HitR update 1.46 - fuel

[Siggi 10]

Hello, All,

 

I've not read Independent Force and thus bow to Bullethead's deeper knowledge and appreciate the info. It helps show that one could alter fuel to play with weight and balance and that it was done. I was just reading about it with SBDs at Midway.

 

Regarding the RFC, early/mid-war and RFC machines sometimes bombed-up and flew without the observer to save weight. Also, I just went through my No. 20 Squadron (FE2d) and No. 24 Squadron (DH2) Squadron Record Books and both reflect beau coup sorties of 2.5 hours (even with the FE2ds bombed-up). I.E., they were going out with a helluvalotta fuel. So it's not an absolute that planes took off with reduced fuel.

 

As Olham mentioned, the following from the DiD chain mail: I've done fuel calculations regarding Richthofen sorties and I know he and his pilots didn’t fly on fumes to save weight. For one instance, when he was shot 6 July he wrote that it was an hour before he contacted the enemy, then he stalked them and was involved in a combat that went on for some 15 to 20 minutes. Endurance depends on throttle settings, of course, and we can never determine a pilot’s throttle settings exactly. Likewise, performance data for Albatrosses vary, and actual performance varies with air pressure, air temperature, engine condition and pilot technique, but from NASM the Albatros endurance was roughly 1.5 hours under combat conditions. That means, roughly, MvR flew 88% of that endurance. Since fuel burn was roughly 14 gph, and fuel capacity was 21 gallons, then MvR used about 85% of his fuel capacity that day (not including any reserves [reserve tank of 6 gallons]). Or, to even it out, 88% endurance and 88% capacity. Of course, those figures reduce when you factor in a 6 gallon reserve. (I've seen a maximum endurance of 2.4 hours, too, which ostensibly occured in flight situations when you weren't hammering around at full throttle.)

 

Based on performance data, flying with only 25% fuel, or about 5.25 gallons, gives you an endurance of about 22 minutes. It took that long to climb to 4000 metres in a D.Va, and eight minutes longer in a D.II. MvR’s Jasta 2 combat reports reveal that he was frequently engaging the enemy at 3,000 metres and it took a D.II 20 minutes to get there. I know we’ll never know many finite aspects history but I guarantee that MvR didn’t climb to altitude, find/fight/shoot down the enemy in two minutes, then glide back to base with a dead engine, out of fuel.

 

At half tanks, ca. 11 gallons, you’d get 44 minutes endurance. Again, not much time to climb to altitude, find an enemy, fight, and then get home. I don’t know the weight of fuel used by the Germans but my speculation is it can’t differ appreciably from fuel used today, which for 100LL is 6 pounds per gallon. Thus, at that fuel weight, by using half tanks you’d save 66 pounds, which is about 3% the total weight of an Albatros and 13% of its useful load. A 3% reduction in weight and 13% reduction in useful load and an Albatros can turn with a Nieuport? Any weight reduction increases nimbleness, but based on those figures would the increase be appreciable? The Albatros wasn't built for maneuverability; it was built for speed and twin-gun firepower.

 

For patrolling scouts it made little sense to hamper their effectiveness by reducing their ceilings and/or endurance via fuel limitation. Just when you finally spot a patrol of RE8s, the fuel runs out so now you are gliding home--just as the top-cover SE5a escort dives on you. This doesn't mean it (pre-takeoff fuel reduction) couldn't be done or wasn't done on some occasions/situations. As Bullethead wrote, it makes sense to play with fuel if you have a known target and wind forecast (although good luck with its accuracy!) to deliver a pre-determined ordnance load. Still, with OFF, many say the fuel management drastically affects all airplane performance, so even beyond the various historical considerations I recognize the importance of this feature as regards the sim, and it's great the devs are working on it. Again, I takeoff with full tanks, but if one can select auto-rudder, no wind, pilot never dies, etc., why not reduced fuel? After all, it's been an OFF setting for how many years?

