Zephyr Net

Here is my current work in progress:

ftp://ftp.frontier.com/pub/users/usnraptor/Fighters%20Anthology/Weapons/My%20Icons/AC%20Guns.xls

I probably am going to up the power of the Air-Air weapons a bit. I have created a standard and formula for the weapons, but not the damage aircraft can take.

Currently, for the standard, I assumed that one AIM-120 would take out a MiG-21. Then I set the damage power for the other missiles based off of their warhead size in relation to the AIM-120 damage points.

I don't necessarily think there's any wrong way to go about this.

That said, based upon most formulas we've used and seen thus far, the vast majority of SAMs and AAMs will destroy most aircraft in the game with a single hit (they certainly will using the formula you're using right now, except maybe the B-52 will survive an AIM-9 hit). That makes sense, of course, and seems to line up with reality. If you've been hit *directly* by a missile, you're probably screwed.

However, that's assuming a direct hit. Unfortunately, FA doesn't really simulate proximity fuses - it's either a hit or not. In real life, a lot of hits aren't actually direct hits, but rather explosions when the missile gets close enough to the aircraft. Sometimes it's enough to destroy the aircraft, and other times it "only" damages it.

The thing I've been doing with my mini LIBs (I don't have the FATK available anymore so I've pretty much just been messing with what's easily interpreted in the .PT and .JT files) is to generally have missile damage very close (slightly higher) to the aircraft hit points. What I've found is that while you will destroy a target with one hit maybe 70% of the time, there are other times where the target will take severe damage but keep flying. And that actually works with what I'm trying to achieve - an option between complete miss or complete hit. It's basically a janky way to simulate a proximity hit.

(NOTE: as CAG mentions below, this approach doesn't work as well for large bombers/aircraft that should be able to handle damage much better than smaller aircraft)

Of course, for a large project like Game Remod (as opposed to what's essentially a mini LIB designed for a specific mission), this may not be consistent enough. But it's some food for thought, when it comes to game design!

The vast majority of B-52s in Vietnam survived multiple SA-2 hits before going down... So a single hit by a SAM, or even 2 hits, unless from something like a Patriot, SA-5, S300, or S400, isn't really all that realistic for a large bomber type aircraft that have multiple engines and can fly with some of those engines disabled and/or large areas of wing surface or control surfaces missing or damaged to be taken down so easily.

I model my aircraft accordingly by what history has shown them to be able to withstand. It takes a lot to kill a B-52 but not so much to kill an F-105 or an F-4... And smaller jets like the F-16, A-4s, and Harriers, were especially vulnerable to AAA and SAM fire.

P.MOK'S SUPER DUPER LIB SECRETS - REVEALED!!

SUBS:

You already figured it out. Use the 'wave shape' and it looks like a small ripple on the water. I think I also had to copy the shape over once and give it the xxx_s.sh name so that it would not crash the game when destroyed. (objects like ships need a Destroyed Shapes as well as the primary shape)

TARGETABLE MISSILES:

The key is to give the missile damage points (I give it 50). Otherwise you can check the "Object is targetable" box till the flight-simming truckers come hime and nothing will happen. But DO make sure you check that box as well!!!

SLOW CRUISE MISSILES:

There are a bunch of setting you need to change to make a missiles 'cruise' at low speed.
2 areas are important:

1) Missile Info: The Flight Speeds Section is important. Set the initial speed to "0" if the missile is a slow accelerator, or set it to 400 or 500 knots if you want to get it up to speed quickly. For ship launched missiles you might want to make sure it has enough initial speed so it doesn’t drift back into the sea before engine ignition ( or you could just set ignition delay to 0). See below for additional Acceleration info.
For Fuel Expended & Removal I give both 6000 ticks (4 ticks = 1 second; 6000 = 25 minutes). The idea is that since the cruise missile uses a turbofan engine, not solid rocket propellant, the thrust is continuously provided throughout the missile flight (as opposed to conventional rockets, which would have often brief motor burn times, for instance, 20 seconds).
The Turn Rates section can be adjusted here as well. Generally the setting in FA seem to always be 60 degrees powered, 45 unpowered. This is probably quite a bit off from realistic. Vark's setting for the AMRAAM, for instance, are 1 powered, 10 unpowered. That means while the rocket's motor is burning maneuverability is very low, the missile will fly straight ahead until the motor has burned out, then the missile will turn to it's target. I should also note that Vark's AMRAAM the motor burns for 8 tick, about 2 seconds. Also note that once the motor stops burning (fuel expended time is up), the missile no longer puts out smoke. Very hard to spot an incoming AMRAAM with no smoke! But for a cruise missile which has continuous thrust, it probably is smarter to give the missile a better turn rate while powered. I guess you could leave it at 60.

2)Movement Info: Here the settings you want to look at are the Maximum and Corner Speeds. Since missiles are generally more agile than aircraft, I usually don't worry about corner speed too much, and just set it the same as max speed. Max speed for a subsonic cruise missile would be around 500-600 knots. So change that ridiculously high "3000" knot speed to 600. Now when launched the missile will acclerate from 0 (or whatever initial speed you set) tothe max speed for as long as you set the fuel expended. In this case since we set the fuel to last as long as the life of the missile, it will cruise at 600 or so knots until it is 'removed'.
Now, lets look at the accel/decel data. I looked at Vark's settings in VarkLib 2.1 for some ideas on what this stuff does and still have no idea how it converts to real-world speeds. But, some useful values: by default the missiles generally have accell 375296 and decel 37376, or thereabouts. These are not very impressive or practical, so what I did was up the accel a million or so: 1375296 works very nicely for high-speed missiles like AMRAAMs or Sparrows. You might as well leave it alone for the cruise missiles, since they would not accelerate that quickly anyway. Generally increasing Decel means the missile will slow down over the course of its flight and eventually, if it runs out of fuel, slow down and drop or loose lock. This is not good for cruise missiles which are supposed to fly for up to 25 minutes, so what I did was set the Decel to 256, and arbitrary number which reflects my desire to avoid excessive decel and at the same time doesn’t pretend there is not decel at all over time. You can play around with that if you like; see what works.

TOOLKIT TIP:

Proximity Fusing --
I don't have all the answers, but here's some ideas:
I am not *sure*, but I believe the final collision check EARLY or LATE determines, as you might suppose, when the game check to see if a weapon has hit it's target. A LATE setting would theoretically simulate a 'penetrating' weapon that would pass into/through an object before exploding, while an EARLY setting would allow air burst before reaching target. <<<< UPDATE: From my recent testing, BOTH LATE and EARLY need to be checked for proximity Fuse to work correctly

In a related matter, I discovered an interesting setting in the .JT files from studying some of Vark's files: proximity fuse radius! I am not sure how this setting works with the above settings:

look for the setting he the bottom of the section called:
---------------- START OF PROJ_TYPE -------------

byte 0
byte 9
word 4
word 500 ;fuze radius <---I assume, this line: kjs!
byte 0
byte 18
byte 18
ptr fireSound
word 6000
word 0
word 1200
word 100

--------------END OF PROJ_TYPE-------------------

(Wrench note: P.Mok doesn’t say what type of weapons he's looking at, but read on: perhaps an LAU type rocket?)

As you can see here, the fuseRadius of this particular weapon (the M26 rocket) is set to explode when it get within 500 feet of target. Higher values will cause the weapon to explode over a target, but it also means the radius of the weapon blast may have to be adjusted to ensure proper damage from the blast. Lower values will allow the weapon to home all the way into the target.

The setting is for the entire view... 180 gives you 90 degrees either side of the scale... so if you are wanting full horizon coverage you need 180 in both settings.

And dont forget proximity fuses also work for AAA... I have AAA that blows up if its within the fuse range, otherwise it goes right by you as a miss...