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SITREP: June 2026

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

47d ago

Hey everyone, as some of you have pointed out, it has been a while since I've provided any official update on development, so I'd like to provide some insight into what has been going on since the last SITREP.

Although there has been a lot of work done on various things, there are a few notable improvements that should be highlighted here.

1. Vehicle Damage Models

A lot of work has gone into making Vehicles generally better and more fun to shoot. The original vehicles (implemented in the currently released version) utilized Unreal Engine's provided vehicle classes that provide a decent foundation but ultimately don't allow much customization from that; particularly in the way Project Gunship required it.

So instead of heading down that same route as before, I built a vehicles class from scratch. This has given much greater control over how vehicles behave and react, which overall has improved them as a target in the game. This includes:

Collision Avoidance: The AI is much better at avoiding objects, without requiring performance expensive tasks (like additional pathfinding or navigation mesh rebuilds in real time).

Damage Models: Depending on the munition type and the location of your hits, vehicles can become disabled, lit on fire, or explode.
Destructible vehicles: You can now tear pieces off vehicles, giving much better feedback for the damage being delt to them. Some vehicles have much more to remove than others, but it's entertaining to pick them apart as they attempt to drive away.
Disembarking Infantry: Something else that didn't exist before was enemy infantry abandoning vehicles as they take damage. Engaging transport vehicles that are full of infantry, that begin dispersing like ants is pretty entertaining and such a small addition makes a big difference.

I think at this point, they are in a pretty good spot, but I'm sure more improvements will be made as I increase the variety of vehicles available in the game. 2. Helicopters have found their way back into the game

Although they haven't had much of a role in prior version of the game, that is changing now. Granted the UH-1 Huey was such a prominent aspect of the Vietnam conflict, it only makes sense to have them be much more incorporated into the gameplay.

They still need quite a bit of work (no damage model for now), but they can fly, orbit, land, and shoot the enemy. I don't plan on having a wide variety of helos available at this point, but that may change as development on the campaigns continues in the later conflicts.

3. Scenario Editor

This is the big one that has been consuming most of the development time since the last SITREP. As I discovered in my initial attempt to build this in the last version, it is truly an iceberg of a task (luckily now it is without all the added overhead of working in "poor" code). What I didn't realize from before however (again, because of that "poor" code), is it really is like the Mount Everest of icebergs.

It is amazing how seemingly simple certain things are that turn out to be insanely complicated. Nonetheless, I've made some really good progress on this (about 100x the progress made from the first attempt) and I'm excited what this will mean for you and the game.

Unlike the training sandbox mode, the general idea behind the editor was to provide a tool that would allow to create sharable scenarios that provide all the functionality used in the official scenarios. This means being able to create objectives and radio calls, spawn infantry and objects, create trigger logic and drive AI action. So far, it has been quite a challenge, but I'm happy with how it is turning out and look forward to a finished product.

It is clear that a scenario editor is probably the most important feature to add to a game like PG, so it is the highest priority to get done. And with that, I intend to release a 0.8 version of the game as soon as it is done. This most likely will be done in separate branches to allow you to retain access to the current version, since a lot of the older scenarios need to be remade and added again to the new project.

I know it's hard to maintain excitement and patience throughout long production cycles, especially in an industry and climate where there are too many people taking advantage of others. It is clear, some feel that way about me and that is understandable. I do intent to prove all these thoughts wrong in the near future, with a game much more worthy of your time and money.

As usual, I appreciate all your support over the years, and I hope you have a good week!

-Sklor

Project Gunship Patch Notes & News | SteamScope

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SITREP: June 2026

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

47d ago

Although there has been a lot of work done on various things, there are a few notable improvements that should be highlighted here.

1. Vehicle Damage Models

Collision Avoidance: The AI is much better at avoiding objects, without requiring performance expensive tasks (like additional pathfinding or navigation mesh rebuilds in real time).

Damage Models: Depending on the munition type and the location of your hits, vehicles can become disabled, lit on fire, or explode.
Destructible vehicles: You can now tear pieces off vehicles, giving much better feedback for the damage being delt to them. Some vehicles have much more to remove than others, but it's entertaining to pick them apart as they attempt to drive away.
Disembarking Infantry: Something else that didn't exist before was enemy infantry abandoning vehicles as they take damage. Engaging transport vehicles that are full of infantry, that begin dispersing like ants is pretty entertaining and such a small addition makes a big difference.

3. Scenario Editor

As usual, I appreciate all your support over the years, and I hope you have a good week!

-Sklor

SITREP: March 2026

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

146d ago

Greetings!

I had originally planned to provide a SITREP at the start of the new year, but I wasn’t able to get to it until now. It has been quite a while since the last update, and I want to share some perspective on what has been happening behind the scenes.

First, I want to say how much I appreciate everyone who has supported the game from the beginning. Development has been complicated and slow, but the project has improved significantly thanks to the consistent feedback, patience, and encouragement I’ve received from all of you.

Although I’m the developer behind Project Gunship, my background is in finance, not software development. That has made this a long and challenging learning process. Like many of you, I’m first and foremost someone who loves gaming, and ever since playing the original Call of Duty 4 gunship missions in 2007, I’ve wanted to see a dedicated, stand-alone gunship experience. After years of being frustrated that no studio seemed interested in that niche, I decided to try building one myself. That effort began as Combat Simulations: AC-130U and was later renamed Project Gunship.

I think that context is important because it helps explain many of the development struggles and decisions made in the past few months. This was my first serious programming challenge and my first attempt at game development, so the road has been rocky. I’ve had to learn, often the hard way, what it takes to build a reasonably solid game—and that’s still something I’m learning today.

Because of that, the original codebase became increasingly difficult to work with. If you have any development experience, you probably know how frustrating old, fragile code can be. Small changes that should have been simple often broke major parts of the game, requiring a great deal of time just to restore things to a working state. This has been the basis of my burnout from the beginning.

One example was the infantry AI framework. Attempting to rework and improve it ended up breaking individual AI behavior across every scenario, which then required those scenarios to be rebuilt (Unreal Engine has some quirks that made this especially frustrating).

Since the last update, my plan had been to focus on several major systems I had been putting off for some time, especially the AI rework and custom scenario building. But once I fully got into that work, it became clear that much of the original framework either broke outright or had to be rebuilt to support the improvements properly. I was increasingly relying on temporary “band-aid” fixes, and eventually it became too frustrating to keep forcing those changes into a weak foundation.

Because of that, I made the decision to rebuild the game from scratch.

This has allowed me to structure the codebase in a way that better fits the needs of the game, while also focusing on optimization from the start. Just as importantly, it has allowed Project Gunship to evolve beyond feeling like a simple tech demo and into something much closer to a complete game.

Fortunately, that work has been underway for the past few months, and the results have been very promising. Performance is substantially better, development is much smoother, and there is now a much clearer path toward a 1.0 release. Systems that were once tightly hard coded together are now modular, which means they can be changed individually without risking major breakages elsewhere. On top of that, some features that were previously limited by performance constraints can now be implemented in a way that better reflects the realism I’ve been aiming for.

While this is not a complete list of changes, here are some of the more obvious differences you can expect to see in future updates:

Realism and Scope Adjustments

Gunship control has been removed and is now exclusively controlled by the scenario. Previously the player was given the ability to set the "NAV" marker to adjust where the gunship orbited, but going forward, the gunship will always orbit the action that is related to the scenario and player. This allows the player to focus on being only the sensor operator.
Sensor traversal range is now limited to the traversal range of the guns. The most common complaint or misunderstanding was related to sensor and gun misalignment. After many attempts to prevent this for new players, I think it is best to limit this and concentrate the action within these limits. Additionally, this allows greater detail in levels as maps are generally reduced in size, as opposed to before. This makes it much more manageable for me to build. Oddly enough, this limitation seems to have improved the immersion and even better sells the illusion that you are in fact over a large battlefield (it didn't help previously when the player could see the physical end of the map at any time).
Ballistics have overall been simplified, focusing on the most obvious ballistic challenges gunship have to deal with. It is often pointed out targeting and range estimation are automatic, so manual adjustment of the impact is no longer required. However, engagement ranges have increased for all gunships, so timing and offset are much more important to hit moving targets. (This is one of those things some of the hardcore players will be disappointed to hear, but I'll simply say wait until you try it - I'm confident it'll still be enough to scratch the itch.)
Munition selection has been minimized to remove only marginal differences between types. An example: including the PGU25 and PGU38 is largely unnecessary, because the differences between those rounds in game are so minimal that it makes virtually no difference to the player, using one over the other.

