Combat Pilot give us a tour of USS Enterprise, progress

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We’ve got a new developer diary from Jason Williams and the team at Combat Pilot. This WWII Pacific theatre air combat sim is working hard not just on its aircraft but on its aircraft carriers and today we’ve got a great new video giving us a tour of the USS Enterprise, one of the key aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet. Let’s have a look!

A view of the Enterprise

The Combat Pilot team are hard at work, together with their partners at Digital Forms, to build the USS Enterprise. The nearly 4-minute video gives us a tour of the carrier both on the top of the deck and below the deck working our way into the carrier’s hangar. The details are incredible and the scale and scope of the carrier gives it the kind of attention that such a ship, in a Pacific sim, needs to have.

The carrier has also received textures and lost some of the overly purple hue that it had picked up at little earlier in production. These sorts of things happen in development and the ship is slowly taking shape and receiving bits of polish as the team goes on.

In addition to the tour, we’ve heard that there’s a few key pieces of content that are now slated to be worked on soon. One of those is another carrier, Hiryū, which will join the Akagi in the sim. Two new aircraft, D3A1 ‘Val’ and B5N2 ‘Kate,’ are also slated to be worked on soon. They join the F4F Wildcat and A6M ‘Zero’ in the development.

Patreon and calendar

We’ve got a bit of a reminder too about both the recently launched Patreon for Combat Pilot and on the 2025 Wall-Calendar.

A very big thank you to all who have watched the Special Announcement and chosen to Back the Attack! by subscribing to our Patreon and visiting the Combat Pilot Store. Many of you have purchased our 2025 Wall-Calendar which makes a great Christmas gift! Our Patreon and Store are off to a great start! 

Check out the full diary right over here!

12 responses to “Combat Pilot give us a tour of USS Enterprise, progress”

  1. Dimitri Avatar
    Dimitri

    On one hand, I appreciate the game is being worked on.

    On the other, I’m not sure I love this new way developers are showing baby steps of progress. Oh hey, we have a model of X.

    Sometimes I wish devs would hold off until they had something substantial to show gameplay wise, instead of a Blender model.

    I get it, progress teasers can be nice, but they create a false perception that the final product is still not years and years away.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Unfortunately, they need all eyes on, support and hopefully more investors and they can’t do that behind the curtains. They really have to let everyone know what they are doing if they are going to have a chance to catch up with the competition which has a few decades of a head start.

      It’s a tall order but they’ve been moving along well.

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    2. Urgent Siesta Avatar
      Urgent Siesta

      I don’t mind, really. The game is actually years away from “full” playability, so I appreciate the updates.

      And in truth, the level of detail on this frickin’ aircraft carrier is (AFAIK) unprecedented in a combat sim (and I think it is unprecedented for a WW2 flat top for any sim). So color me impressed, and it does raise my anticipation for the game.

      Now, I’d prefer that they went for simpler graphics in “Early Access” (IL-2 is just fine as-is) if it meant that we got to play the game sooner. I suspect, though, that the coding is what’s holding the game back regardless – it’s a massive undertaking to scratch build a flight & combat simulator.

      I hope they can reach their goal – I can’t see giving them any money until I have SOMETHING playable. At this point, it could just be flying the Wildcat around to learn carrier traps and bomb some target barges or some such…

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      1. Urgent Siesta Avatar
        Urgent Siesta

        Just had a wild-hair idea: wouldn’t it be great if, for purposes of raising money, if they brought their aircraft to MSFS? All the modeling man-hours being put in would carry over, and since the systems are dead-simple, all they’d really have to do is ensure the flight model is decent…

        And hey, what better way to advertise their pending sim than to literally 15 million paying flight simmers! 😉

        I know it’s a distraction from the core mission, but bootstrapping a business requires a high degree of flexibility and non-traditional thinking.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Sokol76 Avatar
        Sokol76

        That detailed ship comes with cost, i just hope they dont go to mutch in detail on stuff that will hinder airbattle expiriance, having 10 kates bombing it just because it have to have working lifts and so on insted 100 kates but ships alevel of detail as in old il-2, i would instantly go for less detailed ships, airplane can spawn on deck i do not need all that extra stuff in air sim, BoX made big deal about how their AI have to do everything like human pilot, and resoult was bad AI and small number of units in mission… with ships that have 100s AA guns they need to be realy on point as there could be game where we gona have airbattles or gamethat is just musium show case of units, also MSFS is great idea, they would advertaise to big group of players so time to convert models would be well spend.

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  2. dryheat94 Avatar
    dryheat94

    I doubt I’ll still be walking the earth when this project comes to fruition. I feel the same way about many of the EA DCS products I’ve purchased ever reaching completion. Full fidelity flight sims from small devs with small budgets take too long to develop. My preference would be to drop full fidelity cockpits and release in a more reasonable time frame. I remember a video Enigma did about full fidelity and the dangers of it, and I agree completely. Without a huge budget and dev team the likes of MS, it just doesn’t seem like a good strategy. With that said, I look forward to more content for IL-2 GB, Flying Circus 4, and the release of IL-2 Korea.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Hopefully you’re still around in about 2 years. This project will need to develop fairly quickly to start bringing in a cash flow to continue development. There will be something playable in not too long!

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  3. JG4_Moltke1871 Avatar
    JG4_Moltke1871

    Too many pessimistic comments here.

    Jason is an experienced developer and the progress I see is amazing. And I would say two fully designed aircraft carriers are too big shoes for just being baby steps. And I was positively surprised they start already the work on the next Japanese Carrier.

    Of course, this project start from scratch have risks, Jason himself told it. But there are always risks. Who can guarantee me that I will retain my access to Il2 content and updates given the current world situation?

    Good luck Jason for your doing!

    And good luck for us all this project leads to a successful release somewhere in the future because I am sure the result will look fantastic in my VR Google’s 😎

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      It’s quite a remarkable project! It’s been a long long time since anyone attempted what they are attempting to do. Really hope that it all comes together!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
    2. dryheat94 Avatar
      dryheat94

      IL-2 content will not be removed because of any world situations. It’s fully playable (except for campaign mode) with no connection to their servers. Same for DCS if you put it in offline mode. You can always download Pat Wilson’s Campaign Generator for IL-2 if it came to that. Have no fear and sleep well.

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    3. arandompilot Avatar
      arandompilot

      The issue is that these types of progress updates don’t necessarily reflect the overall situation behind the scenes.

      Making a beautiful model and animation of a ship is relatively straightforward as long as you can hire a competent artist.

      Making all the technical systems needed for a game (flight models, AI, damage, network, etc.) and completing all the required art assets to a consistent quality is another story, and sadly that’s where many developers struggle.

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      1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
        ShamrockOneFive

        That part of the process is harder to convey to most folks. The programming side of developer updates tends to be considered “boring” though it is critical. I was impressed by my hands on experience with the sim at FSExpo back in June. There’s already depth to the systems and flight models beyond what I was expecting and talking with the devs filled me with confidence with their knowledge and enthusiasm. I hope for good things ahead!

        Liked by 1 person

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