Helicopter Gunship DEX News

This update has taken a little while to get right but here it is!

New Load Out Screen is now fully functional and looks like this...



Hardpoint options are no longer aligned with the ground so the view point has been moved down for a more "dynamic" position. The vertical view angle slider has now been removed as it is no longer necessary.

Drop down menus have all been replaced with simple next/previous buttons allowing you to quickly cycle through the different weapons available for each hard point. This is also much more user friendly for Deck users!

The number of different weapons available for each hard point is indicated by the number of dots in each box. The blue dot indicates your current position in the weapon list.

When a weapon is selected it will be loaded (with a little animation!) on to the hardpoint indicated by the red laser line. A short description will also be shown in the weapon box giving you some basic info about what the weapon is and its maximum range.

The killer feature though is the ability to create and save your own load out presets. Simply load the weapons you want in your preset and then click the "Save Loadout" button. You'll be prompted to add a name for you load out like this...



...and then it will be saved for that specific helicopter. You can cycle through your saved presets by using the buttons at the bottom of the screen. Presets are persistant so the next time you load the game you presets will still be there. You can also clone or delete presets by cycling to your preset and clicking "Edit Loadout" you will then get the option to "Save as New" (e.g. clone) or "Delete".

Other updates include your helicopter starting in an "Engine Off" state. This means no more annoying engine noises while you're planning your mission.

Once you start the mission your engines will spool up automatically.

Other improvements include moving all weapon racks into their own asset bundles which should save a huge amount of RAM as they'll only be loaded when needed. I'm hoping this might solve the Hind crashes on the Deck but I haven't had chance to check that just yet...

This updates touches a whole load of code and battling the bugs has been a sizable task!!

The final bug occurred to day which would cause a complete crash when a guided air-ground missile exploded. Guided rockets and Air-Air missiles were uneffected and it seems the bug is actually in Unity's asset bundle system somewhere so I had to work around the issue and, hopefully, it is fixed. But there maybe some other undiscovered issues out there so please let me know if you encounter anything weird like that.

So, assuming no game breaking bugs, this should be the last update for this particular beta. The next beta will be the "Infantry" beta which will focus on getting infantry into the game! ːsteamhappyː

This update adds the following....

1. Fixed a bug which would sometimes cause a weapon rack to not fire on the 1st trigger pull.

2. Updated the weapon rack firing logic so that it now has 3 separate modes.....

• Single Shot - will only fire a single missile no matter how long you hold the trigger down. This is used on all guided missiles. You can ripple fire by pulling the trigger again and there is no limit to how fast you can do this!
  
• Autofire - this will launch missiles/rockets at a set rate while the trigger is held down cycling between all racks of the same weapon. This mode is used for all rocket pods.
  
• Linked Autofire - This fires all racks of the same weapon type at the same time at a set rate. This is used for all canon/gun pods.
  

3. UB-32 rocket pod now launches rockets at a faster rate to compensate for their smaller size/power.

4. Added in the basic IR models for all Hind varients so it is now visible on IR cameras.

5. Various texture optimisations to reduce VRAM usage and give a little performance boost as well.

I think this update now forms a good candidate for pushing to the public branch and will bring an end to this specific beta branch (unless something major crops up!).

The next beta will be the "Troop" beta that will focus on getting soldiers etc into the game. This will also cover missions that utilise troop deployment in some form or another so it is still part of the "Mission Expansion" line of updates. ːsteamsunnyː

This update addresses a few bugs in the Terrain Clutter System....

1. GPU Initialisation for the ground clutter now only occurs on mission start rather than when switching helicopters which should reduce and stutters/pauses when loading a new helicopter. Pauses can still happen when choosing helicopters and this is down to the meshes/textures being loaded from your hard drive.

You will see the Ground Clutter "pop in" as the mission starts and I'll need to add some kind of screen transition to hide that ːsteamlaughcryː

2. In the Video Settings menu you can choose which cameras render the ground clutter. Default is "Main Camera & Tpod" but you can also choose "Main Camera Only" or "OFF".

3. I've tested this new build on my Steam deck and Libya does work with the GPU Instancing. However, you need to set "Texture Resolution" to "Quarter" in the Video Settings menu to ensure it doesn't run out of RAM! The screen is so small that you really don't need anything more than that on the Deck anyway.

With Ground Clutter on you can get a solid 30fps (actually about 45fps if you go to 60hz mode). With ground clutter off you can get a solid 60fps in 60hz mode which is quite surprising!

I will be looking at the overall control system for the Deck as at the moment it is pretty horrible to navigate the menus etc, but it's nice to see the game does in fact work quite well ːsteamhappyː

4. Fixed the "flat tyre" on the Mi-24VP so that the menus don't clip through the ground.

5. Ground clutter is now removed from inside your bases so no more grass poking through your landing pad!!

6. Added a 3 degree up angle to the Mi-24P's fixed cannon making it easier to line up shots. This basically aligns it with the rocket pod firing position.

7. Fixed a bug where selecting the Targeting Pod's update rate in the Video Settings menu could cause it to "over render" the scene making your FPS tank until you started a new mission.

This update adds in the GPU Instanced ground clutter system for the entire Libyan terrain.

I've also added in the terrain culling system which hides terrain that is not currently visible (I would recommend setting the maximum visual range in the Video Settings to 25km as you can't see further than that due to the desert haze anyway ːsteamsunnyː)

The ground clutter is basically only there to add a sense of scale, speed and some "frame of reference" to the desert. You cannot collide with anything - the bushes are quite small and assumed to be no match for a flying lawnmower!

I am also quite surprised at how fast the Hind now feels when zooming along 10m off the ground! Likewise, the Gazelle feels great to fly with its wide open cockpit views. Hopefully you'll have the same experience ːsteamhappyː

For testing purposes I have also added a FPS counter to the bottom right of the HUD. This value is your averaged frame rate over the last 30 frames.

For those who want ultra speed and no ground clutter I will be adding an option to the Video Settings to turn it off completely shortly.

Feedback on performance etc is, as always, very welcome ːsteamhappyː

Known Bugs

1. Foliage can now clip through the weapon load out screen again. This is only temporary. One of the awesome things about this system is that I can dynamically remove details from the terrain at run time. Essentially, when buildings etc are placed by the random system they will automatically remove any plant life that clips through them! This will also work for roads, runways etc too. ːsteamthumbsupː

Here's some quick screen shots of the new ground clutter system which adds stones/rocks, grass and small bushes to the Libyan desert area.

Overhead is minimal as it is using very fast GPU instancing. ːsteamhappyː



As you can see these particular details are designed to be visible during low level flight to give a sense of speed and help hide those blurry textures (although these are now mostly gone since I added a couple of detail textures to the terrain).

Higher up they fade out to help keep performance



But down low is where all the fun is...





Finally, once I implement a "Hide HUD" function, you'll be able to take screen shots like this one...



ːsteamhappyːːsteamhappyːːsteamhappyː