HATCH
These new changes outlined are going live as of today with the release of version 1.36.6.0. Significant work has been done to make WWII Online's aircraft damage models more realistic than they have ever been before. The work and level of detail of this task was astonishing. Based on various historical WWII and Post War WWII AC component and survive-ability documents such as AC Aluminum Alloy Studies, Aircraft Vulnerability and Armament Effectiveness Studies, Ammunition vs AC Fuel tank Studies, and other WWII AC damage oriented documentation, the effort to properly calculate, integrate, and then verify "real-world results" tailored around the uniqueness of every airframe component has taken several months of work and multiple rounds of testing to accomplish. Continue reading for more information.
As an example, on most WWII Online airframes, the wings are made up of multiple airfoil components of varying shapes, sizes, and airfoil designs, for each wing segment from root to tip. Up to now, all of those components have shared the same damage levels even though realistically, a much beefier root segment should be able to absorb more damage before failure than an outboard or wing tip section.
There are also new changes with the differences in survive-ability between airframe designs. Previously, the differences in survive-ability between smaller early war airframe designs and their heavier and/or larger mid and later war contemporaries were not very well represented (if at all in some cases), with some airframes like the Bf109E vs the Bf109G series, or the Spit MkI vs the Spit MkIX sharing the same exact damage levels.
No more!
Now, through Scotsman's painstaking WWII AC airframe and component survive-ability studies and its application to our models through base airframe mass and area computations, not only does each component making up a larger airframe structure such as a wing or fuselage group have different damage levels between each other, but they are now noticeably different between the same components among the different series of aircraft in an aircraft type or model. In other words, it takes fewer hits for damage/failure in the airframe components of a 109E than in a 109G, or a Spit MkI vs. a Spit MkIX.
And last but definitely not least... Due to some inconsistencies in some of the models for both fighters and bombers, the fuselage damage to all airframes was not being consistently modeled. In a model that for whatever reason did not have a "breakpoint" in its 3D model between the wings and the empennage (like the Bf110's, DB7/Boston, and the He111), while you could damage the fuselage components to the point of failure making them much more draggy and less aerodynamically efficient, you could never "break" them. Now the fuselages for ALL planes, both Fighters, and Bombers, will "break" when they reach their maximum damage/failure point. In most models like the Bf110's and the majority of the other fighters, you will be able to see the fuselage actually break and the empennage or the parts that make up the empennage depart the aircraft. In some models that still need their 3D fuselage "breakpoints" modeled, while you will not be able to see the fuselage break, you will still see the visual parts making up the empennage depart the aircraft, and in both cases, the flight model components representing the fuselage and the empennage (controlling the flight dynamics) responding in an identical fashion rendering the plane no longer flight-worthy or controllable.
We know that all of our Pilots and AA gunners have been asking for an AC damage review for the longest time... and well, that day has finally come! Special thanks to Scotsman for his painstaking research and component damage level application algorithms, to Hatch and Xoom for the painstaking and laborious implementation into all of the models, and to Oldzeke and the QA team for the extensive testing to make sure it all worked like we thought it should.
We hope you all enjoy it!
Check our community report for new campaign start details and full patch notes.