 

One thing I don't know and please chime in. With my experience in general aviation we always topped the tanks at night to evacuate as much air from them as possible to minimize/prevent water from condensing out of the trapped air and falling into the fuel. Would WW1 planes need like consideration? The tanks were pressurized, which is different than, say, a Cessna, which (in a 172) has vented gravity tanks, but the air going into those pressurized tanks came from the atmosphere. If the dewpoint was 60F then the air in your tanks had the same dewpoint, and with a close temp/dewpoint spread at night you'd have water condensing into the fuel. These tanks required some air headroom to pressurize them, but (I'm thinking aloud) the less the air in the tanks the less the water vapor to condense. The fuel systems had screens, drains and sumps to capture/bleed water, but why initiate a practice that allowed the most amount of water to enter the fuel system every night? Again, I am pondering aloud--I've not researched this nor do I remember reading about this so hopefully someone will chime in with info.

 

That's a pretty superb analysis.

[Olham 164]

Broadside uda Barn: I agree with Pol and Shredward. It shouldnt be an option.

Lessening the fuel is more of a "cheat" than many other options in the workshop.

Even if it is optional in the workshop (I'd rather that time be used for far more productive and needed things),

it should carry a HEAVY subtraction in realism

Sorry, Sir, but how can you seriously say such things?

 

Switching off wind is a cheat.

Setting opponents guns on less accurate, and yours to very accurate, is a cheat.

Air start and Warp is a cheat.

Static good wheather is a cheat.

Throttle on most planes is a cheat.

Trimming in the air is a cheat.

Using TAC is a cheat.

Labels and brackets are cheats.

And and and...

 

Fuel management is NOT a cheat, because - in opposition to the above - it COULD be done.

And some of the above investigations seem to show, that it WAS done.

 

(To make this clear again: I know you can't bring it back now, Winder and Pol, and I don't

expect you to do such a magic trick. But if it turns out to have been used by the real pilots,

I hope you will implement it in P 4 then.)

Edited December 20, 2009 by Olham

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

In a memorandum issued by Britsh GHQ in February 1918 entitled "Fighting in the Air", the point is stressed in the section concerning scout pilots engaged in offensive patrols to maximize the agility and nimbleness of their craft by any means possible. You can bet they played with fuel load in this effort. Also, I know I have read in at least two different personal writings from the time about pilots going up with partial fuel loads when they knew they were staying close to home. I seem to recall in one account the writer talking about his frustration with not being able to chase after an enemy two-seater due to his short fuel load that morning. However, historic practice aside, I too see the ability to adjust fuel load as yet another refinement that should be allowed by the pilot, just like trimming out his controls before take-off. But I also don't expect our wonderful devs to drop everything and play with this little feature anytime soon. It's Christmas for one thing. And besides, I can always just climb to alt, hit ctrl-shift-E and accelarate so I can fly in circles until I have a half a tank of petrol, then decelerate and fly my normal little patrol mission if I choose to, (that's a sort of fuel management system right there). Plus I get to keep my custom skin to boot. Where there's a will and extreme amounts of coffee, there's a way.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

.

[Olham 164]

Thank you, RAF_Louvert - good information, Sir.

 

And a nice post in general - I fully agree with you.

[Bullethead 12]

Looks damning...except BE2's used to fly missions of 3 to 4 hours per "Wind in the Wires" so 50% after 1.5 hours may not be "unrealistic". Dunno about tank sizes or rate of consumption on either AC though.

 

Perhaps the weight of the fuel is being over-modeled?

 

It's been a long time since I read that book; I need to find it again. But IIRC, these guys were getting way more endurance and height out of their Quirks than the factory specs due to using an unconventional flight profile. As I understand it, instead of the conventional up-across-down profile, all under power, they instead went up-up-glide. The Quirk only had fuel for like 2 hours or so and a normal ceiling (given the conventional profile) of about 10000 feet. However, it took the Quirk 1 hour or so to reach 10000 feet, by which time it was rather lighter and could be gotten up higher. So if they kept on climbing, they could reach about 16000 feet in about 2 hours, at which point they'd be about 15-20 miles behind the lines and out of gas. Then they'd just glide back home however far on their side of the lines, which took another hour or 2. Thus, they ended up doing 3-4 hour missions out of fuel for only 1/2 to 2/3 that time. They could get away with this because in those early days, they usually didn't meet any aerial opposition.

