Patch notes

Fairer hard missions

The hardest missions of the Korea, Kharg, Venezuela and Baltic campaigns (and Hormuz M20) are retuned so you can plan the attack from the briefing. Story and objectives are unchanged.

• Every SAM and radar-guided gun is marked on the briefing map with what is there, and missile boats and boat waves are marked too.
• Air-defence sites now switch on outside their own radar range, so they show on your warning receiver before they can fire.
• Korea K5 Monsoon Front now starts from a pad 15 km from the column’s SA-15, instead of 3 km.
• Forward pads that rearm and repair you, out of the defences’ reach, for Korea K2 and K3, Kharg K3, and Venezuela V2 and V3. K2 and V2 also get valley nav points on the HUD and map.
• Boat swarm waves in Kharg K4, K5 and Venezuela V5 are called on the radio 16-20 s before they appear, and form further away.
• Kharg K3 starts in haze with its shamal 15 minutes in, announced; Kharg K6’s shamal also arrives at 15 minutes instead of 8.
• Baltic B1 Border River: the escort’s guns are visible from stand-off range, and its SA-15 appears only from Veteran difficulty up (with a bonus objective).
• Par times and time limits of the changed missions are recalibrated.

Cockpits at night

• Master-caution and annunciator lamps dim at night like the screens, and dim further with night-vision goggles. No more glare blob in any cockpit.
• The naval cockpit now has a copilot in the right seat, and the heavy’s gunner and the naval’s copilot are rebuilt with helmets, visors, vests, harnesses, gloves and boots. Neither blocks your view or screens.

Known issues

• Hormuz M11 is unchanged: its SA-15 still wakes at 6 km, as it is an undetected photo run.
• Par times of the changed missions are generous and may tighten after real flights.
• Flight controllers are untested on real hardware.
• Korea, Baltic, Suwalki and Taiwan have no music themes of their own yet.

Heavy and naval cockpits

• Canopy frames are flat bands with padded sills instead of round tubes, and the naval gets a centre spine under its canopy post.
• New canopy hardware: hinges, yellow latch handles, a standby compass and, in the heavy, a mirror.
• A glare shield, floor tread plates, wall switch panels and, in the heavy, a yellow canopy jettison handle.
• The pilot’s rudder pedals now move with your pedal input.
• The heavy’s gunner has a helmet, sight mount, harness and arms.
• The cockpit view costs no more performance than the RAH-66’s.

AI pilots

• AI pilots clear masts and power lines by a smaller margin, so they no longer pop up into a SAM’s view when flying past a line of towers.

Known issues

• The master-caution lamp blooms large at night in every cockpit.
• The naval cockpit has no copilot figure, and the heavy’s gunner is still made of simple shapes.
• Flight controllers are untested on real hardware.

• Mission scenery pieces now find the ground reliably, however many trees or roofs stand over the spot. Before, a piece could in rare cases be left at the wrong height.
• A reported problem with the S6 boulder sitting underground in 0.49.1 turned out to be a false alarm. Both Suwalki boulders stand on the ground as intended.

Known issues

• The Wolverines achievement has no Hangar badge yet.
• Flight controllers are untested on real hardware.

Suwalki Gap

• S1 Probe at Sejny now starts at first light.
• Local volunteers who answer to “Wolverine” watch the roads from the trees. They call in after the column burns in S1, have eyes on the paratroopers in S3 and the eastern column in S5, and cheer in the S1 debrief.
• A granite boulder with WOLVERINES painted on it stands in the volunteers’ woods beside the S1 border road and at the forest edge in S6. It is scenery only.

Achievements

• New hidden achievement, “Wolverines!”: stop the first armoured column at Sejny without losing an aircraft or a wingman.
• The 14 existing achievements are unchanged.

Known issues

• The Wolverines achievement has no badge in the Hangar badge case yet.
• Flight controllers are untested on real hardware.

