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Hello everybody, Another week has passed and our Bodenplatte development progressed neatly during this short time. First, we have finished reworking the graphics effects system we told you about last week: 1. Fire effects improved for aircraft and ground vehicles, more dynamic and detailed; 2. Fuel leak effects improved (less noticeable, but more realistic); 3. Damaged engine exhaust effects improved (less noticeable, but more realistic); 4. Tracer smoke effects improved (more smooth and realistic); 5. Wingtip trails effects improved (more dynamic, less apparent beginning); 6. Water hit effects improved (more realistic); 7. Aircraft and vehicle hit effects improved (more difference between AP and HE ammo, more realistic, added debris); 8. Bomb detonation effects improved for 250kg + bombs, additional flash effect; 9. Water steam effects added for twin water radiator aircraft (Bf-109, Ju-87, Spitfire Mk.IXe, Pe-2); 10. Water steam overheating effects added; 11. Wrong mixture exhaust effects added; 12. Wood hit effects added for WWI aircraft; 13. Gunfire smoke effects added; 14. Oil leak effect adjusted; 15. Fuel leak effect on the ground added; 16. Water steam effect on the ground added. Second, we have revisited the gunfire dispersion model and performed additional research on the historical documents covering the fire dispersion depending on the gun mounting. There are no new sources, but we have re-analyzed our approach and one problem became apparent - some sources provide fire dispersion data for single shots while others have data for short bursts. For some aircraft, the sources provide dispersion data for both cases - this allowed us to build a statistical model for single/burst fire dispersion ratio. Having updated the dispersion model, we're now able to tune the fire dispersion separately for single and burst fire. Of course, we've taken into account the fact that even when you fire a burst, the first projectile has the fire dispersion of single shot while the subsequent ones deviate more because they are modeled as shots in a burst. The fire dispersion increases with the gun temperature as before. In the most cases, the fire dispersion has been already modeled using the burst fire data, so the changes in these aircraft will be hardly noticeable when firing in bursts, but the single shot dispersion will be lowered greatly: 2-2.5 times. On the contrary, the Soviet fighters were set up using single fire data before so now their fire dispersion will be increased 2.11-2.86 times depending on the gun and aircraft (this isn't that much at the effective fire distances though, see below). In addition, thanks to this research, the single fire dispersion of the heavy 30 mm and 37 mm guns has been slightly lowered while the burst fire values stayed the same. It should be noted that all these changes (applied to each aircraft independently) gave the overall effect of reducing the difference in the fire accuracy among the different planes (for fuselage mounted and wing mounted guns that are close to the fuselage). Excluding the rare exceptions, the fire dispersion for non-overheated guns is 0.66-0.95 thousandths of distance. At the effective fire distances, this results in the fire pattern of around 1 ft or slightly more. Surely, we have worked on the other parts of the sim as well. One month ago we could show you the 3D model of Me 262 without textures and a couple of weeks ago you saw the cockpit of P-47D that was untextured too, but today we present them to you in the game engine - the artists haven't finished the texturing and materials yet, but they are almost done. What can we say - while P-47D-28 cockpit is a bit overwhelming with all the details, instruments, controls and various information plates, the jet aviation pioneer Me 262 looks strikingly beautiful in the air. Here they are: You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, Today we'll tell you a bit about what awaits us (and you) in the near future. First, we plan to publish the new update soon, at the end of this month or at the beginning of October, that will bring numerous fixes and improvements for the existing stuff - Career fixes, multiplayer stability in tank missions, corrected German bombs for 1944 timeframe and new Fw 190 A-8 modifications we have covered in the previous Dev Blog. In addition, our programmers managed to improve the collision detection between various vehicles and objects without compromising performance and fix bugs, also, trees will stop or divert/slow projectiles. The graphics will get the attention as well - you can see some of the reworked graphical effects on the following screenshots: New Bodenplatte aircraft, Bf 109 K-4 and P-47D-28, will be released to Early Access later this Autumn. New Po-2 Collector Plane and two WWI aircraft for Flying Circus Early Access, Pfalz D.IIIa and Sopwith Camel, will follow before the end of the year, provided we don't run into unexpected problems. Meanwhile, we're also working on the new Marschal mode for multiplayer which should make it more interesting and refreshing for all multiplayer oriented users of our projects. New tank models take a lot of time to develop, so Tank Crew customers will get their new toys early next year, but it looks like they'll get a lot of other stuff in a short time frame starting with the map of the Southern part of the Kursk salient (see Dev Blog #195) and continuing with animated tank crew members (ETA: Spring) and their AI capable of controlling the new playable tanks (the work on it has already started). This will make possible to create the missions where the player tank will be a part of the unit fighting against the enemy tanks s which will have the same high level of modeling detail. The main tank systems and damage modeling should be finished before Summer. The work on the additional UI for tank and unit commanders has started too. And of course, there will be new tanks - our Saint-Petersburg based partner, Digital Forms, plans to have 4 of them ready before Spring: Lend-lease M4A2 Sherman; T-34-76 mod. 1943 made by factory #183 (most probably, we're still researching the exact variant); PzKpfw IV Ausf.G made during Spring 1943 with additional armoured sheets (Schürzen); PzKpfw III Ausf.M also with additional armoured sheets. Today we can already show you the early WIP screens of it: You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, While, as you know, we're working on several projects at once, today we'll tell you about our the current main one - Bodenplatte. The most important new tech we're developing for it is the FM improvement to take into account the air compressibility and its influence on the aircraft stability and handling that is noticeable at high speeds. The late war aircraft are a pinnacle of the piston engine technology and they can approach the sonic barrier, especially in a dive. And of course this new tech is paramount for our first jet - Messerschmitt Me.262 'Schwalbe'. You may have wandered will the new tech work for the existing aircraft released before - it certainly will, we always update all aircraft to take advantage of the new tech so they all have the same modeling fidelity. Meanwhile, our artists are working on several 3D models simultaneously (some are nearly complete and the work on others has just begun): Bf 109 K-4, Me 262 A-1, P-47D-28, Fw 190 D-9, Hawker Tempest Mk.V and P-51D-25. We also decided to improve the recently released Fw 190 A-8. It will be able to carry 1000 kg SC 1000 bombs with reduced ring stabilizers and "M8 Panzerblitz 1" HE rockets and you will be able to remove the nose-mounted 13 mm MG 131 machine guns, resulting in four different modifications of this plane: Fw 190 A-8 (fighter) Fw 190 A-8 Sturmjäger (better armoured interceptor) Fw 190 F-8 (attack plane) Fw 190 G-8 (fighter-bomber) So, while it may appear we have only one Fw 190 A-8 in the sim, in fact, you'll have 4 different modifications. This is also true for many other aircraft - in one of the coming Dev Blog releases we'll compile the complete list of aircraft including the possible modifications. Since the words are best followed with visuals, today we can show you the WIP screenshots of Messerschmitt Bf 109 K-4 'Kurfürst', Republic P-47D-28 'Thunderbolt' and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 D-9 'Langnasen-Dora': Our map designers also have something to show you today. In Dev Blog #193 we presented the early European map prototype. At the moment, th designers are working on the road network and settlements. The total amount of settlements will be around 300 including so many towns we have never modeled on one map before. To be able to finish this work in time while modeling the general layout of the cities and towns the special settlement block designer tool has been created. This is a small teaser, a Western European town made using this approach (this is not a particular historical town, but a test layout): You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, The time flows and significant changes in our main project, Bodenplatte, are on the horizon. Lead engineer Andrey Solomykin has started the huge chunk of his planned work - air compressibility modeling at high speeds which is a must for the late war period when the aircraft speeds approached the sonic barrier. At the same time another engineer, Roman Kovalenko, is modeling a new device type in our project - turbosupercharger. The main difference between a turbosupercharger and other superchargers we already modeled in other aircraft is the fact that it is powered not by the engine shaft, but by the turbine which is rotated by the engine exhaust. Therefore, the manifold pressure created by the turbosupercharger at different engine modes has a much more complex formula and requires a much more complex physical model. The first aircraft in our sim that will have this device is P-47D-28 Thunderbolt. In the next update, we plan to improve numerous aircraft graphical effects and make minor improvements to the netcode. Meanwhile, Pfalz D.IIIa and Sopwith Camel are being developed for Flying Circus Volume I, the work on new WWI pilots animations has also started. For Tank Crew, M4A2 "Sherman" and Pz. IV Ausf.G are in the works. Both of these tanks have interesting peculiarities and we hope to model most of them in the sim. Today we can show you the first WIP screenshots of one of them. In addition, the work on the detailed buildings for Prokhorovka map will be finished soon. We begin the AI development for player controllable tanks and will start the work on implementing additional tank systems and their damage modeling, tank commander functionality and tank radio communications. You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear Pilots, Summer is winding down and we’re getting back to our normal work schedule. Here are some early pics of our Me-262 model. Looks fast doesn’t it?

