Hello! This patch adds IR missile launching for the AI aircraft, new Random and Waves options for instant action, and the building out of the NAV mode HUD. As was mentioned in a previous post,
there are two parallel tracks of development happening in order to finish off the game's features.
Arena UI and Mechanics: Mechanically, Arena is close to completion. There are still some features remaining, most notably
tactical targets and
convoys, but most visible of the remaining work is actually in the UI. The way information is presented on the Arena map, particularly for strategic targets, is still essentially "debug" information. For 1.0, the Arena map is going to get a lot easier to use, and more interactive. Included in this work, is how the information gets presented during a flight, which will be through the NAV mode detailed below.
Air Combat: As was mentioned in previous posts the air combat is still missing a couple features, the most obvious being missile combat with the AI, and AI against AI. Beyond just this, how aircraft fit into the Arena campaign. Initially I was planning on doing this after a lot of the Arena work, but they go hand in hand pretty well, so I've started working on both in parallel.
[h2]AI Firing IR Guided Missiles[/h2]
This is will be an area of ongoing work that will have pretty sweeping effects on most parts of the game. As such, this is only the first part of a much larger revision to air combat, which will eventually include radar guided missiles and new tactics by the AI.
The skill level of the AI dictates how ready they are to part with their own missiles. Rookies will rarely fire missiles, only if they are tailing a target for a good amount of time. Aces on the other hard will fire basically as soon as they have a good lock.
For the time being, the AI is restricted only to firing IR guided missiles. Until chaff is functional (which will come with radar guided SAMs) I wasn't comfortable with allowing the AI to fire radar guided missiles since there'd wouldn't be much in the way of counterplay yet.
[h2]NAV Mode[/h2]
The Arena map symbology isn't meant to be overlaid while flying, but it was a convenient hack at the time. NAV mode is meant to clean up and declutter the HUD, and to give a non-combat "strategic" view of the map while flying on it. This update is just the first part of this
Shoutout to Mors on the Steam forums for planting the seed for this!
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
New Features:
- NAV Marker system to replace Arena symbology for bases while in flight (NAV mode is WIP feature)
+ When in NAV mode, strategic targets have faction-colored HUD elements with their names
+ Arena symbology (big wall of text) is no longer shown while in flight
- AI have the ability to fire IR guided missiles
+ How often missiles are fired depends on skill level (Rookies rarely fire, Aces will spam missiles)
- Wave system added to dogfight instant action
+ When waves >1 all aircraft of a faction respawn when shot down
+ Endless waves option added
+ New incoming waves spawn randomly within a 10 mile radius of their mission defined spawn
- Added "Random" option for aircraft type in Dogfight
Improvements:
- Tweaks to text rendering to make it more reliable at lower resolutions
- Optimized show/hide code for vehicle group icons
- Proximity fuzing ignores friendlies
- Dogfight lowest starting altitude raised to 3000ft
- Wings in Instant Action Dogfight/Strike spawn at 3000ft AGL or MSL, whichever is higher
Bugfixes:
- Lines no longer draw between strategic targets when not in Arena
- Fixed NRE caused by AI running out of missiles
- Missile launch notification no longer appears for AI fired missiles
JSON:
- In Arena definitions, StrategicTargets can have a "HudName" for NAV mode display
