Two New Campaign Missions
The capture mission has been overhauled and put onto the small island in order to make it all go quicker. The new mechanic of neutral bases has also been added to the game for this, allowing for more tools in the mission building toolbox.
The brand new armor attack mission is a simple mission to destroy a convoy of armored vehicles en route to a staging area. This mission is meant to introduce the difficulties in dealing with armor, and features the new AGM-64C laser guided missile
The details of this have already been discussed, so please see this previous post detailing the armor and weapon changes for more information.
T-72 Ural
The T-72 is a medium tank that is marginally more armored than the rest of the medium tanks (T-62 and M-60), but with a gun that allows it punch far above its weight when it gets off a shot. These tanks will be very dangerous in a stand up fight with friendly armor, and care should be taken to eliminate them before they can cause too much damage.
Laser-Guided AGM-64C
To help counter this threat, the AGM-64C has been introduced. Unlike the much larger AGM-65D, this missile can be carried on double racks, allowing up to 8 missiles to be carried by a single AV8B. They are still fully capable of destroying anything short of the toughest tanks with a single hit, but because they are laser guided, require you to maintain a lock all the way to impact.
Tricky players can fire the missiles in a salvo, and switch targets to the next one right after impact to hit multiple targets in quick succession.
In addition, the old AGM-65D has had its range increased, and maneuverability decreased to emphasize its new role as a "stand off" missile for taking out either short ranged anti-air threats, or heavy tanks, from a much further distance than the new, shorter ranged missile.
Bullet Ricochets
As part of the updated armor mechanics, bullet/shell ricochets are now in the game. If a shell fails to penetrate a vehicle, it will instead ricochet off. Bullets and shells can also sometimes ricochet off of terrain depending on the type of shell and the hardness of the ground.
Ammo Belts
As part of the updated armor mechanics, selectable ammo belts have been added to the game, and three different ammo belts have been added to the AV8B's gun pod.
- Armor Piercing loads only AP rounds, which are harder to aim due to a lack a proximity fuze, but do more damage when they impact, and can quickly take out lightly armored targets.
- High Explosive rounds use a proximity fuze making them well suited for shooting unarmored ground vehicles an aircraft, but won't do much against an armored target.
- Mixed belts load a 50/50 mix, and is the default belt unless specified otherwise in the mission.
Steam Deck
Through Valve's developer program, I was able to get a hold of a Steam Deck. I've heard the game looks and plays well on the Deck and I think I really understand that now after playing on there and seeing it in person. The game's 3D graphics were always designed with the idea of running at relatively low resolutions, and on the Deck's 1280x800, the pixel based effects like dots, lines, and dithering, look amazing!
I'll be looking to get the game Steam Deck verified in the near future. It's already 90% of the way there with a slightly modified default control scheme and the currently in-place Steam Cloud, but there are some slight changes that I think need to be made before I resubmit it for testing.
Full Changelog since 0.14.1.4 (last Main Branch release)
New Features:
- Bullet can ricochet off of terrain
+ Gravity handled on a per-bullet basis
+ ExplodeOnImpact bullets ricochet at shallower angles than AP
+ Threshold for ricochet off ground depends on hardness of surface
- Groups spawned from strategic targets can be "primed" to attack a specific target
- New armor and damage mechanics to add variety to vehicles and weapons
+ Munitions (bombs, missiles, etc.) use a simple penetration >= armor check against armor
+ Completely new calculations for how HE damage is reduced by armor (see tool)
+ Penetration is now checked against for a chance to ricochet (see tool)
+ Ricochets against vehicles do not happen on bullets where "ExplodeOnImpact" is true
+ Penetration check for impact will still happen on impacts even if "ExplodeOnImpact" is true
- Ammo belt functionality added to aircraft
+ Selected ammo type displayed next to gun ammo count in loadout dialog
+ If no ammo belt is defined for aircraft, guns call back on their defined bullet
+ Arena UI shows gun ammo and belt in the loadout preview box
+ AI use average gravity of ammo belt for air to air gunnery
+ Gun piper max range cue is based on average in ammo belt
