Helicopter Gunship DEX News

Here's a few images from work going on behind the scenes...

Drop Tanks! As the game moves forward into larger areas required by the dynamic campaign your helicopters will need to extend their range for deep strike missions....





However, you'll need to watch out for the new 9S80/PPRU-1 Dog Ear mobile Radar vehicle. These units are designed to detect enemy aircraft at distance and co-ordinate air defences. Flying with stealth in mind will definitely be something you'll want to consider in the near future...

This update adds the following...

1. 10% chance for infantry units to have a MANPAD

2. MANPAD infantry units are equipped with Strela-2 missiles. Each unit carries 2 missiles and there can currently only be one MANPAD per infantry team.

Strela-2 missiles can lock on to you if you are within 2km, they are fairly low powered so an Apache can probably take 2 and still fly. The biggest danger is the short range at which they are fired gives flares very little time to spoof them and even if spoofed they may still explode close enough to do damage.

Their fire rate is low though taking 10-15 seconds for them to acquire you and launch plus 45 seconds to reload.

3. Flight Model tweaks! I've added some more flight model settings in the Control Settings menu....

• Helicopter Rotational Stability (previous named stability option) - this effects how much force is required to rotate the helicopter in any direction. It helps damp down sensitive controls and also reduces lively flight models such as the Viper! Essentially the helicopter will try to resist any rotational forces.
  
  Excessive values can make the primary controls sluggish and unresponsive. This can be corrected by increasing the relevant Cyclic X, Cyclic Y and Tail Rotor power settings.
  
  This setting currently also effects the spining effect applied when losing the tail rotor due to damage (I will fix that shortly)
  
  
• Rotor Disc Brake Force Multiplier - this effects how braking force (or drag) is generated by the rotor disc when at positive angles of attack (pitching up). Essentially it slows the helicopter down faster when pulling back on the cyclic.
  
  High values can also effect the helicopter's ability to maintain speed in a high-g turns.
  
  Extreme values may make the helicopter reluctant to lose altitude when hovering.
  
  
• Rotor Disc Angle of Attack Lift - this adjusts the lift generated by the rotor disc when at positive angles of attack (pitching up). It can make the helicopters feel more nimble and responsive to desired altitude changes when flying at higher speeds much like fixed wing aircraft.
  
  
• Forward Motion Lift Force Multiplier - this adjusts the lift generated by the rotor disc as well as any other flight surfaces such as wings. This makes the helicopters require less collective when flying forward at speed. Extreme values may cause unwanted effects such as constant climbing or requiring excessive downwards nose pitch.
  
  
• Low Speed Drag Multiplier - this setting increases the overall drag of the aircraft as it reaches speeds lower than 20m/a (aprrox 38kts). Below this speed the drag will increase helping to slow the helicopter down, smoothing out response to collective input changes, reducing side way slip, smoothing ground effect forces and generally making the helicopter want move into a stable hover position.
  
  High values will make the helicopter want to remain in a hover state so more aggressive nose down pitching will be required to transition into forward flight.
  
  Excessive values may make it very difficult for some helicopters to gain forward speed resulting in unrealistic nose down pitching!!
  

4. I've also rebalanced the helicopter's tail rotors so they are less likely to roll the helicopter as well as rotate it!

This update adds the following...

1. Updated infantry models to the new detailed models.

2. REDFOR infantry now carry an AK-47

3. Optimised infantry so that when crouching and idle they use practically no resources!

4. Fixed a slight "jitter" on the targeting pod camera caused by the new update timing system.

Couple of important fixes...

1. Modified the deadzone so it will respect the settings for each axis correctly.

2. Targeting Pod update rate is now variable again. There are 4 options to how often the targeting pod will update...

• Every Frame. Updates the target pod's camera every frame so that is runs at the same fps as your main screen. e.g. If you're getting 60 fps in game the targeting pod will run at 60fps.
  
  
• 1/2 Frame Rate. Updates the target pod's camera every other frame so that is runs at exactly half the fps of your main screen. e.g. If you're getting 60 fps in game the targeting pod will run at 30fps.
  
  
• 1/3 Frame Rate. Updates the target pod's camera every 3 frames so that is runs at exactly one third the fps of your main screen. e.g. If you're getting 60 fps in game the targeting pod will run at 20fps.
  
  
• 1/4 Frame Rate. Updates the target pod's camera every 4 frames so that is runs at exactly one quarter the fps of your main screen. e.g. If you're getting 60 fps in game the targeting pod will run at 15fps.
  

I can't make the targeting pod run any slower that 1/4 of the games' frame rate otherwise I run up against some limitations of the GPU instancing system which is what was causing the player.log spam previously when pausing the game or when using a low targeting pod update rate together with high game fps.

This update will be pushed to the live branch pretty quickly as these are quite important fixes.

The MK-20 Rockeye's bomblets are now complete so I should be able to add in this weapon system shortly.

It'll be an interesting one to do seeing as I'll have to work out a method of simulating 247 bomblets being dispersed from the canister and then all impacting the ground and targets without slowing the game down too much (or at all in the best case scenario).

I'm also slightly sad that the model looks so good yet will very rarely be seen so make sure you use the missile cam frequently to make it all worth while ːsteamhappyː