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ATAG_Torian
Oct-27-2012, 21:01
Just a heads up to check to see if all of your guns are actually firing bullets. I heard 1 or 2 pilots comment about how not all of their guns were actually firing bullets even tho the loadout was filled. I found this to be the case with a couple of my planes (I fly all of them from time to time). I found the 2 outside guns were actually firing bullets but the 2 inboard weren't even tho the flash was still coming out of the muzzles. So I had been flying around for who knows how long with only half my guns actually working. I didn't pick up on it earlier because I mostly only had tracers on my 2 outside guns. Some of my loadouts don't have tracers at all. To check my planes I created a multiplayer game and tested loadouts. Sure enuff some had the glitch. So I recreated the loadouts and did some testing with and without tracers (firing into the water to check for splash) until I ensured that all guns were actually sending out bullets. I need to do more testing along these lines but thought I would share this finding so u can all check. Will post this over on Banarama too.

ATAG_Colander
Oct-27-2012, 21:28
Uhmm interesting.
I wonder if is a specific bullet that is "made of air" or is some magic mixture in the loadout.

Catseye
Oct-28-2012, 01:19
Just a heads up to check to see if all of your guns are actually firing bullets. I heard 1 or 2 pilots comment about how not all of their guns were actually firing bullets even tho the loadout was filled. I found this to be the case with a couple of my planes (I fly all of them from time to time). I found the 2 outside guns were actually firing bullets but the 2 inboard weren't even tho the flash was still coming out of the muzzles. So I had been flying around for who knows how long with only half my guns actually working. I didn't pick up on it earlier because I mostly only had tracers on my 2 outside guns. Some of my loadouts don't have tracers at all. To check my planes I created a multiplayer game and tested loadouts. Sure enuff some had the glitch. So I recreated the loadouts and did some testing with and without tracers (firing into the water to check for splash) until I ensured that all guns were actually sending out bullets. I need to do more testing along these lines but thought I would share this finding so u can all check. Will post this over on Banarama too.

Hi Torian,
Are you referring to online flying or offline single mission?

ATAG_Torian
Oct-28-2012, 02:02
online,

ATAG_Snapper
Oct-28-2012, 03:59
I just posted this in Torian's thread over at 1C:

OK, I tried Mastiff's suggestion to adjust loadouts in FMB and it seems to work
ie. the load outs carry over to online (ATAG Server #1).

Per his
suggestion, I opened FMB, made a simple "mission", in this case just a Spitfire
Mark 1a 100 octane over the English Channel. In Properties I designated it as
the "player" aircraft, then still in Properties I clicked on the Load out button
to bring up the load out menu for all 8 guns.

For testing purposes I
chose different colour tracers for each of the 8 guns, along with the usual AP,
deWilde, Ball VII, etc. Did a "save as", giving it a unique file name "Snappers
brew" for quick identification. Hit OK. Did a quick test over the water; all
guns were spewing out their tracers into the water. There is no provision to
adjust horizontal/vertical convergence in FMB that I could see -- hitting
Options/Plane/loadout when playing the mission within FMB doesn't allow you to
do it.

Exited FMB, logged onto the ATAG Server. At Gravesend selected the
Spitfire Mark 1a 100 octane and low and behold: Snappers brew was available as a
loadout for this aircraft. A quick check verified the loadouts were exactly as I
had assigned them in FMB. I could also now adjust convergences. I chose a wide
dispersion from 1000 yards (outboard guns) down to 150 yards (inboard guns). No
one was around http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif, so I did a quick check sitting on the field
-- easy to see all eight guns throwing their multi coloured strings of tracer.
Presumably the other loads in with them (AP, deWilde, ball #VII) were also going
out. Adjusted the convergence down to a more reasonable dispersion and went
hunting. Shot down a 109, then got shot down myself in a suicide run over
Occupied Manston airfield.

What a pain. But it seems to work. Lots better
than shooting 2 guns out of 8, with the rest being blanks!

Catseye
Oct-28-2012, 15:54
I tried the adjustments in the FMB per Snapper and I do get multiple tracer paths in the air.
However, shooting into the water I only get 2 paths showing hitting the water. I've adjusted convergences and still the same thing.

