Crash

OK with me

Yes

Can they do this in DCS yet?

The summer is ending, just like our Battle of Normandy release preparations. Two variations of the Normandy and Southern England map (before and after the invasion) are ready, Career mode is ready, Quick Missions and Advanced Quick Missions are ready - today we're starting the release candidate testing. This time we want to spend more time and resources on the testing and debugging. The beta-testing of the 5.001 update is going for two weeks already and we plan to test the release candidate for two more at least. There's a reason for that - it will include not only the Battle of Normandy, but a number of global improvements as well. The main global change is the long promised revision of the aircraft Damage Model. This time we have attempted to make more fundamental changes and not just "adjust the airframe durability to meet player expectations", but reverse-engineer the system in search of potential issues in many of its parts. During this process we have found a number of calculation passes which could be improved or tuned. These changes are already in the beta and beta-testers have responded that the damage received by aircraft in various combat situations looks significantly more adequate and realistic. We understand that this is a touchy subject, so the final changes will be explained in detail in the release notes of the 5.001 update. Speaking of the finishing of the new map and Career mode, we want to say that for each new project we have set more and more ambitious goals for ourselves, even if it wasn't clear in the beginning how it would work out and what the final answer to these challenges would be. Once again, many parameters have surpassed their previous records in the series. For instance, the length of the coastline is 990 km on the French coast and 1060 km on the English coast. 490 major cities and towns, not counting the minor ones, were recreated while keeping in mind their overall historical boundaries and main layout features. 100 airfields are waiting for your flight - and not one of them is 'default' or cloned, they all have historical layouts reconstructed using documents and air photos. Moreover, a new set of the airfield surface types was created: 1. Grass 2. CON (Concrete) 3. WC (Wood Chippings) - concrete covered by wood chippings and tar 4. TAR (Tarmac) - asphalt 5. ETH (Compressed Earth) 6. PBS (Prefabricated Bituminous Surface) - canvas saturated with tar 7. ST (Sommerfeld Track) - steel wire mesh reinforced with steel bars 8. SMT (Square-Mesh Track) - square mesh 9. PSP (Pierced Steel Planking) - stamped steel plates. As we have mentioned, there are two map variations created - before and after the invasion. Pre-invasion map lacks newly constructed airfields and constructions erected after D-Day on the Normandy shore. Career mode development required detailed information on symbols, tour of duty, bases, armament and assigned tasks for 285 squadrons acting in this project - players can join 102 of them and others are populated by AI pilots. This is another record for the Great Battles series. 9 new mission types were designed for the Normandy Career concentrating on the D-Day events and V-1 intercepts. Pilot's Career in the Battle of Normandy timeframe contains 5 phases and 17 front line states that change along the progression of time. As always, all the scenarios generated in the Career mode are unique even if you fly to the same target again - the generated combat situation will be different, while the weather will correspond to the real weather on that day. All in all, we're hoping that Battle of Normandy will be the most significant release in the IL-2 Great Battles series and all of you who have supported us all these years will enjoy another virtual, but to a great extent historically accurate reconstruction of a major air battle, that was created with love and respect to our common history.

We do what we can

Vote here https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/79905-tank-crew-wanted-improvements/ https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/79904-tank-crew-list-of-wanted-fixes/

Thanks Sid, but I cant see that when I have my goggles on

I appear to have bought the Mossie so maybe I will give this a go. Dont hold your breath!

Did Steve Miller die? I remember having computer issues. I will be there anyway

Just set up a JETS profile and it works very well. Nice one Jason.

Thanks Colin

Dear Pilots and Tankers! Today’s DD gives you a glimpse of the gorgeous scenes that are possible with the new Normandy map which is rapidly nearing completion and we give you a sneak peak at the progress on the Churchill Mk.IV exterior and interior. Below are some recent screens I’ve taken with each of the aircraft built specifically for Battle of Normandy including the AI piloted B-26. Of course, all of these planes can be flown alongside your own or against in any title in the series. This really is our most detailed and complex map we’ve ever made and pushes our current map technology to its limit. It will provide countless hours of great missions and historical re-enactments of this pivotal battle and theater of the war. We think you’ll like it. Below are some very WIP images of the Churchill Mk.IV tank coming to Great Battles. As you can see the interior is NOT textured completely, but you can tell that our friends at DigitalForms have once again done an amazing modeling job! It’s another very busy summer for us. Stay tuned!

