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Hey everybody! We hope you are hanging in there and staying healthy! While we're stuck inside our homes trying not to get sick I thought you'd enjoy some footage of our improved airframe damage model in action. These clips show how our wings are much stronger than before and how our improved damage calculations cause a myriad of failures that can bring down a plane, or in some cases, maybe allow you to limp home. Please note that the engine damage was turned off for this video as we are currently concerned with the airframe and how it behaves. Remember just because a plane takes a physical beating, doesn't mean all the systems are functioning. A knocked out plane may keep flying for a little while, but it is likely not going to make it home or stay controllable. My point is don't get too hung up on some of these planes surviving multiple HE hits. One good placed burst and your day is likely ruined, but your wings should not fold like a bad poker hand. Larger planes and historically tougher planes now have a better personality to match their reputation. I pieced this video together in a hurry, so the commentary may not be the best and some of my American humor may get lost in translation. I hope you enjoy this little distraction during this crazy time. Our airframe damage improvements will be in the next update before the end of March. My gunnery stinks I know. All AI is basically on Novice so I can actually catch them and hit them. These were just simple furball missions. Try to have an enjoyable weekend everyone! And remember our Promo Codes are still good!! Jason P.S. I have been asked what I filmed this on. Intel i7 7200K 4.2ghz, 64Gb RAM, SSD, 20280Ti, 4K res on Asus 43" G-Sync monitor (120hz Refresh / 144hz OC). Ultra Graphics maxed. Average FPS 90-120. Captured with DXtory app at 60fps at 50% size which is 1080p.

Hi, pilots! And hi gasoline cowboys! Today I will tell you about changes in the new damage model (DM), which we are preparing for release in the near future. Daniel already mentioned it briefly in previous diaries, and now it is time to talk about the new DM in more details. Well, how many lances have broken in talks about broken wings in our community? That guns are “not damaging”, that the Pe-2 is “rock”, tails of Messers are “cut-glass”, the P-47 is "way too weak" and falls apart after a few hits, and many many other opinions, claims and expectations. To be honest, we ourselves have long wanted to double-check the DM of all aircraft and put things in order there, bringing them all to a common concept. As you remember, we already went into this river a couple of times when we changed the DM settings and tried to find a “middle ground” solution with strength and vulnerability. However, it was obvious for us that all these accumulated problems could be solved only systemically, and this would require a lot of time. Finally, this time has come. Firstly, from the very beginning we eliminated several fundamental limitations of the DM-core, which prevented us from moving on. This immediately “untied” our hands and allowed us to simulate combat damage to the aircraft structure much more flexibly. After that, a lot of research was conducted and several methods for calculating the damage of airframe elements from various types of ammunition were tried. The goal of this research was set quite ambitious (however, this is not the first time for us). We wanted to go away as far as possible from using the “game” settings of the DM, and use as many parameters and characteristics of the airframe from real life as possible. This work is not yet completed and right now the new DM is undergoing comprehensive testing (big thanks to our beta testers, and please take more ammo in the hangar!). Nevertheless now it’s becoming clear that the result of this whole work is exactly this one we really hoped for! The main news is that our new damage model now uses data taken from blueprints and technical documentation. Such as: the number of structural elements of one or another part of the airframe, their material and geometric dimensions. An engineer who sets up the DM no longer needs to invent anything and rely on dubious empirical data. Now everything is extremely concrete and objective: what figures from documents you put in the model, such resistance to combat damage you get. Our engineering team carefully collected all this data for all 59 aircraft in the simulator. This is a lot of work, and it took a lot of effort and time. But the result was worth it: now all the planes in the Great Battles have such a balance of vulnerability that they, with a very high probability, had in real life. In the new DM of the airframe, various types of ammunition “work” now in very different ways. Previously, their action differed in the settings of the ammunition itself. Now, the difference in calculation methods, which take into account the principle of causing structural damage in more detail, has been added. For example, armor-piercing bullets and shells make relatively small external damages on the skin commensurate with their caliber. They do not cause “large-scale” damage to the structure frame anymore, but they do hits like a point strike, hitting through a wing spar for example, or breaking a hinge of elevator or aileron. A broken spar, of course, loses its strength, that makes the wing more weak and leads to break it under the less G-load (this is not new in our DM, by the way). But now, using armor-piercing shells to make several damages of the spar in the same area, you need to hit it many times, depending on the spar dimensions and the ammo caliber. In the same way, in order to turn the skin into “rags” or to tear off the landing gear wheel, you need to shoot a rather long time to the particular part of the plane. In other words, firing armor-piercing shells will not be as effective against the airframe as before. The chance to get into the structure frame and break it is not great, and the skin is not particularly affected. Although, with enough desire and having the presence of a sufficient amount of ammunition, you can "cut" the airplanes apart with armor-piercing projectiles if their weight of fire converges and causes enough damage. Explosive bullets and high-explosive fragmentation shells are quite another matter. Only a few hits are enough (depending on the model of the projectile, its caliber, the amount of explosive) to make large holes in that part of the plane where you hit, and everything around it was cut with fragments. Managing such an aircraft will become quite difficult. It will noticeably lose its performances and become not a serious opponent in the battle. The structural frame will also receive “zonal” damage, mainly due to high-explosive impact. So now the effectiveness of this type of weapon against the airframe will be significantly higher than the effectiveness of armor-piercing shells and bullets. The skin will also get damages much faster than the structural frame. Thus, situations when wings or control surfaces fall off an airplane in a battle will arise much less often. To break the rear part of the fuselage by shooting will become very hard. Nevertheless, anything is possible. In addition, in the new DM, we eliminated the problem of inadequate damage to the airframe when firing at those parts of the aircraft that do not contain structural elements. For example, firing at an engine of a twin-engine aircraft or at its propeller spinner can no longer break the aircraft wing. Also, due to the improvement of the DM-core, the old problem of “extra” damages the airframe when the same projectile hit several non-structural collision-zones of this particular part of the airplane was eliminated. A HE shell also will no longer inflict damage on the structural elements of the airframe with its initial kinetic energy of the intact shell, we fixed it. The new damage model now correctly takes into account the type of material of the structural frame or skin. The same bullets and shells will cause different damage to duralumin, wood, or steel structural elements, making “virtual” holes of various sizes in them. It is important to mention that this work is about the calculations of damages, and the visualisation of the DM (textures and 3D-model) has remained unchanged. As you know, all our planes have three fixed levels of visualization of external damage for each part of the airframe. There are “light” damage (bullet holes and small holes from shells), “medium” damage (larger holes) and “heavy” damage (big holes on the airplane). Each of these three levels, switched in sequence. They have been painted by our artists as well as our community enthusiasts with attention to detail for each aircraft. The new calculations in the DM will now switch these three levels of visual damage, taking into account all the features of the action of various types of ammunition and the damage they cause to the skin, which I mentioned above. Thus there is some improvement of DM visualisation too. Because of this new DM fine-tuning the variety of our existing damage textures has improved. They were not properly being expressed in the past. Because of some bugs and errors, parts of the airframe would fly off or fail and a level of damage it should have shown prior to that was skipped or rarely seen. Moreover, there is another improvement of DM visualisation. The visual effects of hitting the plane (sparks, wood chips, etc.), as well as sound effects, will now depend on the part of the plane in which the projectile hit. Even when shooting at the same part, for example, on a landing gear wheel, one can see different effects of hits - sparks from the wheel’s disk (if the disk is metal) or a cloud of “debris” and “dust” from the tire. Also our online players, I think, will be pleased with the news that we found and fixed a bug of no sounds of hitting an airplane in multiplayer (dear God we hope, we hate this problem!). For sure, making such a large-scale work to improve the DM of an airframe, it was reasonable to take a look at the other areas of the DM. Firstly, we slightly changed the settings of the combat damages of an engine from various projectiles. This was only a preliminary step, and I think that in the near future we will conduct an equally thorough review of the DM for engines and various aircraft systems: control systems, fuel systems, onboard weapons, etc. Secondly, we rechecked the data for all types of bullets, shells, missiles and bombs in the game, such as armor penetration characteristics, high-explosive and fragmentation characteristics. Many tests were carried out and many inaccuracies and bugs found were corrected. As well as significantly optimized performance algorithms of DM. The results of this work will affect not only aircraft, but also all other game objects: ground vehicles (including detailed tanks), ships, buildings. The common model of high-explosive ammo was substantially improved. The penetrating explosion (inside the object) has become much more effective than the external one. A model of a "random" fragment for distant explosions was created, which takes into account the distance from the epicenter, the dimension of the target, and of course the type of ammunition. As I wrote above, at the moment the new damage model is undergoing final testing and debugging of core-settings. We are looking forward to completing this work in a couple weeks. And we really hope that the result will delight you and bring you many new positive emotions from playing the "Great Battles". This is invariably our top priority. At the end I'd like to accompany this boring long-read text with some interesting pictures. Here are the first WIP screenshots of the first Battle of Normandy aircraft - P-47D-22 Razorback. It's a big deal since this is the first time we show you something from this newest project: Yours sincerely, Andrey “Petrovich” Solomykin – Lead Engineer