+ Gun piper A-A aimpoint calculations based (also used by AI) on average gravity of belt
+ Gun piper A-G aimpoint calculations based on average gravity and max range of ammo belt
+ Added "Select Ammo" button to loadout dialog, hidden when no ammo belts are defined
+ Selected ammo type displayed next to gun ammo count in loadout dialog
- All damageable objecs have a specifically defiend attrition cost
- All vehicles and aircraft default to 1 attrition cost
- Added "Capture" training mission
- Handling for neutral bases
- APCs will capture neutral bases, tanks will not
- Laser guidance type will continue to guide weapons as long as there is line of sight to aircraft post-launch
- Laser guided weapons can acquire their targets post-launch, allowing them to be fired beyond their seeker max range
- Added "AGM-64C" short range laser guided anti-tank missile with 2x and 4x launchers
- "Close Air Support" loadout now had 8x AGM-64C
- Notification when bases are being captured
- Added support for "Spinners" for aircraft (see JSON section)
- Spinners only spin when the engine is running
- Ability for Arena missions to create custom Strategic Targets at runtime
- Added T-72 Ural, only slightly more armored than the average medium tank, but with a great gun
- Custom strategic targets can have custom spawn points
- Added new training mission 4, focusing on armor and anti-tank weapons
Improvements:
- Arena mission objectives and flags are serializable
- Arena missions can set camera height
- Targets store a "size"
- All buildings now have their size prescribed in the prefab and at build time
- Adjusted weights for the pathfinding to favor roads more when out of combat
- Temporarily(?) disabled wrecks blocking the navmesh to prevent bridges from getting blocked and improve navigation
- Vehicles are smaller for navigation and collision avoidance purposes
- Tweaked the effect of roads on vehicle movement
+ Road movement boosts acceleration (50%) and turn rate (100%)
+ Road speed bonus reduced 50% -> 25%
- Updates to vehicle targeting
+ Visually based targeting checks for line of sight
+ Targeting handled from top of vehicles rather than centroid
+ Vehicles will no longer turn around and drive away from targets that get too close
- Radars now check for terrain line of sight
- Loadout dialog slightly widened
- Arena mission selector shows a "recommended" aircraft, ammo belt, and loadout
- Many new impact effects specific to AP shells for autocannons and cannons
- Attrition Display now visible during an Arena sortie
- Added options for Always Show or Auto Hide for the Attrition Display (defaults to Always Show)
- Better logging when bullets have missing or incorrect effects
- Updated Mk20 description and tactics in database
- Attrition can be disabled per-side by setting starting tickets to negative
- Attrition display will display a single bar if only one side is using the mechanic
- Added "Tactical" entry to Arena mission briefings
- Updated formatting of the mission briefings
- Updated descriptions for existing training missions with the new tactical entries
- Missions can set a custom number of tickets that the player costs on death
- Campaigns can be hidden from selection, and test campaign has been hidden (obsolete, and source of many bugs)
- Civilian color is now a gray color
- Tickets no longer deducted once the mission has been completed
- Currently selected Arena mission is now highlighted on the Arena mission selector
- Better initial camera positions for the Arena training missions
- Changed the Arena sortie unable text "No pilots available" -> "No Sorties Available"
- Mission status messages last longer on screen
- Depleting red tickets automatically results in a win
- Depleting blue tickets automatically results in a loss
- Depleting pilots automatically results in a loss
- When missions are completed, new sorties cannot be started
- Slightly smoother Arena camera movement
- Tinted AV8B forward canopy for easier to read HUD
- Vehicles don't slow down if they are firing on air targets only
Bugfixes:
- Many buildings now correctly contribute to the navmesh
- Fixed/added navmesh to the rest of the islands
- Major navmesh improvements to the big island
- Fixed cliffside near Shou not having a collision mesh
- Missile launchers will now reload when empty and out of combat
- Strategic target capture and disable objectives are functional again
- Fixed null reference when landing at random spot on the ground
- Damageable parts (e.g. wings) no longer each deduct 1 attrition when destroyed
- Fixed Attrition Display not initializing correctly after respawn
- Custom attrition costs are now respected (e.g.)