Unfortunately wifey is using the car on the friday so I wont be able to make it. Defo next year!

Good for me

Thanks FT

Dear Pilots and Tankers! The IL-2 Sturmovik team is nearing the finish line of our Battle of Normandy development cycle. However, after some deliberation, we decided not to make you wait any longer than necessary for the next update and to prepare an interim release for you containing what is already ready. So, today we bring you the final aircraft in the BON hangar – the Me 410 A-1 ‘Hornisse’ and our new Custom Input Profile feature! Our Me 410 was built from scratch and became a very challenging model for us to build. Its cockpit and rear facing gunner station is very unique and it took several modelers to finish it. There were many engineering challenges and complex equipment to model. It can appear to the user as an example of clever WWII German engineering or unnecessarily complex WWII German engineering long after the war had shifted against the Luftwaffe. Whatever way it strikes you, our 410 is the most highly detailed model of its kind in any combat flight simulator to date. Our very special team has built a very special bird. It comes loaded with many armament options to create several different sub-variants that you can try in virtual combat. Enjoy! In addition to the new aircraft, we have prepared for you a feature that you have been asking us to make for a long time – Custom Input Profiles and Pitch Response Profiles that can be assigned to individual aircraft. We created a video about this new feature for you earlier, but we recommend that you review it again so you can understand how it works. It’s quite simple, but powerful. Like all other features of Il-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles, this new feature will be available to owners of all titles in the series – Normandy, Stalingrad, Moscow, Kuban, Bodenplatte, Flying Circus I/II and Tank Crew. The final Normandy release event will take place in the coming weeks as we put the finishing touches on the Normandy map and gameplay modes such as the Pilot Career, QMB and AQMG. We also need to finish our prep work for the V-1 “Buzz Bomb”. At that point we will release it here in the IL-2 Official Webstore and on Steam and remember that shortly thereafter the price will increase to its normal full price. If you haven’t already jumped in, now is a super great time to do so!!! As always, in addition to the main changes, we have made a number of improvements and fixes aimed at improving the quality of your simulation experience. We hope you enjoy. Main Features 1. The German Me 410 twin-engine two-seat fighter-bomber is now available for all players who have pre-ordered Battle of Normandy; 2. You can now create various Input Profiles and assign them to different planes and tanks; 3. You can now create pitch axis response profiles and assign them to different aircraft; 4. New gunners model (as well as navigator in the A-20 and radio operator in the C-47) for American A-20, B-25, and C-47 aircraft crews added; 5. New bridge destruction visual effects added; Armament Changes 6. Machine guns and automatic cannons on aircraft and player controllable tanks can now misfire when overheated (including the turret guns); 7. If a loader is killed in a player controllable tank, the player has to press the reloading key after each shot to reload the gun; 8. The bug that caused too frequent misfires of WWI aircraft weapons has been fixed; 9. MG81 gun barrel overheat value has been corrected (it overheated too fast); 10. Restored the techno-chat message about machine gun overheating in aircraft and tank turrets; 11. The issue where an AP shell could be stopped by one 100mm plate but couldn't be stopped by 50mm+50mm double plates was fixed. Spaced armor plates with total thickness similar to one thick plate now stop AP rounds better than one plate; 12. An explosion of an APHE projectile inside a detailed tank would correctly damage nearby equipment or crew members (previously it could result in no damage in some cases); 13. The issue of large bombs damaging only a small part of a dense scene (many objects) has been minimized; Arado 234 Changes 14. The destructive overload value listed in the Ar 234 aircraft datasheet has been corrected; 15. The effect of Ar 234 flight stability loss at overcritical Mach numbers has been reduced; 16. Ar 234 cockpit reflections became more pronounced; AI changes 17. AI controlled planes which rotated on the ground because of damaged landing gear are now removed from the simulation after some time (previously such planes could rotate infinitely during takeoff or landing and thus occupy the runway); 18. AI terrain recognition algorithm has been improved when flying in groups (previously its shortcomings could cause them to crash when flying over a terrain with big altitude differences, like over mountains on the Kuban map); 19. AI aircraft turret gunners now lean to the machine gun and prepare to fire on the target in advance, before it enters the fire zone; 20. AI pilots differentiate by altitude while landing on a same airfield; 21. Due to a bug in the target selection the AI tank gunners operating the guns with a limited fire sector did not fire when they were assigned targets outside their fire sector - this shouldn’t happen again; Mission Editor Changes 22. It is possible to edit countries and coalitions for multiple locations of the same type; 23. The ability to place outgoing target links from MCU:Complex Trigger has been removed (the necessary links were and still are set only through Events in the Advanced Properties of the Trigger itself, the outgoing target link did not work); 24. Object links for Land and Take Off commands can be set only for aircraft; 25. The performance when copying/pasting objects in large missions has been improved; 26. New Ungroup Recursive command was added for a group of objects, allowing to ungroup all subgroups in it; 27. The durability of Building, Block, Bridge, and Airfield object types can be reset to default values using the Reset Durability button. There is also a new command in the Tools menu with the self-explanatory name Reset All Durability; Multiplayer Changes 28. When connecting to a Dogfight server, airfields in the lobby appear faster; 29. Mission script commands in Cooperative game mode work for groups of objects with players; Other Changes 30. Oyster_KAI has improved cockpit detail of P-51B, Mosquito, Bf-110E2/G, Ju-88A4/C6 and He-111H6/H16; 31. The (fictional) photographers' names appear under photos in newspapers in Career mode; 32. Landscape parts shouldn’t disappear from view on wide-angle VR HMDs anymore; 33. Pause button during recorded track playback works correctly; 34. Me 410 has been added to the Rhineland pilot career mode to II./KG 51 (joinable by player).

