What's new:

• An early overworld with the five different missions is now implemented instead of the bar menu. Missions stats are recorded and now displayed on the overworld.
• New mission featuring three new types of enemies - command centers, mortar carriers, and transport helicopters which bring reinforcements.
• Sound effects in levels now use 3D sound positioning, so an explosion on the right side of the screen will sound like it's coming from your right instead of both directions at once.
• Implemented early hangar to select different weapons systems.
• JSON saving and loading system now implemented.
• Ranks are now calculated on the amount of hits taken and time it took to finish the level, no longer always returning A+.
• Three new weapons - Vulcan, smartgun, and unguided rockets.
• Two new types of grenades - high explosive / incendiary and thermal smoke. Enemies show glowing silhouettes when inside thermal smoke clouds.

Miscellaneous additions:

• Buildings now darken from the bottom up when hit by missiles and burn slowly when hit with flames.
• Camera movement now lerps around the edges of level map depending on cursor movement.
• A dropship now carries the player into mission two and five.
• Guided missiles display a square reticule around the area where they scan for enemies to lock onto when holding the right mouse button.
• Tanks have a random chance of having their ammunition cook off when hit by bullets.
• Audio settings are now saved with an .INI file.
• Autocannon weapon has new sound effects.
• Missiles now sequence launch upon multiple lock-ons instead of firing all at the same time. Additionally they use a larger proximity check for detonating when not locked on (26 pixels now instead of 10)
• Enemies now use d3d_set_fog to draw their white flash upon being hit or in smoke clouds instead of a shader, more optimized.
• Enemy gunships show visible smoke and fire when nearly dead.
• Armor/repair kits are now implemented on the fifth mission.
• All pickups now pop out of buildings when pushed into them. Eventually I'll come up with a fix so they can't phase through objects at all, but for now this is an acceptable solution.
• Game now has a favicon instead of the default Game Maker icon. Quick and dirty and will be replaced with a better one in the future.
• Option to disable pilot window added to settings, plus a general cooldown system to prevent them from being spammed.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed player getting stuck to foliage when colliding at weird speeds, also increased accuracy of hitbox now.
• Fixed gunship in first mission randomly spawning in center of level instead of edges.
• Fixed shipping container shadows and collisions with bullets when aiming at flying targets.

Other:

I've been looking around recently for some assistance with level music and programming shaders. If you'd like to support the project, I've added an option to donate a dollar on the page, but please don't feel any obligation to do so if you don't want to. This demo is still 100% free and will remain that way.