Gameplay improvements

Each gunship variant will have a "sortie" or campaign associated with it, providing an experience in the conflict it operated in. Each sortie will consist of several levels that progress through events unique to that sortie. For example, the sortie flown in the AC-130A "Project Gunship II" variant is a mission in the Vietnam conflict to disrupt enemy logistic operations on the river and destroy any infrastructure that supports their logistics.
Each level has several checkpoints that allows the player to save their progress through the level, allowing them to restart at their last checkpoint, rather than having to replay the level entirely. This previously has been a big pain point for players and finally is resolved (it certainly helps testing too on the dev side).
Chaos destruction is being implemented to nearly every object on screen. Environment destruction is important for gunship gameplay.
Massive improvements to AI and animations. Infantry units have more variety in their engagements, allowing more versatile and realistic action. AI is able to operate in groups, within formations, to further sell infantry combat in game. Animals have also been added to decorate and further complicate target acquisition for the player.
All VFX and SFX have been improved, giving a much more immersive experience visually and auditorily.

There is still a great deal left to do, but the day-to-day work now is focused mainly on building scenarios for each gunship variant’s sorties. This used to feel like pulling teeth; now it’s actually enjoyable. I’ve already made strong progress on the A variants (Project Gunship II and Surprise Package), and I’m confident the rest will come together much more quickly than before.

I do not have specific dates for upcoming updates yet, but the goal is to have the 1.0 release ready by—or before—the anniversary of the game’s Early Access launch. I may also release a 0.9 version containing whatever sorties are completed before then, but that will depend on how development progresses.

Regardless, development is continuing, and I do not intend to stop until the game is finished. I believe this will be the year that happens. I truly appreciate the support and patience of such an outstanding player base, and I hope to have more to share with you sooner rather than later.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that 2026 has treated you well so far. Thanks!

Update Build 0.7.3.0

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

488d ago

This will be a quick one since most of the work done for this update was on the back end. However, I’m happy to say a sought-after and planned addition has finally been worked into the game, and I think it really improves the experience. Flight sticks/Joysticks are finally recognized and able to be used in-game. After having played/tested with a joystick, I can say the experience is much more immersive and fun. Being able to control nearly everything from a single joystick (essentially one handed) gives a level of control that just makes everything better. It is important to note, you most likely will need to be adjusting your sensor speed/sensitivity depending on your zoom level to maintain good control. Most of the time, I would have the sensitivity at the lowest to allow for smooth and controlled movement. Configuration is simple and hopefully won’t give anyone much trouble. You will simply need to go into your control options and select “Configure Joystick,” to bring up the appropriate menu. Then you will check the option to use joystick input (when this is active, mouse input in game will be ignored) and select your device. It should detect all USB devices that were plugged in prior to starting the game and after selecting one, you will be able to test the different axis’ and buttons to ensure they are working. Following this, you will need to ensure the X and Y axis’ are match up appropriately to control the sensor as expected. I’ll emphasize this again, it is important to not be disconnecting/connecting devices while in game. The configuration will not detect them and unplugging them after they’ve already been selected may possibly crash the game. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with a solution for this, but for now just be aware and avoid this. Another thing this implementation has solved is the issue with attempting to set input keys while having a joystick plugged into your system. Often times these devices have buttons/switches that appear to the system to be “pressed” and therefore automatically sets the input key to that button, or it hangs waiting for that button to be released while ignoring all other inputs. As far as my testing has gone (this would happen to me with my devices connected), this should be resolved now as I’ve adjusted the logic to account for this (if anyone still has this issue, let me know!). In addition to this, I had to implement some features to help with the joystick experience, which also has been applied to those who use a mouse, but don’t like the mouse joystick emulation setting. Whenever there isn’t input detected from the joystick or mouse, the sensor will automatically lock – keeping the sensor from drifting along with the aircraft’s movement. This is an important feature to improve control in these input methods. Outside of joystick support, I’ve spent a good amount of time adding over 60+ new infantry animations to create variety and improve immersion. I still want to add a lot more here to ensure there is a good variety in the infantry’s actions, but this little bit should make a good difference. There is still a lot more to do here, but it is nice to knock out an important feature that has been requested since the beginning. Going forward, the focus will be on more animation improvements for infantry (particularly, adding more wounded states they can be in) and finally reworking everything about the vehicles. In addition to this, I’m hoping to release some higher quality scenarios that should be more engaging than the last few that have been released. If you have any issues with anything, be sure to let me know in the steam discussions forum or on the community discord. A lot of optimization work has been done, and this can often result in new bugs, so let me know if find anything! I appreciate all the support and hope you have a good rest of your week! Thanks! -Sklor

Changelog

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that could cause the player to get stuck in the loading screen.
Fixed an issue that caused the options menu to remain on screen, despite closing it.
Fixed an issue that caused infantry to get stuck in the terrain.
Fixed an issue that prevented controls from binding when a device (joystick, etc.) was plugged in.
Fixed an issue causing Anti-Air units from taking on damage as expected.

Visual Effects Updates

Gunship Updates

Reduced the step up/down value for the sensor speed to 0.05 from 0.25.

AI Updates

Added new wounded idle and locomotion for infantry.
Added new hit animations for infantry and Anti-Air units.
Added new regular idle and locomotion animations for both friendly and enemy units. There is now a difference in their animations.
Tweaked infantry movement settings to ease into movement.
Reduced the acceleration for the LAV-25.
Slightly reduced the enemy's accuracy.

UI/Menu Updates

Dropped the limit on how low you can limit your frames per second in the options menu (down to 24 fps).
Added joystick support.
Added an automatic sensor lock when using a joystick or mouse (without joystick emulation active).
Within key mapping, mouse scroll wheel, keyboard arrow keys, and space bar are now recognized.
Added a new visual indicator for MANPAD missile launches (countermeasures).
Removed the auto-close function in the exit game screen.
Made various optimizations to the UI.

Map/Scenario Updates

Fixed some issues in the CASEVAC down scenario.

Other Updates

Made quite a few optimizations to various classes, which should be more efficient now.

Update Build 0.7.2

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

517d ago

Hello! I hope the new year has been going well for you! I was hopeful I would be able to get this out sooner in February but had a family vacation to start the year and then ran into some technical issues that held up everything (updating software tools is fun). Because of this, there isn’t as much included in this update as I was planning, but I’m glad to have got some things out of the way. I’ve been able to absorb a lot of the feedback I’ve been receiving recently and glad to have made some improvements that hopefully will settle some of these issues. Tutorial: This has fundamentally changed and is now broken into segments. You can now select which section you want to review and repeat, instead of having to listen to the entire tutorial again. The nice thing about this method is it will allow me to add/remove sections as it becomes necessary in the future, without having to rework it again. I also tried to include more detailed explanations to help with some of the more complex sections. Although this isn’t much for the players who’ve been playing for a while, it should help new players understand the key concepts. Flares and Anti-Air missiles: This system has been reworked and uses a more “realistic” method than the previous. I don’t doubt more tweaks need to be made, but hopefully this puts this mechanic on the right track for now. Basically, missiles will be looking for the “hottest” object in their field of view, so pre-firing flares and/or firing flares early will have a much greater chance of deterring the missile. The closer the missile gets; the less likely flares will be able to affect it. Collision issues: For quite some time, collisions between infantry and vehicles have been a problem, but that should be resolved now. Additionally, players have commented about infantry clipping into each other (or prior to that, getting stuck on each other), I’ve implemented a small system to prevent these issues. They now run around each other much better than before (at least in my testing). There are a few other small requests that I’ve been able to deliver on, but that is about it for this update. I have a few more scenarios that I was hoping to drop but decided to spend more time on them. Although, I still want to add a lot more playable content, at this point I’m going to really be focusing on putting out quality – especially as it pertains to scenarios. I know it is annoying from the player’s perspective to have scenarios break down and need to be reset (perhaps as annoying as it is from a dev’s perspective), so I really want to prevent this from happening going forward while giving more engaging scenarios. Anyways, as always, I greatly appreciate the support and feedback I continually get from people through our discord and steam discussions. I certainly encourage you to reach out if you have anything to say or suggest, because much of those suggestions have led to improvements in the game. Thank you all for everything and I’ll see you in the next one. Thanks! -Sklor

Changelog

Bug Fixes

Fixed some issues causing the vehicles to get stuck in the Raid scenario.
Fixed collisions between infantry and vehicles.
Fixed an issue that wasn't allowing the projectiles indirect damage to apply as intended.
Fixed a bug that allowed AI to target dead infantry.

Visual Effects Updates

Slightly improved the shrapnel FX for the 30mm, 40mm, 105mm, and AGM114.

Gunship Updates

Flares are now limited and counted in the HUD. They also launch more realistically.
Tweaked the audio warning sound ("Flare") to not call out at every flare launch (no more overlapping audio).
Slightly increased the shrapnel range for most munitions.

AI Updates

Slightly decreased the friction value on vehicle's front tires to help them maintain control.
Added more cover points to decrease the chance of infantry moving to the same location.
Added a small collision avoidance system to keep infantry from clipping into each other.

UI/Menu Updates

Added input keys for zooming in and out.
Added a default key reset for controls.
Added a "restart scenario" button in the pause menu.
Separated the friendly and enemy counts in the training options menu.

Map/Scenario Updates

Reworked the Tutorial to be segmented and more informative.
Added a new scenario: OEF COP defense.
Added a new training scenario: OEF Afghanistan Mountains.
Removed some of the chatter and cut down on the initial waiting in the scenario Raid on Ahmed.