Dear Pilots, Today’s Developer Diary is a video that shows the Me 410 in action! We’re very proud of this aircraft because it is the most detailed and comprehensive modeling of a 410 ever in a combat flight simulator. It took several team members to complete it and lots of testing from the Beta testers to get it to its final form, but here is a sneak peak of the upcoming ‘Hornisse’ in action. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we worked to ready the 410 for release. And special thanks to our new video maker Javier for making this video. We continue to finish the Normandy map, which is the most complex map we have ever made, and work continues on our other Collector Planes and Tanks as planned. We hope to have more images to show you soon on those. The FC2 map continues to be worked on as well.

If only we had a Dogz time

As HP arent much help I tried my old headset this afternoon (just swapped the cable from the new set onto the old headset) and............. IT WORKED. I havnt tried it in game but the windowsVR house was there and I could look around fine.

Steve Miller dropped bombs on a AAA gun,damaged a Fw190 (I didnt see it go down) and shot at several others before running away.

Due to John Mayers recent demise Steve Miller reporting in.

Dear Pilots and Tankers! As the team continues to work on finishing the ME 410 and work out the kinks in the Normandy map, here are a few pics showing progress on a some hotly awaited Collector content – the Siemens-Schuckert D.IV and the Stug III Ausf. G. Both are progressing nicely as they are built by Ugra Media and DigitalForms respectively. We look forward to releasing them to you as they will both make excellent additions to Flying Circus and Tank Crew. Siemens-Schuckert D.IV Stug III Ausf. G Work on our Custom Input Profile system also continues as does work on the Normandy Career. All of our other announced collector aircraft and vehicles such as the C-47, Churchill, IAR 80/81 and Spitfire Mk. XIV “Bubble Top” are also inching closer to being ready. It’s a hot and busy summer for the team! We also have a new FREE Scripted Campaign for Battle of Bodenplatte coming later this summer called Wild Mustangs featuring the P-51D which was built by our friend and partner Jaegermeister. It’s looks like a lot of fun! More on that soon.

Good luck Zukker and I hope that things get better

A big black box has arrived