Flight controllers

• Joysticks, HOTAS throttles, collective levers and rudder pedals are read directly, up to four at once, alongside keyboard, mouse and Xbox pad. Steam Input is no longer needed for them.
• A new device is bound automatically the first time you connect it: stick for cyclic and pedals, slider or throttle for collective, pedals for yaw, with buttons to fire and cycle weapons. The game tells you on screen.
• A new JOYSTICK section on the Controls page: bind axes by moving them, invert or clear them, watch a live meter, and bind buttons and hat directions on every row. Dead zones, sensitivity and curves are on the Input page.
• A real collective lever: ABSOLUTE uses the lever position directly (Expert) or as climb, hold and descend zones (Assisted, Arcade). CENTRED treats a spring-centred axis as a climb and descent rate.
• New CYCLE WEAPON command (cannon, Hellfire, Hydra, Stinger), unbound by default on keyboard and pad.

Weapons and missions

• Fire-and-forget Hellfires no longer drop into the sea when a tree, lamp post or the horizon briefly blocks the target. They steer on the last track for up to 8 seconds and reacquire. Terrain masking against enemy SAMs still works.
• Baltic B5 Ridge Defence: the opening waypoint no longer sits on top of an anti-aircraft gun. It is now a holding point 5 km back.
• Wingmen rearm beside the pad instead of hovering down onto yours.

Music

• Korea, Baltic: Narva, Suwalki Gap and Taiwan Strait play a neutral patrol track in flight instead of the desert Hormuz theme.

Known issues

• Flight controllers are untested on real hardware. If a device’s axes are bound oddly, rebind them on the Controls page.
• Korea, Baltic, Suwalki and Taiwan have no music themes of their own yet.

Maps

• Suwalki Gap, Baltic: Narva and Korea East now have houses and sheds with gable roofs in clay tile, painted metal or dark shingle, instead of flat-roofed Gulf boxes. Blocks, halls and shops stay flat.
• Suwalki’s gravel roads between villages are back (about 30,000 stretches).
• Korea, the Baltic and Suwalki get grey-beige beaches and grey granite on steep slopes instead of orange sand and red-brown rock.
• Temperate shallows are a murky green instead of Caribbean turquoise. Suwalki’s lakes get reed-green marshy shores that slope gently into the water.
• Taiwan’s Central Range and the Venezuelan cordillera are forest green instead of orange desert crags.

Missions

• All 63 campaign missions were checked so every target can be engaged.
• Vehicle columns now queue at the end of their route instead of piling up on one spot, where a Hellfire would hit a wreck and miss the rest. Seven missions were affected, Suwalki S1 among them.

Performance

• The Baltic and Suwalki maps run closer to Hormuz frame rates than before, and the new roofs cost very little.

Kharg Island

• The east coast no longer drops straight into deep water in a stair-stepped cliff. A natural shore now runs down into a shallow shelf, while the harbour quays keep their deep water.
• In the Kharg war, Kharg town, the oil terminal, the airfield and Kharku each have their own sortie site near the place. Before, all four shared one spot, and Kharku’s was on the wrong island. The war’s balance is unchanged.

Video memory

• Video memory use was checked on every map and preset. On the heaviest map the game holds about 4-5.3 GB in flight at High and Medium, and simulated 6 GB and 8 GB cards showed no long frames.

Known issues

• Not yet tested on a real 6-8 GB graphics card.

• Fixed a long freeze at the briefing or in the first seconds of flight on the largest maps. Taiwan could stop for over 20 seconds, Suwalki for about 14 and Venezuela for about 5.
• The cause was every building on the map being handled as a separate physics object. Buildings are now grouped per map tile, so the remaining short pause happens before the briefing appears and play itself stays smooth.
• Nothing changes in play: you still crash into buildings, and rounds and missiles still hit them.

Known issues

• Suwalki and Kharg use about 7 GB of video memory at the Medium preset; 6-8 GB graphics cards are untested.

The Kharg war

• The Kharg Island campaign now has a WAR button, so every theatre has a war again.
• A coalition offensive: land on Kharg and Kharku, cross to the mainland and drive for the boat and drone base at Bandar Rig. Hold it for four days to win.
• The enemy holds the islands and coast and brings reserves down the coast roads and across by ferry.
• 23 real places, from Bandar Ganaveh to Bushehr.
• Your sorties matter: flying them typically brings victory about a week forward.
• Part of the base game, like the Kharg campaign.