- Frontline arrows will shrink in size if the bases are too close to each other
- Fixed rearm/refuel dialog not being updated when rearm/refuel is pressed
- Bases too close together have their frontline arrows rendered with no weird clipping
- Weapons symbology is hidden when weight on wheels
- Flight messages no longer block mouse clicks
- Fixed fuel tanks and cosmetic stores not appearing correctly on pylons set to hide when unloaded
- Sortie button no longer overlaps loadout buttonw hen sortie unavailable
- "ReloadsLeft" for vehicle missile turrets should now function correctly
- Fixes to arena capture/disable/attrition events not firing correctly
- Fixed loading order of the triple Maverick rack
- Moved the flight messages to not overlap certain HUD elements
- Fixed fuel weight being incorrect in the pre-sortie loadout screen
- Retooling of "Capture" training mission to only use the small Sand Island island to make it go quicker
- Vehicles spawn directly onto the navmesh instead of terrain clamped
- Fixed NRE from laser on destroyed targets
- All spawn points are now used correctly for Strategic Targets instead of just the first one
- Fixed desync of attrition meters between flight and Arena map
- Fixed NREs caused by attrition bars that weren't cleaned up properly
- Removed unused tickets from the navigation mission
- Fixed problems which can cause out of sync or unattainable Arean stars if Arena objectives are updated between patches
Balance:
- Big balance pass on almost all vehicles and weapons to use new armor and penetration values
- In general: Vehicles have a lot more HP, and are more armored
- In general: Effectiveness of gun against armor is reduced
- In general: Munitions are much more necessary to destroy armored targets
- In general: Tank cannon accuracy and effectiveness greatly increased
- M113/BTR70/M113/M48/SA9: HP increased 50 -> 100, Armored increased 0 -> 1
- BMP1: HP increased 60 -> 100, Armor increased 0 -> 2
- M1: HP increased 200 -> 500, Armor increased 1 -> 9
- T80B/M1A1: HP increased 200 -> 500, Armor increased 1 -> 10
- M60A1/T62: HP increased 100 -> 350, Armor increased 1 -> 5
- Shilka: HP increased 75 -> 125, Armor increased 0 -> 1
- ZSU57: HP increased 75 -> 220, Armor increased 0 -> 3
- M2/KPVT: Penetration increased 0 -> 1
- 2A28/M68: Deviation reduced 2.0 -> 0.5
- 2A20: Deviation reduced 2.0 -> 0.2
- M256/2A46-2: Deviation reduced 0.5 -> 0.1
- M256: Fires new 120mm NATO round
- 73mm HEAT: Impact damage increased 50 -> 100, Penetration increased 0 -> 1
- 105mm NATO: Impact damage increased 50 -> 150, Penetration increased 1 -> 8
- 120mm NATO (new): Impact damage 250, Penetration 15
- 115mm USSR: Impact damage increased 50 -> 160, Penetration increased 1 -> 7
- 125mm USSR: Impact damage increased 75 -> 275, Penetratio increased 2 -> 15
- GAU12 on AV8B has 3 ammo belt options: Mixed, High Explosive, and Armor Piercing
- GAU12 HE round has 15 splash damage and explodes on timeout
- GAU12 AP round does 12 AP damage with penetration of 3 and has a longer range and flatter trajectory than HE
- Attrition training mission defaults to HE ammo belt
- Big balance pass on all A/G munitions to bring them in line with the stronger vehicles
- Mk20 splash penetration 2 -> 10
- Mk20 splash damage 25 -> 100
- Mk82, Mk82SE splash damage 100 -> 200
- Mk82, Mk82AB, Mk82SE impact penetration 1 -> 10
- Mk82, Mk82AB, Mk82SE impact damage 200 -> 500
- Mk82AB splash damage 100 -> 250
- Mk83 impact damage 400 -> 800
- Mk83 impact penetratin 1 -> 13
- Mk83 splash damage 200 -> 400
- Mk84 impact damage 800 -> 1600
- Mk84 splash damage 300 -> 600
- AGM65D impact damage 200 -> 650
- M2 damage increased 5 -> 12
- KPVT damage increased 8 -> 15
- Increased yaw RCS on AV8B 7000 -> 14000
- AGM-65D tweaks to make it fit the role of the high power "standoff" long ranged anti-tank and anti-air weapon
+ Drag greatly reduced to fit description better and be more in line with bombs 0.1 -> 0.025
+ Motor duration reduced 6 -> 5
+ Max effective range increased 10000 -> 12000
+ Effective range increased 8000 -> 9000
+ MaxG reduced 7 -> 4
+ Updated database description
- Mission 2 now uses the High Drag Bombs for the default loadout
- Mission 2 added new primary objective to prevent capture of home base
- Increased drag on Mk82 "Snakeyes" to make them easier to use 0.2 -> 0.5
- Tanks will fire on passing aircraft with their main gun, but won't lead them correctly
JSON:
- Added "InitialCamHeight" to the Arena definition
- Aircraft now have a "Size" property similar to vehicles
- Added "AmmoBelts" array property to Aircraft loadout definition (see AV8B loadout for example)
- Added "PlayerAmmoBelt" to set default ammo belt for plaeyrs in Arena Mission definition
- Added "Attrition" parameter to vehicle and aircraft definitions to define attrition deducted when destroyed
- "IsHidden" can be set to "true" in the Campaign definition
- "Attrition" property for Vehicle and Aircraft definitions now functional (defaults to 1)
- Fixed typo in the aircraft bullet pool definition (BulletConstants.json, "Aicraft" -> "Aircraft")
- "ReloadsLeft" set to -1 will be infinite
- "ReloadsLeft" set to a positive number will allow the launcher to be reloaded that many times
- "GuidanceType" now has possible value of "Laser"
- Added "Spinners" list to the aircraft definition (see vehicles for example)
