To make it easy to find good matches, the Discord community voted on an official daily match hour. For now, the time has been decided for the EU server, but the other regions will follow. If you sometimes play on the EU server, why not jump in at 8.00 PM (GMT)? Then chances are pretty good you'll face some of the aces from the Discord server.
Team TorchedForever vs Team Bankler
As a kickoff for the daily match hour, we arranged a match where anyone could sign up for a slot in either Team TorchedForever or Team Bankler (these were just temporary teams just for fun this evening). We battled it out over 3 matches, and the moderator TorchedForever and his team completely crushed Bankler in his own game. :)
Congratulations TorchedForever, Rocko, Rwby_Rose and Zeropoint! Well played!
Bug squashing
I have also made some smaller fixes and tweaks. Thanks to all players who contribute with reports and feedback!
Take care!
//Bankler
Patch notes
1.1.9 <*> Fixed bug where AAA could start driving towards the map's center if a hotjoining player took over hosting upon the previous host's disconnect.
<*> Fixed bug where Chaff were not replenished after landing and rearming on the runway.
<*> Disabled terrain avoidance when holding the maneuver button.
<*> Can no longer hotjoin a game that has less than two FOB:s left on either team, regardless of the last FOB:s health.
Performance Update
Good performance on all machines!
This update is mainly a technical one. I'm not bringing any fancy new features this time around, but there has been a huge investment in the technical side of things. While Sky Knights has never required a high-end machine, I have now made sure we're not up for any performance-related surprises down the road.
Why, you may ask? Too many times have I seen seemingly simple indie games make both processors and graphics cards go on their knees. This happens when you jam features in there without ever looking at the impact on the hardware the game's running on. I want Sky Knights to run smoothly even on average systems and decent laptops.
Rebind fire keys!
You can now rebind primary and secondary fire to other keys than the mouse buttons. Long time coming, I know. :)
Have a great new year!
//Bankler
Patch notes
1.1.8 <*> Can now rebind Primary Fire and Secondary Fire keys.
<*> Fixed exploit where you could get the gun to fire faster than intended by clicking the mouse insanely fast.
<*> Can now display framerate in HUD (press F2).
<*> Optimization related to aircraft customizations.
<*> Optimization related to aircraft and ground unit spawns.
<*> Optimization related to gun sound effects.
<*> Optimized AI sensors and decision making code.
<*> Optimized radar and datalink code.
<*> Optimized missile seekerhead code.
<*> Optimization related to gamepad detection.
<*> Lots of garbage collection optimizations.
Discount! Free Christmas gift!
All I want for Christmas... is a fully loaded F-16 Fighting Falcon, ready for takeoff!
Winter Sale!
Sky Knights is discounted for no less than 50% during the Steam Winter Sale! Take this opportunity to gift Sky Knights to a couple of dear friends, now at a bargain price, and take to the skies together!
Christmas gifts!
During the coming days, on at least two occasions, I'll give out some assorted smaller gifts to every player owning the game at the time the gift is sent out. This might be a bunch of wings, or even a box with some fancy tail- or noseart.
Join us on Discord for some Christmas flying! https://discord.gg/a5BvDR3
Merry Christmas!
//Bankler
Merry Christmas!
Christmas gifts and bug fixes
I wanted to add functionality to give a small in-game gift to you as Christmas is approaching. While I was on it, I took the opportunity to fix some larger and smaller bugs, to make sure you're having a smooth Christmas holiday flying experience! Try not to lock your missiles on Santa please.
The small gift will be handed out to all players in the coming days! Keep your eyes and ears open in Discord!
Merry Christmas to all of you and your families!
Patch notes
1.1.7
Added functionality to give Christmas gifts to the community. :)
Fixed bug where ground units sometimes turned back to their first waypoint when a player hotjoined the match.
Fixed bug where you couldn't hotjoin a practice session, even if there was room left.
Added support for 4096x2160 and 2048×1080 256:135 resolutions.
Loot boxes can now drop tail- and nose art for MiG-21 and F-5E.
Optimizations related to decals rendering.
See you on Discord! https://discord.gg/a5BvDR3
Cheers!
//Bankler
Tweak the deck in the lobby!
