Gun Settings

[Lewie 7]

Thank you Creaghorn.

[Bullethead 12]

Those are all good points, Bullethead. However, keep in mind that shooting a machine gun from an emplaced ground position is somewhat different than firing it from an airplane, of course. In addition to shooting at a moving target that has more degrees of freedom of movement, you are also firing from a platform that is itself moving about in all directions.

 

Based on my experience, I don't think either of these variables is nearly as significant as you think. i've killed countless rabbits, coyotes, wild hogs, armadillos, and other varmints that were all running at full gallop, usually at high deflection, and mostly at night, from the back of a pickup bouncing along rough terrain at farily high speed to keep up with them, while holding my weapon offhand, not rigidly mounted in any way. It's not that hard, but even so I consider such shooting rather harder most shots in air combat, due to their high bearing rate of the target and the MUCH bumpier ride. The vast majority of shots in air combat were by surprise at non-maneuvering targets, after all, at at hale fellows well met.

 

Thus, IMHO the rather lower kills/sortie of real life compared to us in OFF is due to the following factors:

1. Most OFF pilots are veterans of a decade or 2 of sim combat so can hit even the most extreme deflection shots without breaking a sweat. No real-life fighter pilot ever had that advantage.

2. Most real-life pilots were neither good shots nor good pilots. In all air warfare when guns ruled, 80% of the kills were scored by 20% of the pilots. And 80% of the kills were surprise swoops, which says something for a lack of SA, again indicating a general lack of skill amongst flyboys.

3. The OFF AI tends to fight to the death. Thus, players are FORCED into fighting 1 enemy after another until the whole enemy flight is destroyed. It's either that or be shot down yourself. In real life, however, fights tended to end fairly quickly as pilots realized they were disadvantaged and broke contact after the 1st clash. Thus, most pilots weren't presented with a continuous string of opponents, so couldn't shoot down very many enemies per sortie even if they wanted to.

[carrick58 23]

I bow to Mr Bullethead s expertise in Gun Matters and Cone of Fire math. I would like to add that in those old airplanes the ride except for up and down and wind gusts were constantly bouncing. They were difficult to steer which is comparable to a Soap Box Racer going down a steep hill. Just to takeoff and land is an accomplishment,but to line up and shoot down another aircraft is amazing.

[IV/JG1_Kaiser 0]

Creaghorn,

Thanks so much for posting the English language you-tube link.

Looks like a very interesting documentary and to be honest my school boy German just wasn't helping!

Many thanks also for your sounds and tracer mods.

 

Salute from down here.

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there,

Some excellent points here. I have after all this time realized that I have the SIA - RSS settings backwards, and they should be Hard - (inaccurate) for AI Gun Range as per Workshop Settings.

We do have the Ground Fire shorted out quite accurately.

 

 

For the last 6 months I have been researching what we propose as new alternate realistic settings for OFF HITR Workshop. Bletchley has also been providing valuable info that we look to pass on. It will be available in the OFF SUBFORUM soon. I have personally read approximately ~ 16 books during that time, taking notes from each. I feel as though I can provide some very accurate information as I have about 30 pages of typed notes. Bullethead has some presented some excellent notes and I fully endorse his approach. Two new books on the WWI air ware scene are Hooton's - "War Above The Trenches" and the recent Hart - "Aces Falling". Of note is the following .........."two thirds of all airborne engagements ended without a decision". So, this translates nicely into reducing the accuracy of ALL guns. Most Aces were excellent at strategy and shooting, and it was carried out from within 50 yards. If you are that close, then with the spread as Herr PW has indicated in the Hard setting is such, then you should still be able to shoot the blighter down. Perhaps a revamping of such is an excellent idea. Statistics show us that one had 80 kills, a couple had 40 , a few more had 30, and most had 5 or less. While OFF does a superb job of concentrating the war and each mission, perhaps some may like a alternate realistic approach. As such the Detailed Missions for the Nationalities represented by OFF will have specific settings for that time frame including Workshop and Missions. They should be out in a week or so. Take a look.

