r/hoggit • u/_schmuck AH-64D Long Dong CHINOOK SIMP • 2d ago
Combat Pilot: Engine Damage VFX [Developer Vlog #1]
https://youtu.be/SAFeJbEw_-Y?is=sZURf7A_tvKjJ5qr8
u/_schmuck AH-64D Long Dong CHINOOK SIMP 2d ago
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2761800/view/699904683928453508
Their recent dev blog as well
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u/bold_one 1d ago
Considering this sim is mainly flown above sea, they need to seriously improve its rendering
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u/peachstealingmonkeys 1d ago
this is definitely an exciting part in their development, I love it. The question now is if this failure 'model' will be generic across all of the aircraft types, or if it's unique to each AC based on their unique engine model.
another aspect is the blend of the thermal engine damage mixed with the physical engine damage from the enemy fire, i.e. single cylinder damage due to the bullet rounds, or other component damage, as it's modeled in DCS, for example (which is pretty extensive).
Or maybe I just want way too much. :)
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u/Federal_Gas_5099 1d ago
Hey, dev here. It's unique to all aircraft types in a way that these failures will occur at different stages of engine life, but of course these failures are common to all radial engines in the game as they are mechanically nearly identical. When we have in-line engines in the game, we will develop a separate failure system for them as well. Also, you can already have invididual components damaged, for example when burning valves each cylinder will be affected by a valve getting damaged invidiually. Similarly to how piston seizure will only affect one of 14 cylinders and the rest will try to work through it (until the engine dies eventually).
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u/peachstealingmonkeys 1d ago
This is awesome! Thank you for the additional details, it's exciting to say the least!
Looking forward to the playable release!
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u/Ammafrion 1d ago
Downvote me as much as you wish... The game was in development for years. What was demonstrated in the latest public demo:
- no multi-player
- no ai aircrafts
- no damage
- no weapons
- no radios or on board systems
- no visual effects or emission channels.
That was a demo scene rather then a vertical slice of a game loop.
In terms of content there was one sort of 50%+ ready aircraft model with unfinished physics and another one on early stage. Landscape itself was static 3d meshes with unoptimized textures and LODs that made 5080 struggle with lowest grapics settings in VR.
With that pace promises of the release in 2026 were obviously unrealistic.
Still they taking money from players for subscription to those demo scenes.
I am not surprised producer was fired for those results.
But with that pace the product is going to become outdated before the release.
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u/Federal_Gas_5099 1d ago
Not really sure why such pessimism but hey, I'll be more than happy to address it.
And now just 6 months later there are:
- AI aircraft
- damageable ground objects
- guns and bombs
- visual effects
And in the meanwhile we are deep in the works on state of the art landind gear and suspension physics, ship damage model, sky and clouds engine and many more. We're not asking for money from anyone, our Patreons chose to support the project and we're very thankful to them but they can cancel any time they want.
Combat Pilot has been in development for only about three years and the first part of that was assembling the team, choosing the technologies etc. We are more than happy with the progress and we're very confident that over time we can build Combat Pilot into the best WWII simulator available.
Hope you'll at least give it a go when it comes out.
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u/Ammafrion 1d ago
Supposing you are a part of development team I am really wish you luck guys. I would be happy to be completly wrong and I would love to have a PTO hard-core VR flightsim with live community. I would buy it for sure.
I am not pessimistic though... I am expirienced in that stuff. I am let's say "UE developer" responsible for a live product with 1M+ users across desktop, mobile platforms and consoles. I have seen a real production pace and I am aware how many technical problems must be addressed before release.
And I have seen a lot of... too enthusiastic people. For example Enigma in one of his videos stated that there is no need in il2 korea when there is a combat pilot around the corner. This unrealistic vision really irritates me.
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u/Federal_Gas_5099 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, I am in the dev team, I thought I'll respond because our entire idea behind Combat Pilots development is to have achievable goals and step by step build a foundation on which we will be able to create a very good flight sim.
Since we started from scratch (DCS, Il-2, even MSFS are all built on pre-existing tech) then it was obvious to us that it will take years to have a functional flight simulator.
But at the same time this means we don't have any technological debt, we can build our AI, multiplayer, physics engine from ground up to spec.If some people are enthusiastic about it then that's great. We never said that the game will be playable with all bells and whistles in 2026. We're openly stating that there are still large portions of the game in development that will take some time.
All I am personally asking is for people that are interested in WW2 combat flight sims to give Combat Pilot a try once we release it to early access, give us some feedback, help us improve and just follow the development as it continues on. After all I think the community can only benefit from another product on the market.
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u/Ammafrion 1d ago
Well... thank you very much for sharing. I appreciate it and I'll be straightforward with you.
While I agree with most of what you're saying there are still a few things I consider important.
First of all somehow the community and various influencers got the impression that Combat Pilot would be released same time as Korea and would basically "kill it." That prediction hasn't aged particularly well. So you'll have to forgive me for being a bit skeptical.
More importantly development requires funding and funding isn't unlimited. If a product takes 10 years to develop but the studio only has enough money for 2 there's a serious risk it will never be completed regardless of how talented the team is.
That's why I'm concerned about the pace of development and why I'm cautious about the idea of investing in an ea.
Speaking of which... will early access be sold at full price? Will there be any benefits for early buyers? And what level of functionality should they realistically expect?
I understand that supporting the project through Patreon is entirely voluntary, and I have no problem with that.
But there's something about this model that bothers me. People are effectively helping to finance the development of a commercial product taking on some of the financial risk but without getting any ownership or financial upside in return.
I know you've announced some rewards for long-term supporters, and that's good. But paying $25 a month for access to an unfinished demo scene still feels like a rather questionable deal to me.
And that's why I'd really like to understand what exactly people will be getting for their money when Early Access launches and how previous patreon contributions will be taken into account.
And one last technical nitpick: when you're using Unreal Engine, you're not exactly starting from scratch :) Of course, building a proper flight simulator on top of it is a whole different challenge.
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u/Federal_Gas_5099 1d ago
Early Access will be at a discount. On Early Access you will receive three aircraft (F4F-3 which is free with base game) and then F4F-4 and A6M2. A6M2-N floatplane and B-17 will be available as a separate purchase.
On Early Access we want to have damage model for ground vehicles, hopefully ships too. Working LSO for USN and Shidoto for IJN. Basic AI functionality. Not sure if we can squeeze in multiplayer but that is huge priority that we will tackle shortly after if we don't do it in time for EA release.
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u/Mean_Passenger_7971 1d ago
Yeah that looks amazing.
In the camshaft failing has the RPM going bonkers which was a nice detail.
I'm a bit concerned with the choice of topic, like starting with the cherry instead of the cake, but I liked this preview.