Hi

I have put together a video of in-game footage highlighting some of the things in the upcoming patch. Look for:

- new high res terrain (64x original resolution) and forests
- Luftwaffe using rotte tactics in dogfights
- new flight models (aircraft roll and dive more realistically, airflow over control surfaces is modelled)
- bomber skin mod by Aces with correctly coloured spinners, markings and aircraft lettering for all bombers, including Stuka staffeln.
- new ground objects and buildings (Marck Calais area and Chichester featured here)
- Working 3D gauges in cockpits

Other features including mixed skill levels within squadrons, more player control over AI tactics, enhanced 2D (HUD) gauge system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3yNv3yilHA

Also coming, Multiplayer test code (beta) to allow the player community to test and help refine multiplayer code.



Expected release date late Q3 2009.

Cheers,

Heinkill

I wish they would make the gui less obtuse.

Looking good HeinKill, thanks for the heads up!

Wow, multiplayer test code. Looking forward to that. Thanks for the heads up.

I agree the GUI needs to be brought up to date. What it most reminds me of is the Med Air War setup where you go into one interface to set up missions click a button and it loads CFS3. Same deal with the interface between the 2d campaign and 3d cockpit flying in BOBII. But the campaign game is so superior to anything else out there, I'm willing to live with it. If these upgrades come without a big fps hit, it would be great because I'm saving my next PC upgrade for The Big One.

The only feature which seems to hit FPS is the autogenerated forest. This is user selectable, and you can adjust it to one tree type, two tree types or adjust density. Alternatively you can just turn if off.

User customisability gets a real boost in this patch, in addition to adjusting forests, you can adjust the tactics used by the game AI vs the player, and against other AI - telling the AI to limit itself to 1 v 1 , or use rotte (2 v 1) tactics; and it actually will! This feature was nominally avail in the past but not fully functional so the code has been significantly tightened up. It really is something now watching pairs of 109s go after their prey, one maneouvering for position while the other covers or assists.

The new ground objects and buildings don't hit framerates, but they have to be placed by hand (except for sheep and hay bales, which the user can also control the density of) so the areas which have received the most attention are along the coast between Tangmere and Dover, plus some of the towns and airfields from which the Luftwaffe staged out of.

This is on top of already customisable features such as flak (on/off/kill radius/reload times), spin (AI on/off, variables, stall warning behaviour), compressibility of control surfaces, bullet dispersion/gravity effects, gunner firing rates, AI campaign skill modifyers and victory conditions...a list too long to detail.

On the issue of the GUI - do people mean how it looks graphically, or how it behaves, or usability of the player interface? And are we referring to the instant action missions or the campaign interface, as these are quite different. Some more detail might help us begin to look at this if people find it to be an issue.


H

Wow. Glad I ordered my copy last week. The terrain gets ever more stunning, and that Cathedral is spot on! Should make visual navigation quite fun once you know your landmarks.

Only thing I don't get yet: Why are there forum topics about multiskin excluding "correct lighting"? Do the new skins kill the reflections?

I'm still not sure what 2.09 setup I should install when my copy arrives in the next days. But it's definitely gonna be an awesome ride. I hope the functional 3d instruments mean improved cockpits?

Yep, 2 mins west from Chichester Cathedral if you want to hit Tangmere! If you are assigned a raid on the Woolstone Supermarine Factory, look at period photos and blow up the one that looks just like it . Or you could just look for the Supermarine sign on top

That sort of thing is great for immersion.

Haven't been following the discussion about lighting - Personal preference perhaps, some do prefer the original BOBII skins and don't install multiskin. As it is an independent add-on you can choose whether to install it or not, though if your graphics card is more than 128MB I struggle to see why you wouldn't want to get all those hundreds of completely accurate fighter and bomber skins!

There are no big GFX improvements to cockpits in this patch, the main upgrade is the gauges so those who like flicking switches will love the new gauges because the BOB2 cockpit is clickable (most people assign keys though for speed of use) and if the guage is showing 1/5 fuel left in the tank of your Bf109 and you are still over England, you better hope you have altitude because it is accurate down to the litre!

There have been recent user mods to cockpits you can play with: cleaner glass, new Spit knock out panel, gunsight mods etc

Have fun!

H

Is the fuel gauge fixed in Hurricane/Spit? I know at least one of them was wonky.

Yes, fixed.

Cool!

Looks great, this is the only flight sim i still play on the PC, and this will keep me going!

In regards to the GUI, I'm fine with it all, but I do think the campaign interface is needlessly obtuse sometimes. Although it does work once you have it worked out.

Buddye said the soundtrack on this clip was too heavy for his country ears - so here is a version with less of a bass beat, and more of a twang:

http://www.youtube.com/user/3534067#play/all/uploads-all/0/CZ8Kho55R2E

Battle of Britain to the sound of a steel guitar? Whatever!

H

No rap music soundtrack and a developer audio commentary showing feature improvements would be better IMO.

Yep, this was just a teaser, the actual release vid will have exactly what you describe, with verbal explanation of features new and refined...

H

Have there been any changes to files in the BFIELDS folder? If so, I will probably have to redo my mission mods...sigh. All in a good cause tho.

WB

Undoubtedly, as the objects are kept in there aren't they?

As I recall though, the mission files are very compact and simple, so you shouldn't need to mess with the whole BFIELDS folder and all in it, as long as you overwrite the existing mission data files.

Suggest if you haven't done so, you check the date stamps in you BFIELDS folder and only supply for download those files with altered date stamps, which probably are all the player needs to fly the new missions.

Or?

I dont think the BFields have changed, but have a "WiP" install so cant check for sure.

Are you member of the beta forum on A2A? If not, PM Buddye.

A simple way to test the date of files:
In windows explorer, rightclick the bfields folder, say "search", leave the "search for" edit box empty, hit search. You now have a "flat" list of all files in BFields and subfolders. clicking on the header of the "date" column sorts by date. You can now see the newest file.

What date would be "harmless"? On my computer the newest file is from 1.1.2009.

The customer is always right!

'No music' version, with dev notes

http://www.youtube.com/user/3534067#play/all/uploads-all/0/q0hMcU5SoHc

H