Cheers,

British_eh

[Bletchley 8]

British_eh, in your SIA-RSS the AI Gun Range (Air) is currently set to (recommended) 'Easy'. My understanding is that this means that AI pilots will only fire on you when they are within short range (i.e. elliminates long-range accurate sniping). The settings for accuracy (the poll here) are 'Less Accurate' (i.e. Hard) for both AI and Player, for both Front and Rear guns. I think this is correct? I don't think you need to change it. The 'Players Guns Only' setting is set (recommended) to Normal (i.e. hardest) :)

 

It is possible that by using the 'Less Accurate' setting (AI & Player), the problem of long-range AI accurate sniping is now elliminated, and 'AI Gun Range (Air)' can be set to 'Normal' or 'Hard'. Does anyone use this combination of a 'Less Accurate' Main and/or Rear guns with a 'Normal' or 'Hard' AI Gun Range (Air) and 'Normal' Players Guns Only?

 

Bletchley

Edited February 13, 2011 by Bletchley

[DukeIronHand 8]

3. The OFF AI tends to fight to the death. Thus, players are FORCED into fighting 1 enemy after another until the whole enemy flight is destroyed. It's either that or be shot down yourself. In real life, however, fights tended to end fairly quickly as pilots realized they were disadvantaged and broke contact after the 1st clash. Thus, most pilots weren't presented with a continuous string of opponents, so couldn't shoot down very many enemies per sortie even if they wanted to.

 

This is the main A#1 problem in my book.

 

If some "survival sense" could be built into the AI a lot of these problems would be gone or, at least, easily dealt with by tweaking things such as the DM or bullet spread.

 

As long as the AI continues to fight like possessed demons the end result (decimated flights, high kills for the player, etc) will be the same.....it will just take a little longer. Gun and DM tweaks are just "delaying the inevitable" IMHO.

[Creaghorn 10]

This is the main A#1 problem in my book.

 

If some "survival sense" could be built into the AI a lot of these problems would be gone or, at least, easily dealt with by tweaking things such as the DM or bullet spread.

 

As long as the AI continues to fight like possessed demons the end result (decimated flights, high kills for the player, etc) will be the same.....it will just take a little longer. Gun and DM tweaks are just "delaying the inevitable" IMHO.

 

i have the impression that latest since HiTR the radar eyes are reduced and you can see weigh more often enemy formations flying by without them attacking you. so that's already a great improvement (if my impression is correct, although not officially announced in the release).

so if there is a clash, then the goal is to make the AI abandon the fight in a realistic way without becoming easy prey. the problem then would still be the player who wouldn't be happy that the danger is over, as it would be real, but who might then become a terminator and collect the enemies.

so the solution might be something like it was in real. if the player is over enemy lines, and the AI abandones the fight, they should dive for the deck. if the player follows, the chance is greater he gets shot down by groundfire. if the fight occures over friendly territory, then the enemy AI should look to stay above and to become as unreachable as possible. additionally there should be automatically some point of regrouping or flying home, as it was in RB3d. when you or the enemy leave the fight, then they circled above a town or something for several minutes until everybody regrouped again.

so after some short minutes of fight, over the players own territory, the enemy AI should try to escape by gaining height while flying homewards or to a distant spot for regrouping, while if you or friendly AI over friendly territory decide to abandon the fight, then wether to dive to the deck for regrouping, or also trying to gain height while regrouping. the AI over enemy territory of course should be smart enough not to follow too low to get into the reach of groundfire.

sorry if i repeat myself again, but maybe sombody wants to try it this way.

currently my fillgap solution is to abandon fight and continue flying to the next waypoint alone or with my wingman, and then when far enough i warp, so my squadron is regrouped again. so i simulate abandoning the fight

and regrouping again. and sometimes it might happen i meet the same enemy squadron, who is also regrouped again, at some stage later again.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Sorry, gents, been gone a few days.

 

As long as the AI continues to fight like possessed demons the end result (decimated flights, high kills for the player, etc) will be the same.....it will just take a little longer. Gun and DM tweaks are just "delaying the inevitable" IMHO.

