The team at Laminar Research has taken the wraps off X-Plane 11.30 beta 1 for the general public. This is a major update to the simulator that brings a number of large-scale improvements, primarily in order to facilitate the transition to the Vulkan engine at a later date.
As it stands, Laminar has identified a small list of bugs that they’re aware of and working to fix in later builds. These include;
- XPD-9388 Software hangs upon exit when using VR.
- XPD-9495 Particle effects get cancelled by replay.
- XPD-9501, XPD-9449 AMD driver bugs with displays & weapons.
The major features and improvements that have been bought into the sim with 11.30 are;
- New ATC voice system.
- Particles editor for aircraft.
- Autopilot & aircraft systems updates:
- Summary of AP changes in 11.30
- Propeller feathering
- Anti- and de-ice systems
- Oxygen system
- Autopilot parameters
- Fixed turboprop engine governor
- Vacuum systems
- Vacuum gyro limitations & caging
- Improved industrial zones in US autogen & reorganized library.
- FM improvements / experimental FM UI option
- Shader system rebuilt as part of port to Vulkan.
- All of X-Plane is now 8.33kHz aware.
- Panel res bumped to 4k.
- Updated airspace to 2018 & Navigraph default data 1708.
- Added sector altitudes in VFR map.
- Updated joystick config files to use sim/autopilot/servos_off_any.
- New UI options to enlarge font size.
- New UI for manually setting joystick curves per axis.
- Settings UI for re-enabling notification windows that have a “don’t show this again” checkbox.
- Situation files get you close to landmarks for quick sightseeing.
- User-submitted joystick config files.
The biggest features, that have been highly anticipated by X-Plane users for some time now, are the brand new particle effect system and neighbourhoods autogen, as shown at FSExpo and the RAF Cosford Flight Sim show earlier in the year. The first of which is an all-new system for generating brilliant looking effects for anything from contrails to fire. The latter being an upgraded auto-gen system that brings auto-gen areas that are reminiscent of Sim City or Cities: Skylines.
As most major developers have had developer builds of 11.30 for some time now, most add-ons should be compatible, and if not, will not be too far off being updated for compatibility.
X-Plane users can grab the 11.30 beta 1 right now by running the X-Plane Installer, selecting “Update” and checking the box instructing the installer to look for beta builds.
