Progress on the Bo-105 has been quite visible, really, with Miltech-5 posting quite often on their Facebook page and showing what they have been up to.
As you may remember, Miltech-5 and Razbam joined forces back in 2020 to bring the Bo-105 to DCS and the teams have been splitting the work with Miltech-5 doing the art and animations while Razbam is working on coding.
On their Discord Server (which I highly recommend you join so you are always on top of what’s happening with the project), Miltech-5 has also been posting their progress.
Miltech-5 told us to check out the #bo-105-todo channel, where we found a nice list (which had been sent to us via Twitter by a reader as well – thank you very much for the heads up) with everything that lies ahead for the development team:
PAH1A1
- Coding (currently at 75%)
- Finish Engine Modeling/texturing
- Liveries
- Create Mission(s)
- rigging/Animate UV-Light cable
- Squadron Batches
- Create new Pilot's Body
- Implementing existing sounds
- HOT Tubes anims
VBH
- Remove all Weapon related Stuff
- Re-arrange Panels on Centerpanel
- Create Highpoly for additional Parts
HKP
- Create Highpoly External
- Texturing
- Coding
KLH
- Create Highpoly Version of Cockpit and External
- Texturing
- Coding
As we can see from this list, the project is quite advanced and I was very surprised to realize that coding, which is usually the portion of projects that are harder to develop and take a longer time. Seeing it at 75% was a very pleasant surprise.
According to Miltech-5, modeling is already at 95%, with only “the engine and also add a new Pilot's body (only the body)” needing some work while texturing is pretty much done.
When asked about the biggest challenges, Miltech-5 said that it was “finding out how ED make things work. […] It's easy to do it in 3ds Max but that doesn't mean it works with DCS.”
Meanwhile, the million-dollar question is: when is it being released? And the answer to that, is not two weeks, no, sorry to disappoint you! But it’s also a classic: “when it’s done”. Miltech-5 and Razbam are planning on an Early Access release but that is subject to changes.
