0.15.9 - Strategic Strike

Four new combat units, a tactical marker system, overhauled Steam multiplayer, intelligent AI opponent for single-player, updated economy, and thousands of kilometers of new roads. Below is the complete changelog.

New Combat Units

• Tu-160 "White Swan" (RF) - strategic bomber carrying 12 Kh-101 cruise missiles. Each missile can be programmed with its own waypoint route - scout enemy air defenses in advance and deliver a devastating strike from deep territory. After launch, the aircraft enters a holding pattern and returns to base.
• Tunguska (RF) - self-propelled air defense system: twin cannons (range ~8 km) plus 8 x 9M311 missiles (up to 12 km). Universal coverage against drones, helicopters, and aircraft at close to medium range.
• Gepard (Ukraine) - self-propelled air defense system with twin 35mm cannons (~12 km), pure artillery. Highly effective against "Shaheds" and helicopters at short range.
• FP-5 "Flamingo" (Ukraine) - single-use truck-mounted launcher with one cruise missile. Plot a route (Ctrl+RMB), press Space - 5-second countdown with black smoke, then launch and the truck disappears.
• Added Kh-101 missiles and supporting munitions, produced at the missile factory.

Tactical Markers - New Team Communication System

A full-featured coordination tool. Works in single-player, sandbox, and multiplayer.

• Toolbar: attention (ping), attack, defense, arrows, freehand drawing, eraser.
• Quick pings without tool selection: Q - attention
• In multiplayer, your markers are visible only to faction allies; observers see all markers.
• Pings disappear automatically; arrows and drawings persist until manually deleted.

Multiplayer and Steam

• Completely overhauled Steam lobbies: create and find games, lobby chat, online and in-game player count.
• Auto-reconnection on connection loss - with status indicator and retry countdown.
• Password-protected lobbies and closed rooms.
• Version mismatch highlighting - games on different versions marked in red.
• Team modes: 1v1, 2v2, and free arrangement (1v2 / 2v1).
• Match settings in lobby: time limit, victory condition (conquest / points), starting resources (low / normal / high), and starting army (none / minimal / medium / abundant).
• New game timers in multiplayer.
• After victory or defeat, you can continue playing indefinitely.

Single-Player vs AI

Significantly smarter opponent. Difficulty choice: easy / normal / hard.

• Coordinated missile strikes and air defense suppression (SEAD) - AI takes out your anti-air systems before attacks.
• Reinforces air defenses at the front lines and uses reconnaissance before striking.
• Selects least-defended targets for drones and deploys FP-5 "Flamingo".

Economy and Logistics

• New facilities: National Recovery Fund and Federal Resource Storage.
• Introduced unit maintenance (per-minute costs) - large air defense networks now require upkeep.
• Anti-snowball for team games: outnumbered teams receive an economic bonus.
• Fixed auto-supply and warehouse logic; eliminated item duplication via helicopter on warehouse.

Roads and Movement

• Massive expansion of the road network, including new RF regions.
• Fixed vehicle exit from RF and ground unit stuttering on road movement.
• Updated pre-calculated pathfinding cache for faster match starts.

Combat System and Balance

• Reworked aircraft countermeasures: now you can evade anti-radar missiles by dispensing flares. Each aircraft has its own flare capacity.
• Fixed ballistic damage against air targets.
• Increased ballistic missile speed in the cruise phase.
• Air defense scanner sectors now follow turret heading instead of hull.

Interface and Optimization

• Redesigned construction HUD and orders menu.
• Friendly units now have distinct map icons - easy to distinguish from enemy units.
• Fixed units not appearing in battle on weak PCs.
• Integrated native module for simulation acceleration.

Thank you for playing SkyInFlames! Share feedback in the discussions - release is coming.