Dust Development Update - July 2023 news

Dust News

Here's an overview of some of the new content that will be included in the Dust 3.1.

1. New and Reworked Ground Vehicles.

LAV-CROWS
This is a version of the LAV25 without TOW missiles and with an added CROWS system as seen here on one of the new maps (Kirkuk).

BRDM-2
The famous 'go anywhere' scout car, armed with a powerful 14.5 mm KPVT heavy machine gun and a 7.62 mm coaxial, the BDRM-2 also has radar to help you spot enemies on the battlefield.

BTR90 Redux
The vanilla BTR90 is finally getting upgraded to Dust standards with a complete visual overhaul (roughly 85% complete as of writing). Before and after screenshot to follow later.

2. New Aircraft

Dust 3.1 will include at least three new aircraft featuring detailed high definition cockpits with authentic canopy reflections, the ability to look around the cockpit with joystick buttons, new vastly improved flight dynamics, and a taxi engine for better ground handling. The aircraft nearing completion are:

F18
Carrier landing on Oman in the new F18.

SU25 Skorpion
Coming in for rearming at the new extended airbase on Oman.

Taxiing past the hangar using the new joystick hat-switch view system.

MiG29
Landing at the redesigned northern airbase on Shahr Urmia (formerly Highway Tampa).

3. New maps

Several new maps are in development. Of these, three are nearing completion:

Kikuk
A complete remake of The Battle of Kirkuk Oilfields from the USI mod, this map is ideally suited to long range armoured vehicle battles.

Abandoned Town
A remake of one of my favourite desert maps, Abandoned Village by Jones.
Abandoned town features new custom details and effects that create an intense, gritty war torn atmosphere. There's some great street fighting, but heavy armour and helicopters also play an important part on the larger size missions.

Black Hawk
Another favourite desert themed urban map, Black Hawk is my version of the old map Operation Blackhawk Down. It consists of wide boulevards and a maze of backstreets, so those of you who enjoy brutal close quarters battles or rooftop sniping will love this map.

Other maps in development include: Al Janna, probably one of the biggest urban maps made for BF2, Airport, with completely new single player layouts including flyable aircraft, and Shahr Urmia, my remake of the vanilla BF2 map Highway Tampa.

N.B. Due to persistent random ctd problems with Shahr Urmia I'm not sure when it will get released. This is because I want to ensure that you guys get only the best, most stable and bug free content from me.

4. New Airbases

Airbases on a number of maps are being upgraded to accomodate the new aircraft. The upgrades will include: longer runways with realistic marking and weathering, specific repair and rearm points meaning that you will have to land and taxi to these areas in order to replenish ammo and repair your aircraft, new static objects such as bomb and missile trolleys, supply trucks and so on. Screenshots will follow later.

Miscellaneous Updates

In addition to the new content listed above, I've made lots of minor adjustments and improvements to Dust. These are mostly aesthetic and for my own satisfaction, but there are also a few new custom effects, textures and static objects that will feature in the upcoming maps.

I'll be uploading more screenshots from Dust 3.1 over the course of next week or so.

If you don't have it yet, you can download the current version of Dust (3.0) here: Moddb.com

Dust 3.0 comes with 2 maps: Strike at Karkand and Gulf of Oman. You'll find four more maps (Factory, Janat Alqanaas, Sharqi Peninsular and Jalalabad) in the addons section of my mod here: Moddb.com

Saluti da Gattobuono!