Helicopter damage models

[Boris]

ED, please, please fix the AI helicopter damage models! :helpsmilie:

 

They still seem to be waaaaaaay to sturdy. A direct hit from any missile should be enough to take one down in 99% of cases.

 

I had the experience today of flying the Black Shark campaign "Deployment" mission #8 "On the other side".

Having hit one of the Mi-24s coming at me in the valley with a Vikhr (which is hard enough), all he got was a few bullet holes!!! He kept on flying merrily. And proceeded to fire missiles in our faces.

 

As a result my flight got totally owned and it was all game over, game over man!

 

Please take the time to fix this up before 1.2.5 as this is a real game killer if coming up against enemy helos.

[TimeKilla]

Remember that you're likely using a proximity fuse if in A/A mode on the fire control system this means that the missile is not hitting the Helicopter but exploding before it hits it to give you more chance of doing damage.

 

But if it was a direct hit without the proximity fuse being set then that's defo a little annoying.

[Boris]

Remember that you're likely using a proximity fuse if in A/A mode on the fire control system this means that the missile is not hitting the Helicopter but exploding before it hits it to give you more chance of doing damage.

 

But if it was a direct hit without the proximity fuse being set then that's defo a little annoying.

 

 

I've set up a very quick mission to demonstrate. I have two Mi-24s flying slowly from L to R.

 

I score two hits on the first one.

I actually thought he went down with the second Vikhr, but on inspecting the track he's flying on with minimal damage.

 

I score multiple hits on the second one. One is a proximity hit but the others seem to be direct. All that happens is that he eventually goes down for an emergency landing.

 

I've attached the track of the encounter. Please excuse the wobbly flying, I found out half way through that my AP channels were somehow deactivated.

Ka-50 vs Mi-24 Damage test.trk

[Boris]

And another track to highlight the ridiculousness...

Ka-50 vs Mi-24 Damage test #2.trk

[Boris]

I did one more track with a pair of UH-1s.

 

Sure there are a few proximity hits and misses, but it still took TWO direct Vikhr hits to bring each one down. The proximity hits didn't really do anything at all.

Ka-50 vs UH-1 Damage test.trk

[Lucas_From_Hell]

I can't check your tracks now, but keep in mind that the Mi-24 is sturdier than most helicopters. Rotors are titanium, cockpit glass is insanely thick (saw it personally, can't tell the specs, but I recall it works at least against 12.7mm rounds), plus the front fuselage has hardened steel 5mm armour, and it can take off with only one engine.

 

Obviously that doesn't make it impossible to destroy, but it does make it much harder.

 

Not an Mi-24, but seems like this Kiowa took a missile to the fuselage as well, and they still managed to bring it down safely. Pilot later flew it back home from the location.

 

[Boris]

Sure an Mi-24 is armored, but only armoured against a maximum of 12.7 mm rounds as you say.

 

The Vikhr is designed to take out tanks with an armour up to 1000 mm!! It would punch right through an Mi-24 as if it were just paper. A hit in the engines would probably go straight through both. A hit in the forward cockpit area would splinter the inside with shrapnel and kill or critically injure the crew. A hit of the tail, and it would almost certainly remove it.

 

The Vikhr is supposed to be effective against air targets at a proximity of up to 5 meters. Yet in the tests I've been doing I've also been getting direct hits, not just proximity hits, with minimal, I would say cosmetic damage.

 

Now I'd say that's ridiculous. :doh:

 

A single direct Vikhr hit would almost certainly take out any type of helicopter.

 

I've attached another track against a pair of UH-1s, this time not activating AA mode, just to demonstrate that these indeed are direct hits (though I think even a proximity blast ought to be sufficient in most cases).

Each UH-1 need TWO direct hits to take down!

 

I'd say this is not a matter of armour, but a bug in the damage modelling.

Ka-50 vs UH-1 Damage test #2.trk

[Boris]

I tested the AH-64D, the SH-60 and CH-53 this morning.

 

The Apache is just as unrealistically hard to take down as the Hind.

 

The Seahawk needed FOUR direct hits to take down!!!

 

The CH-53 by contrast is the first helicopter I've shot in testing that goes down more or less like it should.

 

Has no one else noticed this??? Am I crazy?

 

Tracks attached...

Ka-50 vs AH-64D Damage test.trk

Ka-50 vs SH-60 and CH-53 Damage test.trk

[Boris]

It gets better... Missiles pass straight through the Kiowa as if it were a ghost...

Ka-50 vs Kiowa - Chinook - Blackhawk Damage test.trk

[aussieboy]

Take a look at the damage.lua found in DCS World\Scripts\Aircrafts\_Common folder.

 

Using the OH-58 as an example it has 7 entries starting with oh58d_cells_properties[0] the 0 represents the

nose center, you can cross reference the property # to the list towards the top of the page.

 

You should be able to take the OH-58 in one shot if you hit the engine, well it's right engine according to the damage.lua.

[Boris]

Take a look at the damage.lua found in DCS World\Scripts\Aircrafts\_Common folder.

 

Using the OH-58 as an example it has 7 entries starting with oh58d_cells_properties[0] the 0 represents the

nose center, you can cross reference the property # to the list towards the top of the page.

 

You should be able to take the OH-58 in one shot if you hit the engine, well it's right engine according to the damage.lua.

 

Sure, if the missiles wouldn't pass straight through the OH-58 ;)

 

Thanks, I've been taking a look at the damage.lua to see if I can come up with a quick and dirty fix for this issue. Any idea what is meant by the "args" and what to do with them?

[aussieboy]

I'm still relatively new to DCS so this could be wrong but I think it relates to the damage boxes in the 3D model.

 

To break the entries down:

 

oh58d_cells_properties[0] = {critical_damage = 4, args = {161}}

 

Green is the model name and part# as referenced in the list at top of the damage.lua

 

Red, amount of damage it can sustain before something falls off or you get shoot down. Some parts will have an extra section named deps_cells, I think these parts fall off when the particular part reaches it critical damage amount.

 

Blue is 3D model argument # of the damage box.

 

Again this could be wrong and someone else may be able to shed more light on it.

 

Correction: The args are the animation ID # for the damage part

Edited May 27, 2013 by aussieboy
Correction

[maturin]

A shaped charge missile in the right place might make a neat hole in a chopper that is quite survivable.

 

The Vikhr has a fragmentation component, however, so the entire airframe should be getting spattered with shrapnel.

 

Anything hit by one should be emergency landing or limping back to base at the very least.

[Boris]

I'm still relatively new to DCS so this could be wrong but I think it relates to the damage boxes in the 3D model.

 

To break the entries down:

 

oh58d_cells_properties[0] = {critical_damage = 4, args = {161}}

 

Green is the model name and part# as referenced in the list at top of the damage.lua

 

Red, amount of damage it can sustain before something falls off or you get shoot down. Some parts will have an extra section named deps_cells, I think these parts fall off when the particular part reaches it critical damage amount.

 

Blue is 3D model argument # of the damage box.

 

Again this could be wrong and someone else may be able to shed more light on it.

 

Correction: The args are the animation ID # for the damage part

 

Cheers,

 

ok, so the only part that needs changing is the damage value.

 

Having played around a bit with it, I've found I need to go very low with the values to enact any kind of meaningful change (almost to 1).

 

What's more, the aircraft still take next to no damage from splash damage, although they certainly should take some. It makes using the AA proximity fuse pretty useless.

 

It seems like there's other factors governing damage and perhaps the splinter damage of the Vikhr isn't high enough either.

 

I think this is one for the devs to fix properly.

 

EDIT:

 

Just to show that this problem isn't limited to the Ka-50 and the Vikhr, I've attached a track of an Su-25T vs 2 Hinds.

 

I hit each one with an R-60, which do next to no damage. They take another R-73 hit each to take down.

Su-25T R60 R73 vs Mi-24 Damage test.trk

Edited May 27, 2013 by Boris

[aussieboy]

There's some weird stuff in the damage.lua, like damage_use_shield = true, what's that about? Sounds like something out of Star Trek ;^)

 

Also the section damage_total_damage = 3.0, is that for all the planes and helos? Oh, the more I look the more questions I want to ask.

[Boris]

There's some weird stuff in the damage.lua, like damage_use_shield = true, what's that about? Sounds like something out of Star Trek ;^)

 

Also the section damage_total_damage = 3.0, is that for all the planes and helos? Oh, the more I look the more questions I want to ask.

 

Yeah, and at least the Seahawk and the Huey are not mentioned in the file...

 

 

Problem persists in version 1.2.4.12913... :(

[aracas11]

hi all set up a simple two on one scenario with me in my KA-50 up against 2 AH64As , one apache took SIX vikhr missiles with various fuse settings before it went down on the other hand it took one vikhr per target to take down two KA-50s with the KAs falling apart pretty much as mine does when hit by a misslie.

i have run this mission a number of times with the same results.

[Riemann]

Hi,

i've also noticed the AI helos sturdiness against Vihkrs. On the other hand i also noticed that Hellfire missiles are way too much effective in hitting an airborne target at medium and high speed.

[Bushmanni]

bump

 

Very weak effect with Vikhr to an Apache. I got a direct hit right to the nose and Apache kept lobbing Hellfires at me like nothing happened, all he got was some holes to the nose. Hopefully this gets fixed soon.

 

Hellfires are probably quite effective at hitting airborne targets as at least British Apache crews train to use them as an air-to-air weapon. That's probably also the reason for no dedicated air-to-air missiles on most Apaches. Granted you can't shoot down enemy fighter with them but trying to do it with any other missile wouldn't change much as Apaches chances would still be very bleak. Against helicopters Hellfire can be very deadly.

[Flanker15]

My 2c

The Vikhr (in the game) has a 4kg explosive going off at 5m (I think), the tunguska missile has a 9kg explosive at 5m too. The tunguska is about 50/50 to shoot down a heli or fighter in one hit until I dropped its proxy fuse to 3m where it can reliably knock something out of the sky.

With less than half the explosive at the same range you can imagine the vikhr is going to be pretty bad in AA mode.

The At-6 has 2.4kg and the hellfire ~6kg (in the game that is) so you'd expect that in game the hellfire will destroy a helicopter better than the AT-6 on the hind.

A general magnitude boost to all explosive damage might make it better which I could try.

 

Also the Oh-58 has nothing at the front in the game code so stuff will go right through it there, it's damage model is unfinished.

Some of the other helicopters have iffy coding on their pilot so getting an easy kill there is harder than it should be.