I don’t think it’s impolite. It’s an observation. Likewise, in Arma 3, the helicopters cause ground smoke to swirl up and around the rotors. A cool effect that I wish all sims could model…but I suppose each sim developer has to parse their resources. I’d guess that if the IL-2 devs had to program an A-10C CDU or Ka-50 ABRIS, they wouldn’t have the resources to do clouds quite as well.
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Really this… Same as people wondering how every game should have War Thunder physics or graphic effects. Cringe worthy…
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Absolutely! They should grind this of the mill and put everything innit. No time for that personal touch. All hail the Marxist game development that caters to everyone and no-one. Lets turn these flightsims into the next call of duty! /s
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I remember the reply you got in the “Leisure Suit Larry” adventure text games, way back when;
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Leisure Suit Larry was a fantastic vision of the future relative to what I was seeing when I started. Remember Inforcom? Oh, and Star Trek for the TRS-80.
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Actually, I was glad it wasn’t, because I scored in real life a LOT more often than I did in LSL! 
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Nice weather effects shown in here:
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Clouds and other weather effects are amazing in VR in this game. So impressed with their VR implementation.
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DD 159 From Jason…
Dear customers,
Today I’d like to share some straight talk with you about our current and future plans for the Sturmovik franchise. I took over as Lead Producer in August 2016 with the goal of improving Sturmovik and bringing it more in line with your original expectations, while at the same time bringing the product’s technology into the future. Matter of fact my goal was to improve, what I call the four key pillars combat simulations – technology, features, content and community.
The past 9-10 months has seen Sturmovik be improved in many ways with new technology, more content and additional features being developed with more still to come. I also hope that some new out-of-game initiatives will further strengthen our small community even more.
Our Kuban development phase is going pretty well, but we always have challenges we must overcome due our overall lack of resources relative to our goals. However, we are confident Battle of Kuban will set the standard for WWII themed simulations and give you the simmer many years of enjoyment.
So, let’s talk about what happens after Kuban for a moment. When we announced battle of Kuban I made it clear that our intention (assuming it is possible) was to do something different, something many have asked for that would shake up the norm - The Pacific Theater starting with the Battle of Midway. It’s been over a decade since a new Pacific themed product was developed and I hope we can change this. After much research and thought we have come to understand that this will be an extreme challenge for us on every front.
It is such a challenge because we need to create large capital ships like aircraft carriers and their accompanying technology as well as create Japanese built airplanes. The Japanese airplanes pose the greatest challenge because we know little about their operation and there is not a lot of detailed documentation in either English or Russian. There is quite a bit in Japanese, but that means we need translators who can helps us which adds to our budgetary expenses in an already tight budget. This has added a new level of complexity we have not dealt with before. This is important to understand because the community has certain expectations of what level of fidelity we can achieve based on our previous products. Meeting those expectations with our Japanese airplanes might be very hard both in the visual realm and in the flight dynamics. For us to make the Pacific product a reality and worthy of the Sturmovik name we need your help. We cannot possibly locate everything we need ourselves.
What we need are detailed sources of information about Japanese airplanes such as engines, their systems, weapons and their flight performance in whatever language you can find, but we are especially interested in finding detailed Japanese documents that explain in detail how these planes operated, what their cockpits looked like and their performance. I have started a section in the forum where you can help us locate such information. If you want to help us please visit this section and contribute. Please read the instructions I have posted there before you post so we can be efficient.
Additionally, I have posted several “help wanted” posts in our Jobs and Contractors section of the English language forum. We are looking for testers, talented artists and other creative people to help with various aspects of development or community related projects. Please check them out and if you meet the requirements please contact us.
If you like what we have been doing with Sturmovik please consider purchasing all we have to offer or encourage your friends to make a purchase so we can afford the resources we need to venture the Pacific and beyond. We recently began selling Scripted Campaigns made by our own BlackSix. These are excellent campaigns and this kind of fun content helps sustain us during long, expensive development cycles. Please give them a look in our store if you haven’t already. There is no magic solution to our resource issue, we need your continued financial support to get the job done and keep going!
