Heatblur Update - Supersize Me & Public Roadmap

[Cobra847]

 

Dear All,

 

As we collectively head through the great release of 2.7 and beyond, it’s far past due to give you some proper, candid insight into Heatblur. Outside of the A-6 announcement, we’ve remained rather quiet, fairly reserved and the level of activity and development pace has been ostensibly low. While certainly not overtly visible, big things are happening in Heatblur, and more importantly: great things - that will evolve our company, how well and quickly we do things, and the quality that we can achieve across all stages of development. Hopefully this small update, while not offering much new in terms of technical development progress, will help explain.
 

We’ve now entered a growth and expansion phase unlike any previous, and it’s one that is long overdue to meet our continuing obligations in product development, maintenance and to fulfill our lofty dreams and ambitions. We’ve been consistent in noting that we are as committed as ever to consumer flight simulation, and even if cagey to commit to specifics, our nascent professional industry endeavors have not impeded these intentions. We’re aiming for a level of development and investment that is now far beyond any previous long term planning, and this level of growth will lay the very foundation of the next decade of our company, in skills, expertise and technology. By June, we expect to have doubled the size of our full time development team alone, and this is really just the beginning as we embark on a broad and ambitious roadmap, which includes three high fidelity DCS modules currently in development. We couldn’t be happier about the opportunities afforded to us as part of this community, and we are very excited about our vision for our future. This wouldn't be possible without all of your support!

 

To give better insight into what we’re working on and to hopefully better involve you into giving us input on what you’d like to see improved or changed, we are today publishing a roadmap that we will continually curate and update as we move forward. We believe this will be especially important once we start launching new modules and as DCS continues to evolve. The main caveat of this roadmap is that it’s not entirely exhaustive (we’ll probably miss plenty of stuff, especially smaller items!) - and it is also not really meant to list bugs or issues. Instead, it focuses on major additions, changes or corrections - and only those that are confirmed, public, and planned. That said; we hope it will offer you all a good high level overview of the present and future!

 

Click to view our public roadmap!

 

This evolution of Heatblur has ultimately and significantly impacted where we’ve focused our attention and resources through the entire first quarter. We have had to sacrifice many of our short term goals in order to position ourselves for future sustainability and most importantly: reliability. Planning, structure, financing, hiring and onboarding have occupied much of our time, and these don’t tend to yield an outwardly visible level of progress for some time. While these are just good things in the end, the short term impact is that our roadmap for the previous quarter suffered and narrowed in scope. We’re going to continue growing and finding our feet, training new additions to the team and gearing up for the challenges ahead through most of this quarter, but while constantly burning the midnight oil as best we can to keep up with our already delayed and previously announced roadmap.

 

The team’s main priorities right now are to bring the Viggen out of Early Access through another major update, and to launch the first Forrestal class carrier. We’ll continue to push hard to finally get some of these major items complete. The last remaining major feature/content parts for the F-14 will then be the early -A’s, the A-6 AI, and one more campaign. In parallel, we will be working on JESTER improvements (LANTIRN!), various other additions and some long overdue fixes (floating bombs, anyone?) and shipping these with a focus to clean our slate before we focus on the future roadmap.

 

There are some moments that have really stuck with us: from first starting work on the MiG-21, building the Viggen team, to conceptualizing and starting work on the F-14 - just to name a few. All of those were pivotal to Heatblur and to many of our lives today. I can see that these last few months will carry a similar kind of sentiment in the next decade of Heatblur as we build and head into a new and exciting future.

 

Thank you as always for your support and trust, and above all - your very kind patience: we promise that you won’t regret it.

 

Sincerely,
Team Heatblur 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Cobra847

[RaisedByWolves]

There it is. 

[TLTeo]

Two more modules other than the A-6, uh...if I had to guess, the one with the "2022" tag is the Draken (or riot!) because it's going to be simpler to code than the A-6. The third one is anyone's guess though!

[RaisedByWolves]

That A-6 makes my pants tight.

