HE rounds and soft vehicles

[moerty-RR- 10]

greetings, after a few hours of online play i have noticed that HE rounds seem to be half as effective against soft skinned vehicles like the hummer, UAZ and especially the helicopters.

i've been left incredulous when a 100mm bmp3 HE round strikes a flying chopper filled with infantry and the chopper keeps flying and worse of all none of the occupants are killed, try that with a sabot and the chopper goes up in flames.

my understanding is that the effects should be reversed, sabot should go through soft skinned vehicles leaving minimal damage and HE should be devastating to them. any clarifications would be appreciated.

[Windexglow 10]

Sabot probably deals more damage, HE probably has a wider radius but less damage.

[Pouk 10]

Isn't it just another exaple of missing penetration system in arma, but using HP system instead?

[11aTony 0]

Something like that.

[jakerod 254]

I would say it depends on where you hit the helicopter. Im sure hitting the cockpit would probably down it, the tail, the engine and other smaller areas that would sever controls.

[moerty-RR- 10]

I would say it depends on where you hit the helicopter. Im sure hitting the cockpit would probably down it, the tail, the engine and other smaller areas that would sever controls.

helicopters are fragile things, while i agree a sabot round would need to hit the right component to down a chopper, a high explosive round produces a shotgun effect which would hit multiple components and effectively down any chopper, and if not, at least neutralize most of the personnel located inside.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

How and why are you guys shooting at aircraft with a 120mm smooth bore cannon aimed at the ground and not a Shilka, Avenger, or even better, a Tunguska?

[galzohar 31]

How and why are you guys shooting at aircraft with a 120mm smooth bore cannon aimed at the ground and not a Shilka, Avenger, or even better, a Tunguska?

Because that's probably what they had available?

Anyway the problem is that on top of using a hit point system which in itself is completely inappropriate, they also gave HE rounds too low direct hit damage.

[jakerod 254]

Because that's probably what they had available?

Anyway the problem is that on top of using a hit point system which in itself is completely inappropriate, they also gave HE rounds too low direct hit damage.

If they up the HE round effect though then that means its easier to destroy MBTs which im told would not be accurate.

[Beltfed 0]

Too bad they don't just model penetration. I wonder why they don't just put it in? Even if it takes awhile it would make the game twice as good if there was penetration modeled.

[jakerod 254]

Too bad they don't just model penetration. I wonder why they don't just put it in? Even if it takes awhile it would make the game twice as good if there was penetration modeled.

Maybe there is not enough spare processing power on recommended machines to make it so they can apply a penetration model to a 100 vehicles at a time.

[randir14 10]

Well even old games like Red Orchestra have penetration models. In that game when a round is fired at a tank it takes into account armor thickness and the angle of impact. With the right armor and angle your tank can completely deflect a shot.

[galzohar 31]

If they up the HE round effect though then that means its easier to destroy MBTs which im told would not be accurate.

They could also just lower the HP of the soft armored vehicles (BTRs, LAVs, helicopters). Requiring 2 PG7-VLs to destroy a vehicle that only has ~10-20mm of armor on a regular basis is a joke. Granted maybe once in a while they'll get lucky and the RPG wouldn't hit any critical part, but normally 1 RPG should be more than enough. Even a PG7-V should be more than sufficient for normally destroying non-MBTs.

A penetration model doesn't have to be a pure penetration model. Even going with something extremely simple like "X round on Y vehicle hitting at Z area has W chance to damage V component". It's just a tad more data for each vehicle and weapon but ends up MUCH more true-to-life. That way you won't have tanks driving around after taking a PG7-V to the rear (where they have less than 100mm of armor where the PG7-V penetrates something like 230mm), and you won't have helos flying after taking an M203 hit, but you'll still have M1A2s surviving near-infinite amount of hits to the front from just most weapons, and LMGs/rifles will pretty much never do anything to any vehicle that has more than a few millimeters of armor.

[Tozmeister 0]

This often quoted youtube video...

BzpUVtVUBTI

is how it should be. It was from WWII online and was designed for computers of 2004. That's 5 years ago.

Going even further back there was M1 Tank Platoon which was written back in 1989 for the Commodore Amiga and that had a simple penetration/component system 20 years ago.

Vehicle has Y hitpoints

Weapon does X damage

if Y-X < 0 then do Fire+explosion+smoke

This is the overly simplistic damage model we are all suffering under.

Edited July 19, 2009 by Tozmeister
trying to get youtube link working

[galzohar 31]

Yeah, like I already said in other threads, a 1989 game managed to do better than Arma 2 when it comes to damage simulation on tanks.

[Dark-Light 10]

A KA-50 gunship can take a direct hit from a 30mm round if it hits the armoured side areas. I doubt few, if any, of the helis modelled are as well protected, and certainly none will be more resilient. Bottom line is a 100mm shell is going to turn any helicopter into a twisted metal jigsaw puzzle, regardless of its type.

Also, most real life tank crews generally will target low, slow choppers with their main gun in real life (I read this from a credible source sometime ago), so it is a valid situation. BIS for the most part seem to have pulled all their weapon data from thin air, or reduce/increase effectiveness of weapons for balance purposes.

[An Fiach 10]

I unloaded on a venom yesterday with a vehicle mounted grenade launcher. 100 grenades and it kept on going

---------- Post added at 12:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:25 PM ----------

This often quoted youtube video...

BzpUVtVUBTI

is how it should be. It was from WWII online and was designed for computers of 2004. That's 5 years ago.

Going even further back there was M1 Tank Platoon which was written back in 1989 for the Commodore Amiga and that had a simple penetration/component system 20 years ago.

Vehicle has Y hitpoints

Weapon does X damage

if Y-X < 0 then do Fire+explosion+smoke

This is the overly simplistic damage model we are all suffering under.

Minor correction, that model was designed in 2001, it was later released on youtube to help people understand how the ballistics and vehicle models behave.

[jakerod 254]

Yeah, like I already said in other threads, a 1989 game managed to do better than Arma 2 when it comes to damage simulation on tanks.

A game that looks like this: M1 Tank Platoon

So apart from graphical stuff it probably doesn't have to worry about much AI in the way of tanks, and most likely none in the realm of ships, helicopters, planes and infantry.

Okay just looked up the game and apparently it had helicopters and infantry but I doubt they had to program as much AI in as ArmA II had. Plus theres also the real weather, stars etc. the ability to mod it, dialogue, cutscenes, the massive terrain the fact that they have to take into account many more possible PC systems, destructable environments, penetration of different types of walls with bullets, suppressive fire, AI commanding their own men and a whole bunch of other stuff.

[techie714 10]

Pretty interesting stuff here. Maybe the Devs will address it?

[galzohar 31]

Considering the size of the ENTIRE GAME is less than 2MB, how much code can it possibly be to just make the same penetration/damage model that they have? And TBH there are some things in Arma 2 I couldn't care less compared to a realistic damage model. Considering how simple it is it can probably end up being a part of ACE2, but this is the kind of things that should have really be included in the game. It doesn't even take any extra graphical work, just a bit of extra code and data.

You don't have to show me the game's graphics, I've played it myself back when it was "THE thing" ;)

[monark 10]

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/2253

I think the system should be reworked a bit too. Bohemias approach to damage systems is a bit too blunt. But so is their approach to physics, audio and texturing aswell.

Tbh, if I were lead producer on this game I'd do things differently. Very differently.

[Dark-Light 10]

One of my biggest problems is that shooting down an aircraft results in an impossibly slow moving jumble of black polygons falling to the ground as if filled with helium...

[Momaw 10]

How and why are you guys shooting at aircraft with a 120mm smooth bore cannon aimed at the ground and not a Shilka, Avenger, or even better, a Tunguska?

Even in the real world, treads are known to shoot at rotors. Anything that can elevate its guns far enough really has little to lose by taking a shot at opposing helicopters. They're low and slow compared to fixed wing craft so you don't need fancy predictive systems or anything, and you can afford to spend a lot of hundred-dollar shells to potshot a million-dollar flyer. :)

[Tozmeister 0]

Minor correction, that model was designed in 2001, it was later released on youtube to help people understand how the ballistics and vehicle models behave.

I stand corrected Anfiach. I know nothing about WWII online i just quoted from the info box attached to the video.

To Jakerod, M1 tank Platoon had planes in as well. All of it incredibly simplified compared to ArmA2 but it was 20 years. That's 10 cycles of Moores' Law. Are you telling me then, that given Moores' Law is correct (and if you can disprove it then you are really wasted on these forums), we have computers that are 1024 times more powerful than they were back in 1989 and there's no room for more by way of vehicle damage modeling than just A_Weapon does X damage to A_Vehicle with Y hit points?

[jakerod 254]

I stand corrected Anfiach. I know nothing about WWII online i just quoted from the info box attached to the video.

To Jakerod, M1 tank Platoon had planes in as well. All of it incredibly simplified compared to ArmA2 but it was 20 years. That's 10 cycles of Moores' Law. Are you telling me then, that given Moores' Law is correct (and if you can disprove it then you are really wasted on these forums), we have computers that are 1024 times more powerful than they were back in 1989 and there's no room for more by way of vehicle damage modeling than just A_Weapon does X damage to A_Vehicle with Y hit points?

There might not be. The other factor is that BIS probably doesn't have many programmers and saw other aspects that were a higher priority like infantry AI which I can't imagine was that easy to update.