Update 3.005 Dear Pilots, After months of preparation and planning following our big announcement this past Fall, we are proud to announce the Release of version 3.005 and launch of Early Access for both Flying Circus- Volume One and Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka. They are now both available for purchase in the IL-2 webstore and making a purchase gives you access to new content as we roll it out and before the product is final. Flying Circus – Volume One Let’s first talk about Flying Circus and what the Early Access includes. As of now, you’ll get the SPAD 13 and Fokker Dr.1 to fly and fight one another in. The Lapino maps are acting as a stand for the future French map for now and both planes have been re-built and re-mastered by our partners at Yugra Media from earlier less complex models. This means improved mesh, textures, damage and other small enhancements of the same aircraft from previous products. However, you must remember that FC content is still a work in progress and more work will be necessary before WWI aircraft are fully supported in IL-2. As with all our Early Access periods more flyable aircraft will follow in the coming months. Time to get the goggles and scarves out of the closet! Flying Circus Early Access can be ordered HERE. We’d also like to take this time to explain our discount plan for special Rise of Flight users who purchase FC and qualify for a special discount code. We have chosen to give those ROF users who supported us in our darkest, most difficult days some special recognition with an additional discount. Without this support we would not be here today and is a small way to say thanks to those that supported us when it mattered most. Some customers really went above and beyond in their financial support and that is reflected in the discounts below. We only wish economic reality would allow for it to be more. First, everyone who orders during the Early Access period gets a $10 discount off regular MSRP no matter what. Second, if you are an existing ROF customer and meet certain criteria you qualify for an additional discount. The criteria are as follows. Anyone who purchased content for ROF between it’s launch in 2009 to Jan. 1, 2013 from our website or a boxed or digital copy from an official retail partners (Excluding STEAM. ROF was not available on STEAM during this period) during that time frame will receive an additional discount. If you spent between $0.01 and $70.99 you will receive an additional $5 OFF. If you spent between $71.00 and $200.99 you will receive an additional $10 OFF. If you spent greater than $201.00 you will receive an additional $15 OFF. The special discount period ends September 15, 2018. To get your special discount you’ll need to access your ROF user account on the ROF website and retrieve a promo code we have placed in your user profile. Then return to the IL-2 website and place your order for Flying Circus. Enter your discount code at check out. The additional discount will be reflected in the final amount. Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka Next, we are excited to begin Early Access to Tank Crew and the initial release of our first two tanks – the mighty Kv-1s and the fearsome PzKpfw. VI Ausf.H1 "Tiger " Tank Crew Early Access can be ordered HERE. Due to development and gameplay considerations we have decided to create a separate AAA vehicles add-on featuring the GAZ-MM + 72K and Sd. Kfz. 10 + Flak38. We will prepare them as a separate product to be released later and work to make them a more interesting addition to IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles then initially planned. In addition to the two tanks released today, over the next 14 months we will release the full line-up of tanks included in Tank Crew. Ten tanks in total will be created. T-34-76 model 1943 KV-1s M4A2 “Sherman” SU-122 SU-152 PzKpfw. III Ausf.M PzKpfw. IV Ausf.G PzKpfw. V Ausf.D "Panther" PzKpfw. VI Ausf.H1 "Tiger" Sd. Kfz. 184 "Ferdinand" In addition to the tanks we will be creating our specially designed Prokhorovka map and releasing that once it is finished. In the meantime, we are including the Lapino maps as stand ins. We have also added drivable tanks to the QMB including the new Kv-1s, Tiger 1 and existing T-34 and Pz. III tank models. Please note that the existing T-34 and Pz. III tanks are the original models previously released. Tank Crew will eventually include updated versions of these tanks. And the Kv-1 and Tiger tanks now support custom skins. Templates will be along soon for skinners. And we’d like to take this time to introduce you to our talented development partners at DigitalForms in Saint Petersburg, Russia who have taken on the task of building these amazing tanks for you. They have worked tirelessly since our announcement last year to put you inside some of WWII’s most deadly and fearsome weapon systems. They have helped us re-invent our tank technology and built some truly stunning tank exteriors and interiors. They hope you like their work! Fw 190 A-8 We continue our work on the coming Bodenplatte project and this time its customers get a new toy - German fighter/bomber Fw 190 А-8. It comes with many modifications: 30-mm Mk 108 guns, additional armour, bomb holders capable of carrying up to three 250 kg bombs, heavy rockets 21cm WGr. 42 and up to 12 anti-tank rockets R-HL Pblz. 1 "Panzerblitz". This makes the airtcraft the most packed one among the other Focke-Wulf models. Battle of Bodenplatte can be ordered HERE. Other Improvements In addition to FC and TC Early Access we have spent some time working on minor improvements to ground AI, bullet damage calculations, small graphical corrections to the He-111 H-16. A-20B, Spitfire Mk. IX and Bf-109 G-14. And of course, many other small enhancements, fixes and changes, which are too many to list in this post. Please discuss the update in this thread.

