Another update for you today – as usual, didn’t get everything in this one that I wanted to, but an update is overdue. Development is moving along and it’s nice to really start seeing things coming together on the front and back end. Obviously, we still have a long way to go to give all the content this game deserves, but the key features are really coming together.

One of the features that saw a lot of development the past few weeks is the vehicles. I made some solid progress on their implementation, and they are ready to be added into the game for testing. Some of the vehicles being added are:

• Pickup w/ Dshk heavy machine gun
• Pickup w/ ZU-23 anti-aircraft gun
• BRDM-2
• MRAP w/ M2 heavy machine gun

Although at this point, their usage is still minimal, but I’m excited to get these things more utilized in the near, near future. In addition, since the back-end work is basically done, I can start focus on adding a nice variety of different vehicles. Some of the ones I’ll be working on next are:

• Pickup w/ SPG-9 AT
• Rework the ZU-23 AAA
• BRDM-2 9P148 ATGM and 9P31 AA
• ZSU-23-4 Shilka AAA
• T-64 MBT
• T-72 MBT
• Ural 375 truck
• Mortars
• VBIEDs

Having this kind of variety will keep the battlefield interesting and diverse. In addition to these new models, coming up next is allowing certain assets to be a direct threat to the gunship. At this point, you’ve been completely safe in the air, but that will change as we begin to really introduce anti-air units that can/will target the gunship.

I’ve also been working on the new “gunship” class that will bring with it new HUD displays (depending on the variant) along with the ability to fly the gunship. This potentially will be released in the next update to be tested in the new training mode, to allow playtesting of the mechanics. I’ll keep everyone posted on this one.

Another feature that I hoped to have fully worked out in this update, was the new radio chatter from the AC-130 crew. One of my primary goals for the game is to create an immersive experience for the player and audio is a very important part of that equation. I’m working on building an extensive library of radio transmissions from each crew member in the gunship, allowing unique (relatively non-recurring) responses to whatever is going on. It would be very easy for these to become extremely repetitive, taking away from the important immersion factor. I’m confident I can have this in the next update as well.

As I had mentioned in the last update, training mode has been temporarily disabled because a lot of the new features weren’t compatible with the old map. Ultimately, my intention is to expand and improve the usefulness of this mode (you know… actually perform its intended function), which means the entire thing needed to be restructured. Although this isn’t included in this update today, this will be released in the next update so stay tuned.

And finally, destruction is still yet to come. With moving to UE5 – although we are now granted a new system to handle this, a lot has changed in the implementation compared to the old system. Because of this, I’ve spent countless hours attempting to connect the dots to get a result I’m satisfied with, but I still haven’t found it. This still needs work to figure out how to best approach this issue and hopefully it’ll be ready for the next update.

I’m grateful to everyone and their support – I never thought when I started this project, it would grow to where it is at today and that I’d be able to do this full time. Shoutout to everyone who has provided constructive feedback to the project and helped alter the direction in a positive way. I’ll continue to work hard to polish and improve the experience for all! Thanks, and hope everyone has a fantastic day and weekend!

-Sklor

Changelog:

• Fixed a bug causing the IR laser to not stay connected to the aircraft as it moves.
  
• Fixed an input bug causing the camera not to move with the mouse.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the infantry to move while crouched.
  
• Fixed a navigation bug causing zombies to get stuck outside the FOB in the wave mode.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the infantry to move while in the crouched state.
  
• Tweaked the impact decals to take longer to fade and be removed.
  
• Tweaked the blood decals to be removed after a certain randomized time (between 2 and 4 minutes)
  
• Tweaked the auto-kill feature for zombies to not add to the player’s kill count.
  
• Tweaked the weapon cursor to be hidden when weapons are “Safe.”
  
• Tweaked some minor variables in Scenario 2 in the Firefight mode.
  
• Cleaned up the in-game rifle sound.
  
• Forced the engine to utilize DX11 for now (hopefully solve a crashing bug for certain people). Will add an option to change between DX11/DX12 in the next update.
  
• Made some performance improvements to the Infantry and Vehicle entities.
  
• Added new functions for UI Accessibility (buttons for inputs).
  
• Added a new vehicle (MRAP w/ M2 heavy machine gun) that can be found in the Firefight mode currently.
  
• Added a new vehicle (Pickup w/ Dshk heavy machine gun)
  
• Added a new vehicle (Pickup w/ ZU-23)
  
• Added a new vehicle (BRDM-2)
  
• Added new dynamic vehicle materials that change as the vehicle is operating.
  
• Added a new Firefight scenario (Scenario 3).
  
• Added a new infantry model for friendly forces.