 

But be all this as it may, the thing that seems to be getting lost in the shuffle here is that fuel load was selected by mission requirements. The above, and the other examples of long flights cited in this thread, obviously had to take full tanks because their mission called for it. But IMHO these are rather extreme examples. If you could do the job with less fuel, or if the nature of the job demanded light weight, then they certainly took less fuel.

 

It's always been the case, from WW1 right up until today, that you take just enough fuel to get there and back, plus a small reserve. Any more is not only a performance-killer and waste of a limited resource, but also limits how much other mission-related stuff you can take, like bombs, ammo, wireless sets, photographic plates, etc. The whole point of doing the mission is to get the most mission-related stuff to the objective so you can do the most good there. It thus makes absolutely zero sense militarily to carry fewer bombs to the target because instead you're carrying twice or thrice as much fuel as you need to make the trip.

 

And consider the German fighters in Bloody April. IIRC, those guys were doing about 5-6 interception sorties per day. Given the time needed to service the planes between hops, none of these sorties could have lasted much more than 1 hour or they wouldn't have been able to fit so many into the available daylight. Also, being fairly close to the lines and intercepting from the ground, rapid climbing and high speed were of the essence. It's inconceivable to me, given the high flight performance needed for the job and the short duration of the flights, that the Germans flew with anything approaching full tanks in this situation.

 

But back to the game......

 

I think it fairly safe to say assume that OBD made the planes with the correct size and placement of fuel tanks, and that their fuel consumption is about as close to accurate as the game engine allows. I also think it's pretty certain that gasoline has the correct density. The problem, IMHO, lies with full tanks being incompatible with the campaign system.

 

Normally, I use "Optional Flight" when I get missions such as produced my screenshot above, because I consider them unrealistic. Almost all WW1 squadrons (fighter and 2-seater) were tied in direct support to specific ground units (armies, corps, and artillery regiments), so flew all their missions in that ground unit's sector doing jobs for that ground unit. Hence, flying so far along the lines, across several army boundaries, didn't happen much if at all. I just did this mission to illustrate how much excess fuel 100% gives you even on about as long a mission as the campaign will ever give you. But IMHO this sort of mission shouldn't arise as frequently as it does in the campaign.

 

So, the realistic OFF missions are those that are mostly perpendicular to the front nearest your base. Few of these go very far behind the lines. Plus, regardless of overall mission length or how close the objective is to home, we're never asked to patrol there for more than 15-20 minutes. IOW, our realistic mission requirements don't call for very much fuel at all. Now, it we were given campaign missions to patrol for a couple of hours, or to fly very far across the lines, there'd be a need for more fuel. But as shown in my "test" flight above, even these probably wouldn't call for full tanks, given the endurance most planes have. And given that in WW1 fuel loads were mission-dependent, not being able to select just the fuel needed to do the job would still be quite annoying.

 

And let's not forget the "fun" aspect in our quest for realism and immersion. Games are entertainment so are supposed to be fun. If they're not fun, then folks don't play or buy them. And right now, OFF is not nearly as much fun as it was prior to HitR, at least not for me.

 

I consider it a lot of fun to stunt around and engage in wild dogfights in a light plane. This is no longer possible, not even in QC, so that takes away a large part of my enjoyment of the game right there. I also do not consider it fun, no matter how realistic it is, to have to spend an hour or 2 circling around far to the rear while slowly, painfully, clawing my way up to operational altitude and burning off some, but never enough, of my unnecessary and fun-killing fuel.

 

Plus, there's the time factor in real life. Before HitR, I would take just enough fuel to do the job, just like in real life. Then I could warp through the boring parts because my plane was light enough to reach operational height in the number of waypoints the mission gave me for circling the airfield. This is NOT the case any more, because climb rates are so reduced by all the excess fuel. Thus, to get anywhere near a survivable altitude before reaching the lines, you have to do a BUNCH of extra circling in real time. Just because the DH4s of the Independent Force had to spend 1.5 hours circling over their base to be able to cross the lines at 14000 feet (before heading 70-100 miles into Hunland) doens't mean I want to experience this myself when playing OFF.