And finally, I can’t leave you without some development shots. This time I present you some more Hs-129 development shots. And don’t worry the Spitfire is coming along as well. It’s just not ready to be shown yet.
129_01.jpg 129_02.jpg
129_03.jpg 129_04.jpg
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Not at all surprising about the difficulty with Japanese planes. Only some were evaluated by the Allies, limiting the English-language reports made. The Russians, coming in only at the very end, likely evaluated almost none, being far more interested in the German equipment.
I wish them luck in finding what they need.
That did not end the way I was expecting. At first it sounded like something much more ominous was about to take place.
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I am really excited about Battle of Midway. Some of my best memories of the old Il-2 were from Pacific Fighters, even with some of the fundamental flaws this project had. 777 giving the 1942 carrier battles a proper treatment sounds like a dream come true.
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Out of frustration with the latest DCS 2.1 release, I decided to install Il-2 BoS again. I wanted to try it in VR for a while now but never came to it. It looks and feels fantastic! Those German cockpits sure are cramped.
Do some neck exercises before you begin. It can get intense 
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Link with pics for the message above:
https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/168-developer-diary/page-5#entry475296
Good to see the Sturmovik crew letting people know the challenge of what’s coming up. Capital ships in the Pacific sounds amazing.
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After having flown a couple of missions, I must say I should have re-installed BoS a lot sooner (if I just wasn’t so busy with doing stuff for DCS…). It looks beautiful and runs great. The sound is very nice and the feeling of flight is very well done. The shooting and the damage effects look fantastic, very authentic and satisfying.
The summer version of the Stalingrad map looks very nice too. It really shows the vastness of the Russian steppes and has a very distinctive eastern front atmosphere. While 777 did a good job with the winter version of the map, in retrospect it wasn’t a very appealing environment to fly in. Glad that there is the Summer option now.
My last mission was an evening escort flight for some Jabo 109. Downed a couple of enemies (I can actually see stuff in VR!) without loosing one of my fighter-bombers. On the way home the sun set, which looked fantastic. As we approached our home filed in the encroaching darkness, the guys on the ground were launching signal flares and lighting fires along the runway. Very cool.
What I don’t really get though is the campaign. It seems that you can basically select your airbase, aircraft type and task for each new mission. It has a bit a feeling of a quick mission generator deluxe. Also there are references to experience points all over the place. The game is basically taking great WWII immersion and giving it a kick in the nuts. The last thing I want to read is how much EXP I get for reaching the exit waypoint! I understand that they have removed the controversial unlocking from the game, but it seems that this EXP madness was too deep in the design of the game to redo. Does anyone know if they will make a new campaign system for Battle of Kuban?
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Have you tried PWCG or seen this? I enjoyed it.
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I don’t know about revising the existing system so much, but there are plans for an ROF-style career if we read Jason’s comments correctly.
You are correct, though, in that the existing campaign is more or less a random mission generator that lets you pick what and where you fly, but not what you fight against, and after some number of missions it considers that “phase” complete and changes to the next. That change seems to consist of a changing front/base situation and possibly a change to mission types but I never experienced it that I can recall, only a change in the front.
I thought I read somewhere that the plan is to incorporate PWCG into the current career. I like the current career for what it is. But you have to be very observant to notice any activity other than your current objective. Even with that it is highly repetetive.
June Dev News:
We’re finishing our work on 2.011 update. It will bring you another Collector Plane - Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vb which has been used in Battle of Kuban. These planes were sent to the USSR via the lend-lease program. The update will also include the new historical campaign Blazing Steppe by Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov (you can already pre-order on our website).
The bulk of the update looks like aircraft flight model updates. The post above included some nice Henschel Hs 129 skins as well.
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