First, I'd like to apologise for the lack of announcements here on the Steam page and participation in the Steam discussions forum. You can rest assured that VTOL VR development is still very active! It has been a few months since the last major update (v0.0.10), but since then, I’ve been hard at work adding new features and releasing them in small updates to the public testing branch.
Most of the work has been towards updating radar mechanics, adding wingmen voices and voice recognition, and making progress on the map editor. Along side the major changes are the usual general improvements to vehicle cockpits, additional weapons, and optimizations.
The new radar system takes into account the radar cross section (RCS) of each aircraft at all view angles, physical effects such as Doppler and ground clutter, and simulates the effects of chaff more realistically. These changes allow you to employ more advanced radar missile/detection and avoidance techniques and make for a more dynamic and engaging combat environment. This feature can be enabled in the game settings menu of the public_testing branch.
With the help of many generous volunteers, each wingman can now have one of over 20 unique voices when calling out enemy contacts, missile shots, etc. Voices can be assigned to a specific wingman in the mission editor, or left to be randomly shuffled. On compatible systems (Windows 10), you can also enable voice recognition by switching on the mic on the cockpit’s comms panel. You’ll be able to command wingmen to attack targets, set formations, refuel, etc, with more commands to come. With the new voices and the addition of voice recognition, the battlefield feels much more alive.
I bet you’re all getting tired of the standard island map. The map editor will be a crucial tool for creating unique locations to fly different missions and campaigns. You will be able to import heightmaps, modify the terrain using simple tools, easily generate cities, place military bases and other static objects, and place roads, bridges, and highways. You can create maps from as small as 24km by 24km to as large as 196km by 196km, in different biomes such as boreal, arctic, or desert. Like the mission editor, you’ll be able to zip up the generated map files and share them with other players.
If you want to try and give feedback on the latest features, you can opt-in to the public testing branch by going into the Betas tab in the game’s properties windows on Steam.
Join the discussion and view a complete list of changes in the #public_testing channel on discord: https://discord.gg/u7X72wc