[Rudel_chw]

So glad to see that the AI Draken is still on the RoadMap  .. love to see Heatblur still going strong, I have purchased every single one of your DCS products (including the MiG-21) and will continue to do so in the future. Wish you the best. 

[Pally]

#LONGLIVE_HEATBLUR ;D

 

*Photo credit:

 

Top. My own screenshot: Tomcat over Nevada | Heatblur F-14B | VF-31 Tomcatters.

 

Bottom. Playseat from wife; bottom panel with personalized and trimmed vinyl stickers representing GE F110, PW TF-30, Grumman Aerospace Corporation, VF-31 Tomcatters, and the iconic F-14.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Pally

[Skysurfer]

Good stuff and great to see that you guys are taking the needed steps for a bright future ahead. The mention of the two new jets planned or in the works does indeed spark the interest in most I would say.  I'll be the first to say it here but bet is a naval F-4 and perhaps an F-111.

Needless to say I can't wair for the Forrestal and judging by what is mentioned in the roadmap will USS Saratoga be included as well since it won't require large adaptations or re-modeling?

[flybull]

Hot Damn, I love HB.

 

The future is bright.

[PiratexCore]

You guys have got some good stuff going on. The Forrestals will be nice to have, my father served on the USS Ranger(CV-61) from '63-'66 so I'm hoping she might be one of the options(edit: just noticed the Ranger is going to be one of the variants according to the Variants roadmap tile, awesome!). I'm definitely looking forward to snagging the A-6E as well, going to have a lot of fun flying it.
Those two additional flyable aircraft panels on the roadmap has me curious as hell. Whatever they are though, I bet they're going to be great.

Also, more music from Meteor is always a good thing. He makes some damn fine music.

 

All in all, keep it up Heatblur! I've been very satisfied with your products, here's to more of that to come.

Edited May 2, 2021 by PiratexCore
Noticed the Ranger is going to be one of the variants down the line

[Nexus-6]

I've got to hand it to you guys.  You've never failed to surprise me.

 

Admittedly, I've been away from the forums for a bit, but I was under the impression that only one early F-14A was being delivered.  Now, I return and discover that, not only are we getting the -135, but it seems that at some point you've also decided to give us the -95 as well!

 

And...

 

When you first told us way back when that you were working on an aircraft other than the F-14, and then announced the A-6 as a flyable module sometime down the road, I thought, "Ok, that follows.  It will dovetail nicely with the Tomcat and the Forrestal carrier."  Now it appears you're building ANOTHER toy for our amusement.  My imagination is swimming with what it could possibly be.

 

Well done, Heatblur.  I salute you.

[Tank50us]

Hmm... an aircraft that is secret, but apparently going to ship in 2022.... hmm... with a year and a half to get that one out the door, I would have to assume that either A: it's something that we already know they can work on, such as a variation of the Viggen (such as the Air-to-Air or Recon versions) or the Super Tomcat, or B: it's something completely new that they've been keeping very close to the chest for a while. I'm going to lean on the former, since they have the external assets for the most part, and are already working to improve those modules. As for what they could be working on in secret, well, let's look at the evidence:
 

1. They developed an AI that can work the rear-seat controls in the F-14

2. They seem to have a thing for carrier based, or short-take-off (and very short-stopping) capable jets

3. They're developing the Forestall, and her sisters, which are Vietnam era carriers that saw service well into the 80s and 90s.

 

Those three things, along with the fact that ED has stated that they are not going to work on it, leads me to think that they may be developing an F-4 variant of some sort. If I'm wrong, I'll own it, but the evidence is strong that they're working on something that's at least a two-seater, and there aren't that many out there.

[CoBlue]

No word on the arcadish trap-model physics?.....it's not on the roadmap anymore?

 

Forget about the A-6 if it's going to glue itself on traps like the F-14!

 

 

[JonathanRL]

So happy that you have not forgotten about the AI Draken. Of course I will always hope for a full fidelity release of that plane.
*nudges Heatblur with a very long stick*

Also, Dynamic numbers for the Viggen will be a godsend. I did not look forward to having to include eight different skins in my next Viggen Campaign Project.

