Missile shots during replays

[Drakkhen]

Hi,

 

I was making many fights recording replays to store some tactical examples for my team when I noticed some singular results:

 

When shooting missiles, a replay does not ensure the recorded shots to be replayed as they occured in-game. I mean, instead of recording explosion event with actual damage amounts on target, it simply "pulls the trigger" and missile can miss or explode with completely different results on the target.

 

According to targetting mode, it sometimes even miss the trigger pulling. i.e. When you shoot using [6]th targetting mode (missile tracking) the shooting window is very narrow and according to framerate, the missile sometimes doesn't go and keeps under wing.

It was critical when switching from cockpit view, where 75% of the missiles were correctly fired, to external view where 0% were fired!!!!

 

So, for some fights where I shot four planes during recording before I land, I have replays where no enemy plane is shot and I get shot in return. There must be a way to see in track file I currently landed, opened pit and turned engines off while no enemy behaviour is stored... I wonder.

 

Recording missile shot, explosion and damage amounts instead of a frame-dependant triggering would ensure replays to be used for demonstrations and exercices, I guess.

 

MP me if replays are needed.

[britgliderpilot]

Yep, relatively old news. The previous complaints were usually about helmet mode, which is even more critical - a single view change in cockpit and you lose all shots made from helmet aiming.

 

Suggest you try and use other radar modes if possible, otherwise limit your view changes - I think it's listed somewhere in the readmes that view changes can seriously damage your replays.

 

 

As for changing this . . . . . it would require some big reworkings of the way tracks are recorded. And rather bigger file sizes.

 

It is annoying, for sure - but unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it's not nearly a big enough showstopper to warrant the rewriting of the track file code.

[Drakkhen]

Hmmm it seems obvious helmet aiming is disturbed by view changes... here, I describe a framerate/event relation problem.

 

About using other radar modes, missile tracking is not necessarily a radar mode (with heat-seeking heads) and shouldn't be affected by active camera choice (longitudinal plane axis dependant). Next, since IR missile tracking mode keeps you "silent", when you compare missile tracking PK to other tracking modes PKs, you just don't care about them anymore (I get a 80% PK in this mode while 60% in bore, 30% in vertical sweeping and 20% in helmet).

 

'Bout the way tracks are recorded, it sure will be quite a change, but a replay that doesn't correctly replay is simply useless and, therefore, takes useless place.

[britgliderpilot]

Ah, gotcha . . . . . you say it's purely related to framerate?

 

That's weird.

Is it due to jerky framerates, and if so have you tried dropping graphics settings for smoother play?

 

 

I'd need to investigate the PK reason further, but it would seem likely that that's purely due to the optimal conditions for launch being better met when lock is achieved in missile-aiming mode - i.e. the missile is going out dead on boresight. If you fire in the same conditions in the other close air combat modes, the PK SHOULD be no different.

 

The missile-aiming mode is designed as a last resort for the big fighters - the same PK should be achievable through consideration of missile physics, which you should be doing anyway.

 

I'm not saying that it isn't a problem - it is, and if ED have the time I'd like to see them try to fix it - but the ease (and realism, if you like that sort of thing) of working around it outweighs the difficulty of trying to fix it.

[Drakkhen]

Ah, gotcha . . . . . you say it's purely related to framerate?

Not only.

 

And PK is just fine like it is.

 

Regarding damage differences, the same happens to some gun shots.

 

Since these events are relatively scarce, it shouldn't weigthen tracks this much.