Thank you for purchasing Cliffs of Dover! If you have previously purchased our sims, you should know that they are a constant work in progress. We as a team are proud of the fact that we continuously support, expand and improve on our releases. We hope, with your support, to continue this tradition and to help the series grow in the coming years.
 
The current patch contains the following changes:
 
DRM
* Solidshield protection was removed from the game. The game no longer requires a second authentication key. Cliffs of Dover only needs to be authenticated once with a single key during first install.  
NOTE: this action is automatic and does not require any action from the player.
 
GRAPHICS
* Significantly optimized buildings. Performance gain is less noticeable on above-recommended specs;
* Removed momentary freezes caused by trees and other vegetation; also changed the way far-away trees are generated;
* Improved block loading, i.e. the periodic loading of 8x8km terrain blocks as the player moves about the terrain. Performance gain is most noticeable on above-recommended specs;
* Expanded the resolution selection in Video Options to include non-native options;
* Streamlined cockpit render. Also made sure that stars and other bright objects no longer shine through the cockpit at night.
 
AIRCRAFT
* Removed “rubber bands” from player aircraft that made its movement smoother by delaying graphical representation of the plane behind its physical position, with the rare unintended consequence of making tracers appear to fly out sideways;
* Reworked aircraft visual fx and added some new ones, such as new MG131 hit FX;
* Improved performance in FM module by 0,001%;
* Turned on cockpit gauges in the FIAT G.50;
* Fixed fps drop when zooming in on a bomber formation;
* Added a special penalty to aircraft with large parts of wing missing. Though this is less realistic, this will address most common misconceptions while we work on even more accurate wing calculations specifically for this scenario;
* Fixed issue when missing control surfaces could still control aircraft;
* Fixed some damage visuals on FIAT G.50;
* Fixed FIAT G.50 visual and control animations;
* Fixed FIAT G.50 receiving too much lift despite wing damage;
* Fixed FIAT BR.20 radiator flaps disappearing in rare cases;
* Fixed Blenheim propellers and turret visuals;
* Fixed some He 115 visuals;
* When a He 115 loses a float, the physical behaviour model will no longer lose a marble;
* He-115 nose gunner will no longer attempt to hang out of a detached nose section;
* Fixed a visual issue with the Hurricane radiator flap;
* Ju 87 floor window no longer affects the sea;
* Fixed minor visual details in the He-111;
* Damaged Wellingtons will no longer occasionally disappear at a distance;
* Sunderland's top turret will always behave properly when the plane is broken in half;
* Fixed an issue when engine controls could fail to react to user input for 2 seconds after mission start with Anthropomorphic Control switched to ON;
* Fixed an issue when the Bf 109 on Anthropomorphic Control with Complex Engine Management would also lock other controls;
* You will now see overspeed FX and damage when expected;
* Bumped up engine radiator drag to more realistic levels;
* Exposed bulkheads left after engine detachent on 2-motors will now produce significantly more drag;
* Adjusted magnetic compass damping to match the characteristics of a Soviet A-4 compass, as many were unhappy with its present wobbling;
* Fixed minor Bf 109 damage visuals;
* Reduced Bf 109 flaps deployment time to 25 seconds.
 
MISC
* Redesigned multiplayer client and server GUI;
* Fixed multiplayer server search;
* Added Voice and Music volume control options in Sound Options;
* Made multiple other fixes to the sound engine;
* Cleaned out some stuff being stored in memory, putting less stress on lower-end machines, especially running DX9;
* Changed bail-out camera sequence for the player;
* Captured AWOL location labels in Full Mission Builder and put them back to work;
* Fixed some erroneous location labels around the map;
* Made numerous changes to localization texts;
 
WHAT TO EXPECT FOR US IN THE COMING DAYS AND WEEKS:
* SLI and Crossfire support;
* Improved multicore support;
* Additional optimization;
* New multiplayer maps;
* Additional variants of existing aircraft;
* New missions and campaigns!

