Helicopter physics

[rPoXoTauJIo]

Starting from 1.4.15, i've decided to start playing with helicopter physics.
Instead of full rework only chinook(no bias here hehe ) been updated to new variant for collecting feedback before updating rest of choppers.

Main point of change is heavily increased gravity and reduced wings force - helicopters will fall out of sky faster regardless of input.

This hold few purposes:

• Decreased dive effectiveness for CAS(in future). It will allow less time for cas being on target in dive.
• Decreased dive effectiveness for trans. During diving, helicopters will loose a lot more altitude than they gain speed from it. Flying straight will be most fastest way and most energy efficient.
• Decreased horizontal speed modifier - this change will allow helicopters save more energy in flight and they will stop a bit slower.
• Remove ability for helicopters to fly upside down in some cases.
• Remove python server-side check for helicopters being upside down.

[viirusiiseli]

tl;dr

You keep trying to make jets and helicopters realistic, and gameplay will continue to show you, it will not work for this game.

[rPoXoTauJIo]

tl;dr

In a no way this engine will allow me to make them fully realistic, i know it from jets edits, and gameplay > realism after all.

Speaking from gameplay wise, currently helicopters suffer a lot from lack of speed. Previous nerf back in time were caused by reducing horizontal speed modifier coupled with strong wings(those were done even earlier in pr time to simulate gravity on helicopters), as it's allowed to do stupid things like flying upsidedown while getting altitude. While nerfing railway-like flying which allowed to do so it's effectively reduced horizontal speed for helis aswell.

What's different in my approach is that i'm using gravity modifier for helicopters - those allows me to remove wings which been used for pushing down helicopters at speed, and get proper helicopters horizontal speed back without worrying about abusing upsidedown flights.

[Psyrus]

If it makes the helicopters a bit more survivable in general, I'm all for it. Buffing AA is good and all but the careful pilots (those who work to avoid AA) shouldn't be sitting ducks with very slow and cumbersome flight models. I like the look of what you're doing

[rPoXoTauJIo]

Some quick unrealistic edits

[anantdeathhawk]

Reminded me of this!
Close enough.

[Jagira]

Reminded me of this!

[DogACTUAL]

Like the effort you put into this. If it makes the flight model more authentic and closer to the real thing i am all for it. And of course helicopters have to be fast again.

But since diving is a legitimate thing with real helicopters, could you please make sure it will still be effective? Especially for light attack helicopters with unguided munitions that pretty much have to rely on diving to be effective.

One big criticism:

In your big effort to make flying upside down not possible, you snuck in some changes in recent updates. These changes went way overboard and led to many helicopters not being able to make a looping or hard evasive manouvers involving loopings.

When you do those normal manouvers that real helicopters can do and that are hardly comparable to flying upside down your helicopter gets damaged or disabled quite often now.
Helicopters should be able to do those manouvers without getting damaged or disabled because it is authentic and a useful tactic.

Can you please take a look at this and fix it?

[UTurista]

Source that diving, doing barrel rolls and loops are a real tactic?

[rPoXoTauJIo]

Like the effort you put into this. If it makes the flight model more authentic and closer to the real thing i am all for it. And of course helicopters have to be fast again.

But since diving is a legitimate thing with real helicopters, could you please make sure it will still be effective? Especially for light attack helicopters with unguided munitions that pretty much have to rely on diving to be effective.

Nothing will change here except that helicopters will be faster and won't loose speed if pilots will try to abuse torque decrease as it's now.

One big criticism:

In your big effort to make flying upside down not possible, you snuck in some changes in recent updates. These changes went way overboard and led to many helicopters not being able to make a looping or hard evasive manouvers involving loopings.

When you do those normal manouvers that real helicopters can do and that are hardly comparable to flying upside down your helicopter gets damaged or disabled quite often now.
Helicopters should be able to do those manouvers without getting damaged or disabled because it is authentic and a useful tactic.

Can you please take a look at this and fix it?

The whole point of new physics is to remove upside down check from server-side code, pleasing both server and pilots.

[doop-de-doo]

What about rotor collision boxes? No more urban ground level CAS support!

