Four aircraft, multiplayer performance improvements, upgrades to vehicle damage models, and 2-3 new mission types in Career mode, round out some of the content updates coming in patch 3.007 and its due in two weeks – that’s not even a joke!

Thunderbolt and Kurfurst

It’s no surprise that the P-47D-28 Thunderbolt and Bf109K-4 ‘Kurfurst’ are due in the next patch. Just to recap, however, both are indeed coming and they come with some interesting modifications. The P-47 will have ample ground attack options and both standard and gyroscopic K-14 gunsight options. 500lb and 1000lb bombs are confirmed as options.

We also have some new information about the Bf109K-4. The K-4 will come with an engine modification allowing for either the DB605 DB or DB605 DC. The DB variant has MW50 injection and B4 type fuel helping the engine generate 1,775 hp. The DC variant does not have MW50 injection and instead uses higher grade C3 fuel letting the engine generate 1,973 hp. These engines help make the Bf109K-4 the ultimate expression of the Bf109 series.

Regardless of which type you’re more a fan of, these two aircraft look spectacular in these screenshots and the two week wait is going to be a tough one.

Sopwith Camel and Pfalz D.IIIa

This tricky to fly but highly rewarding British scout fighter is one of two new Flying Circus Vol 1 aircraft arriving in two weeks. Two 750 round per minute late war Vickers 7.69mm machine guns and four 20lb Cooper bombs round out the Camel’s armament while its performance help make this one of the best Entente fighters of the war.

Not to be left out, the Triple Alliance also gets the Pfalz D.IIIa armed with the standard 7.92 mm LMG 08/15. The Pfalz was knowing for being structurally strong and capable of sharp turns and higher speed dives than many of its contemporaries.

Once again, both of these aircraft look great having received an upgrade over their Rise of Flight models and featuring new 4K textures and increased poly counts.

Multiplayer performance

IL-2 has decent multiplayer performance most of the time but there are many areas to the multiplayer experience that still need to be worked on and it looks like this new patch will be introducing some of those efforts. Han reports in the latest update on what they are changing:

…we have managed to find a way to synchronize weapon fire events on different multiplayer clients better, minimizing the total time of the delay to the total client-server-client ping and optimize the net delay compensation routines for transmitting aircraft positions and orientations.

We also have this interesting nugget of information:

Server ping calculations will be also corrected – this is required for further improvements in the multiplayer lobby.

IL-2’s multiplayer lobby is barebones at best, however, we have known for some time that the team does intend to improve the UI at some point and it sounds like some of these changes are foundational that should provide the basis for those later upgrades.

Great to hear!

New Career mission types

New mission types are coming for Career mode and we’ve heard that 2-3 new types will come with this patch.

The first type is a free hunt and I’m excited by this because its the type of mission that I’ve wanted to see for a while. The free hunt was a technique used by the Luftwaffe for a good portion of WWII while the Allies began to employ the same basic technique over time. Being sent out to cover a basic area looking for any and all targets of opportunity both on the ground and in the air sounds like fun and its also essential for some of the missions flown during the Bodenplatte campaign.

The second type mentioned is the Cargo Drop for the Ju52 which at present has just one mission type available to it. This will double that and hopefully the third type that wasn’t mentioned by name is also meant for a type like the Ju52.

New vehicle damage models

Another example where Tank Crew is affecting the whole of IL-2: Great Battles series for the better is an upgrade to vehicles that will add a more complex damage model to all “simple” AI controlled vehicles. In the update, shooting different parts of the vehicles can cause different types of damage effects. Han has some added details which sound interesting:

Before, there was no difference where you hit a truck, but in the new system, each ‘simple’ vehicle has many types of simulated parts – wheels or trucks, engine, ammo rack, fuel tanks, driver, turret, main gun. By hitting a simple AI vehicle at these parts you can immobilize it or render it inoperable by damaging a turret or main gun if any.

Franky, that sounds amazing. The original IL-2, IL-2: Great Battles, and DCS all use simplified damage models for their ground vehicles. This sounds like it ups the ante considerably and it has benefits for both Tank Crew and for pilots flying above.

Two weeks!

A few of you have guessed in the comments section on my previous editorial about the anxiety of waiting around for the next patch that the release date would end up being November 20 or 21st and it looks like you were right. Well guessed folks!

For the full developer diary check it out right here!