Other Updates

Reworked how Anti-Air missiles react to flares.
Updated the MANPAD missile static mesh.
Anti-Air missiles now move faster but are fired slower in succession.
Did a lot of basic housekeeping that was way past due. Should lower overall disk space.

Known Issues

Debriefing menu can has some wonky stats; still working on this.
Visual screen damage from the gunship taking rounds can only be seen on the U and J variant (forgot to add to the others). Will be patched in to include other variants as soon as I can.

Update Build 0.7.0

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

582d ago

Hope everyone had a good holiday season and that you were able to enjoy time with your loved ones. Been a busy last few months with many some unfortunate setbacks, but luckily, I have some content and improvements that you will enjoy. My largest concern and need of feedback is how things perform in this update. Much of the work has been rewriting code to be more efficient and performant and from what I can tell, has worked well. Additionally, it would be helpful to receive insights as to what types of scenarios you enjoy the most and what you'd like to see going forward. I tried to have some variety in the new scenarios being released today, so I'll be curious to know what is best received by you. There is still a lot to do, but main things on the list going forward are (1) more scenarios, (2) Vehicle overhaul, (3) infantry animation improvements, and the (4) Ho Chi Minh Trail map - along with new appropriate vehicle models and anti-air assets. I'll plan on having another update at/near the end of January with more scenarios, but that most likely won't include much more than that (planned life circumstances are stealing dev time). I'm hopeful I'll have the vehicle overhaul done by the following update in February, but there are some dependencies that may prevent that from being released... but I'm hopeful. The general vision of the game has certainly evolved since the beginning and even at this point doesn't have an absolute clear direction, but the short-term goal is to get a lot of new scenarios out for each map to give a solid base of gameplay for the game. I'm not sure if it will make sense to spend the amount of time required to create a formal campaign or other complicated game mode, but that will depend on how things turn out over the next one or two updates. I will mention, the goal was to just work hard to the 1.0 release, but because of popular demand, I've reverted back to smaller, more consistent updates. The "developer has abandoned the game" sentiment can't handle longer development periods, so I'll make that adjustment. As usual, I appreciate the support for the project. Been a fun project to build and it has allowed a great community of people to come together. I'll continue to chug away day after day and hopefully the project will shape into something we all enjoy. Be sure to let me know if you have comments/suggestions in the steam discussions or in our community discord. Thanks! -Sklor

Changelog

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that prevent airburst rounds to influence enemy AI.
Fixed the issue causing AI infantry to 'push' vehicles around.
Fixed an issue causing the DHSK pickup to not be able to see targets to its front.
Fixed an issue causing the AC-130J HUD not to show the weapon/munition info

Visual Effects Updates

Made visual and performance improvements to vehicle destruction.
Implement effects pooling to improve performance with large numbers of effects.
Improved the airburst impact effect for both the 30mm and 105mm. (Think these look pretty awesome now)

Gunship Updates

Improved the visibility on older gunship variant sensors (not so blurry).
Rebuilt the gunship model and texture to reduce overhead.
Added the ability for gunships to be damaged, audio sounds, and a rough cut "gunship going down" scene when destroyed. (More to be done on this; will have different scenes for each gunship variant)
Added functionality to flares and added new audio sounds.
Visual damage can now be seen on screen when gunship takes damage.

AI Updates

Decreased the range Vietnam era enemies can engage.
Added new anti-air threats: (1) Infantry Igla MANPADS, (2) Static DSHK machine gun, and (3) ZU23 anti-aircraft gun.
Reworked the AI's ticking code (like checking for line of sight, etc.) to be much more efficient, but as usual this has created some strange bugs in their targeting. This will be fixed ASAP.

UI/Menu Updates

Made menu texts larger to be easier to read on smaller screens.
Created a new standard debriefing menu that is displayed after a scenario. (see Known Issues below on this)
Adjusted the size of the subtitle textbox in the HUD.
Objectives in-game can now be seen in the pause menu.
Added the 1920x1200 resolution in the display settings as requested

Map/Scenario Updates

New Map: Afghanistan Mountains
Updated old maps with newer static meshes.
New Scenario: (Vietnam Outpost) Ambush Breaker.
New Scenario: (Vietnam Outpost) Outpost Defense.
New Scenario: (Afghan Mountains) Aerial Ambush.
New Scenario: (Afghan Village) Precision Strike.
New Scenario: Tutorial

Other Updates

Rebuilt the projectile class to be much more efficient and performant.
Rebuilt some of the infantry models and textures (more coming on this) to reduce overhead.
Rebuilt how shrapnel damage is dealt to have more consistent results (think it feels much better with this now).
Improved how airburst rounds work to align better with expectations.
Zombie Rush: Zombies will no longer increase in health for added difficulty.

Known Issues

Sometimes AI may target seemingly nothing.
Infantry still may collide with vehicles and cause physics interactions.
Debriefing menu can has some wonky stats; still working on this.
Flares currently are unlimited.
Visual screen damage from the gunship taking rounds can only be seen on the U and J variant (forgot to add to the others). Will be patched in to include other variants as soon as I can.

SITREP November 2024

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

615d ago

I hope everyone is having a good month and has exciting plans for the upcoming holidays! I wanted to give a peak into the progress that has occurred so far and what remains before we can see the next update. Much of this is still subject to change, so everything seen shouldn't be considered final, but it is close. There also has been a slight change in the plan, but I'll fill you in below.

Finally... a tutorial

This has definitely been on the list for a while (since the jump to UE5, when we had to abandon some of the older scenarios), but I'm glad to say it is basically done. I do have to still do some testing to ensure things function properly, but it should give new players a clearer understanding to how things work and where the focus should be. This will be included in the next update.

Gunship Damage and Anti-Air Threats

This has been a long time coming and I'm glad to finally be incorporating it into the game. Anti-Air threats create an important dynamic for the gameplay and it should add the much needed tension. At the moment, there are (3) different types of Anti-Air threats: 9K32M Strela-2M Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/47b98b5529e13d466b252bc8952f25ba35770f67.png 12.7 x 108 mm Dshk Machine Gun {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/61637ce409dda516870f6c0ff2dae69f9cbc0f42.png ZU-23-2 Autocannon {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/f73769412b96d86388d505315860730dac46ca5b.png In addition to these, all vehicle variants will also target and fire on the gunship when within range. Now, with the addition of these, the gunship is now capable of taking damage and can be shot down for a mission failure. There is a somewhat randomized level of damage applied to the gunship on each hit (depending on the munition) that will give both visual and audio indicators to the damage sustained. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/c93c6edb03eafdcb669f0d10d2060776867093d3.gif Very early cut of a "Gunship down" sequence. Countermeasure flares will play an important role in defeating MANPADS that are actively tracking your gunship. These require good timing and a bit of luck to cause the rocket to change its heat target.

Improved Models, Textures, And Physical Assets

This effort has been largely tied with the performance optimizations, but multiple static and skeletal meshes have been reworked to have lower polygons, while improving the overall look in game. Despite my unfortunate burnout, that time away gave me a lot of opportunity to improve my modeling and texturing skills which was something I had always struggled with. More importantly though, it has pulled me back to focusing on what is important to achieve a better result visually. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/17aedfb53d08cbfa5bc2fd07d495ca534d644ec9.png Clean topography allows animations and physics to produce higher quality results and the lower polycounts reduces the overall memory and rendering load. As an example, this Taliban infantry mesh originally had 16,958 triangles, compared to 4,182 in the new. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/7928457372f80cacceb350716eaf8609e778e8a2.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/136c47094cd7cb76c48f66d470e22dc5a02afbe2.png This has also been applied to other meshes that are abundant in any given scene (like bushes, trees, and rocks). Each of these have been retopologized (if that is a word) to substantially lower polycounts, allowing substantially more of them to be present in a map (this is particularly important for the Vietnam maps). It has always been a challenge since the beginning to make the game look as realistic as possible and this is a good step in that direction. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/cfe50d7a3e78625f3acf521d46923ca5e11753e9.png Additionally, there have been plenty of acquired assets that sat as placeholders that have been replaced with optimized models and higher quality textures. I know it can be frustrating to some to hear the work being done is reworking these things that they probably deemed fine to begin with, but this type of work is important for a number of reasons and looking on the bright side, is nearly done. Luckily, there isn't a lot of assets to begin with, so it hasn't required much time to complete.

New Map: Afghanistan Mountains

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/e083124edeb8fadfdd5dc8b20f228d302083e240.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/6fcef2c27edcdd9c6261a9f00de6b42fd948c1f7.png This map (loosely based upon the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan) features a Combat Outpost (COP) surrounded by large mountains and small villages. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/ab4b5e38cbe417c60f312e7e3a3e674a74e29097.png Because of the mountainous terrain, maintaining a good fire geometry can be difficult and overshooting a target is a real concern. This map will challenge you to ensure your impacts are ranged appropriately to avoid collateral damage. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/ab4b5e38cbe417c60f312e7e3a3e674a74e29097.png This map is completed, and scenarios are currently being created. I am hoping to release 4 new scenarios on this map, along with a training scenario and zombie rush scenario. These kinds of scenarios are pretty time consuming to put together and get all the assets required, but I'm optimistic I can pull it off.