??

EDIT: My mistake - it does work. I had neglected to change convergences in the guns to much wider to separate the lines of impact in the water.

Meaks
Oct-28-2012, 16:51
This works a treat Snapper,I followed your method over at the banana forum,thanks very much buddy:thumbsup:

ATAG_Snapper
Oct-28-2012, 18:23
Good stuff! :thumbsup: It was Mastiff's suggestion -- I would never have thought of it.

Ain't forums great? :D

ATAG_Torian
Oct-29-2012, 04:50
Just as an aside while in testing mode....I found the much touted DeWilde ammo to be not all that good really. Others may want to differ on this. I loaded up a Spit with observer rounds in all outside guns and DeWildes in the 2 inner and blazed away at a Heinkel with them and didn't hurt it at all. Loaded up the 2 inner guns with APs instead and inflicted some serious damage. I will prolly do some more testing...maybe with all DeWilde u might get a good burn happening. Anyway for me it will APs in all guns until I am convinced otherwise.

MadTommy
Oct-29-2012, 05:16
This all sounds very odd. Doesn't make any sense to me. I'm not questioning people's observations and the like but this bug is just illogical to me. Is the loadout made in the FMP loaded to another file than the normal loadout? I've messed around with the loadout files and they are very simple text code files, I'm goona have to do a wee bit of testing on this, i'm pretty sceptical about it.

I did test two different custom loadout on 2 different planes, and only observed 2 lines of spray, but i then tied the default loadout and observed the same. TBH at my default 250yrd convergence it was very hard to tell conclusively, i'll have to try with 1000m convergences as suggested. It all a bit of a PITA.


Just as an aside while in testing mode....I found the much touted DeWilde ammo to be not all that good really. Others may want to differ on this. I loaded up a Spit with observer rounds in all outside guns and DeWildes in the 2 inner and blazed away at a Heinkel with them and didn't hurt it at all. Loaded up the 2 inner guns with APs instead and inflicted some serious damage. I will prolly do some more testing...maybe with all DeWilde u might get a good burn happening. Anyway for me it will APs in all guns until I am convinced otherwise.

I'd be very interested to hear further on this.

I did set a 109's wing alight yesterday with a DeWilde & AP mix.

9./JG52 Jamz Dackel
Oct-29-2012, 10:43
De Wilde in all guns....?

Unhistorical!

*runs*

RAF74_Buzzsaw
Oct-29-2012, 13:50
Just as an aside while in testing mode....I found the much touted DeWilde ammo to be not all that good really. Others may want to differ on this. I loaded up a Spit with observer rounds in all outside guns and DeWildes in the 2 inner and blazed away at a Heinkel with them and didn't hurt it at all. Loaded up the 2 inner guns with APs instead and inflicted some serious damage. I will prolly do some more testing...maybe with all DeWilde u might get a good burn happening. Anyway for me it will APs in all guns until I am convinced otherwise.

Salute

Who knows how this ammunition has been modelled in the game. Much of the British side aircraft have been mismodelled, it would not be a stretch to find it is the same in the weapons.

Personally, however, I find the Dewilde to be reasonably effective when mixed with other types. I would not run 100% myself, AP is needed to have a chance for pilot kills and to do structural damage.

Historically, shortly after the BoB and when Dewilde ammunition became unlimited in supply, the British went to a 50/50 mix of Dewilde and AP in their .303's, with some tracers mixed in.

From Anthony William's Weapon's Site re. a 1940 test:


Comparative British tests of British .303" and German 7.92 mm incendiary ammunition against the self-sealing wing tanks in the Blenheim, also fired from 200 yards (180m) astern, revealed that the .303" B. Mk IV incendiary tracer (based on the First World War Buckingham design – it was ignited on firing and burned on its way to the target) and the 7.92 mm were about equal, each setting the tanks alight with about one in ten shots fired. The B. Mk VI 'De Wilde' incendiary (named after the original Belgian inventor but in fact completely redesigned by Major Dixon), which contained 0.5 grams of SR 365 (a composition including barium nitrate which ignited on impact with the target) was twice as effective as these, scoring one in five.

