Team, I know I said no more big updates, but the pilots from Wardogs all flocked over for heli practice after the first beta, and they modded the sh*t out of the game and had a bunch of requests, so I couldn't help but jump back in and make some changes. They drove more sales last week than I had in the last year, so it's the least I can do haha...
Changelog:
Leaderboards! There are now a billion different leaderboards for you to plaster your name on. They are mostly on hard difficulty and flight physics, so don't get too excited, although the Race modes only enforce hard physics, so if you're not a true Gun pilot, try your hand at one of those to get your internet (well, MHZ community) fame.
Skins! (and a new base look) All the most common colors can be selected via the in-game menu -> Pause, Options, Code Entry: enter an all-lower-case color, and your new color will be assigned. There's a couple easter egg skins too (Wardogs guys, looking at you; I didn't get any response from the devs, but it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission ;) ), as well as two earned skins, the code for which you'll need to watch for when you win under outstanding circumstances in Sim: Survival (one of them has been available for years, but I don't know if anyone's earned it).
Flight Model! Someone (I'm so sorry I can't remember who; I looked through Reddit, TikTok, and the threads here and couldn't find the conversation) pointed out that yaw seemed a bit more effective than it should be at higher speeds. I was always a little unsatisfied with the flight model, but I couldn't place my finger on it, and that is definitely one of the reasons. Yaw at higher speeds has been dampened, and retreating blade stall has been delayed to a slightly higher speed. I found the automatic yaw at higher speeds was a little too much too, so I've pulled that back slightly as well.
Difficulty: The scouts now wander much more readily on Evacuation and Marathon, requiring more time to either find them at the start, or evacuate the civilians they've "injured" throughout the round if you don't, so I've added some time there. Additionally, I've added 50% more time to the nuke timer in Survival; I found myself nearly rage-quiting trying to bug-test the leaderboards. Just a tip on Survival: those mines and their placement are super important haha...
Minor changes:
The chickens in VR had messed up LODs; that's been managed. They were also invincible until you activated their 0-level of LOD (both versions), so that's been fixed too.
Times for race are now reported with Thousandths- which would be a big deal if it weren't for the leaderboards doing that automatically.