[Tank50us]

1 minute ago, JonathanRL said:

So happy that you have not forgotten about the AI Draken. Of course I will always hope for a full fidelity release of that plane.
*nudges Heatblur with a very long stick*

Also, Dynamic numbers for the Viggen will be a godsend. I did not look forward to having to include eight different skins in my next Viggen Campaign Project.

funnily enough, I prefer doing that with my skins, since they tend to have something unique about them anyway, for example:

Note my Tomcat in the lead (BN916), with a anthro dragon on the nose. My wingman has my units 'base' skin, and will eventually get his own.

[dandan]

thank! You are the best

Edited May 2, 2021 by dandan

[GunSlingerAUS]

Thanks for the update guys - hearing that you've doubled the size of the studio is incredible news. You guys have the reputation for being the best third party dev for DCS, and it looks like it's set to continue. And thank you for the hundreds of hours of utter pleasure that I've had in the Tomcat.

1 hour ago, CoBlue said:

No word on the arcadish trap-model physics?.....it's not on the roadmap anymore?

 

Forget about the A-6 if it's going to glue itself on traps like the F-14!

 

 

 

I would love to see this improved too, but it feels like there's some showstopper of an issue HB hasn't made public that hasn't made more realistic traps possible. 

[IkarusC42B Pilot]

F14 roadmap is really dissapointing. No functional work just eye candy. Why cant you complete the datalink functions?

Edited May 2, 2021 by IkarusC42B Pilot

[McDaniel]

Great move, thank you!

[Sonoda Umi]

Off topic:

I saw "DCS Next-Generation Jet" on your roadmap.

 

I would be extremely happy if you decided to develop DCS F/A-18F Rhino(Block 1) some day! 

[Sajarov]

Thanks for the detailed roadmap.
Sadly no dynamic numbers for the F-14.
1 GB of SDD for 5 liveries with different modex. 1 GB sharing almost all files!

Interesting two. New aircrafts in the oven...

1. J35J Draken
2. F-4J Phantom II



Sent from my Moto G (5S) using Tapatalk

[Northstar98]

22 hours ago, Skysurfer said:

Needless to say I can't wair for the Forrestal and judging by what is mentioned in the roadmap will USS Saratoga be included as well since it won't require large adaptations or re-modeling?

 

In the roadmap it said that all 4 of them are coming, with the Forrestal and Saratoga coming first, and Independence and Ranger coming later in the more distant future.

 

Quote

We will introduce the USS Saratoga (CV-60) as a variant to the Forrestal class carriers with the further two (Independence & Ranger) requiring larger reworks and relegated to the more distant future.

 

15 hours ago, Sonoda Umi said:

Off topic:

I saw "DCS Next-Generation Jet" on your roadmap.

 

I would be extremely happy if you decided to develop DCS F/A-18F Rhino(Block 1) some day! 

 

I doubt anyone will introduce a aircraft that will make ED's Hornet basically obsolete. 

 

As for the next modules, I'm really hoping for an F-4J/S or an F-111F.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Northstar98

[ebabil]

phantom ?

[Renko]

"DCS Next-Generation Jet" means next gen from the F14, i guess.
So what if they are doing the Tornado, or even better the GRIPEN

[AvroLanc]

So best guesses for the two next gen jets?

 

It's got to be something relatively well known and popular with a certain 'Heatblur' character that we know from the Tomcat and Viggen. All the while not stepping on ED's or other 3rd parties toes. I.e. it's probably not going to be another clinical 4th gen MFD driven jet. The list to guess from is likely not huge.....

 

My guesses in order of likelihood:

 

1) F-4S/J

2) F-111A/E/F

3) Tornado Gr.1

4) F-14B(U) or D (maybe they found the docs they need)

5) Buccaneer S.2

6) Jaguar Gr.1 / 1a

 

[OnionSpider13]

My money would be on the J35J Draken and F-4J Phantom II, but my heart still hopes for an F-14D Super Tomcat :')