 

As things stand at present, I'm not enjoying HitR much at all. The planes are too heavy to be fun to fly, it takes way too much of my available time to get up to decent altitude (and even this time isn't enough to make the planes light enough to be fun). Then, when I finally get there, the AI either doesn't want to fight or does so too ineptly to be challenging (but that's a separate subject). Even the DiD campaign is now more of a job than an adventure, because but for the obligation I made to it, I doubt I'd be flying OFF at all right now.

[Olham 164]

There I'm lucky with having my older rig running still, Bullethead.

As I didn't dare to move the pilot data to the new rig (with HitR), cause it might lead to corrupted files,

I will fly our DiD Campaign on the old rig, until the pilot falls.

 

Sitting in the cockpit already for a Ball. bust. mission - wish me luck!

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

BH, I understand all your points and don't disagree. I am only saying that, given the time of year and other projects on the table, we shouldn't expect the devs to rush to this issue as it sounds like an either/or scenario for the moment. Either adjustable fuel load or custom skin. So unless that is simply a button and a file or two that could be added to allow the choice in the workshop the situation is not likely to be altered anytime soon. Maybe we'll have to use a similar approach to Olham's and install BHaH a second time as another stand-alone and not upgrade it to HITR, assuming folks have the space for that in their hard drives. Just spitballing here on that idea.

 

.

[Rickitycrate 10]

Good luck with that mission Olham, but don't bust yer balls mate.

[Fortiesboy 3]

Broadside uda Barn: I agree with Pol and Shredward. It shouldnt be an option.

Lessening the fuel is more of a "cheat" than many other options in the workshop.

Even if it is optional in the workshop (I'd rather that time be used for far more productive and needed things),

it should carry a HEAVY subtraction in realism

Sorry, Sir, but how can you seriously say such things?

 

Switching off wind is a cheat.

Setting opponents guns on less accurate, and yours to very accurate, is a cheat.

Air start and Warp is a cheat.

Static good wheather is a cheat.

Throttle on most planes is a cheat.

Trimming in the air is a cheat.

Using TAC is a cheat.

Labels and brackets are cheats.

And and and...

 

Fuel management is NOT a cheat, because - in opposition to the above - it COULD be done.

And some of the above investigations seem to show, that it WAS done.

 

(To make this clear again: I know you can't bring it back now, Winder and Pol, and I don't

expect you to do such a magic trick. But if it turns out to have been used by the real pilots,

I hope you will implement it in P 4 then.)

 

 

Exactly right!!

Using the new non aggressive AI I have just made a pilot career in a Dlll early ( amongst other things to see why the Alb now flies heavy )and my first sortie was scramble.

There I was, trying to get height with a full tank ( all right ,in RL, we may have been caught with the plane fully loaded anticipating a long flight,but, also it may have been parked with just a quarter tank, too )

How unrealistic is it though to always be in that situation with a full tank?

 

Anyway, I manage to get some height and then find a Spad to chase. Talk about a dog chasing its tail, -the AI is now designed it seems to fly just that bit higher and faster, that you almost can't get a bead on it without stalling. IIRC that was exactly what it was like in phase 1.

 

Now some of you may think this is a fuel thing- Me,? I'm not sure...I'm beginning to think it's a case of "the player must not have a level playing field because the AI is not human".

 

Back to the scramble - I had pumped a lot of bullets into the Spad, yet he still climbed faster and higher than me......then his mate was behind me - I took THREE hits and my engine was spluttering and that was me out of the game. Again, is that because of the same thinking?

"the player must not have a level playing field because the AI is not human".

 

Now it's a fair point that the AI isn't human, but it grates me to see too much compensation the other way, taking us beyond credulity...Because, IMHO, that's what the sim is doing in certain areas. (All this discussion about whether in RL there was or was not fuel management- levels of DM etc etc, are red herrings. Come on, of course there was different levels of fuel, for different tasks.)