WIP Map: Ho Chi Minh Trail (Vietnam)

I have made a good amount of progress on the new Vietnam Ho Chi Minh Trail map, but in order for this to happen, much of the asset optimization had to happen. Vietnam is the home to many jungles, which means lots of assets to load and render in game. With these assets created, I've been able to start blocking off the map and putting it together. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/1690c4ad8b5d533dfe92bc75c876faa0aa36bcec.png There isn't much to show off yet, but I don't think this will require more than a few days to complete. Because the map terrain doesn't have a complex layout, this will be a much larger map than any we've seen before. This is an important aspect for the map as "truck hunting" was a substantial role of the gunship during the Vietnam War. The gameplay dynamic for these scenarios will be a little freer (compared to the usual) as it will require the player to change the gunship's orbit often to spot/find logistical convoys (and avoid Anti-Air threats). I most likely won't get back to working on this until the new year, but it will be completed as soon as I have the scenarios done for the Afghanistan Mountains map.

Performance Optimizations

TL;DR: Game devs are nerds and the game should run better for everyone which hopefully will allow it to be more accessible to a larger audience. This has been a big part of development over the last couple months and has made a big difference during gameplay. One of the important systems implemented is "pooling" of projectiles and impact effects. This allows projectiles and effects to be spawned at the start of the game and remain inactive until activated. As they provide their function, they are then deactivated and sent back to the pool to be utilized again, later. This method allows us to save processing time by removing the need to destroy and spawn tens/hundreds of actors in a matter of seconds. This has a particularly large benefit to the gatling/autocannon weapons. Previously firing for an extended period would eventually lead to lower frames, while now that performance hit is fixed, regardless of how many rounds are fired. Additionally, any actors that are required to be updated/ticked are now aggregated together, to allow CPUs to process through these actions much more efficiently. Rather than jumping between different objects to process them individually, loading and unloading the appropriate assets, the CPU process all of the same object at the same time, requiring it to only load/unload the assets once per tick. This has shown substantial improvements to performance and it's nice to see the game running so quick.

What is the plan?

So, my previous post back in July had outlined that I had to decided to stop with frequent updates and have the next release be the big 1.0 release. Because I've had to deal with a decent amount of... let's say, non-believers, I think it is best to make a release as soon as new maps and scenarios are completed. This most likely will make things roll out a bit slower (as I have to spend time making these posts, etc.), but at least the accusations that I'm somehow a scammer will be silenced. With that said, I'm hoping to have a new update released sometime in late December. Holidays and other good news things will get in the way a bit (big hurray to my wife who is cancer free and will be completing her 2.5 year cancer treatment!!), but I'm hopeful the overtime I've been working will pull this to the finish line (the December update that is). Still quite a bit to do and there is more I wanted to say here about the future, but I'm tired and I need some sleep. I'll be sure to say more in the update next month. As always, I can't thank this amazing community enough for their continued support and I'm excited to get some more stuff for you to play with. I've had the pleasure to talk with more AC130 vets and am proud to hear the gunship community is enjoying the game so far. I am truly grateful to everyone as I know the only reason we are where we are, is because of your support. Thank you and I'll see you at the next one!

SITREP July 2024

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

732d ago

Hello everyone! I know outside of sporadic appearances in the discord community, I have been somewhat disconnected from you all since the beginning of this year. I hope to shed some light on what has been going on, what the status of Project Gunship is, and what you can expect in the next few months. What has been going on? To begin, what has been going on and why has there been a disconnect so far this year? To be put simply, burnout has been knocking at the door for some time and getting into the new year just sort of broke the camel’s back. It has been a long, complicated few years of development; not only is Project Gunship my first project, but it is a complex idea that has a relatively steep knowledge/development skill requirement curve that I’ve had to battle against since the beginning. Because of this, I decided in January to temporarily begin working on a new concept/project to deal with the burnout and although it took longer than I initially suspected, I believe it was a successful decision for several reasons. First, it seems to have cured the original burnout and I’ve developed a second wind to jump back into development of Project Gunship. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Project Gunship is a passion project and I have always been eager to create a solid AC-130 gaming experience (since you can’t find any substantial ones still). Second, it allowed me to explore new problems/concepts and develop solutions for them which has altered my perspective on how things can be changed for the better in Project Gunship. With an emphasis on performance and quality, it has helped me realize where I’ve gone wrong conceptually in Project Gunship and ways to fix it. Third, with the new project having differing requirements, it has allowed me to focus on aspects of game development that weren’t exactly big priorities originally in Project Gunship. This includes simple things like 3d modelling, animating, storytelling, etc. Most importantly though, the critical fact that Project Gunship is a game and it needs to be fun. Shocking, I know… who would have ever guess that? I could probably dig up some reasoning for why things happened the way they did, but regardless it is clear to me at this point how imbalanced my approach to development has been over the years and it is time to fix this critical piece. Status of the game So, what is the status of Project Gunship? If I were to frankly sum it up in a sentence; Project Gunship is currently an unoptimized tech demo providing only a narrow AC-130 experience. There is certainly much to be fixed and added before I could ever call the game done. Regardless, I’m excited about the opportunities available to improve and make a more engaging game. Many of you have offered advice on how to make this happen and so there is plenty of potential remaining. What is coming next? Features and Systems The majority of the important features/systems are in place, but there are still some to be added.

Gunship Damage and Anti Air Threats. This has been on the list since the beginning and has been in various stages of development throughout the years. As some players have pointed out in their feedback, tension is important in games, particularly in Project Gunship. This feature is a good way to improve this aspect of the game.
Joystick Support. Again, this has been on the list since the beginning but because of constraints in Unreal Engine, has proven to be a difficult one to implement. Nonetheless, this is important to allow players to get the most immersion in their playtime, utilizing the same equipment as real-life AC-130 crews.
Custom Scenario Creator. Replayability has always been a problem with the game as scenarios generally provide mostly a linear experience. Allowing the player to create their own scenarios would help contribute to a game that is simply more replayable.
Integration of the Steam Workshop with Custom Scenarios. If the ability is granted to players to make their own scenarios, they should be allowed to share them.
Rework AI for Infantry and Vehicles. There needs to be an increased variety of how the AI interacts with their circumstance. Marginal changes here should greatly improve the experience for the player.
Rework Vehicle Damage Models. The current implementation has been a placeholder until I could spend more time on this. The goal is to accurately emulate real-life experiences of AC-130 crewman engaging vehicles.
Additional Radio Feedback on Player Action. The player needs to feel like they aren’t alone in the air. Communication is a primary aspect of the AC-130 experience, and it should be felt by the player.

New Content

Improvements on scenarios already in game.
Add a Tutorial.
Add (3) New Maps. Afghanistan Mountains (OEF), Kuwait City (Desert Storm), and Ho Chi Minh Trail (Vietnam).
Each new and existing map should have a minimum (4) realistic scenarios, (1) zombie rush scenario, and (1) training range scenario.
Additional vehicle models for all conflicts.
Improved Infantry animations.
And last, but not least: Polish, Polish, and Polish.

Finally, it is important to mention how grateful I am to everyone who has supported the project and stuck around despite the lack of updates. Project Gunship has always been a passion project and I’m dedicated to ensuring it gets finished. Despite losing a few months of development time, I think that time away will prove to be an important step in improving and finishing the game. I’ve already made a good amount of progress already and am excited to see the game improve! I do intend to have the next update be the 1.0 release, so it will be a few months before you will see that, but I will do my best to post update logs to showcase the progress each month. I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, so be sure to leave a comment or jump into our discord community to reach out. Thanks for everything and hope all is well with you all! P.S. If you are interested in a western, vertical scroller, shoot 'em up game, check out my new project that will be released on steam soon. See the game here. Also, in case anyone is wondering, development is completed on this game, so I'm back full time working on Project Gunship.

