Project Gunship update for 30 August 2023

Hello again! Another month of dev gone, and I’ve got some content to release, along with some needed improvements/tweaks, plus an exciting look into the future.

Gunnery Updates

One of the big features from the last update was changes to how gunnery worked in game and after receiving a lot of feedback, I’ve began reworking this again. Previously, I had incorporated an exaggerated effect on munitions trajectories, depending upon the firing geometry relative to the aircraft. The goal of this was to be a step in the direction of more realistic ballistic trajectories that real life gunships must constantly deal with. I’d guess maybe half of the player base was happy and interested in this change, while the other half was confused and frustrated with how it changed the gameplay.

In response to this, I’ve decided it’s most important to allow the player to decide how the game plays. The player will be able to choose a simple, advanced, or customized gunnery experience in the options menu. Here is a rundown of these:

Simple Gunnery Mode: The Fire Control Computer will handle all needed adjustments so rounds will always impact in or close to the center of the sensor’s crosshair.

Advanced Gunnery Mode: The player will be responsible for tweaking the gun’s rotation (pitch and yaw) to accommodate for gravity, horizontal velocity drift, and wind. This will require vigilance throughout engagements, keeping eyes on important data points (i.e., wind speed, distance to target, traversal angle, etc.) to keep the guns on target and accurate.

Custom Gunnery Mode: The player can turn on and off whichever features they want to deal with. This includes gravity, horizontal velocity drift, wind, and even traversal limitations.

In this current update, the “Simple Gunnery Mode” is the only available setting as I am still working through the intricate aspects of implementing the advanced ballistics. An important part of this is providing the necessary tools (data points in the fire control computer UI) that allows the player to make educated guesses on trajectories. Turns out (duh), these kinds of data points require complex math formulas to solve and I’m working on this. At the same time, it is about twisting the game engine in the right way to produce accurate simulations. Unfortunately, this isn’t something that is just ready out of the box, so to speak.

Another important change is regarding the “impact indicator,” as I’ve coined since the beginning. This little icon in the HUD, I originally hijacked to represent the point in world space where munitions would impact. The game simply would do a boresight line trace from the activated gun and display that location in the world on the screen. However, this indicator is meant to simply provide reference to the sensor operator where the slaved weapon is in its traversal range. As the indicator approaches and moves off the screen, the guns are no longer slaved to the sensor’s view as they’ve hit their traversal limit.

I’m pretty sure this change will cause some players some grief as they’ve become accustomed to utilizing this as the aiming point, but the goal is to bring the aiming point back to the center of the crosshairs. Hopefully if you are one of these players, you don’t experience too much whiplash from the change.

Gunships Updates

Another important change this update is implementing the AC-130E “Pave Aegis” and AC-130H “Spectre” gunship variants. In history, much of the changes from variant-to-variant included improvements that were extremely important in real world operations but have little to no gameplay substance (an example would be improved aircraft specifications or fire control computer improvements). So, part of the challenge is creating enough distinction between these variants to allow for unique gameplay.

AC-130A “Pave Pronto”: Slightly improved sensor compared to the AC-130A “Project Gunship II” variant (less blurry, increased zoom) and adds two 40mm Bofors cannons that fire simultaneously.

AC-130E “Pave Aegis”: Improved sensor and gun configuration sporting the M61 Vulcan 20mm, two 40mm Bofors cannons, and the M102 105mm howitzer. (This is my favorite variant so far)

AC-130H “Spectre”: Improved sensor and HUD (inline with the AC-130U variant) with armament including the M61 Vulcan 20mm, one 40mm Bofors Cannon, and the M102 105mm howitzer. This is very similar to the AC-130U “Spooky” gunship but maintains the green FLIR vision.

As development progresses, we may see other additions or tweaks to these, but I’m relatively happy with the differences between them as it provides some individualism and uniqueness. The double 40mm Bofors cannons is quite entertaining.

Work In Progress on New Maps and Assets

My original plan was to build out all the scenarios in a particular conflict, then move on to another, but I think adding more variety and the ability to use the other gunship variants is more important. So, I’ve been working on two new maps. These are very early in development so a lot will change by the time of release. I've spent a good amount of time on asset creation and now starting to put the maps together. Here is a quick look at the early progression:

Middle Eastern Urban map (Operation Iraqi Freedom)

Ho Chi Minh Trail (Vietnam War)

As soon as these maps are completed, I’ll release them with a training scenario on them initial, then begin working on scenarios.

To conclude, be sure to reach out if you have any suggestions, questions, or bug reports. I’m always happy to talk about the game and will continue to work hard to bring more content each month. Hope all is well with you all and I’ll see you at the next update!

Changelog:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing some radio comms to repeat in CASEVAC Down.
• Fixed a bug preventing the player from changing the input for the tangent indicator.
• Fixed the duplicate menu bug (believe I found the root cause on this one).
• Fixed a bug preventing players from changing their inputs to mouse buttons.
• Fixed a bug not allowing destroyed vehicles to be removed in the Training Range.
• Disabled Texture Streaming feature in UE5 that was causing low quality textures.

Visual Effects Updates

• Tweaked the smoke trail of the AGM-114 Hellfire to be fuller and fade away quicker.

Gunship Updates

• Reduced the likelihood of seeing turbulence while flying.
• Tweaked the gunnery to be less complicated.
• Adjusted the size of the laser point for the laser designator to be smaller on the ground.
• Changed the “impact indicator” to be portrayed accurately. Rather than providing visual indication where rounds would land, this is used to give a visual indicator as to where the guns are in their traversal range (in conjunction with the tangent indicator).
• Tweaked the Tangent Indicator (Fire Control Computer HUD) to include more information.
• Tweaked the AC-130A “Pave Pronto” variant to fire two 40mm rounds at a time.
• Added the AC-130E “Pave Aegis” gunship; this variant features the M61 Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon, (2x) L60 Bofors 40mm autocannons, and the M102 Howitzer 105mm cannon. IR sensor is slightly improved from the AC-130A (less blur and better zoom with green tint).
• Added the AC-130H “Spectre” gunship; this variant features a similar armament as the AC-130E (minus the double L60 Bofors 40mm; just a single cannon), but with an improved sensor (better HUD details, better zoom, and less blur with green tint).

AI Updates

• Temporarily adjusted the gunship targeting distance of the ZU-23 and ZSU-23. This will be adjusted when damage can be taken in the gunship.
• Tweaked the dismemberment values.
• Made some improvements to the vehicle’s collision avoidance system (will spend more time on this in the next few weeks).

UI/Menu Updates

• Updated the loading screen.
• Updated the options menu to fit the style of the other main menus.
• In the options menu, created a “General” section and consolidated the accessibility options there.
• Added a mouse sensitivity setting in the options menu.
• Added a setting to toggle the mouse utilizing a joystick emulation mode. You can turn this off to have regular mouse movement on the sensor.

Map/Scenario Updates

• Tweaked the aircrew and LAV25 accuracy in CASEVAC Down to be more accurate.
• Added a new Training Range scenario on the Afghanistan village map.
• Updated the Training Range scenario to function closer to the previous continuous firefight mode. Added the ability to spawn most of the available vehicles, along with friendly forces.
• Added a new scenario: Raid on Khalid Ahmed.