Get this (severe damage system not working)


See that? Imagine getting assist for this!

The X-Ray since requested

1st pass

2nd pass

He has his whole steering surfaces on tail (Rudder and Elevators) either missing or black.
He has 2 sections of his right wing area black, alongside his wing tip spar.
And lets not forget about one black engine.

This ain’t severe damage enough?

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The visual holes don’t really mean anything, you need to post the actual orange/red/black damage model.

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Well, this is an assist. You simply misunderstood the severe damage mechanics.

I know it’s a long text, but please just read the official info from the devs about the severe damage mechanics:

Welcome to the “Severe damage” mechanic

As of now, the death of an aircraft is counted under one of the following conditions: the pilot was knocked out; the aircraft crashed into an object and was completely destroyed; the aircraft had its tail torn off; the aircraft received damage that causes it to be counted as dead but it can still conduct further combat.

Relating to the last part, currently when an enemy aircraft gets destroyed (“Target destroyed”), they can sometimes still fly, shoot, land to repair and have no automatic bail out. The aim of this was to allow you to score a frag and at the same time prevent another player from finishing off the heavily damaged enemy aircraft and steal the frag.

We’d rather not count the aircraft as destroyed based on “guesses”, but instead would like to leave you the opportunity to attempt to control a “severely” damaged aircraft until it’s either completely destroyed or returns to the airfield to repair.

However, with different game modes, aircraft control options, player experiences, and the number of aircraft in the game, there hasn’t been a single system that could reliably and accurately determine this state.

Due to this, we’re proposing to remove this condition from the game mechanics and instead replace it with the “Severe damage” mechanic. How will this work? If an aircraft is damaged to the extent where it would have been counted as being destroyed previously, despite still being able to fly, shoot and land to repair, this new mechanic will count it as severely damaged. No destruction or death will be credited until the severely damaged aircraft is further finished off.

[RoadMap][Development] Following the Roadmap: We’d like to hear your feedback on our proposed Aircraft Destruction Mechanics & Night Battles design - News - War Thunder

If you are interested about the severe damage mechanics details, please check this official forum topic:

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it’s quite literally still flying

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Doesn’t severe damage now ruin your ability to get assists?

Most previous destruction conditions became severe damage. So if you see severe damage, in the old system that would almost always be a kill already.

But in the old system, when you finished the enemy that was already destroyed, you could get additional assist (which is 67% of the kill score). That assist of course also counted for tasks and challenges.

Nowadays when you finish severely damaged enemy, you get finisher status (40% of the score) with a full kill credit.

From what I saw, most players didn’t attack already destroyed targets in the old system. Maybe they didn’t know they can still get an assist or maybe they thought it’s not worth it (as you waste time and ammo, but can’t get a kill anymore). I sometimes used this possibility, especially when I needed assists for tasks and challenges, but also when I wanted to play safe and get ‘easier’ score.

You can check the spoiler in my post here (that’s how the system worked before severe damage mechanics):

So yeah, nowadays it’s harder to get assists. But at the same time, it’s easier to get kills for tasks and challenges that require kills. In the situation presented in the spoiler, that plane would be severely damaged (instead of destroyed) and both players would receive a kill (first person a partial kill, second person a full kill).

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Some might have not wanted to risk “kill stealing”.

But, now yeah. Kind of a typical Gaijin “fix” for something that just breaks the game somewhere else…

He is not missing a majority of his wing, nor all control surfaces / control mechanics.

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Barely, I’m not sure if it counts or not yet

You couldn’t steal a kill if the target was already considered destroyed. You could only get an additional assist from such target.

Even the devs admit officially in their article, that the old system was designed to prevent kill stealing. They considered planes destroyed earlier than they wanted (based on guesses) in the previous system.

The new severe damage mechanics allows more kill steals, because planes stay alive longer.

For example, in the old system this was a destruction condition:

Spoiler

Such damage already gave you a full kill credit, with 100% of the kill score, plus 33% for an additional critical hit. If someone else decided to finish this plane, he could only get additional assist (67% of the kill score) plus an additional critical hit (33% of the kill score).

The very same situation in the new severe damage mechanics, which turned a destruction into severe damage:

Spoiler

The person who severely damaged the enemy only receive a partial kill credit (that counts for tasks and challenges) with 80% of the kill score (no additional critical hit). If someone else decide to finish this plane, he receive a full kill credit (that counts for tasks, challenges and for the service records) with 40% of the kill score (no additional critical hit). So from the stats point of view, you can actually kill steal more in the new system. And you get less score and rewards too.

The only condition that was moved from a critical hit to severe damage is engine destruction. I don’t count here horizontal stabilizers, as this condition is a bug in my opinion.

Well the new system added the “finished off” qualifier, where as before causing destruction gave full credit for the kill to whomever delivered the last hit and demoted the one who crippled it to just an assist. Which was the important point they were trying to address.

1 Like

It’s always about the interpretation. Because for you “just an assist” can mean something else than for me.

What changed between the two systems is that if one person first severely damage (destroy in the old system) the plane and the other person finishes it:

From the tasks and challenges perspective:

  • in the new system it’s easier to get kills (kill-related tasks), as both players will be credited with a kill.
  • in the old system it was easier to get assists (assist-related tasks), as one player could get a kill and the other player assist.

From the service records perspective:

  • in the new system the person who finishes the target gets +1 kill in their service records, the person who severely damaged (caused most damage to the enemy) gets no kill credit in their service records.
  • in the old system the person who destroyed (severely damaged) the target got +1 kill in their service record, the person who finished it got no kill credit in their service record.