The problem is that the sim has AI built into it- and that requirement makes it very hard, if not impossible, to write a fully realistic sim

IMHO, the sim is written in order not to make the objective, i.e. 17 hrs, too easy. And in order to do that, these "compensations" are used to offset the limitations imposed by coding.

I mean, writing an online-only sim where there is no AI at all, must be dead easy in comparison. All the planes can be to the same parameters- ALL have full fuel or half fuel etc- ALL cause the same damage if they hit the same place the same number of times.etc etc.

 

But we are fighting AI in this sim, and thus the devs have Mission Impossible. Personally I'd like to see it easier to progress in campaign, if that means credibility isn't too strained. E.g fuelling can be put in the sim, and three bullets doesn't always disable the player, and AI is not USS Enterprise with shields up !

 

Having said that, The new aggressive AI in QC is as good as it's been so far. It certainly is better than the original 1.32g in QC. Against likely odds in lifelike scenarios, i.e. engaging more then one enemy, I should think you would rarely get to the deck where, right at the bottom, there still remains a little yo-yoing. However, before that, it is good as it can be, I suspect.

 

My 2 pennuth

[Bullethead 12]

BH, I understand all your points and don't disagree. I am only saying that, given the time of year and other projects on the table, we shouldn't expect the devs to rush to this issue as it sounds like an either/or scenario for the moment. Either adjustable fuel load or custom skin. So unless that is simply a button and a file or two that could be added to allow the choice in the workshop the situation is not likely to be altered anytime soon.

 

I make games for a living myself, so I'm painfully aware of the "Law of Unintended Consequences". You spend a lot of time and effort not only addressing customer requests and suggestions, but adding a lot of new stuff over and above. And then you find out something in there busted something important, and it's almost as much work to fix as all the new stuff you just made. That seems to be the case here, so I'm not expecting a quick fix.

 

But I would like to hold out hope for a fix at some point down the road. However, when I see devs saying they think it's realistic to force full tanks on you no matter how short your mission, I'm led to conclude that they don't plan on addressing this issue at all. Thus, I feel obliged to change their minds by offering evidence that WW1 planes did indeed fly with less-than-full tanks in situations where they didn't need all of it, and to show that this was most of the time in real life, and ALL of the time in the campaign system.

[Bullethead 12]

Just spitballing here on that idea.

 

How about this idea?

 

If it's impossible to have an either/or option on the personal skin or the player-selected fuel load, why not have the campaign system automatically fill your tank a variable amount based on the length of the assigned mission? Just enough to get there, spend the required time at the objective (if any), get home, and say a 10-15 minute reserve. IOW, what I always used to put in there myself.

 

All the pieces for this seem to be in place already. The campaign system used to estimate how far you could fly for a given amount of fuel, so it seems to me you could automate this process. Instead of going with max, the game would set your fuel to equal the round trip mission distance plus 15-30 miles, depending on how long you're supposed to patrol the objective. That's what I always did myself before HitR.

 

So, the end result would be that the player still can't adjust his fuel load and would still have a personal skin. However, he'd have a light plane that flies well (at least the same as they did before HitR), and nobody'd be able to take too little fuel to do the job, which Shred apparently thought I was implying in an earlier post.

[+Winder 32]

Hi Guys,

 

Just to let you all know that ammo and bullet loadout options are still very much on our to do list for HitR. Yes its not an easy fix otherwise you would have had it in 1.46 already but we decided to patch the balance of issues before X-mas.

So what am I saying? Ammo and Loadout fix will not be available till the new year at this rate, and we still have to find the solution, but please be assured that it is on our list and is being worked on.

 

IF and only IF, we get to the point where its not fixable, 1) we will let you know so there is no ambiguity and 2) it will no longer be on the issues list.

 

This will not be an issue for P4 either: ammo and fuel selection will be in.

 

HTH

 

WM

[Bullethead 12]

Just to let you all know that ammo and bullet loadout options are still very much on our to do list for HitR....

