New Shiny Toy Alert!!!
We have a brand new Open Beta build available ON Steam only (for the time being)
- It is available for you to opt into on Steam via the Open Beta branch... There is no password required and at any time you can opt out of the beta and revert to the official version.
Please use this Guide as reference if you need assistance in accessing the beta via Steam
The full changelog can be seen below:
* MAJOR NEW FEATURE: 64-bit architecture. Command is now a 64-bit application.
* MAJOR NEW FEATURE: New DirectX 11-based map renderer. The existing DX9-based map rendering engine has been wholly replaced with a new one based on DirectX 11. You should observe significantly improved zoom/pan performance, as well as reduced latency and increased throughput when rendering map layer tiles.
* NEW SIM FEATURE: Per-sensor mast height (optional)
Apart from the existing ability to specify an overall mast-height for a platform/unit, it is now possibly to specify the mast-height value per sensor. This can be useful in modeling the different height placement (and thus horizon coverage, and the now-critical ability to clear the local skyline, see below) for each individual sensor in a platform.
In the DB3000 v499, two ship platforms have explicit per-sensor mast-height values:
* #2867 - DDG 51 Arleigh Burke [Arleigh Burke Flight I] -- United States (Navy), 2018, DMP, SM-3, AEGIS BMD
* #122 - DDG 51 Arleigh Burke [Arleigh Burke Flight I] -- United States (Navy), 1991
* NEW MAJOR SIM FEATURE: Terrain type-dependent skyline / land-cover height. The simulation now clearly distinguishes between terrain elevation height (ie. the actual ground) and the "skyline" height outlined by either natural features (forest trees, plantation etc.) or man-made structures (buildings, bridges etc.). This is critical for a number of different sim features, from land close-combat (e.g. land forces need to poke their sensors above local features to get sufficient LOS) to low-level flight (some aircraft can fly between the trees/buildings, most cannot).
Several new land-cover types have been added to the existing ones. The overall list of land-cover types and their associated skyline-height values is as follows:
Water => 0
Evergreen Needleleaf forest => 5
Evergreen Broadleaf forest => 5
Deciduous Needleleaf forest => 5
Deciduous_Broadleaf forest => 5
Mixed forest => 5
Closed shrublands => 1
Open shrublands => 1
Woody savannas => 5
Savannas => 1
Grasslands => 1
Permanent wetlands => 1
Croplands => 1
Cropland Natural Vegetation Mosaic => 1
Snow And Ice => 1
Barren Or Sparsely Vegetated => 1
Urban And Built Up => 9
Urban - Close Inner City => 30
Urban - Spaced High Rise => 45
Urban - Attached Houses => 6
Urban - Close Industrial => 9
Urban - Spaced Apartments => 20
Urban - Detached Houses => 6
Urban - Spaced Industrial => 9
Urban - Shanty Town => 4
Custom Environment Zone UI changes and new land-cover Types
The Custom Environment Zone window UI has been re-arranged, with sonar environment overrides grouped together on one side and land-cover overrides grouped on the other. You can now set a custom land cover height (skyline), which will override the default land cover height for the CEZ:
The cover type ‘Use_Underlying_Values’ allows you to create a CEZ that doesn’t override land cover at all (for example if you only wanted to override weather and/or sonar conditions.) If you do select a specific land cover type, you can then check the ‘Set custom height’ checkbox to override the cover height for that CEZ. The height value is in whole meters.
Aircraft ‘Land Cover Masking’ Flight Mode
‘Land Cover Masking’ (aka "fly between the trees/buiildings") is a new flight mode for aircraft. Only aircraft with the DB capability flag for ‘land cover masking’ set will be capable of this flight mode (DB v499+ required). In DB3000 v499 all rotorcraft (incl. some UAVs) have this capability.
To set an aircraft to use this flight mode you use the Speed/Altitude window to set an aircraft (or aircraft waypoint) to use terrain-following mode. Once you set terrain following (and assuming the aircraft is capable of land-cover masking), a new check box will appear in the UI to set ‘Land Cover Masking.’ This can also be done via Lua (see below.)
Aircraft flying ‘land cover masking’ will fly much lower than the existing terrain following mode, as low as 10 ft AGL at loiter speed in open terrain with good visibility.
