Helicopter Gunship DEX News

This update adds the following...

1. TOW missile flight characteristics have been updated to make it a little more reliable and prevent it from sometimes overshooting its target.

TOW missiles (including HOT) will now fly a more direct path to their target with less "lofting".

Care still needs to be taken when using these missiles especially when firing at close range as they are not very agile and take time to course correct. The best practise is to always make sure your target is centred in the targeting circle and that you are flying steady and stable before launching.

2. Fixed a bug in the Sidearm which was causing some errors when it was operating outside of the player bubble.

3. The Combat Lynx 3 now has selectable M-60 door gunners. This is a 1st pass at getting them to work and as such they do have difficulty tracking a target when moving and sometimes get fixated on targets they cannot hit.

Gunners will target infantry, utility, APCs, IFVs, AAA and SAMs

If you load door gunners then you probably won't be able to load troops at the moment. I will fix that shortly.

The turret system the gunners use is the same as the Shilka and other turreted vehicles and so isn't really optimised for very mobile platforms. Best usage is to fly slow and steady and let the gunners get a good bead on their target. Sometimes they will still refuse to fire though and this is something I will be looking at over the next day or two.

A quick preview of the new M134 Minigun model...











...and here is a screen shot of the Combat Lynx 3 with M60 door gunners. The guns are not functional yet but I have intergrated them with the weapon loadout screens. I will be adding a soldier model once I've got all the rotational points fixed and working. I will be beefing up the gun mount as it looks a little spindly at the moment, but you get the idea.

Here's some preview renders of the M134 turret/door gunner for the Chinook. Hat's off to Manu, the designer, who also went ahead and included an ammo box and shell casings tunnel which I hadn't even thought of ːsteamhappyː

They also produced a rear mount although I don't think the M134 was ever mounted in the rear (happy to be corrected). In HG:DEX an M134 tail gunner will be an option though because "why not!"

Both the M60 and M134 will also be available on the Lynx and Gazelle as door gunners (at the expense of interior cargo) as well as on the Hind temporarily till I get a suitable alternative gun made. ːsteamsunnyː

This will also allow me to build and prototype the turret system without having to produce the Chinook first. I will probably take a look at the door gunners in the next few days to give the game some meaningful content while I continue to work on the new Sector System.

The other thing I will be exploring is how you will control the gunners and my current favourite option is to have the gunners only active when the doors of the helicopter are open. Closing the doors of the helicopter will move the gunners inside preventing them from firing. This has two benefits...

1. You don't need any extra controls
2. Moving the gunners inside the helicopter will protect them from taking damage as they will be fully modelled components that can be killed

Feedback on that system is very welcome. Alternatively you could have specific gunners on/off controls but I feel this is just adding complexity for no real gain.

Anyway, on to the images...

Here's some preview renders of the M134 turret/door gunner for the Chinook. Hat's off to Manu, the designer, who also went ahead and included an ammo box and shell casings tunnel which I hadn't even thought of ːsteamhappyː

They also produced a rear mount although I don't think the M134 was ever mounted in the rear (happy to be corrected). In HG:DEX an M134 tail gunner will be an option though because "why not!"

Both the M60 and M134 will also be available on the Lynx and Gazelle as door gunners (at the expense of interior cargo) as well as on the Hind temporarily till I get a suitable alternative gun made. ːsteamsunnyː

This will also allow me to build and prototype the turret system without having to produce the Chinook first. I will probably take a look at the door gunners in the next few days to give the game some meaningful content while I continue to work on the new Sector System.

The other thing I will be exploring is how you will control the gunners and my current favourite option is to have the gunners only active when the doors of the helicopter are open. Closing the doors of the helicopter will move the gunners inside preventing them from firing. This has two benefits...

1. You don't need any extra controls
2. Moving the gunners inside the helicopter will protect them from taking damage as they will be fully modelled components that can be killed

Feedback on that system is very welcome. Alternatively you could have specific gunners on/off controls but I feel this is just adding complexity for no real gain.

Anyway, on to the images...

This update should fix 2 important bugs...

1. A.I. aircraft will no longer come back to life and start moving and engaging targets when they are outside the player's bubble.

2. AGM-122 Sidearm will now fly straight ahead when launched and it has no current target. Before, the missile would sort of follow the direction of your helicopter so if you pitched down after launch the missile would also pitch down causing the missile to crash into the ground.

These updates will also be pushed to the Public Branch in the next day or two as they are quite important.