We're back!!
VTOL VR development had been on a bit of hiatus, but I have been working to ramp up progress to bring the game to the next level.
This update brings a ton of improvements and fixes to existing mechanics, as well as a new category of Steam Workshop content: Custom Static Objects. The major changes are outlined below:
Missile Dynamics
Air-to-air missiles have had their thrust, drag, and steering behaviors adjusted in order to make BVR and mid-range air combat more engaging. The most significant changes were applied to the Allied missiles (AIM-120s, AIM-54, AIM-7, AIM-9+, AIRS-T) so the receiving end behavior will mostly affect PVP but all players will have to be more mindful of launch conditions.
For example: AIM-120s have higher thrust at the start, but don't have the long sustain burn that they previously had. On top of that, missiles in general have higher ceilings of turn performance. What this means, is that the missiles will tend to have a higher top speed and G after burning, making them impossible to simply G-pull to evade, but will lose their speed more quickly after the shorter burn, allowing you to maneuver to bleed their energy more effectively at longer ranges.
Missile lofting behavior has been improved to get the most performance out of missiles at long ranges.
Advanced short range air-to-air missiles (AIM-9+ and AIRS-T) now have proper thrust vectoring, allowing them to make extremely tight turns off the rail, especially at low airspeeds.
Aircraft heat emissions are aspect dependent, where the rear is the hottest (engines), front is second (intakes), and the sides are the coolest. This affects how heat seeking missiles can tracking and countermeasure effectiveness from different directions.
Proximity detonation wasn't working very well before, and now it has been fixed, allowing very near-misses from A2A missiles to still deal damage. This also fixes an issue where anti-radiation missiles like the AGM-88 had trouble destroying MAD-4 radars, since their radar was at the top of a tall mast.
Radar Mechanics
There was a critical bug in the notching mechanics of radar which made notching in ground clutter behave unintuitively. This has been fixed, and the conditions for notching have been improved to make the tactic more usable.
This will play a more important role when going up against anti-air missiles in their peak performance envelope where they can't be G-pulled. You must use other methods such as notching to survive.
All radars in the game have been given a 25% range performance improvement. This helps radars to see past the maximum ranges of radar-guided missiles, so the missiles will be limited by their own performance more often than visibility.
The Radar Warning Receiver has changed to display signals relative to your aircraft's orientation rather than a strictly top-down view. It also now includes dynamic notch indicators to help you evade radar locks.
Performance
Various optimizations and fixes add up to improved FPS over the previous game version.
CPU and memory usage when loading liveries in multiplayer has been greatly reduced, helping to minimize the frame stutter when a player spawns their aircraft.
Custom Static Objects
Content creators will be able to import custom models to be used as structures, props, scenery, or destructible targets custom missions.
These custom static objects can be uploaded to the Steam Workshop to be shared with other creators and will be automatically bundled with missions that use them.
The content creation tool (called VTOL VR Modding Tools) will be released and updated separately.
Click here to access the VTOL VR Modding Tools Unity package: https://bdynamicsstudio.com/vtol-vr-modding-tools/
There is still a lot of other work happening in the background to bring bigger changes and updates in the future, but I wanted to get the parts out that are ready to go sooner since they include compatibility fixes for the upcoming Steam Frame. (Note: VTOL VR will not target standalone Steam Frame, only PC-VR streaming).
See the full list of changes below:
VTOL VR v1.13.0
General
Added ability to refuel external tanks if internal is full
Added new color modes to MFD NAV map
Added altitude number on contacts in MFD NAV map
Made MFD NAV settings persistent
Added concentric range rings to NAV
Added motion smoothing to virtual joystick tracking
Added twist rudder deadzone option
Changed custom map loading to only load preview image when needed
Fixed flares (and other heat sources) inconsistency with frame rate
Added some logging to livery loading
Fixed: Track wouldn't update with radar flag if target is locked optically while initially detecting pings in 5th gen TSD
Increased nav map icon size slightly in 5th gens
Fixed issues with heat emission related to framerate
Fixed: AP would usually disable after spawning in FlightAP mode
Fixed: thumbstick deadzone option only applied to SOI controls
Increased thumbstick deadzone option max to 90%
Changed aircraft heat emission to be aspect dependent
Reduced memory usage by custom liveries and other textures
Changed HUD number update interval to 10hz
Round altitude to 10s if using feet (barometric only)
Fixed: vertical velocity indicator would round to 10s when under 10 instead of over 10
Fixed: RWR ping could be incorrectly rejected on RWR display while appearing on TSD or FRAZ
Fixed: a few scripts would often read game settings from disk instead of cache
Fixed inconsistent G-limiter behavior
Changed over-G warning to start over 9 Gs
Adjusted haptic feedback settings to handle Steam Frame controllers better
Missiles
Improved A2A missile lofting behavior
Added shot lead cue for TWS and TSD targets for radar missile
Changed control authority torque over speed characteristics to improve steering at high speed
Tweaked AIM-120 D and C thrust and aerodynamic values to prevent G-pulling at peak performance
Adjusted AIM-54 values to be more effective
Updated AIM-120C, AIM-120D, AIM-7, and AIM-54 dynamic launch zone data
Fixed proximity detonation
Adjusted various A2A and ARM proximity fuses to be more useful
Added TVC to AIM-9+ and AIRS-T
Improved lofting behavior
Increased AIM-9+ IRCCM
Increased AIRS-T drag by 10%
Increased A2A missile maximum lead time to fix inefficient path on long range target
Increased AIM-9, AIM-9E, and SideARM torque ramp up rate
Defined appropriate launch ranges for SLAM truck
Improved glide bomb guidance logic
Fixed: AIM-120D only had low-poly model
Updated AIM-120D texture
Increased AGM-161 and AGM-89 heat and RCS
Fixed: radar missiles didn't steer to keep target within sensor gimbal limit while in search mode
Increased AIM-54 control authority
Increased general missile control authority at high altitude
Improved missile behavior when kinetic energy is low (especially long-range AGM-88(S))
Slightly reduced AGM-88(S) drag
Improved AGM-88(S) steering and loft behavior
Mission Editor
Added scenario info option to define whether new equips from game updates should be automatically included or omitted from the scenario
Fixed issues/exploit caused by mapID not being sanitized when repairing campaign
Fixed: Copy/Pasting conditional to conditional field doesn't use new conditional ID
Fixed: Copy/Pasting trigger event with conditional wouldn't create a new instance of the conditional
Fixed bezier path mode
Fixed: AI F/A-26B was missing AIRS-T equips
Fixed: AI AV-42C was missing Hydra x19 equip
Fixed: AI T-55 was missing AGM-27 equip
Increased PAC-3 allowed max launch range from 15km to 25km
Radar
Fixed inverted ground clutter distance calculation
Changed ground clutter/notch calculation to improve notching conditions
Fixed harsh barrier between ground clutter and sky background
Scaled ground clutter effect with doppler effect
Chaff, range/velocity gates apply to TWS tracks
Chaff also affects normal scans, to allow for chaff locks on initial STT and pitbull from missiles
Increased global radar ranges by 25% (11.8% each to transmitter and receiver strength)
Added a further range setting for radar display in F/A-26, F-45, EF-24
Increased STT velocity gate
Updated RWR graphic
Added dynamic notch aids to RWR
Added polar blind spot to RWR
Changed RWR icons to remain for 2 seconds for all radar types
Changed RWR orientation to be relative to aircraft attitude (instead of top down)
TSD-Radar auto-lock requires recent scan to activate in 5th gens
Fixed: 5th gen TSD contacts did not get updated bearing when receiving radar signals if old data from higher priority sensors existed
Fixed: Fixed: Radar didn't lose TWS track when STT was lost
Fixed: radar jamming transmissions could be received from behind the transmitter
Multiplayer
Significantly reduced hang time and memory usage when loading livery on player spawn
Improved network message validation to prevent cheating/griefing hacks
Added more reason codes for host-commanded client disconnects
Fixed initial time of day desync for clients present when mission starts
Fixed frame spike for host when a new player connects caused by unnecessary UI initialization
Fixed: briefing room display would collapse for host selecting a new mission if a player leaves/joins
Fixed: player without T-55 DLC was unable to enter a T-55 slot that had available alternates
Fixed "radar bug" where lock is lost caused by incorrect velocity data
Minimized player position jumping when taking a screenshot in multiplayer
Fixed: multiplayer mode still said "beta"
F/A-26B
Increased frontal RCS
Reduced drag
T-55
Increased frontal RCS
Reduced drag
Fixed: TWS PDT did not turn into a diamond on the HUD
Fixed pilot model proportions
Fixed destructive pitch oscillation at high speed
F-45A
Increased frontal RCS
Increased engine heat production by 50%
Prevent nozzle tilt above 220 KIAS
Added AoA limiter
Added FCS modules to prevent over-g pulling with rudder
Automatically return thrust tilt to 0 when overspeeding
Fixed: AB could activate while nozzle was tilted after turning off VCAP (superviff)
Fixed: detonation cord didn't disappear on eject for third person
Fixed missing cockpit panel screws
Fixed uncomfortable canopy frame handles
EF-24
Increased frontal RCS
Reduced RGPO cycle duration from 5-8 seconds to 3-5 seconds
Added AoA limiter
Fixed TWR text on EFSD
Increased induced drag in swept configuration
Reduced stall buffeting below 30aoa
Fixed: hand breaks when discarding a TWS track via touchscreen
Added FCS modules to prevent over-g pulling with rudder
Fixed: When first RGPO transmitter is filtered by gates, other transmitters on the same target are filtered incorrectly
Fixed: jammer transmitter's RGPO state would be reset when the other transmitter starts
Changed RGPO to have slower pull offs at higher closure rates
AI Units
Fixed: AI pilot didn't use DLZ properly for missiles with baked DLZ data (allied radar guided missiles)
Fixed: AI pilot would sometimes fly closer to use short range missile when longer range missile was available
Fixed: AI pilots could launch IR missile from too far if lock is acquired
Steam Workshop
Added Custom Static Object category to workshop browser
Fixed missing author names on workshop items without a by line
Removed the automatically added "by {pilot name}" line from description during upload
Added upload file size limits
Added error message when main image is larger than 1mb (Steam Workshop limitation)
Fixed: Loading workshop liveries sometimes hangs due to incorrect items being included in workshop query
Performance
Reduced CPU usage of TSD HUD icons
Reduced array allocations in net instantiations
Multithreaded/parallelized heat emission
Improved map load time
Reduced 5th gen NAV and TSD CPU usage
Reduced Radar MFD page CPU usage
Disable afterburner shader script when not glowing to reduce CPU usage
Reduced memory usage of multiplayer instantiations
Custom Static Objects
Support Modding Tools v0.10.0(Custom static objects)
Added CSO browser and workshop upload UI
