Combat Pilot update talks core technology progress, shows off F4F-4 cockpit, D3A and more!

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We’ve got a brand new Combat Pilot developer diary hot off the presses from Executive Producer Jason Williams. This time around we learn a little more about core technology updates and their efforts towards getting an updated preview ready for FSExpo. There are also some new images of various work in progress projects including some textures for the F4F-4 Wildcat and model updates for the A6M2-N and D3A among other items. Have a look!

Core technology progress

We’ve learned in recent updates that the Combat Pilot team are busy introducing some important core technologies into the sim including their custom flight model that they call EntropyFM. Jason reports that they haven’t been able to provide a pre-alpha preview update until they are able to get their own technology up to at least the level that the current implementation has.

The team are busy pushing towards some of these updates as they move forward towards FSExpo 2025.

Here’s a little more about their plan and the challenges that they’ve faced:

Our plan is to update the Pre-Alpha around that time so you can see our progress yourself and give us feedback. We are looking forward to that day as it’s a major milestone for us. Progress is always painful, hard, and expensive and we’ve had some unforeseen challenges like our Lead Modeler passing away and our Lead Programmer taking  a nasty spill requiring surgery, but we are making progress each week I assure you. Your Patreon subscriptions, calendar purchases and overall enthusiasm for Combat Pilot has helped get us to this point and we appreciate it beyond words!

Jason Williams

In progress content

In addition to the core technology which we can’t necessarily see in a developer update but which remain intensely valuable to the product on the whole, the team are showing us some work in progress content from a variety of different areas.

One such update is the beginning of the texture work on the F4F-4 cockpit.

There are also some work in progress images of the A6M2-N codename “RUFE” floatplane.

Another aircraft that is starting to make progress is the D3A1 Type 99 Model 11 dive bomber. You may know it by the codename “VAL” as this was a very important strike aircraft for the Japanese Navy at Midway and beyond.

The team are also showing us a 37mm M1A1 AA-gun and the beginnings of the work on the IJN Hiryū. The Hiryū is clearly in the early stages but there are already plenty of details on hand. The carrier was lost during the battle and was scuttled after sustaining heavy damage….spoiler.

There’s more work in progress images and details so be sure to check out Developer Diary 16 from the Combat Pilot team.

9 responses to “Combat Pilot update talks core technology progress, shows off F4F-4 cockpit, D3A and more!”

  1. PaperPilot Avatar
    PaperPilot

    I say this game will be a hit once it comes out.

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    1. Popsyposp Avatar
      Popsyposp

      I think that will depend heavily on gameplay.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
        ShamrockOneFive

        Absolutely. Hopefully they can find a good way to give us a realistic and authentic experience while also being fun and engaging.

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    2. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Fingers are crossed!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  2. boxcarleader Avatar
    boxcarleader

    as long as it is a decent sim it will have a leg up due to theater i cant remember another sim since Combat flight simulator 2 that was pacific focused ant that was later 90s

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Agreed! Going to the Pacific and with the plan that they have for follow-up content makes me very excited.

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  3. Popsypops Avatar
    Popsypops

    I’m afraid this is too little, too late to be honest. Let me explain. In the 90s, WWII was 50 years ago. This is short enough for the society to have a living memory of it, because many of those who have experienced it were still alive. Today WWII is 80 years ago. Almost all experience is second hand. The society no longer has a living memory of it.

    Today is the era of cold war, 70s to early 90s. It’s also the era of “contemporary war” of course, but that’s beside the point. The cold war is very much part of the living memory, yet old enough to be an “exotic” thing of the past.

    Pacific WWII is a kind of niche within the niche of WWII. Today that’s historical nerd stuff, more like WW I. The same goes for Korea by the way. Vietnam is right there on the borderline.

    There’s nothing wrong with this however. The point is, for the majority of flight simmers, neither WWII Pacific nor Korea induce a hard magnetic pull, there’s no leverage in those titles by themselves.

    Success therefore boils down to the ability of creating an immersive and enjoyable gameplay almost exclusively. This means that graphics, physics modelling, damage model, interactions, nice atmospheric touches etc combined with evolving storylines of some sort and believable, yet fun action means everything.

    I wish them all the best of luck of course. It’s just that I think most flight simmers would rather head straight to a cold war server in DCS as more and more aircraft from that era enters that game, or simply a newer aircraft.

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    1. Sokol76 Avatar
      Sokol76

      war thunder introduced ww2 airplanes to planty of new kids, what modern games fail to do is capture them away from WT, gameplay is boring, AI is terible, no interesting campaigns, no easy to use mission makers, or coop campaigns, fealing of big battles and so on… mostly focus is on graphics and making airplanes as acurate as posible but that dont make mutch impact when games 10 years ago look same like new ones, or FM is slightly better. DCS GB have boring gameplay terible AI bad mission maker no story in SP or even interesting dynamic campaigns, and in MP nothing like lobby to keep players at one place like HL did, less then 100 slots, poor performance and so on… and i do not expect any new Korea or Cp will fix that as focus is again on more detail and less other stuff like gameplay

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  4. Vinny Avatar
    Vinny

    Hopefully there is plenty of us dinosaurs left to enjoy a good WW2 flight simulator, what it needs to stand out from the rest is a decent dynamic campaign off and online to enjoy, if that is there early on then I would think it will be a success.

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