New aircraft damage? Please?

[b00ce 160]

You'll have to bear with all of the reference videos because I find it's easier for me to show what's going on, and provide reference/ evidence at the same time, as opposed to just telling and not providing evidence.

Don't get me wrong, I love the current system, separating all of the main parts and whatnot, good job BIS. That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about improving it so it's even more realistic and user friendly.

There are some things that aggravate me about flying helicopters in ArmA, By flying I mean crashing them. There have been times where I'd lose engine power due to a missile strike and have to auto-rotate. However, if you so much as look at a tree funny you spontaneously explode, which is not how things are in reality.

In this video a Blackhawk comes in and accidentally a few trees. The airframe does not explode and is no worse for wear, however the rotor-blades are ruined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L394PTW1YxA

Take this next video, for example, if I did either of these in ArmA2 I'd be toast, literally.

I think that it would be more realistic, and less frustrating, if the rotor blades simply "disintegrated", for lack of a better term, causing all sorts of dust and noise, as opposed to simply exploding and killing everything withing five miles. Similar to this video.

My last gripe is the unnecessary explosion from landing barely too hard. Any helicopter in the world can take a harder landing than these helicopters, seemingly fueled by nitroglycerin. (It explains the explosion radius and the volatility.) BIS, I think it's time to switch back to regular jet fuel. :p

As you can see in this video, the airframe comes down HARD and by hard I mean REALLY hard. The only time it bursts into flames is when it lands upside down, and I wouldn't call it an explosion by even the loosest of definitions.

I suppose it really depends on speed for a catastrophic explosion, but it doesn't seem as though rotary wing is really capable of those speeds. I'm no expert on the fundamentals of an aircraft exploding on contact with the ground, but I know it takes a whole lot more than it currently takes.

Thanks for reading.

[murmur 10]

Yes this would be awesome. At the very least I'd like to see the tendency to explode be toned down quite a bit. I'd love to be able to crash land my helo in the middle of a forest and have a chance to survive, instead of the present, "Oh I'm ****ed because I am going down and there are trees near me".

[Inkompetent 0]

Definitely agreed. The instant exploding at the moment is quite... irritating. That the helicopter is trashed and everyone inside is hurt/very badly hurt - yes. But we should be able to crash land, turning the helo into more or less of a wreck, without becoming one huge fireball.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

I dunno, the current system is pretty good IMO.

There's really a few improvements I'd make:

1. Make the explosion conditional; if it doesn't explode the crew should have a (however small) chance to survive; passengers less (configurable preferably)

2. Make the wrecks a little less "bouncy"; when it's stuck in the ground it shouldn't be so easy to dislodge

3. Better wreck models; obviously if it doesn't explode it shouldn't look so

[xPaveway 10]

Big Dawg, how is putting your rotors through trees supposed to make a chopper explode? This is a bad system, for all vehicles, not just choppers. For example: hummer in a lake = explode after 10 seconds. What??

It would be nice to actually survive a crash so that you could be rescued instead of omgwtfbbq explosion if you so much as touch a tree.

[sneakey pete 10]

Yes, this is something i'd very much want. mentioned it a few times around the place, but the OP really puts it into words+expamples very well.

[Laqueesha 474]

Agreed 100% with the OP. Helicopters do not instantly explode in a massive fireball when they hit a skinny tree branch, as in ArmA II.

Edited September 4, 2010 by Laqueesha

[b00ce 160]

Thanks for the support, hopefully BIS will get this fixed. But in the end, it's entirely up to them.

"You can lead a horse to water, but he has to drink."

[cas 41]

I agree,

especially in ARMA it would be nice to survive because in these situations the heli sim turns into a infantry sim.

[ray243 11]

Arma 2 is like battlefield, touch trees or walls= big explosion.

[b00ce 160]

I agree,

especially in ARMA it would be nice to survive because in these situations the heli sim turns into a infantry sim.

This is an incredibly good point. It would add a whole new dynamic to the game. It would make auto-rotation easier (Which is another thing that needs to be fixed, ACE did a good job.) because the airframe wouldn't explode if you goof up a little and forget that you have to do it "the ArmA way", instead of the real way. Two totally different things.

