The next release will have fully rebindable and configurable controls.

I made it like 10 years ago.

There is no cockpit view in any of the released versions.

End the sortie, which takes you back to the map screen.

Opening and closing the loadout menu (L) should refill gun ammo.

This won't be developed any further since it already served its purpose as a technology test bed. I'm already working on a game. I can't work on two!

Thanks for the detailed response! You're giving me very dangerous ideas.

I'll try to keep this in mind. Thank you.

This is very good feedback and criticism. I really appreciate it.

This was built in x86.

Everything you describes is exactly contrary to how it's meant to be used. Yes you can, but that's not how you're supposed to. If it was, then all the Unity tutorials, documentation, and features would be working towards that kind of workflow and they absolutely do not. The whole point of having an Editor is so that you don't have to do what you're describing.

I have to wonder, if you're going to such an extreme as to not even use GameObjects, why you would use Unity at all and not a simpler engine, or write your own?

I'm realizing now that the game doesn't actually have any mouse controls outside of the spectator camera. I didn't put any effort into making the controls work nicely since that wasn't the point of this. In theory a basic joystick should also work, or you can play with just the keyboard and arrow keys.

Yes. I do most of my testing with a gamepad.

F-15 is old enough that earlier versions could appear. Su-27, maybe, but for both planes it depends on what the game needs. Either way, they wouldn't be flyable if that's what you're really asking. 

Anything is possible with enough time and money, but I don't have a lot of either so I pick and choose my fights. If you haven't already read it, I recommend you read the FAQ.

You can already reload when at an airfield in the current demos, though if it stays that way depends on how loadouts will work with the new version of the game. 

There's a good chance they'll exist as NPC planes such as the Tu-95 or C-130, but they won't be flyable.

Over G was actually a big inspiration, gameplay-wise. It's a super underrated (though, still very flawed) game and had so many awesome details. It hit a perfect balance of realism and fun, on a console no less.

There's nozzle up/down buttons that you hold to raise/lower them. You can also bind it to an axis to control it directly.

The comments section was receiving enough traffic and cluttering up the game page that I want to try switching to the discussion board community rather than raw comment threads.

Just this demo.

Can i make custom camouflages for the jets ?

Maybe in the release version, but probably not with as much fidelity as you think. Nothing in this game is textured in a traditional way. Also the release version will be a lot less like War Thunder.

I dunno, try it.

All of this is already in the game.

Zero.

This is excellent and detailed feedback. This is exactly what I like to see. Thank you very much!

You make a lot of very good points. I think all I can really add is that the flight model demo is (somewhat intentionally) made up of extremes. The MiG-21 is not supposed to be easy to fly, and the Jaguar is very underpowered which puts a big focus on what the aerodynamics mean for it. If the F-20 ever made it into the new flight model, it would probably fly somewhat like the older style planes simply because it has so much thrust and lift. I wonder if people would have said, "Just make all the planes like the F-20!"

As I continue working on the game, I'm coming to the conclusion that I probably want to shoot for some middle ground between the two. As of right now, the flight model is currently an expanded version of what was in this demo, but with more fidelity in the control systems. E.g. you have manual control of flaps and the nozzle because they are actual control surfaces versus magic abstracted things as in the demo. I think these are good things to have and I'll definitely be keeping them. However I'll probably tune the flight model such that they are easier to fly, but still driven by this physics system.

There is also a possibility (no promises!), that a toggleable "simplified flight model" could be in the game, but that remains to be seen pending work I plan on doing this month.

Another thing I've come to notice, between comments here and the YouTube videos that get posted, is that I (foolishly, honestly) under-estimated how much people would fly with the mouse. From the very beginning, I begrudgingly included the mouse flight only as a concession for people without joysticks. I never liked it because by its very nature it will mask many of the interesting properties that you get from flying manually such as a lack of stability, wind, turbulence, and many such things. It also lacks nuance and is prone to "throwing the joystick around" as if it was an arcade game. As I've watched people play and report their findings, it seems like the vast majority of people don't even consider playing with anything else. So many people praise the old flight model, despite it's 100% broken and placeholder status, as "realistic" and good. It's hard not to wonder why I should even bother.

