Winds and thermal flow [realism]

In many situations when we fly too close to ridges, hills or mountains, the flight is very unrealistic. The only interest of pilot flying near ridge is to shake off a pursuer. But in real flight the aerodynamic properties of aircraft are affected by wind or thermal flow. There is wind lift on one side of hill and wind sink on downwind side. There are also turbolences and vortexes. Gliders manuals are full of images showing the risks of flying too close. It's not only about risks. It has advantages and risks. The powers which are there depend on the power of the wind or thermal difference. The hot air is ascending and the cool air is descending, which in some places can affect the maneuver you are trying to perform.

In reality the mass of hot air ascending depend on the temperature and on surface under it. If the sun is shining a surface with white snow on it, a lot of rays are reflected and the air is not so hot. Whilst if there grass the warm air will ascend faster. But if there is just black wall (stony rock) it will ascend yet more faster. Also the shape of the terrain affect the flow of the air. So even if there is not real wind, the hot air is moving.

Think about clouds, which should produce shadows. Shadows produce cool air and cool air goes down:

But because the wind is blowing there can be hot air in the shadow under the cloud, which is lifting.

So it is not so simple, but there could be some mechanism which would create not only the wind and the hot or cool air, but also the thermal drifts.

And now the wind:

the wind does not blow straight but it accommodates to surface of the ground.

Ridge soaring should effect the ability to climb faster if you have chosen the correct side of the ridge, but it would create resistance if you would climb on downside of the ridge.

The lift could be helpful in some situations when your altitude is too low, especially if you fly with light aircraft. It could prevent you from hitting ground in some moments when you are strungeling to keep your plane flying.

There are also turbolences right behind aircraft flying before you.

So it could be quite beneficial to make the realistic winds and thermo things. It would change the way you fly, you would be more careful when making some hazardous maneuvers near ground.

I add a poll to find out whether you agree with adding wind and thermo effects in game.

Change the way how games are selected

I suggested to play one kind of map every 15 minutes or more. For example, there would be Domination on offer for 15 minutes. Then it would be changed to Air Dommination next 15 minutes. Then there would be Air Strike every 15 minutes and so on. Of sure this interval could be different, for example 25 minutes. So if you want to play with bomber you will skip the time when there are airstrikes. The players would be informed which Type of game is on. Every server would have different type of games. E.g. on RU server there would be Domination and on EU there would be Air domination at the same time. If you would check these two servers to play, then you will enter eighter Domination or Air domination. If you don't want to play it just select different server :) Simple and easy!

Bombing (G.B.)

How to estimate where the bombs fell down

Part I. - Assault fuse (4.5s)

AND HERE WE GO!

This post is not about accurate bombing, but about learning how much the bomb moves from the cross marker.

Factors:

- bomb position on wing (distance from middle of aircraft body)
- weight of bomb
- speed of aircraft
- angle of nose
- bank angle (height of the bomb above the mid of body)
- slope of the ground
- delay of bomb (there is some delay at begin of the drop / slower motion on vertical axis - it accelerates continuously)

Desert Coast 4.5s

 My best hit. I planned to hit the route and I was 100% successful but the tank (moving relatively fast) had decided to go around that bomb! But still the explosion (250lb) has killed him!

Decision point

Dropping...

it was type 95 Chi-ha

The same type but this time I missed. It was on rote but just behind the tank. I wonder that the bomb was not able to destroy the tank it was so close (the back should be less protected).

PzKpfw III 4.5s from 300-264m (MSL)

The target was relatively far.

Success with the bomb from right wing.

Seems like I was too high and the bomb just change the trajectory due to gravity so its angle was more sharp before it hit ground. This explains why it fallen earlier to ground than I would expect. Seems like height 300m with combination of shallow angle is inefficient for bombing with assault fuse. But I was too close I needed to drop it. I could try to go to sharper angle but I likely didn't feel save from this low altitude. The angle was too shallow.

Correction of roads elevation (flatten the terrain)

This is a lot to do with bombing. In many locations roads are not flat and are affected by terrain elevation. They are skewed tilted in both directions not only in the direction of driving but also on the direction of width of the route. This looks ugly and make bombing moving targets yet more harder and yet less accurate then if it would be in one direction. Bomber tries to find best direction to bomb moving target. My best position for bombing is to go from side because the route should not be tilted in that direction. When it is titled so I don't have ideal angle to bomb because the tilted surface will increase mistake. Now using 250lb bombs from British Firebrand TF IV - when expecting that the bomb from left wing should hit the center of the marker, normally if the road is flat it should hit near the blue marker which is about 4m upwards. Because the tilted route is tilted - which is not expected by bomber - the bomb has shorter trajectory and will hit close to green marker. Here is 4m distance which if very inaccurate when using bombs under 250lb or 100kg or less.

Therefor I suggest to correct the roads. (Possibly the programmers should have some warning in the program CDK when they created tilted routes To make them flat).

Also notice, recently I had suggested to create better maps where I could study the terrain before I fly to target location. As bombing moving targets with assault fuse and 250lb needs high accurancy and knowing the elevation in target location.

Dialog windows in game (Map, Statistics, Commands) [performance]

I have few problems with the current map (hotkey M).

1) there is unpleasant delay to open the map or to open the statistics
When you are in combat in AB, you need to check the map very quickly. You have no time for waiting or zooming otherwise enemy can shot you down or get too close.

2) the map area is too small so you need to zoom in or out permanently

3) If you want to activate command / bonus you do this over the M screen which also takes too long.


Please solve this things. I have problems to read the things on the small map and is simply better to have wider map and zoomed permanently. I would prefer to use all my screen and to enlarge the map (zoom it inside).

Here are my suggestions:

Separate the map and aircraft information.

M - opens map in full screen mode + zoom in +1 level.
 

Map: page 1

In the case that Gaijin would create historically precise battles in the future where real topological maps would be used, they could add more pages like topological maps with contour lines or simply something like this:

Notice the great contrast. The map is missing contour lines but the readability is great.

Page 2,3, etc.
Possible additional maps for historically exact battle
(This is realistic map of Prokhorovka, made in TopoMapCreator)

Possible static map for main task of the team

Please notice that the image above is 10x better readable than your map with countour lines which are harly visible (they are blured and low contrast). Please make the maps more readable, visible, better to manipulate, to make preparations before I fly to target.

Or possibly those maps which I suggested in Special anti tank ditches and Sappers & Minefields [includes logistics!] suggestions (those are just a grayscale photo or screenshot using simple big icon for group of units of same type and tactical map tracking frequently used paths).

Use V to view next page / next map.

Remember the type of the map which was last.

Close the Map with M key or pressing additional keys [N] by incident*



I - should display various information

Here (I) you could display either:

A) Map in the left column (please make it larger).
B) Right column should contain the tasks (make the task column bigger than current width). My screen resolution is 1152x720 (But 1024x768 should be minimal support). The current situation on my screen during Endurance Mode test even does not display the complete information of the task (is not visible even after scroll down).

Old map/information window

Or switch A with B so Map would be on right side.

Activate the information by pressing I.

Use pages to offer complete information. I usually don't need to watch on aircraft information.

Use V to view next page or next information.

Information: page 2

"Stock" / Bonus Command

Information page 3

Add grayscale aerial photos from surveillance plane (last pages).

Remember the page which was last (save last viewed page).

Close the information window with I or pressing additional keys [U,O] if I press them by incident.

Update: More information about the aircraft needed
Information which I am missing:
1) Flaps tear speed - when does flaps tear off. This should not be the same as maximum speed of the aircraft, I know that the flaps are tearing off at relatively "low speed" (and I have some experiences with civil planes simulator, where the flaps have lower speed than the aircraft!!!). I need this because I am used to play with AB and when I go to RB occasionally. I need to check this. I also use flaps for sharp turns in AB so I need to one more information: Recommended flaps tear maximum speed for sharp turns if you know them. This would help me very much.
2) Bombers (I am flying with British) like Firefly, FireBrand, Hurricane etc. they have various wingspan. Their bombs are placed differently. They are not on the middle of body. I need to know exact distance from middle of the body* to calculate correction while bombing. Recently I needed make my own resureach for wingspan and the second information I had to calculate. This was only for 2 planes and took some time. * So please realease this information bombers need to know. This will make bombing more accurate even with 250lb bombs and assault fuse set to 4,5s. Bombing with assault fuse with 250lbs is not simple but is possible if you exactly know the information*.


Yet here is the problem with the delay do open the window. It would be good if Gaijin would do the best to increase the performance to open the window. If it is possible do maximum for this, no delay at all even if you need to remove some special effect like blending or bluring.

If you want to activate a command, you can prepare the page pressing I,V,V,V and then I to discard. In combat when you are ready, you just press V and Enter - the command is activated and the Window will auto close.

Bomb craters implementation

I would like to start discussion about craters made by bombs. We all know the craters are not realistic and I would like to find out why. I do not want craters everywhere. But the basic locations like runways and airfields could contain this feature.

Here is my suggestion. See the animation bellow. There is a mesh with green texture representing fixed mesh which is fix surface for vehicles so any object will hit the mesh, it will not pass through. The mesh is not flat, but under runway object there is a "hole in the earth" 5 meters deep. The terrain and runway grid is 0.25m square. Whilst the grass and hole are fixed/solid mesh, the runway is created from 2D objects containing the information whether the surface is solid or not. Hence if it is visible and solid aircrafts can go over it. If the object is not visible, the square will disappear, but still exists in the memory. I speak about very simple object maybe bearing only few information like int id, int x, int y, int solid.

Yet few info about dimensions. Grass 21,250x116m, Runway 9x103,5m. 36x414 = 14904 squares on runway, should be 232.875 kbyte block of memory.

There is also crater object (3,6m diameter), which is fixed and can be linked from memory. You could create as many craters as needed, also various sizes of craters depending on the bomb size. When the bomb hits the runway surface, it will create a crater under it and change state of the runway objects in its impact radius. The runway in this radius will disappear. Any aircraft going over the runway when the hole is present will fall into the hole same as any ground vehicle. The craters could disappear after some time. The time limit could depend on type of game. E.g. AB could have one minute, realistic battles could have 2-5 minutes depending on size of the map. The state will be returned back to solid = 1; after the time elapsed.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HMJN5GGdNg&feature=youtu.be[/media]

Notice, I didn't use triangles or any extra shapes. I just deleted those edges which was in the "inner circle" of the crater. The inner circle it is the second "circle"  from the top. There are slight empty areas to be visible but you should realize what the runway grid represents. It represents solid surface, not the texture. AFAIK you can use your own texture independently on the object and to add blending in the area of crater. If this would affect performance in negative way, lets find better solution for the texture. But I see these thing as two unrelated things.




Of sure, the hole in ground is not limited to the runway.

Now I would like to know what the developers think about it, if this is possible to implement for performance reasons. We already have objects in game where aircrafts can land like aircraft carriers, so I am interested how many of these objects can be in game without losing the performance significantly?

Impact zone:

DISCUSSION

TheCeltic, on 12 Nov 2015 - 11:26 PM, said:

A single bomber would be able to cause an airfield to become unusable.
Because it would completely disrupt the mid-game.  Right now, about half way through an RB match, most players RTB to repair, refuel, or rearm.  Making craters actual objects would make that impossible in many matches.  I'm all for RB being more realistic - I use to support adding depth to craters myself - but on the maps we play on, there have to be limitations.

I agree that some players could be angry. But in real world if your airport is bombed it makes you impossible to make your aircrafts take off or even landing. It's failture of the team which failed to secure the airfield. For game it would be solution to add more airfields (not much realistic though). I already suggested to make improvised places where aircraft could refuel low-octane fuel. Just normal fuel could be taken anywhere as improvised solution. Some kinds of maps could not used that definitely. For example the domination where you have e.g. one runway or even three, but two or three bombs will unable to land so the enemies cannot capture it back - but again here can be found solution - if you would bomb your own airfield you will loss points. Maybe about 500 points per one bomb... Even that they cannot be destroyed in domination.

I can see the use with AB and one minute delay if you would manage to defend the airfield in higher altitude..With the RB I see no problems because I never have seen enemy aircraft bombing our base (but I play RB rarely).

Also, creating craters it is not only on the runway. For example you could limit this technology on the runway + 10m on both sides of the runway and keep one narrow and flat path beside it. If the airfield is big enough you can land outside the runway. Or strip between two runways:





Possible scenarios with two runways:
1) Make the nondestructable runway on the left side (runway 1)
2) Make the nondestructable runway on the right side (runway2)
3) Make the nondestructable runway in the middle, not the green strip
The crater would be made only in the case when its middle is placed in the center of runway.
4) Make destroyble only the green area
5) Make destroyble the outer strips of the runway, green strip in the middle and green areas beside the runway. Remove the trees and bushes on the outside. The middle of the runway would stay untouched. The crater would be made only in the case when its middle is placed r meters from edge of the middle strip of the runway; r is crater radius.

I think the scenario 5 is the best solution.

In RB it would be good if you could watch the runway before you start with new plane (there are towers on the airfield so just use them). In the case that there is crater just before your start line you know you cannot start. But maybe you could change your starting location. Why not? You could choose from which end of runway you want to start or just to change your spawn location.

Here is image of such airport, the red - orange zones are those which could be made with the special grid to support 3D crater creation.

WT Bombing, Fuse delays

Dropping bombs with 6s delay

West Europe.

Using Typhoon IB late 2x1000lb bombs.

Dropped:

 Exploded after 6s (I counted to 5):


 

You can see, I have dropped the bombs from 520m. But I started to focus the target at 1400-1200m AGL so I had reserve to pull up the nose. Aircraft speed is relatively high: 610-680kmh. I was pursued by enemy so I had no time to focus correctly I was under fire, but I had time to drop it. I was not pointing on any vehicle, I just focused a group. The first bomb was successful but I could drop it a bit earlier, the second one was too late (I felt it but I wanted to see where it will fall. I just wanted to test the distance one normal and one shorter distance of the target).

