Dev Blog #373: Gulf of Finland Map

[Jackfraser24]

17 hours ago, Avimimus said:

The Siege and Liberation module includes that Yak-3, La-7, and Il-2 1944, and Ju-87D-5 - all late war types. While there were late war bombers, they didn't tend to replace existing types (e.g. Tu-2 was always outnumbered by Pe-2) and/or shifted exclusively to night use (e.g. Do-217 and Ju-188). Other than that, we're mainly talking about minor variants, many of which weren't that numerous. So the only thing missing is really the map. Otherwise such a module is being created.

Thats a good piece of information. Thanks. 

17 hours ago, Avimimus said:

I have a list of features I'd like to see improved (e.g. waterline hits with AP rounds for ships, an RNG applied to projectiles passing through branches, improved WWI AI).

 

However, I think, when we all get to try Korea - we'll all suddenly want to see the effort put into improving that generation of the game engine. It'll be such a leap forward, in so many areas, it will make everything else obsolete.

Agreed. Despite what I have said in the past about wanting Great Battles to improve on things such as AI, I think our attention will be turned to Korea and the Pacific and how it can be improved. 

Edited October 13 by Jackfraser24

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

On 10/11/2025 at 11:26 AM, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Such optimisation processes are also responsible for the disappearing buildings that 1PL-Husar-1Esk complains about and the reason I don't expect anything changes here.

Are you suggesting that my computer is responsible for this issue with cites? 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

47 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Are you suggesting that my computer is responsible for this issue with cites? 

I don't see how you read that from my post. Of course not.

 

Optimisation algorithms are responsible. Those have been implemented by 1CGS. Without those algorithms, there would be no issues with disappearing buildings, however you'd need a much better GPU to run the same quality of graphics, or even to run the game at all. As everything in engineering, this is a tradeoff. Either have optimisation algorithms such as batching and viewport culling etc. in place with the risk of having a few loading glitches if the camera changes rapidly, or have no such algorithms and as a result no glitches but also much higher hardware requirements. Since Korea likely has similar tradeoffs I don't expect anything to change there. Personally I think the occasional half second the buildings aren't loaded yet is well worth the lower GPU usage, but of course you're free to have a different opinion.

[Frequent_Flyer]

Will a winter map be included in the release ?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Jackfraser24]

4 hours ago, Frequent_Flyer said:

Will a winter map be included in the release ?

 

Thanks in advance.

I doubt it. Both the 1941 and 1944 scenarios occured largely in the summertime of both years mentioned. 

[MDzmitry]

5 часов назад, Jackfraser24 сказал:

I doubt it. Both the 1941 and 1944 scenarios occured largely in the summertime of both years mentioned. 

BlackSix answered the question at least regarding Leningrad: 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/topic/18066-обсуждение-выпуска-дневников-№373/#findComment-939259

The career will span from 09.1941 (appearance of first enemy aircraft in the airspace) to 30.04.1942 (the end of the Battle of Lyuban)

 

Edited October 14 by MDzmitry

[BlackSix]

1 hour ago, MDzmitry said:

appearance of first enemy aircraft in the airspace

First Luftwaffe unit on the Leningrad map airfield, it's a big difference)

[MDzmitry]

18 минут назад, BlackSix сказал:

First Luftwaffe unit on the Leningrad map airfield, it's a big difference)

Yep, my bad

[Koziolek]

20 hours ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Are you suggesting that my computer is responsible for this issue with cites? 

Absolutely. Without it you wouldn't be able to render anything 🤣

[Frequent_Flyer]

9 hours ago, MDzmitry said:

BlackSix answered the question at least regarding Leningrad: 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/topic/18066-обсуждение-выпуска-дневников-№373/#findComment-939259

The career will span from 09.1941 (appearance of first enemy aircraft in the airspace) to 30.04.1942 (the end of the Battle of Lyuban)

 

Thanks MDzmitry for the follow up. However ,I do not read Russian. It appears from your statement that the career will include winter months so, there will be a winter map .

 

[Cardolan]

Just to add my "voice" to the choir that suggests the BoX engine still as great legs to go and that the company or external devs continue to add stuff for it. More planes, more maps, more careers.

