Ive been following loosely. I think the large buff to segment structure health to simulate how hard they are to break just interacts weird with large HE because its too simple of a calculation to make it look believable.
The spars are famously hard to break, but the bird should still be attriting performance from these hits. Its no secret that the AI ignores the physics the players are bound to in regards to control surface damage.
I know self-sealing fuel tanks could seal rifle-caliber holes, but I never knew they could seal 40 cm holes made by an M-geschoss!
Like the round intended to bring down such targets would have damage problems in game aside bombers… wait a sec…
Exactly!
So that is something that could be changed to make parts of the damage model more vulnerable without changing anything else
So, Changes that are needed so far imo
The wings are basically empty, and the engines only take up a tiny part of the housing currently.
Retune self-sealing tank to deal with a limited amount of smaller calibre hits but for it to have limits, including large shells and large numbers of small hits, at which point, the tanks could at best, drain rapidly, at worse actually set on fire too (essentially have the self-sealing disable after suffecient damage has been dealt to them)
increase the shrapnel damage from HE rounds hitting the airframe, that way crew and internal modules could be better damaged (@OliverXRed testing in this post shows some pretty insane nonsense going on with the damage dealt by HE, in that its spall inherits the pen of the round, which for non-AP, is naturally, very low. The result is that HE is very unlikely to deal any internal damage)
separate the vertical and horizontal stabiliers from the rest of the tail damage model, so these parts could be damaged and destroyed seperately to the rest of the tail, and given appropriate, proportional resistance to damage
add aerodynamic impacts as damage to the wings accumulates. Even if they arent sheered off, they should still provide less lift and control as “holes” are blown into them, making the aircraft harder to handle. @Ion_492 Made a good suggestion that the leading edges of the wings should be added as damagable parts too.
I think this would add the right balance between bombers being made of wet paper mache and adamantium
I agree with all these, a much better way to balance than the immortal/baby bird see-sawing we’ve had.
Could we add crew oxygen system to the components? if that gets whacked there’s a chance of internal fire and the pilot has a fixed amount of time to get below 3,000m before he loses conciousness?
Definetly could be, would require such mechanics to be added first, but certainly an interesting long-term addition
And, iirc they truly forgot the single actual heavy bomber at rank1
The almighty block with wings the size of engined uhhhh TB-3M-17-32 yeah
P.S. I’m wrong they actually updated it. Armored concrete/flying bunker of comrade Stalin is truly there now.
Has anyone tried to use non HE ammo on the bombers?
It doesnt really change much. It makes taking out the engines more consistant, but ultimately there is only the weakspot to target, and hitting anything else largely doesnt do much
Probably TB-3, Sunderland, G8N1 would be OP as hell if you use them as gunship.
Another change that would help balance things out (if it end up being too strong) is getting rid of infinite ammo for bombers.
A common tactic in coordinated Japanese fighter attacks consisted of staying just outside gun range until it appeared to them that the bomber’s guns ran dry, then making an immediate attack. In-game, bombers can just spam click without a care. If they run out, they reload and have full ammo again in 10 seconds!
iirc, they do actually have finite ammo, its just very large
For example, with this update I recall reading some relevant changes
Looks like you need to work on your aim, and you completely crippled it on the first pass taking out all of its tail control surfaces, only reason its still flying “normally” is because the test flight AI is very wonky with how it ACTUALLY controls aircraft. as [Morvran_] previously pointed out.
Bombers can reload their weapons in WT to have infinite, but yes individual belts can run out.
Ah… I didnt know that part. So yes, capping each turret to IRL ammo (bar in arcade) could be another key change then
F14D players demonstrating their advanced knowledge of how their own missiles work like they’re making some sort of point (all of those missiles exploded nowhere near any bomber as the radar was confused by each contact bleeding into eachother from such proximity)
It depends on your crew skill level. On some aircraft, you get really short reload times.
TB-3 isnt going to be as OP as gunship, i think it would be OP in terms of being the most survivable bomber in the game cuz it’s even with old damage model could get its whole construction painted orange and then proceed to bomb and then camp a simulator airfield for next 10-15 mins until oil in radiators run out and turns its engines completely off (mostly due to facing .30 cals in current matchmaker) So now it would literally be an essential character with, however, quite wimpy armament of literal infantry LMGs remade into aircraft MG. It just can’t reach target by himself. However, it would be an absolute menace even if damage model is nerfed from what it is on dev.
