Battle of Bodenplatte, Flying Circus and Tank Crew updates are all part of the latest IL-2 developer diary from 1C Game Studios and there’s a great mix of talk about features and some great eye candy from the latest work in progress images so let’s dig into this!
Bodenplatte aircraft updates
The first news that we have is that four aircraft for IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte are nearly complete when it comes to their 3D models and texture work. Those are of course the P-51D, P-38J, B-25 and Tempest. We can only assume that their flight model and systems are also being worked on and I’m still holding out some hope that we’ll see the P-51D in the next four weeks if we’re lucky.
This week we get a look at the Tempest Mark V’s new cockpit:
We’ve also got our first look at 4K textures, courtesy of community skin artist Martin =ICDP= Catney, for the Bf109G-14. All Bodenplatte aircraft will release with 4K textures.
Some big features coming
Many fans have had a long bucket list of features that they were hoping to see from 1CGS and the IL-2 series and it looks like the team is hard at work on them.
- One of those features is pilot physiology. Sim pilots have been asking for a feature where repeated high-G maneuvers can cause the pilot to fatigue or where bailouts become impossible due to intense gravitational effects as an aircraft spins out of control. These are features that are in the category of small details that add up to making big impressions.
- A long requested feature is the ability to push the visibility bubble out beyond the 9-10 kilometers that the sim currently uses for most objects. This can be especially important to bomber pilots trying to line-up on a target many kilometers in advance. We now know that the team is working on that and hopes to be able to increase that though not everyone may want to take advantage of that depending on performance hits.
- IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte’s map is nearly done and that means that work on the career mode is now underway. We’ve learned that the career will be called ‘The Battle of Rhineland’ and will start on September 17th, 1944 and end on April 1st, 1945. That’s a significant chunk of the Western Front tactical air war basically picking up on the post Normandy/Operation Overlord activities and stretching nearly to the end of the war.
- Next up, the team is going to work on the ability to repair and rearm at an airfield without changing aircraft. There have been many long debates on this but the team is working on a solution for it and I’m curious to see how that plays out.
- There will also be an update of the FMOD sound engine that should fix some sound bugs that have been small but persistently annoying to some. In some cases sounds would cut out if too many were playing at once and apparently this will be resolved. Great!
Pilots and soldiers
The latest update features new pilots and soldiers as well. The RAF summer pilot is our first image and the second features a variety of soldiers that will be doing things like driving vehicles and manning AA guns. We haven’t seen much of the vehicles and static objects for Bodenplatte but I’m sure we’ll see some particularly for the Allies.
Tank Crew campaigns and tank updates
The artwork for Tank Crew’s single player campaigns have been revealed. ‘Breaking Point’ will be the title for the Soviet campaign while ‘Last Chance’ will be the one for the German side.
Also included in the dev update is the Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G. Special mention is made to its electric turret system – I don’t know much about tanks but I assume that this added complication probably provides a lot of advantages (and some disadvantages) when driving a tank. I’m still new to Tank Crew but the last time I had an opportunity to drive some tanks around I had a lot of fun.
Two remaining aircraft for Flying Circus are actually four
While the advertising materials say that Flying Circus is coming with 10 aircraft that’s actually a bit of a misnomer as we also got the Fokker D.VIIF (that’s 11) and we’re getting two new aircraft that will also have two engine versions pushing the total to 13 if counted in the traditional Rise of Flight model.
Next up are the Bristol Fighter F.2B and the Halberstadt CL.II and in actual fact the following four are listed:
- Halberstadt CL.II
- Halberstadt CL.IIau
- Bristol Fighter F2 Falcon 2
- Bristol Fighter F2 Falcon 3
Both look great and represent the first two person aircraft to arrive to Flying Circus. In addition to being capable scouts with some dogfighting potential, these two aircraft are also ‘attackers’ with slightly larger bomb capacities than anything available to date. I think I’m going to like flying these a lot.
It’s been a while but worth it
There’s been a few weeks without a developer update but this week was absolutely worth it with lots of progress being made. I’m very excited about the Tempest Mark V becoming flyable as its one of my favourites above all others so that will be quite the day for me. The Bodenplatte map being nearly done is great news for all and I know everyone is ready for that. Moving both Flying Circus and Tank Crew a little closer to being content complete is fantastic as well.
Stormbirds 
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