Helicopter Gunship DEX News

This update adjusts the flight profile for Hellfire and Spiral missiles so that they should no longer either overshoot or undershoot.

Just a quick update to address the landing issues that A.I. pilots sometimes encounter.

A.I. pilots should now land correctly and not "bounce" across the landing pad sometimes which then puts them in a loop of going around and trying again.

This update adds the following...

1. Fixed a misalignment of the altitude test point which was causing the altitude to read the wrong height sometimes when on the ground. I also think this was the cause of infantry not wanting to get out of the helicopter.

2. Rebalanced some of the audio settings so you may need to adjust your audio profile if things are too loud or quiet.

3. Updated the "bitchin' Betty" system so it is now helicopter independant which is a little more resource friendly.

4. Re-done the "bitchin' Betty" voice seeing as I no longer have the same text-to-speech voices available any more. This allowed my to also reduce the bit rate to make the voice more like a digital voice system found in aircraft. Feedback on whether you think this is better or not welcome as I'm not sure I've got it quite right yet. ːsteamhappyː

5. Fixed the bug that was causing the collective to reset to 50% when exiting out of Alt Hld. It now correctly picks up the current collective value from the autopilot before switching to manual mode. This only effects those using "relative collective control".

6. Improved the "Small Arms Fire" hit effects so that multiple effects don't truncate effects that are already playing. I've also increased the distance that these effects are audiable so that they can be heard more easily when in external views.

Fixes the bouncing wingman bug on the weapons loadout screen!

This update adds the following...

1. Updated the "Ground Effect" system to be more inline with real world values. The amount of total lift has been reduced but the lift envelope now extends further from the ground based on the diameter of the helicopter's rotors.

Using the Lynx with a rotor diameter of 12.8m as an example, this is how ground effect now works...

25% more lift when less than 6.4m off the ground (rotor radius)
falling off to 10% more lift at around 12.8m off the ground (rotor diameter)
falling off to 0% more lift when above 19.2m off the ground (1.5 x rotor diameter)

2. Added a sub-volume control for Small Arms Impact Sounds. This works in tandem with the current "Sound Effects" volume control but allows you to make the small arms sounds louder or quieter within that range.

3. Fixed some missing IR models for buildings.

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I am also currently investigating some of the guided missiles as Hellfire and Spiral missiles seem to sometimes miss when they shouldn't. Spirals seem more effected often impacting short of the intended target while Hellfires seem less accuracte when launched at closer targets just around the point that they switch to "direct attack" mode rather than "top attack".