[Baltika]

Tally-Ho, indeed, chaps :biggrin:

Typhoid-

You are a rogue, sir, a rogue What an underhanded tactic :wink:

Seriously, though, that is an issue for developing the campaign - 90 missions at one per day was chosen as a reasonable compromise - RAF squadrons were flying three or four missions per day at the height of the battle, and likewise the Luftwaffe often launched more than one attack ina single day, BUT, RAF squadrons were at least sometimes rotated out of the frontline
if too heavy a toll was being taken on them. Luftwaffe pilots did not have that luxury, unless they were invited to Berlin to be awarded the Knight's Cross, which of course eventually took a terrible toll on experienced pilots as battle fatigue mounted up.

Perhaps I should look at adjusting the individual squadron's mission rate - hmm, any thoughts?


keith -

Well I can hardly complain "But that's cheating!" given that I told you how to go about doing it :wink:

It certainly makes a difference being loaded for bear, doesn't it? Bear in mind the RAF didn't have the option - and Typhoid at post #2 above claims to have bagged a couple of Ju-88s with his trusty machine guns, so it is possible (Well, over-claiming was rife on both sides in the Battle, as the top brass were well aware, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised :wink: )



Bandy -

Darn! I thought I'd seen the last of that. As a dedicated pilot I take it you are reasonably far into a campaign before it happened? I suspect it has to do with the individual Force's overall supply level, and the SupplyForOffensive= value being reached - you may see in the BoB_Data.ini that overall supply values are on the low side - that is on purpose to avoid this happening. Have the RAF unilaterally decided to invade France yet?

If you are happy to do a bit of tweaking and sadly unpaid beta testing, try setting a high SupplyForOffensive= value for one force (say 200) and a very low one for the other Force (say 30 or so), and see what happens after a few missions. Let me know how you get on.

As to Squadron upgrades, capun on behalf of the A-team has agreed to allow me to release a Spit 1B mod of the A-team Spit 1A for use by 19 Sqdn, at least until September 1940. I am working on getting the weapons modded appropriately just now. The problem I am having is that my modded early cannon is too reliable. The Guneditor has a reliability setting, but it doesn't seem to effect anything in game - I can blaze away with my full ammo load no problem. To maintain balance, I want to set up a situation where, as happened, only two machines out of a squadron intercept were able to fire off all their cannon ammo. If you think that sounds frustrating, well, so did the pilots of 19 Sqdn.

Does anyone know if the gunjam code from FE is implemented in SFP1? If so, how do I get it working?

Roll on the next round of patches, I say!

(For the avoidance of doubt, none of my above comments are intended to cause offence, merely pull a leg or two - honest :biggrin: )

Toodle-pip for now,

baltika

PS, as to squadron upgrades, I will take a look at that - at least that is something which is no problem to implement!

This post has been edited by Baltika: 21 June 2007 - 02:01:19 PM

[Baltika]

B Bandy RFC, on Jun 21 2007, 06:53 PM, said:

With Hurricanes, the first II series (mounting either 12 Brownings, or 4 x 20mm cannon) arrived in October. As we discussed in PM's this would be an awesome squadron upgrade!

I'm having trouble finding out which squadrons got the Hurri II in October 1940 - any ideas?

Thanks,

baltika

[Typhoid]

"Typhoid-

You are a rogue, sir, a rogue What an underhanded tactic :wink: "

HA!

:rofl: :biggrin:

At Topgun we had a sign that had Rules for Air Combat

#1 was "Cheat"

and "There are no points for Second Place"

the last was "Cheat some more"

seriously, on the number of missions you probably are right to put it up there at that level for realism. But when someone like me with not a lot of time to play a couple of missions at a time only a few times a week, it would take forever and a day to get through a campaign. So I've tweaked the campaign lengths so I can get through one once in a Blue Moon.

[Bandy]

RE: number of missions:
I also think one a day is fine, but two wouldn't make too much of a difference given that the whole campaign is short --BUT INTENSE!!!

RE: Hurricane squadrons with 12 guns, others with cannons, in October, I'll try to find more (it was one of those factoids you stumble across online...) though would be just as happy if somebody else already knew... And I'm sure somebody else does, they just haven't seen the thread...