If the scenario has the ‘Terrain Effects’ feature enabled, an aircraft flying ‘land cover masking’ will fly just low enough to be inside the land cover when possible. For example if land cover at the aircraft’s location is ‘urban/built up’ with a height of 9m then the aircraft will fly at 8m. This allows the aircraft to receive concealment from the land cover (see sensor changes below) while still exposing any mast-mounted sensors it may have (a good example is OH-58D with its mast-mounted optics).
Land Cover and Sensor Detection Ranges
The effect of land cover on the maximum sensor detection ranges for visual, IR, and radar sensors has been changed. (NOTE: as before, land cover only effects sensor detection range when the ‘Terrain Effects’ feature is enabled in the scenario settings.)
Previously, only the land cover at the target’s location influenced sensor detection range. Now the sensor itself is checked to see if it is ‘within land cover’ (ie. it clears the skyline or not) and this applies an additional reduction in detection range if the height of the sensor is below the local skyline. In addition, the land cover along the ‘line of sight’ between the sensor and the target will also reduce sensor detection range whenever the LOS point is below the local skyline.
These changes can result is significantly shorter detection ranges for ground-to-ground sensor detections when there is ‘high’ land cover in the area (e.g. woods and/or urban terrain.). Very low-flying aircraft (using the ‘land cover masking’ mode) can also have reduced detection ranges if they are flying below the local skyline (and dodging telephone poles or power lines, probably).
Lua Changes
New Lua support has been added for the features above:
Land Cover Masking Flight Mode
‘Land cover masking’ mode can also be set via Lua using the Unit wrapper. Set the ‘unit.TF’ property to ‘true’ to turn on terrain following and then set the new ‘unit.TFType’ property to 1 (for land cover masking) or ‘0’ (for traditional terrain following AGL flight.)
Custom Environment Zones
Lua support for custom environment zones has been expanded.
The ScenEdit_AddZone, ScenEditRemoveZone, and ScenEdit_TransformZone functions now support CEZs. CEZs are always added to/removed from the ‘nature’ side. CEZ values are set via the CEZ wrapper object (see below.)
Lua Side wrapper has a new property and a new method:
Side.Customenvironmentzones read-only property – returns a table of CEZ guid/name/description. Note: only the ‘Nature’ side will have CEZs normally.
Side:getcustomenvironmentzone(guid or name or description) method – returns the CEZ as a zone wrapper object.
Lua Zone object wrapper:
Zone.landcovertype property – get/set integer land cover type.
Zone.hascustomlandcoverheight read-only property – returns true if CEZ has custom land cover height set.
Zone.landcoverheight property – get/set integer land cover height in meters.
Zone.thermallayerceiling property – get/set thermal layer ceiling in meters.
Zone.thermallayerfloor property – get/set thermal layer floor in meters.
Zone.thermallayerstrength property – get/set thermal layer strength as floating point value.
Zone.convergencezoneinterval property – get/set convergence zone interval as floating-point value.
Zone.weatherprofile property – get/set weather profile as a Lua table with ‘temp’, ‘rainfall’, ‘undercloud’, and ‘seastate’ table fields with the same values as the weather model.
Other things
* ADDED: Zone selection paradigm for all types of mission areas, triggers, actions, nonav & exclusion zones, and flight plans.
Example:
* ADDED: New quick mission (Patrols) creation with Shift+RMB on clicked zones. This allows to select one or more units and quickly create a patrol mission on a zone (supports zone overlap).
The selected mission will be automatically created to the zone's RPs and selected relevant units or hosted unit will be assigned to the mission. The mission editor will also open, allowing the player to further refine it.
How-to guide:
1-Make sure to create at least 1 zone (with the area & ref point manager)
2-Select 1 or more units then shift+RMB on a zone to select the mission to create.
Example: https://imgur.com/jLSMZXs
* ADDED: Various features to easily create usable zones:
-"Define area" now prompts the user to automatically create a standard zone and requests for a name, expanding the area-centric changes.
-Added a circle-shaped "define area" in addition to the rectangle-shaped one (shortcut ctrl+O)
-Reorganized the Refpoint Manager UI for reference points and areas
-Added a general text input dialog Returns the user's input, returns null if canceled
* ADDED: Added persistent UI+Lua layer control over standard zones and env. Zones (Can also be extended to other zone type, it has been intentionally disabled for other zone types)
* ADDED: Special kinematic behaviour for hovercrafts (LCAC, for instance); they no longer behave like Martian flying saucers capable of hovering above trees.