Update Build 0.6.8

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

957d ago

Happy Holidays everyone! Hope everyone has an opportunity to spend this season with friends/loved ones. Nothing much to report on this one, but wanted to push some content that I’d hoped would have been included in the last update. In the past two weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time working on new assets and the new map, Afghanistan Mountains. This will provide a new flavor to the Afghanistan maps as flat deserts turn into mountainous terrain. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/f5ca4f01465d97786872e1a1254e7fe1ac033f21.png After this map is completed, I’ll continue to spend more time creating short and long scenarios for the new maps (I haven’t forgotten about the Vietnam map). Content is the goal right now, so you can expect to see more and more scenarios coming out (if you have any requests, let me know in the discussion forum). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/d361e61717fac9c02f0c1baf409c05525fd61484.png In addition, there have been a few tweaks made to the projectile variables. There have been several optimizations made to the class, allowing us to increase the quantity of shrapnel pieces that are calculated on each impact. The effectiveness of each round is a balancing act between the amount of shrapnel pieces (ultimately, the likelihood of scoring a hit on a target) and the amount of damage that shrapnel causes. To keep performance high, the quantity of shrapnel was kept low while the damage was relatively high. Essentially, an impact was less likely to hit the target, but when it did it usually damaged enough to kill the infantry. This ultimately has led to frustration for people as seemingly close hits were leaving the AI untouched. I’ve tried to address this by doing two things:

Improving the numbers across the board for shrapnel count, shrapnel range, and damage causes. Previously I tried to approach this from a more structured, scientific (if you will) method but thought it would be better to (although keeping some structure) base it more on “feel.” It is a tricky balance as I don’t want guns to be overpowered (*cough Call of Duty *cough), but I also don’t want consistent, unnecessary frustration for players.

Adding a “hit” animation for the AI, to give some physical representation of them being wounded. I intend to take this much further in the next update or two, by adding different states (wounded, unconscious, etc.) with additional animations. This should give additional depth to the experience, rather than it being binary – dead or alive. I think having the opportunity to “knockout” personnel who later recover and move again is an important aspect of the experience (despite the natural obscenity of it). I have also been considering giving the user direct control over the munition variables if they choose to alter them. This would allow users to dictate their own experience and “feel” for the guns, regardless of what I think may be more realistic and accurate. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/52e129da49f759df9401d1d55d8f90aa371176c7.png That pretty much wraps everything up on this one. Be sure to check out the roadmap in game to see a more itemized list of what I’ll be working on for the next updates. If you have any suggestions on new content, changes to already implemented systems, or bugs to report; please shoot them my way in our community discord or in a steam discussion forum. I actively monitor these and try to answer/respond to these as quickly as possible. No doubt the feedback I’ve received from players is what is driving this game towards improvement, and I greatly appreciate the efforts. Until next time! Have a good holiday season and New Year!

Changelog

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that was causing the physical character meshes to stretch on dismemberment.
Fixed a bug that was preventing AI cover points from being created. This would cause AI to sometimes not move after being fired at.
Fixed some terrain issues causing AI to get stuck in the map Afghanistan Rural Village.

Visual Effect Updates

Tweaked the smoke in the impact effects to last longer.

Gunship Updates

Tweaked the projectile/munition variables to increase lethality.

AI Updates

Added a new “hit” animation to the infantry.

UI/Menu Updates

Added an audio slider for music (only applies to the main menu sound right now).

Map/Scenario Updates

Added a new scenario for Afghanistan Rural Village: Training Range.
Added a new scenario for Afghanistan Rural Village: Taliban Shoot.
Added a new Zombie Rush scenario for Afghanistan Rural Village: Close Quarter Compound.

Update Build 0.6.7

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

971d ago

Happy holidays to everyone! It has been another month of development and I’m excited to see playable content beginning to grow for the project. There still is a lot to add for the project to be completed and released, but it’s always good to see progress.

New Maps

In this update, two new maps have been added to the game: Afghanistan Rural Village and Vietnam Outpost. With the relative success seen from the Chaos Destruction test map, both maps contain all destructible assets (aside from trees and foliage). Additional optimizations were added to hopefully maintain decent performance, but in all my testing performance has remained stable (if this is not the case for you, be sure to reach out with a steam discussion or via the community discord server). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/565ab42c2882d8543956729318dc62ab92fb9901.png With these two maps comes several new scenarios:

Training Range on Vietnam Outpost
Troops in Contact on Vietnam Outpost
Jungle Outpost (Zombie Rush) on Vietnam Outpost
Taliban Ambush on Afghanistan Rural Village

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/be26f28843f07a2a22dc5740131340cba2544465.png I intended to have the Training Range and a Zombie Rush map ready to go as well for the Afghanistan Rural Village map this update, but somehow spaced it thinking they were already done. Despite this, you will see those released in the next update that is planned this month (a smaller update before the holidays). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/c438c0f90c7ff750c9fb5a13be475900ba1418c5.png Additionally, I’ve rebuilt the Cannon Air Force Base Desert map – improving landscape textures and foliage assets. Although map building is my least favorite activity (mainly because it is so extremely time consuming), I believe I’m getting better at creating more realistic/believable environments. With this new map, I’ve reworked the training range and Zombie Rush “In The Open” scenarios for it as well. I really believe the changes to this map made it much more interesting to play on; particularly the Zombie Rush scenario (I probably spent the most “testing” time playing through this one, because I was really enjoying it). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/34b5e60b4a5172c0baafbf8e9d995b201f116769.png Speaking of Zombie Rush, all scenarios for the game mode are now selectable in the scenario menu. Due to the dual menu system for Zombie Rush (selecting a Zombie Rush map, then selecting a Zombie Rush scenario in the following menu), there has been quite a bit of confusion about how many different scenarios existed in the game. Consolidating these should help clear up this confusion, providing all playable scenarios right up front. The scenario menu is also finally graduating from the nostalgic text walls of the 1990’s - all scenarios now come with an image to help better differentiate each map/scenario from each other. You can expect to see more improvements here, in terms of scenario customization soon. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/4243dede5017d9df2517f10c2f963e7fe455dbf8.png I also wanted to point out that I’ve begun working on an audio feedback system, that will help improve immersion when playing. This will include commentary from various crew positions that will respond to what is happening on the battlefield. Now, you can expect to hear comments whenever you score a direct hit on infantry units. Although this is one specific instance, you can expect to see this feedback system expand going forward. I believe audio cues and responses from crew members is a very important aspect of gunship gameplay – not only to help steer the player in the right direction (i.e. attempting to fire a hellfire without an active laser designation, etc.) but provide good commentary on the action. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/801721840d4942b17a84e97cbf685b810a1f9af9.png Finally, I’ve switched up the roadmap menu to be a little more specific and meaningful to you. Now you can find specific primary features you can expect to see in upcoming updates, along with an estimated release date. Obviously, these dates are tentative and depend on a lot of things coming together, but they are personal deadlines that I’ll work to meet. That concludes the items that I think are worth mentioning here. You can find the rest of the changes down in the change log. As always, I appreciate everyone’s support in helping make Project Gunship a success and I look forward to seeing you in the next update! Thank you!

Change log

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug causing the HUD Speed Variable in the bottom right corner to not have the proper decimal count.
Potentially fixed a fatal error occurring when using the laser designator.
Fixed a bug causing the key input window to be created behind the options menu; preventing the player from changing input mappings.

Visual Effect Updates

Optimized the foliage static meshes to improve performance.

Gunship Updates

Increased the zoom of all gunship variants.
Decreased the change value when tweaking guns to allow for finer tuning (from 0.25 to 0.15).
Changed the sensor on the AC-130H to FLIR, instead of NOD.
Added the option to disable the sensor shake when firing guns.
Added radio feedback for direct hits from the air crew.

UI/Menu Updates

Fixed some information in the scenario details that was inaccurate.
Added the option to disable the sensor shake when firing guns.
Added images for each scenario in the scenario menu.
Made some tweaks to the subtitle system (font and font size, plus dynamic durations).

Map/Scenario Updates

Added a new map: Vietnam Outpost.
Added a new scenario for Vietnam Outpost: Training Range Outpost.
Added a new scenario for Vietnam Outpost: Troops in Contact.
Added a new Zombie Rush scenario for Vietnam Outpost: Jungle Outpost.
Added a new map: Afghan Rural Village.
Added a new scenario for Afghan Rural Village: Taliban Ambush.
Rebuilt the Cannon Air Force Base Desert map. Improved landscape textures, road textures, and foliage.
Rebuilt the Training Range scenario for Cannon Air Force Base Desert map: Training Range Desert.
Added a new Zombie Rush scenario for Cannon Air Force Base Desert map: In the Open.
Made improvements to the Chaos Destruction Test Map.
Moved all the Zombie Rush scenarios to the scenario menu to keep everything in the same place.

Update Build 0.6.6

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1002d ago

I’ll keep this one short, because there isn’t a lot to unpack here. I wanted to get an update out as soon as Chaos Destruction could be showcased to you and now is that time!

Chaos Destruction

Keep in mind, this is very early in development of the destruction system using Chaos and there is a lot to tweak and optimize before it can be injected into the already established scenarios. To move towards that, I’ll need some solid feedback on its performance for everyone, so I can gauge how things need to be adjusted. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/eadbe55b035e59c9063c3ea16e5f71fb446ae9d1.png To start, I’ve set up destructible meshes to basically look good, so there are quite a lot of fractures in each mesh (more fractures, the more performance overhead, but better-looking destruction). It seems to run decently in my tests, but I need to hear how it is running for you. There are several levers I can pull to improve performance (trade off with quality typically), so I need to get a good baseline before I start tweaking stuff. To test this, I added a small destruction map/scenario (it is found in the scenario section) that simply throws you in game with destructible objects and some AI running around; nothing to fancy. There isn’t any specific UI built for this scenario, so there isn’t any ability to respawn anything (you’ll simply need to go back to the main menu and re-enter the scenario to reset). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/be1aa6d909136be8dda10815fdc36044de87e7c4.png It is important to note that the 40mm and 105mm are the only guns that will damage objects now. The test missions run the AC-130U variant, so don’t expect anything to happen to the buildings/objects with the GAU-12U 25mm. If you are experiencing bad FPS; you can attempt to scale down your resolution in the display options (70% scaling generally provides a good boost in performance, with very limited impact on visual quality). If this doesn’t help, let me know in a steam discussion or in the community discord.

