It’s been nearly a month since we last got a full developer update from 1CGS on the status of IL-2 3.001. The team has been busy doing a whole bunch of different things and this developer update was focused on at least some of that behind the scenes work.

Testing is underway

We’ve got word now that the testers are busy testing the new patch. This is good news to me as it means that the team has progressed from the alpha into the beta test stage. Things are beginning to come together for one very big IL-2 update and with it comes version 3.001 – a milestone release that includes the completion of IL-2: Battle of Kuban and plenty of new visual and gameplay features that we’ve been looking forward to.

A lot of the testing details are boring things. If you’ve done Q&A on a product launch before it involves going over things repeatedly until sometime breaks or its confirmed fixed. Not exciting but definitely important.

New systems and flight fidelity

1CGS’ lead flight model engineer has been busy working on a whole cluster of updates to aircraft modeling. The Yak-7B appears to be the test case for this as his goal has been to achieve a 1% margin with all of the available reference data for this plane. That’s pretty exciting for things that players tend to care about such as top speed and climb but it also matters in other areas like landing speeds.

There’s a long list of fidelity updates and changes including how the Venturi tubes are modeled, flap behavior, canopy behavior at speeds and g-forces, shock absorber and tire physics, oil pressure, balance changes from damage, and interestingly – oil and water cooler scoops can now be lost from battle damage. I think this is both a modeling and visual effect if I understand the wording.

The Yak-7B was the test case (probably because they know this aircraft well) but it does sound like it has spread to other aircraft already or will in the future. As simmers we always love to see attention to detail even when the exact operations are less known to us.

P-39 schemes

We’ve got a good look at some of the P-39 paint schemes. They contain a very good ratio of Russian schemes including some famous aircraft and then a bunch of American schemes as well. Including one that I want to talk to about for a moment.

Look at this beauty!

Presumably the scheme itself would be from an early prototype but the message here is clear about the future of USAAF fighters in Bodenplatte. Aircraft like the Mustang and Thunderbolt are going to look incredible with their bare metal schemes in IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte.

Here are a few more.

Start getting excited now

Remember when I said you should wait to get excited? Now you can start getting excited because usually testing and finishing details at this stage take only a few weeks. Because its a big patch I’m going to say that it will take longer than normal – still, this is where I start to get excited.

Read the whole update right here!