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