Hello everybody, It's February already and we continue to improve the project as a whole. In the next update, we plan to significantly improve the airframe damage calculations and the explosive and fragmentation damage calculations for all objects in the sim in general. More AI improvements are in the pipeline too - for instance, further improvements for the vertical maneuvering in a dogfight. We have found and fixed another possible culprit for the missing aircraft hit sounds in multiplayer. There are more other corrections and fixes being worked on simultaneously with the full-scale work on Normandy theater that is already underway. And of course, we don't forget about the tank project. While Digital Forms studio creates the assault gun and the tank destroyer that are left, we added a long-requested feature - binoculars for the tank commanders. Other smaller, but nonetheless important improvements are on the way too. Take a look at the binoculars on these screenshots:

Hello Dear Friends! As you know, to work well one needs to have a good rest. While the summer season continues, and our colleagues go on vacation, I will tell you how important it is for a military pilot to be able to save and properly spend his strength during combat. Probably you have already realized that in today's diary I want to talk about our new pilot physiology modeling, which we are preparing for the release in the next update. Our Beta testers will receive this model for tests today. About Pilot Physiology The focus of the new physiology model is, above all, on a more realistic imitation of a person's tolerance to high G-load. Although this is not the only change in the pilot physiology, you will most likely notice it first, so let's talk about it in more detail. As you know, we all are different, and each of us has different stamina, physical strength, and ability to resist negative environmental factors. Therefore, the ability of a particular pilot to withstand high G-load is, of course, purely individual, and depends on a good number of factors: age, state of health, fitness, whether a pilot slept well the night before, how much he ate and how long ago, and even what his emotional state is. Of course, we cannot collect all this information about you, and take all these factors into account in such detail; such a model would be excessively complex, although it would probably allow the player’s best immersion into virtual reality. Nevertheless, we found that the most reasonable approach would be to choose a certain averaged model of an average pilot physiology. By "average pilot" we mean a trained pilot in good physical condition, who often performs aerobatics. A large number of different medical studies with the collected statistics of experiments with pilots and volunteers come to our aid. Based on them it is possible to establish a “middle way” of the typical human tolerance to high G-load. The first thing that all researchers pay attention to is the fact that the amount of G, both positive (when a pilot is “pressed” into his seat) and negative (when a pilot is “pulled away” from his seat and “hangs on the belts”) depends primarily on the duration of the G-load and on the rate the G-load was applied. For example, at a positive +6G the “average” pilot loses consciousness within the first 5-8 seconds, but the same pilot quite successfully sustains +5G for about 40 seconds, if the rate of G-load application was less than 1G/sec. However, if you create the same +5G in just 1-2 seconds, then loss of consciousness will occur in 5-7 seconds. In aviation medicine, this phenomenon is explained by the “hemodynamics” of the cardiovascular system. The body needs some time to mobilize and begin to effectively counteract overload. This is illustrated in the chart from the article written by Anne M. Stoll, “Human tolerance to positive G as determined by the physiological end points” published in The Journal of aviation medicine in 1956: In our new model of human physiology, all these factors are now taken into account. If a high G-load is applied within 1-2 seconds, the negative consequences (visual and hearing disorders) do not appear immediately, but rather with a 2-3 seconds delay, then a quick “crisis” follows, and then, after a few seconds, the body mobilizes and its ability to tolerate G-loads becomes better. This “crisis” can be avoided, or at least reduced, if you pilot more smoothly and create G-load gradually and slowly. Here is another graph that shows how long an average pilot is able to withstand positive and negative G until he loses his consciousness. The blue line is a summary of data we collected as a result of our various medical studies analysis. Red dots are the results our new model shows: As you can see, pilots tolerate the positive g-loads much better than the negative ones. In addition, now we also take the pilot’s fatigue factor into account, based on the data mentioned above. This means that every pilot’s maneuver performed with a large g-load is no longer in vain, and the more actively a pilot maneuvers, the worse he and his crew will suffer further g-loads. If the pilot is already pretty worn out by maneuvering