Il-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover Update Released

We're very happy to introduce a slew of new improvements and additions to the game exactly a year after the last official update.

We are hoping that this patch finally makes this game worthy of the Il-2 Sturmovik name and that simulation fans will give our game another look and a new chance.

NOTE: This patch is incompatible with previous game versions when playing online.

The current version contains the following changes:

PERFORMANCE * Performed a huge amount of work improving both average and minimum FPS in the game. Most recommended-spec machine will see increased average FPS and a significant reduction in the micro-freezes that had previously plagued the game. Their frequency, duration, and overall FPS impact will be greatly reduced or completely removed. * Completely rewritten rended pipeline, reducing CPU load; * Rewritten texture manager, reducing stutter when loading new textures; * Moved landscape geometry generator to its own CPU core, reducing stutters; * Optimized tree code, reducing stutters when moving across landscape or rotating camera; * Moved grass generator to its own CPU core, decreasing stutters during low-level flight; * Moved all building and vehicle damage models to be pre-loaded, rather than dynamically loaded when they are destroyed. This increased mission loading times and memory usage, and reduced stutters when blowing things up; * Improved multithreading in many other aspects of the code, improving minimal FPS on most multicore machines.

AIRCRAFT * Added a Su-26 acrobatics plane. You can toggle airshow smoke by injecting oil into the exhaust manifold. This is done with the WEP button by default. The default smoke is white. You can select other colors by selecting corresponding loadout options. The plane also comes with four easter egg weapons that can be loaded onto the center pylon: - Shotgun – fires explosive pellets with everyone’ sfavorite green tracers; - Laser – fires a beam that sets an enemy plane alight. Effective distance is 700m; - Antimatter mortar – fires anti-matter spitwads; - Railgun – fires a shell that generates electromagnetic pulse that in turn destroys enemy subsystems, especially engines. * Added Hurricane MkI and Spitfire MkI with constant-speed propellers and 100-octane fuel. * Conducted a huge amount of work correcting and improving aircraft flight models as well as most engine models. All work was based on historical flight test data or flight manuals. * Corrected negative G cut-out for carburetor engines. The effect will be noticeable at around +0.1G. * Corrected the mixture control level on Hurricanes and Spitfires. It is now push forward for Lean, pull back for Rich. With that, moving the throttle lever to idle will return the lever to Rich. * Corrected (increased) low-altitude speeds for most Brutish fighters (Spitfire MkI with DH and Rotol aircrews, Hurricane MkI with DH and Rotol aircrews). * Corrected fuel flow calculations for most aircraft. * Corrected (increased) radiator drag when it is opened. * Corrected throttle control. The entire range is now useful. * Corrected overspeed sound. It will now steadily increase in volume depending on airspeed. * Made corrections to rough running on non warmed Merlin engines. Engines still require to be warmed up and won’t work properly when too cold. Please note that engines still start with oil and water at colder temperatures. With Hurricanes, please keep throttle back until the temperature is at least 45 degrees C; * Fixed issue that occasionally caused planes with landing gear raised to still show it in the down position; * Corrected rough running on Merlin engines above 11,000 ft; * Corrected control surface angles on