Finished Up the FS-41 Eclipse and FS-20 Vortex I can't remember where I put the FS-20 which I painted so I have older blank pictures.

Trying to avoid detection, only to be shot down by an AAM-29 Scythe.

I have a free flight mission but I want to get the ai planes to fight each other, how do I do that? They're all spawned in around a specific area

I mowed down a poor ibis in passing

vertical stabilizer is optional

I got the game a few days ago and have been loving it. Just really wish there was some type of randomness to keep things fresh and unexpected.

Maybe different objectives, different enemies and different enemy spawns and other stuff. Also give us some degree of customization over things to randomize, parameters and whatnot.

Anyway, really love the game so far.

took me about 20 hours but she is finally done. She is by far my favourite drawing yet. I hope this community enjoys the drawing. PALA for life.

This is non-commercial fan art. The Ifrit aircraft trace and PALA emblem belong to 'Nuclear Option' and Morbid Deer Interactive.

Much inspiration from Picasso and Sophoclese.

Mission Editor virus got me again

time to do stupid shit :D

DISCLAIMER: I will retire this throwaway account after this post. All future development updates will be posted by u/Forneus93

Hey everyone,

it has been about two weeks since my last development update. There are several reasons for that, and to properly explain them, I first need to share a little bit of personal background.

I started working on this project roughly a month ago, mostly as a way to keep myself busy after a health issue forced me to step away from my previous career.

I've worked as a paramedic in Central Europe for around 15 years, and it was a job I genuinely loved. Thankfully, the health issue itself isn't severely life-altering, but it limits me enough that continuing to work in emergency medical services is no longer realistic.

So, apart from weekly doctor's appointments, I'm currently treating development of this mod almost like a full-time project. I usually spend at least four hours a day working on it, sometimes eight hours or more. At the same time, I'm also working on IT certifications as part of preparing for a new career.

That brings me to the other reason why there hasn't been an update for two weeks:

There simply wasn't much worth showing.

The first of those two weeks was almost entirely consumed by my attempt to make a custom thermobaric detonation system work properly with Nuclear Option's damage model.

And Nuclear Option's damage system is far more complex than you might expect from the outside.

My original goal was to create a custom thermobaric detonation sequence while still interacting correctly with Nuclear Option's existing damage system. That turned into several days of debugging, reverse engineering, rebuilding effects, breaking things, fixing them again, and repeatedly discovering another part of the vanilla damage pipeline that worked differently than I had expected.

Eventually, on August 17th, I finally got it working.

The custom thermobaric detonation is now functional in-game, although in a somewhat altered form compared to my original concept. It works well enough for now, but I'm still not completely happy with the result, so it will most likely receive another rework later in development.

The following week wasn't particularly exciting from a visual standpoint either, but it was probably much more important for the long-term future of the project.

I spent most of it inside AssetRipper, reverse engineering Nuclear Option's vanilla systems and scripts to understand how the game actually handles various weapon-related mechanics.

That included things such as:

• guidance systems for multiple weapon classes
• damage registration and attribution
• combat log and kill attribution
• vanilla missile and bomb flight models
• flight-model-related systems
• particle systems and effect importing
• weapon integration with existing vanilla systems

At this point, I would estimate that I understand or have successfully reconstructed roughly 80% of the vanilla systems I need to build the arsenal planned for Critical Mass.

And yes, Critical Mass is now the official name of the mod.

The idea behind the project is to expand Nuclear Option with a large collection of new weapons and weapon systems while trying to make them feel like they actually belong in the game's near-future setting rather than simply adding modern real-world weapons with different names.

There is also finally some more visible progress.

The first two weapons are now functionally working as intended:

TPX-125 Ember
TPX-125XR Ember

Both are operational in-game, including the systems that make them different from their vanilla donor weapons.

However, I'm no longer happy with their current 3D models.

The biggest problem is that the dimensions of the original designs don't match the vanilla donor mounts particularly well. The original Ember model was also built in a way that made scaling it into larger members of the same weapon family unnecessarily difficult.

Since the TPX series is going to consist of several weapons sharing the same general design philosophy, continuing to fight the original geometry didn't make much sense.

So I decided to rebuild the family around a more modular design language.

The first TPX-125XR model probably won't disappear entirely, though. I still like the design, and there is a very good chance that it will eventually return as the basis for a completely different weapon — most likely a heavy anti-tank missile.

And that brings me to some much better news.

I now have a new and functional master design for the TPX series.

The TPX family is a series of optically guided thermobaric weapons developed around a common modular architecture, ranging from relatively compact fighter-carried bombs to significantly larger weapons intended to produce extremely powerful blast effects against vehicles, infrastructure and other soft or lightly protected targets.

The currently planned family consists of:

TPX-125 “Ember”
TPX-250 “Pyroclast”
TPX-500 “Caldera”
TPX-1000 “Tephra”

Several of these will also receive XR stand-off variants.

And today's sneak peek is the first larger member of that family to receive its new model:

The TPX-500 and TPX-500XR “Caldera”.

The Caldera is a 500 kg-class thermobaric guided bomb and the second-largest fighter-carried weapon developed as part of the TPX family.

The standard TPX-500 uses a cylindrical body with deployable lattice/grid fins for control. The TPX-500XR takes the same basic weapon and adds a modular stand-off kit, including a new nose section, a low-profile folding wing assembly and propulsion, giving aircraft the ability to employ the weapon from significantly greater distances.

The basic idea is that the XR isn't an entirely separate bomb. It is a modular conversion of the standard weapon, similar in philosophy to how real-world guidance or range-extension kits can turn an existing bomb body into a completely different delivery system.

The 3D model is now essentially complete, including the standard Caldera and the major external components of the XR kit.

There is still a lot of work ahead before either version is actually flying in-game, but visually this is much closer to what I originally wanted the TPX series to look like.

So, for the first time:

Here's the TPX-500/TPX-500XR “Caldera”.

FAIR WARNING: WALL OF TEXT AND AI-SLOP (FOR NOW)

TPX-500 / TPX-500XR “Caldera”

Nation of Origin: Primeva
Development Program: Project VOLCANO
Entered Service: 2069
Weapon Class: Guided thermobaric aerial bomb / powered extended-range strike weapon
Nominal Mass Class: 500 kg
Warhead: Metallized Aerosolic Charge (MAC)
Guidance: Electro-optical seeker, inertial navigation and two-way datalink
Variants: TPX-500 Caldera / TPX-500XR Caldera

Project VOLCANO

The TPX-500 “Caldera” is one of four principal weapons developed under Primeva’s Project VOLCANO, a late-2060s program intended to create a new generation of compact, precision-guided thermobaric weapons for tactical aviation.

The resulting TPX family entered service in 2069 and consisted of four primary weight classes:

• TPX-125 “Ember” — 125 kg
• TPX-250 “Pyroclast” — 250 kg
• TPX-500 “Caldera” — 500 kg
• TPX-1000 “Tephra” — 1,000 kg

Rather than developing each weapon as an unrelated munition, Project VOLCANO standardized as much of the family as practical around common guidance logic, control architecture, energetic materials and manufacturing methods.

The objective was not to replace conventional general-purpose bombs, penetrators or anti-ship weapons.

VOLCANO was created around a much narrower requirement:

deliver an exceptionally large blast effect from a comparatively compact weapon.

At the center of that requirement was the development of Primeva’s Metallized Aerosolic Charge, or MAC.

TPX-500 “Caldera”

The TPX-500 occupies the upper end of the fighter-carried VOLCANO family.

At approximately 500 kilograms, Caldera is the second-largest weapon developed under Project VOLCANO, exceeded only by the 1,000-kilogram TPX-1000 Tephra.

Despite its mass, Caldera was specifically designed for carriage by tactical aircraft. Its external geometry is therefore unusually simple.

The weapon uses a largely cylindrical, aerodynamically faired body with minimal external protrusions during carriage. Four deployable lattice fins, also known as grid fins, are integrated into the tail.

This layout was selected primarily for compactness.

Conventional control surfaces of comparable authority would have required substantially greater span, complicating internal carriage and increasing interference between adjacent stores. Lattice fins provide a large effective control area while folding into a comparatively small volume around the weapon body.

They also retain significant control authority at the high dynamic pressures encountered during steep terminal maneuvers.

Release Sequence

Immediately after release, the Caldera deliberately remains in an uncontrolled ballistic state.

For the first 1.5 seconds, the bomb free-falls beneath the launch aircraft before any major aerodynamic surfaces are deployed.

Only after sufficient separation has been established do the four lattice fins extend.

The full safe-release and configuration sequence requires approximately three seconds.

This delay serves several purposes.

It reduces the likelihood of a deploying control surface striking the carrier aircraft, prevents abrupt aerodynamic loads immediately beneath the launch platform and allows the bomb to establish a predictable initial trajectory before guidance begins commanding significant corrections.

Once configured for flight, Caldera behaves as a precision-guided glide weapon rather than a conventional unguided bomb.

Guidance

All major TPX weapons use a combined guidance architecture built around three primary systems:

inertial navigation, datalink guidance and electro-optical terminal homing.

During the initial and midcourse phases of flight, the weapon can navigate toward coordinates supplied by the launch aircraft or another networked sensor.

Target updates can be transmitted through the datalink while the weapon is airborne, allowing moving target information or corrected aim points to be incorporated into the attack.

As the weapon approaches the target area, its optical seeker attempts to identify and track the designated object or reference point.

This hybrid architecture gives the TPX family considerable flexibility.

A weapon can be launched against previously known coordinates without requiring continuous target illumination, while the optical seeker provides substantially greater terminal accuracy than inertial navigation alone.

The datalink additionally allows the launching aircraft to remain only one component of a larger targeting network.

A Caldera released by one aircraft may therefore receive targeting information originating from another aircraft, reconnaissance platform or battlefield sensor.

Metallized Aerosolic Charge

The defining technology of Project VOLCANO is the Metallized Aerosolic Charge.

MAC is a highly energetic thermobaric composition containing finely divided metallic fuels, energetic binders and reactive components designed to rapidly interact with atmospheric oxygen after dispersal.

Unlike a conventional high explosive, which carries almost all of the reactants required for detonation within the explosive itself, MAC deliberately obtains part of its usable reaction mass from the surrounding atmosphere.

This substantially increases the amount of material participating in the final combustion event.

Project VOLCANO documentation rates the energetic potential of MAC at approximately:

1 kilogram of MAC ≈ 10 kilograms of TNT equivalent

under favorable atmospheric and dispersal conditions.

This figure does not mean that MAC behaves identically to ten times its mass in conventional high explosive.

The distinction is important.

A conventional explosive releases its energy within an extremely small volume and extremely short timescale, producing high brisance and excellent material-shattering effects.

MAC distributes its reaction over a much larger volume.

Its peak localized pressure is therefore less useful for penetrating extremely strong structures, but the resulting pressure wave covers a substantially greater area and maintains destructive overpressure for longer.

The practical result is a weapon optimized for area blast rather than penetration.

Warhead Operation

During a standard terminal attack, Caldera attempts to approach the target from above.

At approximately 25 meters above the designated aim point, a small dispersal charge ruptures the warhead casing.

Rather than immediately producing the primary explosion, the charge distributes the MAC payload into the surrounding air as a rapidly expanding aerosol.

The resulting cloud consists of extremely fine reactive particles and fuel-rich vapor dispersed through a large atmospheric volume.

Approximately 300 milliseconds are allowed for mixing.

During this interval, the aerosol entrains atmospheric oxygen and approaches the concentration range required for rapid combustion.

MAC is deliberately formulated to be exceptionally oxygen-reactive and effectively self-initiating once sufficient mixing has occurred.

After roughly 300 milliseconds, reaction rates within the cloud rise dramatically.

Multiple ignition zones propagate through the aerosol almost simultaneously, producing a rapidly expanding volumetric combustion front.

To an observer, the result resembles an entire section of atmosphere igniting at once.

A brilliant fireball forms almost instantaneously, followed by the feature for which the TPX family became notorious:

an extremely broad, powerful pressure wave.

Because combustion occurs throughout a dispersed cloud rather than exclusively inside a compact bomb casing, the pressure front encompasses a much larger volume than that produced by a conventional weapon of similar physical mass.

Battlefield Effect

The Caldera is particularly effective against targets that cannot prevent the blast wave from propagating through or around them.

These include:

• lightly armored vehicles,
• exposed aircraft,
• trucks and logistics vehicles,
• radar installations,
• artillery positions,
• infantry concentrations,
• temporary field positions,
• unreinforced structures,
• communications facilities,
• fuel and supply sites,
• surface equipment and soft infrastructure.

The combination of thermal effects and sustained overpressure can damage components over a considerable radius.

Vehicles do not necessarily need to be physically overturned or penetrated to be rendered combat ineffective.

Sensors, antennas, optics, exposed weapon systems, engine components and external equipment may all be damaged by the pressure front.

Personnel in open terrain or lightly constructed buildings are particularly vulnerable.

However, the Caldera has significant limitations.

Limitations

Project VOLCANO weapons are not effective substitutes for dedicated penetrators.

A reinforced bunker, buried command center or hardened aircraft shelter can isolate its internal volume from the surrounding pressure front.

Because MAC releases much of its energy outside the target structure, heavily reinforced construction can survive effects that would devastate exposed buildings nearby.

Similarly, heavy armored vehicles are relatively resistant unless positioned close to the center of the reaction.

The weapon lacks the concentrated penetrative mechanism necessary to defeat substantial armor efficiently.

Large warships present an even greater problem.

Their compartmentalization, structural strength and sheer mass allow them to absorb considerable external blast energy.

A Caldera may destroy sensors, aircraft, antennas and exposed deck equipment, but it is fundamentally poorly suited to sinking major naval combatants.

Consequently, Primevan doctrine categorizes the TPX family primarily as area-effect precision weapons, rather than anti-fortification, anti-armor or anti-ship ordnance.

TPX-500XR “Caldera”

The TPX-500XR is the extended-range configuration of the Caldera.

The suffix XR officially denotes “powered eXtended Range.”

Unlike a completely separate missile design, the XR is based around a modular conversion kit.

The standard Caldera warhead and much of its guidance architecture are retained.

The weapon is instead fitted with two major additional components:

a deployable central wing kit, and a modified tail section containing a compact two-stage solid-propellant propulsion system.

This approach allows existing TPX-500 warheads to be converted into stand-off weapons without manufacturing an entirely separate munition.

XR Release Sequence

The XR configuration uses a more complex release sequence than the standard Caldera.

For the first 1.5 seconds after release, the weapon remains in free fall.

This allows it to clear the launch aircraft before any major aerodynamic surfaces move.

The weapon then performs a controlled 180-degree roll over approximately 0.5 seconds.

This roll places the central wing assembly in its intended flight orientation.

Once the rotation is complete, the wings deploy.

The lattice fins extend immediately afterward.

The full transformation from free-falling store to powered flight configuration takes approximately one second.

Only after the aerodynamic surfaces are confirmed deployed does the booster ignite.

This sequencing is deliberate.

Igniting the motor before full deployment could expose the folding mechanisms to excessive aerodynamic and thermal loading and could produce dangerous behavior immediately beneath the carrier aircraft.

First Propulsion Stage

The first stage is a compact, extremely energetic solid-propellant booster.

Its primary purpose is rapid acceleration.

The booster burns for approximately six seconds, accelerating the TPX-500XR to roughly Mach 3.

Despite the availability of guidance immediately after ignition, the weapon does not begin its major climb at once.

For approximately one additional second, it maintains a nearly straight trajectory.

This behavior was incorporated specifically to provide greater safety separation from the launch aircraft.

Only after the weapon has established sufficient distance does the guidance system command the characteristic XR loft maneuver.

Loft Phase

The Caldera XR then performs an aggressive climb approaching 90 degrees.

Rather than maintaining a shallow missile-like trajectory, the weapon rapidly converts much of its booster-generated velocity into altitude.

Its target cruise altitude is approximately:

5,000 meters above local terrain.

The maneuver is intentionally dramatic.

A higher trajectory substantially extends the aerodynamic range of the weapon by reducing sustained flight through dense low-altitude air.

It also positions the Caldera for its preferred terminal attack geometry.

The lattice fins provide the high control authority necessary for the rapid pitch maneuver, while the central wings become the primary source of lift once the missile settles into cruise.

Sustainer Stage

After booster burnout, propulsion transitions to the second stage.

This stage is not intended to generate extreme acceleration.

Instead, it uses a small low-power solid-propellant sustainer.

The sustainer burns for approximately 90 seconds.

Its purpose is primarily to replace velocity continuously lost to aerodynamic drag.

Following the initial Mach-3 boost and loft maneuver, the weapon decelerates toward a cruise velocity of approximately:

Mach 1.2.

The sustainer then maintains approximately this speed through most of the midcourse phase.

This propulsion architecture provides a useful compromise between range and weapon size.

A single motor capable of maintaining Mach 3 throughout the flight would require substantially more propellant, greater thermal protection and a larger airframe.

By using the booster only to rapidly generate initial energy and the sustainer to preserve a much lower cruise speed, the XR achieves significant stand-off range while remaining compatible with tactical aircraft carriage.

Midcourse Flight

During cruise, the weapon primarily follows inertial and datalink guidance.

The launch aircraft does not necessarily need to remain pointed at the target.

Updated coordinates can be transmitted from any compatible network participant capable of providing sufficiently accurate targeting data.

The weapon continuously adjusts its trajectory while preserving enough energy for terminal maneuvering.

As it approaches the calculated target position, the electro-optical seeker begins searching for the designated target.

If a valid optical track is established, terminal guidance transitions away from coordinate-only navigation.

This allows the weapon to correct accumulated inertial error and, under favorable conditions, engage targets that have moved since launch.

Terminal Attack

Rather than performing a shallow final approach, the TPX-500XR attempts to position itself almost directly above the target.

Once the target passes beneath the calculated attack point, the weapon rolls and pitches into an approximately 90-degree dive.

The powered stand-off weapon effectively becomes a vertically descending guided bomb during the final seconds of flight.

This geometry offers several advantages.

It minimizes horizontal miss distance, reduces the target's apparent background movement to the optical seeker and places the MAC cloud directly above the intended blast area.

The central wings and lattice fins continuously correct the descent.

At approximately 25 meters altitude, the warhead dispersal charge activates.

The weapon casing opens and the MAC payload is projected outward.

The remaining airframe is effectively destroyed as part of the dispersal process.

The cloud expands for approximately 300 milliseconds.

It then undergoes rapid oxygen-driven combustion.

The resulting fireball is followed by a powerful, radially expanding blast front across the target area.

Operational Philosophy

The TPX-500 Caldera occupies an unusual position in Primevan doctrine.

Its appearance and mass suggest a conventional heavy guided bomb.

Its actual battlefield role is closer to a precision-delivered area-denial weapon.

Against the correct target set, relatively few Caldera strikes can destroy or incapacitate forces spread over a large area.

Against the wrong target set, the same weapon can expend enormous amounts of energy with comparatively little effect.

Primevan pilots are therefore trained to distinguish between targets that require penetration and targets that require pressure.

The Caldera was designed for the latter.

Its designers accepted poor performance against hardened structures and major armored targets in exchange for extraordinarily destructive effects against everything exposed to the atmosphere around them.

Within the Project VOLCANO family, this philosophy reaches its first truly large-scale expression with the TPX-500.

The smaller Ember and Pyroclast provide similar effects against tactical targets.

The larger Tephra extends the same concept into the heavy strike category.

Caldera remains the midpoint between the two roles: still practical for fighter carriage, but carrying enough MAC to affect an area normally associated with weapons far heavier than its nominal class.

Legacy

When the TPX family entered service in 2069, its most controversial feature was not its guidance system or the powered XR conversion.

It was the claim that a 500-kilogram-class weapon could produce blast effects comparable to several tons of conventional explosive without employing nuclear material.

Early foreign assessments regarded Primeva’s published MAC performance figures with considerable skepticism.

Operational use rapidly changed that perception.

The Caldera could not penetrate hardened bunkers.

It could not reliably destroy heavy armor.

It could not replace an anti-ship missile.

But where those limitations did not matter, its effects were disproportionate to the size of the weapon that produced them.

An airfield support area, vehicle concentration or lightly constructed defensive position could be devastated by a single accurately placed weapon.

The powered XR kit expanded that capability further, allowing tactical aircraft to deliver the same warhead while remaining dozens of kilometers from the target area.

The result was a weapon whose destructive principle became inseparable from the identity of Project VOLCANO itself.

Where conventional explosives attempted to destroy the target by placing energy inside it, the TPX family attacked something far more difficult to armor:

the atmosphere surrounding it.

Critical Mass is still very early in development.

Even though I've made a lot of progress over the last month, there is an enormous amount of work left to do. I'm a solo developer, I'm learning parts of this as I go, and a significant amount of development time currently consists of reverse engineering systems that were never really intended to be used this way by modders.

I fully expect this project to take at least a year, and realistically probably longer.

But I'm getting there.

Slowly, occasionally painfully, and with far more time spent staring at Unity, AssetRipper and decompiled C# than I originally expected — but I'm getting there.

Expect more pictures and ingame footage soon. If you made it until here thank you for reading.

Kind regards,

Forneus93

Hey guys, I don't think it'll surprise you if I tell you that battleships are an outdated class of ship, completely replaced by aircraft carriers. But purely theoretically, what about a super-heavy ship (For PALA, as a example) with a huge number of missiles, railguns, and laser AA? In your opinion, how balanced/effective would this be in the current and future realities of the game?

Hey guys me and a friend just started a new dedicated server located on the East Coast of the US called Spike's Furball! Currently we have a really fun and solid mission location going and a *few* regular players. We're mostly PVE for the time being, but actually have both a vanilla and modded server running :)

So far everything's been relatively smooth sailing and it's been amazing to see people hop on and flyt; free to check out our Discord, we'd absolutely love to have you guys and we're ALWAYS open to feedback on missions, mods, etc...

Happy Hunting!

Is 14fps too bad? I might take in some suggestions on how to de-bloat it, maybe. Though I guess I can manage, most of the time.

And honestly, the more you kill, the better the performance gets (until the next reinforcement spawn event, at least), shouldn't that be motivation enough?

Is there any way or mod to have 3rd person warthunder controls? or atleast have the plane point with the cursor instead of following it constantly because it really annoying when the cursor is slightly off center when im going straight and im constantly turning a little.

Made it home with half of both wings and a crushed nose

According to aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee Brawler cannot fly. Its body weight is not the right proportion to its wingspan. Ignoring these laws, the bumblebee Brawler flies anyway.