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I think the reason they chose Midway is largely that it's much less work than Guadalcanal. Guadalcanal is 5302 square kilometres (even without other nearby landmasses such as the Florida Islands) versus 6.27 square kilometres for Midway, nearly a factor 1000 difference. By doing Midway, they can focus on implementing the key technologies rather than spend time developing content. I do agree however that Guadalcanal would make a great title. I'm sure that we will see a Guadalcanal module eventually 🙂

I think one should be very careful with statements such as "we will be able to" see certain things. Especially when comparing to demo videos that are designed to impress rather than run realistic game loops on a low or mid-range PC. It's nice to see what Unreal is capable of. However, all of this also needs to be implemented in the game, as well as 3d models made. This takes time and money, not to mention that it eats away at the framerate budget. Given the nature of the game, it may very well be that development effort will be allocated elsewhere.

Nice DD! One question that crossed my mind @Jason_Williams. You mentioned the abysmal performance of the early war torpedoes. Will this be simulated? I.e. if you drop your torpedoes slightly high and/or fast or if they hit the target at an oblique angle, there's a high chance they fail? Perhaps even random duds? Or will they always work, no matter what?

It seems to be for a plastic modeling kit. I don't know to what extent those 3d models are compatible with games since they have vastly different design requirements. I think it's not related. It's still a beautiful model though. I sure hope we'll eventually get a Kate in game!

Well the sales picture would be the same. Didn't buy CP: Battle of Guadalcanal? You only get low-res terrain (if at all) without any airfields, towns, targets or campaigns/career. Buy CP: BoG and you get the additional content. I just think that having no restrictions on where your carriers, airfields and targets are located has lots of benefits in the long run, especially with the huge distances of the Pacific. But it undoubtedly is more difficult to implement (spherical coordinates) and as such more expensive in the short run. I guess only Jason knows whether this extra investment is worth it, or even possible budget-wise 🙂

Nice pic! I presume the letters indicate several bomb impacts/damage types? Do you happen to know what their caption says?

You don't have to fill in everything 🙂 Either just low-res land or simply ocean. The big advantage is that a world system makes it possible to have additional historical missions as more content is released, as well as enable the Devs to release content in smaller increments. Bought both a Marianas and Kyushu map? Fly a bomber (escort) mission to Japan. Just Guadalcanal? Fly ground attack from Henderson Field. The Devs add Rabaul? Attack Henderson Field as the Japanese.

Thanks for the clarification. Even if it's just one or two planes and a carrier, I'd happily play it, if you decide to do early access 🙂

Nope, that's not the case 🙂 Besides what ZachariasX says, it's been quite common in games for ages already to only load in those parts of the "world" where you actually are, whether that game is a flight simulator, a shooter or a MMORPG. The whole world needs to be stored somewhere, sure, but there is no technical reason the whole world needs to be loaded beyond what you can actually see at a particular time. Similarly, MSFS doesn't actually host the world - you do that locally. It's just some data that is stored online, e.g. the satellite textures and the locations and type of buildings and trees, etc. The only reason for that is that it'd cost too much disk space (i.e. "store" a world), not that it'd cost too much RAM ("load" a world). I guess the biggest technical problem with an entire world is that you'd need a spherical coordinate system, and that can be a bit of a hassle to properly implement when pretty much all of the world around you happens in carthesian coordinates - including aircraft and ship physics.

I for one hope that they abandon the idea of "maps" like we have in IL2 1946/BoX, DCS etc. and move to a world system as we see in MSFS. One big world where you can fly wherever you want, with only those areas you've bought filled in with (hand-made) terrain (the rest either ocean or low-res terrain).