RE: Luft Bombers in game play
Not sure where "reality" is on this issue (or if we can ever approach it in ANY sim) but it is a good place to start thinking about the issue.
Most books or sources I've read recently say the German bombers were under gunned, and "sitting ducks", especially the Stuka.
Many sources also say some pretty good things about the structural integrity of the German bombers, except the Stuka (see where I'm going?)
That all said, even Stuka's are a relative challenge until you learn to get underneath, flame one, and break up the formation, unless a 109 sneaks up on yer 6... 'nough said there... :blush2:

I've been trying to find definitive facts on which planes had crew and engine armour, which AC had self-sealing (SS) petrol tanks since not all did at the time! Hurricanes' and Spits wing tanks were SS, but not the Hurricane fuselage tank tho most were being replaced with SS tanks thru-out BoB. Bf 109 seems to only get SS tanks intro'd in 1942, perhaps attempting to max out range before that...). It is very interesting to mod the aircraft like so and see how the "play" changes. I've been "Hurricane Burned" many times... Too bad the "eject" sucks in SF... That said, it is a very compelling part of the BoB story, and how those pilots' recovered... I'm sure there are equally brave stories on the German side since they were pancaking in the channel all summer, fall, and winter...

RE: German pilots. One book I read mentioned that there were only 2 battle green pilots out of all the Luftwaffe pilots captured in the early stages in July/August. That must have terrified fighter command...

So, well, maybe game balance is a better perspective to take than too historically based, eh? It comes down to personal taste I suppose. Meanwhile I continue to tweak and have a BLAST!

Many thanks to all the 3rd party folks who've made this possible...

[Tailspin]

Another thing to consider about the German bombers in the sim....

If you will take a look at the Data.inis you will find that all of them have a StructuralFactor of anywhere from 3.0 to 6.0 added to their component damage. This means that they take 3 to 6 times the amount of hit points ABOVE normal to achieve the given damage rating. In addition to this some components are also given ARMOR values thus adding more to the hit points required to do damage. If you look at the Brit fighters, they have no such increase in StructuralFactor or armor. So the rifle caliber guns of the British planes are required to inflict as much as 6 times (or more in the case of armored components) the damage to the German bombers as the rifle caliber guns of the German bombers are to achieve the same results. Hardly seems fair. In other words...IMHO the damage models for the bombers need a little tweaking. :wink:

[Bandy]

If it is OK to say, and not being negatively critical of any FM's out there just purely constructive, BUT I heartily recommend anybody to go over the FM's for themselves. In my wanderings I've noticed some possible typos (missing armour on some wing tank surfaces that is present on the other wing tanks, etc.). I also found that the Bf 109E has code for a nose cannon, which it didn't have in BoB, though that just may have inadvertently been left over from another later version of the FM for the 109 F or G. I just put //'s in front of those lines just in case...

Something also struck me late last night as I was watching the hit pattern light up the wings of an He111; the 8 guns of the Brit fighters were set to converge at a certain distance (200 to 300 yards I think), focusing all that firepower to a small area. See Anthony Williams' excellent online analysis, he says that Hurricane and Spitfire unleashed 4 lbs of bullets a second!!! However, I think the Hurricane and Spitfire guns are set to fire parallel in the FM (unless I'm misunderstanding a variable in there). Pilot accounts say that 8 properly set up .303's were devastating... They also mixed AP with incendiary. Does SF support incendiary rounds? I haven't seen any discussion of it.

So, I'm going to try to see if I can converge the fire of the .303's by slightly altering the rotational alignment, and will report... If somebody beats me to it, hey, all the better...

This post has been edited by B Bandy RFC: 23 June 2007 - 05:46:01 AM

[Tailspin]

We're on the same page B. I've been tinkering around with gun convergence and it seems to work visually. The aim offset seems to be in degrees so you can either guesstimate the angles or you can actually do the math given the muzzle postitions from the centerline and the convergence distance as two sides of the right triangle. :wink: I gotta do some work today so I'll have to post more later this evening. Interested to see what you come up with and whether you think the sim actually calculates the effect of convergence. :good:

[Bandy]

Tailspin, on Jun 23 2007, 04:52 AM, said:

The aim offset seems to be in degrees...

