Gaming Detonate!

Just did a little 'experiment' of sorts on the tower. Using a series of sequentially timed charges to recreate an airplane impact. My results were eerily similar to the outcome of the WTC attacks.

At around the 400 second mark, the top quarter of the building collapsed onto the lower section, straight down. Only part of the central support structure and a portion of the brick shell remained.

A bit somber for such a fun game, but I just had to see what would happen. Now back to the fun stuff!
 
Just did a little 'experiment' of sorts on the tower. Using a series of sequentially timed charges to recreate an airplane impact. My results were eerily similar to the outcome of the WTC attacks.

At around the 400 second mark, the top quarter of the building collapsed onto the lower section, straight down. Only part of the central support structure and a portion of the brick shell remained.

A bit somber for such a fun game, but I just had to see what would happen. Now back to the fun stuff!

Proof that it was an inside job!
 
No, it tends to produce different results each time, ranging from no damage, to a few bits falling off, to complete collapse.

I find that not moving the camera for a few seconds after hitting R increases the chances of having zero damage.

I'm not sure why it helps but it does.
 
Just did a little 'experiment' of sorts on the tower. Using a series of sequentially timed charges to recreate an airplane impact. My results were eerily similar to the outcome of the WTC attacks.

At around the 400 second mark, the top quarter of the building collapsed onto the lower section, straight down. Only part of the central support structure and a portion of the brick shell remained.

A bit somber for such a fun game, but I just had to see what would happen. Now back to the fun stuff!

Can't confirm the findings with my recreation, but I can also tell you my experiment:

Conditions:

  • Central impact, every aircraft section represented by 1 kg TNT.
  • Bank angle 30°
  • Impact severs or badly damages central column by 4 charges of TNT passing through it.
  • Fuselage and engines punch through back side (represented by 1 kg TNT)

  • Fire only hits brown materials (outside bricks)

Results:

  • impact left nice aircraft impact pattern as in real WTC.
  • central column was completely cut
  • Initial damage was 2%
  • Fire was estimated as out of control after 150 seconds.
  • Fire propagated faster downward by collapsing debris as upwards
  • after 600 seconds of simulation, damage exceeded only 13%
  • Tower was still standing, but frequency of internal collapses increasing
Findings:

  • Tower structure is not comparable to WTC structure
  • Central column is not important for stability.
  • Corners seemed to be the primary load carrying structure
  • more lateral impact more promising for fast collapse.
 
Test with lateral impact and different fire settings resulted in similar collapse as WTC. While destruction of two corners of the building was important for the collapse, the collapse itself happened after 250 seconds, when the central column broke and the complete level above the impact collapsed.

Contrary to WTC, the building parts above the impact remained mostly intact until they hit the ground.

---------- Post added at 05:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:10 PM ----------

did you use the conctower or other building?

Just tower.
 
I also found that damaging the outer structure was critical to obtaining a collapse. However, in my experiment, only the impacted wall and opposite wall were damaged initially. This eventually led to one corner succumbing to stress and collapsing. At first, this only caused the upper portion of the building to drop down about 1/2 floor and rest on the section below, where it remained until subsequent fires that spread to the lower floors eventually weakened the structure. There was eventually enough of a shift downward that the top section began falling. In my experiment, it also remained intact until it reached the ground. Which is not entirely dissimilar to the WTC, as the upper section of one of the towers appeared to remain intact at least halfway down, IIRC (the white antenna still visible until obscured by dust).

In the end, not an exact recreation of the collapse, but visually very similar.

---------- Post added at 11:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 AM ----------

I also made the central charges a bit stronger than the outer ones, to simulate the ignition of the jet fuel having more of an overall effect on the structure than the initial impact.

I used 2kg charges on the impact side, 5kg charges on the central columns, and 1 kg charges on the opposite side to account for the building's partial absorbing of the impact force.

---------- Post added at 11:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 AM ----------

That happens if you destroy a building, quit to main menu. Then load another building. The result is this building collapsing on it's own.

The solution is to quit to desktop and start the game again.

It happens to me on some levels regardless of whether I have previously loaded a building or not. For example, I have yet to be able to load the bridge without beginning with an initial damage of 10% already destroyed.

I did find a workaround though, at least on some structures. For me, if I remove all explosives, then reset the building, I get 0% damage.
 
if you hit the reset (r) several times it will normalize down to a stable starting state (i.e. no damage) in nearly all cases, except the bridge, which can't quite stay rigid.
 
. . . and another evening is completely shot, thanks to you guys. :)
 
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