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Laminar Releases Version 10.04 Beta 1



Laminar Research has released a new version of X-Plane 10, so get those updaters going! The list of fixes/additions includes:

ATC:
  • AI Aircraft now climb/hold altitude better dramatically reducing the frequency of hearing ATC yell at them.
  • Protect against aircraft doing something WAY out of bounds like departing instead of taxiing or holding short.
  • Stability improvements
  • Step descents dramatically improved
  • ATC should now tell the user what approach they're setting them up for
  • ATC "Radio" box text color tweak
  • Fixed AI aircraft names
Lots of tuning and tweaking to make everything just right here in this release:
  • Plane should be able to hold still quite a bit better during runup, and not slowly drift with the brakes on!
  • Manifold pressure model is now improved to be more like real planes.
  • French and Spanish translation improvements to make the menus a hair more accurate in those languages.
  • Better vertical resolution of the NMEA strings for newer (real) moving maps that plot vertical paths as well.
  • More resolution in the FDR replays, so even little RC drones with small movements can have their paths recorded perfectly.
  • Cylindrical projection should be able to handle changing the screen-res on the fly with no problem now.
  • Better metar parsing: X-Plane should not be confused over various comments in the metars about the wind.
  • As well ATIS should report the visiblity accuratley in all cases. Earlier versions did not report the very low-vis cases correctly.
  • And, an option to re-scan real-weather to go along with re-download.
  • The heat-blurr rendering effect is now offset by the exhaust offset specified in Plane-Maker, which is useful.
  • As well, the heat blurr now draws for ALL planes, not just the one you are flying.
  • As well, you can specify the exhsust offset PER ENGINE!
  • Proper cloud textures used even if you have both cumulus and cirrus layers at the same time.
  • The yaw-string is visible for the gliders and helos.
  • A-I airplanes should be a bit more robust, really adding power if needed to get out of ditches or up hills, and not having systems break, rendering the plane stopped or otherwise motionless.
  • TCAS system should only call out guys with their transponder on...and the AI should only turn on their transponder for flight, not taxi! This is getting down to a pretty crazy level of realism, here.
  • New failure: brown-out! In the upper right of the first page of failures.
A pretty nice failure for helos, added for use in real military training now!
Aircraft and Attached Objects:
  • Aircraft can now have any number of attached objects; the interface is revamped to show this.
  • Attached objects now have per object control over LOD, shadowing, and pre-fill. These options let you tune your plane for maximum performance. Click the "More Info" button in the Plane-Maker screen to view a description of what the settings do and how they should be used.
  • The 747 and CirrusJet now have some of the pre-fill and shadow options set to improve 3-d cockpit framerates; we'll work through the other planes during beta.
  • Wing flex for v9 planes now defaults to off; this prevents graphic errors when the attached parts aren't authored to flex with the wings.
  • Plane-Maker taxi lights don't shine into the interior of the P-180.
  • Fixed culling and drawing of OBJ-based weapons in the sim and Plane-Maker
Other random stuff:
  • The fps test is fixed to not sit in the joystick calibration screen.
  • New smoke puff artwork