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Good morning ladies and gents.
First of all, I'd like to take the time to belatedly say that I love the remake of this game. Thank you for taking the time to salvage it and turn it into something that is really enjoyable to play. Since 2.0 came out it actually pulled me away from most other games, including WoT, so it's safe to say I got hooked.
There are certain things that I wish that could be added to the game, like the national insignia replacement that someone else mentioned on the forums, or more planes, but those are arguably not core features and I have the patience to see what will be added to the game as time passes and the playerbase grows.
But let's cut to the chase. I started this thread because of a behavior I've noticed that makes no sense to me, and that is ramming. Now, don't take me wrong, I know that this was a tactic that was actually used back in the day, but I will explain what I mean. Personally, I came to enjoy the fighter play style the most, so more often than not, I'm flying some light fighter, and I currently play mainly down the British fighter line. I have noticed that every time I end up face to face with an enemy plane, when it's a heavy fighter or something of bigger size in general, the enemy plane will try to cut into my vector to ram my plane if we pass close enough to each other. The AI planes are really effective in this maneuver and I've noticed that the players have started copying it as well. Now, my problem with this is that while I'm not a pilot and I can't claim to have extensive knowledge in WWII air-fighting doctrines, I find this notion really ridiculous. Who in their right mind would want to collide head on with another airplane? Even if that would be viable in lower tiers, where the smaller fighters are made of materials such as paper, canvas and wood, who would want to collide face to face with a jet fighter. Not only are those planes made of much sturdier materials, but the speeds on both sides are much higher as well, making the collision catastrophic for everyone involved. Yet it seems that despite getting a fighter through the cockpit, the heavier plane just shrugs it off and keeps flying as if nothing happened...
Even when taking the heavy metal plane against light paper plane paradigm into account, I don't believe anyone mindlessly just rushed the nose of their plane into someone coming at them head on. Considering that there are people in both vehicles and they are both cruising a few hundred meters above ground through the "magic" of aerodynamics, I doubt anyone in their right mind would want to damage their machine enough to risk plunging down since us humans are not really known for our ability to fly on our own. And let's face it, even a lighter plane has hard parts that could damage engines, pass through glass and turn the pilot and crew into a fine red paste, and in general cause other kinds of nastiness. In short, I think that, for one, the AI planes shouldn't be so fond of flying straight through lighter planes, and second, that such head on collisions shouldn't really be survivable for anyone. No matter how much armor that thing has on its nose, it's not a bloody tank. And even if it was, an aluminum airframe weight about 8 tons (if we take my current plane, the Supermarine Attacker, as an example) and coming at you at 600 km/h (or somewhere around 1200 km/h if you want to consider the other plane flying towards it with equal if not greater speed) is certain to ruin your day.
For the science nerds out there:
If we take the simplest formula for momentum, that would be p = m * v, where m is the mass in kilos and v the velocity in meters per second. If we take the previous example of a Supermarine Attacker (weighing in game 7955 kg) flying into something while cruising at 600 km/h, and considering that this something is stationary, we are left with 1325859,85 Newtons, or an approximate 135200.079 kilograms of force. And that's considering that the receiver is not a plane flying in the opposite direction adding its own momentum into this mess. I doubt the tensile strength of the materials involved is high enough to sustain 135.2 tons, at a thickness that it would still allow it to fly, unless that plane had a nose made of mithril. And again, that force should be more than double if we do the calculations right and add the other plane's speed and mass into the equation, but I won't go that far. And let's not even start with how small the area of contact is and all that jazz. I love science, but if we get started with that one, I'll be here until Monday. I'm not a physicist.
As a final note, just consider how punishing collisions can be when flying too close to another plane that's heading the same direction. If you as much as bump wings, sometimes half of your plane's hp goes down the drain. The forces there are hugely inferior to the ones of a head on collision, and yet crushing your wing against the wing of another aircraft can cause lots of damage and I'm perfectly fine with that. So perhaps you should reconsider how the damage calculation for collisions is done. I know the game is not meant to be a flight simulator, but at the same time a complete departure from realism is not your goal either, I believe.
Once again, thank you for the great effort put into remaking this whole game, and thank you for reading.
Keep up the good work!
Edited by Sgt_Mikaelus, 26 November 2017 - 01:49 PM.