* ADDED: Traction system for ground units (also fixes units getting stuck in sloppy area and adds collision bounce). Also improved how a land unit's speed is computed given slope, terrain type, and the unit's traction system (tracked, wheeled, foot).
* ADDED: Formation editor now supports "hot reload" of the templates file. Also added button to quickly open the file for editing.
* ADDED: Added support (incl. damage mechanics) for new "blimp" airship type
* ADDED: Added support for "multi-staged missile" flag. Multi-staged AAW missiles (e.g. SA-5) have a lower burnout weight in proportion to their overall launch weight. This helps them achieve better climb performance post-burnout, but if they loft it also means that they are less able to use their mass to re-energize on their post-loft dive.
* ADDED: Indication of which AC is the group leader
* ADDED: Licensing support for Showcase #2 DLC
* ADDED: Special kinematic behaviors for hovercrafts (LCAC, for instance); they no longer behave like Martian flying saucers capable of hovering above trees.
* ADDED: Traction system for ground units (also fixes units getting stuck in sloppy area and adds collision bounce). Also improved how a land unit's speed is computed given slope, terrain type, and the unit's traction system (tracked, wheeled, foot).
* ADDED: Formation editor now supports "hot reload" of the templates file. Also added button to quickly open the file for editing.
* TWEAK: Battery-powered torpedoes accelerate much faster than thermal-powered ones
* TWEAK: Mission's WRA now supports queued dynamic units.
* TWEAK: Added land cover height and skyline-height display to terrain data block
* TWEAK: Mission's WRA now supports queued dynamic units.
* TWEAK: Added land cover height and skyline-height display to terrain data block
* FIXED: [B1307.4] Strike Mission 'Enforced' Flight Size seems to max out at 6
* FIXED: 0014905: Formation Editor UI errors
* FIXED: 0014892: Imported facilities don't maintain heading
* FIXED: Lua SetTrigger not allowing target filter of side only
* FIXED: Noise indicators are aligned under unit symbols right justified and aligned with right edge of unit symbol in the DX11 render as they were in the DX9 render.
* FIXED: Early Experience with the New Strike Planner (points 1 & 2)
* FIXED: Lua unit course - allow any desired speed up to unit maximum
* FIXED: Running without admin permission would crash Command due custom icons failed parsing
* FIXED: Line of sight tool displays transparent generated LOS bitmap overlay through DX11 renderer.
* FIXED: #14904: Not all manually allocated missiles firing
* FIXED: ToT label should display Time on Station (ToS) when a Patrol or Support Mission is selected
* FIXED: [DB Viewer] Erroneously-calculated AAW missile boost times when weapon was not in any aircraft loadout
* FIXED: Confusing "generation" terminology on agility-based aircraft WRA-type
* FIXED: Unguided weapon traces display, with gradation and dashes.
* FIXED: [Mission Editor] Deleting all missions in ME was impossible due to retained reference to the last mission selected; this then caused the last deleted mission to "resurrect" upon any interaction (such as assigning a new unit)
* FIXED: CTD when Clicking on ATO, flightplan editor button in ME with no mission selected
* FIXED: Exception in Balloon popup was causing a multitude of messages to appear on screen
* FIXED: Fallback alpha for zone with undefined color on load is now 110 instead of 255
* FIXED: Removed independent aim from the attack methods since it was not implemented
* FIXED: #13784 - Issue with default Expand/Collapse state of ORBAT
* FIXED: [DB Viewer] Erroneously-calculated AAW missile boost times when weapon was not in any aircraft loadout
* FIXED: Confusing "generation" terminology on agility-based aircraft WRA-type
* FIXED: Unguided weapon traces display, with gradation and dashes.
* FIXED: [Mission Editor] Deleting all missions in ME was impossible due to retained reference to the last mission selected; this then caused the last deleted mission to "ressurect" upon any interaction (such as assigning a new unit)
* FIXED: CTD when Clicking on ATO, flightplan editor button in ME with no mission selected
* FIXED: Exception in Balloon popup was causing a multitude of messages to appear on screen
* Includes the new v499 release of the DB3000 and CWDB databases.
DB3000 changelog: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XmuwnZ ... sp=sharing
CWDB changelog: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y-vuNJ ... sp=sharing
