Zephyr Net

So, an interesting discovery, maybe it isn't new.
When a missile runs out of fuel, it will decelerate to 68% of its velocity and sustain that velocity until it runs out of time.
I did not test if it loses more maneuvering - might do, might not.
Either way just something I discovered.



Also FYI doesn't matter what you set the min to here (even if you set it to 0), it will slow down to 68% of its velocity.

_________________
Centurian

You have to have the deceleration rate set and the boxes clicked for Gravity drop when Unpowered and Initial 32 fps Gravity Drop checked to have it slow down from gravity effects and drop as well as from drag modifiers when unpowered. Have you tried using the Help Files?

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

I have indeed they're mostly vague for me to understand.
I don't think I had gravity or FPS on that one for testing, the next round I'm going to test to see if it goes below 68% with those two settings.
Deceleration rates I've always ever left at default (same for accel), never had a good feel for what those ought to be.

_________________
Centurian

I hope you two are writing down notes for the manual you'll co-author.

It's why I keep posting stuff here so we have it saved somewhere.

_________________
Centurian

That is what the forums are for. That was why I had hoped to move all this dev work over to VNFAWING because I make backups of that database constantly and I know nothing is done over here very often so any crash or hack will mean all of this data will be lost for good.

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

Zephyr did respond to a PM I sent him not too long ago (June).



It's beyond my computer expertise but perhaps he'd be willing to share the backup or create another backup somewhere else or something that could be parlayed into data for VNFA?
At this point our game is 24 years old and I want to say we've all grown up quite a lot of years since then so we really ought to just combine all our efforts at this point because what's really left anymore?

_________________
Centurian

So I just set the same weapon with the Initial drop and gravity drop when unpowered.
When it ran out of propellant it began to fall but speed still steadied at 1064 kn (from 1559 kn).
So it seems even with those settings, the missing just hits 68% of its velocity and that's as much as it slows down - at least in level flight - maneuvering it slows down more so I think this is a good test.

Now just to figure out what's reasonable for a corner speed.
I mean that information isn't available whatsoever, hell whenever they list a missile's speed in Mach I've always wondered at what altitude (always just presumed 36K) that correlated to in mph.
I'm probably going to just take some random - but maybe reasonable close number - on a missile and stretch that to all other missiles. Maybe it's 75% of the max speed?

_________________
Centurian

Why do the missiles go to 68% velocity? Well that's why!!!



Because somewhere along the way I got into the habit of putting the final speed as the same speed as max speed.
Well 1 mph = 0.68 ft/sec.

So 1795 isn't MPH in this, it's ft/sec because 1795 ft/sec = 1064 kn!

I'm almost positive I just relearned something I learned forever ago.
That explains the 68%. Well it's like learning from zero again.

So I went back to see what the help file shows and it's blatantly wrong.
Obviously this is the final speed in unpowered flight and you should enter this in ft/sec not kts.


It's rather annoying that here in these speeds you have to enter ft/sec but on the movement info area you enter in MPH and it converts to ft/sec in the JT file.

_________________
Centurian

You need to revisit your own tips page...

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...

Can't say I see anything in it on this stuff, in fact I see a few things that are wrong based on my own testing here.

_________________
Centurian

Maybe he meant revisit it to update it?

Ha - very unlikely I'm out of the website game.

_________________
Centurian

That is exactly what I meant... You sent out those tips in html format. Now would be a good time to update and correct them...

_________________
Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...