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[rb-d2]

Something Unusual

Tried a few interesting new workflows in blender and it turned out great! I should be able to churn out new assets (not just planes) much quicker than before with the few things I discovered today.

That being said, this plane is still WIP and we haven’t decided what to call it yet.

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Thunderstorm (WIP)

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Catch Up

Current latest version : 0.4.5

Hey everyone it's been a while!

A new patch for the Project Wingman alpha demo is here! This will be the final update to the demo as now we need to fully focus on the 1.0 release of the game.

This update mostly contains QoL and Bugfixes submitted by the community. I've made sure that there is nothing gamebreaking in the demo but if there are any bugs be sure to let us know about it!

I will certainly try my best to keep this blog updated now that the ball is rolling again on development after the Kickstarter. And again I can’t thank everyone enough for all the amazing support and the feedback all of you have provided. It really makes me happy that a lot of people are enjoying the game even at its early stage right now. I hope this update can improve your experience in the game while you wait for the final release. 

Thank you so much everyone!

Update Highlights:

Allied Kills

Allied on enemy kills now net the player 40% of the original enemy kill reward. It certainly makes sense especially with the introduction of Conquest mode where money means everything. A new column has also been introduced in the Scenario debriefing screen to accomodate for all the kills your allies has done.

Airship Hit Detection

Hit detection on the airship has been significantly improved. Now missiles and gunshots that should hit airship components will actually hit the components instead of hitting the airship hull. The old hit detection method wasn't suitable for components with multiple collision nodes so close in proximity to each other. So the missile and cannon hit detection has been slightly altered to accommodate the new requirements the weapons need now.

Radar Overhaul

The radar has received a bit of a facelift and functionality improvements! Now the radar zooms appropriately depending on the distance of the player to the target.  It's not final yet as the UI as a whole could still go through a few iterations to improve its look.

Guns Guns Guns

A small little change yet in my opinion adds so much to the overall feel to the game. Enemy Fighter jets now can fire their guns, so be careful when going head on with the enemy!

Additional Configurations

Added a few more options such as Mouse Controls (Still Experimental) in the Controls section and Preferred Camera view in the Gameplay section.

Conquest Balance Changes

Various changes to the balance in Conquest mode has been implemented to reduce the difficulty spike within the game mode. That being said the gamemode is still quite difficult, but it should feel much fairer than the previous iteration of the gamemode. Please check it out! The final boss encounter has also been changed slightly so let me know how that goes!

Hangar + Conquest Hangar overhaul

The hangar has received a few layout improvements along with homogenization of the UI between the default hangar and Conquest hangar. This should make the whole interface more consistent and more intuitive as now they both use the same look and functionality.

As usual, I hope it meets your expectations! Please send your feedback through the channels we've described in the Project description page.

Thanks for reading!

-RB

Keep reading for the full patch notes (very long)

Patch notes below:

PATCH NOTES:

Project Wingman Alpha Update Patch Notes for Version 0.4.1.0625 -> 0.4.5.0923

Gameplay: -Fixed cannon hit detection radius on water. -Enemy railguns now show a charge up animation before firing. -Slowed railgun projectile. -Fixed projectiles not colliding with instanced static meshes. -AI Aircraft can now shoot their cannons at their target. -Fixed hit detection on airship VLS/SAM to be much more accurate with the model appearance. -Allied kills now nets 40% of the original score reward. -Added UI warning when the player gets near the map limits. -I/A-52 HP increased from 70->75

Controls: -Removed default keybindings for rookie flight controls and mouse controls. -Adjusted UI cursor controls and deadzone. -Mouse controls has been enabled -Mouse controls and rookie flight controls now disable each other in case of a conflict -Mouse controls and rookie flight controls is now saved in user settings.

Conquest: -Adjusted map lighting on all areas to be more consistent with the rest of the game. -Removed ominous black circle in some conquest maps. -Conquest cursor now remains in the same location after and before sortie. -Increased fighter count at lower alert levels to reduce loiter times. -Conquest no longer spawns random AA facilities throughout the map as it adds too much targetting noise for players. -Revised Conquest final boss fight.

Chainlink: -Adjusted the lighting to be more consistent with the rest of the game.

