Report 035 Extra: Overdrive news

This report contains the changes of the 0.2195 update.

This time, as the title says, this report is an extra, as the next update which it will feature the weapon bays and stealth mechanics is still in development, to avoid creating a big gap in time without any update, it was launched this little upgrade.
This update is mostly composed of small bug fixes, which the two most relevant ones are the problem with the cockpit skin with the F-16C and the unacceptable behavior of the sub units shooting the parent units in the skirmish mode.

This extra furthermore enables the glow map texture for units and also greatly improves the special function flexibility.
So with this improvement, the NF-104A has been tweaked and J-35 MOD LV 4 now loses mobility when the canards are retracted.

The update also includes two additional units.

Originally, it was supposedly be just this, but then an old suggestion for the special functions has been remembered. By combining the glow maps with the improved special function, something similar to that suggestion could be achieved.
And with that, it was born the idea of an Overdrive special function:

The Overdrive is a mutator for skirmish mode that overwrites every unit’s special function to allow a special mode that grants personal stats boost for a limited time.
However, (this is important!) this mode does not gives more protection, nor it ignores stress damage as they are still applied as it would normally, so if you are not careful with your plane and use this mode to the limit, you will have a wrecked plane by the end of it.

Here is a screen shot of the Su-47 in Overdrive mode:

Something to also take note, AI units for now doesn’t use special functions, so as everyone might expect, this mutator gives the player and extraordinary upper hand against every other units.
But about this mutator, much more could have been said, but I will leave to you to explore it and enjoy.

In this extra report, it will be used the opportunity to give a small preview of the upcoming stealth system.
Here are the most important and already confirmed ideas of how it will work:

• For detecting units there will be two ways, by radar waves and heat, the attacking unit just needs to successfully detect in one of those two. So if a unit is has very low radar visibility but normal thermal visibility, that stealthiness can be easily nullified against a unit equipped with an IRST (although the heat detection systems are usually far more limited in range).
  
• Other important point is distance, even if a unit is undetectable in the radar at distance, the closer it gets the more sensible to lower values that radar also becomes. This also means the opposite, larger units like bombers can be detector at far greater distance than normal fighters.
  
• The attacker detection capabilities are not 360 degrees, both systems have limited field of vision, so the units have to look at the direction they may expect to be the enemies.
  
• The visibility values are dependent of the orientation of the defender unit, this means is far easier to detect by heat an aircraft if looking from behind.
  
• External loadout affects the unit visibility.
  
• Weapons bay open and landing gears deployed (when implemented) will affect the visibility values.
  
• The preserve the same gameplay feel that has been until now, by default there will be a threshold of visibility values, if the aircraft has values higher that that it will be show on the global radar as usual. This threshold can be deactivated or changed if need in any mission.

And finally, as mentioned in the beginning, this update also includes two additional units already shown in older reports:

First one is the Jaguar Prototype

And second is the F-104G-CCV

• Improved Special function ability.
• Fixed various bugs and issues

• Added F-104G-CCV
• Added Jaguar Prototype
• Added Overdrive Mutator

Stay tuned, more reports will follow.