FYI: from another thread on AimAngles:

Quote

the middle number is up/down, the 1st or 3rd should be the left/right adjustment
the 'measurment' is meters. minus numbers ie: 0.0,-1.0,0.0 would be 1 meter down from center. Plus signs are not needed.
BTW, minus numbers are left of center

This helps, but is still a bit confusing, so let me see if I read that correctly before I go spending hours tweaking these AimAngles
If the 1st number in the AimAngle is "Left Adjustment" and is something other than zero (say 1), then the 3rd number "Right Adjst" MUST BE zero, and vice versa. Right?

I've seen other threads where people think the 3 numbers in AimAngle are X,Y,Z adjustment, and while initially this seems logical, on reflection it makes absolutely no sense since movement in the 3rd axis would have no effect on where the bullets fly given that the desired "target" pattern is 2 dimensional (only up/down and left/right to a bullseye, NO depth...).

ALSO, unlike gunners machine guns in the data ini, where tracer can be easily changed (stock is a tracer round every 5 bullets), I cannot find where to change tracer loading to 1 for wing guns to better facilitate seeing the results of these tweaks.
Me thinks the gun editor might need to be invoked here... ugh! Oops, did I say that out loud???

This post has been edited by B Bandy RFC: 23 June 2007 - 07:21:59 AM

[capun]

As per TK, gun tracer amount can only be changed for AI gunners, fixed guns are hard coded to every 5 rounds (I may be wrong on the actual number).

It's too early and no coffee so I can't remember about the gun aim angles, I'll see if I can search my notes about it.

Edit. I found my notes.

The Gun Aim Angles are done a bit different, not in the normal X,Y,Z. They are done in Yaw (Z-axis), Pitch (X-axis), Roll (Y-Axis) and they are in degrees.

[Baltika]

Absolutely fascinating stuff chaps :good:

My preliminary experiments in setting up gun convergence have visibly shown that it does work, and is relatively straightforward - thanks to Bandy and Tailspin for raising it and to capun for explaining the settings. I am just now scratching my head trying to remember how to find out the angle at the base of an isosceles triangle when you know the length of the baseline and the length of the median to the far point (or something like that - maths was never my strongppoint :dntknw: )

Anyway, as capun defines the x,y and z, the only one you have to fiddle with is the x co-ordinate. The gun mounted at the extreme left of the plane requires the greatest positive angle, reducing for each gun as you get closer to the centreline of the plane. The gun at the extreme right has the greatest negative angle, again reducing as you get closer to the centreline of the plane.

You can tell which gun is which by the x co-ordinate of the muzzle position. On the Spit 1A they are set up like this (looking down from above with the nose of the plane to the top of the page):-

GunL01 GunL02 GunL03 GunL04 GunR04 GunR03 GunR02 GunR01

My initial experiment used the following AimAngle for each gun, following the above scheme:-

4,0,0 3,0,0 2,0,0 1,0,0 -1,0,0 -2,0,0 -3,0,0 -4,0,0

That resulted in tracers converging (and crossing over before zooming off into the distance fanning out again) about two plane lengths in front of my machine. Woo-hoo :biggrin:

Now I just have to fiddle with the fractions of an angle to get convergence at, say, 300 yards, and go blast some bombers. Oh yes :cool:


BTW, I have aslo followed capun's suggestions at post #6 re altering the bomber gunner behaviour. I reduced the gun range to 1000 (from 2000), reduced the burst amount from 50 to 10, and reduced the Pitch and Yaw AngleRates to 30. I have not touched the Gunner Fire chance and fire time in the AIDATA section (which I have, however, added to the data ini of each bomber) as that seemed to open up a can of worms.

I can report that the gunner fire is reduced, but still poses a challenge, especially if you are leading the attack. May be worth thinking about trying, though, if you haven't already.

I will let you know how my further gun convergence work goes.

Cheers,

baltika

[Baltika]

Alright,

I suggest reducing my initial figures by a factor of 10 for something useful. Following the same scheme, set them like this:-

0.4,0,0 0.3,0,0 0.2,0,0 0.1,0,0 -0.1,0,0 -0.2,0,0 -0.3,0,0 -0.4,0,0

When I get the chance I will work out distances - I think that is rather closer than 300 yards, at least visually, but I tend to get in close anyway before opening up.

You will see your fire being concentrated on a particular spot.

