Jason Williams & his new sim "Combat Pilot"

[wheelsup_cavu]

I searched and I was surprised to see that it was not already being discussed so here it is:

Combat Pilot is the new project of Jason (Burnin) Williams formerly of TrackIR 2004-2005, GoGamer 2004 -2009, RoF/777 Studios 2007-2020 (President), 1C game Studios 2012-2022 (Exec Producer IL-2 Great Battles series).

Combat Pilot Website: https://combatpilot.com/
Combat Pilot Survey: https://combatpilot.com/community-survey/
Combat Pilot Forums: https://forum.combatpilot.com/
Combat Pilot Mission statement?: https://combatpilot.com/intel/

Since some of the newer generation may not remember Jason was also the CO of the 777AVG of the original IL-2 series.
Internet Archive save: https://web.archive.org/web/20130318033708/http://777AVG.com/

List of survey questions:

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Your country:

• Too many options to list

What’s your favorite Sim?

• MSFS 2020
• X-Plane 12
• MSFS X
• X-Plane 11
• DCS
• IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles
• IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover
• IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946
• War Thunder
• Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War
• Wings of Flanders Field / Wings over the Reich
• None of the Above
• Prefer not to say

What’s your favorite Game-Mode?

• SP Pilot Career / Campaign
• SP Scripted Campaign
• SP Missions Custom / Community Built
• SP Quick Missions
• MP Dogfight
• MP Co-Op
• MP Co-Op Campaign
• Prefer not to say

What’s your favorite type of plane?

• Fighters
• Attackers
• Dive bombers
• Torpedo bombers
• Medium bombers
• Heavy bombers
• Reconnaissance
• Cargo/Troop Carrier
• Prefer not to say

Which Video Card do you use?

• Too many options to list

Are you a VR user?

• Yes
• No
• Want to try
• Plan to Buy
• Prefer not to say

 

 

Wheels

[wheelsup_cavu]

I was able to convert the flash player intro for Jason's old site to mp4 using https://convertio.co/swf-mp4/

 

I have been wanting to do that with other old websites flash player intros now that they are blocked from being viewable and I had never come across a reasonably easy way to do it until now.

Steps:

• Find web page where flash video was once playable
• Use View page source
• Search for .swf extensions
• right click and Download the swf file to your computer
• Upload from your computer to convertio.co and convert it to mp4.

 

Now off to see if I can find that website that had a great flash player timeline of the Pearl harbor attack. Like this video of Jason's it is only available at the Internet Archive and I figured it was going to be lost forever. Now maybe there is a shot to save it if I can find it...

 

Wheels

[wheelsup_cavu]

There have been 5 Developer Diaries and one mini DD posted on the Combat Pilot Discord channel since I last posted in this thread.

Developer Diary 01 dropped on July 25th, Developer Diary dropped on August 28th, Developer Diary-03 dropped on November 02nd, Developer Diary-04 dropped on November 30th and Developer Diary-05 dropped on December 27rh, 2023. The mini DD's were posted earlier today on January 20, 2024.
 

 

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Originally Posted by Jason Williams @ combatpilot.com"

DD 01:
(Posted July 25, 2023)

Dear Pilots,

Welcome to our very first Developer Diary for Combat Pilot! We hope this will be the first of many to come as we continue to build our initial prototype and get ready to take flight.

Today we want to share some images of our early work which includes the legendary Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 Model 21 flown by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Allies assigned it the code name Zeke, but most remember it as simply the Zero. To Japanese pilots it was known as the Rei-sen. The A6M was extremely successful in the early months of the Pacific War and was superior to its American and Allied opponents like the F4F Wildcat and F2A Buffalo. It was built in large numbers throughout the war and several different variants were produced. The A6M2 Model 21 saw action in all the important early Pacific battles such as Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea and Midway and the A6M in all it's various forms continued to see service throughout the war. The Zero has become possibly the most recognizable icon of the Pacific War.

