I have completed approximately 20 hours of flight time for my aircraft and roughly 124 hours of total flight time involving 135 AI aircraft, with the following failure rules:
<FailureRule SystemID="engine_one" average_hrs="35" damageAmount_pct="12" dump="y"/>
<FailureRule SystemID="engine_one" average_hrs="60" damageAmount_pct="30" dump="y"/>
<FailureRule SystemID="engine_one" average_hrs="200" damageAmount_pct="62" dump="y"/>
<FailureRule SystemID="engine_one" average_hrs="150" damageAmount_pct="5" frequency_secs="112" dump="y"/>
<FailureRule SystemID="engine_one" average_hrs="275" damageAmount_pct="8" frequency_secs="30" dump="y"/>
<FailureRule SystemID="oil_reservoir" average_hrs="75" damageAmount_pct="6" frequency_secs="45" dump="y"/>
<FailureRule SystemID="oil_reservoir" average_hrs="125" damageAmount_pct="50" dump="y"/>
Here are my results:
My personal aircraft had 3 failures during my 20 hours of flight. Two of these were minor engine failures (the top line) and one involved a more serious failure (the fourth from the top).
The AI had a total of 10 failures in 124 hours of flight time. Five were minor engine failures (top line again) and five were more serious. Only one AI aircraft fatally crashed as a direct result of an engine failure, as best as I can determine.
I think these are acceptable numbers for a 10% failure rate. I particularly like the addition of the minor engine failure in the top line because I think it simulates quite nicely a "rough engine" due to a bad cylinder, valve, spark-plug, etc. I was still able to fly the plane and didn't really even notice the loss of power all that much, although I wouldn't want to fight a dogfight with it! There may be some room to perhaps increase the chances of a major engine or oil system failure a bit, but these numbers seem to work well, without being a source of frustration for the player. Keeping in mind that the number of failures depends, in part, on the number of aircraft in each mission, on average, one of the aircraft in either A or B flight experienced some kind of failure approximately once every two missions, with one stretch where my squadron experienced a failure in five out of six straight missions, with three of the five being minor failures.
BB