Cockpits

• The copilot’s three screens in the naval attack helicopter now show the moving map, FLIR and engine page, like the pilot’s.

Known issues

• The Kharg war’s island sorties all start from one shared site.

Kharg Island

• A new map of about 82 x 98 km: Kharg Island and its oil terminal, Kharku islet, the open Gulf and the mainland coast from Bandar Genaveh to Bushehr.
• A six-mission campaign: Terminal Watch, Iron Rain (a dusk SEAD strike), Shore Battery, Berth Guard, Jetty Night and Rig Raid (with a shamal coming in).
• Instant Action and Free Flight with six areas of their own.
• Part of the base game: no pack needed.

Cockpits

• The heavy attack helicopter has a tandem cockpit: you fly from the raised rear seat with the gunner ahead.
• The naval attack helicopter has a side-by-side cockpit with you on the left.
• Both have three live screens (moving map, FLIR, engine page) and controls that move with your inputs.

Fixes

• Free Flight in the heavy or naval helicopter no longer starts at the map’s origin (on Hormuz this caused a crash-and-respawn loop).
• Two missing Venezuela war roads are now on the road network.
• The Baltic pack uses the name “Baltic: Narva” everywhere.

Known issues

• A short stretch of Kharg’s east coast has a stair-stepped shoreline.
• The new cockpits are simpler than the RAH-66’s, and the naval copilot’s screens are dark.

New wars

• Operation Strait Watch now has a war: a coalition landing on the islands of the Strait of Hormuz that must hold Qeshm to open the strait. Players without any pack get the whole war.
• Venezuela Coast: a long offensive from the Barlovento beaches through Caracas to Maiquetía airport.
• Florida Straits: an offensive from the Keys to Matanzas, with the most dangerous sorties in the game.
• In these offensive wars you fly for the attacker: support attacks on held towns, defend beachheads and strike the enemy’s reserve ferries.

War screen

• A new war explains how it works in the events panel.
• Clearer chart labels, and tall maps frame the fighting properly.
• Long sortie names now fit their buttons.

Other changes

• CREDITS is now in the pause menu.
• Briefing maps no longer show a padding strip, and edge labels stay inside the map.

Known issues

• The Hormuz war is short if you keep flying (often five or six days of war time).
• Two Venezuela roads are missing from the road network in sorties.
• The heavy and naval helicopters still have no cockpits.

Four new theatres

• Korea East Coast: the coast road and the Taebaek ridges, five missions.
• Baltic: Narva: the Narva river crossing, six missions.
• Suwalki Gap: lakes, forest and border towns between Poland and Lithuania, six missions.
• Taiwan Strait: the west coast and the Penghu islands, five missions.
• Each has Instant Action and Free Flight and is its own theatre pack. All factions are fictional and unmarked; the geography is real.

The war

• A WAR button on the Suwalki, Narva, Korea and Taiwan campaigns opens a dynamic campaign on its own clock. Units move by road and rail, are supplied from depots and fight until one side wins or collapses, with an air war alongside.
• Every six hours of war time you are offered sorties: road columns, landings, bridges and depots, defending a town, supporting an attack, or rescuing a downed pilot. Each one is a full mission and its result feeds back into the war.
• Lead a squadron of six pilots who earn rank. Choose a wingman, and rescue downed ones before capture.
• The Baltic war runs two fronts at once, with a theatre overview.
• An after-action report closes each war. Co-op guests fly sorties with the host.
• The war screen, menus and briefing work on a gamepad alone.

Known issues

• The war is balanced against a model of the player and may feel easier or harder in human hands.
• Support sorties are rare.
• Taiwan has no music theme of its own yet.

Two new theatres

• Florida Straits: the Keys, the Straits and the north coast of Cuba. Five missions including a night crossing and a storm, five Instant Action areas and Free Flight.
• Venezuela Coast: from La Guaira and Caracas east to Cabo Codera, with mountains of nearly 2.8 km. Five missions, six Instant Action areas and Free Flight.
• Instant Action and Free Flight now follow the campaign you have selected.
• Both are theatre packs, sold separately. Packs you do not own are shown dimmed in the campaign selector.
• In co-op, both players need the mission’s pack. A guest without it gets a clear message.

