- For PC
- For MAC
- For Linux
- OS: Windows 7 SP1/8/10 (64 bit)
- Processor: Dual-Core 2.2 GHz
- Memory: 4GB
- Video Card: DirectX 10.1 level video card: AMD Radeon 77XX / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660. The minimum supported resolution for the game is 720p.
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Hard Drive: 17 GB
- OS: Windows 10/11 (64 bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i5 or Ryzen 5 3600 and better
- Memory: 16 GB and more
- Video Card: DirectX 11 level video card or higher and drivers: Nvidia GeForce 1060 and higher, Radeon RX 570 and higher
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Hard Drive: 95 GB
- OS: Mac OS Big Sur 11.0 or newer
- Processor: Core i5, minimum 2.2GHz (Intel Xeon is not supported)
- Memory: 6 GB
- Video Card: Intel Iris Pro 5200 (Mac), or analog from AMD/Nvidia for Mac. Minimum supported resolution for the game is 720p with Metal support.
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Hard Drive: 17 GB
- OS: Mac OS Big Sur 11.0 or newer
- Processor: Core i7 (Intel Xeon is not supported)
- Memory: 8 GB
- Video Card: Radeon Vega II or higher with Metal support.
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Hard Drive: 95 GB
- OS: Most modern 64bit Linux distributions
- Processor: Dual-Core 2.4 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB
- Video Card: NVIDIA 660 with latest proprietary drivers (not older than 6 months) / similar AMD with latest proprietary drivers (not older than 6 months; the minimum supported resolution for the game is 720p) with Vulkan support.
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Hard Drive: 17 GB
- OS: Ubuntu 20.04 64bit
- Processor: Intel Core i7
- Memory: 16 GB
- Video Card: NVIDIA 1060 with latest proprietary drivers (not older than 6 months) / similar AMD (Radeon RX 570) with latest proprietary drivers (not older than 6 months) with Vulkan support.
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Hard Drive: 95 GB
The Firebirds major update brings with it an array of improvements to the aviation portion of the game, specifically test flights, airfields, cockpit models and graphical features. In today’s dev blog we’ll be diving in and taking a look at them, so let’s get started!
Greatly Improved Test Flights!
Introducing the new Test Flight for aircraft, coming in with a range of improvements. You can now choose the terrain type for the test flight itself, from Western Europe, Eastern Europe Winter, Desert, Mountains, Jungle or Middle East Mediterranean. Previously you were only able to spawn on the airfield, but that has changed! Before going into a test flight, you can now select a spawn point: either on the airfield as normal, or from 500 m to 7 km in the air for planes, and up to 2 km for helicopters, or at an enemy air defense zone to test out your evasive maneuvers. Naval-based aircraft can now also choose between spawning on an aircraft carrier as well.
Airfields themselves have been greatly improved too. There’s new airfield buildings, light indications on the airstrip and even aircraft skid marks at each end of the runway. The test flight itself now has a much more diverse range of targets for you to test out your weapons against, and from different eras. Static and moving ground vehicles, from trucks to tanks, enemy aircraft at different altitudes, bases to bomb, different types of ships, and active air defense systems. When selecting the target rank as “High”, surface-to-air missile capable vehicles will attack you with missiles and ping you with radar.
Original test flight settings are still available, such as gamemode, time of day and weather, unlimited fuel or ammo, configuring gun targeting distance and vertical targeting, fuel amount and ammo belts, secondary weapons and countermeasures.
Cockpit Models Update
We’ve upgraded several cockpit models for some planes and helicopters. For planes this includes the entire line of the Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber including the cannon variants, the Soviet Su-2 attackers and lastly the BB-1. For helicopters, the US and Chinese OH-58D as well as the Italian Agusta A.109EOA-2 cockpit models have been updated.
RWR Indication and New Screens
For fans of jet aircraft and modern helicopters, there’s some really important improvements to the immersion while in first-person cockpit view. The indication of warning systems (RWR) is now displayed in the cockpits exactly as these systems would work in reality on specific models of aircraft. Threat markers and signs of their status (for example locked on, launch, new threat, etc) can differ for the third-person camera and cockpit view. For a full list of onboard RWR models and their functionality in first-person view, take a look at the Firebirds major changelog once it releases!
For those who fly in first-person view, the Firebirds major update will add a radar screen and RWS screen to the JAS39A Gripen, a multi-functional display (MFD) for the Platan optical-electronic system in the Su-34 cockpit, and authentic digital indicators for multi-functional displays, as well as a HUD for the F-15E.
Air Combat Graphical Effects
When taking your aircraft out in air battles in the Firebirds major update, you’ll definitely notice improvements in terms of graphical effects! For example, the afterburner flame effect for jet aircraft and the effect of rocket boosters have been updated. Brand-new LERX Vapor effects on different surfaces of the aircraft’s wings when gaining altitude and performing maneuvers will now appear, as well as new effects when aircraft slide on different surfaces such as concrete, snow and sand.
That’s not all, as the effects of air-to-air missile and anti-aircraft missile explosions in the air have been reworked. After the explosion occurs, in some cases you’ll be able to see how the engine motor of the missile continues to move along the flight path for a brief time.
Comments (23)
Comments will be premoderatedThese are all excellent changes. I hope in the future we can see some variation in game modes for Air. Outside of Sim, upper tier Air battles are only super short. It would be nice to see something long form. Maybe this is EC. Maybe its a rework of the PVE modes. Just some new game mode for Air outside of the current TDM meta.
This is an awesome update for those of us that mainly play in Simulator battles! Does the RWR rework mean that that will now be displayed only in the cockpit and not on the separate HUD, or are both still available?
Now this is what I like to see. Really happy with the test flight changes and oh man I love those Afterburners!
Nice! when? c:
Can we see more air targets for the test flight maps that aren’t just 2 MiG-15’s? Maybe something where the targets scale to the rank of your aircraft or something like a bomber formation?
After seeing all this improvement on test drive was gonna ask if we could get an update for custom battle settings later like tickets say if us players wanted to make an event for ourselves in a custom the tickets would run out well before anything actually taking place. And the placement of destructible targets bases/vehicles/aaa etc to make custom games fully custom. I know it's alot but I would love to see more freedom to custom games instead of prefabricated setups like we have now.
Is there a list somewhere of what aircraft will get the new lerx effects, I've been dieing to know and can't find any info
hell yeah
how many days until release you think?
very nice to see the changes to test flights
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