Clear Skies: -Adjusted the lighting to be more consistent with the rest of the game.

Operation Blackout: -Adjusted the lighting to be more consistent with the rest of the game. -Fixed collision profiles on the power lines near the transformers to no longer block missiles. -Fixed collision profiles on the power poles so that collision is now enabled for both players and projectiles. -Overhauled the appearance of the forward base facility. -Overhauled Oil Silo/Tanks to include destroyed models.

Hangar : -During loadout selection, the camera now remains static in front of the Aircraft. The camera can still be freely moved by toggling free camera mode. -Overhauled Conquest hangar to use the same hangar/loadout selection as Scenarios. -Added missing SV 37 picture on hangar screen. -Hangar now shows weapon compability list on each aircraft. -Weapon listing is now separated into category onto what they are effective against. -Readjusted the placements of a few UI elements in the hangar to be less intrusive.

Effects: -Adjusted flare particle effect. -Adjusted ground explosion effect. -Added cannon impact effect on water. -Adjusted water wake and dust effects activation distance. -AI aircraft now correctly shows water wake effects. -Fixed wingtip trail effect still appearing upon aircraft destruction.

UI: -Adjusted on which elements gets shown and hidden in cockpit minimalist mode. -Fixed rebinding UI that would occasionally show more sections than it should. -Revised the cockpit pitch ladder appearance to show more clearly on positive and negative pitch. -Revised radar UI appearance. -The radar now zooms in and out depending on the distance of selected target for better visibility and awareness. -Added grids onto the radar overlay for situational awareness. -Adjusted the opacity of friendly units on radar to be not as opaque. -Fixed inverted X and Y view axis in calibration view. -Fixed Target indicators to be consistent in size no matter the field of view. -Added preferred camera view. -The game now remembers which camera view was used last. -Adjusted the credits scene. -Resolution scale now rounds to the nearest whole number. -Fixed kill log not removing itself properly. -Water splashes and heat haze no longer distorts the UI.

Visuals: -Fixed the alignment of the F/D-14 model. -Fixed a bug where some Post Process effects were flickering on lower settings. -Adjusted Sk.27 external textures. -Adjusted SV 37 cockpit txtures. -Adjusted F/E-18 external textures. -Fixed shadows pop in on parachutes and the radar dishes in Operation Blackout. -Improved tree appearance in various levels. -Further landscape optimizations. -Fixed SV 37 cockpit textures where it would remain blurry for an extended period of time.

Audio: -Lowered STDM lockon tone volume. -Fixed Stall sound persisting on death. -Fixed where audio effects did not play during a cloud dive in some camera views. -Normalized some audio that were too loud or too quiet. -Fixed some subtitle mismatch. -Added gun hit sound on player. -Added projectile whizz sound when it flies near the player.

Patch notes for Project Wingman Alpha version 0.4.5.0923 "RC" to 0.4.5.0923 "Release"

Operation Blackout: -Re-adjusted the ground texture brightness in Operation Blackout -Fixed a map boundary issue where the player would start the mission with exiting map warning.

Conquest: -The mouse now moves the Conquest overworld cursor regardless of keybindings. -Fixed the timer not going up when HUD is hidden.

Controls: -Fixed an Issue where it would occasionally unbind everything unless the user presses "RESET" button.

Gameplay: -Fixed an issue where pausing and unpausing the game would cause a split second camera jitter. -Fixed an issue where Airship collision doesn't work properly on the player aircraft. -Fixed missile hit detection on airships where sometimes it would simply pass through or miss on shots that should hit.

Targeting system: -Fixed an issue where the targeting system would bias something that is closer to the player (despite being behind them) rather than what's in front of the player. -Fixed a sticky targeting issue where sometimes it would target the same thing despite having other units in the area to target.

UI: -Fixed UI elements misaligning in the Conquest Hangar -Fixed Conquest hangar where a player can endlessly bring up the exit confirmation menu. -Fixed the selected target indicator to be more distinct to the player. -Fixed Mouse Control cursor not dissapearing properly when disabled. -Mouse controls re-labeled as an Experimental feature. -Hangar UI now will no longer display weapons that has been removed/disabled from the game to appear in the weapons compatibility list. -Fixed the UI reappearing for the player despite HUD being disabled in the options menu. -Fixed some UI elements from still appearing for the player despite HUD being disabled in the options menu.

Visuals: -Fixed an issue where fade out to black to loading screens would constantly dissapear on lower settings making the screen flash constantly during loadings. -Fixed long distance shadows (again) -Fixed Mouse Control pointer appearing in subsequent playthroughs after a level. -Readjusted the Sk.27 textures.

still reading?

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CLEARED FOR TAKE OFF

Project Wingman Kickstarter is LIVE!

Thanks for all your support everyone! I hope the game gets to where it needs to be with all your support!

Don’t forget to try out the new demo full change log coming soon. And be sure to leave a feedback and/or bugs you encountered during your playthrough. I’ll work on fixing them ASAP.

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Stand By For Launch

Testing is well underway for the new Demo + Kickstarter. 

New toys to play around along with one of the largest missions we've ever showcased to be included in the next demo. 

 Expect it soon. 

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I haven’t posted in a while. Still working super hard on the next demo. I’ll keep you guys updated on it when there’s a new development. In the mean time, here’s some footage + shots from the latest internal build of the game.

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[E]

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Virtual Reality (Experimental)

In collaboration with Simul (trueSKY dudes), Project Wingman will be making an appearance at GDC 2018 with VR! Check out the Simul GDC Booth to demo Project Wingman with VR and TrueSKY!

Questions and Answers

hello, maybe

Something like that is being considered for Conquest mode. As of the Kickstarter, we want to finish Conquest mode before setting a deadline which will give us plenty of time to reach out to people and polish the rest of the demo.

You can count on it!

Unfortunately Replay function is not in the scope of the game at the moment. That being said, there will be a freecam/photomode eventually.

There are no unlockables in the alpha.

Unlikely as of right now, Sorry! Perhaps in the future.

I’m not sure yet. I can’t give a clear answer until I research how LHD crews work. (Animating them is gonna be a pain in the ass and I don’t really do humanoids so we’ll see.)

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Input Output

Decided to go the whole way with the controls menu. Curves and Deadzones has been implemented into the current internal build! It also comes with a calibration screen which allows you to check the input the game is receiving so you don’t have to go back and forth between the game and the pause menu to get your controls working.

The rebinding screen has also been reformatted so that it goes horizontally instead of repeating values on a vertical axis (i had no idea what i was doing back then). With the inclusion of the calibration screen on pretty much every category. Rebinding should be a lot easier.

Side note : The issue involving some joysticks where it unbinds at the start of the game has been fixed! It will be released alongside the next major update so please look forward to it!

That’s all for now!

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Take It For A Spin

The cockpit for the aircraft based off the AJS-37 has received the first model and texturing pass! Tried a lot of new things with the modelling and texturing workflow for this mesh, and I must say the turnaround time with the new workflow is much quicker and allows me to have quite a lot of flexibility in the texturing process. I’m glad I spent the time trying new things this time.

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A Long Overdue Devlog

A mini-patch has been released for the current Alpha Test.

The latest version is now version 0.3.5

For those who are following the project closely this video won’t include anything particularly new. However, I suppose its nice for me to catch up on the dev log side of things.

Changelog Below.

Project Wingman 0.3.4 Patch Notes

-Adjusted spatial audio effect in the cockpit

-Adjusted rain effect visuals to increase visibility

-Chainlink music track updated to the latest version

-Disabled debug keys for world origin rebasing

-Fixed an issue where lock sound would persist after level ends

-Changed FOV configuration to use vertical FOV instead of horizontal FOV

Project Wingman 0.3.4b Patch Notes

-Fixed broken audio for cockpit sound

-Fixed smoke appearing suddenly upon facility destruction

-Upgraded textures of all aircraft

-Reverted faction specific aircraft liveries to generic liveries for demo purposes

-Fixed UI resizing issue

-removed debug gears

Project Wingman 0.3.5 Patch Notes

- Added new Cirrus clouds

- Tweaked missile particles

- Changed scenario mission order

- Tweaked UI settings

- Opened up Chainlink map

- Adjusted placement of enemy reinforcements in Chainlink

- Optimized performance by 20-30% on certain hardware

- Adjusted subtitle font to be more readable

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Time Certainly Flies

Really happy with the progress considering in late 2015 I had no art skills and minimal programming skills. Dev tools has come a long way and learning them was a blast.