Music

• 12 original tracks for the menus, briefing, theatres, combat, storms, night, escort, victory, failure and credits. Music cross-fades with the action and ducks under radio calls.
• New MUSIC volume slider and a PLAY MUSIC switch.

Graphics

• Auto upscaling now picks per card: DLSS on supported NVIDIA cards, FSR or TSR on AMD depending on generation, XeSS on Intel Arc, TSR otherwise.
• If an upscaler fails to start, the game falls back to TSR and tells you once.

Known issues

• The Venezuela jungle has no trees yet and reads as meadow from the air.
• AMD and Intel upscalers are untested on real hardware.
• The heavy and naval helicopters still have no cockpits.

Hangar, badges and rewards

• The Hangar lets you choose your RAH-66’s livery, nose art, decal emblem, tail number and nose name. Eight liveries, twelve nose art pieces and eight decals, unlocked by playing.
• A badge case with 24 badges in 10 categories, for scores, medals, finished campaigns, night kills and more. Feature your favourites for your co-op partner to see. The debrief lists new badges and unlocks.
• No store and no purchases: everything is earned in play.

More helicopters

• A new AIRFRAME screen lets you pick your helicopter and weapon loadout.
• Heavy attack helicopter: sturdier but slower and less agile, with three loadouts and four paint schemes.
• Naval attack helicopter: lighter and quicker to turn, tuned for sea work, with three loadouts and two paint schemes.
• All three fly in Free Flight, Instant Action and Convoy Duty. Operation Strait Watch stays RAH-66 only.
• Deck pads rearm and repair you after a short wait, longer in rough seas.
• The Convoy Duty transport now has its own model.
• In co-op each pilot can fly a different helicopter and see the other’s cosmetics.

Known issues

• The heavy and naval helicopters have no cockpit interior yet.
• Cosmetics other than paint schemes apply to the RAH-66 only.
• Deck pads do not move with their ship.

• Co-op works again: hosting a listen server and joining by server address now connect properly. In 0.8.0 these quietly started a single-player game instead.
• Hosting and joining from the in-game menu were not affected.
• The support log now records what happened to a host or join request, which helps if you need to report a co-op problem.
• Everything from 0.8.0 (Convoy Duty, the new settings and accessibility options) is unchanged.

Known issues

• Co-op through Steam lobbies has not been tested with a live Steam client.
• Co-op across a real network and with more than two players is untested.

Convoy Duty

• A new five-mission escort campaign: guard an unarmed transport helicopter, clear its landing sites, fight off ambush helicopters and, in the finale, hold the landing zone for 90 seconds. Includes a night lift and a shamal sandstorm.
• A campaign selector on the main menu switches between Operation Strait Watch and Convoy Duty. Each campaign keeps its own progress.

Missions

• Air-defence sites in six Strait Watch missions moved to open ground, so you can engage them from stand-off range. Missions 13 and 20 were rebalanced and par times recalibrated for eight missions.
• On missions 16, 19 and 20 a forward rearm pad also slowly repairs your aircraft while you sit on it.

Settings and accessibility

• Graphics presets from Low to Epic with per-item overrides, window mode and resolution with keep-or-revert, frame cap, audio mixer, difficulty and a first-launch hardware detection.
• Rebind every key and button, shape axes with a curve preview, and get button prompts that follow your keyboard, mouse or gamepad.
• UI and HUD text scaling, colour-vision palettes, larger subtitles, gamepad hold-to-confirm, a reduced-flashes option and an optional FPS readout.
• NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS upscalers alongside the built-in TSR, with an Auto choice per graphics card.
• A local support log and crash folder you can open or copy from Settings. Nothing is uploaded and there is no telemetry.

Known issues

• Co-op in this build is unreliable (fixed in 0.8.1).
• The escort transport still uses an attack-helicopter model.
• FSR and XeSS are untested on real AMD and Intel hardware.
• Credits are reachable from the main menu only.