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luthier1

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  1. Hello folks, Today’s update is a small miracle. By late night Moscow time, as we decided to take some screenshots, we realized that the game’s WIP render stopped working for everyone. Programmers responsible had already gone home hours before. I began writing an apologetic update, and then, somehow, someway, our ingenious junior aircraft programmer managed to get the game working on his machine. So, I’m very happy to present to you the 109 in combat. (please note that his version of the 109 has many animations not working, such as landing gear and propeller arc, and has a lot of other system stuff showing. We decided not to mess with his development environment because time is very precious) On the development front, most of the tasks this week had to do with the cockpit and the sound. The 109 is beginning to sound very mean and very authentic. Our wonderful sound engineer also wrote an incredibly rousing theme for the 109, but I won’t be posting it just yet. The wonderful composer, talented but naïve in the ways of the world, submitted the latest version with a background sound effect of a certain historical leader reading a speech to a rousing roar. We’ll make sure it is removed of course, but this being late Friday night in Moscow, it won’t happen today. Other than that, the tasks remaining for the 109 are, in that order: finalize and test cockpit procedures; finalize sound; DB 605 engine tuning for medium and high altitudes; finalize manual; overall testing; finalize external animations; finalize damage model visuals; finalize flight performance; create game interface. The plan will likely change, especially in the smaller sub-tasks that I am not listing for each major step. However, the first two tasks (sound and cockpit) should complete next week, and DB 605 tuning, unless something goes horribly wrong, should take be done, well, so quickly that I cannot even force myself to write out the task duration publicly. And then, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll just need to test this here thing for serious and crash bugs for as long as it takes that to ensure they do not exist. The biggest task for the coming days for me personally is to finish up the 109 manual. There’s not much work to be done, just write out all cockpit procedures and make sure all the buttons and checklists are correct. Shooting to have the manual finished by, oh, May 10th. I’ll wrap this up with a couple of beaaautiful diagrams done for the 109 manual by our very talented graphic artist. The manuals are looking very spiffy. Cannot wait to see them in print! Have a great weekend!
  2. Hey everyone, Here’s some more on the Bf 109K-4. We’re pretty much done with the cockpit and external animations. The last remaining set of cockpit tasks should take no more than 2-3 days; plus we’ve compiled a final list of fixes and updates needed to the cockpit and external models based on internal testing, which should take no more than 10 days or so for the modeler to implement. We’re having an internal discussion on what exactly to consider an alpha stage for the 109. Obviously we owe our backers an alpha version. My own feeling is that we’re pretty much at alpha, while some at ED feel that this is very far from a version that can be given out. Next week, our plane will look like a 109, sound like a 109, and all the gauges and internal systems will operate as those of a 109. However it will not fly exactly like a 109. The engine model and the aerodynamic model is what takes the most time to perfect in DCS. We’ll have another big internal discussion on this on Monday. For now, here’s some screenshots of some more cockpit animations, working AFN2, and a near-perfect three-point landing. (please note that the new render is still in development, so you're seeing some glitches in trees and shadows and other components) Have a great weekend!
  3. Hello folks, Ooh, how the time flies, another Friday already? My job is the least predictable of all in the project it seems. I tend to have a huge variety of tasks in my lap, all with five alarm bells ringing, and with no one to give them to. I’ve spent all week doing emergency translations and documents. Doing that while also trying to be a single father to two young kids means that there’s literally no time for anything, especially sleep. When Friday comes around, Friday morning my time, Friday evening Moscow time, that means a very sudden silence. The kids go to their mother, and there’s no urgent work that has to be completed by tonight – Moscow’s off until Sunday night my time. Then it’s time for me to relax, sit back, and write a Friday update – and after that, most incredible of all, I can finally go and catch up on some z’s. Work-wise, we’re moving ahead full speed getting the 109 to a stable alpha stage. Tasks are getting smaller, while the results are becoming a lot more noticeable. We’ve spent all week on the cockpit, on animating the gauges (about a third of all objects now move properly), recording new sounds for Dora and Kurfurst, completing an authentic electrical system, writing out the entire set of keybord shortcuts for the K-4 mostly based on the Mustang. Runway take-offs are finally nice and straight. The new render is still a bit wacky, and that’s completely outside our control, ED guys are putting crazy hours into it as well. So, the best we can show on screenshots is a couple of interior shots with needles properly pointing at things other than zeroes. Also, here’s where we are with the Me.262 external. Hope you guys have a great weekend!
  4. Evening folks, The 109 is a lot more mature. Game development is always a funny process. For the longest time, everything is in pieces, really moving slowly, and you have no game, just the ingredients. Then you get to the stage where you put things together, and that’s where you begin to encounter various annoying and unexpected obstacles, and nothing seems to move forwards, and sometimes it even seems like you’re moving backwards, like the light at the end of the tunnel only seems to get dimmer. And then, suddenly, wham! Things just begin to work, and all of a sudden, in a very short time, you have something tangible, something that actually feels solid. You’re nowhere near the finished product yet, but at least you have a product and not a bunch of disjointed parts. With the 109, we still have ways to go. Most animations are not working yet, especially cockpit animations. If it seems trivial, here’s a few brief excerpts from our cockpit animation spec. This all takes time to spec out, to code, and especially to test. And there’s also some screenshots below showing some of the things implemented this week, like working radiator and rotating prop. If you’re one of the very few remaining people affected by access issues to the beta version of our Backer Section, please bear with us! We did uncover some unexpected bugs in the system which do unfortunately affect a few backers, and we’re working on them as fast as we can. Some just ended up needed more work than we hoped. Hope you have a great weekend!
