IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad News

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Dear Friends,

Once again, we are reminded that real-life is much more important than a video game or flight simulations. We pray for the safety and well-being of all our friends, family and associates no matter where they are during this difficult time. We are an international team and an apolitical organization and we wish to remain so. We ask that you help us keep our forum and other properties civil as world events unfold. We are operating as usual; development continues and we expect to continue to do so.

For today’s DD we have new, never before seen pics of the Arado AR 234 cockpit under development.



We also have some shots of the Bedford QLD lorry and QLC fuel tanker.



And finally, we have an image of our USAAF bomber pilots with different helmets.



Please enjoy.

The Sturmovik Team

Attention ALL Pilots and Tankers!

The WINTER 2.0 SALE has launched!! Time to fill up your hangar as we prepare our next releases and updates.

The WINTER 2.0 SALE runs from 10:00am PST Feb. 23rd to 10:00am PST Mar. 9th right here on STEAM.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/307960/IL2_Sturmovik_Battle_of_Stalingrad/

GAZ-MM 72-K - 50% Off
Sd.Kfz. 10/5 Flak 38- 50% Off

BOS – 85% Off
BOM – 75% Off
BOK – 75% Off
BOBP – 75% Off
FC1 – 66% Off
Tank Crew - 50% Off

Hurricane Mk.II - 66% Off
Yak-9 – 66% Off
Yak-9T – 66% Off
Fw-190 D-9 – 75% Off
P-38 J-15 – 75% Off
U-2VS -75% Off
Ju-52/3M – 75% Off
Bf-109 G-6 – 75% Off
Yak-1B – 75% Off
Spitfire Mk. VB – 75 % Off
LA-5FN – 75% Off
HS-129 B-2 – 85% Off
P-40E-1 – 85% Off
Macchi MC.202 – 85% Off
Fw-190 A-3 – 85% Off
LA-5 Series 8 – 85% Off

Ice Ring – 66% Off
Blazing Steppe – 75% Off
Fortress on the Volga – 75% Off


https://store.steampowered.com/app/244050/Rise_of_Flight_United/

All ROF Content – 75% Off

Enjoy!

See you in the skies and on the battlefield!

The Sturmovik Team

308

Hello Everyone!

Today’s Developer Diary has just one task. To show you the mighty Ju 88 C-6 in the engine and decimating targets with her awesome firepower. Don’t get caught in her gunsight because she can unleash a hellish barrage or bullets, cannon fire or bombs! A couple of these heavy hitters can wreck a convoy or an airfield in no time.

These images also include our New Sky which is nearing readiness for release soon. You’ll notice it looks not only more beautiful, but more realistic with no banding in low light conditions. The new sky when coupled with the new clouds and some new adjustments to the lighting, combines to make a beautiful scene!











We’ve also added the ability to set the time to the exact hour and minute you want in the Quick Missions GUI so it will be much easier to fly during your favorite time of day.

Enjoy!

The Sturmovik Team

Hello Everyone!

Today we bring you some news from the Great War! We are nearing completion of the final trio of Flying Circus- Vol. II aircraft. The Gotha G.V., Handley-Page O/400 and Sopwith Triplane are coming along nicely. The Gotha G.V. will be released in our next update, which we hope will be by the end of this month. The HP O/400 and Tripe will be in a March update. The Western Front map for FC2/3 is also being worked on by Ugra Media, but it is not ready to be shown yet and will likely take more time to complete that we originally planned unfortunately. A clear estimate on its arrival is not possible at the moment, but will update you as soon as we get a better handle on it. Map making is a slow process in general.



In some WWII news we have created new USAAF bomber crewmembers for our B-26 to man the gun stations. The work by Alexey is top notch as usual.



We have also made more progress on our new sky technology and are currently working to put it into Beta soon. Next week we plan to update our Astro-dome (stars and planets) to be more accurate depending on the latitude of the map. This is a small, but interesting improvement to make our physical world a little more accurate.

Work on our remaining Battle of Normandy aircraft continues. As I have mentioned previously, moderate delays have befallen these birds during the pandemic, but work continues and we hope to start showing you more of them in upcoming DDs. However, the Ju-88 C-6 should be ready for Beta testing soon and be included in our next update (provided testing goes well). We are finalizing our skins for it and getting ready to roll her out. We hope to have updated pics for you next week of the beastly Ju-88 C-6.

It appears the world is finally ready to move on from the pandemic and we hope this means life will get back to normal. Of course, humanity will find a way to struggle to even get back to normal, such is our nature it seems. However, the long-term disruption to daily life, families, education, travel, medicine, governments and business norms that this pandemic has caused will be felt for years to come. In the face of all this disruption, we want to say THANK YOU to all who have supported us during the last couple years as we have struggled to maintain a steady flow of content and improvements for the Great Battles series. We can never thank you enough and we will continue to work hard for you.

Enjoy!

The Sturmovik Team

306

Hello Everyone!

While we continue to work to finish several aircraft for BON and FC2, we would like to take a moment to show you something else we’ve been working on- our new sky technology! Many of you have complained in the past about “banding” that occurs in our sky-dome, especially as light begins to fade late in the day and at night. We agree that this was not ideal and we have decided to do something about it.

We have now adopted a more physics-based technology that has more or less become an industry standard these days. Before we had more of an artistic approach, but it had some limitations as many of you pointed out. The new sky is meant to simulate the sky on a round globe and we have adapted it to our engine. The results are pretty nice. The end result should be no banding, including the glow around the moon. This should give you a more realistic picture. Our new sky also allows us to change how we do dust and haze in the atmosphere which we will look at in the not too-distant future as well.

This technology should not have much of an impact on your performance, however, it does use more Video Memory, so we highly recommend you have at least 2GB or more. This was one of the reasons for the Video Card Survey we asked you to participate in last week. Which, if you haven’t taken the time yet, please do participate. It’s very helpful to us.

We feel that with this new sky along with our new clouds create a really great atmospheric environment to fly and fight in. We still need to tweak our lighting for each season and make some further small adjustments, but here are several pics that show where we are headed. Some pics are on clear days and some are on hazier days. We also show how the moon looks now and some of the new sunset colors that occur.



Note: Due to compression when I saved the images for posting I caused some loss in quality which may show some slight banding. This is not from the game itself. Please download and look at the originals here in this archive to see the difference if you feel it necessary. In-game there is no banding.

Uncompressed Originals

We hope you like it.

Enjoy!

The Sturmovik Team