 

I am quite enthusiastic about it all!

Edited October 14 by Cardolan

[LLv44_Kanttori]

On 10/13/2025 at 9:15 PM, Frequent_Flyer said:

Will a winter map be included in the release ?

 

Thanks in advance.

Winter map is coming after summer map is released next XMas.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

8 hours ago, LLv44_Kanttori said:

Winter map is coming after summer map is released next XMas.

Good to know. Can you say something about new airplanes, how many are in development and what is done?

21 hours ago, Koziolek said:

Absolutely. Without it you wouldn't be able to render anything 🤣

You are so smart 🤓 

[Avimimus]

On 10/13/2025 at 5:38 AM, Jackfraser24 said:

Thats a good piece of information. Thanks. 

 

 

It is a very interesting subject, so I thought I'd share a bit more.

 

After the losses occurred attacking the Dieppe raid in 1942, the Luftwaffe shifts to night bomber operations in their Western Front. In the fall of 1944 there is a rationalisation where a lot of He-177 and Do-217E/Do-217K units begin to be retired completely. The Ju-88/Ju-188 fares better, remaining as night bombers. Daylight attack operations are taken over by single-seater fighter bombers - both Fw-190 units and jet aircraft (Ar-234/Me-262).

 

I gather the situation is a bit different in their Eastern Front, as the area of the front is much larger, and the pace of Soviet advance is so great that it sometimes outstrips air-cover, you get sporadic use of bombers in daylight (including the Ju-87 as late as 1945). Added to the complexity, as the situation deteriorates there are points were they start using anything that can carry a bomb, provided they can find fuel for it. So you get Ju-88C and Ju-88G night fighters used as bombers, training aircraft used as bombers etc.

 

Something similar exists for the Soviets. They put together night attack units using a mixture of whatever types survived the disaster in 1941, and keep these flying as long as they can find spare parts - so you'll get relatively obscure 1930s types showing up in surprising places well into 1944. They also keep the Pe-2 in production and never scale up Tu-2 production sufficiently, so the force remains Pe-2 and Il-2 until the end of the war, with long range strikes provided by Il-4 (and occasionally other types). The Il-4 strategic bombing units generally took off from airfield well behind the front and flew to targets well behind the enemy front - so they'd occasionally be flying over a couple of our maps, but it is unusual for either their airfield or their targets to actually appear on the in-game maps.

 

Suffice it to say - the plane-set is surprisingly complete (even if I'll miss the gorgeous cockpit of the Ju-188 and even if the Il-4 would make an excellent target for the Ju-88C)! As mentioned earlier, the obvious gap is the Ju-87B/R - and it is hard to make a business case for adding it as an AI aircraft.

 

Note: This is all based on reading over several years - I could have misremembered some things - and some sources might be unreliable. Feel free to post your corrections!

[Frequent_Flyer]

On 10/14/2025 at 5:56 PM, LLv44_Kanttori said:

Winter map is coming after summer map is released next XMas.

Thank you ,sir.

 

Based on the screen shots you folks have developed a gorgeous map.

[J37_Spyboy]

On 10/10/2025 at 6:01 PM, BlitzPig_EL said:

Was the cruiser Aurora there at that time, and if so will she be represented?

I believe she was sunk in the River Neva soon after the invasion began and salvaged after the war. Many buildings and monuments were camouflaged or moved before the siege began. Picture of Petershof with extensive damage. The famous gardens were demined and open to the public weeks after the end of the siege. Picture 2: As the Palace is today.

Edited October 16 by J37_Spyboy

[LuftManu]

On 10/15/2025 at 1:18 PM, Avimimus said:

 

Text

Hey Avi! that was a nice read, thank you!
 

I would love to se a Il-4 tho. It would be a great target for the Ju-88C as you say and I think it could be succesfull as a collector, but who knows! The already planeset and plans from the Finnish team are already great and fill in a lot of void.

Kind regards

[LukeFF]

Guys, this is not an aircraft wishlist thread. We already have many of those topics, thank you. 🙂

[Jackfraser24]

31 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Guys, this is not an aircraft wishlist thread. We already have many of those topics, thank you. 🙂

My apologies, Luke. 