Dear Friends, Today I would like to tell you about what we plan for Flying Circus – Volume One and show you some WIP screens of our first two aircraft which are ready for Early Access release this month! But first let’s take a minute and talk about how we came to make Flying Circus and the challenges that we face in developing it. Of course, Flying Circus is going to essentially be our spiritual sequel to our ground-breaking WWI simulator Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War. ROF was the first product we ever made and over the course of several years we greatly expanded its content and created some really cool features for it, many of which were ported or updated to work in Sturmovik. We have not lost our affection for WWI and we have always hoped to be able to bring WWI combat to our updated Digital Warfare Engine. When we eventually ended work on ROF and shifted our focus to WW2 many WWI fans were disappointed. At the time, we had no intention of abandoning ROF or her fans, but the requirements for WW2 overwhelmed us and we had no resources to manage two projects at the same time and the technology we developed for WW2 was extremely difficult to retrofit back into our WWI engine without causing major delays to Sturmovik. Retrofitting WWI would have required an entirely new team of developers that we could not afford. So, we marched forward with WW2 hoping to someday find a way to come back to WWI and do a sort of parallel development. That opportunity has finally become available thanks to some creative planning and so we decided to create Flying Circus – Volume One with the help of our friends at Yugra Media. Yugra employees have been training with our team learning how to re-build our WWI content and make maps with our current technology. This has taken several months already, but our plan is to get WWI up and running as quick as we can and get WWI content brought up to our new standard. We hope to generate new revenue to fund more WWI development and general development of the common engine which benefits all of our products. We also wanted to give WWI fans something to cheer about after a long drought of development. Now it should be said that trying to bring all content and features of ROF to Flying Circus in one fell swoop is impossible. This will be a marathon, not a sprint and new features or old features found in ROF will take time to make in the current engine. Bringing WWI to our current engine which has been re-worked and modified for WW2 is a big challenge and some things can be ported relatively easily and others require all new work. As with Tank Crew, several months of work behind the scenes has already taken place laying down the foundation to support Flying Circus. This will take much time, but we will endeavor to make Flying Circus just as awesome or even more amazing than ROF ever was. However, for that to happen we need your support! Both Flying Circus as well as Tank Crew are experiments and first steps in working with qualified and trained third parties on new content and gameplay features that users have asked for or we feel have potential to help our overall cause. Our team is still small, relative to our competitors and we are still a self-sustaining team. Meaning, we sink or swim on our own, there are no bailouts if we fail regardless of who our benefactors have been in the near past. So, if you like anything about Flying Circus please support us by buying a copy. We want to make WWI great again inside the Sturmovik universe. So now that you know the background of how Flying Circus came to be, let’s take a look at the actual product. As you have previously read in other announcements here are the planes that will be included in Flying Circus – Volume One. We have decided to choose a plane-set that represents the period of April-May 1918. This period offers some great planes that will provide lots of fun match-ups. Planes: Spad XIII Sopwith Dolphin Sopwith Camel RAF S.E.5.a Bristol Fighter Albatros D.Va Fokker Dr.1 Fokker D.VII Pfalz D.IIIa Halberstadt CL.II. The first two planes off the assembly line and into Early Access will be the venerable SPAD 13C.1 and the Fokker Dr.1 triplane! All of the planes in Flying Circus have their roots in ROF, but the models have been re-worked by Yugra Media to be brought up to our current visual standard. That means improved mesh and new 4K textures. Map and Technologies Included will be a map that is approximately 100 km x 100 km that has is generally centered on the Arras sector of the Western Front. The map will include towns such as Arras, Cambrai, Lille, Amiens and St. Quentin and the dreaded No-Mans-Land along with several airfields to fly from. This map will be created using all our latest map making technology that is found in current IL-2 Great Battles products. It should make WWI a much more beautiful experience scenery wise. Matter of fact, Flying Circus will benefit from all current and new technologies in our updated engine. This means more than the graphical updates, but also improvements to AI and of course our amazing VR support is included! The difference from ROF will be quite remarkable. The plan is for future volumes of FC to include larger maps like we had in ROF. Exactly how big, is yet to be determined. For us to bring WWI to you in any reasonable amount of time, we have decided to use the Flight Models from ROF for our Flying Circus planes. We have done this for a couple reasons. First, we have spent a lot of time researching and building these FMs over a period of several years and unlike the 3D models, they stand the test of time and there is no reason to toss them and start over. Second, these FMs were built for an engine that was created solely for WW1 speeds and maneuvers etc. It was more prudent to build support for these FMs in the current WW2 focused engine, then to completely re-make these FMs with an engine designed for heavier and faster aircraft in WW2. In essence, we’ve been able to make both regimes co-exist side by side within the same environment without compromising the feeling of flight or their unique characteristics. Our engineering team as done a marvelous job building this support in just a few months! Without this work, Flying Circus would not be possible. Our Flying Circus planes will still have all the interesting quirks and characteristics that many of you know and love from our previous title. Finally, I must mention one of the driving motivations for making Flying Circus at all - VR support! There was simply no way to retrofit VR support into ROF properly. So, to bring our awesome VR support to the WWI battlefield we had to work on a new title with the tech already included. The end result did not disappoint, we really like how our open cockpits look in VR! This will be a really awesome experience for those that love VR. Features As I mentioned above, getting WW1 up and running again takes a lot of work, so Flying Circus will initially include support for the Quick Mission Builder and our Mission Editor. We will also create and include some custom single-player missions as we near completion of FC and if Volume One proves popular and we move to make future volumes, we will introduce the Pilot Career to FC. And Scripted Campaigns can be built for FC by anyone using our Mission Editor just like in IL-2. If you are concerned about the Pilot Career, please know this. We can’t support the Pilot Career for FC yet because we are still building support for WW2 and other general features and mission types it needs. Remember, it’s still new tech for the Great Battles series and we have to build this support in-house so we cannot place this task with a third party. We also have to build support for WW1 style missions and this will take time. If we include support for the Pilot Career in say Volume Two of Flying Circus, it will of course become compatible with Volume One. That is the beauty of our one client approach. All of our Flying Circus aircraft will come equipped with all field and factory mods that we used to sell as separate items way back when. This also includes pistols, scarves, streamers and special gunsights like the Aldis and collimator style gunsights. And last but not least, our pilot models for Flying Circus will be completely new and they will look really cool in our updated aircraft. They of course have yet to be animated, but the finished pilot models look to be really great! We hope this overview of Flying Circus is helpful and gives you a good idea of the great effort we are undertaking to bring WWI development back to our amazing WWI fans who enjoyed Rise of Flight so much. So please enjoy the following images of Flying Circus. Remember this is still a Work-in-Progress and the maps is obviously not WW1 France. For Early Access we will be including the Lapino map as a substitute until the French map is ready. You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, The time has come to tell you more about the historical timeframe of Battle of Bodenplatte. As we said in our previous Dev Blog #192, we're making all four different seasons for this map. Some might think that we'll model only 1-2 days of the actual Bodenplatte operation when the Luftwaffe made the all-out attack on the Allied airfields near Brussels and Antwerp. However, our “Battle of” series is much more than that! The Career mode for this new theatre of war will last from September 17th, 1944 to March 28th, 1945 – 188 days of war in total. Historically, 11 significant engagements took place in this area during the given timeframe. In the Career mode, you'll see your area of operations, mission types, acting air force units, their home airfields and other details that correspond to the historical data. You'll be flying in and around many famous operations and battles. Of course, we can’t model every skirmish or battle on the ground, but we will have an exciting Career spanning this later stage of the war when the Allies were fighting their way into Germany. Operation Market Garden (September 17 – 26, 1944) Battle of Aachen (October 2 – 21, 1944) Battle of the Scheldt (October 2 – November 8, 1944) Operation Queen (November 16 – December 15, 1944) Operation Watch on the Rhine (December 16 – 25, 1944) Allied Counter-Offensive (December 26, 1944 – January 25, 1945) Operation Bodenplatte (January 1, 1945) Operation Veritable (February 8 – March 10, 1945) Operation Clarion (February 22 – 23, 1945) Operation Grenade (February 23 – March 10, 1945) Operation Plunder (March 23 – 28, 1945) As said above, we won't be able to recreate these ground operations in super detail, but the overall situation, mission tasks, home airfields and mission targets will change as they should historically just as you experience