Notice the blue flash. I think this effect was not there in the old version before 1.53.

Here is the view from the enemy plane who pursued me:

Now using firebrand 2x500lb + 1x1000lb

Notice: the red circle will show you when the bomb was released, the green where is will explode. First explosion is not visible because its cropped. Later the red circles show location of the first and second explosion.

No not be confused with the explosion caused by fire.

I have analyzed the trajectory where I flied and where the bombs hit and I found why I did not hit target. This was because the ground vehicles went in different direction than where I have flied. This probably wouldn't happen with bigger altitude above 1600-1400 m AGL because I would have more time to guess right where they go. I was too close so I did not see the direction where they go. Here are some pictures from my study:

Explosion view from enemy aircraft:

Explosion view from my aircraft enlarge to see where are the vehicles in moment of explosion:

Assault fuse (4.5s) 250 lb bombs

The Rocky Coast.

Using Firebrand 1x1000+2x 250 lb

250lb = 115kg

First I dropped the big bomb 1000 lb. The first tank stopped and when I pressed space so the next one stopped too. So there were two stopped tanks in left (front). The third stopped. The first started to fire. The fourth stopped too. The third was hit. Otherwise the tanks would be moving with standard speed.

The 250lb was dropped in front of moving tank and fallen just before it. The tank exploded just after bomb explosion.

It was extremely low, notice I passed the tank at altitude 50m ASL.
Bomb dropped at 85m.
Power 0%, speed 400kmh (too fast though, not recommended).
I would recommend to do this in higher altitude with speed 400kmh but drop the bomb higher.
My problem was that I had problem to see the tank. It was hardly visible because it was in shadow, there was a dark blue-green ground in the place where it went.

I gonna do few more test at higher altitude.

Using Firebrand 1x1000+2x 250 lb

1000lbs bomb (too far in front, but the target was destroyed)

It is clear it would be nearly impossible to do it in cockpit view from such low  altitude.
Aiming from 400m.
Dropped at 182m ASL.

From cockpit view this seams possible. 350m is the decision point. You must to see your target and some helping point on the right. I see the second vehicle, which will appear near the frame of the window on right side. I know I should move the aircrafts nose a bit to right, so the frame should be closer to the second tank. I guess almost no space should be there between the second tank and the frame.

The Fjord

Typhoon 2x250lb bombs

At the ridge there are some very fast tanks going. I did not noticed that they go so fast, so I aimed too short distance in front the tank. I thought it to be standard speed.

So the distance in the front of aircraft should be 2x bigger. Also notice that the bomb releast from the left wing flied cca 20 meters longer distance then the cross point. I think it is because 2 factors, first of all the cross seems to be ideal for 500 or 1000 lbs, so when the bomb is not so heavy, the bomb flies longer. And second, the angle towards the ground is not good. IDK how explain this at English but the distance to ground in direction of flying trajectory is greater when you start measuring from left wing, is less measuring from middle of the aircraft and is the smallest from the right wing.

Images

Tanky ve Fjordech hned na prvním Hřebenu vlevo:

Okamžik zhozu.

Pravděpodobně okamžik shozu druhé bomby (pravé křídlo)

Co chci zjistit:

1) Jak dlouhý je tank?
2) Jak široký je tank?
3) Jaká je vzdálenost mezi bombou a středem trupu letadla?


Firebrand 1000+2x250lb

The 250 bomb released, the second one is on the right wing. I was too heavy so crashed.
Again notice, the bomb from left wing in more far from ground then the right bomb because I am turning right. This results that the bomb from left wing is falling longer. The bomb clearly falled about 10-15m more forward then it was intended.

Images

Zeleně: tráva, šedě: vypadá to jako kámen ale je to šedá půda a na tom tráva; červeně: místo dopadu

Šedá plocha je vlevo pod červenou září.

Co chci zjistit:

1) Jak dlouhý je tank?
Jakou vzdálenost ujel tank. Od místa shozu (viz horní fotka).
2) Jak široký je tank?
Jaká je vzdálenost od levého okraje tanku v době výbuchu k okraji červené zóny (počátek - střed výbuchu)?
3) Jaká je vzdálenost mezi bombou a středem trupu letadla?
O kolik je levá bomba umístěná výš než střed trupu? Je možné že by to byl metr?

The Rocky Coast - once again

Using Firebrand 1x1000+2x 250 lb

250lb = 115kg 

This was the first try when I missed the target. I give it here to show you how to correct the wrong aiming.

The bomb stopped - now waiting for detonation.

The German heavy tank was not destroyed because he went very slowly, not like the normal vehicles.

I guess the road to have 5m width. The tank is 3,5 more far from the bomb then the route width. So he bomb is 17,6m from the tanks. The tank is well armoured in the front so no change to hit him this way.