Visions of things to come?

We missed our deadline. We won't miss the next one.

Can Photoshop run out of gray paint?

Apparently, if you mix the gray paint with blue to conform with the Measure 1 paint scheme, your gray stretches a lot farther.



But you want to keep it from dripping on the teak.

MOST impressive!!!

wrench
kevin stein

We just finished mopping.

This looks GREAT!

pfunk

Gee. I had better show some airplanes then.

If the ship looks that good I am looking forward to seeing the planes.


Wheels

The Pennsylvania class looks very good. You even got the 'two tone' paint scheme correct. What models are you going to use? The Nevada class looked very close to the Pennsylvania class but with some significant differences. Likewise the Tennessee, New Mexico and Colorado Class were pretty close as well although the guns were different. It will be interesting comparing the different classes.

Ok, what IS this sim?!?

For Pearl Harbor, we have all 8 battleships on station (including the Pennsylvania in dry dock). There will be cruisers on the other side of Ford Island and other less-detailed props in the harbor. In YAP stuff, everything is a target but we will assume the player will go after his briefed target on the first go around anyway. Especially tricky will be getting launch parameters for the Type 91 torpedo between the sub pens and the California and level bombing the Arizona.

We found the actual paint chips from the time on line. Then we had to deal with the variations in monitors. This may be a little bit too blue on some but we figured when we fill the sky with AAA, you aren't going to be pulling out your Pantone chart. It's a rule of mission creation: "If you don't want the player to see something, shoot at him."

Make it awesome and we'll fly it.

Good rule.
I had never thought of it that way.


Wheels

When will it bee release and is it another arcade Simulator or a serious semi realistic Sim representing the whole of the Pacafic Theater.


I hope its another realistic Sim. We have more than our share of Arcade Sims available already.

Simple answers: About 4 weeks and Serious.

Longer answers: We intend to release Rising Sun in 4 phases...in chronological order. Phase One will start at Pearl Harbor. We have those models. We are delaying release based upon where we END phase one. Since the main reason for the attack on Pearl Harbor was to cover the invasion of Malaysia, we want that to be part of the opening sequence. So we are awaiting the Repulse (done) and Prince of Wales (started) and the G3M (in progress). We also have the machinery for the defense of Kunming and Rangoon. If it looks like it is taking too long to assemble all this, we will go with Pearl Harbor alone.

We have to pick and choose those events that will be fun to fly and not a duplication of another battle. So we probably cannot do the Indian Ocean Raids, the attack on Clark Air Base or Wake Island...well, maybe Wake Island we should. But sending the player out across blue water to bomb yet another cruiser will lose your attention.

Yankee Air Pirate does not do arcade games. Certainly there is violence and action involved but the point of our stories is for you to relive the event in your mind...to try to understand a little better the moment. Our product will start 200 miles north of Oahu and end in the sky over Manchuria. It's a story that cannot be told using Donkey Kong.

Sorry for this question, but I'm not quite sure... Which side will be available? What about Japanese carrier ops?

Good question.

Rising Sun takes no sides. Players will fly off the Akagi, Kaga, Shokaku, Zuikaku, Hiryu, Soryu, Zuiho, Ryuho, Junyo if the mission demands it. All those models will be in the game. Also, the Hornet, Wasp, Yorktown, Enterprise, Lexington and several Essex Class carriers...maybe an Independence Class. I am hoping to get the Indefatigable in near end-game since we have the Seafire on order.

So in one mission you launch from the Kaga. A little later, you will drive your TBD at it hoping to stick a torpedo into it...with the same probable outcome. (Who knows? You might get through a swarm of Zeroes, a hail of flak and drop within the proper parameters to get a hit.)

You will fly for every air force in the theatre. Japanese, American, British, Australian, Thai, Chinese, and Soviet.

Well this is pretty interesting.. Actually though it's another WW2 effort, it addresses the Pacific theatre - which historically has been somewhat lacking in this genre (PF and CFS2 notwithstanding) as compared to the ETO.

Understanding that this will be using the Thirdwire engine, I would assume that with your development team you've addressed the jet era behavior of radio calls and formations. It's been awhile, but that's one of the things that sort of lost it for me with regards to WW2 third party offerings in this series.

We are doing our best to strip that out.

We could simplify matters greatly if we just plugged in "Banzai" for everything Japanese and "Roger" for everyone else.

I'm sold

Outstanding! Great Work!