Excellent :biggrin:

[Baltika]

For the Hurri, I suggest setting guns on the right wing ALL to -0.2,0,1.5 and the guns on the left wing ALL to 0.2,0,1.5

This is simply because the guns on the Hurri are much more closely grouped together on each wing - 4 guns on each wing, each gun 15cm from the next one, if I am correct in reading the scale as metres.

The y value I am leaving as 1.5 as that is what the stock Hurri Mk1 has - what difference this makes over the Spit, which has a stock y value of 0, I have no idea. "Roll" implies some sort of spin on the bullet, perhaps to simulate rifling on the weapon barrel, which ought to increase accuracy, but really I am just guessing.

As to results in the field - I was working through a Hurri campaign with the above convergence settings, and although I had yet to encounter a Ju-88 flight, I sent a 110 down in flames in fairly short order, and I have previously found them tough birds to crack. A flight of Do-17Z was cut to pieces by my Hurri flight, and I could clearly see concentrations of fire on the targets I hit. Then, of course, I got target fixated on straggler whose engines were out, and I got blown to pieces by a 109 escort who arrived belatedly on the scene.

Ouch!

But the convergence settings seem to be making a difference.

Tally-ho once more :biggrin:

baltika

[capun]

The last value is probably a typo in the Hurricane, or it was originally thought that was the Z-axis, which changes the convergence. It should not make a difference since you basically are rotating the barrel along the firing axis (the Y-axis)

[Baltika]

capun, on Jun 24 2007, 01:43 AM, said:

The last value is probably a typo in the Hurricane, or it was originally thought that was the Z-axis, which changes the convergence. It should not make a difference since you basically are rotating the barrel along the firing axis (the Y-axis)

Hi,

Certainly it doesn't seem to be causing a problem. Kill rates are up :biggrin:

[Tailspin]

http://www.ajdesigner.com/phptriangle/law_...ion_angle_a.php

:wink:


There is another formula for figuring the length of the other side of the triangle (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) at the site too.

Using the formulae I get a value of 1.19 for the outer guns on the Spit @ 200 meters. I haven't got the chance to see if the guns converge at 200m in the sim though. Seems like they converge pretty quickly at this angle but its hard to tell how far it is in the virtual world.

BTW...AFAIK the first number is all you need to set convergence. A postive number angles to the right and a negative number angles to the left.

As to the question of somehow incorporating an API or incendiary rounds, if you extract the AIRCRAFTOBJECT.INI you will see a section titled ObjectFire. In that there is an entry for APRoundFireChance=1. Try increasing that to a higher number. I have mine set to 3 at the moment.

FYI, I am trying these things out for the first time myself. I don't know what effect they will have and I haven't had time to fully test anything. I hope you all will try them too and we can compare notes. :ok:

[Baltika]

Cheers Tailspin,

Having calculated the angles (OK, the website did it for me ) I have come up with this for the Spit 1A, for convergence at 200m:-

[GunL01]
AimAngles=1.096,0.0,0.0

[GunR01]
AimAngles=-1.096,0.0,0.0

[GunL02]
AimAngles=0.865,0.0,0.0

[GunR02]
AimAngles=-0.865,0.0,0.0

[GunL03]
AimAngles=0.772,0.0,0.0

[GunR03]
AimAngles=-0.772,0.0,0.0

[GunL04]
AimAngles=0.593,0.0,0.0

[GunR04]
AimAngles=-0.593,0.0,0.0


I'm not sure how to confirm the actual in-game distance by any means other than Mk 1 eyeball, but I will try it out and see how I get on.

baltika

[Baltika]

OK, 200m seems a little close. Here are my figures for the Hurri Mk1, convergance at 250m:-

[GunL01]
AimAngles=0.504,0.0,1.5

[GunR01]
AimAngles=-0.504,0.0,1.5

[GunL02]
AimAngles=0.47,0.0,1.5

[GunR02]
AimAngles=-0.47,0.0,1.5

[GunL03]
AimAngles=0.435,0.0,1.5

[GunR03]
AimAngles=-0.435,0.0,1.5

[GunL04]
AimAngles=0.401,0.0,1.5

[GunR04]
AimAngles=-0.401,0.0,1.5


I am definitely seeing concentration of fire on targets, with good results.

