If you'd like to help us test, go grab the beta and if you find any issues let us know using this Bug Report Form.

We've got some new stuff for you to check out! Philip and Kevin have really outdone themselves and added a completely new propulsion system to the game. Helicopter parts, one of the most highly voted player suggestions, are now available. Quite possibly the best part ever added to SimplePlanes, which I find to be hilariously ironic. It includes highly detailed visuals, such as showing how the linkages and swashplate respond to cyclic and collective controls. It also supports ground effects, translational lift, and autorotations.

William and Kevin also significantly improved the aircraft carrier and added a launch catapult and arresting cables.

Nathan has been working in his laboratory, perfecting the mod support and doing what he can to save the current library of mods. Some mods will continue to limp along, but unfortunately many will have issues. If you are a mod developer, please consider upgrading your mods to work with the new mod tools.

WARNING

If you are concerned about losing data (such as planes, settings, unlocked locations), I highly recommend backing it up before trying the beta. There is always risk of losing data during betas. If that makes you uncomfortable, I'd recommend not trying the beta right now.

Data folder: %APPDATA%..\LocalLow\Jundroo\SimplePlanes\

FEATURES

Added Helicopter Parts



Main Rotor: Highly customizable helicopter rotor system.

Tail Rotor: Counteracts torque from the main rotor system(s) and provides yaw control.



Added Winch part: Rotating drum that extends and retracts a cable. Works great with the new magnet part.

Added Magnet part: Turn it on with an AG and this powerful electromagnet will stick to anything with the slightest hint of metal.

Added Hollow Fuselage part: The visuals are hollow, but the collider is quite solid.

Added Arresting Hook part: Helps to slow down quickly when landing on the aircraft carrier

Added Catapult Connector part: Tells the aircraft catapult where to connect to your plane. (Not strictly required for catapult connection.)

Major updates to the USS Beast aircraft carrier



Brand new mesh

Catapult launch system

Arresting cables

Elevators



Upgraded game engine to latest version of Unity (2018.3)

Added new stock helicopter: Gator 2 (modeled after a Huey Gunship)

Added Fast Forward mode

Added Speed button so mobile players can switch between slow-motion and fast-forward modes.

Added Autopilot On/Off button for mobile players

Added shift+click to yank a single part off a disconnected part group in the designer.

Added option to specify the "Engage At %" for a propeller engine's throttle governor.

Added Delay setting for detachers to allow for delayed detachment.

Added Reconnect Part button to designer for mobile players

Added UI Scale slider to settings page in the main menu

Added a VSync quality setting in the quality settings UI

Added Sun Flare and Tone Mapping that can be toggled via a new Image Effects quality setting

Added a camera look back (left/right) input for use in cockpit and first person cameras. Includes Cockpit/CameraVantage modifier XML attribute 'lookBackTranslation' to translate the camera (left/right, up/down) when looking back.

TWEAKS

Improved UI for part rotation to allow entering exact angles.

Save player's settings for nudge and rotate amounts in part transform flyout.

Several performance improvements

Added ability to set a part's Input to Disabled in the designer part properties

Added bindable keyboard shortcuts for toggling Part Transform, Part Properties, and Color panels.

Counter measures now have hidden autoDispenseDelay XML option.

Particle systems no longer show under water

Updated the input system (hopefully better controller support)

Updated SimplePlanes logo in the main menu

Improved support for splane/spmod file association handling on Android (some file managers will still have issues unfortunately)

Improved file association loading of splane/spmod files while the game is running for GOG / DRM-Free builds.

BUG FIXES

Fixed a bug where fuselage inlets would revert the player's changes when immediately selecting another fuselage inlet before closing the Part Properties.

Fixed a bug where the nudge part inputs would not work until the transform part panel was opened

Fixed a bug where the download progress bar would report very high values on Mac

Fixed bug which could cause the propeller engines to hunt for target pitch and never be able to reach it...could cause wild swings in lift.

Only display "Aircraft Damaged" in Sandbox if the plane is hostile.

Fixed speed of destroyers to match the aircraft carrier's speed

Fixed the wind heading not showing up in the compass.

Fixed a bug where the rings would spin oddly after passing through them in a race

Fixed a bug where the view would rotate backwards if the player attempted to rotate the view too quickly.

Small islands are no longer shiny and are now have friction for wheels.

Fixed a bug where two rigid bodies could not be connected directly to each other at more than one place. Existing aircraft will continue to work this way, but new aircraft will support multiple physics connections. Old aircraft can be updated to use the new approach by changing their legacyJointIdentification attribute to "false" via XML.

Fixed a bug with multiple conflicting inputs being deactivated when activated via ActivateCameraLook

Fixed the position of the scrollbar on the mods menu

Fixed a texture quality issue with low quality water.

Fixed a bug where the fuselage properties would revert player's input text if their number ended in a zero.

MODDING SUPPORT

The build process and format of mods has slightly changed. When building mods for Windows/Mac, Unity will need both the Windows and Mac build components installed (mod tools should warn you if this is not the case). PC/Mac mods now include separate asset bundles for both platforms in a single mod file. You will likely noticed larger mod file sizes with this update. A new 'Debug' build option is available which builds the mod only for Unity's current target platform with the DEBUG symbol defined (should be a faster build than the other build options).

A bunch of classes received interfaces which have been added to the mod tools. You may be able to get away with using less reflection code by taking advantage of these interfaces. These live in the "Jundroo.SimplePlanes.ModTools.Interfaces" namespace.

Fixed a bug with the starting locations reflection proxy code which may have caused the spawining of AI aircraft to fail.

Fixed a bug with mod level duplication when saving mods.

Fixed a bug that prevented the cloning of parts with a hinge joint.

Mod Builder Window style/layout tweaks



Some additional info on changes and upgrading can be found on the modding wiki

We recommend getting started on updating your mods now, but holding off on publishing them on our site and the Steam Workshop until the release goes public, so as not to disrupt players not currently in the beta.

KNOWN ISSUES

Since we updated Unity with this upgrade, several mods are likely to be broken. For this reason, mods will be automatically disabled the next time you start SimplePlanes. Nathan has been able to find some very clever ways to allow some mods to still function, but several mods will be broken with this update. We recommend turning them on one by one and testing each one to verify whether or not they still functions and don't cause any problems.

WHAT TO TEST

Test all the new stuff!

Test as many airplanes as you can and make sure they feel like they are flying and behaving the same as they do in 1.7

Test the races, combat missions, and challenges

How is the performance? Do you feel the game is running faster, slower, or roughly the same?

Thanks for helping us test!

HOW TO GET BETA

Steam

Open the Steam client and go to your Library Right click on SimplePlanes and select Properties Go to the Betas tab Select Public Test from the beta dropdown Click Close

GOG

On the SimplePlanes library page in the GOG Galaxy client, select the "More" button (next to "Play") and then select the "Settings" option. On the right side of the window, there should be an option to enable "Beta Channels". Set it to "ON". For the "Channel" option under the "Configure Game" section, select "Public Beta" from the dropdown. The latest public beta should begin downloading immediately.

Google Play

Go to this link and opt-in to beta test.

iOS

Go here to get started.