From the score perspective:

  • in the new system both players can get 80% for severe damage + 40% for finishing, so 120% in total.
  • in the old system the first player could get 100% for destruction + 33% for additional critical hit, the second player 67% for assist + 33% for additional critical hit, so 233% in total.

From the nameplate color perspective:

  • in the new system severely damaged plane keeps red nameplate, so sometimes it’s impossible to figure out who is severely damaged and who isn’t.
  • in the old system destroyed (severely damaged) plane had grey nameplate color, so it was easy to figure out who is severely damaged.

These are pretty much the most important changes between the two systems.

Why the devs changed the system? Because many players stopped shooting severely damaged planes in the old system (they considered planes with grey nameplates as “not dangerous anymore”). And these “dead” planes could still be dangerous. I never considered planes with grey nameplate as “dead” planes, so it wasn’t a problem for me. But I’m not saying the old system was perfect of course. A few times I managed to land and repair, even if I was considered “destroyed” already. It’s pretty much impossible with severe damage mechanics (you only die when you crash, when your pilot is killed or when you lose your tail, so when you have no control over your plane).

I don’t recall that as the reason why they changed it. It was a way of addressing “kill stealing” by reducing the reward for doing it.

Severe damage has nothing to do with “addressing kill stealing”. If anything, it allowed players to kill steal more than in the old system.

Even in the article I quoted a few posts above yours, the devs clearly wrote:

Currently (in the old system) when an enemy aircraft gets destroyed (“Target destroyed”), they can sometimes still fly, shoot, land to repair and have no automatic bail out. The aim of this was to allow you to score a frag and at the same time prevent another player from finishing off the heavily damaged enemy aircraft and steal the frag.

And they changed this old system to a new one, that allows to “steal frags”.

In the “Responding to the Severe Damage feedback & release time” topic, they also explained why they won’t add any marker to severely damaged planes in the new system (previously severely damaged planes had different nameplate color and that was misleading to some players):

We have also read feedback that severely damaged aircraft could have a marker added to signify this to other players. We’d rather not add this because a severely damaged aircraft could still be as dangerous as a regular aircraft. Adding a marker to signify this might be misleading in some cases and we’d like to keep it simple.

They also clearly stated that severe damage mechanics can “slightly” reduce your rewards (we know now it’s exactly 20%, not counting missing critical hits):

In addition to this, if you severely damage an enemy aircraft but did not destroy them (because they flew away for example), you will not receive a destruction but instead a new reward called “Severe damage”. The amount for this reward is slightly less than the reward for a destruction.

Also, their basic summary of this mechanics:

Briefly, the severe damage mechanic simplifies the system for scoring an aircraft destruction and makes it more understandable and transparent: as long as an aircraft can theoretically continue to fight, it’ll not be considered as destroyed.

Do you see anything here about addressing “kill stealing”? They actually wrote that this mechanic was designed to keep planes alive longer. It’s just players who misunderstood the mechanics. It was never designed to fix kill stealing, what most players think (probably because most players actually didn’t read official articles about the mechanics).

Here you go. Still assist.

My point being a) how on earth this is not dead and b) how on earth i get assist for this

If you still interested, i posted X-rays. How do you feel about it? Would you still say this is “tiss but a scratch”?
This looks like severe damage to me. If he manages to RTB somehow like this and land, alright, but i feel like i’m entitled to 80% of my reward after battering something to that extent.

I know it’s not a fighter, but selling point of “Severe damage” was “a plane that get’s crippled but still hangs in air” or something worded along side that.

It’s one thing that after 1st pass he somehow still have his wingtip (like… -_- aha)
But after 2nd pass when he loses (they all black) his tail steering controls AND one engine (2 crew members), and i don’t get severe damage for this and get assist later??

Like what else there is to break? His other remaining engine + pilot + one gunner that is already red?

Hence why the tittle “severe damage system not working”

The old system was bad, but if you’re going to replace a lot of assists with severe damage they also need to adjust the daily tasks because they keep getting increased in difficulty and it’s beyond obnoxious.

They also ruined scouting just before this.

1 Like

Like I said, the system is working as designed. It was designed to work this way, old kill conditions became severe damage.

You can read all severe damage conditions in one of the official articles:

Severe damage to a plane is considered to be: destruction of all engines (or destroying one engine if there is only one left), destruction of all elements of the control system (or the remaining controls left), which makes impossible to control the ailerons, elevators and rudders, separation of more than half of at least one wing, and destruction of all horizontal stabilizers (or the remainder of the horizontal stab).

Horizontal stabilizers on this list seems to be a bug (destruction of this part doesn’t affect flight performance, so it’s a nonsense to have it on that list).

You basically want severe damage to work differently. You can always make a suggestion about this, but if I were you, I wouldn’t count on anything.

The severe damage mechanics is working pretty much how the devs wanted it to work.

It still can fly.

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Horizontal stabilizers most certainly do affect flight performance - they counter nose-up or nose-down moment from the lift-weight/thrust-drag formula.

These forces almost always are not operating through a single point, so have a resultant moment - the horizontal stabilizer counters this residual moment - normally for an empty weight situation.

Trim tabs then counter any additional moment from loading and loading changes (fuel use, bombs dropped, cargo/pax loadings, etc).

However without the fixed portion of the horizontal stabilizer the remaining trimmable elements may well lack sufficient authority to maintain level flight.

image

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