Hello everybody,

 

Today we'll tell you a bit more about Battle of Kuban development progress. Let's begin with the graphics engine update.

 

Having finished Open VR API implementation, we started the work on another long-awaited feature - aircraft rear view mirrors. In fact, rendering the mirrors realistically looking and keeping the performance hit manageable at the same time is a complex task.

 

Mirrors in the products made by our competitors aren't flawless. In one of them, mirrors simply function like monitors - image in them doesn't change when you move your head while in another these images look right but very simplified (this is needed to keep good performance). This is complicated by the fact that the mirrors are placed very differently in each aircraft. Sometimes they are fixed, sometimes attached to the sliding canopy, sometimes they are outside the cabin and sometimes they are inside - this makes their rendering more complex. Of course, we hope that we'll be able to solve all such problems. There will be simplifications without hurting their functionality for sure - it's likely that the mirrors won't reflect your own plane and trees to keep the performance high. In short, we'll do our best to make the mirrors among the best in aircraft sims, if not the best of them all.

 

Second, we have made good progress in implementing TacView support (TacView is a great tool to visualize dogfights). It works already and we're working with the TacView developer to solve the remaining issues.

 

Third, we prepared the alternative design approach for field airdromes on the Moscow map. The tests show that FPS hit above the 'new' airfields is lower and there are no 'stutters' which you can experience near current field airdromes when 'Distant grass' option is turned on. We hope to remake all 32 Moscow airfields using this new approach in the near future and solve this issue for good. This is especially important because there will be many similar airfields on the Kuban map as well.

 

In the meantime, development of the remaining Battle of Kuban aircraft is proceeding as planned. Sometimes we encounter difficulties - for example, we needed to correct P-39L-1 schematics significantly after comparing them to photographs and this took significantly more time that was planned. Another example is the lack of data about Yak-7b landing gear kinematics, which forced us to re-engineer the geometry of some parts based on how they should move when the landing gear is retracted or extended. Such problems usually lead to release delays but thanks to re-organizing the workflow we keep the set release dates, at least for now.

 

To make this Dev Diary a bit more visual we'd like to show you the first WIP screenshots of Yak-7b series 36 fighter: