Combat Pilot shows off even more of the F4F and D3A

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2–3 minutes

Progress continues to be made on Combat Pilot, the World War II Pacific Theatre focused release coming to us from industry veteran Jason Williams and Entropy.Aero. The sim has been in development for a couple of years now and continues to make progress with new aircraft in development helping to fill out the roster ahead of various stages of release. We have the latest development efforts focused on the F4F-4 Wildcat and D3A1 “Val.” Let’s have a look!

Even more!

F4F-4 Wildcat renders

If you like getting a look at in development products, these next images I’m sure will make you happy. We’ve already seen some of these images previously, however, many of them are new too!

We’ve got images of the F4F-4 and D3A for Combat Pilot with the first batch of images representing the art work that is already in the pre-Alpha version available to Ace tier Patreon subscribers. Meanwhile, the D3A images showcase the latest efforts on the project.

D3A1 “Val” renders

Here’s a little of what Jason had to say about the D3A.

Therefore, we also have textures for the D3A1 to show you! Aren’t the front and rear cockpits looking gorgeous? Our Val has gone from nothing, to a beautiful, highly detailed, and even flyable warbird in just under twelve months! That’s incredibly fast work for a two-seater, let alone a Japanese machine which has never been made to this level.

Jason is correct on this note as the last time the D3A was done for a flight sim in any serious way was back with Pacific Fighters. Technology, art, design, and detail capabilities of modern PCs have moved a very long way since then and so what we see here is well beyond anything before for this specific aircraft type.

Jason reports that the A6M2-21 cockpit textures are currently being worked on right now and the B-17F model, which Jason revealed at FSExpo 2024, is being converted into a B-17E (Late) making it appropriate for the action taking place during the Battle of Midway. Including a four engine bomber relatively early in Combat Pilot’s development does suggest that the sim intends to offer quite a range of experiences up to and including the four engine bomber variety – something long sought after by sim fans.

Read the complete update right over here with many more images!

9 responses to “Combat Pilot shows off even more of the F4F and D3A”

  1. sdsc0rch Avatar
    sdsc0rch

    there’s a meme…… what you expect vs what you get! all these pretty pictures sure LOOK good – but how will it look on “my” computer? in VR??

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      I’m preparing an overview of the latest changes and my own experiences with the Combat Pilot alpha, its taken a lot longer than I’d wanted because of an excessive amount of over time at work, but it is coming. You’ll see the same F4F-4 textures in action in those shots. So you can see how it translates.

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  2. Sokol76 Avatar
    Sokol76

    They look great, also with how many people work on it its great job, but in todays games great realistic graphics is expected, where games get to be great games is gameplay. I can look at any other sim and they all look similar when it comes to airplanes looks and so on… but gameplay will be crucial, not even FM or DM will move the needle at this point that much. Refraction is cool thing to differ them from others

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  3. marcocom Avatar
    marcocom

    We often have to bring this up in DCS arguments, but making an aircraft is the fun and creative part of a simulator. its artist-deliverables of modelling and texture, can be done in a number of tools freely available and taught in schools. That is why there is so many aircraft and terrain-module contributors to DCS or MSFS. (think: 20-somethings in tshirts and shorts)

    However, the actual engineering of a simulator world-engine, its rendering and physics, its net-code and user interfaces…that is something very rare few in the world can do, and it takes a decade, minimum, to learn to even just modify (Falcon4 as an example), let alone, build from scratch. (think: 40 or even 50-somethings in buttoned shirts and slacks)

    Nice looking assets! Keep up the beautiful work!

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  4. PaperPilot Avatar
    PaperPilot

    Looking really good I’m looking forwards to playing the game myself!

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      It’s certainly coming together!

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  5. Blue 5 Avatar
    Blue 5

    Looking fwd to this more than Korea. As you said, it has not been done for – what – decades? I had AoP when I first started. I got the later release gold edition (or something like that) with the ‘1946’ campaign that was silly but great fun. I loved the F2G Corsair, that was nuts and looked sooooo cool.

    My only concern is that Midway is, well, a bit of a limited zone of operations. I understand why they chose it. I hope the next surprise is that the Solomons has been in concurrent development and will be added 6 months afterwards. But I doubt it.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Indeed! It’s been a few decades since someone built a large scale combat flight sim essentially from scratch. Rise of Flight may have been the last? DCS owes its legacy to the Flanker series going back to mid 1990s. There’s a few that are based on FSX. It’s wild.

      Midway was a good choice for a bunch of reasons as it lets them focus on aircraft and ships and much less concern for ground. I suspect Solomon’s will require some lengthy development to get some of those details right. I don’t think it’ll be 6 months…. But I like the wishful thinking! 😀

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      1. Blue 5 Avatar
        Blue 5

        Do the landscape for Guadalcanal and people will come. OK, so it is a risk, but crowd fund it as a test? I’ll put down some cash.

        The problem I see is that Midway:

        • Has literally nowhere to go in aircraft or scenario
        • Has no real campaign
        • Will get somewhat boring

        Personally – if I were a cold, mercenary, comms. type of guy – I would make an early Solomons start and release graphics to show where the sim was going. That would be a good news feed and likely some jolt to interest.

        But maybe that’s just me.

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