A new Dev Blog #86 is here!

[Reisen]

On 9/3/2026 at 9:43 AM, MiGCap said:

That would be bad as Korea is unique.

PTO 1944 will be there in DCS at the end of this year or early in the next.

I am very happy to have Korea. It was a very good decision from the developers! 

There is absolutely no chance DCS will ever properly do the PTO. 

 

It took, what, like 7 years to make the Corsair in that game? It didn’t turn out well and there is basically no content to support it. That the Corsair launched into early access a year ago and you still can't even dogfight a Zero is telling.

 

Korea will be fleshed out well enough with this expansion and maybe a few collector planes. The devs absolutely should be looking into PTO. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

I just hope we don't start the Pacific in 1944.  By that time it was an Allied pushover.  Most of the Japanese Navy and Army's best pilots were dead by then. A start in late '42 would be better.  

[MiGCap]

I like the Corsair and the Essex class carrier in DCS and the F6F will be a good match for the A6M. That's for 1944.

COMBAT PILOT is on its way for Midway in 1942 with the goal to expand it further in the timeline.

Sorry, with all this in mind in my opinion it was a very wise decision to concentrate first on Korea and look what the others will develop instead of starting a PTO competition race early. We will see what the future brings.

[Reisen]

Combat Pilot is so early in development it may well not ever see the full light of day.

Either way, Korea only has so much room for additional expansions. The red side is already excluded entirely for the first expansion. We will probably need to go back to WWII eventually and a not insignificant part of the community has been wanting PTO for years.

I know I will have fun with the Corsair, I'd just rather be flying it against Zeros!

[BoeingVertol]

24 minutes ago, MiGCap said:

I like the Corsair and the Essex class carrier in DCS and the F6F will be a good match for the A6M. That's for 1944.

COMBAT PILOT is on its way for Midway in 1942 with the goal to expand it further in the timeline.

Sorry, with all this in mind in my opinion it was a very wise decision to concentrate first on Korea and look what the others will develop instead of starting a PTO competition race early. We will see what the future brings.

Have wanted some type of Korean War game really bad since the 1st Nam craze in the early 00's.  Am thrilled to be at this point, sorry to all the guys that have been around a while waiting for other stuff, but I'm still just happy to be along for the ride.

[Juri_JS]

2 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I just hope we don't start the Pacific in 1944.  By that time it was an Allied pushover.  Most of the Japanese Navy and Army's best pilots were dead by then. A start in late '42 would be better.  

I understand what you mean, but with the Exeter, Corsair, P-51 and B-29 already available, a late war PTO campaign would be a rather low hanging fruit. I know many will not like it, but beginning in 1944/1945 with something like Okinawa or the Japanese Home Islands and adding earlier scenarios later might be a good idea from the developers perspective. This would initially also avoid competition with Combat Pilot.

Edited September 5 by Juri_JS

[gecko]

DCS can't put together a coherent, complete historical scenario together to save their life. Whatever they end up coming up with for PTO will most likely be a pretty thin and limited representation. They make some very nice aircraft, but the historical aspect just falls flat. 

When Il-2 goes to the Pacific, the only real competition will be Combat Pilot - if Combat Pilot actually turns out well. Too early to say.

Meanwhile, I hope they keep going with Korea for a bit. A very well filled out lineup is not out of reach.

[Big-Al]

7 hours ago, Juri_JS said:

I understand what you mean, but with the Exeter, Corsair, P-51 and B-29 already available, a late war PTO campaign would be a rather low hanging fruit. I know many will not like it, but beginning in 1944/1945 with something like Okinawa or the Japanese Home Islands and adding earlier scenarios later might be a good idea from the developers perspective. This would initially also avoid competition with Combat Pilot.

This 100%. I'm not saying  the new Il2-Series desperately needs to have an interchangeable roster of aircraft between iterations fast, but it would definitely help a lot.

And regarding any historical argument that it was essentially just one-sided slaughter. We got Bodenplatte were the Luftwaffe was already heavily bleed out over the course of the last few years with a lot of the "Experten" dead while the Allies reigned the skies over Europe. And if its about technical imbalance (which would still be historical) look at Stalingrad/Moscow where a lot of the soviet types are simply outperformed by 109s. I'm up for the challenge. 

Me for my part hope that the new DLC will give us an excellent glimpse of what we can hope/expect for the future. And while I really believed/hoped for the Skyraider, I'm so happy to see the first renders of it. Can't wait to fly those and test my abilities with carrier landings

[Bell]

10 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I just hope we don't start the Pacific in 1944.  By that time it was an Allied pushover.  Most of the Japanese Navy and Army's best pilots were dead by then. A start in late '42 would be better.  

But what does this have to do with flight sim?

[BlitzPig_EL]

I'm not looking at this from an esports point of view.  I simply prefer the 42 to 43 timeframe.  And I  like chronological order, that said,I will fly anything.  If it's late war, it is, so I will hope for a Ki84... Banzai!!

I would much rather start in a P40b with the AVG though.

[LuftManu]

19 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I'm not looking at this from an esports point of view.  I simply prefer the 42 to 43 timeframe.  And I  like chronological order, that said,I will fly anything.  If it's late war, it is, so I will hope for a Ki84... Banzai!!

I would much rather start in a P40b with the AVG though.

I understand your feeling, EL.

A P-40 under this engine with this .50 cals and all of the goodies would be really awesome to fly!

But as other stated above, it might be better for them to start with Okinawa? work could be reused and it would be released earlier to also give a WW2 crowd a theater with the new engine.

I won't complain if that's the case.

Personally? I would love New Guinea.

[Enceladus828]

9 hours ago, Reisen said:

Combat Pilot is so early in development it may well not ever see the full light of day.

What are you going on about CP never seeing the full light of day?

9 hours ago, Reisen said:

Either way, Korea only has so much room for additional expansions. The red side is already excluded entirely for the first expansion.

One could probably do a late war (1944-45) Eastern Front -- Bagration, Vistula-Oder and Berlin -- with the Red planeset. Yak-9, La-7, Tu-2S, Li-2 and so on.

20 minutes ago, LuftManu said:

But as other stated above, it might be better for them to start with Okinawa? work could be reused and it would be released earlier to also give a WW2 crowd a theater with the new engine.

I too would like to see a 1942-43 timeframe but I agree that it may be better to start with a 1944-45 timeframe where a lot of assets from Korea like the Corsair, B-29, P-51 and American ships can be reused. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

22 minutes ago, LuftManu said:

Personally? I would love New Guinea.

This is my dream as well.   Start with B26, P40s and P39s, then move to P38s, then P47s and B25s on the Allied side.  The Japanese would have the Ki43 as their mainstay, supplanted with Ki61s, and the occasional appearance of the IJN and the Zeke.  All in a campaign that stretched to late in 1944, over a large territory that would look beautiful in this new engine.

[MiGCap]

Imagine a 1944/45 Okinawa/South Japan map technically able to connect with the Korea map … we could fly late WW2 and also Korea missions from Japan! 

[Bell]

They are going to add torpedo for soviet A-20G,seem to be preparation for PTO torpedo test?

[FuriousMeow]

3 hours ago, Enceladus828 said:

What are you going on about CP never seeing the full light of day?

 

They aren't wrong. Lots of Sims have been further along in development and got the axe.

They are also tied to Epic for all engine enhancements, including performance and 5.3 isn't the best performing. It doesn't get good until 5.5, and upgrading UE versions is also Unreal.. like it is incredibly difficult. Took the STALKER 2 team a year to go from 5.1 to 5.5.4 and there wasn't as much performance improvement as hoped for. 

Anyway,

 

Edited September 5 by FuriousMeow

[Jaegermeister]

15 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I just hope we don't start the Pacific in 1944.  By that time it was an Allied pushover.  Most of the Japanese Navy and Army's best pilots were dead by then. A start in late '42 would be better.  

This has been discussed at length before in the old forum. The most likely scenarios are either the Solomon Islands chain, New Guinea, Eastern New Guinea and Rabaul, or some combination of those if the map can be made big enough. That provides the longest time span, the most air bases and room for carrier activity plus a truly 2 sided conflict with a large plane set. I doubt we would see the entire Island of New Guinea since it would be bases on either side with a bunch of uninhabited jungle in between to fly over on every mission. 