combat, be aware that a new opponent who entered the battle will have a significant advantage, and maybe you should get out of the dogfight and catch your breath. This may take you a few minutes. Another important part of this work is the reconfiguration of the visual effects of visual impairment. We brought it into a full compliance with the sequence described in the scientific literature. First, under the influence of positive g-load, a pilot begins to lose color perception (a so-called “grayout”). Then his peripheral vision field (or a “tunnel vision”) narrows, until it becomes completely dark in the eyes (a so-called “blackout”). The visual impairment is also accompanied by hearing loss. On a negative g-load, the effect of “tunnel vision” and loss of color perception do not happen, because, unlike a positive overload, there is no oxygen starvation of the optic nerve. But on the other hand, the pilot feels a rush of blood to his head, which is expressed in the appearance of a noticeable red tint of vision (a so-called “redout”), and the sharpness of vision also deteriorates. I have mentioned a “loss of consciousness” several times already. Yes, now we are simulating this state, too. A pilot can lose consciousness at large positive or negative g-loads if the threshold of their physiological tolerance is exceeded (taking into account the duration of g-loads, the pace of their creation and accumulated fatigue). A harbinger of the loss of consciousness at the positive g-load is a blackout, although even having completely lost his eyesight, the pilot is still able to control his aircraft for some time. At the negative g-load loss of consciousness occurs more unexpectedly, and the only way to determine it in time is by a sharp deterioration in visual acuity. Studies have established that, depending on a number of factors, a usual period of a G-lock can be as long as 10 to 15 seconds, and during this time the aircraft will remain uncontrollable. Keep in mind that each subsequent loss of consciousness will cost you even greater loss of time and energy. WWII fighter pilots were very human, not Superman and they did experience pretty high G-loads even in piston planes. Another feature of this model is an anti-g suit a pilot has. On average, according to various studies, the anti-g suit increases the physiological tolerance threshold to positive g-load by 1.5 - 2G, so pilots with the anti-g suits will certainly get a significant advantage in dogfight. The anti-g suit does not affect tolerance to a negative g-load. In conclusion, I would like to mention that we also limited the pilot’s ability to bail out at the airspeed of more than 400 km/h, or under the influence of positive g-load of more than +3G (which is the physiological limit in terms of the ability of a person to get out of the seat). These numbers refer to a healthy pilot; in case of injury getting out of the cockpit will be even more difficult for a crew. The effect of hypoxia model on g-load tolerance model has also been refined and will take air pressure into account more correctly. Preparing for the release of a new physiology model, we understand that for some players it incomprehensible and not obvious at first. Therefore, we left you the opportunity to choose a simplified physiology model in the realism settings, which will work quite similar to the current model, and will not take into account the pilot’s fatigue, the hemodynamics of his cardiovascular system, or limit the pilot’s endurance according to the duration of g-loads or the pace of their creation. Also, in a simplified model your crew will not be able to lose consciousness. At the same time, this simple model will use the new reconfigured effects of visual and hearing disorders, and the magnitude of the g-load at which these disorders occur will be brought into line with the updated data from the new model. We really hope that the new model of the pilot’s physiology will make the gameplay more interesting, and significantly change the tactics of dogfight. So, the players will now have to take care of the physical condition of the pilot and be more careful about active maneuvering, and this will take us one step closer to the reality of air combat. Andrey “Petrovich” Solomykin – Lead Engineer News from Jason Bodenplatte Coming Along Nicely! We continue to work on the BOBP map and its large list of airfields and urban areas which is something rather new for us. This map has been a challenge like never before and we have it functioning in Beta, but it has a little way to go still. However, our last three Allied planes are coming along nicely. Check out this beautiful formation of vintage American air power and a bonus shot of the Tempest in flight. The Tempest continues to be tweaked and improved after the first round of Beta testing and the P-38 is also in Beta with small tweaking necessary. The P-51D will also be coming to Beta soon. All three aircraft are quite complex. The different design philosophies of each nation have really become evident as we make more and more planes. We must remind everyone that these planes are still a Work-In-Progress so some of these details in these images may change. Saddle Up Cowboy! Our P-51D-15 “Pony” is nearing the Beta stage as we finish the cockpit and external model. Here are the first pics of the P-51D cockpit. Our model team has done another awesome job! Personal Images in Cockpits Another popular request has been the ability to place a personal picture in the cockpit of your plane. We have now added this capability. New View Distance for Airplanes Yes, by popular request, we have increased the visibility of distant airplanes. This has been a difficult technical challenge, but we think Sturmovik pilots will appreciate this new reality. Can you spot the far-off planes? We’re still tweaking the feature, but it’s in testing. Next Collector Planes in Pre-Production And last but not least, we have begun preliminary work on a couple cool Collector Planes. We aren’t announcing them quite yet, but they will available for pre-order later this year and then in your hangar next year. Sorry, no hints quite yet! You can discuss the news in this thread