Regards,

J. P. Kelly

Thank you for your answer!

Here are some more shots from today's chore list:

Test bomb on battleship



Test submarine launched torpedo:





Test air launched torpedo:



Fight Zeroes in First Wave:







Results: Bomb and Destroyed Model work. Sub-launched torpedo works. Air launched torpedo works. Zero AI Flight Model needs work. They should have polished me off in two turns.

Well, brother...if you are going to do the whole Pearl Harbour-to-South-East-Asia-to-Manchuria thing, you got me interested.

Guess where I'm located.

It's a fascinating hop by the Japanese, one which has not been given as much coverage as other more notable events. My dad lived through the occupation. Even saw some Brewster Buffaloes trying to intercept. Funnily enough, when the Japanese got a foothold in Malaysia, they marched straight for a big batch of Lithium stocks (in the form of raw Mica) at a place called Chenderiang. Seems like their intelligence knew about this and hungry for Lithium (for making batteries and the like).....Anyway I'm blabbering.

What would be the extent of incorporating missions involving Singapore and Malaysia into the storyline ? I can't think of many notable battles other than the Repulse and Prince of Wales getting hammered. Well, in any case, looking forward to Pearl and eventually all the way to Manchuria

Since it's an air game, we have to concentrate on those segments. The Malaysia part right now will be the sinking of Force Z by IJNavy units flying from Saigon. And the RTAF attempt to resist the Japanese at Prachuap. The troop ships will be on the beach but reality keeps us from sending you in your Hawk 75N down there to shoot them up. In fact, when the Ki-27's intercept you, it should be a very short mission. But if you can get a bead them them with the 23mm, you will make a mess of them.

Singapore presents another problem. It was settled without airplanes and without much fighting. What we really want to do but cannot once we by-pass it, are the Indian Ocean raids. As an American, I am exposed to just the US part in the war. But it was the Royal Navy that they Japanese had to remove to expand their sphere.

On another note, my father flew for an organization called the Burma Bridge Busters so we will be back in Malaysia dropping bridges in a later phase.

Heck, if you get squirrley enough you can add some AVG missions and maybe even a transport mission over the Hump if your graphic artists are so inclined. Some of the ground attack stuff in China and Burma would be useful and could fill out some of the missing stuff for the missions. YOu already have the P-40B and they did tangle with a lot of Sally's and Nates over the area.

We are, of course, planning to include the AVG in Rising Sun. The P-40 was created for that, not for a spat over Oahu. The point is to cover all the important, non-repetitive actions between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Soviet defeat of the Japanese in Manchuria. That means everything. You can assume we know all the big pieces.

We have remodeled the Ki-43 and the Ki-27 is in the works. Kunming and Rangoon will be bombed by the appropriate aircraft. I have had conversations with Greg Boyington (about buying an airplane from him), Eric Shilling (about what I was doing in Burma) and even Ajax Baumler a very long time ago when I was researching something about Frank Tinker and Whitey Dahl. I've been to most of the Flying Tiger and RAF bases in Burma on other business. (I have pictures I took of a Spitfire and a Seafire in a shed and have heard even more fantastic tales.)

The C-46 is phase three but we have no departure point planned. I just want the airplane. We do have Kunming. My hangar mate at one time flew the Hump in a C-46 and I flew the C-46 briefly for a contract airline.

All this stuff is very real to me because I made a point of it.

Well you have my interest.The last flight sim I played based in the Pacific was 1942: The Pacific Air War from Microprose.Anyone remember that little gem?

Well while waiting Chucky you can try the Pacific theater in 1946 which is only $6.99 (US) at www.gog.com great action for a great price and you get nearly every other theater in the war.

Of course I'm looking forward to this offering as cool as Pacific Fighters was, it was really an after thought and could have used a lot improvements. Rising Sun will hopefully fill that gap with a proper look into the theater!

Let's see if there is anyone from Hawaii on this forum....

First of all, I know they are not lined up like this. That said, how are the double hangars at Hickam numbered?





Thanks.

I can tell ya the hangers at Wheeler aren't numbered....now anyway.

Hickam. They still have numbers on them but in the pictures there is a #3 and a #15. But there were only eight. They still have the bullet holes in them.





Well, there's the answer....

Last one before Christmas.

Thanks.Can you clarify that title,I can't seem to find it?

It's called either Pacific Fighters or IL2:1946. 1946 had a lot more planes.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/il_2_sturmovik_1946 is the link he is talking about. IF you look at the IL2 forum there is a lot of info.

