Would you like to see advanced Engine Reliability in TF 5.0?

[69th_Spiritus_Mortem]

Salute All

As we have mentioned, in the TF 4.5 release TF will be changing the way the aircraft engines react when they are subject to overheat... providing a less predictable damage result and a variable number of damage results.

This will be continued in TF 5.0... but we are also thinking of introducing a new variable... engine reliability.

To explain:

Oleg built two systems into the game...

- One, a system whereby the engine/airframe elements react to abuse... ie. failure will occur when the player over-steps the limits for the usage of that particular component.

- Two, a randomizer system, whereby the engine can actually fail... without the player actually exceeding the recommended limits... i.e. a 'reliability' factor. This is based on several factors... number of hours the engine has on it... hours recommended for the engine between major overhauls... and a random factor.

The second system is not distinct from the first... a players chance of his engine randomly failing is directly tied to how carefully he manages it. I.e. if he flys the engine exactly within the
'normal' boost/rpm levels, he is less likely to see a failure than if he uses maximum boost/rpms... or exceeds the maximums.

Where TF would set the random factor is a sliding scale... we could set it to 100%, which means the engine fails shortly after being started... or to 0.001 percentage, which means the failure is very much less likely.

Basically this models the "Murphy's Law" theory of mechanical systems... or "Shyte Happens".

So to get to the point, please reply with your preferences as to whether such a system should be implemented in TF 5.0.

Thanks

Please visit either of these sites and vote in the poll.

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/30 ... ity-tf-50/

https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/ ... hp?t=25708

@ACG admin, if you allow polls, let me know and I'll create one here, but I didn't have the option.

[Onebad]

Absolutely yes, as long as it's an optional setting when setting a server up.

[Trystan]

I'd love it. How would you change out your engine or have it overhauled?

[Woop]

Absolutely yes, as long as it's an optional setting when setting a server up.

+1

[LuftAsher]

If a system exists where you can actually take steps to mitigate the random failures (IE engine maintenance and overhauls), then absolutely. If not, fuck no. We already have issues with an engine randomly popping for no discernible reason (temps good, ATA good, RPM good) and it's not something that adds to the experience in a positive way. It's just annoying.

If you're going to do it, at least make it 100% optional, and don't implement a RNG-based engine failure system unless there's steps you can take to drastically reduce the likelihood that your engine shits it on you for no reason.

[Lofty]

RNG to fuck you over? Hell no.

I agree with LuftAsher.

Besides Merlins never fail. So It would have to be a LW only feature...

[Rowns]

I agree with LuftAsher aswell no RNG.

Also this is something I really think is interresting: "This is based on several factors... number of hours the engine has on it... hours recommended for the engine between major overhauls... and a random factor."

In my opinion this could be great for ACG campaigns, but I don't believe a engine is just going to be from fine to dead in a second. It would be great to have different kind of signs that let you notice that something might be wrong with the engine, like the engine not sounding right or lack of power, so that you atleast can finish the sortie and fly it back. Also would there be a way where you can replace a engine or repair it?

[Dickie]

The concept of this one is a good one but I think that there are a whole host of things that must take a priority over this feature such as VR support, net code and the hideous numbers of exceptions and warnings that the code throws at runtime.

A group like ours could really get value out of this but you are opening a can of worms in terms of what we need. It's all very well turning on a randomiser but we could write such a thing ourselves, in COD you can just have a random players' wing fall off if you wished to script it, but that has no value. The value lies in tracking aircraft abuse over an extended period, not on quick tight dogfights or single missions. Sure, an abused engine should have a part fail if utterly abused but you must understand that this isn't about single abuse, it's about maintenance. For instance, we know that the pilots notes for the Spitfire and Hurricane using the Merlin II/III refer to only using 5 minutes at 12lbs, and we know that this had to be reported to ground crews post flight. But what does this mean? People think it means that the engine should overheat after 5 minutes use - that is nonsense. The Merlin II and III could literally go ALL DAY with 12lbs boost, but the use caused greater heat and fatigue, and that COULD lead to a failure of some sort. As long as the engine was cooled it would be fine. I say all day literally because the recommended servicing of the Merlin II and III engines were 100 hours without use of the ABC and 10 hours using 12lbs boost. Yes, that's TEN HOURS of full boost, and that doesn't mean it'll fail after that, it means it is due for overhaul. The Merlin XII engine in the Spitfire II doubled this to 20 hours, it was built to handle the higher boost pressures, such as continuous 9lbs. (Source: Spitfire The History. Morgan & Shacklady)

So what do we need? For general servers I don't see a problem with putting in the randomiser as a server option and also allowing pilots to set their own aircraft condition before flight, or forcing it from the server side or randomising the engine condition as a forced option. I also think that engine condition should be a part of a server set up, probably best suited to co-op style missions which help set the scene. This would also need to be available in the FMB for AI or you may be fighting prime AI in a delicate machine. The FMB options need to be fairly easy to set, a bit like the skills are at the moment. Failures will not be popular with players in furball servers though I think!!

For those of us who run longer campaigns or intend to run a server where there is a war of attrition or where there is a pilot career then we presently do this by our own database and tooling which communicates with COD so for us to make use of such a feature (and we'd love to!) then what we need is get and set methods for the aircraft condition or parts which would affect maintenance. We would need COD to know how long boost was used for, or a way to get aircraft data so that we could view it, then we can run a maintenance program and war of attrition.

A group like ours can create such a database and use it, and we're willing to share, but I'd hazard a guess that others don't have that luxury so you may wish to create this as part of the game, an API and basic DB and interface where server owners could use this functionality. This is a suggestion, we will be fine with the API, but if you dont' allow us to get and set data than your whole concept is pretty useless to us tbh, there's no value in us randomising or hoping that individuals make their aircraft crap for their mission.

Oh and we need a decent wiki on the API so we can use it.

Hope that helps.

[Thaine]

What he said, and one more thing i want to emphasize. I love the idea. But equally important to recording the state of an aircraft and it's wear after a sortie, is the ability to set the aircraft to this exact state for the same or another pilot before the next sortie. Just in case this wasn't clear or already intended.

Otherwise brilliant thing.

[LuftAsher]

"Fuck, my rads are gone."
"Overheated?"
"Nuh, RNJesus decided my engine's not had any maintenance this month. RTB, sorry boys."

Just make sure this shit isn't what we get.