[WillyWacker]

19 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Guys, this is not an aircraft wishlist thread. We already have many of those topics, thank you. 🙂

But christmas is coming...

[Trooper117]

1 hour ago, WillyWacker said:

But christmas is coming...

 

Bah, Humbug!!! 

[IckyATLAS]

Excellent news. But please for the new maps where you can do improvements, like having destroyed models for large constructions, iconic buildings etc. and maybe improve your library of objects with some models for piles of rubble, charred wood,  etc. Here we speak about war and so the counterpart of the standing building, nice city must also be there. We are not in Microsoft flight sim but in a combat/battle sim.

 

Regarding large cities having now the possibility to build Moscow and so have the map flying limit after the city of Moscow would be an excellent option for which I am ready to pay. I was really frustrated about this "castrated map" and so finally did not play much with it.

 

Regarding the full city of Leningrad, I hope that we will not have the same issue like with the BoBp Rheinland map where the large cities just continuously got redrawn (in patches) as you turn your head in another direction and then look again at the city. This was an immersion killer. And this was not a matter of GPU/CPU power. I still have this problem with my actual PC that runs an Overclocked 4090 GPU and a ROG Maximus Z890 with 285K CPU with 128 GB of very fast RAM. So it is a result of map design and how things are managed in video memory most probably. This problem still existed but was improved on the Normandy but was not existent in the Kuban map. The Kuban map remains the best to date from that point of view. When looking  to a sizeable city like Novorossiysk or Krasnodar for the first time you may see patches being drawn but after that first time, it is like it is loaded in memory once for all. After that you can swivel all directions the city is there in its complete details and there is no redrawing, or popping patches of the city.  So I cross fingers on this.

Also related to weird effects (probably to limit resources), I suppose that with the present power of the graphics cards you can also keep smoke columns (burning objects, various smoke types) steady and not stop and restart them when your eyes look in another direction and then come back to look. This also makes for a weird visual effect. 

 

I am very positive for these future maps of Odessa and Leningrad. You target excellence so be it.

[AcesDarthBubu]

Many of us also wish that existing maps can be improved upon, but I dont think 1C will do anything extra on existing maps, especially with Korea launching as the next iteration of the game. 

 

2 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

 

Regarding the full city of Leningrad, I hope that we will not have the same issue like with the BoBp Rheinland map where the large cities just continuously got redrawn (in patches) as you turn your head in another direction and then look again at the city. This was an immersion killer. And this was not a matter of GPU/CPU power. I still have this problem with my actual PC that runs an Overclocked 4090 GPU and a ROG Maximus Z890 with 285K CPU with 128 GB of very fast RAM. So it is a result of map design and how things are managed in video memory most probably. This problem still existed but was improved on the Normandy but was not existent in the Kuban map. The Kuban map remains the best to date from that point of view. When looking  to a sizeable city like Novorossiysk or Krasnodar for the first time you may see patches being drawn but after that first time, it is like it is loaded in memory once for all. After that you can swivel all directions the city is there in its complete details and there is no redrawing, or popping patches of the city.  So I cross fingers on this.

Also related to weird effects (probably to limit resources), I suppose that with the present power of the graphics cards you can also keep smoke columns (burning objects, various smoke types) steady and not stop and restart them when your eyes look in another direction and then come back to look. This also makes for a weird visual effect. 

 

I noticed this as well on standard hard disk, but issue got minimized once the installation files are stored on SSD.

 

[Kubert]

How will be new careers implemented to current timeline? If I understand correctly, 1941 Leningrad and Moscow overlaps, as well as 1944 Odessa and Leningrad. So my assumption how to play them with one pilot is:

 

Leningrad or Moscow -> Stalingrad -> Kuban -> Odessa or Leningrad

 

Is this intended implementation of new modul? And what about 1941 Odessa. It will definitely overlap 1941 Leningrad as it ends in october 41 and Leningrad starts in september 41. But can it be prequel for Moscow? When Odessa ends in october and Moscow starts in october? Or they overlap as well and only way to continue from Odessa will be directly to Stalingrad? 