I would put my money on the Solomons. We could finally do justice to the Jolly Rogers and remake Baa Baa Black Sheep, not to mention all the Hellcat Aces that would spring up overnight.

Spoiler

 

[Captain_Trips]

I'd pay $100 pre-order instant buy if they would build Battle of Britain on this engine.  Jus sayin.
I'd rather see that instead of PTO. That's just me.  I've always dreamed of a fantastic BoB game.
Sorry, don't suggest Clod.

Edited September 5 by Captain_Trips

[Enceladus828]

34 minutes ago, Captain_Trips said:

I'd pay $100 pre-order instant buy if they would build Battle of Britain on this engine.  Jus sayin.
I'd rather see that instead of PTO. That's just me.  I've always dreamed of a fantastic BoB game.

It may just be you yes, but jumpin' straight from Korea to BoB while technically possible means you're going to have to create a whole new set of aircraft. And where do you go after BoB: leapfrog to another place and time period not in GBs with another new set of aircraft, or Malta, Tobruk, or a remake of BoN or BoBP?

Pacific or 1944-45 Eastern Front as the next installment makes more sense in that matter.

[Captain_Trips]

I can only speak for myself.  I can only tell you what I would want as a customer and what I'd be willing to pay for.
I have no interest in anything eastern front.  Never had.
PTO might work SP with Fast Travel but the flights would either be too long in MP or stuff would have to be unrealistically jammed close.
I think BoB would make an awesome SP AND MP.
I just think the BoB was a perfect balance of forces with reasonable flight times and would be gorgeous on this engine.
And I'd rather be flying over England than thousands of miles of flat water.  What a sad waste of a beautiful terrain engine.

And choosing PTO would just be stepping into a theatre already being targeted by two other competitors at the same time.
Why not let them fight over that, and strike where the enemy isn't?

Edited September 5 by Captain_Trips

[Enceladus828]

58 minutes ago, Captain_Trips said:

And choosing PTO would just be stepping into a theatre already being targeted by two other competitors at the same time.

Well if the devs do for say Iwo Jima and Okinawa or a 1944 battle then there is no overlap since CP is starting in 1942 with Midway and then the Solomons.

With two teams doing the Pacific there is bound to be overlap at some point (technically speaking BoN overlaps with the IL-2 Dover series) but as long as both teams give us a good quality product with something different but appealing to attract simmers in them then there really is no issue. 
 

I personally am bummed that we didn’t get mainland Italy in GBs (Sicily or Northern Italy), a very neglected aspect of the war, nor did we get the Felixstowe, a proper Eastern Front WW1 installment or long requested early war two seaters in FC. But, I just have to be glad that S&L happened and we’re also getting a bomber pack in a game that’s very much ran its development course.

Edited September 5 by Enceladus828

[BlitzPig_EL]

The PTO is vast enough that two different sims are still not enough to cover it in the depth we see in the European theater.

And frankly, and this is just my opinion, I don't want to see another Bf109 or FW190 for long, long, time.

[MiGCap]

Has anyone noticed beside me that instead discussing DevBlog #86 of IL-2:Korea we talk - over pages now! - a dozen possibilities/wishes/hopes of a game a few (or more) years in the future from now? 😄

[Captain_Trips]

 Well, there were no FW190 in BoB so you are safe there. 🤪

 

16 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

The PTO is vast enough that two different sims are still not enough to cover it in the depth we see in the European theater.

And frankly, and this is just my opinion, I don't want to see another Bf109 or FW190 for long, long, time.

 

In geography, but not necessarily in airframes.

By that logic, if I've already bought one competitors PTO, I have to decide if I also want buy 1C's duplication of the same aircraft flying on a different part of the water.

It would just seem to be choosing unnecessary competition, instead of offering a unique differentiator. 

But they've talked about doing PTO and not BoB, so you'll probably get what you want.  I'll get to save $100. 😉

Cheers.
 

Edited September 5 by Captain_Trips

[Voxman]

17 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I just hope we don't start the Pacific in 1944.  By that time it was an Allied pushover.  Most of the Japanese Navy and Army's best pilots were dead by then. A start in late '42 would be better.  

Yeah, but we've been flying for 20+ years in computer simulators.😀