A lot of things coming up in the next month or so. Stay tuned! New Assets, Videos, Features, Game modes, and General Improvements will be showcased eventually!

Thank you for the ongoing support everyone! The game would not exist without your encouragement and support! And special thanks to all the volunteers currently involved in the project!

- RB-D2

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Aerial Threat

Airships are now an actual threat and they work almost the same as a naval unit as opposed to a 1 target bullet sponge. Spent the last few days overhauling and giving the old airship a new mesh and targeting methods. This is one of the variants of this particular airship. Same drill as naval units. All are generated through sockets and bones on the actual mesh itself. So very little data entry on my end.

Particularly enjoyed implementing the crash effects.

Might look a bit too sci-fi ish? it might change it depends on feedback.

Cirrus Clouds

Added some original backdrop with cirrus clouds to make the sky backdrop a little bit more exciting.

Comparison between the old airship model (June 2016) and the new one (February 2018)

Questions will be answered in the next post. (Sorry!)

Thanks for reading!

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Naval Units

Finally! They are implemented. However they’re still missing a bunch of stuff with hit detection and AI targetting but that’s mostly grindwork. I’m doing something slightly different with naval units overall. All sub-systems of a ship has to be disabled/neutralized before you can strike the hull with conventional weaponry. However, Anti-Ship Missiles is going to be one of the few things that can strike the Hull directly without taking down the subsystems to bring more emphasis to your loadout and add a special purpose for Anti-Ship missiles.

Question and Answers

Unlikely. While the mechanic itself is more or less usable, the assets surrounding takeoff and landing is far from ready. It’s a lot of work getting all the assets on the ground for something like that and I haven’t really spent time building those assets due to other important work with other aspects of the game. I hope you understand and it answered your question.

As for your last question... who knows :)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s convenient. Though it’ll probably change sometime in the near future when things pick up.

Currently the model is based off the AJS-37. However, loadout wise it’s probably going to be somewhat fictional where it can carry skyflash equivalent along with the Rb04′s. It also uses a gunpod on the center hardpoint. So to be honest, it’s not really the most accurate representation but then again it’s not really something i’m trying to achieve either.

The game is going to be a paid game in the end. And as for the other questions, I really can’t answer too much about it right now because i don’t have an answer yet haha. Stay tuned though.

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Lighting Pass 

Some small tweaks here and there to how the environment is portrayed in-game. Little changes can make a huge difference to a scene if done right. 

Can’t really show too much with what I’m working on at the moment due to it being largely unfinished and undergoing a lot of testing. However, a lot of things are happening in the background (even I’m having trouble keeping up haha).

Viggen cockpit should be receiving it’s initial pass in a week or so. Stay tuned!

Miscellaneous WIP Stuff

This is a nice shot but shame it was ruined by an SSR bug. So I included it anyway.

Questions and Answers

It’s already an option in-game actually! There’s a option to bind “Switch Weapons” somewhere near the bottom that allows you to do that kind of setup. I know that the controls screen is a bit of a mess right now but I will definitely improve it sometime in the future.

The tomcat certainly is in high demand! Unfortunately the plane itself needs a lot of rework under the new workflow so it’ll be quite a while before it’s implemented (sorry). And as for the last question... would it be wrong to say it’s a mix? haha

Hey if you want to send some inspirations go ahead. Though we do have our own plans for eventual fictional aircrafts. Stay tuned!

Well, It’s kinda difficult to explain without spoiling it. Your best bet is to see what unfolds when the campaign is out right? ;) Thanks for the kind words!

noted. Thanks for the feedback!

Never really thought about it, I’ll have to investigate it sometime in the future. Thanks for the feedback!

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A quick pass on catapult launches. Still really janky in a lot of places but it was surprisingly how easy it was to implement with the current take off and landing code. 

The carrier is obviously placeholder :^)

Some progress on this aircraft based off the Viggen. No idea what to call it yet in-game but the external model + weaponry is close to completion.

and botes

Questions and Answers

that’s the plan

yes, some chinese aircraft are on the planned roster list

noted, probably something i’d do when everything else is done though if i do ever end up doing it.  Thanks for the feedback.

oh yeah, i’ve got a couple of them on the dev branch of the game. Though they are far from finished or from looking good.