ATAG_Torian
Oct-29-2012, 20:07
Who knows how this ammunition has been modelled in the game. Much of the British side aircraft have been mismodelled, it would not be a stretch to find it is the same in the weapons:

Yes that is the big question. Personally I know that the APs hit and hurt and I want to hurt them all soooo bad :P

Dutch
Nov-11-2012, 18:58
I just discovered something a bit weird when messing with loadouts, in that I needed to redo all the residue loadouts, which were mostly set to zero for some reason. After I'd redone all residues for my loadout on all RAF a/c, the DeWilde ammo now showed a flame on striking the target where it didn't before, when firing on the main belts.

Also, before redoing residues, firing caused a pronounced yaw to the left, which disappeared once I'd re-done the residues. This implies that some guns may not have been firing previously.

The target was a boresight screen set with z offset at 28m and 150m away from the a/c in FMB.

This might tie in with Torian's findings re guns. Check your residues chaps, they may be causing a bug if set to zero.

ATAG_Snapper
Nov-12-2012, 12:16
I see our friend Alpha just locked your thread due to justme262's troll post (or the response posts :D). Hard to know if a thread will be locked, deleted, or just selected posts deleted that Alpha chooses to disagree with. A shame, because to justme262's assertion that Red pilots suffer paranoia about RAF bugged features I wanted to reply "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me!" :recon:

ATAG_Colander
Nov-12-2012, 12:24
Hehehehe Snapper,

In my country we have a saying that translated would read something like this:
I don't believe in witches but I'm sure they fly.

ATAG_Torian
Nov-12-2012, 20:25
I did get in a reply after yours Snapper. It was to the point but not offensive IMO. Didn't see any after that as I went to bed but see that the thread is gone altogether now. A real shame actually as the info was worthwhile.

III./ZG76_Keller
Nov-13-2012, 00:39
When you're working on your loadouts and changing bullet types, DO NOT empty the main belt of any gun and then add ammo back into it.

We all know that to use the <rr command we can't let our guns get to empty right? I think this is the same issue since if you <rr with empty guns the ammo indicator will show full, but you'll be shooting blanks.

One night I unloaded all the rounds from my cannons on a 109 and filled it back up with different ones, hopped into the plane and went to get into trouble. My cannons went bang, flames camout out the muzzle, the plane shook but no bullets were actually coming out. I loaded the default loadout, restarted the game, and then edited the main belts without ever letting them get empty and all was good again.

ATAG_Snapper
Nov-13-2012, 06:42
That's good info to have -- thanks for that, Keller.

Yesterday I tried editing one of my custom loads in the FMB, but it wouldn't "take" when I tried to save it -- ie when I went online and checked the revised custom loadout it was still the old former one. This happened again and again with successive tries with other RAF planes. Yet, contrary to my expectations, when I tried revising these custom loadouts in the online loadout GUI -- the changes "took" and were successively saved.

Scratching my head over this goofiness. :goofy

ATAG_Colander
Nov-13-2012, 11:28
RR should be checking for empty guns and not letting you do RR. Is that not happening?

ATAG_Snapper
Nov-13-2012, 11:39
I just keep getting this same message: "The base commander wants you to sod off"

III./ZG76_Keller
Nov-13-2012, 12:06
RR should be checking for empty guns and not letting you do RR. Is that not happening?

I didn't realize you had written that in, I should have known better. I was going based off the tests that you and I did quite some time ago.

ATAG_Snapper
Nov-13-2012, 13:34
Actually I did get denied a rearm/refuel because of damage to some of my guns. This impressed me since a few minutes earlier I had been in a brief dogfight and took some hits, but thought damage was minor with only a couple of bullet strikes in my right wing -- the Spit was handling and running fine.

ATAG_Colander
Nov-13-2012, 13:41
Any damage to any subsystem will deny RR as you will need the third R, repair.
Cosmetic damage like a few machine gun holes in the wing should not stop RR.