 

This will not be an issue for P4 either: ammo and fuel selection will be in.

 

Thanks. I'll shut up now

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Thanks, Winder.

 

Where do you find your patience? It must be very frustrating having to work with the limitations of the CFS3 engine while adhering to realism and the requests of your fanbase.

 

Again, your response indicates a strong desire to accommodate all reasonable demands of your customers. OBD's motto should be "If it can be done, it WILL be done."

 

As others have said more eloquently than me, I have faith that you will find a satisfactory solution, and even if not, a reasonable compromise will be found.

 

Finally, lest you forget, your work is much appreciated by everyone who posts on this forum--and many who do not!

[Rickitycrate 10]

Winder, you are one of a kind I think. May you and your family be blessed. I don't want to pry open a can of worms but it does seem you are letting little hints of P4 come to to light. I can't help but think Team OBD has some interesting top secret "Black Project" type stuff in developement. I do enjoy having further developements to look forward to down the road. I'm not asking, just saying....thanks.

[Olham 164]

Thanks for the confirmation, Winder.

[Broadside uda Barn 0]

Even if it is optional in the workshop (I'd rather that time be used for far more productive and needed things),

it should carry a HEAVY subtraction in realism

Sorry, Sir, but how can you seriously say such things?

 

Fuel management is NOT a cheat, because - in opposition to the above - it COULD be done.

And some of the above investigations seem to show, that it WAS done.

 

 

 

Sorry that you dont like it, but just because a pilot *could* have done something, doesnt mean they did.

It CERTAINLY was not the norm.

 

As far as I know, fuel wasn't touched. To be honest, I don't think you should go out with less than full fuel. Certainly not if you were flying for the RFC - you were sent out on patrol, either to try and carry the fight to the bally Hun far on his side, or to bomb his rear echelons, or to act as the eyes of the artillery. Patrols were normally an hour and a half or two hours, and they certainly did not go out without full fuel. Neither should you. I don't know for sure, but I suspect even the Jastas went up ready to stay and fight - certainly they were set up to intercept when the forward observers saw a raid coming, but they also flew standing patrols.

Cheers,

shredward

 

 

 

 

Mannock tinkered with his engine for more power, for higher alt. flying etc, that doesnt mean that this was the norm for pilots in ww1. That doesnt mean that I can tweak settings for OFF so that my plane flys incredibly better than other planes, and in the same comment say "oh, I'm flying at full realism". You can do that for fun. You can do that because that's what you want out of this sim. You can do that because it creates what you want in a sim. Thanks to OBD, you have these options. However, that doesnt make it realistic.

 

Realistic is a full tank of petrol.

 

And just so we're clear, my post is directed primarily at realism %. Tweak your fuel settings? Fine! Reduce the realism % by 40% at the minimum (50% is more accurate according to the realism setting percentages that are already in the game).

 

You want to fly it for full realism? Dont mess with the fuel loads unless your mission calls for it.

 

regards,

[Olham 164]

Perhaps you read the posts of Bullethead and RAF_Louvert, BuB.

 

You want to eliminate realism points?

Okay,

so let's take off 60 % for using throttle,

and 30 % for using inflight trim,

and 20 % for auto mixture control.

and 40 % for warping

and 75 % for using TAC

and 60 % for using Labels

 

well, you may get it - you can calculate yourself, where you would end with realism.

To regard just the petrol management as non-realistic, is starting at the wrong end.

 

And I say it again - if I had been a pilot, I would have used it as well as goggles and gloves.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

Broadside uda Barn wrote:

 

 

Dont mess with the fuel loads unless your mission calls for it.

 

BuB, I believe that is what we are talking about here. If you were only patrolling a ten mile stretch of mud for an hour and a half you would load fuel for that much flight time. If you had to run the long recon you would pack every ounce you could to get you there and back. The fact as it stands now is you will always be starting out with full petrol tanks no matter how long you are scheduled to be aloft, and that is not historically realistic, especially at various times of the War when there were massive fuel shortages. Before HITR your fuel load was set based on the flight time of the mission, now it is a static "always full" amount. It does affect the performance of these planes in a very realistic way, which is why it was a very real consideration for our Great War counterparts.