Hopefully I can elaborate in a couple of weeks.

That is planned, and I will admit that the airships are not that fun to fight at the moment. I do plan to make more variants and make them more threatening in-game along with naval vessels.  Thanks for the feedback.

They will return. :) It’s just that there’s no incentive for me right now to have them in the demo other than fluff.  Thanks for the feedback.

I mentioned a couple of questions above that the airships are in a weird spot right now. Hopefully in future versions I can make them a more engaging fight. Thanks for the feedback.

Noted. in to do list

Noted, thanks for the feedback :)

Oops, I’ll put that in to do list. Thanks.

We’ll see.

Noted, Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah hopefully this is something I can implement in a future version. The reason it’s how it is right now is because at the time i didn’t have a final layout of the UI so coding in dpad functions (no native support in UE4 unfortunately) would be a waste of time if the menu is constantly changing. Hopefully that changes in the future though. Thanks for the feedback. 

Oops, noted. Thanks.

Noted! Most of them I do want to address at some point. Hopefully sometime in the near future. Thanks for the feedback.

That’s interesting... So far that performance is extremely unusual. I’ll have to investigate it further. Noted everything else though. Thanks for the feedback!

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Project Wingman Alpha Test 5

ITS HERE!

Current latest version : v0.3.3

Hello everyone!

It has been quite a while since I've released a Project Wingman demo. After 7 months it's finally here! This will be the second last demo before the Kickstarter Campaign of the game so please look forward to that!

This is not quite the “BIG” demo I’ve been hyping up for a while (boo). However, this release will have a few new toys for you to play with and an additional level that showcases different aspects within Project Wingman. At heart this demo is mainly a huge polish pass of the game and a lot of bugfixes, which is why it has taken this long to release.

That being said, it's the same drill as before. I'm looking for feedback on all aspects. One of the main things introduced in this update is difficulty options. Please let me know what you think of them!

Kickstarter along with the final demo with an additional mission and a sample of Conquest mode coming Early 2018.

Any feedback can either go to :

This tumblr post/chat/comments

Itch.io Comments Section

Discord : https://discord.gg/9UekgVW

Twitter : @RB_Dev2

Email : wingmangamedev@gmail.com

Thank you everyone! I hope you enjoy it and it meets your expectations! 

- RB-D2

Change logs + Question and Answers

Project Wingman Patch Notes 0.2.10c -> 0.3.2

Scenario:

- Added new scenario from Perth Games Festival 2017 showcase "Chainlink". A multi-role showcase mission to preview A2G weaponry.

Aircraft: - Added F\E-18. - Adjusted Sk.27 cockpit. - Added flavor text to all flyable aircraft. - Adjusted names for all aircraft in the game. - Updated all flyable aircraft with higher fidelity models and textures. - Adjusted weapon loadouts for all flyable aircraft.

Weapons :

- Added URKTS (Unguided Rocket Pods) - Added MLAG (Multi Lock Air to Ground missiles) - Added UGBS (Unguided Bomb) - Overhauled missile behavior. - Adjusted machine gun damage. - Parameter adjustments for every armament.

Graphics :

- Adjusted lighting and post processing effects to be more consistent through multiple scenes. - Ejecting pilots has been added into the game. - Adjusted effects and mood in various weather. - Reduced cloud and rain effects to reduce overdraw. - New high detailed vegetation has been added into various environments. - Added ground and water wake effects when flying close to the ground. - New loading screen has been added. - Revised various destruction effects to be more optimized.

Gameplay:

- New difficulty options ranging from EASY, NORMAL, and HARD. (Please provide feedback on the difficulty on whichever one you play at) - New HVT markers for high threat units. - Improved camera behavior. - UI is now fully normalized for gameplay related HUD.

Controls:

- Removed Mouse Control mode. (Currently being overhauled) - Arcade control scheme has been overhauled and is now usable. - Controls UI overhauled. - Adjusted cursor speed when using other methods of input.

Music:

- Various tracks by Jose Pavli has been added to multiple levels throughout the game

Hangar:

- Completely overhauled the hangar. - New Hangar UI. - Added various props in aircraft selection.

