BLOG

Hi, welcome to the developer blog.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT PNF CLASSIC FULL VERSION:

Full game has been consolidated with the ‘lite’ version, there is now just 1 version to download. If you previously used “Pacific Navy Fighter – FULL”, simply migrate by downloading “Pacific Navy Fighter” (you will still keep the extra missions).

[15 Feb 2017]
A new update is in the works; most notable change so far is enhancement of the “radar” display. It will have a compass and indicator arrows towards wingmen/flight members plus indicator towards and on the flights target. Additionally the priorities of AI controlled planes will be improved.

[13 Feb 2016]
1.3.0/1.3.1 is out now. 1.3.1 is a hotfix for the first reported issues with 1.3.0 and if any more issues surface these will likely be tackled swiftly in the next few days.

1.3.0 internally is quite a big update so it might take a few hotfix versions to become fully stable (even with the most rigorous testing eventually hunders of thousands of players will always find a few issues after any major change).

Note that for 1.3.0/1.3.1 a know issues for know are:

– mission “Dangerous strait” not playable as IJN (mission will abort when game opens)
– mission “Fighter patrol” as IJN has incorrect briefing mentioning K61 fighters while in flight it are Zero’s

These are on the list for upcoming updates (although any crash type issues will get priority of course).

Hopefully you’ll enjoy the new features and updates; a note on the work on the cockpit: this is a work in progress (for example the gear, flaps and arrestor levers wont move yet, and there’s a bunch of instruments missing or out of place). At least its better then the old empty one, and we’ll see how far we take it “to the next level”.

[8 Jan 2016]
Just a sneak preview for the next update of PNF Commander Edition. Noteworthy are the engine sound change (to be less intrusive over time) and stereo sound so that a aircraft doing a fly-by actually sounds like its going in the given direction (most noticeable when playing with headphones).

FIXES:
– Midway win condition IJN
– A.C. circling around waypoints
– A.C. hitting mountains
– Fleet heading at game start

NEW:
– Quick missions (smaller battles)
– Directional stereo sound
– Engine sound change
– Damage & speed tuning to shorten game time
– New condition for awards: no friendly fire against sea/ground targets
– Medal achievement hints

On a more technical note the project will soon be moved from Eclipse ADT to Android Studio; this will get interesting as currently the project components also double as OSGI plugins so that the mission designer (which is a Eclipse windows application) can run, test and preview the game on windows.

We’ll see how to organize this cross-platform (android/windows), cross-technology (android/OSGI) and cross IDE (Eclipse/Android studio) code-sharing… Should get “interesting” to say the least. Hopefully this will go as smooth as possible as to prevent delaying updates.

[26 sept 2015]
Coming right up: updates for both classic and CE games.

[26 jan 2014]
It has been a while due to unforeseen circumstances however a CE update is nearing completion. This will fix a few bugs, add playing on I.J.N. side and dynamically generated missions.

[25 oct 2013]
For those who wonder: yes, the aim is to add ground objective missions, generated missions and campaign modes soonest possible; although no hard promises on what and when can be made.

[24 oct 2013]
As you can notice on the site navigation the wheels are in motion! Due to timezone differences and phased roll-out it can take up to 2 days before being available in your location.

[9 oct 2013]
PNF-CE release date: 24 october 2013

[15 aug 2013]
The all new game Pacific Navy Fighter – Commander Editionis now in Beta and near release! Not all features made it into the game, but it’s still a nice feeling to have reached a milestone after the sweat and tears that went into it.
[8 jun 2013]

What a fantastic day. My workplace is near a small airfield and they have a demo-day today which means I’m getting “Buzzed” by low flying WW2 aircraft today. Nothing says “motivation” more than a B25 doing a flyby.

[7 jun 2013]

Frantic work is being done getting things ready but there’s still plenty to do. Spend today doing carrier landings, wondering why recently I had trouble landing. Turns out flaps didn’t work so flare for getting the hook towards the deck would fail, causing me to miss the cables.

[22 apr 2013]

Have been very busy hence the few updates here. Good news and bad news. Good news is that engine development has gone well. Bad news is progress on the mission generation which is proving to be problematic again. This is the main reason why the game ain’t out yet, I’m looking into a solution but there’s no ‘quick win’ there, as simply with all the new features missions get complicated for balanced game-play very quickly.

[9 mar 2013]

Spend past days available time profiling for optimization. Some nice improvements have been made resulting in higher and more consistent FPS. The new engine now runs about 2-4x faster than the original engine used in PNF (this is on TERGA-2), quite a achievement considering the new engine actually does a lot more.

[2 mar 2013]

Begun work on mission events for the new game. With the new game engine this is proving to be relatively easy.

Hot new info on the new game title (of which b.t.w. the title isn’t set yet)

The game will be alike (but also completely different) from PNF. Again the pacific war will be the place of operations however this time the battlefield is larger, more dynamic and you’ll need more then just pilot skills to win.

Next to piloting aircraft you’ll have the force of the carrier airwing at your fingertips, being able to order various types of flights in the target areas you want. This will require some strategy as not only the number of aircraft but also the number of (and types of) weapons available will vary per mission and carrier.

There is no longer “a” or “the” carrier, as there can now be multiple carriers per side during a mission, causing some major mayhem when many flights are airborne.

Don’t you hate it when friendly A.I. aircraft tend to fail at critical moments? This is why you will be able to ‘hop’ from cockpit to cockpit to take over any of the planes.

How to keep track of things in this mayhem? When launching bombers (or escorts etc.) they’ll be assigned a callsign which will show up as labels when visually spotting them in flight, and the callsign will be used for radio traffic.

This is a typical message as it can appear:

“Voodoo-1: Spotted enemy destroyer Mutsuki”

This also shows another 2 aspects of the game: no more anonymous ‘some battleship’ or ‘some destroyer’, the game contains many, many real names of ships who fought in ww2 battles. Their commission dates are also present so during a campaign (yes, there will be a non-scripted campaign mode) as time progresses new ships will become available.

Secondly, there’s no longer a ‘magic’ radar showing everything that’s out there. Stuff will need to be spotted by lookouts or recon planes before you get a clue as to what will be hitting you. A radar like view will be there to keep your bearings but just to report the known and confirmed sightings.

That’s it for now, I need to get back to the hard labour of wicked programming!

[1 mar 2013]

Text and labeling system now work awesome after some hard work. Spend quite a bit of time working on reducing memory requirements trying to make the game fit into the small 24m heap space some smaller devices have.

[28 feb 2013]

New optimization in the rendering engine which also cleaned up some code, nice!

[27 feb 2013]

Radio improvements and flight configuration tweaks. Labeling system is starting to take shape nicely.

[20 feb 2013]

Been busy working on the sequel game, among other things data entry of ship names, tonnage, commision dates etc.

[19 jan 2013]

After a few weeks sick in bed with >40’C fever, finally up and running again. Preparations for 2.6.6. update of P.N.F.