Aircraft ruggedness

[OlWilly]

If you compare SF with other sims you may notice that planes explode way too easily. You just look at the plane funny and it's already going down in a ball of flames.

In my install I went out to fix this.

Generally, every airplane part (fuselage, inner wing, etc) has its own HP bar. Once it's depleted, it's gone. HP pool is determined by the size of the part - obviously, B-52's inner wing would have more HP than F-15's.

StructuralFactor statement is a plain multiplier for every such part. At 1.0 it does nothing, leaving HP at 100%, at 2.0 it makes it 200%, etc.

So, what I did, I gave every structural part a StructuralFactor=2.0, unless it was already higher.

This gave some ruggedness, but planes were still exploding too much.

The issue is fuel tanks. They are big, always get hit, and once hit - leakage, fire or explosion proc very easily. This allows stuff like easy kills with just 1-2 cannon hits.

I wasn't looking for an elegant solution, and as a dirty crutch just added 35mm of steel armor on every fuel tank (it has no weight so alright). This is not supposed to represent any real-world protection, just to crutch over game's engine mechanics.

And it gave good results.

Aircraft did not become indestructible, a good missile hit or aimed burst still takes it down. But aircraft (you and AI alike) now can take some non-critical damage, and you may even see damaged planes actually hit the ground. For the first time while playing, I managed to get hit and lose one engine, limping home instead of outright exploding.

 

Another issue is ground vehicles. In vanilla SF, a single 20mm shell destroys any tank from a single hit, from any projection, which is wrong.

After experimenting I found that ground vehicles have pitiful HP bars and you need to up them literally by 1000s.

For example, I gave T-55 StructuralFactor=4000.0 for hull StructuralFactor=5000.0 for a turret. You would think that this is a lot, but a single Maverick still gets it; if you use cannon, now you have to work for a kill.

 

The downside of this is that you have to apply changes manually to every vehicle you want to have it. I had a lot of available time during night shifts, but it is really a tedious process. But it makes dogfights and ground attacks more involved for sure

[Wrench]

 

Another that I've been using is "armor as structure" added to each component section in the data ini, not just specific areas (engine, cockpit, fuel tanks, etc)

Something like this:

Quote

[Nose]
ParentComponentName=Fuselage
ModelNodeName=FuselageNose
ShowFromCockpit=FALSE
DamageRating=DESTROYED
MassFraction=0.147
HasAeroCoefficients=FALSE
MinExtentPosition=-0.79,2.75,-0.92
MaxExtentPosition=0.79,7.17,0.74
CollisionPoint[001]=-0.79,2.75,-0.92
CollisionPoint[002]=0.79,7.17,0.74
SystemName[001]=NoseGearL
SystemName[002]=NoseGearR
SystemName[003]=FuselageFuelCell2
SystemName[004]=LandingLight

HasArmor=TRUE
ArmorMaterial=Aluminum
Armor[REAR].Thickness=5
Armor[FRONT].Thickness=5
Armor

.Thickness=5
Armor

.Thickness=5

Armor[TOP].Thickness=5
Armor[BOTTOM].Thickness=5

 

[Wrench]

stupid thing didn't format right, but you get the idea!

Like OldWilley said, upping the StructrualFactor a bit don't hurt either. 

[OlWilly]

6 hours ago, Wrench said:

 

Another that I've been using is "armor as structure" added to each component section in the data ini, not just specific areas (engine, cockpit, fuel tanks, etc)

Something like this:

I've definitely seen that in some of planes I adjusted.

Your method is superior, as it allows for finer tuning and better results, but requires matching the armor values for nearly every aircraft individually. You can do things like, for example, having a multi engine bomber and giving its engines better protection from the rear and sides, but worse from the front, encouraging frontal attacks.

StructrualFactor is just simpler, you can slap it on every component and get the durability boost

[fallout3]

I have been using both the structurefactor= and armor as structure methods to make airplanes able to stand some hits by .50s or 7.62mm, since by default the planes are simply too fragile.

 

Recently I found in aircraftobject.ini "VolumeStructurePoint=", and probably this entry is one that defines how many "hitpoints" a unit of volume the airframe has as such volume is in turn set by (probably) hitbox size in data.ini of each airplane. This perhaps work in the same principle as "structurefactor=" but at a global scale.

Here`s the current setting I use, you can see other interesting entries like "Elasticity=", and perhaps they work together to determine aircraft survivability against wanted physical contact like combat damage/midair collision/crashlanding etc.

With this set of values the MiG-17/19/21s are able to absorb as many as some 3 dozens of .50, but eventually they go down. AIM-9s have not managed to cut any MiG tails off, but I guess it`s more a 3D issue with the destroyed node "cap" of the fuselage model. Same for the blue side planes. F-5E is able to limp away trailing smoke after 1 round of 30mm, but unlikely another.

Also, since SF2 is mostly about post-WWII aircraft whose airframes are quite filled, minsystemhitchance=25 is likely too low a value, considering those dramatic (and selected) footage of MiG-21s igniting and breaking up under 30mm DEFA or winders.

[GameObjectData]
MinSystemHitChance=25
////VolumeStructurePoint=5000
VolumeStructurePoint=10000
////Elasticity=0.2
Elasticity=0.4

It is also noticed that the same technique may work for ground objects also. For it has long been quite annoying that T-55s go up in a fire ball after being hit by something as small as 20mm Mk.11 on scooters.

Here`s again what I use.

[GameObjectData]
MinSystemHitChance=25
////VolumeStructurePoint=10
VolumeStructurePoint=1500
Elasticity=0.3

Best Regards and Happy Hunting.