Cheers,

baltika

[Bandy]

Tarnation, you guys are fast on a good idea!!! :blink:

Here I slavishly "worked" at this all night, and didn't get around to seeing this thread at all... Even prepared some pics to show effects to those not convinced! Well, I'm posting my results anyways!!! :biggrin:
The values below will put the bullet convergence (4 lbs of lead per second!!!) right on the pip when the wingtips of a Bf 109 touch the margins of the ring sight.

STOCK AIM ANGLES for Spit:


My CONVERGENCE ANGLES:


AND CONVERGENCE AGAIN at Work:


AIM ANGLES I DECIDED UPON (No math, just trial and error, which appear damn close to the math!) I found the pitch convergence needed 0.5 (the middle number) and it landed right on the pip, maybe a wee bit high, which is fine for me since I go for lead pursuit everytime I can I changed the last variable by up to 10 and saw no result in the path, and as I mentioned earlier, logically figured this was the case that it rotated the gun in the axis of fire. Not sure why TK kept that space there...

// Internal Guns------------------

[GunL01]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=-3.826,1.917,-0.315
LightPosition=-3.826,1.917,-0.315
AimAngles=1.0,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=-3.8260,1.02,-0.30
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

[GunR01]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=3.826,1.917,-0.315
LightPosition=3.826,1.917,-0.315
AimAngles=-1.0,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=3.826,1.02,-0.301
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

[GunL02]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=-3.02,2.01,-0.378
LightPosition=-3.02,2.01,-0.378
AimAngles=0.8,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=-3.02,1.10,-0.350
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

[GunR02]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=3.02,2.01,-0.378
LightPosition=3.02,2.01,-0.378
AimAngles=-0.8,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=3.02,1.10,-0.350
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

[GunL03]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=-2.695,2.01,-0.390
LightPosition=-2.695,2.01,-0.390
AimAngles=0.6,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=-2.695,1.10,-0.375
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

[GunR03]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=2.695,2.01,-0.390
LightPosition=2.695,2.01,-0.3590
AimAngles=-0.6,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=2.695,1.10,-0.375
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

[GunL04]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=-2.07,2.01,-0.450
LightPosition=-2.07,2.01,-0.450
AimAngles=0.5,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=-2.07,1.20,-0.435
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

[GunR04]
SystemType=FIXED_GUN
GunTypeName=303CAL_Browning
InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN
MuzzlePosition=2.07,2.01,-0.450
LightPosition=2.07,2.01,-0.450
AimAngles=-0.5,0.5,0.0
MaxAmmo=350
EjectShells=TRUE
EjectPosition=2.07,1.20,-0.435
EjectVelocity= 0.0,0.0,-2.0

This post has been edited by B Bandy RFC: 24 June 2007 - 05:54:53 AM

[Bandy]

And oh, yes, I forgot to report that excellent results are to be had, and so do the AI, yeah!!!
First mission out with converged guns and the AI got as many NME as I did, and they had higher %hits than I did as well!!!

However, I've found that the mods I've done to aircraft recently (I've taken self-sealing tanks out of the Bf109 and 110 since the few references I've found says they didn't have them till 1942, and made FALSE all fire suppression system for engines and fuel tanks...) have made them Roman candles waiting for a match, and converged fire is devastating, as historical accounts have professed. Will have to put some armor there for game balance, which likely was the case anyways. Supposidely the German bombers had bullet-proof gas tanks. I've also read that the early Stukas had no cockpit armour, but was hastily modified post-BoB for the Eastern front... Anyone have confirmation on that?

Need to test with bomber intercepts now... :biggrin:

Will try that mod with the ammo Tailspin, sounds like the trick...

Perhaps an AimAngles thread in the Knowledge Base is in order, since all the threads I looked through there was much mis-information... ESPECIALLY about that third variable !!! :wink:

This post has been edited by B Bandy RFC: 24 June 2007 - 06:16:58 AM

[Bandy]

Tailspin, on Jun 23 2007, 10:08 PM, said:

As to the question of somehow incorporating an API or incendiary rounds, if you extract the AIRCRAFTOBJECT.INI you will see a section titled ObjectFire. In that there is an entry for APRoundFireChance=1. Try increasing that to a higher number. I have mine set to 3 at the moment.

TS, did you use the GunEditor to save these changes to the APRoundChance?
I seem to vaguely remember that that is/was a necessary step in the procedure in order to make Cat file changes to guns, otherwise you might be shooting blanks [sorry, had to say it...]