Friday Update, February 17, 2012

[BlackSix]

Hello everyone,

First of all, let’s talk about the upcoming patch.

We haven’t talked about our flight model for some time. We haven’t been idle however. Not only are we fine-tuning plane performance, we’re making some very deep changes to the underlying core of our physics code.

We are completely rewriting collision and landing gear, while also making other elements of the flight model more complete and precise. Control surface behavior and reaction has been significantly improved. Refined transverse velocity calculations in relation to aircraft performance. Made it possible to calculate different transverse velocity at different points along the wing. Improved pylon and loadout FM calculations. Added many new features to allow FM calculation needed in future sequels. Many of these changes have also entailed completely rewriting existing code.

And this is by no means a complete list!

Graphics-wise, we’re dealing with a last-minute issue as we speak. We rather unexpectedly found a problem with our aircraft decals, i.e. the code that places crosses and roundels and chevrons etc on top of the aircraft paintscheme. The code is being rewritten, the work should be finished in about 2 days. Once it’s done we can take much more accurate benchmarks. We’ll post then when we have them.

And now let’s talk about new stuff.

We’re continuing to introduce you to aircraft from our upcoming sequel. This is once again the Ju-88A-4 shown last week; this time it’s wearing summer camo and is flying in front of a WIP, oh dear God so very WIP, fall landscape.

Finally, we’re showing the second part of our three-part video preview of the new ground features in our simulation.
Watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC29KL_wSBo

Please do keep in mind that this is still work in progress, and many of the components shown are not yet final. If you look closely, you may even notice some improvements between last week’s video and this one.
Most importantly, please keep in mind that this is a preview, the feature is actively being worked on, and at this time we do not know ourselves when and in which shape it will make it into the game.

Tune in next week for the final part of the preview. It will focus on the vehicle type briefly shown at the end of this video.

See you next Friday!