Developer Diary 327 - Discussion

[Han]

1 minute ago, Han said:

327

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.

...................................

 

Full news - here is a full text and visual materials

[EAF19_Marsh]

Nice.

 

Also, good use of the old ‘two weeks’ chestnut.

Edited August 19, 2022 by EAF19_Marsh

[sevenless]

Good news!

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Damage model improvements too; exciting!

[MasterBaiter]

Normandy looks amazing.

 

Looking forward for the dm changes aswell.

Edited August 19, 2022 by JG300_Winterz

[easterling77]

Damn looking good!!!?

 

 

[DD_Crash]

Well done guys

[AndyJWest]

Quote

...the length of the coastline is 990 km on the French coast and 1060 km on the English coast...

 

Can I be the first to complain about this obvious inaccuracy? As any geographer will tell you, coastlines are fractal, and therefore of infinite length... ?

 

Seriously though, the new map is looking better and better, and the other improvements will take the game to a whole new level.

[A-E-Hartmann]

Excellent .

Good news .

[SvAF/F16_Hilding1124]

Good news and very excited for the new map. I hope the damage model update will improve the game even further.

 

 

[BMA_FlyingShark]

Mind boggling. 

 

Have a nice day.

 

[Avimimus]

The ongoing damage model work is a really nice surprise!

 

Anyway, I'm astounded at the ambitions of the team generally. I do hope that the bar isn't raised so high that modules covering slightly less profitable subjects (e.g. Battle of France, Leningrad) will no longer be possible... I think they'd still be very valuable even if the detail or scope has to be reduced in order to make them profitable given the somewhat smaller market for them. I'd really like to see this team continue making new modules long after the most profitable theatres are exhausted... your work is just so brilliant.

 

P.S. I do hope that, someday, the damage model impacts on ground targets are investigated. In particularly, there needs to be a hitbox for waterline hits on ships (in order to make the 6 pdr Molins, the RP-3 25lb, and AP ammo in general more useful than HE rounds). Similarly, railway locomotives should probably be a bit more vulnerable to AP than to HE.

[Motherbrain]

Just wow! This map looks fkn fantastic! And quality of life improvements are greatly appreciated. No matter how big or small.

[RNAS10_Mitchell]

Sounds fantastic.  Normandy news is very exciting, and reworked DM?   Yes, yes yes.  Certainly hope FC wing issues is part of that.   Go team!

[Vortice]

Woo hoo! Hopefully the damage model improvements will finally fix the Spitfire's glass tail. ?

[Avimimus]

Also - looking at how the water becomes calmer inside of the seawall - does anyone else also have a sudden overwhelming desire for floatplanes? I think I'll boot up the channel map. It just makes me want an 'Gulf of Venice to Isonzo' Flying Circus V module even more!

 

Alas, I wasn't able to find clear evidence of German (or Romanian or Bulgarian) Ar-196 activity in Kuban to try to justify a Collector's Plane... they were used in Finland though! The channel map really makes me want seaplanes again. I hope the devs take our apparent insatiability as a complement about the quality of work (rather than feeling doomed by it though).

[DBFlyguy]

1 minute ago, Vortice said:

Woo hoo! Hopefully the damage model improvements will finally fix the Spitfire's glass tail. ?

And the P-47s glass....everything

[TP_Silk]

Excellent news. It's just a shame that Amiens is just off the map. I was looking forward to attempting to recreate Operation Jericho as a mission.

 

Correction - looks to be just off the map.

Edited August 19, 2022 by TP_Silk

[Avimimus]

11 minutes ago, RNAS10_Mitchell said:

Sounds fantastic.  Normandy news is very exciting, and reworked DM?   Yes, yes yes.  Certainly hope FC wing issues is part of that.   Go team!

 

The problem with the FC wing issue, is that it really comes down to wires, joiners, and spars - so unless they can afford to really up the detail of the damage model for all existing aircraft... I don't think it'll ever really be fixed to satisfaction.

 

Years ago they apparently had a prototype for a more complex wing damage model (back in the Rise of Flight days - going off of the old SimHQ article about Jason visiting Moscow). It probably wouldn't be as computationally expensive now for modern PCs (compared to how it was then), but it would require an extensive rework of all aircraft... which costs money and time that could be put to other uses.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Avimimus

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

This all sounds very exciting!

[VR_Fjordian_Slip]

Wow - this all looks fantastic. Especially the damage model update. 

[fergal69]

Picks jaw up from floor after reading the DD in full.

 

Astounding work that has been put into the next release.