Lobby features
In today's small patch, we're adding functionality to change your traits and aircraft decks while waiting for players in the lobby. This is useful if you prefer some certain trait and/or aircraft for certain maps.
Chat hotfix
When introducing bot skill levels in an earlier patch, I accidently broke the menu chat panels (lobby and global chat were really hard to type in). Sorry for this. It has now been fixed!
Did you lose your progress?
Two players have reported that they have lost their stats and progress. I haven't found the root cause to why this happened, and since it's a one-in-a-thousand issue, it's a tricky one. If something like this happens to you, please contact me (Email, Steam forum or Discord). I have implemented a backup system to make it easy to restore your progress if this should ever happen to you.
Patch notes
1.1.6
Added trait and deck selection menues in the game lobby.
Fixed bug where the lobby and global chat input boxes would sometimes lose focus when typing.
Fixed a bug where player progress was sometimes not uploaded to backend after a match ended.
Added player stats backup (this means it will be easier to restore the progress if there are any problems).
See you on Discord! https://discord.gg/a5BvDR3
Have a great week! =)
//Bankler
Missile upgrade
Missile upgrade
This time around I have spent some time rewriting the heatseeker, general missile tracking and countermeasure code. Before, the flares worked like a silver bullet hard-countering all heatseekers. After the re-design, things are more organic. Missiles still tend to pick up the flare's heat signature and home in on it, but when the missile reaches the flare, instead of exploding in mid-air, the missile will continue flying in its current direction. If the enemy aircraft now is in front of the missile, it will become its new target. This means that unless you carefully time the flare, you will need to combine hard turns with countermeasures to get out of the way and evade a missile. It can also be a good idea to pop a series of flares, rather than just one.
This change will not drastically make the heatseeker more nor less effective. The important thing to remember is that they are no longer hard-countered by flares.
The missile refactoring comes with some other neat features. Before, a missile (or an aircraft's radar) would always try to lock on the closest target within its forward cone. Now, it will instead pick a target based on a balance between distance and what target is closest to the center axis of the cone. This means that if you want to target an enemy aircraft behind another enemy aircraft, you can now do so by aiming your nose towards the target you want to lock.
In addition to this, there has been some bug fixing, a new resolution added, and some camera and camera shake polishing.
Patch notes
1.1.5
Heaterseekers now require less average time to lock on (changed from 0.8-2.3 seconds to 0.8-1.2 seconds).
Anti-radar missiles now require less average time to lock on (changed from 0.8-2.3 seconds to 0.8-1.5 seconds).
Missile targeting technical redesign to support new, slightly more realistic behavior.
Missiles no longer detonate when close to flares, but instead keeps going forward if targeting a flare and flying through it.
Missiles can now pick up a new target in front of itself if losing contact with the one it just tracked, requiring you to turn when dropping flares to evade missiles.
Missiles fired without lock when pointing down will now attempt to adjust themselves instead of flying straight into the ground.
Much more snappy camera movements in the Hangar.
Fixed bug where extra weapons from upgrades were not visible on an aircraft after respawning.
Fixed bug where no gui button sometimes were selected when opening the pause menu.
Fixed bug causing camera shake when other players lit up afterburner when taking off.
Added support for 3840x2160 16:9 UHD resolution.
Landing particle effects and sound effects now play when other player land.
See you on Discord! https://discord.gg/a5BvDR3
Cheers! =)
//Bankler
Technical Update
Bug fixing and some quality-of-life features
This patch is a smaller, less content-heavy one. I've had a couple of fixes and features on the wishlist for quite some time and took the opportunity now to get them in.
Discord has become the prime central for discussions about the game. As I want everybody to be able to take part of this excellent community, I added a more visible Discord text/button in the game. I also enabled a 100 Wings "reward" for joining (of course also available for everyone already in there!).
The autumn sale gave us quite a few new players, which is great! In just a few days, we'll start the new season, so get ready!
Patch notes
1.1.4
Now automatically selecting the closest server region on first startup.
Fixed bug where you could no longer move bots to the other team in practice mode.
Added support for 3440x1440 21:9 ultra-wide resolution.