Great first DD of what's sure to become many! Can we conclude from that, that right now, the plan is to have some kind of public alpha version of the game available with just the Zero, Akagi and presumably their American counterparts, while we wait for things like dive/torpedo bombers, more ships and midway island? Or am I reading too much into your comment and does this just concern an internal prototype @Jason_Williams? Understanding, of course, that plans are always subject to change, especially at this early stage 🙂

Well, at least the top brass were fully aware that the US were immensely powerful (or at least, would be once they put their industrial might to use). They didn't have much alternatives to declaring war though. Given that: - the Japanese wanted to conquer China (and southeast Asia by extension), and - they were dependent on oil to further these objectives, it follows that they needed to capture the Dutch East Indies to obtain oil as Japan was under embargo. They then surmised that this would likely lead the US to declare war, as well as the US colony of the Philippines being rather inconveniently located directly on the sea route from the Indonesian oil fields to Japan. So in the end, they had only two options really: - give up their imperial ambitions in China, or - prepare for war with the US. Given that they weren't prepared to do the former, this left the latter as the only viable choice.* They were fully aware they needed to hit the Americans as hard as possible in the early months where they'd still have the advantage, hence the Pearl Harbour raid. One can only guess what'd have happened if the US carrier fleet had been in port. Even when the war turned for the worse, it's important to recognise that the Japanese didn't need to win. They only needed to not lose. As long as they held the Dutch oil fields and were able to keep the US at bay, they'd still be better off than in mid-1941. * Of course, the doctrines of Cpt. Hindsight dictate that the other option would've been the better one.

It does kinda completely miss the point that the Japanese never intended to fight a long war of attrition. Their whole strategy was to hit fast and hit hard, so that the Americans would quickly agree to a white peace, precisely to *avoid* any such lengthy war. How realistic this desire was in retrospect is a different question, but if you don't wage a war of attrition, little of what this article says matters.

Why are those Wildcats on deck? They obviously can't have been there when the Mitchells took off, and the part of the deck that's left seems a bit short for 5 Wildcats to take off from. So if there's enough room to store them down in the hangar, why put them up there?

Yes I'm a nerd and proud of it 😛 Never played Warhammer, although I've got a friend that does. He's never played DnD, and will join us for a oneshot soon.

Aye - especially since the Dutch also flew them there 🙂 The Dutch Buffaloes performed pretty decent too it seems; a quick google search shows 55 kills vs 30 losses (not including 15 destroyed on the ground, and apparently a few others lost to accidents). During one mission on February 19, 8 Buffaloes intercepted 35 bombers escorted by 20 Zeros, for a total of 11 kills against 4 losses. Even if overclaiming and perhaps an exaggerated size of the Japanese escort are accounted for, that's still an impressive number that discounts the idea that the Dutch and British air forces in the area were completely overwhelmed and outclassed to such an extent that they barely performed at all.

A real beauty, and quite heavily armed and armoured too if I'm not mistaken. I'd love to fly it, but I doubt we'll see it in the first Combat Pilot game; I don't think there were any H8Ks at Midway, were there?

If you're talking about a limited number of possible commands, then sure, that can be done as I already acknowledged, as this perfectly matches "simple commands that can be translated to (sequences of) keypresses". In that case, however, there are already some external tools that work rather well. I'd rather they have people use these tools and spend their development time/money elsewhere rather than hire someone to re-invent the wheel. Of course, good integration with such external tools would be welcome. This is actually a fine example of what *cannot* be accomplished by "good old fashioned branched logic trees". Splitting up your formation and changing your target according to a certain description ("further" "bigger" "on the left" "southern" or whatever) requires not just understanding the text itself, but also both situational and contextual awareness. AI of the likes of GPT would be able to do that, I expect, but that's way beyond the scope of a small development company like Skystreak. And that right there is the problem: as long as you stick to a pre-defined list of commands that have pre-programmed actions linked to them, it's perfectly possible with branched logic trees. Anything beyond that, and you're going to need Neural Networks. I think that's exactly the intention, minus an improved flight model, AI and possibly some other stuff. And that doesn't disappoint me at all 🙂

All due respect, but realistic AI and realistic AI that responds in a meaningful and non-gameplay-breaking way to player-issued commands are an entirely different thing. Case in point: IL2. Regarding voice commands, I'm quite up-to-date about what can be done with modern AI, especially Neural Nets, thank you. Following simple commands that can be translated to (sequences of) keypresses is perfectly possible, and has been for the past decade or so. But AI that actually "comprehends" what you're saying and can also act accordingly is, at this point in time, not possible for a small developer like this 🙂 Take it however you want; I'm not the one who's going to be disappointed when the game is released and none of this is present 😉

