Helicopter Gunship DEX News

This update adds the following...

1. TSD/Map icons no longer get darker at night

2. Fixed a bug that was allowing bases to spawn on top of another base

3. Updated the A.I. so that they know when wheels/skids are touching the ground which improves their landing ability.

4. You can no longer retract your landing gear while it is touching the ground.

5. Altered the "Max VRAM Usage" slider so that it is now in multiples of 256Mb.

This update adds the following...

1. Optimised terrain textures and this has now brought down overall RAM usage to about 4.5Gb which is quite reasonable.

Further RAM can be saved by using the Texture Resolution options in the Video Options menu but that comes with a reasonable drop in overall fidelity.

2. Fixed the cargo transport mission with the damaged M1A1 tanks so they are no longer hostile and won't start firing on other Allied vehicles that might be in range!

3. Updated the Radar altimeter to no longer use the physics engine to calculate altitude. Instead it will query the terrain's height map directly. This is the precursor to allowing everything to locate the height of the terrain beneath it even if there is no collider present on the terrain.

This update adds the following...

1. SA-342L & SA-349 now have their "HERO" exterior models and selectable skins.

2. Modified some of the load outs available to the Gazelle. This may have effected your saved loadouts.

3. SA-341B now has a more limited zoom capability to reflect its smaller, less capable targeting pod.

4. Removed the distant terrain collider culling system for the moment as A.I. aircraft still need colliders to plot their waypoints correctly. I will work on fixing this as soon as I can.

5. All door gunners have had their gimbal limits updated to ensure they can no longer shoot their own rotor blades off!

6. Optimised a lot of textures to use less VRAM

7. Added LODs to all Gazelle & Kiowa interiors to make them more efficient.

This update adds the following...

1. Gazelle SA-341B HERO exterior model and colour schemes are now available. SA-342L and SA-349 will be getting their upgraded models/skins shortly ːsteamhappyː

2. Fixed a bug which would cause your wingman to target friendlies!

3. Fixed a bug which would cause bullets to impact an "invisible shield" around infantry.

4. Increased the distance before distant terrain starts having its colliders culled. This is to prevent TOR from pinging you through the terrain!

5. Destroyed units no longer continue to move their turrets or spin their radar dishes.

6. Artillery now has a maximum range of 12km instead of 4km. This means you can call it in on any target that you have line of sight to. Eventually this will be upgraded so that you can call it in from either the TSD or Planning Map screen allowing you to target units which you don't have line of sight.

This may become over powered so I will also implement a maximum distance from any allied base to simulate artillery units stationed there until I get some artillery unit models in game.

7. You will now be penalized for destroying allied units. Negative mission scores will reduce your pilot's XP and could potentially lead to a reduction in rank! ːcoolstar2022ː

8. Upgraded the custom texture system so it can handle Base Maps, Metallic Maps and Normal Maps

9. Updated the targeting pod system so that it will identify targets even when not locked.

10. Targeting pod will now show "GROUND" if it is pointing at the ground.

11. Updated a lot of the weapon meshes to use the new LOD system which should result in better looking models with less obvious "pop-in" and slightly lower poly count over all, probably won't make much difference to FPS at the moment but all these little savings will add up over time. ːsteamhappyː

12. Updated the raycasting collision system to handle missile objects and work with variable speed objects.

13. All missiles now use the raycasting collision system apart from the Sidearm as that still needs a collider to receive radar pings (although I will fix that shortly).

14. Fixed a bug that was causing the VADS to sometimes fall through the world!

This update adds the following...

1. Fixed a bug which was causing door gunners to not align with their attachment points

2. Fixed a bug which would cause waypoints to drop to sea level when adding or removing additional waypoints.

4. Added new Medical Field Hospital installation to all sectors

5. Added new Military Command & Control Installation to all sectors

6. Enabled an experimental system which disables the terrain colliders on distant terrains. This does provide a small performance boost (about 5fps for me) but more importantly reduces the amount of collision testing the game has to do overall which should result in less fps drops when lots of things are in motion and smoother performance overall.

You should also be able to crank down the "Pixel Error" on the terrain detail settings to "2" without any noticeable fps drop.

Downside to this system is that once the mission starts you should not add, remove or move waypoints otherwise they may not be able to workout the terrain height at their location as it may have been disabled and will revert to sea level! I do have a fix for this but ran out of time to implement it today. ːsteamlaughcryː