We are building a flyable A6M2 to be featured in Combat Pilot and as you can see work is progressing and its beginning to take its very famous shape. It’s a long way from completion still, but you can be assured we will keep you informed of its progress. We also plan to have a Japanese aircraft carrier ready for her to operate from when our prototype is ready. ard tasks like building models requires research and finding the right artist to make what you need. And until you establish some standards it’s a little bit like stumbling around in the dark. When it comes to art and 3D assets we are starting to find our groove and you can see that in the pics I’ve chosen below. We hope you like them and it’s an example of where we are headed stylistically.

Read the rest of Developer Diary-01 at the Combat-Pilot forums.

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

Originally Posted by Jason Williams @ combatpilot.com"

DD 02:
(Posted August 28, 2023)

Dear Pilots,

Welcome to our second Developer Diary for Combat Pilot! Today we are showing off a very famous U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps fighter – the pugnacious F4F-4!

The Wildcat as it was called was the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ front-line fighter when war broke out. Like the Zero it fought in all the major early war battles and helped blunt the Japanese juggernaut during the first critical year of the war. The Wildcat was outclassed by the A6M in just about every way and losses were high. Several F4F pilots earned the Medal of Honor for their bravery while flying her and even though outperformed, many pilots became aces in the F4F series. American pilots had to invent new tactics to compete with the Zero including the famous “Thach Weave” that focused on teamwork to down A6Ms.

Read the rest of Developer Diary-02 at the Combat-Pilot forums.

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

Originally Posted by Jason Williams @ combatpilot.com"

DD 03:
(Posted November 02, 2023)

Dear Pilots,

Our work on Combat Pilot continues and we have completed our first official 6 months as a team and results are positive. The hardest part of creating something out of nothing is creating a strong foundation for where we want go. You have to walk before you can fly, but when tangible progress is made it's very satisfying to see. Right now, that work is focused on physics, flight-modeling, research (technical and historical), and 3D assets. But even somewhat straightforward tasks like building models requires research and finding the right artist to make what you need. And until you establish some standards it’s a little bit like stumbling around in the dark. When it comes to art and 3D assets we are starting to find our groove and you can see that in the pics I’ve chosen below. We hope you like them and it’s an example of where we are headed stylistically.

Read the rest of Developer Diary-03 at the Combat-Pilot forums.

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

Originally Posted by Jason Williams @ combatpilot.com"

DD 04:
(Posted November 30, 2023)

Dear Pilots,

The holiday season is now in full swing and we want to wish everyone in the Combat Pilot community a Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas! We hope that 2023 ends on a peaceful and prosperous note for everyone and 2024 brings great things to you and yours.

Progress on our initial prototype inches forward week by week and as usual we’d like to share some more images and news with you. Since our last DD we’ve seen progress on buildings for Midway, our aircraft carriers, and our airplanes. Let’s see what this week has in store.

Midway Atoll Infrastructure

Midway is often referred to as an island, but it’s really an atoll, consisting of two main islands (Sand and Eastern) and a coral reef system with a lagoon in the center. Several Pacific battles took place on atolls during the war which makes for some unique and exotic scenery, but a horrendous amount of blood was shed for their control. Battles on atolls such as Wake, Makin, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, and Tarawa come to mind. Midway was spared an amphibious assault due to the US naval victory out at sea, but it was attacked by air and took some serious damage.

One of our goals is to make a faithful recreation of the infrastructure and defenses found on Midway during the battle. In our opinion, other games and simulators haven’t portrayed Midway very accurately over the years so we hope to change that and set a new standard. Midway went through several stages of growth, abandonment, and decay before, during and after WWII, so depicting her as it looked in June 1942 is a challenge. Detailed maps and quality images are surprisingly rare. We’ve been able to dig up some good references though with help from the community. Which we greatly appreciate.

Midway was not only a naval base and military airfield, but it was also a civilian seaplane base for Pan-Am’s clipper service to the Far East. Additionally, Midway was an outpost servicing underwater telegraph cables. Therefore, not all infrastructure on Midway was military in nature. Here are a few images of buildings that Carl has created for Midway so far. They will be textured soon and really come to life.

Read the rest of Developer Diary-04 at the Combat-Pilot forums.

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

Originally Posted by Jason Williams @ combatpilot.com"

DD 05:
(Posted December 27, 2023)

Dear Pilots,

Welcome to the last Developer Diary of our inaugural year. What a first year it has been! We’ve managed to form a team, set initial goals, build assets, establish a community, setup lines of communication, get a plane flying in the engine and lay the technical ground work for our playable prototype. We have a long road ahead, but we’re on the road or perhaps I should say that we’re taxing towards takeoff? That’s probably a better analogy.

This developer diary highlights more progress with building important assets that we’ll need and it marks a turning point in our internal and external operations that we’ll speak more about after the turn of the new year. We’re planning some new initiatives that we think you’ll be interested in along with pursuing additional development partnerships that can aid us in our journey. So stay tuned.

Now on to the fun stuff!

Read the rest of Developer Diary-05 at the Combat-Pilot forums.

 

 

DD 05 will be the last one for this year.

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For those of you not on the Combat Pilot Discord channel there was sort of a mini DD from @Combat_Pilot_Jason earlier today.

Quote: @Combat_Pilot_Jason
Post link @ https://discord.com/channels/1105564945577418875/1105564946340778006/1198306271191896157

The Wildcat external is almost there guys. Here’s a quick render from Chris. He’s doing a fantastic job on it. Next DD will be around Feb. 1st and in February we’ll announce some other things as well. Have a great weekend everyone.

 

Quote

Quote: @Combat_Pilot_Jason
 Post link @ https://discord.com/channels/1105564945577418875/1105564946340778006/1198309913852653670

And to be fair here is a recent one of the Zeke.

Wheels

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

Another Developer Diary has been posted.

Quote

Originally Posted by Jason Williams @ combatpilot(dot)com"

 

DD 06:
(Posted February 08, 2024)

Dear Pilots,

Welcome to our first Developer Diary of 2024! We’ve been busy working on all aspects of our prototype as you can imagine and we have recently expanded our team a little bit further with the addition of a new Senior Programmer named Fred. Wish him good luck!! He's a brave man.

Our main areas of focus continue to be flight-modeling and systems for both the A6M2 and F4F-4, more instrumentation, and support for controllers. We are also now engaged in sound work for both planes. Our development goals remain modest and for the remainder of our first fiscal year, but we are making steady progress. We still plan to participate in FS Expo, assuming they can book a new venue now that the Tropicana Hotel is closing in April. We plan to show you what we have flying at that point and have attendees take the stick. Actually, we could show you some in-flight footage today, but it's quite ugly and raw, so we'll wait until things look a little bit more attractive.

On a general note, we’ve received many, many requests for features and content since we went public and we love hearing what you’d like to see in Combat Pilot so please don’t stop. The enthusiasm for what we’re making is fantastic and we appreciate it. However, just keep in mind that making a combat flight-sim is tough, and there are strong headwinds we must fight to reach our destination. Nothing in this genre is ever easy and like most start-ups, our limiting factors are always going to be the budget and manpower, not our imagination, creativity or desire to please the community. So, we are trying to be smart and only bite off what we can chew, avoid mission creep and stay on target! So, if we can’t answer when a particular feature or plane is going to be available, please have patience as we work to reach our first technical milestone this summer. We’ll share more about that goal in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, let’s have a look at some excellent work by our art team since our last update. You’ll see a much bigger splash of color as we start to texture more of our 3D assets You’ll also notice some amazing detail on our carriers that we hope to take advantage of.

 

Read the rest of Developer Diary-06 at the Combat-Pilot forums.

 

To see what others thought of the Developer Diary here is a link to the DD-06 discussion thread at the Combat Pilot forums.
DD-06 Discussion thread: https://forum.combatpilot.com/topic/798-discussion-of-developer-diary-06/


Wheels

[Klaiber]

Very interesting.  The renderings of the Zeke is really good:

https://forum.combatpilot.com/topic/48-combat-pilot-developer-diaries/?do=findComment&comment=7150

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

I agree that the Zeke looks really good.

What shocked me more than anything was the detail they have put into the hangars on the carriers.

 

Wheels