Damage

[BAW0343]

i agree  some simple crash effects would be nice  it would help you make better landings by assessing the landing and seeing what you did wrong   explosions NEVER as in the one post mentioned above  it allows some people to have joy in recreating a trerible event like 9/11

[Tweek]

Well even if only basic damage effects were implemented, they could at least remove the crappy 'stuck-in-the-ground' style crashes. You never get the challenge of trying to keep the aircraft on the runway if you do happen to get a collapsed undercarriage... you just stop.

[RollerBall]

If you play a game involving heads being blown off you expect to see blood and guts all over the place. But it's a game - for juveniles or those with a juvenile outlook - to play. Personally that kind of thing holds no interest for me and I suspect for a majority, or at least a sizable minority, of the people who are into fs.

The FS series are something a bit different. Firstly they have the word 'simulator' in the name unlike most, indeed almost all, of the fly and shoot-em-up games (the only ones that do have are the CFS series and they don't have crash effects of the kind some people are wanting either).

Let's put aside that real, full-size aircraft simulators don't have lurid crash effects, let's think in a slightly more mature way about what actually happens when an aircraft crashes. Mostly, bodies are subjected to enormous G loads, they disintegrate so body parts are found all around the crash scene, in tree branches, on any buildings that are left standing and so on. Almost whole bodies are found still strapped in seats often very badly mutilated and charred and personal effects and luggage are scattered over a wide area.

If you want it 'as real as it gets', is this what you want to simulate? If so you have my sincerest sympathy - and I suggest you go get some help.

There are already too many computer programs around that pander to the lowest instincts of the 'humans' who use them. As barriers have been pushed back, the content of such programs has had to become more and more extreme in order to be 'different' but by doing so all it has done is debase the people who use them.

God forbid if this ever happened with FS. It seems that MS has noticed that the cranks who want military aircraft and weapons in FS are the same ones who call for lurid crash effects and goodness knows what else and have said that it will never happen.

Thank goodness.

[Tweek]

I think twisted metal is a little different from dead bodies. There's no reason why they should include blood and guts, but as has been said; props bending, undercarriage collapsing and other minor damage effects would be a nice touch to the sim, without going too overboard.

[gn85]

I would love to see landing gear failures (damage).  I think that's something that would be challenging and realistic.  Especially with the recently covered gear failures on TV.  Executing emergency landings should show some damage from either landing on the belly, striking a wing or striking a prop.  But nothing catastropic. Something that compliments the simulation, not making it a cheesy game.

Another example would be damage from bird strikes.  Looking back and seeing the damage from a bird in the engine would pretty simple to do, but would really add the the realism of the emergency.  In real life, there is no banner that comes up that will say BIRD STRIKE.  Just engine goes dead along with some noise.  I would really like to practice procedures for when such an emergency happens, and being able to look back and see a damaged engine would, IMO, enhance the realism.

[RollerBall]

Come on you guys. The weirdos aren't asking for a bit of twisted metal and you know it. They are asking for lurid crash effects, huge explosions and all that stuff.

When a plane ploughs into a mountainside or building, do you just get a bit of twisted metal and a bent undercarriage? No you don't. So, you say, you obviously wouldn't depict what actually happens.

So where do you draw the line? How does the system decide - this 'crash' is a bit of twisted metal and/or a bent undercarriage so I'll show that, but this one is 'real nasty', so I won't.

Can't do it. And as soon as you start trying to it's a slippery slope.

Best not to. Leave something alone if it's not broke, and it ain't

[expat]

In real life, there is no banner that comes up that will say BIRD STRIKE.  Just engine goes dead along with some noise.

In real life, most pilots of modern jets (737 and up) do not notice that they have had a bird down the intake. It is chewed up and spat out. It happens so quickly that unless you happened to be looking at the gauges, you would probably not see it. In my experience, unless the engine takes a flock of birds, it is not, 90% of the time seen until the pilot does his walk around. Then I have to go into rubber glove mode Most of the time, the only strikes that a pilot reports is a "thump" in the nose area, with the report of "I think we hit a bird". A visual inspection will generally show what looks like a large insect that would appear on your car windscreen, but bigger. When a bird hits an aircraft, it is practically turned to dust. What

[kipman725]

I'm not a weirdo, I agree that you shoulden't have dead bodies everyware, I just want something better than sinking into the ground

[Tweek]

When a plane ploughs into a mountainside or building, do you just get a bit of twisted metal and a bent undercarriage? No you don't.