with Stalingrad, Moscow and Kuban. This, along with the corresponding features of the Career mode like pilot biographies, squadron histories, newspaper articles, videos, squadron rosters, medals and rank progression will create an authentic experience of flying on the Western Front during the late war period. The whole timeframe will be divided into 5 chapters: Chapter 1: Fighting in Holland (September 17 – October 1, 1944) Chapter 2: Autumn Offensive (October 2 – December 15, 1944) Chapter 3: Battle of the Bulge (December 16 – 25, 1944) Chapter 4: Allied Counter-Offensive (December 26, 1944 – February 7, 1945) Chapter 5: Battle of the Rhine (February 8 – March 28, 1945) To create this new theatre of war, a thorough research will be done on where the units of both sides were based, their tasks and what aircraft they used day by day. Two new award systems for the US and Great Britain are to be created from scratch, as well as the late war pilot models for Luftwaffe, RAF and USAAF along with their chutes. The Newspaper articles is a huge task on their own and takes several months to complete. If you’d like to help with this contact Jason. We also plan on making additional mission types for this unique location and timeframe. All in all, this will be a lot of work for us, but progress is already being made. For example, we have finalized the map boundaries and the airfield locations. This map is bigger than we initially planned (flyable area is 401 x 324 km - it is 129.900 sq.km) and several compromises will have to be made to make it a reality. It will stretch us to the limit of what is possible in our development schedule, but as with our other maps it will be really cool when it’s done. You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, There are holidays at the beginning of May in Russia, but to this day we have managed to release the important 3.002 update and its hotfixes. Moreover, we have found a temporary solution for our Russian customers who were affected by the recent mass blocking of the Amazon IP addresses (we use its web services). While one part of the team has been working on the update, others have continued the development of our next big project - Bodenplatte. For instance, we have reached an important milestone in the development of the new map. Evgeny Isaev, our lead landscape and game world artist, has this to say: It's important to note that the new map will be special and different (once again!). The set development time limits force us to find the ways to optimize our work, simultaneously increasing the quality of the landscape. This means we ought to implement new design methods, namely using digital geodata (with required historical corrections) instead of drawing by hand. This way we can save time, but increase the accuracy of the resulting map. At the moment, we already have the map with height data, rivers and forests. The result is not final, but it required a lot of work already. Now we're working on the settlements. It is possible that we'll increase their number in the course of development, but we'll make the decision when we have the major towns and smaller settlements ready. The airfields list is ready and we have collected enough information to make them. In addition, we have a general concept of how we'll texture the landscape for different seasons, but we'll give it a bit more thought. It is said than one picture is worth a thousand words, how about fourteen: You can find it here https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/168-developer-diary/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-611219

Hello guys, after the release of 3.001 of Il2 Series, there is a good in depth review at Stormbirds. For all who is interested in an up to date and very detailed WW2 sim, should read it and maybe, try it out. I hope you guys enjoy the reading and if you have any comments or questions, just post them below. I will read them all. https://stormbirds.blog/2018/04/11/il-2-battle-of-kuban-in-depth-review/ Have fun and have a nice weekend

Hello everybody, After releasing 3.001 update and going wild with the celebration - having 5 work days in a week instead of 7 - we continue the further development. Thankfully, 3.001 release went ok and didn't require any urgent critical hotfixes, which is strange for such fundamental changes, to be honest. Anyway, at this moment we already have around 40 changes and enhancements we plan to release in the next 3-4 weeks. Graphics, Career, AI, multiplayer and some other stuff will be addressed. In parallel, we're developing the next big thing, Bodenplatte. The work on the map, buildings and its first planes has already started. We have a huge task in front of us, but we already got used to big plans and we know how to follow them. Soon we'll tell you about the other projects of IL-2 Great Battles series - the work is going on them as well. Meanwhile, today we can show you the first WIP screenshots of Spitfire F/LF Mk.IXe and Bf 109 G-14 fighters from Bodenplatte aircraft list - we're working on their 3D models and FMs. We plan to start the Bodenplatte Early Access program when they are ready. And here's some "insider's bonus" for you: You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear Friends, We are proud and excited to announce that the Battle of Kuban development cycle is completed and Battle of Kuban is officially released! As Producer of the Sturmovik product series it is always a pleasure to announce major milestones to the community and this one is very special. Battle of Kuban was a technical challenge from start to finish, but the team has once again proven why they are the best. When I took over as Producer I promised you a new and improved Sturmovik experience. A Sturmovik with a more hardcore feel with more classic flight-sim features for both single-player and multiplayer modes along with other touches that remind you of past Sturmovik titles while embracing new genre-leading technology. In the past 18 months we’ve done just that and transformed this generation of Sturmovik into a real leader. As you will see below, the amount of work that has gone into just version 3.001 is huge, not to mention ALL of the enhancements, improvements, fixes and content that was developed for Battle of Kuban and the engine as a whole during this cycle. Every department has worked hard to make this release special. This was months and months of hard work by an extremely talented and dedicated team who spent very long hours trying to make the vision I announced in fall 2016 a reality. If you are a fan of Sturmovik, either old or new, they deserve your continued support. Please tell your flight-sim friends about how much Sturmovik has improved with the Kuban release. Together, the Sturmovik line-up will continue to grow and thrive as our big announcement about Bodenplatte, Flying Circus and Tank Crews this past November shows. We have big plans, but we need your support to make them happen. We have no magic safety net. Your support allows us to expand our team and spend time clearing development bottlenecks or solving long stubborn issues. As with any major release, many compromises in scheduling and work-flow had to occur. Some features not in our original plan were added (new distant terrain rendering, new shadows, improved flight-models) and some were delayed (Air Marshall, Object Viewer) and some work took much longer than planned (Pilot Career, P-39). As a result, a few new features planned for the Kuban cycle have been pushed to this Spring and Summer and will be part of the Battle of Bodenplatte development cycle. Since our core engine powers all products it really is just one large development cycle. All we need is enough time, patience and support from you and all can become a reality Let this release be an example of our unending desire to make a better product and do the best job we can with our small team and limited resources. The team has worked a miracle here once again and made me very proud of them as I know my constant demands make their lives more difficult. Please think of them when you fly and enjoy Battle of Kuban. P.S. I hope to see some of you at the 2018 Flight-Sim Expo in Las Vegas, NV USA taking place June 9-10of this year. https://www.flightsimexpo.com/ Sincerely, Jason And without further delay, here is Daniel aka “Han” with the goodies you have been waiting for… From Daniel – Development Manager Hello Everybody, So, the day has come. Half a year has passed since the last update 2.012 which was, as you remember, quite large on its own and added many new features to the sim. But today the new 3.001 update, sets a new record for our project. We have never released so many additions of different types at once. Sure, it comes from the fact that much time has passed since the previous update. You may ask why it has taken so long - because two fundamental game parts were re-made almost completely. First of all, the old dynamic campaign is now replaced by the new Career. In this mode we have tried to create the best single-player experience we could. We’ve taken some elements from our Rise of Flight Career mode you may be familiar with and some from the Battle of Stalingrad campaign system and we added tons of new features and abilities along the way. This mode takes a WWII combat pilot experience to the next level and works in any theatre of war you own - Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Moscow and Battle of Kuban. If you have all three, you can play through all of them with the same character, starting in the cold winter of 1941 and finishing in 1943 on the warm shores of the Black Sea. The AI has been significantly improved to function in this mode as well. It is important to note that we plan to develop it further improving it and adding new mission types and interesting gameplay features in the very near future. The second hugely improved part of the game is its core. The evolutionary development we started back in 2017 brings fruit right now in the 3.001 update. The biggest change is the increased rendering distance of course. But this fundamental change led to many other additions and corrections, you can read the change list below. Many of these changes were anticipated by the community while some will be a pleasant surprise. The cumulative result of these changes makes our graphics engine one of the best in the genre. Another important addition is the new Cooperative multiplayer mode. Together with the updated statistics system and other new features, it will give our customers who prefer multiplayer new exciting opportunities. And of course, the biggest chunk of the 3.001 update is the new content. Five new aircraft including two new Collector Planes and the new historical