Open Beta Progress For February 6

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Blog article by Jason Rosewell

Open Beta Progress for February 6

The latest round of Open Beta builds continue our focus on stability, visual fidelity, and system reliability. While there are no headline aircraft announcements in this update, there are several meaningful improvements that affect day-to-day flying.

This cycle centered on three areas: shadow rendering, propeller visuals, and autopilot/ATC reliability, along with a number of crash and stability fixes.

Read the full article →

Changelog

Improvements

  • Improved shadow rendering for smoother, less jagged shadows and reduced flicker.
  • Improved Center frequency tuning within FIR boundaries, including an “Outside of FIR” indicator when applicable.
  • Improved control responsiveness when frame rate is low.
  • Improved stability when loading aircraft models.
  • Server and performance improvements.

Fixes

Rendering

  • Fixed aircraft lights not rendering correctly through propellers.
  • Fixed rendering artifacts with transparent/alpha-blended materials against the atmosphere.
  • Fixed landing gear and other animations not always reaching their final position.
  • Fixed iOS frame not filling the entire screen.
  • Fixed long aircraft names being truncated incorrectly in the aircraft info screen.

ATC & Frequencies

  • Fixed missing Tower frequencies in Center handoff options.
  • Fixed radar frequency tuning issues.
  • Fixed unknown aircraft not appearing on the ATC map.
  • Fixed ATC aircraft details (callsign/username/grade) not showing when an aircraft type is unknown.
  • Fixed transmission indicator (amber flash) not showing correctly on the map/scope.
  • Fixed first pilot message sometimes missing from the ATC message log.

Navigation

  • Fixed LNAV turn handling on short legs and improved turn tracking smoothness at lower speeds.
  • Fixed drag-and-drop issues on long flight plan legs.
  • Fixed “Add to Flight Plan” showing incorrectly.
  • Fixed missing waypoint names after drag-and-drop.
  • Fixed flight plan handling at the end of a route.

AP+

  • Fixed issues with AP+ flight time tracking.
  • Fixed landing count inconsistencies.

Stability

  • Fixed replay loading crashes.
  • Fixed crash in flight director behavior.
  • Fixed crash in A320 map rendering.
  • Fixed crash related to METAR handling in the weather system.

Additions

  • Added an expandable Quick Tune menu when selecting a VOR/NDB, with actions including:
    • Add to Flight Plan
    • Direct To
    • NAV 1/2 (or ADF 1) tuning
    • Information
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Open Beta Progress for January 30
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Thanks for the update Jason - the new shadows look great! Also some much needed ATC-related fixes. :folded_hands:

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Thanks for all these amazing updates!

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So can we say “We are in the last step of the beta” or not ??

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Thanks for the update! The team is at full speed!

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Given there are still a few major things to iron out (e.g. fog at dawn/dusk), I would say not.

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9

Thanks for all of these updates and fixes! The visuals look even more phenomenal now! I see the visual aspect is one of the top priorities, so I was wondering if the replay visuals are going to be improved anytime soon, or if it’s considered a secondary aspect to improve in the future…
Thank you for all of the hard work anyway! :orange_heart:

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10

Does the AP still jerk up and down when you activate a flight that was running in the background or is it good now?

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This is very minor - I suggest just giving your aircraft a chance to settle on the start screen before resuming.

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The aircraft jerks when you return to a flight due to the winds updating as they do not update while in the background on AP+. If the winds are similar the aircraft barely does anything, if its a major shift to when you left the flight then it will be a bit more jerky but will settle in a few seconds.

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13

Nice,thanks for the update​:high_voltage:

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The smoother autopilot during turns and the improved shadows greatly enhanced the experience! I hope they can improve performance; on my 10th generation iPad, playing in busy airports is still very difficult due to the frame rate drops :smiling_face_with_tear:

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15

so does the is mean we can finally properly use a/p+ without waking up with extra fuel ?

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Not sure where you saw that, but the answer is no. Not yet.

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It’s a downside of V1 of AP+, we will revise it but it’s more involved to do it with winds. There are more pressing matters in terms of getting this update shipped finally.

So no, not yet. We’re picking away at some low-hanging fruit in the meantime that won’t open new cans of worms.

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18

Appreciate the update Jason! The shadows look amazing, and the beta just keeps getting better!

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What is this open beta progess

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Well at least there is some improvement

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What do you mean? If you’re asking what’s changed, it’s all in the change logs and in the blog article. If you’re asking why the update, it seems that the staff are making a big effort to keep us updated, which I think all of us very much appreciate!

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Link to the changelogs @Ryan_Mohammad:

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