When a plane ploughs into a mountainside or building, do you get a whole plane, stuck in the ground?

There's nothing wrong with prop bending and undercarriage collapses. In fact, there's something wrong by not having undercarriage collapses. You don't just stop on the runway and reset the flight. You skid along, fighting to keep the plane in one shape. It's just another challenge that could be in the game, with no morbid effects.

[RollerBall]

When a plane ploughs into a mountainside or building, do you get a whole plane, stuck in the ground?

Obviously not - and that's the whole point. You get your flight reset just as you do in a RL simulator. And a RL smulator doesn't have you 'skidding along, fighting to keep the plane in one shape' (what a colourful turn of phrase

[Chris_F]

I like how crashes are done in FS9.  No need to change 'em.  I was going to say that it would be nice to actually SEE a gear failure, but in real life you can't see failed landing gear anyway unless you put a window in the bottom of the plane.  FS9 does model failed gear (land too hard on the front gear and that front gear goes away as if it were never lowered).

It's also possible to land a plane in FS9 with gear up or missing and not have it simply pause and say "crash".  You just have to do it gently.  The plane skids and slides and if you're gentle enough doesn't crash.  If the prop strikes the ground it stops.  Although it doesn't bend (and I don't think a bent prop would be all that impressive an effect).

So I think it's just fine.  If I crash I just want to know that I crashed.  Perhaps have some terminal flight info (rate of decent upon crash, max G force for overstress, something like that so I can decide what the magnitude of my error was).  No need for a big fire ball with burning bodies crisping in the wreckage.  That would take away from the experience for me.

Another option: make crashes actually harmful so people will be less inclined to crash.  Every time you crash your hard drive gets reformatted.  Or perhaps to play the game you need to input a credit card number and a crash results in the cost of the event being charged to your account.  :)

[Chris_F]

Obviously not - and that's the whole point. You get your flight reset just as you do in a RL simulator.

Actually I'd kinda prefer it if it just booted me out to the main menu instead of resetting the flight.  Or gave me the option to reset.  I hate waiting for the loading time of a reset when I have no intention of flying it again (I'm dead, after all.  Let me rest.)  :)

[expat]

Because you are an incompetent sim pilot.

That is a bit harsh! What definds a competent sim pilot and who is to say who is and who is not?
It is a simulation, as in, not real, regardless of what it says on the box.  

Matt

[RollerBall]

[quote]
Another option: make crashes actually harmful so people will be less inclined to crash.

[Tweek]

You can probably get just these effects in some game or other if you want to look around - but there's no need to hijack the FS series in order to try and generate 'cheap thrills' such as those.

It's been said time and time again - the majority (probably) of the people who buy the FS programs (let alone toil for hundreds of hours creating aircraft and add-ons for it) don't do it because they perceive it as a 'game'. And quite frankly I think it's grossly insulting not to say demeaning to people like Milton Shupe to say that you want to see the works of art he so painstakingly creates that are appreciated so much by FS afficianados all over the world (note - not game freaks) smash to bits on the rainway merely because you are an incompetent sim pilot.

Pshhaa - go find another 'game' if you need such nonsense. Sorry - but I think an awful lot of die-hard simmers will agree with me. This time the 'game freaks' are, and hopefully always will be, in a minority.

I'm sorry if I seem like a 'game freak' to you, but I'm not some lunatic who only wants to crash planes into the ground and watch them explode. I never once said that, or even hinted at it. Unless you find a bent prop too distressing, I'm sure what I (and a few others) suggested, is not that big a deal.

I don't enjoy crashing, I enjoy flying, and I sure as hell am not an "incompetent sim pilot". I'm sure that every single pilot (real, or sim) who has had any sort of system failure must be incompetent, too. Ever seen a real pilot land with the nose wheel retracted, just because he wasn't up to the job?
I don't enjoy carrying out every procedure a real pilot does before even taxying out to the runway, though I do like to fly in a realistic envioronment, where the plane acts like it would do in real life, if I was sitting behind the controls. I do not treat Flight Simulator as a game.