[rPoXoTauJIo]

Those already somewhat implemented on some(guess where ) of the helis.

[AlonTavor]

pls no groho pubs are already filled with bad pilots no need to make muttrah worse

[DogACTUAL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moMNqXWnF_o

Look at the tracers in this one, some of the attack runs are pretty steep:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0V4hShE1wA

https://gfycat.com/MeatyEverlastingBlackrussianterrier

https://gfycat.com/HarmoniousJealousClumber

Some combat footage directly from helicopters themselves (some attack runs very steep):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4y0Aqp_AF4&hd=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkuBSUse3FM

As you can see, if you have fixed weapons with unguided munitions, dives are utulized, some of them are quite steep. A gunship generally doesn't have to do dives, although if you search for it there are accounts of gunships even doing vertical dives. Of course a prolonged vertical dive is quite risky though.

As for manouvers (yes, no combat load, but i reckon it could still pull of impressive manouvers anyway, risky of course):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THiuhM80UnM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzKYogDjagw&t=2s

Read my statement again, i only specifically said that dives are utulized in combat by real attack helicopters.
About loopings and rolls i said that real helicopters can do it and that it is therefore authentic, but of course they won't do loopings or rolls in combat.
In real combat situations those manouvers would not be useful at all, instead they would probably just turn around and dive to get to cover and deploy countermeasures.
Ingame those fancy manouvers can be really useful in some situations, although generally even there it is best to just get away quickly by flying away to cover.

But the point is not if is actually used as a real tactic regulary. If it is physically and technically possible and authentic then it should be possible ingame too.

Especially if you consider the other factors ingame that restrict helicopters in their efectiveness, like the limited VD, steep dive attacks become quite necessary to counter the limitations the engine forces on the helicopters, since regular more authentic tactics don't quite work with the VD ingame.

With gunships especially it is not like we can just loiter 1.5-2.5 km away and engage ground targets since the VD doesn't allow that, so dives become quite important to be more effective and safe, even if real gunships don't utulize that tactic for obvious reasons.

For DEV: Nice to hear that those issues will be fixed and that dives will still work, thanks for your work, really appreciated.
Also, i would actually quite like to have rotor collision ingame, the more authenticity the better imo.

[Rabbit]

Source that diving, doing barrel rolls and loops are a real tactic?

Its not, I even posted the handbook for US helicopter pilots before that goes over proper attack formations and routes.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... m1-112.pdf

[DogACTUAL]

Guess all the links i just posted must be fake then.

Ok, scanned through the whole handbook, plz tell me where exactly it says that dive attacks are not allowed?

[Rabbit]

Are you serious? Handbooks dont say what your not allowed to do, they tell you what to do.........

[DogACTUAL]

'Avoid overloading the communication systems by using them only when
necessary.'

'Battle drills do not require extensive direction. '

' Air combat does not require special techniques of movement or special formations. '

'Friendly forces should not attempt to evade if maneuver space is inadequate or if evading the
threat will result in a tail chase.'

'Aviation forces should never lose the ability to maneuver and, normally, they should avoid becoming decisively engaged'

Guess there are some exceptions to your rule in there. O_O

Even so, the handbook many times indirectly tells you what not to do, here, i can construct my own sentence to show you how:
The pilot approaches the target in a flat trajectory while making sure not to utulize steep dive attacks.

It could just as well be worded like this while conveying the same meaning:
'The pilot must not utulize dive attacks, instead he has to approach the target in a flat trajectory.'

So lets not get caught up in grammatic technicalities, in the guide you can find many instances of indirectly worded disallowances.

Instead could you please show me the chapter that specifies which kinds of flight trajectories to use during attack runs with unguided rockets and fixed guns? Or isn't there such a chapter in that guide?

[viirusiiseli]

What about rotor collision boxes? No more urban ground level CAS support!

No more heli landings anywhere but in deathzones in urban or forest maps either, buddy.

It's a fooken game, people. Stop being so autistic about it.

[Singh408]

Alright along with these new changes can we get some heavy cas (apache, havoc etc.) back on some of the maps like kashan, Wanda shan, black gold...?