 

.

[DukeIronHand 8]

 

Realistic is a full tank of petrol.

 

 

I have absolutely nothing to back it up but somehow, in historical terms, I feel this must be true, i.e., taking off on a war patrol with full tanks.

 

OFF fuel consumption rates/engine power, campaign engine and mission assignment aside.

 

Be an interesting research project.

Edited December 20, 2009 by DukeIronHand

[Broadside uda Barn 0]

 

well, you may get it - you can calculate yourself, where you would end with realism.

To regard just the petrol management as non-realistic, is starting at the wrong end.

 

 

There are already deductions for realism for those things, we're not "starting" with petrol management, so why would plane manoeverability thru fuel manipulation be any different? Your argument makes no sense.

 

You dont want fuel manipulation to affect your realism percentage.

I think it affects realism just as much, and even more so, than "flight claims", and other aspects of the game that give a HUGE realism percentage deduction.

 

How about if we just agree to disagree on this, as I think we've both made our points, and the devs have also stated clearly their thoughts on the matter.

 

 

 

 

 

Before HITR your fuel load was set based on the flight time of the mission, now it is a static "always full" amount. It does affect the performance of these planes in a very realistic way, which is why it was a very real consideration for our Great War counterparts.

 

 

 

 

Exactly. I see your point here.

All I'm saying is use the fuel that is loaded for the mission. period.

 

Manipulation of the fuel beyond what the mission has listed, calls into question the realism factor, which should be accounted for.

 

 

 

As to full tank levels, I think the points were also extremely well made above for full fuel loads in regards to potential flight times and occurrences.

Dogfights occured when not anticipated, and lengths of flight could be much longer than the mission parameters, so going up with limited fuel (if sufficient fuel was available), would be very unwise.

 

 

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

BuB, I'm all about the realism and immersion, as much as that is possible with a sim, (and this one gets as close as it can to the WWI aerial combat experience, IMHO). And I do fly with whatever fuel load I was, and am now, given. It's just that now its always 100% whether the mission calls for it or not. Heck, I don't even use the in-sim map anymore but navigate strictly by vintage map, compass, and EB 20-20.

 

.

[Olham 164]

Perhaps the misunderstanding lies somewhere else.

Perhaps you didn't notice it yet, BuB.

Whatever amount/percentage there is written in the fuel amount window in the briefing,

doesn't mean anything, cause it's broken since HitR.

 

There might be 60 % written, but when you press F5 for the gauges, and you read

the blue text, you'll see: it is always 100 % at start.

[Siggi 10]

And what would you chaps say/think if you discovered the sim's planes were flying differently to the real ones, in that they were modelled 20% lighter? Such that the full tanks were making them 10% closer to reality but still performing 10% better than real?

 

I'm not saying that's the case, but how do we know it's not? Have any of us flown a real one, right to the edge of it's performance envelope?

 

My point is that our simulated planes are an abstraction already, and the fuel-load is just an abstracted component of that abstraction. The only reason it matters to you is it was once variable and now it's not. Would you care if it had never been variable? No, you wouldn't, you would simply have got used to their performance envelopes and flown them accordingly.

 

I think the best way to make my point is with this para-phrase...instead of trying to adapt the world to you, adapt yourselves to the world. These are the planes you have, right now; try to survive in them, try to kill in them, try to do your vDuty in them, as they are. Because they are, at any given time, what they are. Hated, loved, as were the real ones, for this or that.

 

I hate the N17. It's fragile, under-gunned, has a lousy sight. But it's what I'm issued with right now, and I do my vDuty in it to the best of my ability. Just like the real chaps did. My lord, if they could hear us!

[Olham 164]

Siggi: The only reason it matters to you is it was once variable and now it's not.

Would you care if it had never been variable? No, you wouldn't, you would simply

have got used to their performance envelopes and flown them accordingly.

 

That's absolutely right.

It's like with getting blind. You miss your eyesight only, cause you used to have it.

Edited December 20, 2009 by Olham