Velocity for VATSIM was first announced back in March 2021 and following an extensive development and testing period, the deployment of Velocity is now complete. Everyone on the VATSIM network will be able to benefit from faster refresh rates which in turn will result in a smoother and more realistic experience on the network.
Last night, VATSIM went offline for approximately 30 minutes as the new service was implemented. After a successful deployment, Velocity is now available for everyone to use.
Before the Velocity update, VATSIM clients will pull data from the server and update aircraft positions every five seconds. With the development of Velocity, these updates will occur up to five times every second. The new update means that pilots will see more realistic operations during taxiing, in the air and even allow for formation flying. Users will be able to see the smallest of details on other aircraft such as nose dipping under braking.
There are some other advantages of the new Velocity changes. “Velocity brings some other changes to the VATSIM experience. These changes include better error messaging if you are unable to connect to the network. For example, errors will detail if you are missing the P0 exam, have an inactive account, or an incorrect password. New registrations and reactivations will become instant as opposed to the current system where users must wait for next scheduled ratings sync with the VATSIM servers.“
In order to take advantage of the new update, you will need to update your pilot client.
- vPilot users will be automatically prompted to update their clients the next time they open vPilot.
- xPilot users must download the newest beta version from https://vats.im/xpilot and ensure both xPilot and xPlane are closed prior to updating.
- swift users can download the latest version from https://vats.im/swift
Users that run xSquawkbox will no longer be able to connect to the network with the client and VATSIM encourages users to move to Swift or xPilot to log on.
Finally, VATSIM closed the announcement post by saying, “the VATSIM Founders, Board of Governors, and Tech Teams thanks all the developers and beta testers who participated in the Velocity project. They would especially like to thank Mike, Ross, Justin and the Swift Team for their support in rolling out this update to the network.”
