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Ugly like we wanna be.
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Jul 31, 2010
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| New FM Changes |
May 24, 2006, 6:31 pm |
There's been a lot of confusion over what the new FM changes really represent. So I'm going to try and explain it here, that's assuming I truly understand it all myself. :)
What we've done is change a couple of variables in the "building" of an FM that effects the outcome of three input variables that are actually IN the FM data that the game uses to define it's performance characteristics. What we changed was CLMax(Maximum Lift Coefficient) and Faceplate(e). This effects our base Coefficient of Lift (CoL) as well as Induced Drag (Di) and stall speed (Vs).
The old "calculated" CLMax for the A-36 was 1.848. We changed it to 1.5 with a faceplate area (e) of 0.85 (which had been 0.2842). The outcome in changing these calculated values and applying them back to the FM formula gave us new CoL of 1.36. In increase over what had been in the old control files of 0.1059. For every plane there were usually similar or less alteration in the CoL. However some had major changes due to the new arrangement. While mostly bombers were effected drastically in terms of CoL, some fighters experienced significant change. The F4F-3 and P38F are primary examples.
The changes in Di and Vs also ran the gammut. From minor tweek to full on FM reconstruction. The most significant changes seem to have occured in planes that people have agreed tended to be dogs, Spit XIV and A-36 to name two.
We arrived at the decision to try this change based on research of NACA data and other sources that tended to suggest that CLMax and faceplate weren't usually radically different from one WWII era A/C to another. We put in some alteration, for specific planes, but usually not by much. Where as the computed changes we derived from the old FMs were often RADICALLY different from one another, the actual differences in RL between the CLMax of an A-36 vs. a P51 weren't that radically different.
In short, these changes are an attempt at making an alteration in the method of deriving FM's for the game at its core level, across the board, rather than applying the new FM tools on every plane all at once (which would take more time than we feel the community would put up with really). Some planes that have been "clugged" previously to meet real world performance values may actually get a bit fubared by this change, but hey, that's why we beta these things.
For players testing the game, please, concentrate on comparing the new FM's with real world data if you can get it, and when you find something amiss, please REFERENCE your real world data so that the FM designers can compare it to the data we have. The goal is a more realistic, closer to RL data sim, so comparisons to the older versions arent really helpfull. Nice to hear if you think it's better, but not helpfull in terms of finding errors vs. RL and correcting them.
We also recognize that it may take a LOT of time to totally ring out the bugs in this change so in the final release the old FM will still be "default" unless we "turn it on" in a specific arena. Arenas that are using the new FM's will say so in the MOTD upon entering the arena. This allows us to turn off the new FM for periods when we find problems and need to update it. Eventually we hope to go ahead and make the new FM files the default for all arenas including offline. But until then we needed to make sure we had "wiggle room" to use it or not depending on how reliable we think the performance changes are. It may sound overly cautious, but you have to understand its kind of scary to alter a couple variables and put the spreadsheet in charge. Which is essentially what we've done with this update. |
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FURBALL © 2000 - 2005 - Matt "Target" Davis |
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"Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue." - Admiral Nimitz
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