I was wondering...

[Siggi 10]

...how it is flak-bursts can do 100mph?

 

The far away ones I get, but there I am, doing 100mph, and the flak-burst that went off just ahead of me creeps past my wingtip at around 3mph? Doesn't matter what speed I'm doing in fact, the little puff of smoke is always around 3mph slower than me when it should really be zipping past (or me zipping past it actually).

 

What's that all about then?

[Maeran 20]

Just off the top of my head. It is probably connected with the way you don't zip past anything (except that 2 seater you just dived past). When you're down at treetop level, you don't seem to be going very fast.

 

The reason for that was given before (on here somewhere...) as being because speed is scaled in order to make the scenery managable. Or something like that, we're at the limit of my understanding on the subject.

[Olham 164]

Perhaps it's bigger, and therefor further away, than you thought?

[nbryant 8]

Shouldn't you just be happy you saw it fly by and did not see the bright flash inside your cockpit?

[Siggi 10]

I remember scathingly refering to CFS1 as 'The Hang-glider Sim', because of the way the planes were supposedly doing 300mph ten feet off the ground but looked like they were doing 20mph, and felt like gliders during maneouvers.

 

I'm aware of the old rationale about having to be able to draw the scenery at acceptable FPS, but IL2 was doing an acceptable sense of realistic speed years ago. But then this is the CFS3 engine, and I guess they were still limited by the hardware back then.

 

But it doesn't explain the flak-bursts. Trees go by a lot faster on the deck, and there are lots of them without detriment to FPS. So how come a handful of flak-bursts need to be going so slow (or fast in fact, being that the plane is over-taking them at 3mph, which means they're going at the same speed as the plane minus 3mph)?

 

It's not just the far-away ones Olham, it's the ones you can fly through as well. It's very very weird, when you think about it.

 

Clouds do it too, I should add. Next time you're flying through a cloud, notice how slowly the mist is passing you. It's like you're at walking speed. It creates a surreal sensation of no speed.

[Creaghorn 10]

I remember scathingly refering to CFS1 as 'The Hang-glider Sim', because of the way the planes were supposedly doing 300mph ten feet off the ground but looked like they were doing 20mph, and felt like gliders during maneouvers.

 

I'm aware of the old rationale about having to be able to draw the scenery at acceptable FPS, but IL2 was doing an acceptable sense of realistic speed years ago. But then this is the CFS3 engine, and I guess they were still limited by the hardware back then.

 

But it doesn't explain the flak-bursts. Trees go by a lot faster on the deck, and there are lots of them without detriment to FPS. So how come a handful of flak-bursts need to be going so slow (or fast in fact, being that the plane is over-taking them at 3mph, which means they're going at the same speed as the plane minus 3mph)?

 

It's not just the far-away ones Olham, it's the ones you can fly through as well. It's very very weird, when you think about it.

 

Clouds do it too, I should add. Next time you're flying through a cloud, notice how slowly the mist is passing you. It's like you're at walking speed. It creates a surreal sensation of no speed.

 

i think speed of the burst is as fast as the scenerie underneath you as far as i can tell from my experience. the higher you are, the slower the scenerie is, the slower the smokepuffs are. if you have a fight in treetop level you're flying through a hell of flakbursts wich are also zipping fast by you.

[Siggi 10]

i think speed of the burst is as fast as the scenerie underneath you as far as i can tell from my experience. the higher you are, the slower the scenerie is, the slower the smokepuffs are. if you have a fight in treetop level you're flying through a hell of flakbursts wich are also zipping fast by you.

 

If that's correct it indicates that MS did not model a true 3D environment, they created some kind of botched trickery. Probably necessary at the time, to allow the sim to run at a decent FPS on the hardware of the time. Or possibly down to what most people believe about MS, that they were unskilled hacks.

[Creaghorn 10]

that would lead to the next question for the devs.

since smokepuffs are obviously treated like scenerie objects, would it be possible to fix it or is it coded? or if it is changeable, would it affect FPS?

in any case fast moving smokepuffs would increase the horror of them, accurate or not (historically stats say avg.10500 shells for one downed AC, where normal setting seems to fit it quite well).

or if not possible, a shorter longlivety of the bursts would at least make the illusion of them zipping by more fast?

[VonGuber 2]

Does anyone notice that they apparently move faster if they're closer to you? I seem to recall the very near misses seem to whiz by at a believable speed, but maybe I'm imagining it. Will watch today, if the opportunity presents.

[Bullethead 12]

Siggi-

 

I don't know why you're having trouble overtaking flak bursts. To me, they remain at fixed points in the sky and all planes move by them at the speed you'd expect.

 

Next time you have the chance, fly along for a while parallel with and beside an enemy formation that's being shelled. Just watch how fast the enemy planes leave flak bursts behind. While you're at it, compare the size of the bursts to the size of their planes.

 

It's easier to tell what's going on this way than it is when you're being shot at, because it's hard to judge the distance to and size of flak bursts hanging in the air nearby without something else to offer a sense of scale. Unless, of course, the burst is VERY close, but often then you don't get a good look at it because your screen goes black .

