V.1.025 News

[Trout]

Dear Pilots,

On May 7th it will be the 3rd anniversary of the initial release of Rise of Flight onto the market. From one perspective this is a long time on the market for a modern game, but on the other hand it is not a very long period for flight-simulator projects. As this milestone approaches, we remember some of the more difficult challenges of ROF development and some the funnier moments in the past three years, but today's post is dedicated to another special and interesting development - a surprise that we have prepared for you.

Last May we released the popular field modifications for ROF aircraft and from the first day after release we began to receive requests and recommendations for other modifications such as different weapon configurations for various ROF airplanes. As you know, the First World War was a period experimentation and testing of new engineering solutions for air combat. They were expressed in a variety of inventions and many were implemented based on small discoveries made at the frontline airfields. Many of these ideas had a large effect on future combat aviation. As the headline says above, we will now introduce to you some talented ideas aimed at increasing the firepower of WWI aircraft.

As is the case with the field modifications, we have followed the strict guidelines of archival documents which we have been able to discover, trying as best we can to be historically accurate within the limits of our engine. It was a large amount of study, which encompassed several months of hard work. As a result, we can now introduce you an interesting set of weapon modifications which can be mounted on up to 19 different aircraft, among which you'll see:

20mm Becker Autogun, installed on such planes like Albatros, DFW C.V and Gotha

4 additional machine guns mounted on Sopwith Dolphin (2x wing mounted, 2x angled in cockpit)

57mm Davis Gun for HP 0/400

Le Prieur rockets for various planes

…and several other weapon options which you will learn about in the ROF Store.

Thanks to the preparation work done on these weapon modifications, the reloading of upper wing guns will now be more realistic and you can finally angle them upward for sneaky attacks from below. To accompany these new abilities there will be new motion animations for machine guns on the rail etc. We know these were long requested features and we remember all such requests, but some of them were not possible to do until now. Finally, since these are weapons that can have a big affect on gameplay, weapon mods will be a server-side option in Multiplayer. They can either be all On or all Off. Sorry, we cannot pick and choose which ones to allow or disallow. All of these weapon modifications and features will be available beginning in version 1.026, which is scheduled for release in late May - early June. To help get ready for this new and interesting development, you can now pre-order Weapon Mods in the ROF store. Of course, such support helps fuel continued ROF development.

Now back to our current development tasks, namely to version 1.025. Tests of version 1.025 has begun, which you'll see very soon. We plan to release it the first week of May. This version will see the release of the Airco DH.4 along with various bug fixes and other improvements. We will include more information about 1.025 and the DH.4 in our next blog post, but for now I can only say that this plane has a top speed of 200 km / h and should prove to be an effective, useful weapon. It will deserve your attention in combat!

We wish you a healthy return from all your flights and victories in ROF as we continue working on new updates!