Fixed bug where the selected region was not shown in the main menu after one match had been played.
Internet connectivity check should now be less likely to fail due to parental control services.
Added redeem code support.
See you on Discord! https://discord.gg/a5BvDR3
Cheers! =)
//Bankler
AI Update #1
AI improvements
For this patch I've made a first little push towards getting better AI in the game. While the old bots are more than a challenge for a brand new player, they get too easy pretty fast. This update brings should bring their skill level up a bit, making them more aware of danger, being able to efficiently use SARH missiles, make maneuvers and a few more things.
I've also added three skill levels that you can choose from:
Novice (very easy)
Beginner (slightly better than the original bot)
Intermediate (more aggressive and can perform maneuvers)
Note that all this is work-in-progress (hence the title of this update). The AI is still not on par with an experienced Sky Knights player. There will most likely be more AI updates in the future to provide even more challenging bots.
Woodlands optimization
I also did a first optimization pass on the Woodlands level. If you have an older computer and had problems running it, please try it after this update and see how it works! On my old test laptop I went from about 21 fps to 34 fps, so the difference is quite noticeable.
Race #2 tweaks
There has been some feedback that the landing in Race #2 is too hard. I have moved around some waypoints to allow for a better final approach.
Afterburner effects
On the visual side, all the original aircraft has gotten new shiny afterburner effects that look much better than the old ones.
Patch notes
1.1.3
Moved two waypoints in Race #2.
Better performance on Woodlands level.
Much nicer afterburner effect on all aircraft.
Darkened the minimap on Woodlands to increase icon visibility.
Auto-selecting Start button instead of Back button in game lobby.
Fixed bug where the tutorial used the first aircraft in your NATO deck rather than enforcing the F-16A.
Fixed broken bug reporting. Yes, ironic.
Fixed bug causing the credits icon to not show the number of credits gained for a kill if the reward was over 100.
Can now choose between three skill levels when playing against bots.
AI: Air-To-Air AI will now pursue you closer to your base than before on Woodlands.
AI: Aircraft on Strike or SEAD tasks will now go defensive if threatened.
AI: Will now be less likely to be distracted and lose lock when firing a SARH missile.
AI: Now sometimes flies home to help out with buddy spawning.
AI: Is now more likely to react on large enemy ground vehicle pushes.
AI: Is no longer limited to buying only one upgrade when shopping.
AI: Will be less likely to blindly fly over AAA threats.
See you on Discord! https://discord.gg/a5BvDR3
Take care and fly safe! =)
//Bankler
A new light fighter!
This patch brings a new aircraft to the table! The F-5E Tiger II is the second aircraft in the Light Fighter category, and takes the place as the NATO counterpart for the PACT MiG-21. Make no mistake though, these two aircraft have to be flown quite differently. The F-5E:s engines are not nearly as powerful as the MiG-21:s, making it less of an interceptor. However, when it comes to knife fighting, the Tiger is about as good as it gets. With unparallelled instant turn rate, you'll be flying circles around your opponents as long as you can keep your speed up. This combined with its nose-mounted twin cannons makes the F-5E a deadly adversary.
The F-5E also comes with a more powerful radar than its Russian counterpart, making it useful in the recon role as well.
I'm looking forward to hear your feedback on this little killing machine!
1.1.2 * Added a new race track under Training/Time Race.
* Added new aircraft: F-5E Tiger II.
Halloween sale! Season 4 is here!
New month and new season! Congratulations awesome player TorchedForever for achieving Ace rank and winning the season. We're of course celebrating by joining the Steam Halloween sale offering Sky Knights at a 33% discount! Hopefully cheap enough to qualify for a Halloween gift for your best gaming buddy!
This patch brings some smaller fixes and improvements. The next aircraft is not in this patch, but I can assure you that it's just around the corner!
See you in the skies!
Cheers!
//Bankler
1.1.1 * Decreased turning power boost for "G-limit Override" from 20% to 15%.
* Fixed bug where players' stats did not get synchronized after hotjoining.
* Added loading screen hints.
* Added screen fade when going from loading screen to level.
* Reduced bloom effect in menu.
* Re-designed some parts of the multiplayer GUI to make it easier and faster to host matches.