The game is good, borderline great (the Original IL2 is an all time classic). There are a lot of unofficial (read mods) updates to the game that add a lot to the game but tend to muddy the waters for online play.

It is a good game to get your feet wet with. Traps are fun, some of the missions are cool but the campaign can be repetitive (dynamic but that doesn't necessarily work well in the pacific) and as I said before some of the things that I expect in the game, like some aircraft and ships arent present. But it still is very good and for that price you can't really go wrong.

I personally use Gogamer but I see they have it out of stock.

15th Pursuit done. Not the right stencil font but I will find it before release.



The exceptional thing are the buildings going up at Hickam. There was not much there but all the main buildings will be in position and they will all react. Double hangars, barracks, HQ, water tower, tracks, port...and a flight line full of aircraft. We have to make up for possibly not having Wheeler. So, the Zero strafe mission will be...exciting.

Now I have to go buy a ham or I will be sleeping outside.

That's a really nice looking B/C Tomahawk!

USAF_Serial stencil, available at simmerspaintshop.com

now go get your holiday ready, and expect an email soon (my apoligies for not responding earlier -lots of bad things been happening)

wrench
kevin stein

edit: that should read USAAF!! that's what I get for posting after midnight!

I remember 1942 (Task Force and PF) very well Chucky. I spent many hours in the Dauntless and Avenger. Diving on the japanese carriers was the best, circling around for position, deploying the dive flaps, cut the throttle and drop out of the sky.
This looks good, any release dates yet?

Pacific Air War was one of the first sims I got into. That and Aces Over Europe were the king of my nights in the mid 90s.

Cool,,no p-26? They are easy, I built one for SDOE.

It would just be a ground target if we did one. There will already be a lot of other things to pop. If you are firing from the right parameters, you should see a bunch of blurred crosses casting equally blurred shadows all lined up neatly in rows that explode and burn as you hit them (but at 200+ knots, this will happen under your nose) and leave varying forms of wreckage.

If you have a uv-mapped Max model you'd like us to put in, we will happily accept it. But our aircraft list is so long now, we need to concentrate on completing the mission planes.

Yes they would be targets only,,,only 7 were on the tarmak at wheeler that day and they were all destroyed..I dont have any of my original model left anyway.

A new Pearl map is out a AAA for IL2 1946 I am trying to get to it work for a tora tora tora movie I have in mind but this might be much better.

I am placing buildings on Ford Island now. Hickam is in the works. I can run a few shots shortly. I have seen some IL-2 add-on pictures that are really great. Ours will not be as exact in some ways and a lot more believable in others. As usual, we judge our performance by what you see from the cockpit. You're going to see Hawaii in 1941.

If you measure the distance from CINCPAC HQ across the water to Battleship Row, there is not going to be a lot of time to get set up do release a torpedo within parameters. That's exactly what we wanted.

I hope some of the ships are simply not textured properly yet, because despite how good most things look, some of the parts in those ships look like they have almost no texture whatsoever, very flat and dull.

For example the bridge.

Also, something about almost all non-aerial the screenshots feels to clean and plastic-like, like mid-90s CG renders.

I guess I am kinda spoiled by the IL-2 series.

Naturally I also understand this is all work-in-progress and subject to improvement

Off-topic, yes, TF1942 was a great game, I wish someone would make a new game like it, mixing WW2 air simulation with a strategic player-controlled layer.

Some of the shots were not textured yet. Some were deceptive because the ocean color was too close in the picture.

But for the most part, we have to deal with the game engine. The more megabytes the game has to load...running on a PC only...the more danger we run into of not being playable. When we have to choose, we choose to put the player in the cockpit and use it to tell a story.

We sell stories, not models. I can get you a 250000 poly Akagi to look at. Except in real life, nobody has ever seen it all at once. You see the part you are on. Those are the parts we will emphasize.

And there have been a thousand technical advances in flight sims since Strike Fighters and IL-2 were released. There have been only a few advances in story-telling since the first lie was told around a campfire back in Paleolithic times.

It won't be for everyone. We are comfortable with that.

Zerocinco, I´ll like to ask you to release Rising Sun as a download too, not just like YAP 2 wich had only the DVD option.
It´s easier for us international customers and probably you will have a broader audience(IMHO)
Thanks in advance.

Good suggestion. We will look into doing that.