Hello again, everyone!
I know it's been awhile. Definitely way too long. Just letting everyone know the project's still going strong, and the lack of updates does not reflect a lack of progress.
Most substantive updates first; the development is going to take a bit more of a sim-oriented direction, focusing on giving the player a deeper level of control over their own platform, though command over multiple platforms or definitely be retained, it will be secondary to the much deeper level of control over your own ship.
If you want an idea of the sort of experience I'm envisioning,
Destroyer Command is probably a lot closer than Fleet Command or Battlestations: Midway, with stations and direct operation of weapons systems, in addition to being able to issue orders to a few other units who will operate largely autonomously. So the majority of gameplay should be between stations on your own vessel.
So, that's important to note.
Continuing about updates, while large parts of what's been done since last update aren't easily shown, like helicopter flight physics, other parts are, like the great progress in environmental visuals.
The modelling side has also seen a great new addition, and I definitely owe that modeler a highlight on his great work. So new vehicle highlight will be coming along next week.
And maybe something really nice that I'm looking forward to a week after that. It's a relatively small touch but one that goes a long way in the feeling of immersion.
But I'm long overdue to show some of the progress that's been going on, so without further adieu,
Maybe should've done more contrail work before releasing these two, but the environment was simply too gorgeous to keep hidden away.
One of the things I've always loved about flying is that up high enough - usually above about 10,000 feet or so - you get above the "pollution". Usually it's mostly water vapor from what I understand, but it looks like this thick fog with what seems like an almost solid surface, when you look at the top of it on the horizon. It gives you this feeling that the atmosphere is just this little pond the clouds float on top of. Above it it's clear and you can see hundreds of miles, out to the curve of the Earth, but below it visibility is severely reduced in the haze of the lower troposphere.
This might seem excessively high - but as mentioned earlier, low-passing spy satellites and ballistic missiles can fly up at these kinds of altitudes (hundreds of km to ~1,500 km - and of course spy satellites go much higher, but tend to pass much closer to make observations).
And while coding realistic flight physics, I'm finding mid/long range SAMs like the SA-N-6 Grumble/S-300 Fort tend to apogee around 20 km/60,000 feet to make it to (even low-flying) targets at the edge of their range. Not to mention high-flying spy planes. Though the view from 60,000 feet is very different than the one from here.
And finally, where most of the external camera's time will be spent - the surface. I'm always tweaking and (hopefully, for the most part) improving the water system.
Some days it feels like I've just made it worse, though, and that's always frustrating to have to go back and spend a lot of time fixing it then trying to improve it again. But I think the end results of all that hard work speak for themselves.
These ships are stationary - water interaction is in the middle of some work right now. For now, though, these are to show off the water itself.
That's all for now. Thanks for joining us.
Until next time, clear sailing.
Don't forget to join the Discord for more regular updates, conversation and feedback;
https://discord.gg/9PAJPsC