Helicopter Gunship DEX News

Quick update to fix a few of the more obvious joins in the Libya terrain.

Also adds in some of the framework for infantry units.

Probably the final update for this beta....

1. Added a map to the Libya missiona area. It is a height map rather than a satellite map where darker colours are lower terrain and brighter colors are higher terrain. Should allow you to plan your mission using the many valleys etc present on the Libya map.

2. Fixed a major bug on the Steam Deck to do with GPU instancing so you can now fly the Hind and run with either the ground clutter on or off.

3. Fixed the Mi-24D cargo area so you can now load cargo correctly.

4. Fixed one of the laser pointers on the AH-64D that wasn't pointing at the correct hard point.

5. Clean up a whole load of unused objects etc from the Libya map. It should now load pretty quickly and perform better.

Assuming no bugs etc this build will be pushed out to the main branch probably on Friday. I shall now be moving on to the "Infantry" beta which I'm really looking forward to doing as it will add a significant amount of new stuff to the game! ːsteamsunnyː

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.