 

I have no way of knowing for sure, but it seems to me that flak bursts are pretty large objects. When they first appear, they seem about the size of an airplane, but grow very quickly to several times that size before fading out. That makes them about apparently about the same size as a hangar before they fade out. Just a guess on my part, but I think I'm in the ballpark here. Seems reasonable to me based on what I've seen of real shell bursts.

 

Now go fly over your airfield while holding your left hand up to the monitor. Fly high enough so that the airfield's hangars appear about the same size as your thumb nail. Now note how fast the hangar moves across the screen. Doesn't that seem to be about the same speed at which flak bursts of the same size move across the screen?

 

All I can say is, when flak has burst very close to me, I've zipped right by it at 100 knots just like I'd expect. For instance, last night, I actually got hit. The burst was right over my head so close that some of the orange fire and black streaks of shrapnel were visible at the top edge of my screen and there was smoke between my eyes and the instrument panel. Somehow, my plane wasn't seriously damaged. In the instant it took me to turn my head around to check how badly I was smoking and if the tail was still attached, I'd already left the burst about 50 yards behind. This didn't surprise me, though, because I had always thought flak bursts were large and immobile.

 

What did surprise me was the lack of serious damage. But then I thought about, and decided it was fairly realistic. When shells burst, their fragments just add a horizontal component to the forward motion they already had from the shell's flight. The center of mass of the cloud of shrapnel continues to follow the same path as the original shell. Thus, when flak shells explode, most of the fragments continue moving upwards in an expanding cone. This shell burst just over my head, so I was out of the way of most of the fragments.

 

I have no idea if OFF models such fragment patterns, or maybe I just got a "lucky die roll" on the "combat results table". But it was still pretty cool either way

[Bullethead 12]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

 

This pic was taken no more than 1-2 seconds after the flak burst at the end of the Nupe's smoke trail. My plane (the Alb) is easily 2-3 as far from the flak burst as from the Nupe, because I was shooting at him at fairly close range when the shell burst. From my cockpit, the Nupe looked big enough to fill the whole gap between my upper and lower wings. In fact, I thought I'd shot him down as was taking this picture to prove it when I noticed the flack burst. No wonder he looked like he'd suddenly exploded . Anyway, you can see we've left the burst far behind already.

 

So just how far away is it? I moved the POV around and yes, the upper end of the smoke trail was indeed stuck through the side of the flak burst, so they're in the same place. Judging from other burning planes I've followed, smoke trails start out about as wide as the horizontal stabilizer's span but quickly grow to about the width of the wingspan. I reckon the upper end of the Nupe's trail has dispersed to about that width in this pic. The flak burst is already 3-4 times that wide, already about the size of a hangar. Picture a parked plane sitting in front of a hangar. Ain't its wingspan about the same proportionate size to the adjacent hangar as the smoke trail is to the flak burst? So anyway, it looks like a good 1-2 seconds travel time away from the burst, IMHO.

[Siggi 10]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

 

This pic was taken no more than 1-2 seconds after the flak burst at the end of the Nupe's smoke trail. My plane (the Alb) is easily 2-3 as far from the flak burst as from the Nupe, because I was shooting at him at fairly close range when the shell burst. From my cockpit, the Nupe looked big enough to fill the whole gap between my upper and lower wings. In fact, I thought I'd shot him down as was taking this picture to prove it when I noticed the flack burst. No wonder he looked like he'd suddenly exploded . Anyway, you can see we've left the burst far behind already.

 

So just how far away is it? I moved the POV around and yes, the upper end of the smoke trail was indeed stuck through the side of the flak burst, so they're in the same place. Judging from other burning planes I've followed, smoke trails start out about as wide as the horizontal stabilizer's span but quickly grow to about the width of the wingspan. I reckon the upper end of the Nupe's trail has dispersed to about that width in this pic. The flak burst is already 3-4 times that wide, already about the size of a hangar. Picture a parked plane sitting in front of a hangar. Ain't its wingspan about the same proportionate size to the adjacent hangar as the smoke trail is to the flak burst? So anyway, it looks like a good 1-2 seconds travel time away from the burst, IMHO.

 

Thanks Bullet, I'd believed them much smaller than that.

[VonGuber 2]

All I can say is, when flak has burst very close to me, I've zipped right by it at 100 knots just like I'd expect.

 

Yep, that's what I've noticed...hence my question about it.

[sitting_duck 3]

I think if you try and reference it in another manner, you will see its not that far off...

 

picture yourself in a car on the highway going 80mph,,(bout the speed of the plane)...you see a cute hitchhiker up ahead,,,and as you pass by her (thinking dirty thoughts no doubt) you take the time to check her out. But,,even as she gets very close,,you still have the time to look, and make observations...she doesnt go zinging by you...

 

now replace her with a puff of flack...and although it may not be totally accurate,,,in my opinion,,its pretty close..

 

or to put it another way without the comedy,,next time your driving fast ,,take an object in front of you and off to the side about 100 ft, and pretend its aflak burst,,and watch how fast it passes by you...and compare it to what you see in the game

Edited January 23, 2010 by sitting_duck