S3 Series

For bug reports and development issues.

Did a frame rate check around Malta. Was varying from 60~200FPS in offline mode with settings on high.

Ack check. OK, I hate ack but this is ridiculous. Flying at 5K in either a Mossie Bomber or in a fighter I couldn't make it halfway over the island. Ack shooting from everywhere.
Is this an offline problem? Can I change the Ack to the S3 settings? Unless we are going to be level bombing at 25K this is too much.

Think you said the same thing about Truk Dont worry its an online setting. For the Truk event I had the arena settings way too low and I saw numerous F6Fs flying low on the deck near airfields without a scratch.
More important is to check the FPS hit all those guns do firing at you. Remember 88 flak is really only a warning device few aircraft fall to them even using higher MA settings. I have only been able to get AI 88mm flak to cause damage and that is at only the very top settings for accuracy and skill.

Another thing to check is to see if the AAA on those fortresses firing at you and not into their own building. Its an ongoing issue with placing flak objects on other objects like DDs or mline2s.

Historically the AAA on Malta was very generous and their flak gunners considered some of the best in the world. I may have overdone it a bit with three flak brigades on the island.

J

OK, 1st off, I don't want to bitch about the Ack. and I know no one is intentionally trying to kill the strike guys. Is there a way to change offline settings to match online?

The issue I have with Ack is it makes it so it sucks to strike anything. We are trying to have it serve 2 roles, #1 protect stuff and #2 give the fighters a place to land/take off without too much "buzzing" the fields. KT was a perfect example of how us strike guys get screwed. we were having a good series attacking ports and such with the initial settings but then the low ack was being taken advantage of at the air fields and not giving any protection to the teams trying to launch/land (which I agree wasn't fair). So the Ack was cranked up to protect the fields and our entire squad got wiped out hitting a port. And I mean everyone on the 1st pass.

What I would like to see is an increase of MG's, 20mm at fields and a reduction at "other" targets. Maybe thats not realistic but it would allow the ack to serve the purpose it was meant for. I do not believe that we should be more worried about the ack than the other sides fighters in an S3 event.

As for the Truk event, yes I did bitch about the ack at 4, 5, 6 and 7 area. We did not strike ANY land targets on the map and we never went up near those islands. We did level bomb a couple outer areas on the west but that was even at 10K. We had orders to never fly over land.

As for Malta, there is too much ack unless we are not going to strike it. I would have to say, on the south east side of the island was more ack than attacking Berlin. I don't know what the event rules are going to be, maybe we are not even attacking Malta, I will try and check out the other areas in the next couple of weeks.

Also, flying alone, offline, with all the ack, seemed like I had no frame rate issues. What is a minimal acceptable rate? I don't think I ever got below 60.

Malta had huge AAA defences for such a small island. It was the cornerstone of British control of the Med and both sides knew it. If the Germans had not got such a bloody nose on Crete they probably would have tired to invade it. Even though Sicily is designed for a 1943 contest it should be useful for a 1941-42 contest when the British were defending Malta.
Nothing in this terrain is as heavily defended as Malta. If you look at the inflight map you will see icons to help you. Most of the major ports have good flak defences to defend against medium and heavy bombers. You can try out the different targets even if they are not placed properly. The truck and tank formations have a few smaller AAA guns.

One thing that may have made flak more deadly is the weapons settings in the arena file. I have been just uploading the stardard MA one so will check those to see that the damage that they causes is not excessive.

If FPS is still 60 with all the flak bursting around you then thats great news. There are many objects in this small area.

Re: Parked AC

Looking at the various parked aircraft, I happened to notice that the shadows of the ac were applied to the terrain. Then, I found a group of parked Bf 109s. The LW pilots made their crew chiefs maintain mirror polished drip pans under their aircraft!



Nice touch!

Lots of new stuff. Nice terrain!

That's a function of the model. The triangle is the "ground plane" that is invisible when flying the model. This is what makes contact with the ground when the gear is down. The models are placed "gear up" in game. When in GEAR mode the landing gear is shown out.

Since iEN didn't intend the flying models to be structures, that is probably why we see parked AC in flying mode with visible groundplanes.

When hitting the Allied fields in Sicily during frame 3, 2 parked a/c at each field were invisible.

Thanks jlordj. I think the Mc202 a\c maybe to blame, their camo is right on for the terrain. I can easily change them to larger or more grey a\c. Will review all the airfields as there were some closure issues with them.

Thanks Jabo, we saw and destroyed the M202's just fine.