One "benefit" of higher bullet spreads is that the AI may run out of bullets before they can shoot all the other AI down. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a "break away from dogfight when out of bullets" trigger, so the result is that the AI planes sometimes wind up chasing each other around to no effect. The only way for the human player to stop this behavior is to issue a "recall" command and then lead your flight out of the engagement.

 

On a side note, I wonder if making the AI more responsive to the commands and whatever happens to the flight leader might make for more realistic behavior. For example, if the AI flight leader gets shot down, the rest of the flight retreats, unless there is a surviving Ace in the flight, etc.

[DukeIronHand 8]

One "benefit" of higher bullet spreads is that the AI may run out of bullets before they can shoot all the other AI down.

 

Interesting! If I knew the AI did not possess unlimited ammo in OFF I must have forgotten it.

I know in some sims the AI possesses unlimited ammo to make up for their poor or deficient programming.

 

And yes - I would be very curious also about "AI triggers" that make them do this or that and when to do it.

[DukeIronHand 8]

Upon further reflection there must be an "AI trigger" in OFF reference ammo.

 

The AI bomber A/C have a target, they fly to it and drop their bombs and leave right? They don't keep circling their target I think.

I wonder if this could be adapted for fighter A/C?

The next step would be using this AI "go home" trigger in the DM to say "if you have 50% structural damage to this part" or "if you receive a wound" then break off and go home.

 

This is strictly wild a$$ conjecture on my part having zero knowledge of programming.

[Bullethead 12]

I'm really not in favor of reducing accuracy beyond anything I consider the believable minimum. Aiming and shooting isn't that hard. The hard part in real life was 1) seeing the enemy before he saw you, and 2) gaining an advantageous position on the enemy before he knew you were there. Once a pilot achieved these parameters, it was just a matter of pulling the trigger, which any noob could do. What separated the aces from their scores was situational awareness. The few how had it lived a relatively long time and killed many. Those who lacked it died in 2 weeks or so, usually without knowing what hit them. But the other side often had some good pilots, too, so usually both sides saw each other before one could swoop the other. This usually resulted in a standoff and little or no harm done.

 

Problem is, the above makes for very boring gameplay. Face it, we all bought OFF to feed our addiction to intense furballs. Swirling around in hand-to-hand combat with many deadly enemies and somehow coming out on top is FUN. It's what we all brag about in the "Reports from the Front" thread. And this is only possible BECAUSE the AI fights to the death, and can easily kill you. If all you had to say was, "I swooped some unsuspecting enemies", you'd have no more respect than those who always want to be a sniper in FPS MP games.

 

Thus, at the bottom line, I'm against dumbing down gunnery to artificially impose historical kill rates on OFF. I know from personal experience that the act of shooting moving targets from moving platforms isn't nearly as hard as some folks think, and that the weapons of WW1 were some of the most accurate ever made. Thus, I see accurate gunnery as equally important to accurate flight models. I also want intense combat, because I play OFF for MY entertainment. So what if I get more kills much faster than anybody in real life? I have more combat stick time than anybody in real life, and the game is tailored to PRODUCE combat. That's OK with me, because I also almost die pretty quickly. A short life and a merry .

 

So IMHO, if you're concerned about the deadliness of OFF fights, and your own role in making it that way, only take 50% ammo or even less. That will sure put an upper limit on your kills per sortie.

 

 

 

 

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there,

 

Great discussion. I agree that situational awarenes was the prime reason that allowed one to survive the first couple of weeks. However, if you look at the high scoring Aces, they had in common excellent eyesight to shoot the enemy. Add in very sound tactics and wulla, more kills. There were some very good pilots that survived the war, with but a few kills. Move on to WWII and the Battle of Britain, and this is even more pronounced. Yes, most noops could pull the trigger, but they had to get there first. A wide spread for AI and Player should allow a more realistic battle as realism. The great thing about OFF is that you can choose what you want. Selecting 50 % gun loadout as Bullethead has endorsed is yet another parameter to consider. It has truth to it as the Germans, especially flying the Dr.I would take less than a full load, to reduce weight. Perhaps this contributed to Voss's demise?

