Ammunition Ship Explosions

[Feldgrün]

Instead of standard explosions on AI ships, I'd love to see in this game an occasional but spectacular ammunition ship explosion:

 

 

Edited February 8 by Feldgrün

[Boom]

Oh yeah!! 

[Trooper117]

Blimey!!!

[Mysticpuma]

And not forgetting the most famous example (caught on film)

 

[Major Lee]

On 2/7/2024 at 10:15 PM, Feldgrün said:

Instead of standard explosions on AI ships, I'd love to see in this game an occasional but spectacular ammunition ship explosion:

 

 

Because secondaries happen...

Strike Fighters allows you to set the %chance of a secondary explosion after hitting some buidling or bunker or vehicle, and then specify what the magnitude would be. 😳 Shouldn't be a big deal to model this type of thing in UnReal 5...

ini files in plain text are wonderful things.

[wheelsup_cavu]

On 8/15/2024 at 7:22 PM, Major Lee said:

ini files in plain text are wonderful things.

 

Wheels

[Mysticpuma]

Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) explodes after being bombed by Japanese planes in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, 1942.

[Feldgrün]

I'm all for adding spectacular explosions to the sim, and maybe some buffeting of the aircraft from the shock wave.

[Boo]

I've all for it but Ive yet to see a sim genre game capture large explosions like these at all well. I'd imagine it would have to be one hell of an optimised effect not to bring even a very decent PC to its knees, especially one running VR. Theres some encouraging examples of explosions in UE but all appear to suffer the same issue of persistence and Ive seen nothing representing the "streamers" which, i assume draw their own calculation loads. 

Another factor would seem to be a resiltic handover between the blast and the subsequent residual smoke colums from the fires. Im sure UE has a potnetial solution but I cant fiind anythig demonstrating it (5 minute goole so hardly deep research). Then theres the amimation of the thing exploding, its behaviour during and after said explosion and its damage/system modelling (remebering these explosions rearely occur on the button but after some time and due to several factors that may include secondary damage, crew depletion modelling, structure specific variance etc). 

I cant think of anything less that CB hiring its own "bang n boom" specialist for such ventures given the amount of things prone to do just that with the multitude of outcomes such bangs bring.

Hope that doesnt come across as negative. I just think its a huge task. 

[Props]

Uh, technically Lexington was CV-2 and not an Essex class carrier, and she did sink at Coral Sea. This photo is the explosion that occurred sometime later after the IJN attack. They thought the damage was under control and they were making way, but aviation fuel fumes had built up below deck in the interior and ignited spectacularly, then setting off a bunch of secondary blasts and fires that doomed the ship.

CV-16 USS Lexington, the Essex class replacement was commissioned 17 Feb. 1943. Just noting. 

Explosions like this would be awesome in sim, but like Boo pointed out I have to wonder how much PC power would be needed to give us this kind of ka-blooey.

Edited August 29 by Props

[ZachariasX]

9 minutes ago, Props said:

Explosions like this would be awesome in sim, but like Boo pointed out I have to wonder how much PC power would be needed to give us this kind of ka-blooey.

You can buy explosions for UE off the shelf. E.g. here: 3D Alembic Large Explosions Pack. If UE is good for anything then it is for rendering explosions. I mean, why would you need UE anyway if you'd be doing something that is not in essence meant to show explosions?

[Mysticpuma]

I'll be honest, BoX did have a pretty good ship explosion (when attacked with rockets). Here's a couple of screenshots I saved from a Mosquito attack. 

The 'streamers/debris' with trails of smoke isn't present (obviously) but that would just be a second layer of particles which UE could easily handle. 

 

[Boo]

9 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

You can buy explosions for UE off the shelf. E.g. here: 3D Alembic Large Explosions Pack. If UE is good for anything then it is for rendering explosions. I mean, why would you need UE anyway if you'd be doing something that is not in essence meant to show explosions?

That is not a good rendititon of the explosions needed. Short duration, zero dust/smoke/debris, dubious graphical quality and seemingly designed to be played on an smartphone.. I would sincerely hope the devs avoid such shortcuts. 

8 hours ago, Mysticpuma said:

the 'streamers/debris' with trails of smoke isn't present (obviously) but that would just be a second layer of particles which UE could easily handle. 

 

 

You say that but there is nothing ive seen so far that demonstraes it. It goes back to my point of needing someone who understands and has an eye of such things as opposed to simply inputting numbers into the engine on a friday afternoon to produce an approximation from stock. I think it can be done, but I also think it requires specialism and artistry. 

Nothing I've seen from UE, packs or demo wise, even appraoches what the comtemporary footage shows in terms of dynamics and the whole gig goes far beyond the B of the bang. 

Sorry. I remain open to being convinced that UE is capable from stock but, at this stage, I am not. 

[ZachariasX]

8 hours ago, Boo said:

I would sincerely hope the devs avoid such shortcuts. 

That is obviously just the view in the editor, not in the game. I would bet that all AAA titles look rather bland in the UE editor. I wouldn’t be surprised if internally, all UE games are patched together using such plugins for (visual) effects. Mind you, depiction of weather is also „just a well known plugin“. Besides, this is just one type of explosion, representing something that looks like a satisfying nuke kaboom.