static campaign 'Sea Dragons'. Also included are many new aircraft skins, the ability to host a game server from within the game client without using the dedicated server executable, 'Mods On' mode and many others. It is difficult not to forget something in this short overview, so here goes the update 3.001 change list: New Content: 1. A-20B bomber is added to the project and all Battle of Kuban owners can fly it now; 2. Yak-7b series 36 fighter is added to the project and all Battle of Kuban owners can fly it now; 3. P-39L-1 fighter is added to the project and all Battle of Kuban owners can fly it now; 4. New Collectors Plane: Bf 109 G-6 fighter; 5. New Collectors Plane: La-5FN series 2; 6. New Career single-player mode replaces the old dynamic campaign; 7. The new Cooperative multiplayer mode is available along with the classic Dogfight; 8. New historical static campaign 'Sea Dragons' designed by Alexander -BlackSix- Timoshkov telling the story of an IL-2 mod. 1943 pilot is added to the project and all Battle of Kuban owners can play it now; 9. Now you can host a multiplayer server from within the game client and play on it yourself; 10. New 'Mods On' mode allows modifying the game files. Multiplayer server owners can allow or disallow players with the modified game files to connect; 11. Bf-109 G-6 Collector Plane comes with painstakingly researched paint schemes created by community enthusiasts III/JG2_Gustav05 and I./ZG1_Panzerbar; 12. La-5FN series 2 Collector Plane comes with painstakingly researched paint schemes created by the community enthusiast I./ZG1_Panzerbar; 13. IL-2 mod. 1943 now comes with all of its textures made in 4K quality (default and all official paint schemes, bump, specular and damage textures) created by the community enthusiast =BlackHellHound1=; Graphics: 14. Terrain visibility distance has been increased from 40 to 150 kilometers with Settings option; 15. New raindrops effect on the cockpit and pilot glasses; 16. Clouds visibility distance has been increased from 40 to 150 kilometers; 17. Heavy cumulus clouds were made more complex, some of the weather variations now have two level clouds; 18. Because of the increased rendering distance, cumulus cloud patterns were reworked for all weather types; 19. Fixed the issue where clouds could drop shadows on the mountains above them; 20. Cloud 'moving' effect when you fly very close to it has been minimized; 21. Large white horizon band has been removed thanks to the new rendering distance; 22. Skydome lighting has been made bluer; 23. Cirrus clouds rendering has been improved; 24. Winter lighting has been tuned for more contrast shadows with a slight blue hue; 25. Completely redone texturing of summer and autumn Stalingrad maps: overall steppe look was made more authentic, fields tiling has been removed; 26. Landscape texture flickering on the big and steep mountains has been eliminated; 27. Tree crowns drop more detailed shadows; 28. Landscape detail change with distance has been made less apparent on Ultra graphics preset; 29. There is a new graphics option that enables or disables 4K textures (when set to On, the game will use 4K textures if available); 30. Player controlled tanks use the new visual tech that simulates prismatic optical instruments; 31. Player controlled tank Panzer III now has a movable prismatic visor and armor hatches that can cover the view slits; 32. Main menu and aircraft settings hangar scene now has a different lighting; welding blinks and sounds were removed; 33. Player controlled tank T-34 now uses the new tech that allows very detailed tank tracks (it will be used for the Tank Crew vehicles); AI Aircraft and Game World: 34. Damage to large objects from small explosions now calculated more accurately; 35. Some trees (on tree-line, along with the roads, individual ones) can be toppled with a powerful impact; 36. AI pilots evade mountains and hills better; 37. Shallow dive ground attack procedure has been improved for cases with high initial aircraft altitude; 38. AI pilots evade ground objects during shallow dive ground attack procedure better; 39. AI pilots will follow the flight leader even if the wingman player decides to fly elsewhere; 40. AI Hs-129 B-2 takes off correctly; 41. Heavy loaded AI planes take off correctly; 42. All AI planes in the group attack targets if there are enough of them; 43. All AI planes in the group choose targets correctly and won't attack the same target if there are enough of them; 44. AI priorities during the ground attack were updated. Primary targets are AAA, then locomotives, then tanks, then artillery, then everything else. Targets closer to the center of the ground attack area have more priority; 45. Ships damage modeling has been improved, they are harder to destroy; 46. Large ships except tankers have simulated damage control; 47. AI groups taxi to a flight strip faster; 48. Parachutes are correctly modeled in multiplayer; Physics, Aircraft Systems and Models: 49. Yak-1 machinegun synchronizer C2K-19 has been replaced with C2K-26 that fires three rounds per one propeller revolution instead of one; 50. UB machineguns and ShVAK dispersion on Yak-1 fighters has been corrected using the newly found test data; 51. IL-2 canopies can be fixed in the open position; 52. Ultimate load factor calculations were updated for all aircraft; 53. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option now works correctly - an aircraft won't explode from a powerful impact when it is on; 54. The issue with He-111 engines having different initial throttle control positions after starting a mission in the air has been fixed; 55. IL-2 mod. 1943 instruments illumination works correctly now; 56. Compass locator on all aircraft now works only when powered and won't show strange readings when power is turned on or off or whenever a beacon signal is found or lost; 57. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option now works correctly for Bf-110, He-111, Ju-88, Ju-52, IL-2 and Pe-2; 58. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option now correctly turns flopped over MiG-3 and Hs-129 B2 back to normal position; 59. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option now turns flopped over planes back to normal position without excessive overload and won't cause shaking of aircraft laying on the ground with retracted landing gear; 60. An aircraft or its parts won't kick up a dust or snow hitting a runway or other hard surface; 61. An aircraft losing a small part won't display a debris cloud effect; 62. Damage model issue has been fixed (a fractured part won't break off when completely stationary); 63. Aircraft canopies now break off at correct places; 64. Jettisoned Bf-109 Е7 canopy now correctly adds drag, broken off parts have corrected aerodynamic characteristics; 65. Oil viscosity changes with temperature, causing an engine to be damaged faster when the maximum oil temperature is exceeded; 66. The control wheel of the R-7 constant speed governor rotates much slower according to reference data resulting in much slower propeller RPM switching (IL-2, MiG-3, Pe-2 series 87, Yak-1 series 69 and Yak-7b series 36 are affected); 67. Because of the slower propeller RPM switching on IL-2, MiG-3, Pe-2 series 87, Yak-1 series 69 and Yak-7b series 36, 'Engine auto control' difficulty option automatically lowers the propeller pitch if the landing gear is released and IAS is dropping (to make go-around during landing possible); 68. Ammo counters on Fw-190 A-3, Fw-190 A-5, Bf-110 G-2 and MC.202 ser. 8 were corrected; 69. Metal surfaces on P-40E-1, P-39L-1, A-20B and MC.202 series 8 now rendered differently for polished metal visual effect (others to come in the future); 70. IL-2 mod. 1943 visual damage effects were corrected so fractured parts won't appear hanging in the air; 71. Rear armored glass joints on Yak-1b series 127 now look better; 72. MG 15 reload handle position on Ju 52 has been corrected; Statistics System: 73. Remnants of the aircraft unlocking system in statistics are completely gone; 74. Statistics data in all game modes made more detailed with subcategories; 75. Statistics screen shows secondary objective status in all game modes; 76. Completed and failed objectives can be displayed on the flight map in all game modes if enabled by a mission designer; 77. Victory points are now calculated differently and don't depend on difficulty level; 78. All game modes now share the same flight status system. Point modifiers are changed in Dogfight mode; 79. Pilot capture by the enemy now works in all game modes (if a mission designer has set up the friendly and enemy territories using Influence Area instrument). Tank crews can't be captured; Multiplayer: 80. Multiplayer server options now don't depend on the difficulty level; 81. Player ban time can be specified in server options; 82. Players can view Dogfight statistics and vote for a ban in the lobby or during flight; 83. Dogfight servers now recognize Trigger Mission Objective conditions (completing Primary Objective grants a win to one of the teams while completing Secondary Objectives reduces the 'life points' of a team; User interface: 84. Mission route on the map made clearer; 85. Single mission lists made more convenient and compact; 86. Campaign designers can now block aircraft loadouts and modifications separately (previously it was possible to block them only simultaneously); 87. Many user interface elements made more compact; 88. New option added: user interface scaling (useful for monitors with high DPI); 89. Credits added to the main menu; 90. The game client won't hang anymore on the very first run during input devices initialization; 'Blazing Steppe' campaign: 91. The campaign has been updated to the current mission design standard; 92. Map tactical overlays are updated to be more detailed; 93. Waypoint following logic has been improved; 94. Take-off is counted when 30 meters altitude is reached instead of 200, making the take-off of large joint groups faster and reducing the possibility of skipping the first waypoint; 95. Text translations are updated. '10 Days of Autumn' campaign: 96. The campaign has been completely reworked; 97. Map tactical overlays are redone; 98. Waypoint following logic has been improved; 99. Take-off is counted when 30 meters altitude is reached instead of 200, making the take-off of large joint groups faster and reducing the possibility of skipping the first waypoint; 100. Skipping intermediate waypoints won't interfere with the mission progress and landing on the home airfield anymore; 101. Now there are more aircraft in the air at the same time in some missions, somewhat increasing the difficulty level; 102. Text translations are updated. Please discuss the update in this thread.