 

With regards the settings, Bletchley has it correct. AI Gun Range ( Air) is set to EASY so as not to be snipped at 800 yards. Main Guns set to Less Accurate as Rear Guns set to Less Accurate to reduce an abundance of casualties. Ground Gun Accuracy/ RoF is set according to the time frame you're flying in. As the war progressed, it just got harder so as you start out at Easy Ground Gunnnery, by 1918 you are at Normal, and Hard Ground Gunnery for many missions at that time ( Balloon Busting was always dangerous) making it somewhat difficult to survive many of the ground straffing missions of the day.

 

Cheers,

 

British_eh

Edited February 14, 2011 by British_eh

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

I'm really not in favor of reducing accuracy beyond anything I consider the believable minimum.

But, what do you consider to be the believable minimum? Opinions may differ from one player to another. Also, how does the OFF settings (.2 for Easy, .5 for Normal, and 1.0 for Hard) translate into real-life? Couldn't .4, .8, and 1.2 be just as realistic?

 

Thus, at the bottom line, I'm against dumbing down gunnery to artificially impose historical kill rates on OFF.

I don't want to 'dumb down" the gunnery, either. I also recognize that imposing historical kill rates are likely both impossible and undesirable, for many reasons, most importantly, game-play. I am interested in providing players more options, while still trying to keep game play and game balance.

 

In the end, other players will either like the mod or not. If it's not their cup of tea, that's fine with me too.

[Bullethead 12]

But, what do you consider to be the believable minimum? Opinions may differ from one player to another. Also, how does the OFF settings (.2 for Easy, .5 for Normal, and 1.0 for Hard) translate into real-life? Couldn't .4, .8, and 1.2 be just as realistic?

 

I have no idea what the numerical factors mean. I just eyeball the spread of my burst. Believability really goes away for me if at 100m range my spread is more than about 2m in diameter. I know that on the ground, MGs shoot much better than this, and from a FREE tripod (without a T&E lock). IOW, hand-held and able to pivot easily under recoil, as opposed to being rigidly mounted on an airplane, which is in effect what the T&E lock does. But a 2m spread at 100m is about right for "Rat Patrol" shooting (free-pivot vehicle mount) on smooth ground at a fixed target while you're driving by, so there's deflection involved. Since nobody uses a T&E in that situation, it's a bit apples and oranges to fighter guns, but I figure it's close enough for government work.

 

There's also this... I fire my OFF guns as I was trained to fire ground MGs offhand and from bipods, NOT tripods, and definitely not tripods with the T&E locked. That is, I fire bursts of only 3-6 rounds per gun: tap the trigger, tap the trigger, tap the trigger. I do this for 2 reasons. 1 is to avoid jams, the other is to minimize dispersion from the cumulative effects of recoil. Not having a continual but partly random force throwing me off, I can more easily correct my aim while firing, and all shots in my short bursts should go very nearly into the same spot on the target. Thus, when I fire such a burst and see a bullet go WAY askew, it's a total believability killer for me because I know that nothing in the real world would have caused that to happen except Roland Garos' deflector plate.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

I have to bow to your military experience, so I will take your word for it on bullet dispersion. Still, aren't the bullets we "see" actually tracer rounds, and aren't tracer rounds somewhat less accurate than non-tracers?

 

To my knowledge, the sim also does not take account of dispersal due to recoil, so every burst gets roughly the same random scatter, regardless of length of the burst (10-15 bullets vs. 50-75). So, aces who are more likely to use short bursts and rookies who are likely to use longer bursts, get the same bullet spread unfortunately.

 

Looking at the results of my poll and from my own experience, I think a bullet "noise" setting of around 1.0 sets close to the right balance between getting a somewhat realistic number of kills per mission while still allowing the AI to occasionally shoot other planes down as well. OFF's "Easy" setting of .2 (which hardly anyone polled ever uses) allows for too many kill-fests. A value of .5 (OFF's normal setting), is also too low, IMO. On the other hand, setting it to 2.0 or above makes getting kills for the AI too difficult. Therefore, I am looking for the "sweet spot" around .75 for the normal setting, and somewhere between 1.0 and 2.0 for the hardest setting.

