did something stupid. :D

[EtherealN]

Yeah, as a note on that debrief screen - if it's a really busy map and you sit there surprised for a minute or two before leaving the game it is definitely possible to have your own demise not show up unless you scroll up in the list. And in maps with a lot of artillery trying to scan the list can be pure punishment.

 

TacView, however, makes that thing a breeze and imo is even better than track-files for studying how the mission actually went. (Analyzing possible game bugs or procedure problems is still better done on track files though.)

[Valtyr]

Once on Patrol we recieved rocket fire by a OH-58D (Thankfully, they realized their mistake and didn't make a second attack run). We had rockets impacting within 30 meters of our vehicles and felt no effects. I'm not sure what kind of rocket they used though. I was standing up in the turret at the time and was very exposed, woke me up better then any energy drink ever did :)

[Safari Ken]

Yeah, as a note on that debrief screen - if it's a really busy map and you sit there surprised for a minute or two before leaving the game it is definitely possible to have your own demise not show up unless you scroll up in the list. And in maps with a lot of artillery trying to scan the list can be pure punishment.

 

Well yeah, that's why I mentioned about the declutter option on the debriefing screen. Just choose your name (or anyone else) from the "Initiator" drop-down box, and voila, no more punishment! Well, unless you're like me, in which just reliving that last mission sometimes counts as punishment. :smilewink:

[ericinexile]

Once on Patrol we recieved rocket fire by a OH-58D (Thankfully, they realized their mistake and didn't make a second attack run). We had rockets impacting within 30 meters of our vehicles and felt no effects. I'm not sure what kind of rocket they used though. I was standing up in the turret at the time and was very exposed, woke me up better then any energy drink ever did :)

 

Did they at least send your unit a case of beer afterwards?!