Well, coming from someone who's well versed in AI, I don't think that's quite a realistic expectation at this point in time 🙂 At least not beyond the level that can already be done by mapping voice commands to key presses. The thing is, speech is a very complicated thing. There are usually several possible ways to interpret a specific combination of words, and conversely there's usually several ways to phrase a certain thought. We've just about reached the point where AI can more or less accurately "understand" what a person is saying. Translating that into more complicated actions than, let's say, "attack the nearest enemy" is on a whole other level. The AI would not only need to understand what the human is saying, but also what it itself is doing as well as the reasoning behind this all, and then draw conclusions about the final course of action to take. Perhaps it could be done with the financial/development power of Google or Microsoft or the like, but I don't think we're going to see anything of the sort from the current team 😉

Well, thanks! It's a pretty simple instrument, really, so it didn't take too long. It's been a few years, but I guess three or four days or so, including the time for the glue to set? My father was trained as a carpenter so he helped me with most of it. So, how does that compare to an electric guitar? Besides the body having a more complicated shape, I guess the wiring takes a couple of hours to do as well?

It's not exactly a "video game" but it's a game all right and since there's no other categories that fit it better, I was wondering if anyone else plays DnD? Myself, I've been playing it for the last 4 or 5 years or so, can't remember exactly when I started. Ever since, we've got a planned gaming night every other week, with about half of those actually going through because of real-world issues 😛 My current (third) character is a L7 Human Paladin. I'm pretty much the tank of the group (just upgraded to AC20 with adamantine armour (no crits)) but given the amount of damage I have to tank I'm often still one of the first to go down😅 So, anyone else playing Dungeons and Dragons? What kind of characters do you play? Other things you like to share? 🙂

Not a guitar, but I did build this six-stringed beauty ❤️: A Germanic lyre, built in a kind-of-Sutton-Hoo-style-but-not-quite. As my nickname pretty much gives away, I'm fascinated with the ancient Germanics (which includes but is not at all limited to the Anglo-Saxons) so I thought it'd be fun to have a lyre 🙂

Not sure what a "Page 2 veteran" is? Google doesn't work here since you just get lots of second pages of whatever about veterans😄 Anyhow, May 29 is not even close to May 5. At least, three full weeks is not something I call close. Is there any further meaning to the date, or is it simply something like "what the heck, why not celebrate it right now"? Also, just to be pro-active in case anyone thinks otherwise, I'm just curious and in no way want to detract from the importance of days like this to remember those who died for your country. I do think it's important to honour those dead. And as a Dutchman, I feel obliged to honour at least those of them who died during WW2 - lots of Americans died while driving the Germans from my country. If not for those brave soldiers, I'd be living in either Greater Germany or the Soviet Union. With world politics as they are, I think there's hardly been a time it was more relevant to stop for a moment and think about what exactly our freedom means, and how much was sacrificed for it. It's very little compared to what those who fell gave, but I do want to give my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the Allied dead.

Just wondering; it's clear to me from the posts above that this "memorial day" is a day on which the US honours its military dead. But why this date? It seems just so... arbitrary. It's not on the completion date of any of the US wars that sprang to my mind (although the US Civil War is close), and a quick scan of the Wikipedia page also didn't reveal any answers. The equivalent day in the Netherlands would be "dodenherdenking" (lit. "remembrance of the dead"), which is aptly placed on May 4 to pretty much coincide with the German capitulation in the Netherlands on May 5, 1945 while leaving May 5 itself for more festive celebrations ("dodenherdenking" is meant for a solemn remembrance). This doesn't seem to be the case for "memorial day"? Oh, and of course I wish everyone a good memorial day 🙂 ("good" would be fine wouldn't it, since it doesn't imply any specific state of mind?)