Other things

There are a few bug fixes that got worked out, with some tweaks to weapon accuracy and impact effects. I will also mention, some people were bent out of shape because of the gun overheating feature added in the last update. You can now find a toggle switch for this in the gunnery settings. And that should do it. I encourage you all to reach out if you have questions or concerns about anything. Although my primary mission is to create a game I want to play, I need to hear your opinions to ensure I stay grounded (it’s easy to be in the clouds when you work on your own). I do believe your contributions since the beginning have substantially helped the game to improve, so keep it coming! Thanks again for all the support and I’ll see you in the next update!

Change Log

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug that prevented you from exiting the input menu with the escape key
Fixed a bug that allowed you to tab through the various UI elements on screen, while in game
Fixed a bug that prevented the gun overheating warning from removing itself appropriately
Fixed the menu bug once again (hopefully we don't see it again)
Fixed a bug allowing the player to fire the GAU-23A faster than the established rate of fire
Fixed a bug that caused the material on the GAU-23A to be distorted, on the AC-130J variant

Visual Effect Updates

Tweaked some of the impact effects to have smaller spark particles (these sparks looked abnormally large, especially when using gunships with better zoom)

Gunship Updates

Improved the accuracy of the L60 Bofors 40mm cannon to be more reflective of real life.
Decreased the accuracy of the GAU-2A 7.62mm, M61 Vulcan 20mm, and GAU-12U 25mm to be more accurate to real life.
Adjusted the initial rotation of the guns to be closer to the center of the crosshair.

UI/Menu Updates

Removed the "Developer Message" from the main menu.
Added links to the discord, steam discussions, and steam news hub (update history) in the main menu.

Map/Scenario Updates

Added a new basic destruction test scenario.

Update Build 0.6.5

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1018d ago

I don’t know about you all, but it feels like time is just flying by faster than ever. It has been another month (and a half) and I hope everyone is doing well! This update would have been released two weeks ago, but I had a family vacation and was uncomfortable making the release and not being available to deal with any big issues. This month (and a half) of development unfortunately had a lot of spinning wheels, so I couldn’t make a lot of progress in areas that I was hoping to make. However, I was able to knock out some of the important features that needed to be added. Advanced and Custom Gunnery Modes You are now able to toggle on effects that will alter the trajectory of your munitions. These effects include gravity, wind, horizontal drift (initial velocity from the flight of the aircraft), and Coriolis effect. The Fire Control Computer UI (default key is ‘o’), will provide you with key information that will help you estimate how these factors will impact your munition. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/c5cf0bb124479eff6eafbb952f82b93d8663f5be.png Additionally, you are now able to make “tweaks” to the relative pitch and yaw of the guns, allowing you to zero them to your sensor’s crosshair. Right now, all these adjustments are manual (like adjusting the elevation and windage on a rifle) and there is no automation in how this change depending on distance, firing angle, etc. This is something I’d like to integrate in, so it is closer to how real-world gunship functions. At the very least, I’d like the Fire Control Computer to calculate an estimated range given a specific trajectory angle, altitude/distance, and munition velocity, allowing you to adjust based upon these variables, then fine tune by conducting a “tweak” or “two-shot.” With that in mind, it is important to pay attention to the range you zero your gun to, then adjust your aim appropriately as that range changes from target to target. You certainly can continue to tweak the gun’s pitch and yaw, but sometimes the best you can do is utilize the old fashion “Kentucky Windage.” (Believe it or not, this has been a very common practice in Gunship’s engagements. The Fire Control Computer can only help so much.) You can expect this to continue to evolve. I think it is in a reasonable spot right now but think there is more to be done. The guns are also now able to overheat, preventing the player from continuing to engage when they reach certain temperatures. This will add a new strategic dynamic to the game, requiring you to maintain firing discipline. As soon as the guns get over 900 degrees, the guns will need to cool down prior to being able to fire again. You can see the current temps of the guns in the Fire Control Computer UI. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/5823f2f0fa9cd0c75441aa51a6c3cee0c30fed22.png Chaos Destruction Destruction is an important feature that I believe the game needs to have and a lot of time was spent working on making that work this month. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot to show for it now, because there are several walls to climb for it to be possible in Project Gunship. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/9aafce3df5c3cca3ce78cb4ee55f163c9e61ac9f.gif First off, just to give some context; one of the main changes from Unreal Engine 4 was their discontinuation of utilizing Nvidia’s PhysX engine for physics calculations and simulations. Throughout the later version of UE4, Epic began implementing their in-house created physics system called “Chaos,” that was available for testing, but discouraged to ship any games utilizing because being in alpha/beta it was prone to changes. As mentioned previously, one of the big changes between the UE4 and UE5 was relieving PhysX with Chaos, their in-house physics system. Unfortunately for me and Project Gunship, I was maybe a bit too zealous to port the game over to the newer engine; without fully understanding how everything would translate. UE5 did make a substantial amount of editor and performance improvements, along with some new and shiny features that most likely are the future in game development, but I assumed all aspects would have been improved over UE4. Chaos’ destruction tools to create fractured geometry collections (destructible objects) were much more refined and user friendly than what PhysX provided. However, stable performance is questionable and any relative control of how objects break apart seems impossible without engine code modification. Despite that, I believe I have some complicated pathways towards getting it working but as usual, it’ll take some time to figure out. So unfortunately, no destruction this update but as soon as I get it working, I’ll release a test map for you to play around in and gauge the performance impact (I’m hoping I can do this in the next few weeks). UI/Menu Updates I’m also excited to provide some new UI features that will help improve the experience for everyone. One of which is a visual assist for the joystick emulation. This provides a visual indication of the input control for the sensor. The longer the line, the faster the sensor will be moving in the direction it is pointing (this can be toggled on and off in the options menu). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/562a46c2144087641af54badcaffef8d9535fee2.gif Additionally pressing the “escape” key while in menus will effective “go back,” as all of us have been conditioned to do (be sure to let me know if there are any menus that get missed). I should also mention; the training information has been updated to match the updated features. I'm hopeful this will be a little more helpful as I've added videos and images to illustrate the concepts. Outside of those main features, everything else is relatively minor. You can view the full changelog below. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be working on this project and to interact with such good people in the community. I apologize for the slow development, but I am confident the game will turn out to be something special for us all. Be sure to let me know if you have any complaints, suggestions, bugs, or issues and I’ll do my best to knock those out quickly. I hope everyone is doing well and will see you again in the next update! Changelog for 0.6.5 Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug preventing the player from changing the Fire Control Computer (Tangent Indicator) input in the options menu.
Fixed a bug that prevented the Resolution Scaling from working properly.
Fixed the bug that causes the weapons to continuously fire (get “stuck”) when changing weapons too quickly while firing.
Visual Effect Updates
Made some minor tweaks to each impact’s spark effects to be smaller in size.
Removed the impact decals and added low velocity sparks to mark impact locations.
Added dynamic materials to the gun static meshes on the aircraft to increase with their heat variable.

Gunship Updates

In Simple Gunnery Mode, fixed the issue causing rounds to be off-center depending upon the range the projectiles travel. These should all hit dead center now.
Updated the AC-130H to only have the L60 40mm and M102 105mm, and not have the M61. This depicts the late stage of the variant and provides greater distinction from the AC-130E.
Made slight performance improvements to the projectile class.
Reworked the audio class, which should provide incremental performance improvements (most likely in loading times).
Added the ability to adjust the brightness and contrast of the sensor display.
Tweaked some of the post process settings to give a clearer image (more contrast)
Added “Advanced” Gunnery effects that will influence your projectile. These include gravity, wind, horizontal velocity drift (inherited horizontal velocity from the aircraft’s forward movement), gun traversal limits, and Coriolis effect.
Added the ability to tweak the pitch and yaw angle of the guns to zero them in.
Added the ability for guns to overheat. They will be unable to fire until they’ve cooled off (this is a first pass at this feature, so it is likely to be tweaked).
Adjusted the Sensor’s location on the gunship for historical accuracy.
Removed a small delay that existed when changing weapons, which was an attempt to deal with the stuck firing bug.