[Hasse Wind 46]

You may be on to something with your numbers, HPW. It would be interesting to see how such changes affect accuracy and kill numbers.

 

I have to disagree with Bullethead about fierce dogfights being the only reason why people enjoy combat flight sims so much. For me, the attempt to simulate a historical conflict and give players a chance to participate in those dramatic events with their virtual pilots is even more important than any dogfight. The role-playing aspects of a good campaign system (such as the one we have in OFF) are what give me the most fun and satisfaction. I'm not at all bored even if there's no air combat involving my flight in every mission. That makes it even more dramatic when something actually does happen after many peaceful sorties, even if I don't manage shoot down anybody. My objective is to survive through the war while completing assigned missions (not one of my pilots has yet managed to live so long), and not to shoot down dozens of enemies and fall down in a burning plane after a few hours of deadly combat and several kills. That's what the Quick Combat mode is for, or the other flight sim that must not be named. So I'm all for a mod that makes it harder to get many kills quickly in career mode and reduces casualties in general. It's the best we can have unless the AI (and human pilots) can somehow be made to abandon their Terminator mentality.

 

But that's just my way of playing OFF. It's no better than any other way, just my method of doing things. I guess I'm something of a masochist, as I also enjoy flying the Quirk and other two-seaters in rather dangerous environments, populated by various Terminator models.

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there,Bullethead is absolutely correct in the method of actually shooting the machine gun.This is well documented, the Aces, firing 1 -2 second bursts, 5 - 10 bullets, maximum, to reduce gun jams, and reduce effect due to recoil/vibration. Again, BH provides us with the statement that the new pilots had a very steep learning curve to keep alive, and thus their ability to absorb their strategy lessons was paramount, as was luck.

Hasse W also provides an excellent point leaning towards the idea that there was not always a sortie, and if there was, 2/3 rds of all, ended without a decision one way or another.  This was especially true for the Germans as their Scouts did not cross the lines save an Offensive being on,or a Balloon Busting mission. If they did cross the Front,  it was in the Tactical Zone, basically less than 6 miles across such. Should the Germans patrols not have a distinct advantage, even  when engaging 10 miles deep on their side, they were rue to engage.There are a few exceptions of course, Voss being one of them, but look at his outcome :)

So, while many enthusiasts look to set up their own parameters in the Workshops or Missions, I believe it is reasonable to provide some alternate standards which may realistically replicate the situation as to the best ability of the simulation, PC, and historically correct information. So, accordingly it has provided myself and Bletchley the impetus to set up an alternate realistic based group of settings to mimic these parameters. SIA - RSS looks to provide such. Those who look to pursue such can opt to utilize the guides to achieve what Bletchley and I believe meets the above criteria. There will be new revamped SIA - RSS for Workshop Settings and inclusive of alternate realistic missions to specific time frames,  that we believe will make it that much more real for the OFF enthusiast.So, I would be most interested in Recommending such an option in our guides whereby you could select the spread that would give you the most closely related experience to the real thing, given it is a sim. And of course Herr PW always provides options, making it more tangible for those looking to provide what they feel is 'their cup of tea".

Cheers,

British_eh

Edited February 15, 2011 by British_eh

[DukeIronHand 8]

Still, aren't the bullets we "see" actually tracer rounds, and aren't tracer rounds somewhat less accurate than non-tracers?

 

All you say with the rounds in OFF is certainly true.

 

I spent 8 years in the USMC infantry and a dozen years in law enforcement where I teach firearms.

 

Not to make a big speech and to keep it short: To say tracer rounds are lees accurate is kind of a misnomer. With their different (slight though it may be) weights and ballistic properties than ball ammo (which a gun is usually "sighted in" with) it would be more correct to say that tracers "fly" in a different ballistic arc than ball ammo.

 

In modern ammo this property is well known (and has been for decades probably) so good quality ammo tries to keep these differences minimal. Cant say about WW1 ammo but...

 

As a gaming (and perhaps real life) note I would say the difference in the ball and tracers ballistic arc at "typical" WW1 dogfight ranges is probably minimal.

