Executive Producer Skystreak Productions Jason_Williams Posted December 1, 2023 Executive Producer Skystreak Productions Share Posted December 1, 2023 Quote DD 04 Dear Pilots, The holiday season is now in full swing and we want to wish everyone in the Combat Pilot community a Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas! We hope that 2023 ends on a peaceful and prosperous note for everyone and 2024 brings great things to you and yours. Progress on our initial prototype inches forward week by week and as usual we’d like to share some more images and news with you. Since our last DD we’ve seen progress on buildings for Midway, our aircraft carriers, and our airplanes. Let’s see what this week has in store. Midway Atoll Infrastructure Midway is often referred to as an island, but it’s really an atoll, consisting of two main islands (Sand and Eastern) and a coral reef system with a lagoon in the center. Several Pacific battles took place on atolls during the war which makes for some unique and exotic scenery, but a horrendous amount of blood was shed for their control. Battles on atolls such as Wake, Makin, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, and Tarawa come to mind. Midway was spared an amphibious assault due to the US naval victory out at sea, but it was attacked by air and took some serious damage. One of our goals is to make a faithful recreation of the infrastructure and defenses found on Midway during the battle. In our opinion, other games and simulators haven’t portrayed Midway very accurately over the years so we hope to change that and set a new standard. Midway went through several stages of growth, abandonment, and decay before, during and after WWII, so depicting her as it looked in June 1942 is a challenge. Detailed maps and quality images are surprisingly rare. We’ve been able to dig up some good references though with help from the community. Which we greatly appreciate. Midway was not only a naval base and military airfield, but it was also a civilian seaplane base for Pan-Am’s clipper service to the Far East. Additionally, Midway was an outpost servicing underwater telegraph cables. Therefore, not all infrastructure on Midway was military in nature. Here are a few images of buildings that Carl has created for Midway so far. They will be textured soon and really come to life. 5 in. / 51 Cal. Gun Midway’s beaches were defended by a mix of 3-inch, 5-inch, and 7-inch guns. Below is a pic of our 5-inch gun made again by Tamas who also made the 3in gun from DD 03. Boom! A6M2 Landing Gear Work on our Zeke continues and more progress has been made. This time on the landing gear. John has brought the Zero’s exterior mesh close to completion and next up is the wingtip folding mechanism. Then it will be time to texture it. F4F-4 Engine and Landing Gear Our valiant, but stubby American fighter is also nearing completion of what we consider to be the external mesh even though it clearly includes some nice internal details. We’re even hanging some stores underneath her. Chris has the R-1830 Twin Wasp looking sharp and everything will look even better once we have textures on it. 5 in. / 38 Cal. Gun for USS Enterprise Our USS Enterprise is being built by a veteran team that Jason has worked with for a long time and the guns are being built by Stefan who really knows his way around WW2 era ships. Matter of fact, some of you may own books that feature Stefan’s previous work. Below are images of the high-poly model that will, of course, be further optimized for performance considerations, However, our goal is to have our ships be as detailed and as beautiful as possible, while maintaining good performance. This gun will also be textured soon. CV-6 USS Enterprise (Yorktown Class) And speaking of the Enterprise, here is a very early look at her big beautiful hull and superstructure under development. Trying to land on her pitching and rolling deck will be a blast! More on the ‘Big E’ as she takes shape. We hope to have images of the Akagi in our next DD. Work on her started a little bit after Enterprise. Early Flights of the Zeke! We know everyone is eager to see one of our warbirds flying in the engine itself and that is already happening. Our A6M can indeed take to the virtual sky in our internal testing, but we are still working out the kinks in its flight model and researching its performance envelop. Some in the community have helped us locate performance data for the Zeke which we greatly appreciate. The current A6M2 model imported into the engine is without textures and animations so it’s a little odd to watch fly. What we do have working is basic flight and systems like landing gear and wheel brakes. We already have support for phenomena like stalls and ground effect which will be refined more and more over time. We also have basic instrumentation working, but it’s currently just a digital display. We still need to build our proper instrumentation for actual cockpits with gauges etc. The last thing we want to do is show you something too raw, but we’ve included a pic of our early work below. It includes a basic shader for the water so the ocean already looks quite tropical. As you can see, there's not much to look at yet, but big kudos to our engineering team for getting the Zeke airborne so fast. Remember, when compared to other sims on the market, we are just a newborn so a long way to go still. However, we have made strong progress in 2023 and we hope to show you something a bit more impressive in Q1 of 2024. We have also begun work on our damage model design and researching basic multiplayer support as well as increased controller support. Again, long way to go, but we’re making progress on the flying front. Enjoy! AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL The Combat Pilot Team Full Developer Diary is HERE! Jason 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyingShark Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Nice, great attention to detail on those lower wings of that F4-F4. Have a nice day. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skelthos Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 It looks really good, and like things are progressing at a decent pace. Excited to see the continued progress. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IckyAtlas Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Excellent work ! Carriers, Planes guns, buildings. It's going fast. Run Jason Run 🙂 Water will be absolutely important. Its transparency around the atoll according to depth is paramount. What I see seems excellent. When we will have some landmass then we will be able to appreciate fully. Longing to the Early Access, maybe end of next year? who knows. Anyway you will get my greenbacks. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 tfw you see a new flattop being developed in a flight sim 😳 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hartsblade Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Looking great! Sounds like you guys are chugging along. Thanks for the update! 6 Quote AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core Processor | Asus TUFF nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Asus ROG Crosshair VII Dark Hero | 64GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600 RAM | Windows 10 Pro x64 | Virpil MT-50 CM2 Throttle | Virpil Alpha on WarBRD base | Virpil Ace 1 Rudder Pedals | Saitek Pro Flight Throttle Quadrant (x2) |Acer x34 P 3440 x 1440 | Valve Index VR | DCS on NVME Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trooper117 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 It's all coming along nicely... steady progress being made that we all can see. Keep it up chaps! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_AH_Col._Hogan Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Judging from the detail on the hangers ceiling girders, we are in for something special. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Love it 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kestrel79 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Looks awesome! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlo-VR Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Ah yes, atolls - I lived on Kwajalein as a kid from 1977-79, and we would regularly see and find rusted-out artifacts from the war 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smink1701 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Much appreciated! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leifr Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Great update, looking forward to the coming year. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sobilak Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Great today's DD 😃 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelsup_cavu Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Great update @Jason_Williams. I REALLY like the looks of those hangars and buildings. Wheels 5 Quote Download Missions, Skins, & Essential files for IL-2 1946 and several other game series from Mission4Today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MustangMike Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Looking great! Very excited 5 Quote Working signatures? What a novel concept! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachariasX Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Looking great! Very much looking forward to this! The models look beautiful and it will be great having a scenery with an atol that really looks like one. Much appreciated Jason! 5 Quote When you don’t understand how anything works, everything is a miracle or a conspiracy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spock Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Looks great! I'm really loving the communication and regular updates; it's super cool to see "behind the scenes" of the development process. Also, I couldn't help but notice a little Star Trek crossover in the caption/watermark of the 2nd Enterprise photo.... 😄 2 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelsup_cavu Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 17 minutes ago, Spock said: Looks great! I'm really loving the communication and regular updates; it's super cool to see "behind the scenes" of the development process. Also, I couldn't help but notice a little Star Trek crossover in the caption/watermark of the 2nd Enterprise photo.... 😄 Nice catch @Spock! Wheels 3 Quote Download Missions, Skins, & Essential files for IL-2 1946 and several other game series from Mission4Today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mission_bug Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Some excellent model work there in the images Jason, congratulations to all the team for the progress they are making so far. Take care and be safe. Wishing you all the very best, Pete. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrangeNoise Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 1 hour ago, Spock said: Looks great! I'm really loving the communication and regular updates; it's super cool to see "behind the scenes" of the development process. Also, I couldn't help but notice a little Star Trek crossover in the caption/watermark of the 2nd Enterprise photo.... 😄 I can't wait until we can see WIP images of the Yamato 6 4 Quote GIGA POWER PRO-GEAR SPEC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcon41 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Great work, I'm impressed with the work accomplished thus far. Full steam ahead! Falcon41 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SOLIDKREATE Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Oh look an IJN carrier I get to sink 🙂 Cant wait Jason, good work! 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drewm3i-VR Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 It's looking good. What's a realistic timeframe? 3 years? Keep up the good work Jason and team! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lusekofte Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 This is great progress in my mind. Thank you for sharing 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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