Edited October 21 by Kubert

[IckyATLAS]

5 hours ago, AcesDarthBubu said:

Many of us also wish that existing maps can be improved upon, but I dont think 1C will do anything extra on existing maps, especially with Korea launching as the next iteration of the game. 

 

I noticed this as well on standard hard disk, but issue got minimized once the installation files are stored on SSD.

 

I did not specify true, but my PC has no hard disks or HDD. I have 4 x SSD NVME  M2 Samsung 990 Pro. This is not an issue as the whole sim is in RAM there is no access to SSD.

[Vishnu]

WOW! Impressive!

[YR-AndreiTomescu]

2 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

This is not an issue as the whole sim is in RAM there is no access to SSD.

that if the sim really loads itself into the ram. i have32gb ram, and it never gets used more that 17-18 gb during running il-2 sturmovik GB. so i guess it's an optimisation/resources usage thing. i'm no expert on this, but my semi-educated guess is that the game itself should know how to use all the resources. same about CPU: 8 cores, but only one is used. checked this with the AMD Master software while running the game.

your rig is a total beast, but it's not used at the available resources.

[Devil5O5]

7 hours ago, Kubert said:

How will be new careers implemented to current timeline? If I understand correctly, 1941 Leningrad and Moscow overlaps, as well as 1944 Odessa and Leningrad. So my assumption how to play them with one pilot is:

 

Leningrad or Moscow -> Stalingrad -> Kuban -> Odessa or Leningrad

 

Is this intended implementation of new modul? And what about 1941 Odessa. It will definitely overlap 1941 Leningrad as it ends in october 41 and Leningrad starts in september 41. But can it be prequel for Moscow? When Odessa ends in october and Moscow starts in october? Or they overlap as well and only way to continue from Odessa will be directly to Stalingrad? 

I think the easiest way to think of it will be to assume that Odessa 1941 and Leningrad 1941 as separate starting points to a career. From a Luftwaffe perspective an Odessa career might flow more naturally into the Moscow one as Moscow begins in mid (14th, I think) October. But if II/JG 53 is available as a player unit for the Leningrad career, then that creates an opportunity to transfer to Moscow too as that unit was rotated back to Germany on October 7, 1941 and your pilot would need a transfer.  

[Kubert]

1 hour ago, Devil5O5 said:

Odessa 1941 and Leningrad 1941 as separate starting points to a career.

That's exactly what I am thinking.

 

1 hour ago, Devil5O5 said:

Odessa career might flow more naturally into the Moscow

Also this, but Siege of Odessa according to Wikipedia ended on 16th October while Battle of Moscow in the game starts on 3rd October. So there is a slight overlap of these two maps. That's why I am asking. 

 

Will Odessa 1941 ends just in time to switch to BoM? Let's say 1st or 2nd October?

Or will there be a new function to switch maps mid career, before one Battle of ... ends?

Or there will not be such a function and one map must be finished before another starts, which would mean, skip BoM and continue to BoS because two weeks overlap of Odessa and BoM?

 

So many questions, so many questions... 

[IckyATLAS]

4 hours ago, YR-AndreiTomescu said:

your rig is a total beast, but it's not used at the available resources.

This is indeed a probable thing where the sim does not use all the available resources and so it limits itself for nothing. 

The problem here is that even with very nice recent maps the engine will not change and so I am pessimistic about how Leningrad will behave.

But maybe they will do some improvements when they need it. They say that they will make use of the more powerful video cards so I hope they can use the 32GB video ram and maybe even 64 GB in the future to load as much as possible map data. Wait and see.

 

[LukeFF]

On 10/10/2025 at 10:01 AM, BlitzPig_EL said:

Was the cruiser Aurora there at that time, and if so will she be represented?

 

He has also answered that here: 

 

On 10/10/2025 at 8:48 AM, Mtnbiker1998 said:

So, should we expect this to be the last release for Great Battle's before the shift to Korea? I feel like it'd be a crying shame to not give the Western Front one more "finishing touch" module to round out the eras/planeset like we got for the East Front.

 

Seems to me like the game is still just begging for an "early Channel map" DLC pack with a handful of 1942/43 US/UK planes. Certainly would be a lot less effort to tweak an existing map than building two new ones from scratch!

 

Han has addressed that here: