Thomson, from Laminar Research, took to the X-Plane website to announce a new X-Plane price with many minor additions and changes to the simulator. The post focuses on improvements to projector warping, engine model improvements, landing gear physics, and more.
Why Is A New Price Necessary for X-Plane 12?
X-Plane 12 has been grossing on Steam for $59.99 since its release. As the team at Laminar Research expands, the base price of X-Plane 12 will be raised to $79.99 in order to keep up with the team’s demands and fastrack everything within development.
X-Plane 12 is available at the legacy price of $59.99 for a limited time and is available on Steam and the X-Plane website.
New Versioning Scheme and Advanced Projector Warping
X-Plane 12, and X-Plane in general, has been shipping with a “one-dot” version number, i.e 12.xx. It limited the number of patches the team could push, making them shift to a “two-dot” version numbering system, i.e. 12.x.x.
Using multiple projectors to display the world around you is the best experience you can get. The Laminar Research team has further improved their warping technique by rearranging the pixels that X-Plane sends to the projector, yielding a visually correct image. Powered by a lot of trigonometry and calculations, this feature will be available with X-Plane’s Professional license.
Engine Model Improvements and A New Fuel Temperature Mod
The team at Laminar Research has made plenty of improvements to the engine models and the simulator engine performance. Real-world test data from Pratt & Whitney and Philipp Ringler has been used to help make jets and turboprops more realistic.
Jet airplanes use their fuel to cool off their oil. The oil in the aircraft heats up the fuel, and the fuel uses the large surface area of the wings to dissipate all the heat through the skin of the aircraft, effectively using their wings as a radiator. This is now fully simulated within X-Plane 12, and you can check the details about the fuel temperature on the data output screen to see the effects.
More Realistic Landing Gear Physics and Minor Bug Fixes
You might experience smoother landings within the simulator in 12.0.8 due to the improved wheel inertia and weld modelling, which help the landing gear transition between phases better. The wheels also match the speed of the aircraft faster, thus helping reduce forward pitch and slam on the nose gear during the rollout phase.
The logic for ABS within X-Plane 12 has been tweaked to better slow down the aircraft without too much drift or skidding. An anti-lock braking system (ABS) is a safety anti-skid braking system used on aircraft.
X-Plane 12 has improved performance with multiple monitors. Two major bug fixes, namely “totally out of VRAM crashes” and “a long pause when popping out windows” have been fixed in 12.0.8.
What’s Up Next?
The team plans to bring a lot of fun graphic updates with update 12.1.0, we can expect things like real weather improvement, cloud shadows on water, and better bloom lighting effects.
The team at Laminar Research has also announced a list of in-progress features under aircraft systems, graphics, and lighting model. Read more X-Plane-related news here.
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