Vid. :rolleyes:

If you nosed down like that in ArmA to maintain the 65knots (or 120 km/h), you would not be able to recover. Likewise, if you did the ArmA way in real life, it's curtains for you; and I'm more than reasonably certain the helicopter WOULD explode on impact. :p

[carlostex 38]

I don´t think this is easy to do because of engine limitations. I mean a lot can be done to improve this situation that feels rather ridiculous for sure but i would like to see dynamically destructable models like you shoot a stinger into a helo and the warhead hits on the rotor we could see the tail rotor coming off and the chopper spinning to the ground.

Or maybe shooting down an airplane and see a wing coming off. Or shooting a tank, and see the turret or a disabled track.

Or shooting a guy in a head with a shotgun and his head coming off. Messy yes but realistic. This is why i like the idea of destrutable models, instead of a good model and a wreck model.

[b00ce 160]

I'm not talking about "dynamically destructible" anything. If you want that, play Red Faction Guerrilla. What I'm talking about is deleting a piece that is separate from the model to begin with, IE the main rotor (YayItSpins.jpg), and having some nice effects to cover the deletion. Even if the whole main rotor assembly disappeared, it would be better than what currently happens. If it's possible to write an animation for one of these separate parts with a .cfg, it should be possible to get rid of a part, or at least replace the texture with an invisible one. (Though there would be an issue with shadows for the latter suggestion.) So as far as I know, there is no specific engine limitation that stops this from being possible.

[Beagle 684]

I would like to see damage for airplanes at all. There is none only "healthpoints". Airplanes in ArmA OA a the most hardest stuff to fight because they never take damage at all, except the hitpoints. Imn helos you habve systems that can fail making the Helo useless or force it to RTB, tgus is not the case with aircraft as it stays fully functional till all hitpoints are used up or the pilot is accidentilaly killed.

Airplanes in ArmA OA finally NEED to have system failure as Helos already have like:

• 
  Engine failure (engine quits)
  Fuel system failure (fuel will leak)
  Avionics failure (instruments and HUD not working right, maybe weapons inoperable)
  Controll surface failure (anti torque rotor)
  Gear failure (gear not extending)

Edited September 5, 2010 by Beagle

[[frl]myke 14]

• 
  Engine failure (engine quits)
  Fuel system failure (fuel will leak)
  Avionics failure (instruments and HUD not working right, maybe weapons inoperable)
  Controll surface failure (anti torque rotor)
  Gear failure (gear not extending)

Looks like my todo list for the F-16 i'm working on..

Engine failure - check

Fuel system failure - check

Avionics failure - check

Control Surface failure - WIP

Gear failure (also partial failure) - check

;)

[dmarkwick 261]

I remember in OFP sometimes a Chinhook would come down, and when I got there, I'd often be greeted by the starkly grim sight of a whole crew and passenger loadout, still in their seats but dead. I think there should be more chance of this behavior happening, crashed out vehicles with dead personnel. It makes for some real atmosphere IMO I'm not too keen on the either fine or totally destroyed either-or. Also some in-between behavior, say some crew dying but some surviving.

Edited September 4, 2010 by DMarkwick

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Big Dawg, how is putting your rotors through trees supposed to make a chopper explode?

That would be one of the conditions where it didn't... :j:

[ray243 11]

woah, GLT, don't overwork yourself.......

[b00ce 160]

Jets do have landing gear failures. ;p

Also, Myke you can define your own damage points and their effect? Nice.

[nodunit 397]

That would be one of the conditions where it didn't... :j:

Plenty of videos out there with helicopters receiving rotor damage in many ways and very few to none have it resulting in the entire helicopter blowing up.

[Beagle 684]

Jets do have landing gear failures. ;p

only applies to extended gear with hard landings, you will never see a gear malfunction or not extending with battle damage.

[NeoHazard 10]

I'm just going to add to the masses and say yes, this needs to be reworked. So many survivable scenarios have ended in RELOAD, RESTART, RESPAWN.

[l mandrake 9]

+1 this needs sorting out IMO

[NoRailgunner 0]

As long aircrafts arent getting too easy/arcade to land without or damaged rotors/engines/wheels...

Helicopter crash (no explosion)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q278GAFS3xw&feature=related

Harrier crash (no explosion)

Would be overall better to see less instant explosions.

[dmarkwick 261]

I just did a test that showed that it's possible for ArmA2/OA to have dead soldiers in seats of non-destroyed vehicles, including helicopters. So I guess its possible for ArmA/OA to have a disabled/nonfunctioning vehicle that has crashed, without totally destroying, that can retain its passengers.