Between all of that, I absolutely 100% need to re-implement mouse controls before the next release. They're currently broken to the point where I've flat out removed them completely in favor of a simple virtual joystick because of the cockpit and new camera system. Honestly, I wasn't planning on re-adding them back any time soon, but with what I've seen recently it seems like suicide not to.

The physics in this demo were always just a placeholder. The flight model demo is much more indicative of what the game will feel like, as well as has the robustness to handle edge cases like this.

The next demo has a photo mode which automatically does this. The reduced performance after every sortie is a known bug. There's nothing you can really do except restart the game.

By design. It's part of the map.

Honestly a lot of what you're describing is realistic and more a limitation of the controls. Flying with a joystick, most of this is a non-issue as you have more direct control and choice over what the plane is doing. Yaw instability is intended, but noted. I may specifically address this later on.

None of the planes in this demo should be capable of pulling high AOA, especially the MiG-21 and VJ-101. They stall their wings very dramatically with minimal AOA and at low speeds you have the pitch authority to do it quite easily. The best way to fly the interceptors (MiG-21 especially) is to keep them fast. Dropping speed <400 knots is asking for trouble, and <300 you are basically a sitting duck. That is not the regime those planes are optimized for. At high speeds though, they are stable, much more responsive, and generally turn better. The handling characteristics you're describing are typical of 2nd and 3rd generation fighters, as they tended to be built around high speed intercept rather than dogfighting.

The mouse controls will try their best to keep this under control and limit input. They generally do a good job (you should have seen what it was like before), but it's a very hard thing to automate. There is a whole field of engineering around solving problems like this. It's unfortunate the F-20 never got its flight model updated because I think the F-20 would be more in line with what people think fighter jets should behave like. It's a much more modern jet with a very powerful engine (the Jaguar in particular is very under-powered by comparison), and wings designed for high angles of attack. It would have been a very forgiving airframe, and very snappy.

I've been paying close attention to the feedback both demos have gotten. Posts like yours that are well reasoned and critical are important. I like to make sure to recognize them and let their writers know that it's appreciated, as they are the most helpful to the game's development.

Going forwards, I think many people will find the Harrier a comfortable compromise between the two flight models. While it uses a slightly more complex version of the flight model from this demo, its design necessitates a very high thrust to weight ratio and a high lift wing. While it's not the most nimble thing in the world, it is a very easy and forgiving plane to fly, with ample thrust to get you out of sticky situations. However if you push it too far, and it takes some effort, its supercritical wing will stall sharply and often asymmetrically. I'm looking forward to hearing yours and others feedback on the Harrier when the next demo comes around! 

Both the MiG and VJ hate turning in the way that they would. They're designed as fast interceptors with tiny wings. The Jaguar is a much more forgiving plane. This is good feedback though, thank you.

The real game will have rebindable controls.

I think some kind of tutorial is a must for the final game. Generally, you share a lot of the thoughts I have on the subject. Especially with all the recent attention the game is getting, and especially because most of it is from people who think this game is just War Thunder with meme graphics, I'm wary of backlash it will undoubtedly receive from people who don't get what they're expecting, no matter how much I try to tell them what the game actually is. The next demo is going to be an eventful one.

You need to extract the whole folder from the zip file first.

This is great feedback. Thanks for writing!

You can already use the itch.io launcher, and eventually it'll be on Steam.

Already taken care of if you check out the new flight model demo. The physics in Arena were always meant to be placeholder.

Everything I can find points to it being a false positive. I notice that it detects a different "virus" too depending on if I build in 32 bit or 64 bit. It seems like a heuristic anti-virus found something in the Unity build that kind of looks like a virus, but not necessarily is.

Very strange. I'll look into this. I'm inclined to say it's a false positive, as I just tested a bunch of other random Unity games and most of them turned up with 1-2 virus scanners showing something.

Thank you for the feedback! I'm happy to see there are others out there looking for the same thing I am.