UI/Menu Updates

Added the much requested “escape” key as a back button in the menus. This should work in all menus.
Unlocked the “Advanced” and “Custom” Gunnery Modes in the general settings. Advanced will activate all projectile influencing effects, while Custom will allow you to toggle whichever influences you’d like.
Added additional information to the Fire Control Computer UI; you can now track the aircraft’s bank target, gun temperature, and gun tweak angles.
Added a visual assist for the joystick emulation. This will help you visualize the input control of the sensor. It is on by default but can be switched off in the options.
Updated the training information and roadmap in the main menu.

Map/Scenario Updates

Fixed a bug causing the enemy to not have a target after the aircrew is picked up.
Fixed a bug that prevented the mission time from being accurate in the mission debrief.
Made some adjustments to help the vehicles travel faster, so the player doesn’t have to wait so long.
Consolidated the “Zombie Rush” scenarios, into the scenario section. Now they will show one “Zombie Rush” scenario for each map, with potentially multiple scenarios per map.

Update Build 0.6.4

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1068d ago

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. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/4b10d2a45d5e6ddedce1d89b549d616b0b8d5a75.png 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) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/18c850c1b17780748f212fcc0e26b38806335bcf.png Ho Chi Minh Trail (Vietnam War) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/eb820005b63b3619fa1c36d4522300296881cf5b.png 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.

Update Build 0.6

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1103d ago

Hello! It’s been quite a while since I’ve talked with you all last and it’s been for good reason. I hope you didn’t think the project got abandoned because that will not happen! There have been substantial improvements to the foundational functionality of the game and has paved a nice road towards the future. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/24ca092a0a264abb85b18ee1a6c9f2f7aa6ce6a6.png There were quite a few features that were built very early on in development when I had much less experience and know how compared to today. One of these things was the gunship itself. It wasn’t until I attempted to “fit” a physical model into the confines of my old gunship class that had me realize it needed to be rebuilt. This small project to bolster the gunship class turned into a substantially bigger project because of how all the pieces were fit together. Having to rebuild one thing, required me to rebuild another, and another, and another. In the end, I basically rebuilt 90% of the game’s core functions in those past few months… something I didn’t intend to do and something that required completion before I could even think about making another release. Nonetheless, things function substantially better on both ends and I’m excited about how it has improved the game overall. Additionally, with it feeling so polished already, far less time will need to be spent on these core features, allowing me to really focus on building out the pieces everyone is waiting for, playable content. Although I wish I could have more content available in this release, most of my focus in the immediate future will be on building out scenarios and tools to iterate faster with them. The included scenario “CASEVAC Down” is a new take on the previous “Blackhawk Down” scenario in the Firefight mode. Scenarios going forward will be structured to last at least 10 minutes long, with plenty of opportunity to rain steel or watch friendly forces do their thing. Keep an eye out for more scenarios coming out in the next few weeks. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/1a133a84a615dae1575f09f03cb7e6e3b34e76b3.png In addition to that, all the (previously known as Infestation Wave Mode) Zombie Rush scenarios are new and the game mode has been changed. Instead of surviving waves of zombies to unlock new weapon types, you select which gunship variant you’d like to utilize. Each gunship has set weapons and ammunition and the overall objective of the game is to defend the friendly units from zombies for as long as possible. Zombies are spawned as they are killed, and they become stronger as time progresses. Scores are calculated at the conclusion, accounting for time survived, total kills, and the difficulty selected (multiplier). Scores are then saved on a scoreboard to show your personal achievements. I’m sure there is some balance changes that need to be made for this, but I’ve found this to be a much more enjoyable game mode than what was previously implemented. In addition to the reworked Zombie Rush game mode, the previously released “sandbox” mode is included as well. You can find this in the “Scenario” selection, named the “Training Range.” {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/65563863e76efb9b726fb68adbd28bf2fe41cbe9.png Another important piece to point towards – a lot of new assets have been added to the game. This includes new character meshes (for both enemy and friendly forces), vehicles, buildings, foliage, etc. I tried to include all of these in the change log, but I’m sure I left something out. Additionally, I’ve reworked all the visual effects and I believe, have achieved some very realistic effects. These alone are probably one of my favorite changes as it makes firing the weapons so much more rewarding (perhaps I’m alone on this one? Haha). All in all, you should start to see visual improvements all around and I’ll continue to improve this going forward. This is getting a bit long now, but I’d like to mention a few more things. Training & Information: It has been clear the learning curve is a bit steep, so I was sure to create training materials to help everyone understand everything they need to be successful in game. Check out the new training menu, which documents these key features and controls. Destruction System: Destruction has alluded us again… this is a demon I very much intend to kill. Unreal Engine’s new Chaos Destruction system is a little rougher around the edges than I had initial expected, so I haven’t been able to make a lot of headway here. I do think destruction is an important feature for the game, so I haven’t given up on this. Gunship Variants: With the new gunship classes, there are new HUDs for each gunship variant. These will become more applicable when scenarios are released featuring them (i.e., Vietnam scenarios featuring the AC-130A, etc.). I really want to start getting into other conflicts, so this is going to be coming soon. There also isn’t a whole lot of different between the E and H variant, which possibly will change soon. Danger: Although there are several vehicles in the game right now that will shoot at the gunship, you will not take damage. The foundation is in place, I just need to connect the dots to have it all working as you’d expect. I believe that was everything I wanted to touch on in this update, but I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Like I had mentioned at the beginning, I’m working full time on this game and have been for the past few months. I will continue to work full time until the game is completed, and you have more than enough content for the price you paid. I greatly appreciate all the support and feedback from everyone, I know development is slow but slow and steady wins the race! Be sure to reach out via the steam discussion forum or join our discord (see the pinned item in the steam discussion page for a link) if you’d like to ask specific questions to me or provide any feedback on new features or bugs. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next update! Changelog (I’m confident I didn’t get everything in here):

Made lots of performance optimizations to the projectiles, Infantry AI, and Vehicle AI.
Fixed a bug causing the mouse to be inverted by default for new players.
Changed the name of “Infestation” to “Zombie Rush.”
Reworked all Zombie Rush scenarios and added a new one called “Forest.”
Changed the main menu background.
Improved the IR Strobe on friendly infantry to be more visible to make PID of friendly units easier.
Improved the navigation system to be cleaner and simpler. This should forever kill the stall bug.
Tweaked the weapon traversal limits slightly to agree with the new Gunship model.
Tweaked the vehicles center of mass to prevent them from flipping too easily.
Improved all vehicles with weapons to properly aim (yaw & pitch) at their targets (you’d normally see alignment issues when offset on uneven terrain).
Complete overhaul of all projectiles and their associated variables.
Tweaked all the impact effects.
Tweaked the size of the projectiles while in flight.
Tweaked all munitions to have realistic max effective ranges.
Improved the 20mm and 25mm impact sound effect.
Improved the RPG-7 and AT4 backblast effect.
Tweaked the OPFOR Anti-Tank infantry to only be equipped with an RPG. They will engage both infantry and vehicles when in sight.
Tweaked the order of which enemy units are target (Infantry, Vehicles, and the Gunship) – unit specific. For instance, a Dshk technical will target other vehicles first, then infantry, then the gunship (if in range). The ZSU-23-4 however, targets the gunship first, then vehicles, then infantry.
Tweaked the Zombie material to show cold (since Zombies are already dead). After meeting their second death, they slowly fade away.
Tweaked the scale of the world. Distances and speeds are more reflective of real world. This applies to both the aircraft and the projectiles.
Tweaked the material on the AGM-114 Hellfire to become “hot” as it flies toward its target.
Tweaked the laser material to be less visible the further the distance it travels.
Tweaked the camera shakes for all weapons. Added a small shake for the AGM-114 Hellfire firing off.
Changed the laser designator controls (input “L” now locks the laser to a specific point, while “Right Mouse Button” actively tracks).
Updated the “Gun Ready” audio.
Rebuilt the “gunship” character to be more robust and performant.
Added an AC-130 gunship model to the player.
Added muzzle flashes for each gunship weapon.
Added residual shrapnel effects from the M1 M557 105mm HE.
Added an Aiming Offset for all infantry (now they aim up/down at their targets).
Added an Aiming Offset animation for the gunner on the Pickup Truck Dshk variant. The gunner’s hands stay connected to the weapon as he aims higher and lower.
Added an Infrared laser to friendly units that activates when they target an enemy.
Added (4) new insurgent character mesh.
Added a new US military character mesh and adjusted the IR Strobe
Added a ZSU-23-4 “Shilka” light armor tank.
Added three new variants of the MRAP (unarmed, w/ MK19, and M240).
Added an infantry transport (HMMWV) with four variants (unarmed, w/ M2, MK19, and M240)
Added an LAV-25 light armor tank.
Added Infrared Panels to the MRAP to help identification of friendly vehicle.
Added new textures for all existing buildings and compounds.
Added new compounds and objects for the environment.
Added a loading screen.
Added a new exit screen to honor the lost AC-130 Gunships and their crews.
Added a new training menu with important game details.
Added sandbox mode which allows you to spawn units as you wish. (Definitely more updates coming to this in the future)
Added a new version of Zombie Rush (previously known as Wave Mode). Instead of surviving waves, the zombies endlessly spawn until the friendly units are killed. Zombies’ health and numbers increase over time. Scores are generated based upon kill count, time in mission, and difficulty selected.
Removed the early access message on startup.