 

Great job to everyone involved.

 

 

[von_Tom]

 

Can we have an image of the entire map as we'd see it in FMB?

 

If there is one already, can anyone point me to it?

 

von Tom

[Denum]

Oh my word....

 

[Talisman]

Brilliant!  Top team!  Thank you. 

 

Happy landings,

 

Talisman

[DD_Arthur]

It’s magnificent Han!

Well done to you and all your team for all the hard work, overcoming Covid and all the sh#t that has followed to complete this project.

You’re right; this series has become a tribute to our common, shared history ?

[Sitaro]

For the first time, I will say great DD. But please, take all the time you need to debug. While most are impatiently waiting, I would rather see your absolute best work as opposed to hoping for fixes after. Thanks for the post. Looking forward to the release. But not rushing you. 

 

I do want to add, the landscape of the map looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  

Edited August 19, 2022 by Sitaro
Addition after my dumbass phone finally loaded all the images.

[JGr2/J5_Hotlead]

Extremely exciting news! I'm not a WW2 player, but wow... that Normandy map is looking good. ? I can see how it has been a labor of love from the team.

 

I'm particularly pumped for the DM revision. Thank you for including this in your full development schedule! Can't wait to see what emerges from this. ?

[-332FG-Zephyr096]

excited for some DM tidbits on top of all the beautiful work going into Normandy!!! Looking forward to seeing how it feels in the live patch soon!

[354thFG_Panda_]

Amazing DD  Thank you Developers!

[Denum]

Just out of curiosity are drop tanks still in the works?

 

I'll have to be careful in my mighty Griffon crossing the channel.

 

Plenty of other aircraft to use so that's not as critical though. The mossies and 110s will have a place to shine online. Should be tons of fun.

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Denum

[Blitzen]

  Its all good news & I'm looking forward to it all .My only caveat is the hope that this new map in either format will have a richer countryside look -i.e. more hills and valleys esp on te southern side of the Normandy beaches. My biggest criticism of nearly all the Box maps ( excluding the Kuban,) is with a few area exceptions is their overall flatness (I know I know the steppes of Russian are pretty flat but still..)

(To get an idea of what I mean our neighbor flight sim has a pretty wonderful ( and now very old CloD map ,) of southern England ( roughly the area we will have in BoN) complete with many hills, valleys streams and rivers etc...:Sorry this screen shot is the best I could do on short notice.)

  Let us not forget about TC- it will be interesting how all of this looks from the turret of a Sherman or Panther tank !? I only wish we had a jeep or Kubelwagon to fling around these lovely French country roads!

In any case bravo for the update & it certainly makes my fingers itchy to get at it!

[BMA_FlyingShark]

3. WC (Wood Chippings) - concrete covered by wood chippings and tar

 

Erm...could we maybe find another abbreviation for this, you know, "WC",... means toilet.

Maybe something like WoCh or so?

Have a nice day.

 

[kendo]

Nice work. Look forward to the DM change - one of "a number of global improvements". That's got me wondering what the others will be. Will the fuel management update be one of them?

 

Also, noticed in the Normandy Career screenshot the option for the 301st Troop Carrier squadron. Is that a hint that the C-47 is coming very soon too?  

[JG_deserteagle540]

Great update!

 

"Revision" of the damage model. That is a really interesting development which is very good news.

 

"Revision" of the AI for Single player should also be looked into in the future.

[ilmavoimat]

25 minutes ago, kendo said:

Nice work. Look forward to the DM change - one of "a number of global improvements". That's got me wondering what the others will be. Will the fuel management update be one of them?

 

Also, noticed in the Normandy Career screenshot the option for the 301st Troop Carrier squadron. Is that a hint that the C-47 is coming very soon too?  

You beat me to it! Hopefully not to long now, I've barely been holding holding my fudge since may last year!?

[6./ZG26_Gielow]

Great!! Finally a map with loads of ships to bomb !!

 

So in two weeks we can start guessing new map and planes?! 

[BlitzPig_EL]

I don't use this word often as it is really over used these days, but all I can say is.. EPIC.

[DBFlyguy]

13 minutes ago, ilmavoimat said:

You beat me to it! Hopefully not to long now, I've barely been holding holding my fudge since may last year!?

They have meds for that ...

 

 

?

Edited August 19, 2022 by DBFlyguy

[Krikhrychrisgibon]

Hello, really very impressive.

A small comment however, I am not sure that the roundabouts already existed in 1944 as seen on the screen view to the right of the bridge over the Orne.