Hello everybody, Today we don't have a lot of news, we just want to tell you that the work on 3.001 update is near its end. We have 20 Career mission types working of 25 planned for the release. The most of the initially found issues are fixed and some tweaks are already in the place. To give you a general idea of the scale of this update, its change list will contain 90 items, nearly a third of which are significant changes and improvements. The sheer number of these changes means that after 3.001 release hotfixes will likely follow because there could be problems that couldn't be found by the testers. We're sure this teething period will be short. P-39L-1 cockpit is almost ready, perhaps we'll spend 1-2 days for final 'polishing' of its textures, but we can already show you its overall look. All other changes and additions planned for 3.001 release are finished. Therefore, we plan to release this humongous update in 2-3 weeks. We want to release it as soon as possible ourselves: all we're doing we're doing for you and your feedback is very important for us. But we need to make a bit more effort to give you the result that will not only be massive, but also good functioning, so these days will be spent on debugging and refinement of the new functionality. You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, Today we have a small surprise for you. But we aren't its authors: it was made by an enthusiast from the Netherlands, Neeraj =BlackHellHound1= Bindraban. Neeraj turned out to be the biggest enthusiast among the Soviet WWII aircraft skin artists since he was the first to finish the entire path of re-texturing an aircraft in 4K. Not only he remade the skins in 4K, he also made many corrections to the base textures of the IL-2 mod. 1943. He started his work as early as June 2017 and finished it only now, since it was a lot of work to redraw all this in 4K to achieve the new level of detail: - All panel lines, hatches, rivets, etc. in 4K detail - Dirt and wear layer - Texture alpha channel that governs matte effect, reflections and glint - Bump texture that visualizes small surface details - Bump texture alpha channel that governs the damage visualization - Damage texture that shows bullet holes, raptures and other visible surface damage - 15 existing and new paint schemes Here are some screenshots showing the new look from the IL-2 mod. 1943 cockpit: ... new damage look: ... and new skins that you'll get together with a ton of other improvements and additions in the update 3.001: Neeraj became a trailblazer in converting the entire set of aircraft textures and skins to 4K resolution and encountered difficulties all the pioneers face. He managed to overcome all these difficulties and hopefully other enthusiasts will follow, helping to take the visual clarity of various aircraft to the new level. You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, The end of January draws near and we're finishing the BoK development. The new functionality of the coming version 3.001 is being actively tested and debugged, our volunteer beta tester team helps us in this task greatly. This development stage is hard, but it consists of routine work mostly, not very exciting to tell about. However, there is a development which might be interesting for you to know. Andrey =AnPetrovich= Solomykin finished the Yak-7b series 36 flight model but, being the lead engineer, he couldn't just 'make a new plane'. During this work, he implemented many new features which in time may be applied to other aircraft. In addition, while we have a common flight modeling accuracy standard, this time some characteristics were modeled with higher fidelity. Here's the list of Yak-7b FM features: 1. Maximum horizontal speed matches the reference data at all altitudes with 1% difference margin (less than 5 km/h). 2. Climb time matches the reference data with 4% difference margin (less than 8 seconds difference lower than 6000 m and less than 34 seconds at higher altitudes). 3. Turn time matches the reference data with 0.5 seconds difference margin. 4. Takeoff and landing speeds with or without flaps match the reference data with 2-3 km/h difference margin (takeoff run accuracy is 10-20 m). 5. Inertial model is congruent with the reference data for all load variants including fuel and ammo mass. 6. Shock absorbers and tire load are congruent with the reference data in all drop tests. 7. New canopy functionality: 7.1 Canopy opening or closing delay after the player input has been corrected. 7.2 It is impossible to open or close the canopy at speeds higher than 600 km/h. 7.3 Canopy damage model and wind sound corrected. 7.4 Moving canopy recoils when it hits the limit. 7.5 Player can repeat the canopy move command if canopy releases from the lock on its own and didn't lock at the opposite lock. 7.6 If a pilot finds himself in an unlucky flip over situation on the ground, it may be impossible to open the canopy. 8. New flaps functionality: 8.1 Flaps pneumatic valve can be set to the neutral position instead of retracting position, making the flaps retract by air flow pressure instead of a sharp retracement. 8.2 An incorrect flaps behavior, while pushed back by the air flow pressure, has been addressed. 9. Pneumatic valves in the cockpit are being turned in an anthropomorphically realistic way since a human hand can't turn something 360 degrees without pauses. 10. Constant speed governor wheel has been slowed down realistically (synchronized with a virtual axis while controlling it from keyboard). 11. Propeller pitch automatically lowers during landing if the automatic pitch control is selected in difficulty settings. 12. Oil overpressure results in an oil leak. 13. Oil and water radiator scoops can be lost due to combat damage. 14. The airframe structural fatigue and combat damage dependencies on the G load have been adjusted. 15. Fuel pressure indicator shows realistic data while the engine cylinders are being primed with fuel during the engine start. 16. Force Feedback effects were adjusted for higher flight speeds. 17. Oil injector functions correctly during engine warm up (if you start a mission from parking). 18. Instruments and switches function correctly with all interdependencies. 19. Correct Venturi tube modeling in UP-1 gyro, KI-10 gyro modeling. 20. Engine start and turning off procedures fully correspond to the pilot's manual. 21. Landing gear bays and flaps affect flight dynamics correctly in all possible landing gear and flaps combinations (including flaps being lost). 22. Neutral virtual flight stick position corresponds to the real joystick flight stick position for FFB and regular joysticks (taking into account the elevator trim and fixed trim tabs). 23. Aircraft balance changes correctly in an event of fins or fins control rods loss for FFB and regular joysticks (taking into account the fixed trim tab position on the left aileron and both elevator trim tabs). 24. Fins with broken control rods correctly re-orient themselves when the air flow speed drops, affecting the FFB neutral position. While working on Yak-7b, Andrey was also able to add these features and corrections to other aircraft: 1. Radio compasses on all planes work only when powered and show correct readings when switched on or off and when the beacon signal is lost or acquired. 2. An aircraft can no longer explode when 'Unbreakable' difficulty option is selected. 3. These aircraft can't be damaged anymore with 'Unbreakable' difficulty option selected: - Bf 110 E-2 - Bf 110 G-2 - He 111 H-6 - He 111 H-16 - Ju 88 A-4 - Ju 52 3mg4e - IL-2 mod. 41 - IL-2 mod. 42 - Pe-2 series 35 - Pe-2 series 87 4. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option: flipped over MiG-3 and Hs-129 B2 turn back to a normal position. 5. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option: turning back a flipped over aircraft happens correctly and there are no artificial oscillations that could happen when an aircraft lies on its belly. 6. When a plane or its fragment hit a concrete, ice or packed snow surface, dust or snow cloud effects won't be shown. 7. Loss of smaller aircraft fragments won't be accompanied by a dust cloud visual effect. 8. Damage modeling artifacts have been fixed (i.e. sudden breakage of damaged aircraft parts in a resting state). 9. Lost canopies fall off from a correct place on an aircraft. 10. Lost canopy and other parts of Bf-109 Е7 correctly affect its aerodynamic characteristics. 11. Oil viscosity changes correctly with temperature, resulting in faster engine failures when the oil is overheated. 12. Constant propeller speed governor R-7 control wheels were made slower according to reference data. These governors were installed on the following aircraft: - IL-2 mod. 41 - IL-2 mod. 42 - IL-2 mod. 43 - MiG-3 series 24 - Pe-2 series 87 - Yak-1 series 69 - Yak-7b series 36 In addition, for all these planes (if 'Engine auto control' difficulty option is selected) the propeller pitch is automatically lowered when instrument speed drops and the landing gear is released (to help in a situation when an urgent go around procedure might be needed). As usual, here are some visual pics to compensate that wall of text above. Here are P-39 official painting schemes:

Dear Pilots, Our Holiday Sale has started on our website and on Steam! The sale runs from December 21st until January 4th. - 50% OFF Fw-190 A-3 and La-5 (series 8) - 40% OFF Ju-52, Yak-1B, P-40E and Mc.202 - 50% OFF BOM and BOS - 50% OFF 10 Days of Autumn Campaign - 33% OFF Blazing Steppe Campaign - 66% OFF all ROF Content ....and don't forget Cliffs of Dover BLITZ is also on sale for 25% Off at just $18.75. We would like to wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Enjoy a happy and safe holidays! Store: https://il2sturmovik.com/store/battle-of-moscow/ Link: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/33072-holiday-sale-massive-savings-dec-21-jan-4/

Dev Update 176 and bellow you can find the earlier update 175, why?! Why not if you want to see the larger pics bellow, simply click on the link below Im leaving now for two weeks and maybe i will be able to post some updates. Hope you enjoy it and have fun reading it! Some comments would be nice, if you like those devblogs or not ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello everybody, another week has passed and we have interesting IL-2 news for you once again. First of all, our programmers started the work on the next new gameplay mode: Cooperative. In the start, this mode will include new multiplayer server type, where a player will have to choose an aircraft in a scenario mission. The mission will start once enough players have joined and confirmed they are ready. The aircraft not claimed by human players will be controlled by AI, so the mission will proceed as it was designed even if the server isn't full. The mission scenario could be nearly anything you could think of - scripting allows a mission designer to create almost any combat situation. Moreover, the multiplayer branching campaigns will be possible, when a mission outcome decides which mission to load next. Judging by what the =DED= squad has made possible so far on their server, dynamic scenario campaign will be also doable. Our preliminary plans for the next year include improving not only the new Cooperative but also the existing Deathmatch multiplayer modes by giving the players more convenient means to socialize, offering a more informative, visual and convenient way to select and join a server. We'll be able to tell you more later when we set these plans in stone. For now, we can say that our post-2.012 changes include a ton of changes and additions already and we'll be telling you about them as they mature, in the each Dev Blog. This also means that this time the waiting for the next update will be longer than usual, so please bear with us - we're certain that your patience will be rewarded with the new neat stuff that will be in. To make this Dev Blog a bit less dry, here are some WIP Aircobra screenshots - you can already see it in the game engine. This one is going to be really interesting and we'll tell you about it in detail in our next news update. And some WIP rain effects Dev Blog 175 Hello everybody, the month of surprises continues and today we present you a new kind of them - instead of a new plane it will be a new tech. Our lead programmer and lead landscape designer were developing new stuff for a couple of months already: it will allow us to make the visual image of the sim drastically more realistic and modern looking in the next update. Their main task was increasing the rendering distance of the terrain almost four times, from 40 to 150 kilometers, and they completed it successfully. This task automatically brings several smaller ones with it in tow: increasing rendering distance of the clouds and making them more diverse, improving the air haze, the horizon, making additional, simplified landscape beyond the map borders since you can see so far now and so on. Ofcourse, one of the main objectives was to not allow significantly FPS drop appear due to this new feature, and we succeed in this. For example, today's discussion on how the new haze should look was so tense and spirited you won't believe it, with many members of the team participating - producer Jason Williams, lead programmer Sergey Vorsin, lead landscape designer Evgeny Isaev, lead physics engineer Andrey Solomykin, build manager Andrey Dineev, physics engineer Roman Kovalenko and yours truly Daniel Tuseev, of course . You can see the current result of the work on the following screenshots that were taken during daytime at 5000, 2000, 500 and 100 meters altitude. This improvement will get rid of likely the last important thing our engine lacked in comparison to our competitors, and now it looks like we're taking the lead instead. Otherwise, our graphics engine is hands down the best among the combat flight sims. But we won't stop at this, that's for sure, we'll move forward! https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/168-developer-diary/page-5#entry520948

Hello everybody, As promised earlier, this week we'll show you another Allied fighter that participated in the Battle of Kuban - Yak-7b series 36. This aircraft had an unusual story: being a one-seat fighter, it was actually converted from two-seat training plane Yak-7 by removing the rear cockpit. However, this wasn't a field modification of existing planes, Yak-7b was mass produced. The war started badly for the USSR, so it was decided to use the existing Yak-7 assembly lines to produce Yak-7b model with minimal production changes needed. Later, the upgraded Yak-7b became Yak-9, the most produced Soviet fighter of WWII era. Speaking of its weaponry, it is an up-gunned version of Yak-1: 20mm ShVAK engine cannon and two synchronized 12.7mm UBS machine guns installed on the engine cowling could be complemented by two 50kg or 100kg bombs to engage ground targets. The increased firepower is the main advantage of Yak-7b compared to Yak-1. Part 172 Today is a very simple Developer Diary. Some images of the A-20B cockpit for you. We hope you enjoy. DD 171: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/168-developer-diary/page-5#entry511051 DD 172: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/168-developer-diary/page-5#entry513976 As always, have fun reading it and enjoy the pictures :) Best regards Martin

File Name: AT-27Tucano Skins Pack File Submitter: Artiglio File Submitted: 06 January 2014 File Category: IL2 Series Game Mods Friends here is another package of liveries for the Tucano, to share with the whole community, a thank you to those who have modeled this aircraft "by Texx, Cwatson and Ton414", and a special thanks to Texx for the work done on the web. Well to tell you that good fun. http://www.mediafire.com/download/1lcr2oyjch13xy1/SkinsPack_AT-27_Tucano.rar Click here to download this file

File Name: Skins Pack Gloster Meteor Air.Corps.Ireland File Submitter: Artiglio File Submitted: 05 January 2014 File Category: IL2 Series Game Mods A small packet of skins for a small tribute to the Air. Corps.Ireland. We thank Ranwers for the mod, Texx for the template, and all of you for sharing P.S. As I have already said in many of my posts, you are free to modify, how, where, and how much you want the Skins, but as a non-profit now that I'm on the net, it is a good of the entire community Il2Sturmovik. Have Fun! http://www.mediafire.com/download/d56izyk6hjk1cet/Meteor.rar Click here to download this file

This is from 777 Studio Official Announcement Good day pilots! So, the long wait is over and we're ready to put the rumors to rest. 777 Studios partners with 1C to form 1C Game Studios (1CGS) and develop IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad We invite you to our new forum, where you will find additional information about the project and will be able to ask questions and chat with the developers. You can read the full announcement on the official website of the game at http://il2sturmovik.net. To all our ROF customers and fans - this is not the end of ROF development or new content. Please do not panic. We are still working on the details and we will inform you once we have them. Right now all current releases we promised are on schedule. On a personal note - the ROF community and your support has made this day possible. We have always wanted to make a WWII product and your support of our WWI product has afforded us this opportunity. Now you will be able to enjoy both WWI and WWII products produced by our team and new expanded team. If all goes to plan there will be much to be happy about in the coming months and years. We hope you will stick by us and continue to support our flight-sim endeavors. Onward and upward! The Entire 777 Studios team" This is from the 1C site " NEW IL-2 STURMOVIK TITLE IN DEVELOPMENT 1C Announces Partnership with 777 Studios to create 1C Game Studios MOSCOW, Russia – December 11, 2012 – Leading Eastern and Central European publisher, 1C Company, is proud to announce that it has partnered with award winning developer 777 Studios to form a joint venture and new studio named 1C Game Studios. This new studio is set to create IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad, a new sequel to the award-winning WWII combat flight simulator IL-2 Sturmovik. 1C is the owner of the best-selling IL-2 Sturmovik franchise of combat flight simulators and 777 Studios is the developer of the popular and technologically advanced WWI flight simulator Rise of Flight: The First Great Air war. "1C is proud to take the next step in flight-simulation history with 777 Studios, a company and team that has grown to be one of the best flight-simulation developers in the world and has proven that their attention to detail and product quality speaks volumes about their talent and dedication,” said Nikolay Baryshnikov, VP of 1C Company. “We look forward to bringing a new era of development and spirit of enjoyment to the combat flight-simulation community together." This venture brings two of the world’s leading combat flight-simulation franchises and development teams together under one banner to form a new, dynamic team led by 777 Studios management. Giving respect to the roots of the IL-2 Sturmovik series, the partnership will start with the development of Battle of Stalingrad which focuses on the Eastern Front air war during the titanic struggle over the industrial city of Stalingrad in 1942-43. The battle of Stalingrad was an important turning point for both the Soviet and German armies in WWII, with the air war playing an important role in the outcome. Jason Williams, President of 777 Studios, had this to say, "The 777 Studios team is very excited to be partnering with such a publisher and developer like 1C. Their passion and support for PC combat flight-simulation as well as historical warfare titles has always been a blessing to these genres and we look forward to producing an excellent product for the Sturmovik legacy and continuing to bring additional content to our existing Rise of Flight product line." This partnership is also a turning point for the combat flight simulation genre that will streamline development of flight-simulation products and allow collaboration between former competitors. The outcome should be increased opportunities for combat flight simulation fans to enjoy their passion while also increasing the likelihood of success in the marketplace. Both 1C and 777 Studios see the flight-simulation genre as an important one for PC gaming with a dedicated fan-base that is eager to support interesting and immersive products. 1C Company is located in Moscow with offices throughout Europe and 777 Studios is headquartered in Southern California with development teams in Russia and Ukraine. Battle of Stalingrad will include both single-player and multi-player scenarios for virtual pilots to enjoy as well as brand new gameplay modes. Initial client release is slated for early 2014 with add-on content and additional features and theatres to follow. IL-2 Sturmovik is an award winning WWII flight-simulator video game franchise and includes such bestselling titles as IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, Pacific Fighters, 1946 and Cliffs of Dover. IL-2 Sturmovik titles feature intense aerial combat and dozens of historically accurate warplanes and missions. Named in honor of the famous Soviet Ilyushin IL-2 ground-attack fighter, the Sturmovik series features all major theatres in WWII, from the freezing eastern front to carrier combat in the vast pacific theatre. The IL-2 Sturmovik series of titles is widely regarded as the standard by which all other combat flight-simulators are measured and remains a top seller worldwide. About 1C Company 1C Company specializes in distribution, publishing and development of business, entertainment and educational software. Founded in 1991, 1C has become the largest publisher and distributor of computer and video games in Eastern and Central Europe. 1C Company is widely acknowledged as a game developer and has several internal studios. Internal development of 1C includes IL-2 Sturmovik series and Theatre of War series. 1C Company works as a publisher and producer with over 30 independent development studios and has produced over 100 projects for PC and consoles including titles like Rig'n'Roll, Space Rangers, Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, Faces of War, Men of War series, Perimeter, Fantasy Wars, Death to Spies, King’s Bounty Series . In 2012 1C Company launched its iOS apps series for iPhone &iPad. For more information on 1C please go to our website at www.1cpublishing.com. IL-2 Sturmovik IL-2 Sturmovik is an award winning WWII flight-simulator video game franchise and includes such bestselling titles as IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, Pacific Fighters, 1946 and Cliffs of Dover. IL-2 Sturmovik titles feature intense aerial combat and dozens of historically accurate warplanes and missions. Named in honor of the famous Soviet Ilyushin IL-2 ground-attack fighter, the Sturmovik series features all major theatres in WWII, from the freezing eastern front to carrier combat in the vast pacific theatre. The IL-2 Sturmovik series of titles is widely regarded as the standard by which all other combat flight-simulators are measured and remains a top seller worldwide. About 777 Studios Founded in 2007, 777 Studios specializes in the development and publishing of games and simulation products for the PC platform. 777 Studios is the North American publisher of Tourismo Carretera and Wings of Prey and in 2009 published Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War. In 2010, 777 Studios assumed the continued development of Rise of Flight and released Rise of Flight: Iron Cross Edition worldwide. For information about 777 Studios please visit www.777studios.net. Rise of Flight Rise of Flight is an award winning combat flight-simulation title for the PC. Built on the Digital Nature engine it brings the deadly dogfights of WWI to life and features realistic and advanced flight, damage and physics modeling systems. State of the art graphics and terrain scenery puts you over the Western Front of WWI andan in-depth, immersive Career mode allows players to discover their inner fighter pilot as member of a several famous squadrons. Rise of Flight features over 30 vintage warplanes to fly and fight against and includes adjustable settings to satisfy novice and expert pilot alike. For more information about Rise of Flight please visit: www.riseofflight.com."