Give propellers detailed damage models

[Pangolin_Fan]

[Would you like to see this in-game?]

• Yes
• No

Instead of the very tip of your propeller hitting something resulting in instant explosion of all blades instantly, propellers should get bent/broken with the same healthbar mechanic other parts.

Variables
Variables for propeller damage

• The hardness of the material they impact (stone, metal, wood, water, dirt, glass, etc.)
• The size/thickness (mainly for destructable props e.g trees and poles)
• The force from the impact (based on rpm, aircraft speed, propeller weight, etc)
• How close to the propeller base the object gets
• How long the propellers are colliding for
• Material of the blades
• Pitch of the blades

Variables for damaging enemy aircraft

• Material of the plane
• Size of the part being hit
• How long the propellers are colliding for
• The force of impact
• How deep the propellers cut into the plane
• Material of the blades
• Pitch of the blades

There’s probably alot more needed variables but these are just a few.
These variables could all determine whether damage should be applied, how much, and what kind.

Effect on gameplay

For helicopters
Detailed propeller DMs would stop alot of unexpected and annoying deaths. Slightly scraping the ground with the tip of your blade would likely have little to no effect on your flying, and certainly wouldn’t instantly explode all 6 blades at once (same goes for tail rotor).

Things like bushes, unexpectedly tall tree hitboxes, and misaligned building/rock hitboxes would all be much more tame.

For planes,
There would be extra wiggleroom recovering from a dive as your propeller could scrape the dirt or a tree and would be more-or-less fine with minor bending. If your engine is off and props aren’t spinning (or spinning slow), then scraping the ground would only result in one or two propellers being bent.

You could also use your propeller to shred enemy planes without dying instantly (they did this IRL during WW2). It would take into account the variables listed earlier to decide how much damage your propeller and the enemy plane should take.

For some other effects, propellers hitting something would decrease rpm, and risks engine damage. It would cause the plane to yaw aswell as the blades act as wheels for those brief moments.

Why this should be added

These changes would make Warthunder more realistic and stop alot of very cheesy/annoying deaths. It would also give you a way to kill that last guy when you’re out of ammo. Pls vote yes : D

Edit: I’m adding the kopp-etchells effect to this suggestion as Necronomica suggested.

Spoiler

To add to this, there is an effect called “kopp-etchells effect” when helicopters fly in sandy areas in darker light that would look awesome in game.
The sand basically shaves of metal from the propeller blades so fast that the metal pieces catch fire in the air (like using an angle grinder).

[Wilbertheaverage]

Not sure how true it is but I’ve heard a Blackhawk can just land in a Forrest and cut down the trees in its way

[Necronomica]

To add to this, there is an effect called “kopp-etchells effect” when helicopters fly in sandy areas in darker light that would look awesome in game.
The sand basically shaves of metal from the propeller blades so fast that the metal pieces catch fire in the air (like using an angle grinder).

Spoiler

[Norris_Aznable]

I’m not entirely sure on the necessity of detail fidelity to this level personally. I can’t speak for helicopters so I’m going to leave it and its mechanic well alone (but I do know using scout drones to snap the main rotor is a gremlin tactic when you can pull it off and it would be invalidated by this change).

But for planes, I think clipping on the ground and destroying your prop is a good approximation of propstrike and for more tolerance, you could slightly buff prop’s health. I’m not sure about the idea of using it as an offensive tool either, since it I think average ram/bump is effective enough if you want you get up point blank like that.

[Pangolin_Fan]

Using props to shred enemy tails did happen IRL and the attacker usually survived. It does however depend on if your prop is metal or wood, and if the enemy aircraft is metal or wood.

[Norris_Aznable]

That’s nice to know! I just don’t know if the feature would be viable enough for WT’s level of detail. It could be a novelty I guess, but it otherwise will feel like a bit of a niche feature.

[EDDIEGT]

This would be awesome to see in game

[Pangolin_Fan]

I fairly certain the black hawk in this video was malfunctioning (thus why it landed near trees in the first place) however it still shows how the blades interact with trees.

tree-trimming-blackhawk.flv

[BOMBAY9997042]

its been historically know that a Huey on one occasion landed in a small clearing of bamboo and confined flying only when they shut the engine down 2 hours later did they realize that the main rotors were unairworthy

[xHDx]

It’s a fantastic idea but a difficult one to implement. Mostly, propellers aren’t rendered during gameplay. In-flight, what you actually see is a Sprite with a shader applied to it - there’s no 3D model to manipulate when the engine is up to speed, and therefore its not possible to represent propeller damage while the engines are running.

However, this has been the way propellers have worked since I remember. Surely a 3D propeller model being rendered constantly would not be too much of a performance hindrance; the game engine seems to be coming along nicely with new rendering features.

It would be a great addition.

[Pangolin_Fan]

The blades could stay as the static hitbox they are now and could still be far more detailed. I’m honestly kinda baffled that Gajin has kept them as basic as they are now.

[xHDx]

True, the propellers only need to be detailed from the front and sides to be honest. LOD can solve that.

Assuming there are no technical limitations, as in, engine limitations. With older engines, there’s quite a few. War Thunders engine is not new, but it has been revamped clearly for the current state of the game. Who knows :)