Bug Fixes & Additions

Air Defender Changelog - Version 0.6.9.94 - May 2026

A large bundle of fixes covering campaign endings, the end-of-game summary and soundtrack, the identification procedure on Hard difficulty, Russian deception, stuck aircraft, AWACS and interceptor reliability, civilian traffic during airspace closure, and a long tail of quality-of-life issues.

Campaign End & Summary Screen

• Critical Campaign Won't End After The First Wave: Clearing the opening wave no longer ends a Critical campaign early — victory waits until the full assault has been spent.

• "All Threats Cleared" Fires At The Right Time: The all-clear message now waits until every enemy has left the map, every inbound bomb has detonated, and any queued waves have finished spawning.

• Airspace Stays Closed Until It's Really Empty: Airspace no longer reopens while escort fighters are still in the air — it waits for every enemy aircraft to clear, not just the bombers.

• Honest Victory Framing: The end-of-game summary now tells the truth about cost — "DEFENCE SUCCEEDED" only for clean wins, with "DEFENCE HELD — AT GREAT COST" or "NATION DEVASTATED — DEFENCE HELD" for higher-casualty outcomes.

• No More Duplicate Cities In The Summary: Cities hit more than once are listed once with a strike count, instead of repeating with the same casualty number on every row.

• Submarine Debug Panel Hidden During Armageddon: The launch debug panel no longer overlays the formal end-of-game screen.

Hard Difficulty Identification Procedure

• Procedure Bonus Now Awarded For Hostiles: Identifying a hostile aircraft (TU-95, spoofer, military) using the full 4-step procedure now correctly awards the procedure-followed bonus instead of unfairly penalising you. Hostile aircraft don't have a Mode 3 code, so ATC will reply "no Mode 3 code assigned" — that response now correctly counts as the ATC step.

• Procedure Guide Rewritten: The Help / Guide Procedures tab now spells out the full 5-step identification sequence in order, calls out the ATC hotkey explicitly, and explains the "no Mode 3 code assigned" response so you know what to expect.

Russian Deception

• True Speed On Disguised Aircraft: A Russian aircraft pretending to be a slow civilian type (e.g. a Su-27 disguised as a Robinson R44) now shows its true speed on the data block — the speed/registry mismatch is the gameplay clue.

• Cover Identity Consistency: When a Russian aircraft is masquerading as a civilian, ATC chatter and the radar tag now agree on the cover identity instead of contradicting each other.

• Hostile Type Revealed When EW Is Up: When the EW network reveals hostile aircraft during war declaration, the data tag now shows the bomber type (TU-22M, TU-95, SU-24, MiG-31) as expected. Russian spoofers continue to have their type hidden by design.

Stuck Aircraft

• Bombers Egress After Strike: Enemy bombers now egress outbound after their strike run instead of getting stuck circling over the target.

• Civilians Can Be Shot Down: Enemy missiles that hit civilian aircraft now correctly destroy them, with the civilian-shoot-down penalty applied as expected.

Interceptors, AWACS & Tankers

• AWACS Match QRA Scramble Cadence: AWACS now wait 4 minutes for simulated taxi before the takeoff roll instead of launching instantly.

• Waddington Takeoffs No Longer Stuck: Departures no longer get stuck on "Queued for takeoff" after an AWACS or Nimrod has launched and returned — the takeoff queue now self-recovers.

• Realistic Cruise For Redeploys: Redeploying interceptors between bases now defaults to cruise speed instead of full afterburner. You can still hit BUSTER mid-flight if you want them home faster.

• 4-Ship Intercept Sanity Check: Launching a 4-ship intercept now checks the secondary target before launch — if no second target is reachable, all four go after the primary instead of two circling the airfield.

• AddedDiverted Fighter Comms WorkRetasking an airborne fighter to a new target now properly hands it onto the new target's radio channel, so visual ID, challenge, and escalation calls play through.

• Staggered Tanker Takeoffs: Tasking several tankers from the same base now spaces them by about 25 seconds instead of all rolling at once.

• Sea Harrier Loadout: Sea Harrier FA.2s out of RNAS Yeovilton now carry a realistic 1998 CAP loadout (2 AMRAAM, 4 AIM-9L).

Civilian Traffic During Airspace Closure

• Civilians Land Cleanly After Diversion: Diverted civilian aircraft now descend all the way to the runway instead of vanishing mid-descent.

• No New GA Departures During Closure: General-aviation aircraft are blocked from taking off the moment airspace closes.

Compliance & Tracks

• Compliers Egress Cleanly: Russian aircraft that have complied with show of force and headed home no longer freeze on the radar at 0 knots.

• Multi-Sensor Track Survival: Switching off a single radar no longer makes hostile or suspect tracks flash and disappear when AWACS or another ground radar is still tracking them.

• No Track Number Reuse: When a hostile or suspect track disappears under unusual conditions, the next aircraft to spawn no longer reuses its track number.

Quality Of Life & Stability

• Save File Integrity: Save files with damaged or tampered data are refused cleanly at load.

• Settings Panels Scroll Properly: The keyboard bindings list and the Hercules/Chinook supply window now scroll cleanly so action buttons stay reachable on small windows.

• Button Rapid-Click Protection: Action buttons no longer trigger twice when clicked quickly.

• Steadier FPS On Busy Scenes: Frame rate is more consistent when many aircraft are active.