And Happy New Year to you all, Ladies & Gentlemen of good taste

Ditto me.

Talking to someone a few months ago in a business making buildable models of military aircraft and vehicles, their experience (unofficially) was that any name/designation or likeness was considered company property by the aerospace firms, but, as long as you reached out to them ahead of time, the companies were willing to license stuff for a very nominal fee (at least, this seems to be true of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman . . . not sure about Boeing).

Hello there everyone!
Here's a small update for January, hopefully you'll find some interesting nuggets in there
Some ships, some tech, some news... Feel welcome to click on this link and check for yourself!

https://drydockdreams.games/2020/01/28/wallabies-in-the-year-of-the-rat/

Cheers!

This game looks great! I only heard of this game a month ago and I did not know the developers were active here.

The game is strategic so I assume the timescale is slow enough to not be a clickfest (I have very low twitch nerve response! haha). Other gamers have said the game looks like IL-2. Is this "in-house game engine Plankton" based on IL-2 code?

Thank you, that's kind
No, it won't be a clickfest. You'd be hard pressed to turn this into a click fest anyway, it's not a RTS in the meaning of "click friendly unit, click action, click attack". Your admiral doesn't jump into a cockpit or behind a Bofors mount, that's not his job.
At the normal level of difficulty, our pause will be clickable (you can still use the menus, go around, etc...). If you play at the highest level of difficulty, then you will have to do with a static pause (that is, if you pause you're frozen) in order to add some spice. It doesn't mean you're gonna have to click everywhere around, but if you want to properly setup a raid, this takes time ^^

Regarding the engine - no, there's no family tie at all with the Il-2 engine. The original iteration of the engine can be seen in another product, that is BOMB from our Lead Dev, that came out a few years ago. I guess checking the trailer will explain why it made sense to develop it into what it has become today



We made a small update on our topic at Grogheads - if it's ok with you I'll just copy it here so that you don't have to head over there to check - enjoy

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

First of all, our new weather model, which allows for localized rain squalls, the likes of which saved Zuikaku from a pounding at Coral Sea, or Enterprise from extermination at Santa Cruz. You will be allowed to use them too, but it works both ways...

Here, you can see them in action on the larger map. Blue areas are the ones where a set of conditions make rain happen - of course it changes dynamically, and the weather can be radically different 100 miles away. It's your job to make sure that the weather Gods will favor you more than they harm you...





And here's a view of how it looks like from under it:









Cloud cover will have an actual role in gameplay - as you can see here, it can very efficiently hide ships away from the sky. Your planes might very well miss the enemy - but in absence of a working radar, if communications are down or not an option, and if the Z/B system is non-operational for a reason or another, then your planes could very well miss you too...! They might have to pray for a little opening at the right spot in the cloud cover, just like here:



Of course, the same rules apply whenever you'll be trying to get something done at night. Night ops are not impossible, nor forbidden, but try your luck at your own risk. Taking off in the darkness is already a difficult, yet necessary exercise when a dawn strike requires it - but bombing by moonlight in on a whole different level! Yet, it did happen...









Flightsimmers will see all of this as business like usual - but I hope that these few visual improvements won't go unnoticed by the Wargaming crowd :coolsmiley:
Finally, a sneak peek at something that comes a bit closer to actual wargamesque gameplay, for a change.



This one prototype shows how the game dimensions interact with each other. It is our early experiment at an interactive Command Post/Map/3D world integration. It is certainly no Radio Commander just yet of course, but it is a first step! It is very Work in Progress, so please be nice in the comments :hide:

At any rate, as you can see, the transition is smooth. Switching from a mode to another one doesn't seem to impact performance in any way. As these instances already exist in-game permanently, they don't need to be generated along the way, making the whole process feel rather natural and self-explanatory (well, that's the feeling I have of course, but I am a bit biased - don't hesitate to tell me if I am wrong!).

Of course, static 2D & full 3D visualization modes will be available too - you will just have to click the relevant button on the toolbar to activate them (more on that later...).

Looking great!

Cant wait to see more gameplay footage

Thank you Genbrien

We just had a small chat with Tim Stone, and he had me spill quite a few beans
If you're interested in the game mechanics, now's your time!

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/02/14/the-flare-path-talks-task-force-admiral/

Hi guys!
If there are still people interested around here, just so you know, we posted our latest February devblog.

There you go:
https://drydockdreams.games/2020/02/28/dancing-under-the-stars/

And here's a little appetizer of what you'll find there

It may not be a pacific flight sim game mate... but this should scratch the itch for some pacific action for many.
Looking very good!

Thank you Trooper ^^

Today another small intermission with a history featurette on the TBD and its fish. Enjoy

Hello Admiral,

Will you or your any member of your team be presenting or have a display booth at FS Expo 2020 Las Vegas? I'd love to see it!

https://www.flightsimexpo.com/index.html

Hello bro!
Nah, not just yet ^^ we're far from something playable at any rate.
Still, we are very advanced in our discussions with a publisher, and we might actually show up in some large scale events in the future. We're just not there yet though

Cheers!

Thanks for the replies and information. I will definitely buy a copy of the game. cheers!

Sorry if already been written down, but any VR capabilities for this game?

It.s not a flight sim, why would it need VR?

Well, the engine sure supports it, but the gameplay less so. Like Trooper says, it's also a matter of some added value. I can get the things you could get from VR if we were to recreate a complete ship and allow free roam like it was done for VR Yamato. But if you are staying in the flagplot and only occasionally going outside check on the flight deck, you are sacrificing game readability for little advantage. A track IR wouldn't add anything either that a mouse cannot handle. I'd say for now it is not a path we are exploring.

I would be very interested in seeing some current stats on what percentage of the total PC gaming community consists of VR users. My gut feeling tells me it's pretty low (under 10%).

Oh well, Steam has the answer for you! Click on the "VR headset" data tab
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

It is, indeed, "under 10%" as you'd put it mildly ^^

When we can't even demo VR in a store, there's no wonder the adoption rate is so low. I'm not about to to buy something I can't try, first. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack, just responding to the VR thing.

Keep up the great work, guys. I love the cloud animation.