225 Dear friends, The Summer is in full swing and we're working on finishing the Bodenplatte project. P-51D, P-38J, B-25 and Tempest 3D models are nearing completion, their textures are being made right now. Today we can show you the cockpit of Hawker Tempest Mk.V: As we announced before, all Bodenplatte planes will have 4K external textures. Here are Bf 109 G-14 shots that show the texturing made by Martin =ICDP= Catney: In addition to the models, we're working on the important features like more detailed pilot's physiology effects. Fatigue caused by a high G stress, (in)ability to bail out and other such things. After that, we'll get to repairing, refueling and refitting the aircraft on the ground. At the moment we're moving to a newer FMOD version and our sound designer converts all the sounds to the newer sound engine. The main result of this work should be a fix of the disappearing sounds issue after playing for a while that was caused by having too many of them. We also started the research on making the aircraft and ships visible from several times farther distances. This task is very complex since it involves many various parts of the project - we can't make it at the cost of a significant performance loss in the graphics and network subsystems. The work on the Bodenplatte map is nearing completion and we'll be able to show you the screenshots showing the result of this tremendous work soon. This also means we started the work on the Career mode for it that will be called Battle of Rheinland. Starting on September 17th, 1944 and ending on April 1st, 1945, it will include several new mission types characteristic for this timeframe on the Western front. All the required information - squadron histories and emblems, pilot biographies, awards, news, etc. - was accumulated with the help from our community members and we're very grateful to those who participated in this task. Another important thing we must tell you is that American, British and German infantrymen models for Bodenplatte project are finished - they will man the guns, drive the vehicles and appear as airfield personnel. And here's the model of the Royal Air Force pilot for Summer of 1944: Now let's talk about other our projects. For Tank Crew, the next update will bring Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G that has autonomous electric turret turn mechanism for instance. And in September we plan to release the two scenario campaigns for Tank Crew - Breaking Point and Last Chance, telling about the fighting near Prokhorovka. Players will be able to participate in the battle from both sides. Today we can show you the title art for these campaigns that were created using in-game tank models and the screenshots of Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G in the sim. The next update is planned to include two - actually four - new aircraft for Flying Circus - Halberstadt CL.II, Halberstadt CL.IIau, Bristol Fighter F2 Falcon 2, Bristol Fighter F2 Falcon 3. After that, to complete this project we'll have to release Amiens-Arras-Lille map that will come with improved visual models for ground vehicles. Here are the screenshots of the coming planes: You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear friends, One week has passed since our previous Dev Diary and we have something new to show you once again. The rate of development is truly fantastic. Today we won't have so much text but will compensate it with WIP screenshots of two 'stars' of our Bodenplatte project. The first star of today's Blog is the British fighter Hawker Tempest Mk.V series 2. These planes played a significant role in the events of January 1st, 1945 - the units managed to take off in time when Luftwaffe attacked the Allied airfields during Bodenplatte operation. Tempests were equipped with some serious firepower - four 20mm Hispano guns - and achieved good speeds at lower altitudes, which was handy for a dogfight near the ground. The second aircraft we want to show you today is USAAF North American P-51D-15 Mustang, the most famous American fighter of WWII that was widely used in different theatres of war. To a degree, its exceptional range and altitude capabilities made the deep bombing raids over Germany possible. Mustangs had good overall maneuverability and climb rate, while their six .50 cal M2 Browning machineguns allowed them to engage any air targets. A Mustang could also carry bombs and rockets, making it a fighter/bomber. It should be noted that while many Mustangs still exist around the world, including airworthy ones, most of them are combinations of different modifications, including post-WWII ones. Therefore we're spending a lot of time researching tech schematics, spare parts catalogs, and similar documents to make sure the final result will be as authentic as possible. And to finish today's blog, here are WIP screenshots of the next Flying Circus plane - Fokker D.VIIF. This Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte late WWI fighter has been equipped with a great engine for its time, BMW D.IIIa, that gave it an advantage over Allied fighters at high altitudes. Coupled with good maneuverability, it made Fokker D.VIIF a very dangerous adversary. You can discuss the news in this thread