The current patch contains the following changes:
 
MULTIPLAYER
 
* Added a new Steam Lobby feature to the Multiplayer section as an alternative to the existing server search. A lobby is a place for players to gather before joining or creating a server. The most important feature of a Lobby is that it allows one to join servers running on a non-public IP, bypassing network address translation. It will of course also allow you to send players to a public IP server just as well. When a lobby links to a public IP server, that server can be accessed both from the Lobby, or directly from the Server search. With a non-public IP, the only way to access a server is through a lobby. When running a dedicated server, the lobby host can link to it by pressing the Find Server button. Otherwise just press Play to create a new Server.
* Fixed certain aircraft flame and smoke effects not syncing when playing on-line and recording tracks.
 
GRAPHICS
 
* Made massive improvements to framerate in regards to the terrain engine. This will be most noticeable on machines with 4+ CPU cores.
* Made SSAO optional. It can be toggled on the fly with a checkbox in Video Options. Turning SSAO off will slightly decrease the graphical quality of the game while improving performance.
* Texture quality slider added to video options. The settings are Original (no change), High (reduced 2x), Medium (reduced 4x) and Low (reduced 8x). Lowering texture size will cause significant performance gain on lower-end machines at the expense of the graphic quality. Please not that the feature is smart enough not to downscale aircraft textures, so the most crucial components of the game will remain unaffected.
* Made sure that grass no longer grows through runways or roads.
* Re-enabled anti-aliasing on DirectX 9.
 
AIRCRAFT
 
* Completely removed overload assessment from carburetters. Rolls-Royce engines will now cut if overload is negative, and will not cut if it is positive. (old values were sneezing at .5G, and cut-out at .25 which we felt were dead on, but this apparently confused most of the players)
* When starting in mid-air, all gyro instruments will be spinned up so you don't have to wait for AH to get in shape, as well as course setters and DI set to actual heading for you.
* Reworked damage module to work dramatically faster when a plane is under heavy bullet bombardment.
* Elevator trim is now set close to neutral when starting in air.
* Returned the water splash when a plane plummets into the water.
* The Spitfire DM will no longer occasionally ignore detached rear fuselage.
* Changed WEP control feedback on Bf. 109. Rather than showing an 'On-Off' message, it now will show if it actually is switched on, and when it actually switches off.
* Fixed minor Bf. 109 damage visuals.
* Ju. 88 gear struts now break off gear well covers when they detach from the plane.
* Fixed missing power cords in Bf. 109 and Hurricane cockpits.
* Fixed visual issue with bullet holes in cockpit glass.
* Fixed issue with FW. 200 radiator flaps floating on detached engines.
* Fixed missing geometry on Spitfire's damaged right wing under the landing flap.
* Reworked movement of the Hurricane boost cut-out pull knob.
* Fixed minor Bf. 110 damage visuals.
* Propellers on detached motors will now appear stalled.
* An invisible mental force won't raise your landing flaps on the strip after you start the engine any more.
* Replaced every tachometer in every British and Italian plane with an electrical type, since some people find needle movement on the mechanical type not what they expected.
* Jammed and stuck motors won't budge when flying at high speed.
* Adjusted behavior of broken engines.
* Doubled quantity of air in Bf. 109 undercarriage emergency discharge containers. This makes it more likely that your emergency gear will have enough momentum to push the struts down till they lock.
* Landing flaps on Bf. 110 can now be ripped off only as whole, not in halves.
* Bf. 110 hydraulics pump is now driven by its right motor as it should.
* Fixed a bug with carburetor backfire always causing intake damage.
* New assessment causes less initial destruction to surrounding area when fuel storage explodes.
* New spectacular fuel storage explosions (blow up those large round cistern buildings around the map)
* Flames and heat from aerial fires will now make a plane catch fire, rather than break its parts.
* Fuel storage fires, on the contrary, will be more destructive.
* Implemented new getParameter() to AiAircraft interface to allow more access to aircraft state in mission scripts.
 
MISC
 
* Added four new benchmark tracks. The Black Death is the new version of the most famous track from Il-2. It will tax your system to the absolute limit.