Hello and thank you for your patience! This was going to be a quick one-day hotfix but one thing led to another, turning it into something much more substantial.
Revised View System
In order to expand the things that the camera can look at, there's been a slight rework on how views are selected.
External (F2), Chase (F3), Flyby (F4), and Weapon (F6) now only function to select cameras on the currently viewed object. Pressing F1 will always take you back to the cockpit of your plane and reset the viewed object to yourself.
Meanwhile, Vehicle (F7) and Aircraft (F8) can be used to cycle between all active vehicles and aircraft, setting them as the new viewed object. All the external cameras work on anything viewable, though the Weapon camera applies only to aircraft.
You can do the flyby camera on vehicles too, even if it looks a little silly.
Improved Targeting
A prototype of a tweaked targeting system has made it in. The target that you will target next will be enlarged to the same size as a selected target, but not with the opacity of a selected target. This gives you some indication of what you will target next, as well as makes it more clear how the targeting system works.
When off-boresight, a small crosshair will appear that you can use to more clearly target something. Off-boresight targeting was already a feature, but I think most didn't know about it because the targeting logic was so opaque.
Flying Below Radar
Surprise new feature: you can fly below the radars of the Shilkas to avoid fire. This is probably temporary for this specific Shilka variant, since they are supposed to be horribly scary to try and kill at close range, but this is now a feature that can be applied to anything with radar. Keep in mind though that for the time being, this feature is only in use on the AAA radars. A pass on air to air combat, which will include refinement of the radar mechanics (and missiles), is still upcoming.
I'd also like to take this time to remind people that there is a radar altimeter under the normal barometric one which appears at low altitude. To fly under the Shilka's radar, you'll want to be around 150 feet AGL or lower!
Defensive Posture and Scenario Balancing
The previous patch had little regard to balancing put into it, so some corrections have been made. The largest of which is that vehicles can now adopt a defensive posture. When defending, vehicles will place themselves near a base, but position themselves such that they'll block an avenue of attack. Some vehicle groups have been reassigned to defend, while new defensive groups have been added to other bases.
This alone will help to curb a lot of the difficulty as the AI (anti-aircraft in particular!) won't be so hyper-aggressive at attacking bases. All the AAA are now defensive as they were originally intended to be. It's been lightened in the middle of the map, but the final objective still has two groups of Shilkas to contend with.
Vehicles will also now avoid wreckages, which can result in some interesting scenarios where a road gets so cluttered with wrecks that the vehicles will start to avoid the road entirely.
Some thoughts on balance and difficulty
I actually really enjoyed the previous patch's balance! While I understand it was difficult, what it really showed me is that not only can the game scale in difficulty but it scales in the way I originally intended it to. The mission was still winnable, but it required that you be on top of what was happening on a strategic level, and to make very key and pointed attacks with specialized weapons to cripple fronts. As some guy once said, you have to read the tide of battle.
Since AI travel along roads (though they might avoid them now if they get too bombed out!), you could totally cripple an offensive with a well aimed cluster bomb run. Destroying the Shilkas was of utmost importance, and with some fancy flying you can get close enough to gun them down, or plink at them from a distance with Mavericks if you prefer. If you didn't, they would be knocking at your doorstep and there's nothing you can do, making their destruction (or of their source) a top priority.
On some level, I'm a bit sad to be slightly nerfing the Shilkas and making the mission easier, but in due time there will be a campaign and multiple missions for which these things can be designed and balanced around. It was so encouraging to see that all come together in my recent playthroughs of the game, and I can't wait to start adding larger and more robust maps.
Full Changelog
New Features:
- Vehicles can be viewed using F7 and Shift-F7 (See Improvements)
- Vehicles will avoid and drive around wreckages
- Small cross is visible in view center to help with targeting
- The next object to be targeted has its target box enlarged
- Minimum altitude mechanic under which a radar cannot detect a target, or will lose a lock
- Shilka/M163 have a minimum detection altitude of 50 meters/~150 feet AGL
- Added defensive mission for vehicles
- Defensive vehicles will position themselves between an adjacent hostile strategic target and their own
- Support for named vehicle groups
Improvements:
- Vehicles will avoid airports a little more (but will still drive over them if they think its quicker)
- Default cockpit horizontal FOV is now 75 degrees at 16:9
- Vehicles are more spread out and will try not to clump up as tightly
- View system redesign to allow for more robust cycling between objects
- External, Chase, Flyby, and Weapon are view types and do NOT cycle between viewables
- Next/Previous Vehicle (F7/Shift-F7) cycles the viewed object between vehicles
- Next/Previous Aircraft (F8/Shift-F8) cycles the viewed object between aircraft
- Removed bindings for Previous Externa/Chase (Shift-F2/Shift-F3)
- External/Chase camera can't look under vehicles
Bugfixes:
- F2 camera no longer cycles to ground vehicles
- Fixed invalid vehicle spawn after Kogasa Arms Fort was captured by USSR
- Vehicles ride rougher when off-road and smoothly when on-road (logic was reversed)
- Groups of 1 no longer get stuck and unable to issue commands
- Target location for vehicles when moving will be in the correct formation
- Armored units will move to a new location when their target base has been captured
- Armored units should no longer cluster around the center of the target base
- Vehicles no longer change target every second
- Vehicles correctly prioritize targets again (e.g. tanks targeting tanks)
Balance:
- M163/Shilka max range reduced 4km -> 3km
- M60s from Kogasa and T80s from Ichirin are now defensive
- Murasa Shilka groups reduced to 1 and now defend the base
- Added 2 groups of defensive Shilkas so Toramaru