Audio:

- Added rain audio. - Added manoeuvering audio. - Added ambient audio. - Added ambient radio effects. - Added cloud ambient effect. - Overhauled player engine audio. - Overhauled cockpit engine audio.

Misc:

- Added level streaming so loading screens are no longer static. - Added various color options to HUD color. - Main menu has been completely overhauled with a new appearance. - Added alternate keyboard/gamepad buttons to accomodate "back" function in various menus. - Added Imperial measurement units

Bugfixes:

- Fixed weapon cycling issue for those using weapon cycle command as opposed to the d-pad or numbers. - HUD no longer appears during missile cam. - Various other little bug fixes but i can't remember them because i didn't keep track of them (oops)

Patch Notes 0.3.2c

Weapons :

- STDM Guidance Factor has been changed from 6.5 -> 5 (Lower is better) - STDM Lockon Range has been changed from 2000m -> 2800m - STDM detonation radius is 10% smaller - MLAA Input Cap has been increased from 1 -> 1.5 (Higher = snappier) - Variable Guidance Factor has been changed from "-3 to 2" -> "1 to -1" - Variable Guidance range changed from 0->90 degrees to 0->180 degrees - MLAG  ammo count has been reduced from 28 -> 14 per weapon slot - URKTS ammo count has been reduced from 26 -> 12 per weapon slot

Bug Fixes :

- Changes has been made on how FPS cap settings apply at the start of the game. Will need feedback whether it works or not on game start - Adjusted Gun Firing Particle, which was especially prominent on the F/E-18 cockpit view - Fixed HUD size in resolutions greater than 1080p (up to 4K) - Removed "Caps Lock" key dev toggle - Lock on element visibility fixed where it would be obstructed by objects - Bombs now can now hit air units - Bomb now emit explosive sounds - Adjusted Bomb Widgets so it's more consistent with the rest of the UI - Fixed where cockpit HUD would be visible in missile cam - Fixed where vibration would persist when the player has finished the mission or crashes - Fixed compass bearing where it would show 000 instead of 360 - Fixed level streaming where it packages every single map in the Project file causing it to bloat deployment size

Graphical Changes :

- Reduced cloud and rain effects intensity to reduce graphical overdraw

Project Wingman 0.3.3 Patch Notes

Weapons : -Variable Guidance Values has been changed from 1.5 -> -1 to -1 -> 0.5    Reverted back again because it made it too likely that the missiles will hit when fired from a bad angle -Variable Guidance range changed from 0->360 to 0->120    Made the range where it gets variable guidance smaller so the behavior of the missile is more consistent

-STDM initial guidance cone has been reduced from 120 degrees to 45 degrees    Made it so the missiles are less likely to receive guidance when fired from a ridiculous angle and sometimes causing them to do a complete U turn towards the enemy. -STDM detonation radius has been decreased by 5% -STDM Guidance Factor has been changed from 5 -> 5.25 (Lower is better)

AI : -Adjusted Normal Difficulty AI behavior to be more aggresive -Adjusted Hard Difficulty AI behavior to be extremely aggressive -Adjusted player damage modifier in HARD difficulty (0.65 -> 1) -Adjusted behavior on multiple aircraft to homogenize the performance for consistency

Bugfixes/Misc : -Player destruction effect when shot down has been adjusted. -Fixed gunsight being hidden by smoke -Adjusted Bomb sight pipper to be smaller -Adjusted gun pipper to be smaller

Thanks for reading!

Questions and Answers 

Noted! I am constantly tweaking the flight model, and I know it’s in a really weird spot right now. I will eventually change it so that it behaves in a more realistic manner.

its a video game

Aircraft delivery or weapon delivery? But the latter has been answered by this post :) Hope you enjoy it!

There are some elements to that in the story but not as tethered to the current world.

Thank you! More aircraft will eventually be included. I can’t really promise what they will be at this very moment but please look forward to them.

Done :)

At the moment it’s only an AI thing. But it can have interesting applications just like you mentioned. 

Time to start up the streak again!

Eventually I’d like to add something like that. But its nowhere near where I want it to be.

:^)

Uhh, I’m not sure yet.

Thanks for the questions everyone!

-RB