  5. Email backlog a lot better - only 38 this morning, plus about 20 still unresolved cases of people who ran into various bugs that the developers are fixing. In the meantime, in the virtual skies...
  6. Hey folks, Just letting you know that I'm absolutely swamped at the moment dealing with the backer section's beta. I'm the last, and only, line of defense at the moment. I received 180 emails in the first 24 hours alone, and the volume is not fading. I've been at it for over 12 hours today, and I've never once been at a point where there's less than 50 unread emails in the inbox. As these are the people that cannot access the system or the forums at all, and making sure the system works for everyone is the main point of this current beta test, I'm not posting on here as much as I'd like because I'm absolutely swamped. Every time I step away for five minutes, 10 more angry emails drop into the inbox. So, please forgive me if I'm not answering your questions in here as well as I should at the moment. Hopefully things will quiet down tomorrow or Thursday, and the subsequent launch will have fewer problems, and I'll finally have the time to go through this forum and answer your questions here.
  7. This is something we did wrong. We'll work to have this fixed.
  8. The reward tiers currently go up to $250, and then everything else is "basically 250 and up". We did have a bug that made higher pledges see no matrix rewards, but we just fixed it. Please refresh the page, should be working now. Any additional rewards above $250 however, we figured, are a special case that decides special consideration. We don't want to show them to lower levels, but we currently not showing them for the people who are getting them either. We are work to have this addressed ASAP. Thank you very much for your support! Yess, thank you for discovering an issue for us! Pre-selecting rewards was a gigantic headache, and we obviously made a mistake with this particular rewards tier. Could take a little longer to address. Sorry, and thank you for your patience!
  9. OK, I'm sorry. The kickstarter reward description for that tier is Is this not what you are seeing? Everything saves. We're just not issuing any rewards until the page goes live, which should be in a couple of days. We're just making sure we don't have any unexpected issues that cause something somewhere to blow up, just in case.
  10. Looking into this. The management system for this thing, oof, it takes some getting used to.
  11. Right. I think the first backer tier that had the DCS version of the 190 was $85. Technically, the developers of DCS WWII are a separate entity from the developers of FW 190, and the FW 190 product is owned by the Fighter Collection. We can't comp or offer discounts on TFC products at all, so, unfortunately, this is what we have to do. Reposting from the other thread The flyables vs rewards is the difference between DCS FW 190 and DCS WWII FW 190, or the two versions of the P-51. DCS P-51 is already available. DCS WWII is not available yet, so you can only fly the P-51 in DCS, but not in DCS WWII. DCS FW-190 will be ready soon. DCS WWII will be ready later, so you'll be able to fly the DCS FW-190 earlier than the DCS WWII version. In other words, you would select the DCS (not WWII) versions of these planes so you can fly them when they are available, before DCS WWII is ready.
  12. This is still officially a beta of the thing. We're trying to iron out the kinks. We don't want to issue keys just yet in case something somewhere has gone horribly wrong and we have a crippling bug in the system. Also, we already issued some P-51 keys, but the system has not marked it yet. We need to put all that info in there (hopefully tomorrow morning Moscow time) before the system is ready to go. At this time the system can issue keys but won't mark your account as having it issued, which could potentially lead to a ten billion dollars worth of keys accidentally sent to your account. We'll issue all keys that are ready after we go live. Then you'll have them emailed to the email address on the account.
  13. Just to clarify, my biggest involvement with the FW 190 is that I wrote its manual, and now I'm the team's best expert on all the cockpit procedures. I know the team is really shooting to have this ready as soon as humanly possible, and they're very close, but please don't take this information as a confirmed official release date. I don't think anyone could tell you when it'll be ready yet. Things always seem to go wrong at the worst time, and we're obviously not releasing the Dora until it's perfect.
  14. This is just availability date. DCS P-51 is already available. DCS WWII is not available yet, so you can only fly the P-51 in DCS, but not in DCS WWII. DCS FW-190 will be ready soon. DCS WWII will be ready later, so you'll be able to fly the DCS FW-190 earlier than the DCS WWII version. In other words, you would select the DCS (not WWII) versions of these planes so you can fly them when they are available, before DCS WWII is ready.
  15. Here's how this works. We'll try to pool your orders into as few shipments as possible, especially when shipping internationally. Until we collect and ship your order, you'll be able to update your shipping address at any time. So definitely don't worry about that for now. We will notify you a few days before your order is ready to go out, so you'll be able to double-check and update all information as needed.
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