Edited February 15, 2011 by DukeIronHand

[Bullethead 12]

As a gaming (and perhaps real life) note I would say the difference in the ball and tracers ballistic arc at "typical" WW1 dogfight ranges is probably minimal.

 

Semper fi, Devildog

 

I agree. Tracers don't act crazy, they just fly a slightly different path than ball rounds. Tracer bullets are usually a tad lighter than ball rounds, due to trading some lead for what is in effect a giant match head. Thus, for the same powder charge, tracers will have a slightly higher muzzle velocity but will decelerate quicker than ball rounds. This means that at short ranges (for rifle-caliber, ground MGs, anyway) of like 200m or less, given the same point of aim, the tracer will be a couple centimeters above a ball round, but that's only noticeable if you're shooting them from a rifle clamped to a bench. With an MG firing even a very short burst, the dispersion of the burst is bigger than the ballistic difference between tracer and ball rounds so effectively they're the same. The difference in trajectories only starts to become noticeable at about 300m or more, and only becomes significant at 400-500m and beyond. At these ranges, tracer is rather lower than ball, and the difference is on the same scale as the dispersion of the ball rounds in the burst. All these ranges are, however, considerably shorter than WW1 air combat ranges, so IMHO there should be no effective difference.

 

Remember folks, WW1 MGs shot the same ammo as infantry rifles. Those rifle cartridges had been developed in the late 1800s for accurate long-range fire using iron sights, as in killing point targets at least 500m away and being able to pin down the enemy and inflict significant losses at 1000m and more. They proved they could do this many times, starting in the 2nd Boer War. These same cartridges are still used for these purposes today, so the old boys knew what they were doing. And this was just with a prone human holding the rifle. Now picture the rifle mounted on a rigid tripod with T&E, able to fire 500-600 rounds per minute, and supplied with a long belt of ammo. That's a WW1 MG, at least of the Maxim type. Screw such a thing down to something fairly heavy like a WW1 airplane and you should get similar results.

[Bullethead 12]

All these ranges are, however, considerably shorter than WW1 air combat ranges, so IMHO there should be no effective difference.

 

Geez, I said the exact opposite of what I meant. What I meant was, the ranges at which the difference between the trajectories of tracer and ball starts to approach or even exceed dispersion of the overall burst is FAR beyond the ranges we shoot at in OFF. Thus in OFF, what you see with the tracer should be what you get with the ball.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Interesting. Thank you Duke and Bullethead.

 

Thus in OFF, what you see with the tracer should be what you get with the ball.

Yes, but what we should get and what we actually get may be two different things!

[DukeIronHand 8]

Semper Fi!

 

[+Polovski 440]

Listen to the pilot accounts in the Credits in OFF - the 2nd interview of a Be2 pilot who was very upset his corporal gunner opens up at a range around 150 yards (range was excessive he says) as the bullets were totally inaffective. I sure these guys knew what they were talking about, must be due to the wind and G-forces and movement in the air as mentioned. Its not impossible just often wasteful of your precious ammo (no one coming to bring you more in the air ;). MvR was hit by a long range bullet when he thought he was far enough away, as he must have done that many many times and never been hit. So possible to hit at range, but less likely.

[Olham 164]

Good points, Pol.

I have chosen "normal" for forward guns, and "less accurate" for rear guns, for these reasons:

 

- forward guns are fixated to the whole craft, and aimed quite well by the pilot looking over a gunsight

 

- rear guns are being moved and swung around under stress; not only left and right,

but also up and down - the gunner had to change his whole position for the up/down movements,

which makes it less likely, that he could always aim perfectly well.

 

The rear twin guns must have been a deadly weapon though, in the hands of an experienced gunner,

who knew his effective range; who could wait for the right moment.

 

What I am researching right now in Kilduff's book "The Red Baron", is the time for a burst.

We have always more or less agreed here, that short bursts are safer, cause they do not lead to gun jams so easily.

But I have read two or three combat descriptions about MvR now, where he fired a very long, single burst,

which in one case really sawed the tail end off a two-seater.