Update Build 1.0.0.5 Hotfix #8

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1199d ago

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.

Update Build 1.0.0.5 Hotfix #7 (UE5)

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1229d ago

So, little bit more than a quick hotfix (even though that's the primary purpose of this update) but the project has been migrated over to Unreal Engine 5! This is exciting because it (1) improves the development experience and workflow (Epic has made a lot of improvements all over the place on the dev side), (2) grants the ability to utilize the improved UE systems... i.e. chaos destruction, etc., (3) performance of the game seems to have improved generally, and (4) visually the game looks better to me (definitely can't explain why, but things just look better despite UE5 not utilizing DX12). Nonetheless, this was an important development milestone and I'm glad it is done. As usual (but especially at this point), please let me know if you encounter any bugs or anything unusual. I suspect the transition probably broke a few things that I haven't been able to identify, so I'm totally dependent on everyone to help me with this! You can utilize the community discord (https://discord.gg/HWG9bxRfBm) or leave a comment/discussion thread in steam (I try to remain active on these). Thank you all for your continued support and until next time... cheers! Changelog:

Fixed a bug causing the aircraft to fly to a location of 0, 0, 0
Fixed a bug causing the mouse input to be locked after entering the pause menu
Fixed a bug preventing the stats to populate appropriately in Firefight mode
Moved the project to Unreal Engine 5
Reworked the wave mode system, to be more clean and efficient (be sure to comment if you run into any issues here)
In wave mode, changed the map "Convoy" to "Compound." This now uses the "firefight" map and infantry are used instead of the MRAP vehicle (this will be added back later).
Wave mode now uses the new infantry units, which are much more dynamic and useful. Zombies will now attack infantry, so game over is now dictated by who is still alive
Made minor changes to various UI elements

Update Build 1.0.0.5 Hotfix #6

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1232d ago

Quick update on what's happening behind the scenes. Currently working on:

Three new scenarios to be added to the Firefight mode. These include Troops in Contact (break the complex attack before friendly units are killed), Air interdiction (find and destroy all enemy equipment/vehicles/personnel), and Close Air Support (JTAC will request CAS fire mission to engage specific targets)
New map for firefight scenarios and wave mode to be played on. This map is based upon the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan.
Rebuild of the Aircraft (player entity) to allow implementation of the other gunship variants. Additionally, the player will have full control over how the gunship flys - including the pitch, roll, yaw, and speed. No more waiting for the aircraft to make its turn to get your guns back on target, you will have full control over this. I'll give more information on this real soon...
Optimizing of the Infantry AI and expanding their capabilities.
Building out the Vehicle AI (previous implementation was simply a placeholder).

Still a lot to work through, but things are coming along. I may be alone in this, but I've been very satisfied with the visual improvements that have occurred the past few weeks, which have really been dialing in the realistic look of the game. I also was skeptical about adding impact sounds to the game due to the sake of realism, but I believe it really improved the immersion and satisfaction of the combat (be sure to comment if you disagree!). Please let me know if you come across any issues or bugs and I'll knock those out. I've reimplemented some changes that previously had been released but were reverted because of unforeseen game breaking issues. Let me know if you experiences anything like this and I'll correct it ASAP. I definitely appreciate everyone's support and feedback I've received over the past few months. Just looking back to the state of the game at early access release, the game has improved so much and I owe that to you all! Thank you all! -Sklor Changelog:

Fixed a bug preventing the UI and menus to scale appropriately with the resolution
Re-reverted a change to the UI scaling to support 4k resolutions. This should work now with the new input changes (anyone running 4k, be sure to let me know how this works for you)
Made improvements and increased the size of the the firefight map
Reworked the input method for the camera. Removed the "activate camera" function and consolidated the mouse and gamepad inputs
Fixed a small UI bug in wave mode, causing the UI to overlap other UI elements
Reworked the spawn system in wave mode, allowing complete randomization of zombie spawns
Updated the location of the helo in the "Downed Helo" map in Wave mode
Reworked all impact effects to look more realistic
Added rifle sounds for in-game effects
Updated vehicle damage model and effects. Removed AI in vehicles for now until improvements are made
Fixed a bug related to the 40mm projectiles that prevented them from being effective

Update Build 1.0.0.5 Hotfix #2

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1290d ago

Quick release of more of the content I've had planned for 1.0.0.5. This update comes with a new game mode called, "Firefight" which has two playable scenarios at the moment (much to be added to this in the future). The goal of this mode is to essentially provide a quick play for specific mission types (Troops in contact, point air defense, air interdiction, etc.) that have a level of dynamic gameplay to them. At the moment, you do not have control over the mission variables, but this will be implemented. The two scenarios that are available are: Continuous Firefight: This mode endlessly spawns friendly and enemy infantry who fight over a small village. No specific objectives here, just gives you an opportunity to watch them fight and intervene as you see fit. Rescue (Blackhawk Down): This mode simulates an AC-130 providing point air defense for a UH-60 Blackhawk that has been downed and is being overrun by enemy forces. The player must defend and keep alive, the Blackhawk crew long enough for friendly forces to arrive and escort them to extraction. I'll continue to tweak and improve these scenarios, as well as add new ones with more variety in the future. Structurally, I am not considering these "realistic scenarios" as those will be more story driven and framed around historical missions flown by each AC-130 variant. This structure (as everything else) is still greatly a work in progress and may (likely) change in the future. If you have any ideas for improvements or new dynamic scenarios, be sure to comment or jump in our discord and let me know. As always, I appreciate everyone's support and will continue to work hard to make Project Gunship special. Thanks! Changelog:

Added new mode "Firefight" that has two simple, but dynamic scenarios: (1) Continuous firefight and (2) Rescue - Blackhawk down.
Updated Infantry with new models and animations.
Updated and added new building structures. These do not have destructibles enabled as I am making preparations to move to UE5 and utilize the new destruction engine.
Added new trees that can be knocked over and burned.
Fixed a bug involving Vsync; should now work properly.

Update Build 1.0.0.5 (Partial)

Sklorsteam_community_announcements

1317d ago

After now completing our first full 13-week development cycle, I've come to realize a few things. (1) Game dev is extremely hard appropriately forecast timelines and I suck at it, (2) iteration and rebuilding is the best way to discover new improvements, (3) life is extremely unpredictable and rarely do we find ourselves skidding by without any interruption, (4) I need to step up my communication and manage expectations better (especially my own), and (5) although it’s hard to admit but I think I need help... (more on this later) Unfortunately, today is not the day to release scenarios (I know, I’m sorry!!!). There definitely were many variables that came into play to cause this reality, but I’m hopeful this won’t be the case in the upcoming future (fingers crossed). TLDR; game development is hard and every little piece can turn into a massive Pandora's box (although I’ve several years developing in UE, I’m still a noob and am constantly learning/improving) and cancer sucks (not me, but a close family member). Now, as far as scenarios go, I didn’t feel it would be wise to release the scenarios that I had as they were a bit too hastily thrown together to meet the deadline, which is why they aren’t included yet. Although I’d like to give you a absolute release date on these, I’m not quite sure how much time it’ll take to get them to the place they need to be. I’m hopeful it’ll be in the next week or two. Despite all that, the path forward is still clear for me. I’ve made some good progress on a number of new systems that will soon be implemented. One of which is new skeletal meshes and animations for the infantry, to give a lot deeper variety in their interactions with the world they live. Along with that, new AI logic is being developed to improve how they act and react to what is going on around them. And finally, vehicles have also been modelled and are actively being developed (substantially more difficult to get right, I have found). Still have a long way to go here, but at least a basic implementation is in place to test the current hitbox system. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42382038/8e326bc3b62d490547a1a01c3f302676fd4c49e4.png As I had mentioned before, it is time to begin expanding the team to share the load. I may have some strengths, but I definitely have weaknesses and it is obviously would be better to find someone who can fill those gaps for me. I'm hopeful this will not only improve the quality of content release, but allow us to release it quicker. I could continue to add to this wall of text, but will cut it short here. As always, I greatly appreciate your support and will continue to tirelessly work to provide the best experience possible in Project Gunship. Thanks! -Sklor

Change log:

Rebuilt the friendly AI in wave mode to better track and engage hostile targets.
Added new zombie meshes and animations.
Added new landscape materials
Increased the camera shake for firing weapons across the board.
Updated the menus with a more clean font
Added music to the wave mode menu and changed the end game music
Added a 4k resolution to the selection
Added controller support
Added audio options
Updated how inputs are taken in the controls option menu
Added the ability to invert the camera pitch
Reworked the presentation of the options menu
Added the ability to change the camera speed in-game
Added the ability to adjust the central point of the aircraft’s orbit
Added a car, pickup truck, and AAA ZU-23 to the training mode that can be spawned and tested (vehicles need substantial improvements to the AI logic and testing of the damage models. More updates to come on these)

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