# Ravenfield EA30 - Driving & Piloting update

- Product: Ravenfield (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/ravenfield)
- Vendor: SteelRaven7
- Date: 2024-10-30
- Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/636480/view/4449086597642584090
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/ravenfield/releases/2024-10-30-ea30-driving-piloting-update

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- **added** — AI drivers can now detect and swerve around nearby vehicles to avoid collisions
- **changed** — Transport helicopter AI can now ferry multiple squads to their destination and pick up other squads on the battlefield
- **added** — Added official killfeed mutator
- **added** — Added official team color mutator
- **added** — Added new helicopter landing zone system which generates possible landing zones across the entire map
- **added** — Added ImpactOnly option to blood particle settings that shows only the actor hit particle effect without spawning blood droplets
- **changed** — All built in game mode UIs are now color coded based on current team colors
- **fixed** — Fixed a bug where skins would not be applied correctly to player FP models
- **fixed** — Fixed a bug where car downforce would apply an upwards force while reversing
- **changed** — Tweaked AI helicopter approach while landing so the helicopter approaches slightly off to one side for more natural looking landings
- **changed** — While landing or landed on a helicopter landing zone, the landing zone is claimed by the squad, preventing other helicopters from also attempting landing at the same spot
- **fixed** — Fixed a bug where explosion ranges were miscategorized by the game, causing AI to not use explosive weapons due to incorrect friendly fire concerns
- **added** — Added TextMeshPro components to whitelist
- **added** — Added VehicleAvoidanceObject component that AI will swerve around while it is active
- **added** — Added Helicopter Land At Attack Target prefab to make transport helicopters land when dropping off passengers instead of using parachutes
- **changed** — Moved HMG weapon to a new Support weapon tag
- **added** — Exposed LayoutRebuilder, Actor.ForceChangeStance(), GameManager.isNightMode, HelicopterLandingZone querying and landing systems, and other Ravenscript APIs
- **added** — Added Player.movementInputEnabled flag and event handlers for UI elements and destructibles
- **added** — Added BuiltInFeatures class to toggle features such as blood droplets
- **added** — Added trigger components for UI button clicks, stance changes, night condition checks, and key presses

EA30 is a general game improvement update that solves some of the oldest issues with AI vehicle usage in the game, and getting the AI closer to being ready for the game's 1.0 release. The main focus of this update has been to fix two problematic AI behaviours:
- AI drivers crashing their cars into other vehicles
- AI transport helicopter pilots just hovering over an objective while it is being captured

One of the recurring issues with Ravenfield's gameplay has been the AI's inability to see other vehicles while driving, which would usually result in vehicle pileups at level chokepoints. EA30 adds local avoidance for AI drivers, allowing them to detect and swerve around nearby vehicles. This new system detects potential collisions, and finds the closest path to drive past the vehicle. While this doesn't solve all the pileup issues, it is a massive improvement from before.

The other issue is more straightforward: Having AI helicopter pilots just hover above a flag while it is being captured makes them sitting ducks for anti air weapons, and is just not a very fun behaviour. To solve this, bots will now land by other squads that are travelling on foot and pick them up, ferrying them to their destination. This new behaviour makes for some interesting new tactics on Dustbowl and Archipelago!

Along with these two system improvements, there are plenty of new systems for modders to play around with, including controlling changing team names/colors, more control over AI movement and the ability to disable built in game features such as hit impacts/blood droplets in order to replace them with modded systems!

**Full change log**

Game improvements:
- AI drivers will now swerve to avoid hitting other cars/boats/landed aircraft, this should result in vehicles being stuck way less.
- Transport helicopter AI can now ferry multiple squads to their destination. After dropping off passengers, transport helicopters may pick up other squads on the battlefield and drop them at their current attack target.
- Added official killfeed mutator
- Added official team color mutator
- Added new helicopter landing zone system which generates possible landing zones across the entire map
- Added ImpactOnly option to blood particle settings in options menu. This option will only show the actor hit particle effect without spawning blood droplets. Setting this option to off will now turn off both particle effects and blood droplets.
- All built in game mode UIs are now color coded based on current team colors.
- Fixed a bug where skins would not be applied correctly to player FP models
- Fixed a bug where car downforce would apply an upwards force while reversing (Oops!)
- Tweaked AI helicopter approach while landing so the helicopter approach slightly off to one side. This makes for a more natural looking landing.
- While landing/landed on a helicopter landing zone, the landing zone is claimed by the squad, preventing other helicopters from also attempting landing at the same spot.
- Fixed a bug where explosion ranges were miscategorized by the game. This resulted in the AI erroneously not using explosive weapons as they thought they would damage nearby teammates.

Modding improvements:
- Added TextMeshPro components to whitelist
- Added VehicleAvoidanceObject component. AI will swerve around this object while it is active, which can be useful for dynamically spawned objects with colliders.
- Added "Helicopter Land At Attack Target" prefab to RFTools/Prefabs/Ravenscript - place this prefab as a child object to your transport helicopter to make it land when dropping of passengers (instead of them dropping by parachute).
- Moved HMG weapon to a new Support weapon tag, so this is the new go-to tag for putting custom machine-gun style weapons.

Ravenscript:
- Exposed LayoutRebuilder that can be used to force rebuild UI layout group.
- Exposed Actor.ForceChangeStance()
- Exposed GameManager.isNightMode
- Exposed HelicopterLandingZone querying, claiming and landi

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/636480/view/4449086597642584090]_